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One of the first monologues Scott Thompson performed forKids in the Hallcentered on his Canadian identity.
The members of CODCO were from Newfoundland, somewhere between the Kentucky of Canada and John Waterss Baltimore.
They shared an hour time slot with the Kids.
Many of the members went on to form the seminal news parody showThis Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Sexton died in 1993 of complications from AIDS.
After his cancer went into remission, Thompson, now 58, started performing stand-up.
His first album,Not a Fan,is out tomorrow.
You watched it, eh?
Yeah, its all up onYouTube.Oh good!
I didnt even realize.
You cant help but notice the extremely Canadian content of it all, and specifically the Newfoundland-iness.
Thats how young Canada is, as a country.
Until that time, they were a separate place.
They were more linked to England and Ireland in many ways than they were to Canada.
They were dragged into confederation; they were the last ones to join.
When I was young, they were considered the laughingstock of the nation.
When I was a kid, there used to be a thing called a Polish joke.
Those were a huge deal with my cousins across the border everything was a Polack joke.
And in Canada, there were Newfie jokes.
Those were terms you wouldnt use now, but thats what we called them back then.
AndNewfiewas a pejorative term: How many Newfies does it take to do this?
They consider themselves a little distinct from the rest of Canada, and you’re free to tell.
They have the most distinctive of the Canadian accents, really only understood by us.
Did you have a hard time understanding it?
No, but it did sound almost Scottish or Irish.Its more Irish.
Thats where most of them came from.
In many ways, CODCO was ethnic.
It doesnt really cross borders.
Its entirely for Canadians.
I dont think theyre known even in Great Britain or Ireland.
In Canada, everyone knows them and the people that came from them.
Like Rick Mercer, who was from that world he was a talk-show host forever.
It was quite a thing, an hour of really scathing satire.
Was there a sense of camaraderie between the two troupes?Absolutely, yes.
We were all rebels.
We were all tilting against different windmills.
Their main obsession was the church.
It was a huge, huge deal.
It was a fascinating turnaround.
But they were obsessed, and scathing in their ridicule of the church.
And they were always in trouble with censors, just like us.
And for me personally, sexuality.
That was my thing.
And, like us, they all cross-dressed.
Constantly, as we did.
That was a really common thing for both of us.
They were so brilliant and had such a big influence on us.
What do you think that CODCO brought to you guys?
What did you learn from them?They went for it.
Their fearlessness really impressed itself upon me.
And their energy, their physical energy.
I find them a very visceral group.
They were very sexual.
Both troupes were very sexual.
Well, we were.
But dysfunctional means you dont get anything done, right?
The key difference between us and them was they were fucking each other, and we werent.
So that was a key thing.
They were more incestuous that way.
They drank a lot more, which is hard to believe.
But Newfoundland is a very hard-drinking part of the country.
Its very much that Irish stereotype.
And at the time they were all pretty hard partiers.
Maybe I shouldnt be going into this.
Theyve been open about that.
Shes a force of nature.
Mary Walsh is a very big influence on me.
Just a fearless warrior.
That was one of her biggest characters, [Marg] Warrior Princess.
Another icon for me was Tommy Sexton.
He was the gay one, and openly gay.
We both had openly gay troupe members, which was unheard of at that time.
He died very early on, very soon afterCODCOfinished.
Before they morphed into22 Minutes,Tommy was dead.
Nobody was talking about [AIDS] then.
Tommy was openly gay, but differently than I was.
It had a huge impact on me.
Partly because he was sick from the beginning.
He didnt have the chance that I had.
He was open, but he didnt have that chance to do it maybe he didnt have the energy.
He had done a show beforeCODCO,The Wonderful Grand Band.
And Tommy and Greg they were partners, writing partners.
No straight man would ever kiss a man on the lips.
That was unheard of in those days.
And then he died, and it was a huge thing.
He never got to fulfill his potential.
I never got to work with him.
So many of my generation were just taken.
It impressed something on me.
There were these two troupes, CODCO and Monty Python.
They both have openly gay members, Graham Chapman in Python.
And they were dead.
It really made me go, Oh, I guess Im next.
Did that thought cross your mind when you got cancer?Yes.
Oh God, yeah.
The gay one goes first?Yeah, I dont get to live to a ripe old age.
The gay one dies young.
Absolutely that crossed my mind.
It did make me go, Ahh fuck!
Why cant gay men live long lives?
I know that sounds dramatic, but thats how I felt.
And when Tommy died, I just assumed.
So why hesitate to tell the truth?
What do I have to lose?
If I get through this, itll be a miracle.
And if I dont get through this, at least Ill have done the right thing.
Its hard for me to even appreciate it.
I dont know if Ill ever be able to let go.
I dont think so.
I dont know if thats possible, if Ill ever be able to relax.
I dont think Ill ever be able to believe that these changes are permanent.
You talk about your cancer in your new stand-up album.I do like 15 minutes on it.
Its your first album.
Why now?Its a challenge.
Its always been this thing that I was afraid of.
I consider [stand-up] the high-water mark of comedy for a solo performer.
Youre the performer, youre the writer, youre the producer.
Youre in charge, and you cant blame anyone.
If you get it wrong, its your fault.
And if you get it right, its you.
Id had people pushing me to do it before.
I would dabble in it, but I would never have considered myself a stand-up.
I respected the form too much.
To really do stand-up, you have to devote years of your life to it.
So thats what I did.
When I got better in 2010, I was back in Canada.
I had to go home for the health care.
When Im doing Buddy for 60 to 70 minutes, I have to stay in character.
I have to ensure that every reaction, every gesture is in character.
When youre yourself, you dont have to worry about that.
In some ways, thats what makes it more difficult.
In some ways its easier to hide behind a character.
With stand-up, theres nowhere to hide.
In the 90s, you couldnt have done that.
There were openly gay stand-up comics, but they never had much success.
They basically worked in this ghetto, the gay circuit.
Suddenly its not right to be openly homophobic.
But I dont feel that anymore.
I dont have to do that.
And if people are hostile, I dont really care.
Before, Buddy really was my stand-up.
You couldnt be a stand-up and talk about what I do.
The ugliness was so real.
You just cant imagine what it was like in the clubs then.
It was a straight white male world, and everybody else just had to live by those rules.
There was barely a place for women.
There was no place for gay people.
Closeted lesbians, there were tons of them, but gay males?
Gay males were like the bottom of the barrel.
Every comic did a gay bit, every comic had a gay voice.
They made fun of gay men.
Eddie Murphy made his career off it.Eddie Murphy got a Mark Twain Award for saying faggot.
And thats only a couple years ago.
Speaking of there not being a place for women or gay men,CODCOhad both.
TheBaroness Von Sketchwomen, they do it.
Cross-dressing now, its also very different in the States.
Its not necessarily considered gay, whereas here, its a more alpha nation.
Its more alpha male is how I see it, and a more strict gender binary.
Its a more homophobic nation, deep down, because its a more male nation.
I think its also the ethnicity.
I think they were just too damn ethnically Canadian.
Americans just dont like to have Canadians be a distinct ethnic group.
They dont like it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
