'Kids' will be more absurd

Published: Friday, July 6, 2007 12:06 a.m. MDT
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Apparently sexy deer and rapping Hitlers aren't odd enough material for the sketch-comedy group The Whitest Kids U' Know.

When their half-hour comedy show returns for a second season in the fall, the material will be "more absurdist," says Kids founding member Trevor Moore.

"In our first season, I noticed a lot of our sketches were about unhappy families," says Moore. "We didn't even notice it until the season was done." (Repeats from the first season are currently airing on Fuse.)

Earlier this spring, the Manhattan-based sketch-comedy group burst onto screens with its series, which airs on the little-seen Fuse cable channel, an upstart rival to MTV.

The five-man group's sketches, which can be sampled on YouTube and other Internet sites, recall the off-the-wall humor of Kids in the Hall and Monty Python, an influence for Moore, 27.

The group's material is filled with silly physical humor, and one notable sketch has the Kids playing hunters who come across a flirty deer in the woods. In another, Moore is seen as Hitler, rapping in a faux music video.

Moore calls the Kids' comedy "issue-based" but not "current-events-based."

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The Whitest Kids U' Know have their own theater space, where sketches are performed weekly. The guys caught the eye of TV executives after winning the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2006.

"Things started blowing up from there," Moore says.

They shot a series pilot using their own video cameras in their apartments. The production values may have been questionable, but the result was good enough to raise awareness.

Comedy Central showed some interest in developing their TV series, but the Whitest Kids went with Fuse, despite its lower profile.

"Fuse said we could have complete creative control," Moore says.

The first season of 10 episodes of "The Whitest Kids U' Know" wrapped in May, and the show has emerged as one of Fuse's first breakout hits. The second season is scheduled to begin in the fall.

Moore says creative control is important to the Kids' humor.

"On a lot of networks like MTV, you can't use (skits featuring) guns. You can't reference drug use," he says. "They have odd rules, which you would not think they would have."

The first season's material was culled from the group's stage act. The second will be written specifically for TV.

"It's a little bit more trippy," Moore said.

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