TVSquad

Just imagine how much fun Harper's Island could have been if it had been written by and starred The Kids in the Hall. If you live in Canada, you don't have to imagine it, because the Kids are creating just that.

Death Comes to Town is to be an eight-part comedy where the Kids (Scott Thompson, Dave Foley, Mark McKinney, Bruce McCulloch and Kevin McDonald) will each play multiple roles, possibly including some of the characters made famous on The Kids in the Hall sketch comedy show. I'm hoping the murderer kills people by crushing their heads.

As a special Sketch Comedy Saturday treat, I will forgo the lengthy, typed-out, text version of me humming the Kids In The Hall theme song and get right down to business. This is one of those shows that are now considered classic sketch comedy (and Canadian comedy), so I feel silly for even having to profile them, but I am constantly surprised by the number of people whose eyes glaze over when I ask them if they've ever heard of the Kids. So ... Have you heard of the Kids?

The news that The Kids in the Hall are working on a new Canadian TV miniseries should make comedy nerds everywhere happy. I know I'm excited, even though it might be a while until it airs in the U.S. (I'm kicking myself for not moving to Canada like I said I would after the 2004 presidential election.)

Mr. Dave Foley told the Canadian Press that all the original Kids (Foley, Bruce McCullough, Mark McKinney, Scott Thompson and Kevin McDonald) are writing an eight-ep miniseries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the home of their original sketch comedy show. It sounds like their recent reunion tour went pretty well. The five-member troupe will star in the series, which Foley says won't be a sketch comedy, but will involve a number of comic characters.

Sometimes, when it's too rainy outside to go anywhere and the air is full of a sense of doom and gloom, all you want is to just hole up indoors and watch hours and hours and hours of nonstop Canadian sketch comedy and cross-dressing. Hey, I can't possibly be the only one that feels that way, because otherwise, the Kids in the Hall complete series megaset wouldn't have been made. I had a full rainy week to lounge around with this lovely collection and we got to know each other pretty well. It's a real sweetheart, to be sure... A real cross-dressing, head-crushing, fact-sharing, cabbage-headin' sweetheart.

When I wrapped up my interview with Bruce McCulloch -- executive producer of ABC's Carpoolers and a member of the legendary comedy troupe Kids In The Hall -- I asked him if there was anything else he might be working on. "Yeah, I'm going to have a heart attack next March, and I wanted people to know about that," he joked. For a guy who has worn a lot of hats in his career, nothing has kept him busier than being the boss.

Carpoolers, a single-camera comedy premiering on ABC tonight at 8:30 PM ET, is about four guys who use their carpool to explore what's going on in each other's lives. The show is McCulloch's brainchild, which means he's involved with everything from the writing to how many donuts will be on the craft services table. Yet he still has time to write and perform his own surreal works, as well as perform occasionally with the Kids, who have been together for almost a quarter-century.

I got a chance to speak to McCulloch last week, and we talked about what it's like to premiere after the season's most lambasted new show (Cavemen), what parts of himself he sees in each of his main characters, what it's like to work with Fred Goss and Jerry O'Connell (who spoke to our friends at AOL last week), and why the Kids have managed to stay together for so long. Highlights are after the jump, as well as an audio embed of the interview (35 minutes).

Man, how I miss this show.

Someone who attended the Kids in the Hall reunion performance at the Just for Laughs festival posted the encore on YouTube, and I've placed it below for your viewing pleasure. Some of the dialogue is difficult to make out, but fans shouldn't have any trouble figuring out what's going on. Mark McKinney reprises his role as the "headcrusher" guy, that wormy fella who loved to vanquish those he disliked by closing one eye and pretending to crush their heads between his thumb and forefinger. In the segment below, he kills off the other cast members (Scott Thompson, Bruce McCullough, Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald) for their poor career choices post- Kids in the Hall. In a final bit of inspired meta comedy, McKinney turns his wrath on himself.

The career trajectories of the former Kids in the Hall have been fascinating to behold. Dave Foley went from a starring turn in News Radio to a funny, but strange co-hosting gig on Celebrity Poker Showdown. Mark McKinney appeared briefly on SNL and now sits around the writer's room of Studio 60 hoping Aaron Sorkin will throw him a bone and actually let him write something. Kevin McDonald turns up in bit parts everywhere and keeps a steady gig as the voice of Lilo and Stitch's alien life form Pleakley. Scott Thompson visits Conan every once in awhile, but my favorite Bruce McCulloch's post-Kids appearances have been few and far between. McCulloch served a brief stint as a SNL writer and wrote and directed the forgettable film Dog Park.