The Kids in The Hall - Television Show - Show Contents - Recurring Sketches and Characters

Recurring Sketches and Characters

30 Helens Agree

Thirty women stand in a field and declare their agreement on some platitude; for example, "Thirty Helens agree: If you have a good idea, you should write it down." One time they disagreed, but later agreed to disagree. At one point, only 29 Helens agreed that promptness was important (the thirtieth Helen was running late). The Helens appeared frequently throughout the first season, but did not appear in any subsequent seasons. According to Bruce McCulloch (in the Oral History segment of the Season 1 DVD set), 30 Helens Agree was his idea.

The Axe Murderer

An axe murderer (Foley) approaches people for favours after he has obviously committed a brutal and grisly homicide with the axe he's carrying. Covered in blood, he makes polite small talk with people he runs into, casually admitting he is, in fact, an axe murderer. Before leaving, he amiably asks whoever he talks to not to tell anyone or "Chop chop!", accompanied by a chopping motion with his axe.

Bauer

Bauer (Thompson) is a young stoner (presumably in his late teens or early twenties) who, as a result of his frequent pot use, is very well-spoken and insightful. In one popular sketch, he reveals to a friend (McDonald) that he's been having an affair with his married mother (Foley), which of course is very unsettling to McDonald. Bauer waxes poetic about the mother's beauty, then stands up, announcing he's "got a chub-on". Bauer first appeared on the show as the best friend of Bobby Terrance (see below), but later became a recurring character in his own right.

Bobby Terrance

Bobby (McCulloch) is a rebellious teenager whose love of rock'n'roll serves as the basis for most of his sketches. Bobby views rock as an expression of personal freedom, and always fights back when he feels like he is being denied that freedom. He is frequently in conflict with his parents, played by McKinney (father) and Foley (mother). He has also taken on a sarcastic jazz-loving teacher (Foley), and once even faced off against the Devil himself (McKinney) in a guitar-playing contest. Despite his rebellious attitude toward authority, he emphatically enjoys the taste of his mother's ham steak. A pre-Star Trek Nicole de Boer appeared in three sketches as Bobby's girlfriend Laura. He, like Bauer above are a tongue-in-cheek satire of the rebellious late-80/1990s Grunge/Generation X subculture.

Buddy Cole

Buddy Cole is an effeminate, gay socialite, with a penchant for going on long, comedic rants about his personal life and the gay community. He also frequently drops celebrity names, insinuating that he has many close friendships with the rich and famous. He is penpals with Elizabeth II. His monologues are often delivered from the gay bar he owns, which is called Buddy's.

Cabbage Head

Cabbage Head (McCulloch) was born with cabbage leaves in place of hair. He also always smokes cigars and wears a red smoking jacket à la Hugh Hefner. He is extremely crude and sexist, and spends most of his time trying to pick up women for sex, using his cabbage head in an attempt to garner sympathy and, hopefully, sex ("Hey – I'm the KING of the mercy fuck!" he declares in his first appearance). In one episode, he is shot in the head at a bar by a feminist crusader (also played by McCulloch) and, in a near-death experience, sees God, who said he created Cabbage Head in his image, at which point God is revealed to have a cabbage for a head himself. Later we see Cabbage Head on a Christian talk show talking about his miraculous survival, although he continues to hold sexist viewpoints, as evidenced by his promotion of a "sacred wet T-shirt contest – er, I mean, baptism" he was conducting. Whenever anyone objects to his odd behavior, he always insists he is being persecuted for his cabbage head. "Why won't you let me forget that I have a CABBAGE FOR A HEAD?!?"

Cathy and Kathie

Kathie (McCulloch) and Cathy (Thompson) are secretaries at the firm of A.T. & Love (KITH's catch-all business, and a play on AT&T). These sketches parodied the banality of office life, from guessing the sexuality of the new guy to dealing with an ex-stripper temp named Tanya (McKinney). A few sketches also included Kevin McDonald as another coworker and Dave Foley as their supervisor Elizabeth. In the middle of the third season, Tanya finished her term of employment and left the office amidst feigned tearfulness from her coworkers; however, she reappeared in the fifth season, once again working at the firm as a temp. The final sketch of the series was about Cathy and Kathie, as they prepared to leave their jobs after A.T. & Love was sold.

Kathie appeared independently of Cathy in the first season, where it was revealed that she once dated Mississippi Gary (see below). A picture of him was on her cubicle wall in all subsequent appearances.

The Chicken Lady

Mark McKinney played a half-human half-chicken who is completely oblivious to how freakish and terrifying people find her. In one episode, she flashes back to a moment from her adolescence when she is stuck in her room as the other kids have a party; one kid (who is expecting a sexual encounter) is thrown inside her room as a prank. In another sketch, she visits a strip club with her companion the Bearded Lady (Kevin McDonald), and loses her cool when a dancer known as Rooster Boy (Scott Thompson) takes the stage. Most Chicken Lady sketches revolve around her extremely strong sexual desires; her catchphrase is "Gotta get laid", and she is frequently seen having wild orgasms which are punctuated with an explosion of feathers.

Danny Husk

A businessman, played by Scott Thompson, who was featured in a number of sketches. He is an executive at A.T. & Love, a company that also makes many appearances in unrelated sketches. In one sketch it is discovered that Danny used to be a porn star. In another, his armpit odor becomes a best-selling, world-changing product. In a third, he wakes up one morning and reads the newspaper, which states he has been kidnapped, after which he desperately gathers money to pay his own ransom. In yet another, Danny is summoned to the office of his boss, who needs to be consoled upon discovering "brown stuff" oozing from his mouth. Husk is successful in his consolation when he tells his boss that there is "no need to see a doctor" since the substance is odorless, and therefore, not "poo-based". In many of his appearances, Husk serves as a straight man to the wacky antics of one of the others. Dave Foley had a recurring role as Husk's rotund boss. Danny Husk ended up appearing in approximately a dozen sketches through seasons 1, 3, 4 and 5. Additionally, a variation of Husk, named Wally Terzinsky, appeared in the Kids' 1996 movie Brain Candy.

Darcy Pennell

A lifestyle talk show host played by McDonald. Her guests include a French-speaking fashion designer named Christian Renoir and recurring character Francesca Fiore (Thompson). Darcy has trouble pronouncing the names of her guests, such as saying "Christ-aan Ren-aah" when announcing her guest Christian Renoir. The audience is also practically empty. The theme song to the talk show goes "Darcy, Darcy, Darcy Pennell, she makes your life a lot less hell. Darcy!"

Darill

A man (McKinney) named Darill (pronounced da-RILL), who never quite understands what is going on, but always tries to affect an air of sophistication. Darill's strange mix of sunny good will, idiocy and pretense annoy everyone he meets, although he is rarely aware of it. Famous Darill sketches involve him hosting a painting show on television, and joining the Big Brother program and mentoring an unreceptive boy. The background for Darill's strange behavior is explained somewhat in one sketch, in which we see a flashback of Darill as a child in Belgium, and the strange rapport he enjoys with his mother (whom he still lives with, much to the confusion of the date he has brought back to his apartment). One sketch also reveals that the only thing he ever daydreams about is a tiny oom-pah band playing on a windowsill, and is astonished when he discovers others don't have that limitation. After the end of the The Kids in the Hall television show, Mark McKinney became a Saturday Night Live cast member, and brought Darill onto that show.

Francesca Fiore and Bruno Puntz Jones

Francesca Fiore (Thompson) and Bruno Puntz Jones (Foley) are a pair of fast-living, glamorous movie stars. Though they originally hail from South America, their films have a decidedly European flavor. Francesca Fiore is fiery and passionate, and tends to be overdramatic and expressive in her actions. Bruno Puntz Jones (who always wears a white suit and a Panama hat) is very cool and reserved, but inwardly seems to share Francesca's spirit. Bruno occasionally likes to play Russian Roulette alone, a practice he refers to dismissively as "my little game". He is also prone to shooting people with little or no warning, usually when he feels Francesca is being threatened. The two always play lovers in their films together; they seem to be romantically involved in real life as well, though the exact relationship between them is not made clear. In court, where Francesca was facing divorce (for a fake marriage to gain Canadian citizenship) from Mr. Tisane (another recurring character), Bruno revealed he and she were married when he was 12 and she was 26. According to the crew, Foley's character was originally named Bruno Puntz, but when the writers decided to change his last name to Jones, they wrote the word "Jones" in without deleting "Puntz", accidentally creating a compound name.

Gavin

Gavin (McCulloch) is a precocious boy whose chief personality trait is his tendency to ramble on incessantly about bizarre events that may or may not have actually occurred. Most Gavin sketches featured him confusing or annoying strangers with his usually-implausible wonderings; he once observed that he could eat an entire Bible, but it would take him "several days of munching and snacking". One sketch, however, saw Gavin falling in love with his babysitter (McDonald) because she actually understood him. He has a tense relationship with his parents, particularly his deadbeat father (McDonald). Gavin's look is very distinctive; he wears large, oversized glasses and is almost always seen sporting a baseball cap (which usually has either the Toronto Blue Jays or The Legend Of Zelda logo on it) and backpack. Among the characters portrayed by McCulloch in Brain Candy is a slightly modified version of Gavin, known as "Cancer Boy".

Gordon and Fran

Gordon (McCulloch) and Fran (Thompson) are a middle-aged couple. Gordon is very crotchety, and is usually seen complaining in any sketch he appears in, and occasionally seems to enjoy tormenting his wife. His wife Fran is well-meaning and slightly batty, but has a tendency to nag. The most famous Gordon and Fran sketch is probably "Salty Ham", in which Gordon blames his trouble going to sleep on the salty ham Fran served at dinner. Their teenage son Brian (Foley) is sarcastic and rebellious, and is always eager to take advantage of his parents' generosity.

Headcrusher

Mr. Tyzik (McKinney) is a lonely man who despises virtually everyone, especially those he considers businessmen and trendy people. He calls them "flatheads" because in his mind, their heads deserve to be crushed. He is more than willing to help by pretending to crush their heads from a distance with his fingers, using forced perspective, while enthusiastically declaring "I'm crushing your head! I'm crushing your head!" in a high-pitched nasal voice with a slight eastern European accent, followed by making a crushing noise. In his own words: "Not everyone deserves to have their head crushed, just 99.99999% of them." It is suggested that the headcrushing is not necessarily all in his head, in one sketch, where he is able to quickly determine that the heads of two people passing by have already been crushed by a "facepincher", with whom he proceeds to have a duel.

He's Hip, He's Cool, He's 45

Bruce McCulloch played a middle-aged man who would do odd things to "keep his cool" despite being middle-aged. In one sketch he interviews a man for a job, first asking if the man wants to smoke a joint.

It's a Fact!

A young red-haired girl would pop up in the forest and reveal a piece of information, usually illustrated by people appearing behind her. She would end by saying, "It's a fact!" and then run off. The running was filmed in stop-animated "fast-motion", reminiscent of programs on the Nickelodeon network.

The King of Empty Promises

Dean (McDonald) constantly promises his friend Lex (Foley) items or favours to make up for his lack of follow-through on previous promises, his deadpan pledges punctuated with the phrase, "Will do." Whenever he is confronted about a promise he didn't keep, Dean's standard excuse for his behaviour is that it "slipped my mind".

Kevin McDonald mentions on the commentary that Dean is based on himself. He has been known to make promises that he would never follow through on, and even the Paul Simon album he mentions in the first "King" sketch was an actual promise he made to a friend that he never managed to fulfill.

Mississippi Gary

An octogenarian blues player played by McKinney in blackface. He first appeared in a sketch in which he talked about his failed relationship with "Kathy with a K" (McCulloch) from the Secretary sketches and soon grew into a recurring character. His name and style of speech suggest that he may be a parody of the blues guitarist Mississippi Fred McDowell. Gary would always begin a long, blues-related story with the words "Now, I seem to remember a time..." in a deep Mississippi accent before launching into a harmonica solo or blues song. His songs include "The 'There is a Very Effective Heckler in My Audience' Blues" (in a sketch where Dave Foley, in the audience, points out that Gary actually has very little to complain about as he makes over $10,000 a night) and "Smokin' On the Night Train".

Mr. Heavyfoot (M. Piedlourde)

Dave Foley as an apparently French Canadian man who for reasons that are never explained has extremely heavy feet. The Heavyfoot sketches, which were short and contained no dialogue, usually dealt with the extreme difficulty his condition presented for him in everyday situations, such as putting on pants and walking around or taking a year to complete a marathon.

Nobody Likes Us

Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald played two depressed men with perpetual frowns on their faces who spoke in whiny voices and always complained that people didn't like them. They would often engage in bizarre behavior, including hanging themselves in front of a banker's house (after she rejected them for a loan), eating earthworms on a bus trip (after singing "Think I'll Go Eat Worms!" ), and McDonald coughing up his own liver (and eating it) as a magic trick on a date.

Foley and McDonald have mentioned that they originally wrote the sketch on an airplane when their flight attendant was purposely ignoring them. Foley then turned to McDonald with a pouty face and said, "Nobody likes us."

The Pit of Ultimate Darkness (Simon and Hecubus)

A horror-themed TV show which tries to be scary but fails, hosted by Crowleyesque Sir Simon Milligan (McDonald), "a man possessed by many demons – polite demons that would open a door for a lady carrying too many parcels – but demons, nonetheless!" His level of "wickedness" is such that his behavior and magic acts basically comprise of doing something mildly annoying or rude – such as spoiling the endings of movies – then loudly declaring it "Evil!" Dave Foley co-starred as Simon's manservant Hecubus (made up to resemble the character of Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), whose sense of child-like mischief provided much of the sketches' humor. While superficially he appears to be Milligan's fawning lackey, even addressing Milligan as "Master", he actually delights in annoying Milligan at every opportunity, and is at least slightly more talented at being evil. At such times, Milligan will point at him and yell, "Evil!"

The other members of the cast often ribbed McDonald and ask why he hadn't named his character in the Hecubus scene — knowing full well that the character was named Simon — because fans typically would only remember Foley's part of the sketch. According to DVD commentary, McDonald was originally to play Hecubus, with McKinney as Simon; but McDonald lobbied for the role of Simon and, after winning it, insisted that Foley should play Hecubus.

Police Department

Brief vignettes featuring McKinney and McCulloch as a pair of Ontario Provincial Police officers, usually standing beside their squad car, making banal small-talk while rarely doing actual police work. One such sketch featured McKinney describing a homicide and police chase in technical detail, but it is revealed that he's describing a movie he saw (rather than an actual homicide), and has no idea what the story is with the actual dead body the two cops are standing over. The characters originated in the full-length sketch "On the Run", in which the two cops try to pursue a group of escaped convicts without looking conspicuous. According to DVD commentary, McKinney and McCulloch, during a break in shooting that particular sketch, began to improvise several short scenes revolving around those two characters for fun; some of their improvisations were incorporated into the show, and proved so popular they became a fixture. The duo have the distinction of being the show's most frequently used recurring characters; they were also carried over into Brain Candy and Death Comes to Town.

Prostitutes (Maudre and Jocelyn)

Maudre (Thompson) and Jocelyn (Foley) are prostitutes who solicit customers on the street. Maudre is blonde and brassy, but with a definite soft side. Jocelyn is a brunette from Quebec who speaks softly in a French Canadian accent. The two often pass the time by discussing aspects of their profession, such as whether they would accept an offer from an extraterrestrial. In another sketch, a policeman (McCulloch; see "Police Department" above) ineptly poses as a customer while his partner (McKinney), in uniform, stands a few feet away hoping to bust them. Kevin McDonald occasionally appeared as Rudy, their asthmatic pimp.

Rod Torfulson's Armada featuring Herman Menderchuk

A very bad garage band with no hope of ever becoming real rock stars, but nevertheless take themselves very seriously and argue constantly about every aspect of the band's career, sound and look. The sketches starred Bruce McCulloch as Rod (the drummer), Mark McKinney as Herman (the bass player), and Kevin McDonald as the lead guitarist. A recurring theme of the sketches was how McDonald's character, the only one with any real talent, but is the least respected member of the group. (He is the only one whose name is not part of the group's name, and in one sketch, he is forced to begin paying the others a salary in order to avoid being kicked out of the band.) "Trampoline Girl" is just one of their many non-hits. ("She's a tramp, she's tramp, she's a trampoline girl...") In their appearance in the final episode, a "Rock and Roll Angel" (portrayed by Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson) appears from on high, and shows them their wretched future ("You suck!"), but they still persist in believing that someday they will "make it".

Sizzler Sisters

Foley and McDonald played two clearly insane people (although they always introduced themselves as "not two clearly insane people"), who wore large wigs and identified themselves as Jerry Sizzler and Jerry Sizzler, the Sizzler Sisters. They were usually seen doing insane things, such as posing as a capella lounge singers, robbing a bank in order to make a deposit and then forcing people to mix up their shoes. In one sketch, Foley's character (whose real name is revealed to be Lister) has become sane through medication and is happily married. McDonald's character (whose real name is revealed to be Jean-Pierre) comes to Lister's apartment and urges him into become insane again, causing him stress and then withholding his medication. McDonald mentioned in an interview that he and Foley thought up the characters while running through the Kathie and Cathy beauty pageant sketch ("T.G.I.N.P.!"). Because they were bored, they started improvising that they were crazy people who escaped from an asylum; using the wigs (that they were wearing as background pageant contestants in the sketch) as their "disguises". They wrote the Sizzler & Sizzler sketch shortly thereafter.

Steps

Three young stereotypical gay men sit on the steps of a café discussing current events — particularly those concerning the gay community. Riley (Foley) is an effeminate airhead, "Butch" (Thompson) is an oversexed airhead who always talks about "hot" men, and Smitty (McDonald) is an intelligent fop who is usually exasperated by the other two.

The "Steps" sketches commemorated a long-time touchstone in Toronto's gay community: a small series of steps running the length of an office and retail building in the Church Wellesley Village. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the steps were a classic meeting place and hangout for gay Torontonians. However, in 2003, the steps were remodeled to remove their inviting long stretches. The local businesses at the top of them — including a Second Cup coffee shop, a bakery, a convenience store and a Toronto Dominion Bank branch — felt the large number of street kids hanging out there and the increasing occurrence of drug transactions and prostitution was hurting their businesses.

Tammy

Tammy (McCulloch) is a vapid teen pop star who sings in a breathy monotone; her songs are bland, repetitive, and somewhat nonsensical. In her first appearance, she is introduced as a protégée of Buddy Cole, but at the end of the sketch he realizes that Tammy no longer needs his help. Tammy is known for her vague, noncommittal replies to questions asked of her, and for being seemingly incapable of any complex thought. Her hits include "Dance", "Perhaps", and "Ain't Gonna Spread for No Roses".

The Two Geralds

McCulloch and McKinney played businessmen who shared both a first name and very similar personalities. Both Geralds are friendly to people's faces and condescending behind their backs. Despite the fact that they appear to work at different companies, they are friends who frequently phone each other and hang out together. Their conversation consists mainly of bouts of humorous negotiations and mockery of their associates or other business rivals.