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Kids in the Hall and Jim Norton Originally appeared in The Boston Globe, April 5, 2002
When the Kids in the Hall got back together two years ago for a reunion tour, it seemed one of the best comedy troupes of the past decade was back on track. Scott Thompson, Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Kevin McDonald had unofficially disbanded the Kids after the 1996 cult hit movie ''Brain Candy.'' Sketch comedy had missed their sense of the absurd and the offensive, but their return to the stage proved those instincts were left intact.
Proof of the group's strength is the behind-the-scenes documentary ''Same Guys, New Dresses,'' directed by Foley, which made the run of festivals and will be released in the United States on April 16. The film shows the comedians getting reacquainted with one another, sometimes a bit tentatively. But if there were any hard feelings, they didn't show onstage, and the group has started another round of touring, stopping at the Orpheum Theater on April 9.
''It's great fun,'' says Thompson, speaking on the phone during a break in rehearsals in Toronto. ''It's where we really are the best - live onstage. ''
Everybody has brought new skills to the table from their other gigs. McCulloch has established himself as a director, Foley and McDonald have worked in television and films, McKinney has done various theater productions in New York, and Thompson has done television and created stage shows. Each contributes pieces of that to the new show, which will be a mix of old sketches and new material. ''I'll be doing a piece which is from my one-man show,'' Thompson says. ''Bruce will be doing a song from the new album he just did. People just bring skills they've learned. Everybody's gotten better.''
There is still a little rust to be knocked off when it comes to the older material. ''We were doing this scene called `Romeo' and I thought, `This isn't quite right,''' Thompson says. ''And I went over to my boxes of old scripts and found it and said, `No wonder. We missed this crucial piece.' And it just totally slipped our mind.''
Still, the material on this tour promises to be as strong as anything the troupe has ever offered. Thompson feels the Kids can fill a void as the comedy scene becomes increasingly sterile.
''Definitely, people are nervous about this new climate,'' says Thompson. ''But you're always going to need people like us. I actually find it exciting because a lot of comedians have become very gutless. You know what I mean? Terrified of saying anything. When you do want to say something, it kind of makes it more thrilling. There's less people now willing to take a chance.''
Norton, who plays a sold-out show at Avalon tonight, is best known as a regular cast member of the Opie & Anthony radio show, carried locally on WBCN. Gags on the show vary from gross-out body humor to innocuous calls to Buddy Ebsen to more mean-spirited attacks on celebrities. The show is often accused of going for laughs through ''shock value,'' a term Norton clearly hates.
''There's no such thing as `shock value,''' he says. ''I get so disgusted with that term in reference to comedy. You don't shock people into laughing. They laugh or they don't laugh.''
Recent appearances on the short-lived ''Colin Quinn Show'' by Norton and a group of fellow comedians, including Boston expatriate Patrice O'Neal, pushed the boundaries of political correctness, fielding subjects such as racism, gender discrimination, and the general touchiness of American society itself.
''I was extremely impressed with what they let get through,'' Norton says. ''And why shouldn't they? They allow violence on television. What, a bunch of stupid comics is going to send a kid to a high school with a machine gun? It's ridiculous.''
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