Review of Kids in the Hall, The: Best Of

Introduction

The Kids in the Hall were a five-strong Canadian comedy troupe (named after a famous Sid Caesar quote) who mixed Monty Python surrealism with Saturday Night Live energy, and targeted it at the hip, young audience of late eighties/early nineties Generation X through their eponymous sketch show. Perhaps most famous for the amount of skits the all-male group performed in drag, the show ran for 31 episodes between 1988 and 1995, and in the Python vein, produced a spin-off movie, `The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy`. The show crossed the Atlantic and ended up on, typically, late-night Channel 4 when they were still interested in cult and irreverent programming, and is fondly remembered today by a generation of Brits who enjoyed their surreal, unique and outright bizarre brand of humour.

This DVD from Fabulous Films (a small British/American concern) is a collection of four episodes from the first two seasons of `The Kids in the Hall` TV show.

Video

Presented in 1.33:1, the ultra-budget authoring results in macroblocking and artifact smearing throughout the disc. Source-wise, the show is a typical mix of late-eighties studio (video) and location (film) shooting, with the seams between the two giving away its vintage. Perfectly watchable, but disappointing nonetheless.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0, a stereo track which is nothing if not conventional. It`s clear though, and that`s the main thing. No subtitles, though.

Features

Each of the four episodes features a rowdy commentary track from The Kids, all of which are just as much fun to listen to as they presumably were to make. There`s also a slide show picture gallery and biographies for the troupe, which consists of Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson.

The skits are also separated `scene selection` style so you can pick out your favourites with ease.

Conclusion

They say that Canada is a hodgepodge of American and British culture, and this has never been more obvious than in the ridiculous stylings of The Kids in the Hall. Utterly outrageous, yet genuinely smart, like Python breeding with SNL and producing a skinny love-child with a big mouth, it`s not always how funny the jokes are, but how surreal or non sequitur you can make the process, and how far you can push the envelope. It`s not laugh a minute - but then you`ll be hard pressed to find a sketch show that isn`t in a constant flux between hit and miss - but it`s constantly entertaining, raises as many eyebrows as it does smiles, and has some genuinely clever, well-written skits.

The DVD is a little curious. It`s only features two episodes from the first season and two from the second, so it`s a bit of a stretch to call it a `best of`, but there are some undeniable classics on here; the head-squishing guy, the argument over `Citizen Kane` ("What you need is a mortician!"), and perhaps their most famous skit `Reg`, in which a group of friends gather round a campfire to share tender memories of their recently deceased friend before it gradually becomes apparent they themselves killed him in an act of ritualistic murder. You can`t go wrong with The Kids, and although their bits aren`t going to be to everyone`s tastes, if you remember the show from its C4 days, or can appreciate the fact that it isn`t always about a punchline, then this disc is definitely worth considering. This, however, doesn`t take away from the fact that these episodes have simply been torn from the available season boxsets, one of which would be a much wiser purchase, assuming you don`t light your cigarettes with £20 notes.