Mark McKinney not just another Kid in the hall

Mark McKinney is laughing at me.

I've been talking to him now for about three minutes, and he doesn't see enough of a direction to the interview.

"Where are you going with this?" he asks. "What's your angle, paper-boy?"

The name sounds like a character McKinney would have created for "The Kids in the Hall," the cult Canadian comedy show he starred in from 1989 to 1994. On the show, McKinney portrayed such infamous characters as "Darrill, the Excellent Guy," "Chicken Lady" and probably most memorable, the misanthropic "Head Crusher," who would gaze at people in the distance and pretend to squeeze their heads between his thumb and forefinger, cackling "I'm crushing your head!"

But McKinney has since moved on to other pastures, becoming a regular cast member on "Saturday Night Live" and working with "Kids" cast-mates Scott Thompson, David Foley, Kevin McDonald and Bruce McCulloch on their first feature film, released today, titled Kids in the Hall BRAIN CANDY.

"People always ask us why we stopped doing the show, why did we break up," McKinney says. "But we never broke up -- we stopped doing the show in order to do the movie."

McKinney continued, explaining that due to the interminably slow pace at which Hollywood works, each Kid picked up a side project to keep busy, which led the general public to believe they had split up. McKinney joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live," Foley started work on "News Radio," Scott Thompson appeared on "The Larry Sanders Show," McDonald starred in National Lampoon's Senior Trip and McCulloch released an album Shame-Based Man.

However, McKinney says he was working with the other Kids on the film all the while.

"The script came quick on the heels of the show," he says. "We wrote for two weeks straight -- draft after draft after draft. When it finally came time to film, it was really tight, we each had a couple of things going on."

McKinney adds that the only real problem was with Foley, whose commitment to "News Radio" prevented him from being present during the entire shooting schedule. But the magic of Hollywood production techniques allowed them to work around the problem.

"We just front-loaded the film and had him shoot his scenes early on," he says.

BRAIN CANDY deals with a mood-altering prescription drug craze that sweeps the nation and changes society, and how the scientist who created it has to deal with a manipulative pharmaceutical corporation.

Despite the seemingly heavy subject matter, McKinney assures me that the film contains plenty of laughs and the group's trademark zaniness.

"It all worked out, we made a really funny movie," he says. "I'm really pleased with it."

Another experience McKinney is enjoying is his time on SNL, which he said isn't nearly as bad as many people seem to think it is.

"To my ears, the response has been pretty positive," he says. "There was an article in Time which received the new cast very well. I don't really pay attention to the press too much, but I understand the reviews have been getting more favorable."

McKinney says he chose to work on SNL because he'd be able to continue creating new characters and eccentric parts for himself to play. But he warns that overdoing characters such as the popular "Head Crusher" can lead to burnout.

"It's sort of weird -- you get on a hot streak with a character, and then when it's over, it's over," he says.

And as for the future of "The Kids in the Hall," McKinney says they'd have to see how the film does before deciding what to do next. And for himself, he says all he wants is rest.

"I'm just going to go and sit somewhere," he says. "I haven't had a break in almost a year and a half."