By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Kids in the Hall star bestows wisdom upon local funny people

Oct 29, 2018 | 3:52 PM

The Kids in the Hall – a Canadian ‘cult classic’ sketch comedy series – is still living and breathing through its members’ ongoing endeavours.

“What those guys did with sketch comedy was really wicked at the time, in the 90s. It wasn’t just SNL,” says Jenna Goldade with Bull Skit Comedy, who hosted McDonald for two workshops and two shows over the weekend at the Scott Block Theatre.

“They helped define sketch comedy and the different avenues one can take, from standup to improv to sketch.”

Kevin McDonald, now 57, was indeed in Red Deer sharing his sage wisdom with local comedians and comediennes. Some even got to perform with him.

McDonald, whose recurring characters during his Kids in the Hall days included the King of Empty Promises and Jerry Sizzler, has been giving educational seminars across North America for several years now.

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“I learn as much as they do. It’s like Captain Kirk in that episode of Star Trek when he went to the planet that was like planet Earth, like 500 years ago, and he sees people and gets excited because he wants to tell them how to make a wheel, but then he doesn’t want to because he wants them to discover it for themselves,” McDonald quips. “I’m sort of like that. I want to see the young people invent their own wheel.”

Their discoveries through McDonald’s teachings is what will ultimately keep the Kids in the Hall something Canadians won’t ever forget, but a new book aims to help that cause.

Written by Paul Myers, One Dumb Guy is a piece of literature every superfan of the Kids in the Hall should get, according to McDonald.

“There are interviews about how I met Dave (Foley), it goes into detail about how the five of us all met, how we got discovered by Lorne Michaels and the year or two of hard work we did to get there,” he says. “It goes into good detail about the troubles we had on the TV show – and the good things – but the first year, we almost split up.”

McDonald swears (humorously) that he isn’t receiving any royalties from the book, and that he’s just glad their story is being told.

Meanwhile, McDonald has two podcasts and he has been working with Disney on a show called Walk the Prank for the last few years. He’s also in the process of pitching two shows to Comedy Central in the USA and the CBC in Canada.

“I think we have a legacy and at least a small group of people will always remember us. I think it helps to have a legacy that we never did any – and not because it was a good thing not to do — but we never did any satire. We always did stuff about what was happening in our lives, or crazy ideas we had. That tends to be more – hopefully – timeless,” he goes on.

“We compare ourselves to the rock band the Pixies from the late 80s, who I really loved. The Pixies never sold a lot of albums, but they were a great group. They had a small group of followers, but when they quit, they paved the way for people that made it really big, like Nirvana. Kurt Cobain totally admitted that he took the slow verse/fast chorus from the Pixies. So I think we paved the way for Tom Green and South Park and Mr. Show.”

Finally, McDonald spoke about promoting the arts.

“The world has to be balanced,” he says. “It can’t just be politics, wars and strife. You have to have an equal amount of arts, and even the arts itself has to be balanced. It can’t all be sketch comedy. I think we all live a fuller, richer life when there’s a little bit of everything.”