Show offers edgy humor

By John Benson

The comedy is often subversive.

Similar to the ’90s alt rock movement, which saw underground bands move into the limelight, the sketch comedy show “The Kids in the Hall” flirted with the mainstream.

Discovered by Lorne Michaels, The Kids in the Hall troupe, which features the off-the-wall and often subversive comedy stylings of Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson, debuted on HBO in 1989 but reached a larger audience when “Comedy Central” began airing its repeats.

The troupe’s distinctly edgy humor broke new ground with their characterizations of secretaries, prostitutes, gays, drug users and oddball creations like the half-human Chicken Lady, the vengeful Head Crusher and the chauvinist Cabbage Head.

Still, among its peer shows (“The State” and “Mr. Show” come to mind), “The Kids in the Hall” may be underrated in both its material and its influence on latter-day comedy.

“I’ve always said we were The Pixies of comedy,” said McDonald, calling from Portland, Ore. “I said we paved the way for the Nirvana of Comedy, which would be ‘South Park’ and Tom Green. But people always go back to The Pixies.”

Just like The Pixies earlier this decade, The Kids in the Hall group are back with a new tour — its first since 2002 — that the act hopes will cash in on its legend. Titled “Live As We’ll Ever Be,” the show is scheduled to play Cleveland on Saturday at the Palace Theatre.

“We’re trying to sell out, but by sellout that means doing our stuff and hoping it hits a bigger audience,” McDonald said. “It would be impossible for us to write mainstream stuff. It would be impossible for us to sell out creatively because we’re just not that good enough to do that.

“We can only write what we like to write; we’re prisoners of that. We feel at best there will be a bigger cult again, but we feel there is new light to the group and we are hoping there is a renaissance happening.”

To spur that renaissance, The Kids in the Hall outfit is using the majority of “Live As We’ll Ever Be” to debut new material. McDonald admits it’s a tricky proposition for any veteran band or comedy troupe so defined to a certain era, but it’s imperative the act move forward and find new ground.

“I think Jerry Seinfeld said when people come to see you and you’re slightly famous, it buys you the first five or 10 minutes, and after that you’re on your own depending on the strength or weakness of your material,” McDonald said. “I believe our show seems to be very strong. On paper it sounds cocky, but we’re very excited for the reaction.

“We go and read blogs, and it seems people are excited we’re back and they believe it’s as strong as the old material.”

For those Kids in the Hall fans who were there in the beginning, they’ll be excited to see new sketches featuring familiar characters Chicken Lady, Gavin Sketch and Head Crusher interspersed with new material.

“I guarantee before the end of the tour there will be one person who has peed their pants,” McDonald said. “It hasn’t happened yet, but I guarantee it will. So I hope there’s no one in the Cleveland audience that’s the unlucky one.”

He added, “And we’ve been through before. I believe it was the 2002 tour, and also in the early ’90s during our smaller, lower-budget tours. So we love Cleveland and believe in the myth that rock ’n’ roll started there. We love that.”