The Kids In The Hall (the name is a reference to Jack Benny) formed in 1984 and got their start doing sketch comedy on Monday nights at The Rivoli, a small live music venue on Queen St. West in Toronto. It was here that they were 'discovered' by Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame in 1988. He got them to produce a pilot episode for a television series. This in turn lead to five seasons of subversive, and at times, surreal comedy that has garnered them a rather substantial cult following first in Canada, and then (after HBO picked up the rights) in the United States as well. The series ran from 1988 until 1994 when they called it quits and basically moved in different directions (save for the occasional reunion tour and the film that they made in 1996, Kids In The Hall – Brain Candy).

Courtesy of those 'saviors of pop culture' over at A&E, the complete first season (that is, complete if you don't count the pilot episode) is now on DVD, complete and uncut, for the fist time and with a few interesting extra features to boot. Twenty episodes, when it's all said and done, comprise the first season. While it's hardly the definitive choice for a newbie looking to get into their off the wall humor, there is still plenty of great material here. The episode/sketch list is as follows:

Episode 1: Call Girls, The Eradicator, Ballet, Crushing Your Head Part 2, Cause of Cancer, Pear, Kathy and the Blues Guy, Crushing Your Head Part 3.

Episode 2: Thirty Helens 1, Sketch Comedy, Thirty Helens 2, Cabbage Head, Restaurant, Tractor, Sarcastic Guy, Buddy's Better, Thirty Helen's 3, Women.

Episode 3: Gunslinger II, Gorilla, Hey Man, Citizen Kane, Contact Lenses, Hey Man 2, Salty Ham, Hey Man 3.

Episode 4: Déjà vu, Asshole, The Daves I know, Menstruation, House Rules, The Dinner, Sick of the Swiss, Country Doctor.

Episode 5: Indian Drum, Geralds, Crushing Disco 1, Good Grampa, Explore Scott, Are Extraterrestrials Dull?, Elvis, Crushing Disco 2.

Episode 6: Thirty Helens 1, Bored Robbers, Running Faggot, Thirty Helens 2, Flogging, The Trucker, Can I Keep Him?

Episode 7: Hotel La Rut, Plummet, Hotel La Rut 2, First Poem, Fletcher Christian, Hotel La Rut 3, Joy Makers.

Episode 8: Ping Pong, The Vacation, Ping Pong 2, Chain Gang, The Banker Doesn't Like Us, Dinosaurs, Ping Pong 3, Tony Comes to Dinner, The Banker Doesn't Like Us 2.

Episode 9: A Place to Die, Secretaries, A Place to Die 2, Preacher, Weston, A Place to Die 3, Teddy Bears' Picnic.

Episode 10: Hoopla, McGuillicutty and Green, Wake Up!, MacIntyre Name, One Step at a Time, Nobody Likes Us, McGuillicutty and Kurosawa, Three for the Moon.

Episode 11: Night of the Living Dead, Can Never Go Home, Thirty Helens Coleslaw, Under Control, Gunslinger 1, Star-Crossed Lovers, Thirty Helens Hawaii, Barbershop.

Episode 12: Turning Over, Mood Swing, Billy Dreamer 1, Folk Music, Who's Gay in Hollywood?, Billy Dreamer 2, Skoora!

Episode 13: Signs of Loneliness, Networking, Lopez 1, Fat Hitch-Hiker, Lopez 2, No Regrets, The Lamp, Lopez 3, Indian Woman, Lopez 4.

Episode 14: Editors Intro, Editors (Film), Break Up, I Lied, Dull Death, I'm a Cat, My Routine, Schoolroom, Editors Finale.

Episode 15: Death Row, White Guy, Crazy Love, Buddy's Island, Captain Alan, Mechanic, Baby.

Episode 16: The Floater, Is He?, Thirty Helens: Pens, Manny Coon, Thirty Helens: Minds, Bass Player, Compensation, Thirty Helens: Disagree; Power of My Cock.

Episode 17: Boo!, Dracula, The Middle, Crushing Girlfriend, Mass Murderer, B&K, Beautiful Women.

Episode 18: Love Me, Stinky Pink, Premise Beach, Crouton, Olympics, Premise Beach 2, Shitty Soup, She's Gone.

Episode 19: Hey Baby, Island Boys, Can't Kill Rock, Tarantula, Cat's Away, Mutilated, Car Ride, OWWW.

Episode 20: Fat Man, How We Met, Thirty Helens: Photos, Bank People, Double Date, Buddy is Canadian, Buddy Holly, Thirty Helens: Helens, Dr. Seuss Bible.

The later episodes in the season are better than the earlier entries and it is pretty obvious that they're trying to find their stride in a few of these shows. Some of the early skits work beautifully, some fall flat on their faces. The later episodes though are where they really start to pick up. The humor gets weirder and slightly more explicit as the episodes progress and it really works in their favor.

So while it's not a perfect collection of their TV genesis, it's still a required purchase for the true Kids In The Hall fan. Many of the characters we'd get to know and love over the next four seasons are introduced for the first time in these episodes, like: Buddy, The Head Crusher, Kathy the secretary, and The Blues Man. Bruce McCulloch would don his mullet wig for the first time in this season, and all of the players find themselves in and out of drag in pretty much every show on this set, something that would become associated with them later on in their history.

Video:

All of this material was shot and composed for a fullframe presentation, and that's exactly what we get. At some points the picture is a tad soft but for the most part it's pretty solid with decent color reproduction and nothing in the way of compression or authoring problems save for some minor edge enhancement that's slightly noticeable in a couple of the sketches.