Canadian comedian Scott Thompson brings his bacon to Chicago this month. He will team with another Kids in the Hall star Kevin McDonald for a stand-up act at the Mayne Stage this week. Our out and proud jokester chatted about bullying and who has the last laugh.
Windy City Times: Hi, Scott. Where in the world are you calling from?
Scott Thompson: I'm in Sacramento [California].
WCT: Is this a stand-up tour you are on?
ST: It is a total stand-up tour with Kevin and I. We each do a couple of sets solo then we come together to do stuff together. It is definitely brand-new. It is not characters or sketches. It is me and Kevin rocking the mic.
WCT: Do you cover current topics?
ST: Not really. No, more diversity. We don't take on events of the day, no. I have never been good at that. Occasionally, I go off a lot. So I quite often do different things all the time. I will talk about things that are on my mind that are on the news. Generally it is the big three: sex, race and death—at least my stuff is. When I get too heavy then Kevin comes on. When he gets too silly then I come on. We really balance each other. It is a yin-and-yang kind of a show.
WCT: How long have you known him?
ST: I have known Kevin for 25 years. I wish we could say we were 10; we were really young but not that young. I have known him since I first started my career. I met the Kids in the Hall right out of school. It has been a hell of a long time.
WCT: How did you all meet up?
ST: They all met on their own. They have their own stories but I am the fifth member. I was an actor. I had just started and was not having much success. Then a friend of mine took me to a midnight show in Toronto in 1984. The original Kids in the Hall were there. There were seven of them at the time. I had never seen anything like it in my life. I turned to my friend and said, "I'm going to be in that group." She said," You don't even know them." I said, "They don't know it yet but they need me."
WCT: I love it!
ST: It was one of those times in your life when everything is clear. You know exactly what you are going to do and how it will play out. That was it. I have never had it since but it all worked out. A little voice said, "You have got to be in that group. That is what you need to do."
WCT: Did you want to do stand-up even then?
ST: I did want to be a stand-up comedian back then but it was too difficult in the mid '80s. I had done amateur night and open mics but a gay comedian in the mid '80s was just not going to happen. I wasn't even out yet. The homophobia was just horrific. AIDS was killing everyone and it was a terrible time. I had such a bad time the first few times of doing open mics that I thought that I couldn't do it. Then when I met Kids in the Hall I knew I could do characters and hide behind my characters.
WCT: You had some great ones to play.
ST: Yes and I had no idea that I could do that kind of stuff. I wasn't one of those people that could do voices. You do things because you have to do them.
WCT: Did you ever think the group would have such a huge following?
ST: Maybe it is presumptuous to say "yes," but I did. When I saw them perform I thought, "This is the greatest thing I have seen in my life." I didn't know it would be like it is now. I didn't know we would be together 25 years later, but I knew it was brand-new and I wanted to be a part of it.
WCT: I didn't realize how much the group owed to Lorne Michaels until reading your history.
ST: He discovered us. It is a classic Cinderella story. He went back to Saturday Night Live after being gone for a few years. He started looking for people to put in SNL. He went on a big North American travel hunt. He had heard about us through the Canadian connection, through Martin Short, Dave Thomas and Dan Aykroyd—people that had heard about us. He came up to Toronto and we did a show for him. That was it.
First of all, he pulled some of us—Kevin, Mark and Bruce—to write on the worst year of SNL. It was the Robert Downey year. It was not a good year. They worked under the table. He tried to break us up; really, he couldn't. They kept coming back to Toronto and doing shows. Lorne realized after a year of us doing our own things, I was with Second City, that we couldn't be taken apart. He decided to get us a TV show so he brought us to New York in 1988. We spent six months living there on our own and doing sketch comedy. We developed a following and we got this big story in Rolling Stone. They said we were the new thing in comedy. That launched us. That was the end of it. Lorne greased all those wheels and got us a television show.
WCT: I read the name came from Sid Caesar.
ST: Actually, it was Jack Benny. When Jack would do his show he would walk through a hallway and there would be all these young writers trying to pitch him jokes. If he used any of the jokes and they scored then he would say, "That was from one of the kids in the hall."
We were also the kids that were in trouble. I am sure they don't do this anymore because it would be considered bullying but teachers used to put my desk in the hall all of the time.
WCT: I forgot about teachers doing that!
ST: I am sure it would be a huge scandal now and they would lose their jobs. They would put your desk in the hall and it was humiliating. People would walk by and see you in the hall. My desk was out there all the time. Those were the days where you could rap a kid's hand with rulers. You could throw chalk at them.
WCT: I had a teacher that made me hold out dictionaries on each outstretched hand standing in the back of the class until I would cry.
ST: Oh yes, absolutely. We had a teacher that would fill milk jugs with water and same thing, you would hold them out with arms spread on both sides until you couldn't do it anymore.
WCT: What an education. It was torture!
ST: They need a little more of that these days. You can't even give a kid a C anymore. "What do you mean you gave my kid a C? All kids deserve A's!"
WCT: Then after the teacher got done with me, I was picked on for being gay by the kids.
ST: Oh Lord, it was brutal. We are tougher from it. We are way tougher…
WCT: We are. I feel better now, thank you.
ST: It all worked out. I am jealous of the younger generation and they have no idea how easy they have it. Well, hello Glee and goodbye Oscar Wilde. Persecution does breed art and comedy. It breeds strength. I think we may have gone too far the other way.
WCT: We will see, I guess.
ST: Yes, we will see, won't we? Honestly, I see it as the decline of the West with the self-esteem movement. I think that is the number-one thing. I wouldn't occupy Wall Street. I would occupy schools. Self-esteem, when I was growing up, was something you achieved in spite of your childhood. Now you can't say, "boo" to a kid. If you said "boo" she could have a heart attack!
WCT: Canada is pretty liberal and has same-sex marriage now.
ST: Yes we do. It just happened. Canadians are very much like "even if we don't agree with it, oh well." In the States you guys argue about things. We just go with what the government says. Gay marriage in Canada was like the metric system: "Well, it's going to hurt a little but eventually we will get used to it." It is like sodomy really, not only do you get used to it, but you grow to like it!
Two Kids One Hall hits the Mayne Stage, 1328 W. Morse, for five shows, starting on Oct. 20 at 8:00 pm, plus Oct. 21 & 22 at 8:00 pm and 10:30 pm. Call 773-381-4554 or visit www.maynestage.com for ticket information.
