Our movie on this episode is 1996's Kids in the Hall Brain Candy, the to-date only feature

film spinoff of the beloved Canadian comedy series The Kids in the Hall.

We've got a lot of requests for this one over the last couple weeks because the kids in the

hall have reunited for a new Amazon show, which is very much positioned as a continuation of the show that they had from 1988 to 1995.

I think we have different relationships with the kids in the hall, you and I. I'm curious to know if you have any at all.

Well, I don't really have one. I'm embarrassed to say I don't really know much about kids in the hall.

I mean, you're a Canadian. What happened? Well, I didn't really have

TV growing up. Fair enough. Yeah. I don't know if I can completely summarize the kids' comic

sensibility, but one thing I'll say is there's a real bleakness in their vision. Friend of the

podcast, John Semley, wrote a good book about them called This is a book about the kids in the

hall. And something

he points out is that negative father figures are a recurring theme throughout their careers.

Most of the troop apparently had difficult fathers, and you'll see a lot of sketches on the show

where fathers are depicted as abusive, alcoholic, flandering, threatening violence. In this movie we watched, one of my

favorite scenes is the scene where there's the flashback of the kid and his dad comes home and

just is like this defeated man and he goes in and commits suicide. If I can quote from Semley

here, the anguish, confusion, and anger of growing up under the thumb of an alcoholic father is spun into comic gold by some remarkable rumple-stilt-skinny and sorcery.

This is what so much of comedy is, and especially what so much of the kids in the halls comedy is.

Gathering up the slings and arrows of misfortune that life volleys at you and slinging

them right back. Comedy is about turning pain and banality of existence against itself.

Comedy is about beating up your drunk dad. Man, I wish, uh, I wish Emily was here right now

because he'd make a better second mic on this app than I will. I really, I really feel woefully

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