Festival of Laughs

Bruce McCulloch says that whenever he tries to run with the prime-time TV herd, he can "get kind of beat down by explaining what is funny."

When he falls back in with his fellow Kids in the Hall, it's obvious. Funny is the sex-addicted Chicken Lady, half human, half fowl. Or the young lad Gavin, who knows much and tells all to strangers. And don't forget Mr. Tyzik, who likes to crush people's heads between his thumb and forefinger.

The Kids haven't had to explain any of this on their reunion tour, which has an encore today as part of The Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace. The sketch-comedy troupe has been performing to "a great group of like-minded people" in the year marking its 25th anniversary, says McCulloch (who is responsible for Gavin, as well as the Vegas kind of guy with cabbage for a head).

"The impulse behind this was to just have fun, and for the people who like us, try to make some new material for them."

It was a nice counterbalance to "Carpoolers," the sitcom McCulloch helmed for ABC last year before it was torpedoed by the writer's strike. Though he is writing two more TV pilots, he says that after being "put through a big piece of the cheese machine," the Kids tour allows him "to kind of reclaim my creativity in a different way."

The Canadian group that also includes Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson is best known for its HBO series of the early 1990s.

Because the group already reunited for a hits tour in 2000, McCulloch says they agreed it was important to write new sketches this time -- even if they included favorite characters -- to rekindle the days when they would "get together, write fast, and have a show ready for Sunday night."

"It's more fun for us that this isn't our full-time job," he adds, though the five of them are now creating a "Twin Peaks"-style mystery soap for Canadian TV.

Outside the protective shell of a comedy festival, Las Vegas might be a hard sell for the Kids' brand of surreal, deadpan comedy, where the lads play women realistically, not as drag burlesque.

Their TV show dealt in slow-burn humor where the laugh often didn't come until much later. "We got our fan base by people watching the show again," McCulloch notes.

But the show ages well, in part because it didn't rely on parodies of current TV or political situations. "We were more interested in weird social stuff."

"I think we all came together because we had a very similar take on what's funny," he says. "We don't really discuss the rules of comedy, we just do stuff. And what makes us laugh is our tone. The more you work with other people, the hardest thing to explain is tone or what you find funny."

Deadpan is "not something people do all that much in America," McCulloch notes. But if the Kids happen to take root on the Strip, the five agree "it would be a good idea to come to Vegas more often and do shows. It would keep us together without having to go on tour."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.