Nerdist is celebrating YouTube Comedy Week with more Kids in the Hall than you can shake a stick at! Or something. Watch some videos.

Originally posted at ImprovBoston.Tumblr.com

Time for some real talk.  I’ve got some advice for you based on a recent experience I had.

It’s not every day that one gets to sit down with a comedy legend for a freeform conversation.  It’s not every day that one gets to sit down with a comedy legend… period.  If that opportunity does present itself, one should probably have the questions he’s been dying to ask since he first stumbled across said legend’s work as a child ready to go.

On May 18th and 19th 2013, comedy legend and founding member of Kids in the Hall, Kevin McDonald taught a two-day intensive sketch comedy writing workshop.  I was given the chance to sit with Kevin for a few minutes after the days work had concluded to ask him about his workshop and experience in Boston.  What we did wind up talking about was of course… the current state of the NBA.  PINPOINT JOURNALISM, GUYS.

My advice to you – just in case you bump into someone who has influenced a generation of comedians, have a few questions ready to go.  Until then, please enjoy this interview I was able to do with Kevin McDonald.

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IB: Thank you very much for giving me a few minutes of your time.  My first question is… I see you have a New York Knicks tee shirt on.

KEVIN MCDONALD: I’m not that big of a fan- it’s just a coincidence.

IB: I’d love to talk with you about your experience here in Boston OR the resurgence of New York City basketball – totally up to you.

KEVIN MCDONALD: Let’s talk about both!  I saw a Knicks game a few weeks ago, so I bought a shirt.  I put it on without realizing they got eliminated from the playoffs last night.  Now people are going to think I’m a Knicks fan walking around with pride and shame.

IB: I was pretty disappointed when the Celtics got knocked out of the playoffs this year but I just like with comedy, you need have a bad show to illustrate what parts of your game need the most work.  So to apply that to the Celtics – I’m kind of glad it happened the way it did because now we know where we need to focus. 

KEVIN MCDONALD: Get Rajon Rondo back and balance it around him.  Without Rondo, Pierce is the guy.  Even with Rondo, Pierce is the guy.  How old is he now?

IB: He’s 35 – which is old for basketball but a baby for everything else.  That’s tough to stomach because I’m 31, so constantly hearing that someone my age is too old is eye opening. 

KEVIN MCDONALD: Yea that’s tough.  You’re old as soon as you turn 31.  I consider myself young no matter how old I get.  That’s my decision.

IB: Good point.  It’s all perception. 

KEVIN MCDONALD: I’m a Lakers fan because I lived in LA for a long time, but I hate being a Lakers fan.  When I was a kid I would never cheer for them because they won all the time and I like to cheer for the underdog.  But now they are the underdog again, so I’m feeling better about it.

IB: How has your time in Boston been?

KEVIN MCDONALD: It’s been excellent!  The workshop was amazing.  I’ve had lots of fun.  I wish I had more time to enjoy the city.

IB: I saw you on Friday night at Downton IB (a showcase show running at Improv Boston – 10PM on Fridays).  Did you get to see any other shows at ImprovBoston?

KEVIN MCDONALD: I saw Main Stage, Downton IB, and Face Off.

IB: What did you think?

KEVIN MCDONALD: Everything was so good.  If you’re going to force me to pick a favorite…

IB: I won’t.

KEVIN MCDONALD: I’m going to do it anyway.  Since you’re FORCING ME to pick a favorite, I would say Downton IB.  I enjoyed it very much.

IB: Do you watch the show on PBS?

KEVIN MCDONALD: I’ve never seen it.  I know it’s great, but I don’t have a ton of time to watch TV.  I know I would love it, though.  I’ve loved all the other projects by Julian Fellowes and am a fan of a similar show called Upstairs Downstairs, which also focused on a rich family and their servants.

IB: You were in town to teach a workshop at ImprovBoston.  Would you tell me about the workshop?

KEVIN MCDONALD: It’s where I teach people to write sketch comedy through improv like I used to do in the old days with my comedy troupe… I forget the name of it.

I don’t really have a process that I use to teach, which you really should if you’re going to teach a workshop.  I learn a little bit more about the process each time I do it.  The students really teach me what the process is and how it should be taught.  The Kids in the Hall were kind of haphazard in our approach.  It sounds like I’m lying, but the students really do teach me what works and what doesn’t.  Because of my students this will be a perfect workshop in three years.

IB: That’s great!  So the main idea is that you’re using scenes and ideas that come out of improv, and writing full sketches around them.

KEVIN MCDONALD: Right – it’s similar to how Second City has done and continues to do.  I used to perform with The Second City touring company.  After The Kids in the Hall were discovered, Lorne Michaels didn’t know what to do with us for the first year, so he hired the two oldest guys – Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch – as writers on Saturday Night Live for the 1985 season.  Dave Foley was being lined up to be the next Michael J. Fox.  Scott Thompson and I were left in Toronto with the Second City touring company.  The techniques I’m teaching in this workshop are things that we used to do back in those days.

When I started with Touring Company I was so snobby and thinking, ‘I’m in The Kids in the Hall – I am GREAT.’  Five years earlier I would have been like, ‘SECOND CITY?!  OH MY GOD!!’  I remember on my very first day, I was doing a scene with a woman and I started telling her what she should be doing.  She got really angry with me and looking back on it, she had every right to be angry.

Back in the day – the 80’s – The Kids in the Hall were really two groups.  Dave Foley and I were the focus of one group and Mark and Bruce were the focus of the other group.  The myth was that Mark and Bruce – The Audience as they were called – were better at writing sketches while me and Dave were better at improv.  We were already called The Kids in the Hall at that point.  When we joined forces our friends were telling us that The Kids in the Hall was the better name and that The Audience was kind of pretentious.  Bruce let us know it was ok for now but it was a terrible name that was going to get changed as soon as we got anywhere.  A few years ago on one of our reunion tours we considered changing the name, which would be funny, but we decided against it.

One thing I’ve always wanted to do on tour is end the show like a rock concert.  Thank the audience for coming out and then announce that we’re doing a cover for them.  So we’d do some of our classic sketches and then do the Parrot Sketch.

IB: That would be hilarious!  That’s a fantastic idea. 

KEVIN MCDONALD: Yea but it needs something more.  Do we do it straight the whole way?  Does something go wrong half way through?  It is us just doing accents?  I’m not sure… it needs something else.

IB: Maybe if you just do the meat of the sketch and then jump to the meat of another classic sketch.  Like a comedy medley. 

KEVIN MCDONALD: It’s something we’ve been kicking around for like ten years.  I’m determined to figure it out.

IB: How long have you been teaching this workshop?

KEVIN MCDONALD: A little over a year.  I had been kicking around the idea and then the Toronto Sketch Festival asked me if I had any interest in doing a workshop.  I was living in Winnipeg and flying around once in a while, so I thought offering this workshop would be a good opportunity to do more of that.   The first workshop I did was about four hours long and I needed more time to be out traveling, so I have now made it ridiculously long.

IB: Do you think you’d come back to Boston and offer it again? 

KEVIN MCDONALD: Oh absolutely!  We’re already talking about it.  Maybe a year or a year and a half from now.

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The next time Kevin McDonald is in town to offer his workshop, I promise to get the word out well in advance.  This is a very unique opportunity that should not be missed.

by Perry Michael Simon on MAY 19, 2013 at Nerdist.com

It’s YouTube Comedy Week, and the Nerdist Channel is kicking things off with not one, not two, but THREE classic sketches from The Kids in the Hall.

Without further ado…

Captain Calm, plus a talk with Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald on the show’s popularity and the sale of the format to France:

Empty Bar with Buddy Cole, after which Dave and Kevin talk about Buddy:

And Three for the Moon, followed by Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch talking about the sketch’s origins:

The Light from the TV Shows: A Chat with Kevin McDonald (“Who Gets the Last Laugh”)

Posted by Will Harris (05/21/2013 @ 6:05 pm) at Bullz-Eye Blog

Photograph by: Fish Griwkowsky , Edmonton Journal

Bullz-Eye: So how did you find yourself involved in TBS’s “Who Gets the Last Laugh?” Did they reach out to you?

Kevin McDonald: They reached out to me! Yes! I was in my nice blue house in Winnipeg, and I got the email from them, saying, “Would you like to do this?” And I thought at first that I’d be too Canadian to do this. Like, too polite. I thought I’d be too nice to pull pranks on people. That’s what I thought in my blue house in Winnipeg. But as it turned out, I could do it!

BE: Did you have to fight your every Canadian instinct to do it?

KM: Yes. [Laughs.] At first I did. Because we’re too polite and too nice, and we feel guilty. But then you get into it, and…it’s not even like the cruel part of me kicked in or anything…until it did. But it wasn’t even that. It was just, y’know, “It’s a job.” And once I started getting into it, it sort of became like a sketch, only with one of the people not knowing what the script was. And that was sort of the challenge, but I got really into it. I really enjoyed it.

BE: Are you a fan of the prank-show genre as a rule?

KM: Well, when I was a kid, “Candid Camera” was one of my favorite shows. I guess that was probably the genesis of it. I’d watch “Candid Camera” at home, and I did quite enjoy it. And because we were Canadians, then we’d spend 20 minutes holding hands, feeling guilty. But then we’d watch it again the next week.

BE: The one-liner they use to describe your prank in the press release is that you leave a confusing impression.

KM: [Laughs.] I think that’s right on!

BE: Did you have a particular way of approaching the prank? Did you plot out the possible reactions you might get?

KM: Well, they sort of just plop you in the middle of it, y’know? Like, I knew what the prank was as I was going there, and, y’know, I’ve seen “Punk’d” and stuff, but I still had no idea what I was going to be doing. Then they plunk you in the middle and all of a sudden say, “Okay, we’ve got to do it now!” And you have to do it, so you just kind of get into it. It’s kind of trial by fire. Everything I’d planned out beforehand just made no sense when it was happening. So it really is like improv. It was so much fun whispering to the actors who were in on the prank, telling them what to say, and they were so good that they could talk and hear and repeat what I was saying. If you’re a control freak, it’s very rewarding.

BE: You’ve done a lot of voice work over the years. Are you still enjoying doing the cartoon voices?

KM: Oh, yeah, I love it. I’m still doing a lot of those, and it’s fun, but it’s very tiring because you scream all day. Well, not all day. It’s actually only about an hour at a time, usally. But you’re screaming for the entire hour. Especially if you’re the kind of guy who I tend to play in cartoons. I end up falling down stairs a lot, so I’m having to make those sounds for an hour.

BE: Do you have a favorite cartoon that you’ve worked on?

KM: Well, I like “Lilo & Stitch,” but I think my favorite one that I’ve done is one for Nickelodeon called “Invader Zim.” I get almost as many compliments for that as I do Kids in the Hall. It was a really smart cartoon, by a young guy who was a comic book guy. I think he was 25 or 26 at the time, but he looked 16. But he was sort of a genius. And it was really fun to do. It was a good comedy, which you don’t always get to do.

BE: Speaking of Kids in the Hall, the last time I saw you was at the TCA Press Tour, when you were promoting “Death Comes to Town.”

KM: Oh, right! Oh, yeah, that was a lot of fun. I got to bring my new girlfriend at the time. And I saw Yoko Ono in the lobby! What was she promoting?

BE: A PBS documentary about John Lennon.

KM: Right! Yeah, that was the most exciting part. [Laughs.] Seeing Yoko Ono was pretty exciting!

BE: So has there been any talk about reuniting for another Kids in the Hall special or miniseries?

KM: Yeah, we’re talking about it now. It’s kind of hard to get us all together. We almost got together last month, and then I had to cancel, so now everyone’s mad at me, including me. But we’re trying to get together to do what we did last time, which is another tour and another miniseries. That’s what the plan is, anyway.

BE: A lot of your fellow Kids tend to pop up on various sitcoms – or, in Scott Thompson’s case, dramas – but you’ve spent a fair amount of time writing for TV as well, including a stint on ABC’s Carpoolers. Would you be agreeable to taking a full-time writing gigs?

KM: Well, yeah, actually, I just did two weeks guest-writing on “Saturday Night Live,” and there’s a chance that I might do it full-time next year if it works out. But I’ve also written a spec TV script that’s getting me offers to be on a staff, so that may happen. I’d never give up performing, but for a year I might write, and my first choice would be “Saturday Night Live.” The pay is less, but who cares? It’s “Saturday Night Live”! [Laughs.]

BE: Did you get any sketches on the air during your guest-writing stint for “SNL”?

KM: I had one that made it to dress. It was very exciting that they picked it. It was on the Melissa McCarthy show. But it was one of the ones that was cut before the show. But I have the DVD of it, so I see it every now and then and cry. [Laughs.] But it was really fun. Melissa McCarthy was great. She was so great. She made the sketch so much better than it actually was when I wrote it. It was so exciting to watch. That’s another case where they just thrust you into it and assume you know what to do, because the writer of each sketch also produces the sketch, so you have to tell the actors what to do, the set designers what to design, talk to hair, makeup, and wardrobe, make sure the cue cards are right, get the music cues set… It was very exciting.

BE: You also did a stint writing for “The Martin Short Show.”

KM: Yes! I was a writer and a performer on that. But my favorite part was the writing. Even though I loved the performing. But it was very exciting to work with Martin Short. I’d write during the day and sometimes do a sketch at night if I got one in, but I’d be in my writing office and I’d go down to the floor where he was filming a sketch and just watch him work. Just to watch his process. I’ve yet to understand his process, but it was exciting to watch. Like, he’d be certain of the lines, he’d be certain of a character, and he’d do take one, take two, take three. But for takes four through seven, he knew he had it, so that’s when he’d start playing with it and finding things and improvising. That was so exciting to watch a true, bonafied comedy genius work. I got to see all those takes and see him improve it and improve it… That was very exciting. That was the best part of the job.

BE: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

KM: I liked the movie “Sky High.” I thought that was going to be a bigger hit. I did it with Dave Foley and Bruce Campbell. It was a high school for superheroes. Kurt Russell was in it, too, and he was great. I was the smart guy with the giant head. [Laughs.] I wish that’d gotten more love, because that was actually sort of good. Oh, and there’s another one, one that I wish had gotten more love for the Kids in the Hall: “Brain Candy.” It cost eight million and grossed three million. So that’s my big one for wanting more love.

BE: Lastly, how did you enjoy the experience of working on “That ‘70s Show”?

KM: That was great! That happened because of the Kids in the Hall. Mark Brazill, who’s the creator of the show, and Topher Grace, they came to our reunion show at the Wiltern Theater, and they were about to cast for the part of Pastor Dave. And they thought, “Oh, Kevin McDonald! He looks like a pastor! And he’s Canadian!” If you’re really Canadian, you seem kind of priest-like. I understand that. So they asked me to do it, and that was fun. I think it was for three seasons that I would come do stuff. And those kids, they were so young, but they were all Kids in the Hall fans. And they were all nice. I don’t have any bad stories! They were all nice. Now, I heard bad stories. [Laughs.] From the crew. But I don’t have any bad stories. They were all very nice to me!
Read more at http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/05/21/the-light-from-the-tv-shows-a-chat-with-kevin-mcdonald-who-gets-the-last-laugh/#8kyfypX29zJvfvOU.99

By William Van Meter

Photograph by: Fish Griwkowsky , Edmonton Journal

Today we’re celebrating the birthday of brilliant writer, actor, comedian Kevin McDonald. As a special gift, Kithfans is giving away two tickets to The Armando Show featuring Kevin McDonald on June 7th, 2013. This show is part of the LA Improv Festival:

The Armando Show is a 90-minute long improvised comedy show inspired by an audience suggestion, which the celebrity hosts interpret through a personal and truthful improvised monologue. Inspired by that monologue, a cast composed of veteran Chicago and Los Angeles alumni perform scenes that, in turn, inspire a response from Armando. This propels hilarious interchanges between Armando’s monologues and the company’s scenes.  This show is the reason to see live improv in Los Angeles.

Rules! To enter to win this contest, comment with your favorite Kevin sketch or character from Kids in the Hall show/movie/miniseries. 

1. Entries must be made in the comments of THIS post.

2. Winner MUST BE based in LA… tickets will be at Will Call at the theater, so you need to be able to pick them up!

3. One entry per person, please!

4. Note:  This show is on the Main Stage! You must be at least 21 years old to attend mainstage shows. Valid ID required, no exceptions.

Winners will be chosen at random via an application that will track both email and IP address, so don’t try to be slick, people! Contest will run today, winner will be chosen this evening so I can get the name over to the theater before tomorrow.

Thank you to  @iowest Improv Theater in LA for providing the tickets! If you don’t win and would still like to see the show, visit the ioWeest website HERE.

Good luck and let’s have fun!

The Middle (ABC) 8:00 PM ET
Brick has won a lot of battles through the sheer force of his will, but can he win a battle to stay out of middle school when his school therapist (Dave Foley) steps in? Meanwhile, Sue is tempted to ditch school and ruin her perfect attendance record. Brad will probably have something to say about that.

Thanks Tavie for the headsup!

by LILY PERCY at NPR.com
May 12, 2013 3:49 PM

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

The weekends on All Things Considered series Movies I’ve Seen A Million Times features filmmakers, actors, writers and directors talking about the movies that they never get tired of watching.

Writer-comedian Mark McKinney‘s credits include the TV shows Slings and Arrows, Kids In The Hall and Less Than Kind — currently airing on HBO Canada. The movie he could watch a million times is Hayao Miyazaki’s anime film, My Neighbor Totoro.

Writer-comedian Mark McKinney.
George Pimentel/Getty Images

On what he thought when he first saw My Neighbor Totoro

“My first impression of the film was that it just took such care with setting up the world.”

On why the scene with Totoro at the bus stop is his favorite

“It’s a fantastically wonderful wild-mind moment, and you know it doesn’t really follow any story, there’s no particular reason for it, but it’s there to bond the kids to Totoro, and it just works beautifully. And before you know it, that’s completely sucked you into the story, and that’s what all of Miyazaki’s movies do for me.”

It’s that time of year again! time to celebrate the birth of brilliant comedic and philosophic genius that is Bruce McCulloch. I’ve put together a fun playlist of Bruce’s best bits from The Kids in the Hall show, Brain Candy and Death Comes to Town. Click HERE, grab yourself a sandwich (you know you’ve been looking forward to it) and get your chuckle or guffaw (as it were) on!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRUCE!