Scott Thompson
In one of the best Kids In The Hall sketches, and one of the funniest five minutes ever in The History Of Television, Scott Thompson (playing the drunk, smug, impotent artist Manny Coon) professes to never having eaten a piece of fresh fruit until he was 21. And it was a lime.
But Many Coon’s aggressively self-pitying sob story stands wonderfully at odds with that of Thompson, who is a lifelong celebrator of fresh fruit. (He was also presumably never traded to the cleaning lady for a stamp, and was not raised in an old freezer on the edge of town, though we never asked.) With Fruit Blog, one of the oddest elements of the whole blogosphere, Thompson tears through a mound of fresh-ish fruit in front of a web camera while holed up in a tiny flophouse room with a bunch of sycophants and hangers-on (including former Kids writer and betoweled mascot, Paul Bellini). It’s just one of the irons Thompson’s driven into the fire these days, along with his recent comic book, and his current tour with fellow Kid In The Hall Kevin McDonald, which comes to Lower Ossington Theatre Nov. 10 as part of the 2011 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.
We spoke with Scott over the phone from Chicago, where he was recovering from a night of sketching and carousing, about the new tour, his and McDonald’s Martin/Lewis dynamic, and how to ruin a party by bringing stinky fruit.
The A.V. Club: How are you? It sounds like you just woke up.
Scott Thompson: No, it’s okay. We were up late last night. And we were up at 5 o’ clock this morning doing interviews for television until like 11. And Dave Foley dropped in last night.
AVC: Was that in Chicago?
ST: Yeah, and he was doing stand-up at another club. It was a complete coincidence. So he opened for us, and then he joined us onstage at the end. We did a two-hour show.
AVC: So it was “Three Kids, One Hall”?
ST: Yeah, and the audience got a real treat. It was a wild night. We’ve been really good on this tour. But we’re pretty much at the end, so we’re starting to let our discipline relax a little.
AVC: And you’re finally coming back to Toronto, where the tour launched. Are all the kinks worked out? Were there kinks?
ST: Oh yeah, there were a lot of kinks. Now it’s just kinky. It’s a kinky, dirty, filthy show. And it was filthy last night. It was great. This whole tour’s been great.
AVC: It’s being promoted as a stand-up show. Is it just you and Kevin doing stand-up sets? It sounds like you do stuff onstage together as well.
ST: Yes, we do two sets together. We do two separate stand-up sets, and then in the middle of his set, I start harassing him from the audience. Then he sings this song about being a passive-aggressive asshole, and I forgive him, and we do this whole ridiculous show.
AVC: How did you and Kevin come to connect for this? Because when you look back at the history of Kids In The Hall, it always seemed to be Dave and Kevin, Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney, and then you as kind of the odd man out.
ST: Well, those are the two original teams. Mark and Bruce are from the Calgary side, and Kevin and Dave are from the Toronto side. And I was the bridge between them. And the truth is, behind the scenes, Kevin and I were always a team. We never really had a big hit or anything, in our sketches together, but we always had a great camaraderie. We’re both very silly. So in the show it’s great, because we don’t do sketches, so it’s just basically our relationship. Maybe it’s wrong for me to say, but it seems to really be working.
AVC: So there’s no Danny Husk Vs. King Of Empty Promises, or something like that?
ST: No, no. None of that. No monologues. No sketches. Nothing from the show. Everything’s brand-new. If you’re a hardcore Kids fan, you will be disappointed.
AVC: What about for hardcore Scott and Kevin fans?
ST: They’ll love it. And even the people who come expecting sketches and Buddy and that, they love it. It’s not just a cash-grab or anything. It’s a real show. And it’s creatively very fulfilling.
AVC: So you guys just go up there and riff off each other? Is anything rehearsed?
ST: Well, our stand-up sets are rehearsed. We know what we’re doing. I vary every night. I’m building material, because eventually I’d like to go out on my own on a stand-up tour. I’m trying to build and hour or an hour and a half. And the stuff that we do together, we know what we have to get to, but we change it every night. But we get to the same conclusions.
AVC: Did you guys start kicking this around when you were making Death Comes To Town—
ST: Oh, no, no, no. We put the whole show together the day before the tour. Really. It started in August. It was the hottest day of the year. It was like—I don’t know, shockingly hot. You remember that day. Kevin flew from Winnipeg, and my building had a blackout. It was like 43 C in my apartment, and Kevin came over, and we had a big fight. And we made up the whole show based on that fight. Then we got a call from the Flying Beaver, this little cabaret, and were asked if we could fill in. And we had just put it together. Then a couple days later we did Comedy Bar. Then we were on tour.
But we get along really well. We have great chemistry. That’s the No. 1 thing. I watch a lot of video of Dean Martin and Martin Lewis, and Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. But the No. 1 was Dean and Jerry. They really adored each other, and that came across. So for me, that was the template.
AVC: So would that make you the Dean Martin?
ST: Well, see, that’s the thing. It’s more Lewis and Lewis. It’s two Jerry Lewises. I’m a little more, well, better looking! [Laughs.] But I’m hardly suave. I’m not really cool, or dashing, or any of those things. It was more the fact that when Dean and Jerry look at each other, you can tell there’s a romance. Or a bromance. If comedy duos don’t like each other, it just won’t work.
AVC: Is it harder then, when you have to do the sort of thing you mentioned, where you attack each other and give each other shit?
ST: Oh yeah. It gets really nasty. I attack Kevin for being passive-aggressive and being a coward. And he attacks me for playing the “cancer card” too much. He does a lot of cancer jokes. It’s mean. But I attack his relationship.
AVC: Cancer jokes almost seem over the line. But maybe when you’re good enough friends with someone…
ST: Well, we’ve always been like that. We never had a line we can’t cross. As long as you have the proper provisions, you can cross any line.
AVC: Touring must be fun for you, because of your fruit blog—
ST: Oh my god! You won’t believe what happened this morning!
AVC: What?
ST: We were on WGN, which is a big network all over the States. And the guy was a huge Fruit Blog fan! And he showed it on TV. I never expected Fruit Blog to even be seen by anyone. So I thought, “Oh my God, Fruit Blog is going to go viral! I can’t wait!”
AVC: Do you get a good sampling of local fruit and produce when you’re touring all over the U.S.?
ST: Well, yesterday we met this botanist who was in the audience, and who was obsessed with us. She was a Fruit Blog fan. She was giving me tons of information on how to grow persimmons, and mangoes, and a whole big lecture on fruit. She was obsessed with fruit as well. But I always try to sample different fruit at different cities. Wow, I’m thrilled that you like Fruit Blog!
AVC: Yeah, who doesn’t love fresh fruit?
ST: But the whole thing with Fruit Blog is very demented. We have maybe 20 more videos. I try to release one every few weeks. I just got all my funny friends, and told them to pretend they were cracked out, and I rented a room at the Filmore Hotel, which is like this strip-club hotel. I set my computer up in the corner and bought $100 worth of fruit. I told them to pretend there was a big mound of cocaine in the bathroom and that they all had to keep feeding my delusion about fruit, like I was some kind of superstar. Then I kept them there for eight hours.
AVC: You should use real cocaine next time, to make it even more interesting.
ST: Oh, absolutely. We did this, like, last fall, and I banked them all, but then I remember seeing that footage of Charlie Sheen and his friends later and thought, “Oh my god, it’s like the Charlie Sheen thing!” It’s kind of cool. When I got better, I wasn’t worried about if anything was commercially viable. If it made me laugh, I was going to do it.
AVC: You must dread the winter. It’s almost impossible to get good fruit during the winter. Locally, at least.
ST: It’s terrible. Honestly, the fruit we had when we shot the Fruit Blog videos was terrible. But that kind of makes it funnier. But it was terrible. I first got into fruit when I was a teenager, when my life was changing in every way. The first time I had a mango, at like 18, I was like, “Where has this been my whole life?”
AVC: Did you get down to Little India, the Indian Bazaar there, when the Alphonso mangoes were in season? Or were you on tour?
ST: No! You’re hilarious! The Alphonso mangoes! No, I wasn’t around. I’m a big fan of the Philippine mango: the yellow mango. That’s my favourite. And I like the Haitian mango, the big red one. But I’m not that familiar with the Alphonso mangoes. Tell me all about it.
AVC: It’s just one of those super-rare things, where they’re ripe for like a month in India, so when you factor in shipping it, they’re only available here for about two weeks. They’re maybe a bit too much work, because they’re pretty tiny, but when you get them open, they’re so, so sweet. They’re a very bright orange.
ST: You know what my new fruit obsession is?
AVC: What’s that?
ST: Cactus pear. They’re delicious.
AVC: Is it true you once ruined a dinner party at Kevin’s house by bringing a durian fruit?
ST: Yes, I did! [Laughs.] You know fruit! I ruined a party years ago. It was a barbecue, and I brought a durian fruit, and ate it, and I cleared the place.
AVC: Well, they don’t smell great.
ST: Oh, they’re terrible! And I don’t even think they taste that great.
AVC: Well, they seem to exist almost as a dare among people who like fruit. Like you have to eat a durian fruit and live to tell the tale. Then lie and say that you liked the taste.
ST: Yeah, it’s kind of like a weird custard thing. What I’ve been looking for is jackfruit. I’m a big fan of jackfruit, but they’re impossible to find. And in Chinatown, you can find a lot of stuff, but it’s really rare to get it fresh. It’s really difficult to find a good one.
AVC: When they’re in season, the mangoes in Chinatown are okay. The Mexican ones at least. But you can’t get a good orange to save your life.
ST: No, you can’t. The orange is such an iffy proposition. One in 10 are good. I’ve pretty much given up on the orange. I really have. I just don’t even bother. It’s just either sour, or woody, or the skin’s too thick. It’s very nice when you come across the perfect orange, because it’s really a beautiful experience. But the stakes are too high.
AVC: Yeah, peaches have a similar ratio. Like maybe one box of peaches per season is worthwhile. But it’s just impossible to tell, eyeballing them, if they’re going to be too mealy, or not ripe enough.
ST: Oh, I know. And the pear—like, I love a nice pear—but it’s such a delicate thing. Like, if you keep it one day too long, it’s gone. It bruises so easily. Yesterday, this botanist and I got into a discussion about the Chinese pear. And I told her, unequivocally, that I don’t even consider it a pear.
AVC: They’re good to maybe put in salads, but that’s about it.
ST: And they’re shaped like an apple! And if it’s shaped like an apple, how can it be a pear? The pear gives us the phrase “pear-shaped.” So if it’s shaped like an apple, it’s disturbing. Are you a lychee fan?
AVC: Not really. They’re too gelatin-y, but lychee smoothies are okay.
ST: It’s that weird skin on the inside I don’t really like. I love the idea of a lychee.
AVC: What do you mean, “the idea” of it?
ST: Well, it’s so exotic and alien-looking. It’s like I’m in Terra Nova, or I’ve travelled back in time to the Jurassic era. When I travelled to Brazil years ago, and I went to the Amazon, I was just dazzled by the proliferation of fruit. I was of the impression that there was North American fruit, and then papayas and mangoes and those things. But I had not idea that there were literally hundreds and hundreds of fruits that nobody had ever heard of. I was blown away. Like the star apple: My God, what an incredible experience.
AVC: Apparently Bill Pullman, the actor, is a big fruit guy. He’s really into fruit.
ST: Really?
AVC: I heard that. Next time you’re in L.A., or wherever Bill Pullman lives, you should track him down and get him on Fruit Blog.
ST: I should! Once I get rid of these videos, I’m going to make a whole bunch of episodes. It’s just fun. It’s a hobby.
