It only figures that an interview with the recently re-formed Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson, most famous for his portrayal as the flamboyant professional homosexual Buddy Cole, would have to be rescheduled four times. After all, Thompson and fellow comedy-troupe Kids (Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald and Mark McKinney) are riding high on the comeback trail with their "Same Guys, New Dresses" tour, after four years of being off the air and in heavy Comedy Central syndication. You can't expect Buddy Cole to be bothered.
What might be surprising, though, is just how serious a premise the Kids in the Hall are to Thompson, and how important their playful insinuation has been to the popular gay identity.
Orlando Weekly: You're the most elusive celebrity, ever.
Scott Thompson: Oh, come on. Really? More elusive than Whitney Houston?
Probably not as high as Whitney Houston.
No one's as high as Whitney Houston. I mean, you start off as a bitch, then you add cocaine, then you've got a mondo cunt. Thank God the weed is there. I'm kind of crazy about her. I'm obsessed with her. I think she's loathsome. Ever since our career -- I wouldn't say took off, but ever since it started to taxi really fast, we've done an unofficial poll of limo drivers and maids on who's the worst celebrity, and she tops the list. The Whitney stories are unbelievable. I've just been waiting for this to happen, for her to just meltdown. You know the great thing about her? She's apparently the meanest human being.
Are you having fun back on the road?
Yeah, I've been having a great time. I went home for three weeks before `after the tour's first leg`, and I just fell apart. Because I go back to L.A. and realize how ridiculous my life is and how empty it is. When you're on the road, you're out all the time. You're meeting people, and they love you every night. You have to talk. You go back to L.A., and you can go back to your little house, and you've got your boyfriend, and there's no need to leave. You know, it's not like they're demanding me everywhere. Believe me, if they'd asked me to sing "Blame Canada" at the Oscars, I would not have spun out of control. I want to sing "Blame Canada" from a K hole.
But they don't want to hear about it.
No, they don't want to hear about it. Let me tell you, 'cause Will and Grace aren't doing K.
No, they're sneaking into the Joni Mitchell concert.
They don't even suck cock.
Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, a bowl of onion dip and two pieces of celery. What would Buddy Cole do?
Make a sandwich. But I don't know if he would actually eat it. I think he'd set it aside. Just to look at.
There's been a lot of press lately on the return of comedy. Is comedy making a comeback?
I'm hoping that INTELLIGENT comedy is going to make a comeback. I mean, I personally don't like at all the direction of American comedy. I find it vulgar, and I don't mean vulgar like I'm an old lady sipping tea, although I am sipping a cup of tea, and I am an old lady, and I do have my four cats with me on the road and my crocheted pillows. But I really don't like all of the gross stuff. Like "There's Something About Mary," the cheap stuff. I mean, as a writer and a comic, I want the laughs to come from my writing and my characterization. Not from a prosthetic sack caught in a zipper. I like "South Park" a lot, though.
Do you think Comedy Central has saved comedy?
In a way. They've saved comedy and never given us any money for it.
Not fond of the Comedy Central?
You know, I'm glad that they've kept our profile up, and they've given us a whole new generation. I wish that they didn't monkey with our scenes and censor it. I just find the American standards childish. Also I don't like things being censored to put in more commercials. And a network that gives out millions to "South Park" and can't afford to give us anything -- yeah, it pisses me off. Although, they've been very supportive on this tour. They know that I've always had this problem with that, and I just don't like people touching our material.
I think that, in a sense, you guys have become sort of the cult-hero comics for the American smart person.
I think certainly us and The Onion. We live in a world where Adam Sandler is considered a comedy genius and makes $20 million a picture.
We also live in a world where you can go in somebody funny's house, and they have every episode of "Kids in the Hall" taped.
That's pretty cool. We're very much what `Monty` Python was before, and the interesting thing about this -- I wouldn't call it a reunion, but it's the same thing. Python went off the air, and four years later they broke in America. The broke in Canada and England earlier, of course, but ...
Is it different now?
The standards have changed so much in the past five years. People are so much more ready for us and so much less uptight -- even less homophobic. Because even with the fact that they're all straight, we all have homophobia leveled at us -- because of the drag.
In a sense, comedy has always been powered by gender challenges. In middle America, that kind of stuff doesn't seem to crossover as easily. How is the tour playing in Oklahoma?
Oh, great. I mean the biggest, wildest, craziest show was Dallas. There's always cool people everywhere you go. Our audiences are very straight now, because now guys can laugh at us and not have their friend say, "What're you laughing at him for?" When we first started it was very much that way. I mean, a lot of men would never say they loved Kids in the Hall, because people would say, "Oh, he must be a fag."
And now men can sleep with men and not be gay.
You're right. That's true, isn't it? At the same time, no guy wants to be a called a fag. Look at "American Beauty": `Writer` Alan Ball didn't kiss his boyfriend. Kevin Spacey thanked his lovely date. No one wants to be -- no gay man wants to read "gay." Really, the real prejudice is against being entered or sodomized, which is very Latin. Effeminacy is what people loathe. A masculine-identified gay man is a much different creature than a feminine gay man. All those men, the circuit queens, they're still just queens with muscles. They still carry their books hugging their chests.
They're still quoting "Absolutely Fabulous."
Yeah, it's just ridiculous. I think the whole über-masculinization of gay culture is absolutely bogus. It's just bullshit. Gay men are less masculine ... END OF STORY. And I don't care what that sounds like, that's the fucking truth. We're the bridge between X and Y.
And why is that wrong?
Nothing's wrong with it. We've been around forever. We are the shamans and the spiritualists and the artists. Every culture has been driven by homosexual men, and yet people have this collective madness where we look at all these celebrities and go, "Oh, no." I mean, every drama club in every high school is filled with gay men, and yet somehow people assume that Hollywood, which is just a giant drama club, isn't. It's a collective form of mass delusion.
The other option, then is to become the token.
You know what? I love being a token. Honestly, I'd rather be in the real world than a fake gay world. Who wants to live in a world being judged by gay men all the time? What we've done to the queen, the role of the queen and the effeminate man is just terrible. The whole idea of Buddy Cole being considered a terrible stereotype and a terrible throwback is, I think, just tragic. I mean, most gay men are more Buddy than Sly. I mean, I'm sorry.
We marginalize the cerebral queen.
Mainstream gay culture has walked away from cerebral pursuits. It's dumb. The intelligent homosexual is like the intellectual black. It's surreal. It's like being straight. And if you're a black guy who likes academics, you're white. I mean, that is nonsense. That just hurts people. What is real? I'm sorry, real is who you are! I got so consumed with hatred of the leadership, and so bitter. And also, I'm tired of reading stupid articles written by second-class journalists.
What would you like the cultural importance of Kids in the Hall to be 20 years from now?
I actually think one of the main things that we did -- that was completely ignored and not even noticed -- was that we brought gay men and straight men together. That's what a lot of it is. They `the rest of the cast` are all straight guys. I mean, we took a great journey together; I'm not there for any reason except that I'm as good as they are and as funny. I compete at the same level. I like to live in the real world, and I think Kids in the Hall really helped do that.
Also I think that we sowed a lot of seeds in comedy everywhere that have been reaped by many people -- none of them us. But that's the way it is. We thought we were going to be Nirvana, but really, we were Sonic Youth.
What makes Dave Foley such a believable woman?
Very little facial hair, wide hips and small shoulders. Oh, and a pussy!
Foot size, hand size or nose size?
Big, big, big. Everything is outsized on me ... and that's all I'm going to say. I really should be talking about my cock. Then I'd probably get a lot more press. I'd probably be on the cover of the Advocate. `In big gay flourish` "What, he has a big dick? No one told us that!"
What makes you laugh?
I think pomposity and self-delusion. I find self-delusion hilarious. People believing something so insane. Passion about delusion. A beautiful line that can be read on so many levels.
I don't see any of our characters really as being mocked. We're not mocking them. There's a love for all the characters. They have reasons to be. They have an internal logic to how they behave, and that's beautiful. People's internal logic is so hilarious, because everybody's narratives are so different. Human behavior is the funniest thing.