Death Comes To Town is the hot new TV series from The Kids In The Hall. It’s a miniseries, a couple of months’ worth of a sketch comedy take on Twin Peaks, with a little Grim Reaper thrown in for flavour. I have not yet seen it, because I work when it’s on, but when it’s done, I’ll watch the whole thing in one sitting, probably. For two reasons:

1. It was shot in North Bay, Ontario, where I lived for two years about 20 years ago. I loved North Bay, and I hope I get a glimpse of my old waterfront house in the background of a scene or something. I left my 10-speed on the back deck, and it might still be there.

2. It’s made by and stars The Kids, who appear to be greyer and wider and balder in the commercials I’ve seen, but still willing to move the manila when it comes to generating laughs.

Their self-titled TV series was a big deal when I was in my early 20s, and represented a kind of comedy we hadn’t seen on TV since Monty Python. It was odd, edgy, a little surreal, sometimes spectacularly unfunny, but sometimes brilliant. They used swear words on TV, for shit’s sake.

Characters created by the five kids — Scott Thompson, Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCullouch and Mark McKinny — are still a part of Canadian pop culture. We all know someone who likes to whip out “I’m crushing your head!” at exactly the wrong moment, right?

Example: a recurring sketch was called 30 Helens Agree. It was a short little slap featuring 30 women named Helen standing there repeating a line. Obscure, weird and excellent. Other sketches relied on recurring characters like Kathie and Cathy, Simon and Hecubus, those cops, Buddy Cole, The Chicken Lady, Gavin (“How much would my head cost if it was made out of beef?”) … Once in a while, a damp hairy fat man would wander into the scene wearing nothing but a towel.

I’m going to credit The Kids for legitimizing nerds. They’re nerds, but they’re cool nerds, and they welded comedy to the oddness we nerds embrace. Sketches were built around the nature of sarcasm, or wordplay. In one classic, Foley plays a character who says “I’m sorry, I speak only enough English to tell you that I speak no English,” or something along those lines. Brilliant. Funny. And nerdy.

The Kids In The Hall ran for five years here in Canada, and appeared on television in some other countries. It was a hit. The five were gifted writers, excellent comedians, pretty good actors, and looked hot in drag. They did this a lot, and pulled it off, in a Bugs Bunny kind of way.

But the troupe imploded in the mid-90s (there was a movie made called Brain Candy, which is not for you, or for me, even). The five went their separate ways; you probably saw Dave Foley on News Radio, or Mark McKinney on SNL. I saw McKinney eating breakfast at the Mars Diner in Toronto a few years ago. I was on my way to a comics convention; he was pouring maple syrup.

A reunion tour a couple of years ago led to Death Comes To Town, which tells the tale of small-town crime, murder, intrigue and gossip, all of it prompted by the arrival in town of Death. Thus the title. McKinney plays Death, as he did in a memorable guitar-slinging sketch from the original series.

Here’s the weird part: As Death Comes To Town prepared to debut, I mentioned to the lady in my life that I would be watching it, and she said “I’ve never seen The Kids In The Hall.” And I was stunned. So I went out and picked up the Season 1 DVDs, and I’m seeing them for the first time in years, and I’m blown away by how well these sketches hold up after two decades. I’ll play them for her this weekend in order to make her 100 percent fully Canadian.

I’m crushing your head.

Kennedy, Starbase 66