0.3°C Light Snow 
TORONTO - Ladies undergarments, a massive fat suit and a leather codpiece will mark the long-awaited return of the Kids in the Hall to series television.
It would seem not much has changed for the beloved comedy troupe, who gleefully indulge their penchant for oddball weirdos - and straight-up female impersonations - in their upcoming CBC-TV miniseries, "Death Comes to Town."
Group member Bruce McCulloch says the dark comedy sprang from a movie idea that emerged on the Kids' last tour, and grew into a bizarre narrative that combined a murder-mystery plot with their trademark, off-the-wall characters.
"I play a 600-pound, shamed hockey player who lives on the outskirts of town and his name is Ricky and my only friend is named Marnie, who is a pizza delivery lady with Alzheimer's - an old woman played by Kevin McDonald," explains McCulloch.
"Scott (Thompson) plays the town coroner, Dusty, who's sort of always been in love with the mayor, who is instrumental in the story. And of course, Dave Foley plays his, sort of, boozing wife and drives around town smashing up her car and driving drunk for fun."
The mayhem is set in the fictional Ontario town of Shuckton, population 27, 063. Mark McKinney plays "Death," a caped, codpiece-wearing rocker who one day arrives by bus and embarks on a deadly spree.
"It's obviously something we hadn't done," McCulloch says of the premise.
"We didn't want to do a sketch show again, we wanted to do something (different) and I loved, in terms of the rendering of it, that we had (a) narrative to hang weird jokes and crazy things on."
The Kids' long-awaited return to series television was revealed Tuesday as the centrepiece of CBC-TV's winter lineup.
Also coming January are the Newfoundland-based detective drama, "The Republic of Doyle," and the family comedy, "18 to Life."
Movies will include the two-part biopic of loudmouth hockey announcer Don Cherry, called "Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story," due in March.
The Kids' eight-part comedy is the first show from the troupe since their self-titled sketch series went off the air on CBC in 1994. Featuring such iconic characters as McCulloch's Cabbage Head and McKinney's Chicken Lady, the show ran on CBC from 1988 to 1994, and on two U.S. networks until 1995.
Since then, each member has pursued independent projects in Canada and the United States, with McKinney finding recent critical success as showrunner of the Citytv comedy, "Less Than Kind," and McCulloch scoring a shortlived sitcom deal with ABC for the 2007 series "Carpoolers."
McCulloch holds the production reins on "Death Comes to Town," with McKinney crediting the group's collective "advance in our maturity" to allowing McCulloch to map out a large part of the initial development.
"Fifteen years ago that would have turned into a knockdown-dragout hissy fest," McKinney says dryly.
McCulloch admits that switching gears after spending so much time behind the camera took some effort.
"I only perform with the Kids in the Hall so that's a little odd," says the comic, still baby-faced at 48.
"The other part of it - the writing and the putting together - I think we've all gotten smarter with our knowledge of TV and the camera and all that storytelling, but in terms of performance, I'm still the weird little guy who moves too much."
"Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town" debuts Jan. 12.
