I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: April 7, 2024] Kevin McDonald

I was so excited to hear about  this show as soon as it was announced.  When Scott Thompson came to PhilamMOCA in 2022 I completely missed it until after it had happened.  So I was psyched to get in on this before it sold out (and a second show was added, but without a musical opener).

The Kids in the Hall was one of my favorite shows in college.  I even liked their “massive bomb” Brain Candy.  I’ve read books about them and books by them. I assumed that I knew all of the good stories.  So I wasn’t entirely sure what Kevin could tell us.  Boy was I naïve.

Kevin came out and was immediately self-deprecating, shying away from our applause.  He then apologized, a lot.  He was sorry that he was a sketch comedian trying to do standup.  He apologized for destroying our childhoods and for making us all fail out of college.  It was a great start.

Kevin told us about the demographics of the people there–34% were 49 years old, dating someone for decades whom they would never marry and who were die-hard KITH fans.  The rest were people who had heard of KITH and lived within walking distance.  And there was a small extra part who were super die hard who loved Brain Candy–they were scary people.

He told us about a time when he was coming out of a place on Queen Street and a very drunk man looked at him and said, “It’s the guy from Brain Cancer!”  He kept shouting “he made brain cancer!”

He told us about the old days when there was fan mail.  Everyone wants to marry cutey-boy Dave.  Everyone who writes to McCullough says that he is their goth god and he’s the only one who understands them.  Kevin’s mail was always, “can you tell Dave he’s cute.”

He told a hilarious story about Scott Thompson getting so mad at the other guys that he wound up throwing a banana at a fan and having it splatter back all over his body.  He glowered at them all and said “Not One Laugh.”

He talked about being an usher at a art house movie theater and the time he had to help a disabled man in the bathroom. He was so useless though that he basically flung the guy off of his wheelchair.  The story continued with a gang that hung out in the alley by the theater who wanted to shove very large things up his ass.  The story ends preposterously with the two threads actually merging perfectly.

Kevin said that comedians tell jokes based on real life.  There is a kernel of a story and they pretty it up and turn an okay lemon into lemonade.  He said that these were not embellished at all, just pure lemons.  It’s hard to believe that because these were funny.

Another very funny story was about them doing a skit before drunken frat boys.  It was mostly bands and he and Scott as comedians (at this time, Bruce and Mark were writing for SNL and Dave was filing a movie in Vancouver–“We’re going to make you the Michael J. Fox of Canada.”  So he and Scott did a skit, and the joke was that Kevin saw an ex-girlfriend “Cheryl” and proceeded to engage her in a humorous way.  And then Scott would come over and comfort her boyfriend.  Well, the frat people were so drunk that they couldn’t even respond to the shenanigans and a brawl pretty much broke out.  The fact that this story ends with Kevin McDonald winning a Billy Crystal album and saying “You look mah-velous” is mind-blowing.

He even yelled at a couple of people in the audience in classic angry Kevin voice.

He ensured us that he was the weakest link in the Kids in the Hall, but that was so far from true.

And maybe someday the full story of the masturbation fire will be made public.