Bruce McCulloch’s best Kids in the Hall characters, ranked

While hanging out at a punk venue in 1980s Calgary, Canadian comedian Bruce McCulloch met the similarly witty Dave Foley. Together, they hooked up with Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson to create the oddball Canadian comedy series Kids in the Hall. The show was an instant classic, launching McCulloch’s career. He went on to guest-star in a handful of shows, including Gilmore Girls and Arrested Development, and directed episodes of Trailer Park Boys and Schitt’s Creek.

This month, he’s premiering a new one-man show, Dark Purple Slice, featuring his signature gallows humour but with a tender twist. In honour of his March 6 stop at the Royal Theatre, we’ve revisited our favourite McCulloch Kids in the Hall characters—here’s hoping he reprises some of them in the show.

5. Tammy

McCulloch’s hot ’90s pop star, Tammy, is introduced by her campy talent manager, played by Scott Thompson. She fumbles her way through a gruelling press conference, riffing on her love life, the Gulf War and her radical view that makeup is a woman’s decision in which the state should have no say. After a member of the press realizes that her voice sounds strange, it’s revealed that Tammy is being controlled by her manager via a Wizard of Oz–style contraption.

4. Work Pig Inspired by McCulloch’s own go-getter attitude on set—and a nickname other cast members had for him—Work Pig is a mustachioed man with salt-and-pepper hair who feeds on efficiency and black coffee, which he drinks straight from the pot. After his work ethic pushes him over the edge and into cardiac arrest, he has a Temple of Doom moment in which he pulls his still-beating heart from his chest, douses it in coffee and demands that it “get back to work!”

Related: Mike Myers and Dave Foley paid a visit to the Rivoli

3. Cabbage Head In this bit, McCulloch plays a cynical man with a cabbage on his head who blames his romantic woes on everything besides his own sexism. He embarks on a handful of doomed dates, all of which end with drinks splashed on his head. He meets his bitter end at the hands of a cell of radical feminists determined to end his reign of chauvinism. In heaven, he discovers that God also has a cabbage up top—which goes straight to his head.

2. Kathie McCulloch portrays one red-headed half of gossipy secretary duo the Kathies, who get melodramatic over office minutiae. Among their hijinks are a high-stakes debate on the sexuality of a new hire, an adventurous out-of-office trip to a disco and a Dead Poets Society–style show of solidarity from the other office ladies when the Kathies are fired (for snapping when the boss serves decaf in the break room). Kathie is allegedly inspired by McCulloch’s older sister.

Related: “Mark Carney loves a dramatic pause”—Comedian Mark McKinney on poking fun at the prime minister

1. Gavin We all knew a kid like Gavin growing up. He’s a glasses-sporting pre-teen who spends his days sharing facts and asking ridiculous questions like “How much do you think my head weighs?” Among those who get trapped in conversation with Gavin are a butcher, a babysitter—with whom he immediately falls in love—and a pair of door-to-door bible thumpers who are sent running by Gavin’s incessant questions, frank demeanour and drunken father.