The Best Sketch Comedy Series Is Not Saturday Night Live, Stream Without Netflix
When people think about sketch comedy, the first shows that come to mind are Saturday Night Live, Chappelle’s Show, Key & Peele, and if you like things to be a little be on the cringe-inducing side, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. But there’s one show that stands on the top of the sketch comedy mountain, and it’s The Kids in the Hall in all of its unhinged glory. For the longest time, I had to bust out the DVD player, which I’ll admit doesn’t get a lot of use these days, but now that the show is available on a number of different streaming platforms as of this writing, you can beam it straight into your eyeballs.
The Most Versatile Comedy Troupe You’ve Ever Seen
The Kids in the Hall features an all-male ensemble cast who take on all of the acting duties (they dress like women a lot). Unlike Saturday Night Live, which by design has had a revolving door of cast members and writers across several decades, The Kids in the Hall stars Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson, all of whom bring their own blend of surreal and absurdist humor to the mix. Not only does the principal cast star in every skit, they also function as writers.
What truly sets The Kids in the Hall apart from Saturday Night Live is the fact that we’re witnessing a Canadian comedy troupe producing a TV show rather than a gigantic team of writers and producers hammering out skits and bits. As a result, a lot of the humor is self-referential, as each member of the troupe will break character and talk to the studio audience in an effort to break the fourth wall.
Refreshingly Outlandish
The original five-season run of The Kids in the Hall ranges from somewhat tame and quirky to aggressively offensive.
On the tamer side, we have skits like “Salty Ham,” starring an irate Bruce McCulloch as he leans into his wife (Scott Thompson) because her “voodoo pork” was so saturated with salt that it’s causing him to wake up at two in the morning to slug down an unthinkable amount of water. For six-and-a-half minutes, the couple bickers over what could have possibly gone wrong to have caused such an egregious issue.
Things Get Dark
Taking a darker turn, “Girl Drink Drunk,” starring David Foley, involves a man’s downward spiral into alcoholic depravity. However, the kicker in this Kids in the Hall skit is that he’s addicted to girl drinks that all require several steps to supplies to mix and consume. While highlighting the harrowing downward spiral one goes through while succumbing to a serious addiction, Foley brings the premise to heightened levels of absurdity by hiding in his office supply closet with an oversized glass, blender, and a decorative drink umbrella to get his proper fix.
Breaking The Fourth Wall
The Kids in the Hall truly won me over with Mark McKinney’s fourth-wall-breaking “Screw You Taxpayer” bit, in which he deliberately writes a terrible script that features the rest of the troupe acting in incredibly poor taste. Addressing the audience directly, he admits that the skit is terrible, and that they’re right to be outraged because the Canadian Broadcasting Company is government funded, meaning that their taxes paid for the skit.
While McKinney runs through the expenses required for production, the audience cheers along, proudly proclaiming “screw you, taxpayers!” as the total cost of the sketch increases to the six-figure range while Kevin McDonald is running around backstage wearing nothing but a diaper.
Streaming The Kids In The Hall
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Simply put, there’s not a single sketch comedy show as irreverent, inventive, or ridiculous as The Kids in the Hall. If you’re a fan of Saturday Night Live, but wish there was something out there that’s a little less topical, then you can stream the series on Tubi, Pluto TV, Fubo, and The Roku Channel, among others. Whether it’s your first trip down the hall, or you’re looking to take a trip down memory lane, all five seasons are streaming and ready to rock.
