Lorne Michaels Tried and Failed to Buy Cars for Every Member of the Kids in the Hall
The internet is full of not-so-flattering stories about Lorne Michaels (I mean, this is the guy who once tried to fire the Muppets, after all), but we’d like to share an objectively nice story about the long-time Saturday Night Live producer for a change.
Obviously, Michaels has produced a lot more than just SNL, his many credits include TV shows like Portlandia, Los Espookys and Up All Night, as well as movies like Baby Mama, Lassie, and — wait, Lorne Michaels produced the Lassie movie? He also refuses to reveal why he made a Lassie movie exactly. That’s weird.
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But one of the most significant non-canine-based titles on Michaels’ resume, at least for comedy fans, is The Kids in the Hall. Famously, Michaels produced the beloved series after “discovering” (but not really) the Canadian troupe in the 1980s. Unfortunately, doing sketch comedy for Canada’s public broadcaster wasn’t exactly the most lucrative gig.
“We didn’t get paid very well,” Bruce McCulloch revealed during an interview with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. So, during the second season of the show, Michaels offered to help the comedians out. According to McCulloch, “Lorne Michaels said, ‘You guys have done very well, you don’t complain. I’m gonna buy you guys cars.’”
While the Kids in the Hall members first assumed that he was “joking,” Michaels eventually made good on his Oprah Winfrey-like promise and gave each one of them the funds to purchase a brand new automobile — which most of them didn’t actually do.
McCulloch now admits that he spent the money kickstarting his fine art collection by buying “a big Tom Hopkins painting” that cost “8 or 9000 dollars.” The rest of the Kids followed suit. “Of course, no one in the troupe got cars,” McCulloch explained. “They all took the money — except Kevin McDonald got a car (because) he thought he was supposed to.”
Although, as McCulloch noted, “Kevin McDonald didn’t drive. And he lost (the car) later in a divorce. So I guess that’s why he got the car.”
Despite the fact that he tried (but ultimately failed) in his efforts to secure transportation for the Kids in the Hall, the group essentially made Michaels the villain of their first (and only) feature film Brain Candy. Mark McKinney’s villainous pharma exec Don was an unsubtle Michaels impression, predating Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil by a year.
According to the Kids in the Hall, this comedic dig wasn’t intended to be malicious, it was included because “Mark did a good Lorne Michaels.” And also they clearly derived a certain pleasure from poking fun at their “boss.”
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