Mark Douglas Brown McKinney (born June 26, 1959) is a Canadian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the long-running sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. Following the run of their television series (1989 to 1995) and feature film (Brain Candy), he went on to star in Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 1997.
McKinney was born in Ottawa, Canada. Since his father was a diplomat, he did a lot of traveling when he was young. Some of the places he lived while growing up were Trinidad, Paris, Mexico, and Washington, D.C. He also attended Trinity College School, a boarding school in Port Hope, Ontario. For a short while, McKinney was a student at Memorial University in Newfoundland, where he was a political science major.
He started doing comedy with the Loose Moose Theatre Company. There, Mark met Bruce McCulloch. Together they formed a comedy team called, “The Audience.� Eventually, Mark and Bruce moved to Toronto, and met Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald. Dave and Kevin were in the process of forming a comedy troupe. Along with Scott Thompson, who wound up joining after coming to a stage show, and producer Lorne Michaels, the Kids in the Hall (KITH) was formed in 1989.
Notable "Kids" characters played by McKinney include the Chicken Lady, Nina from Joymakers, Gerald the businessman, and Mr. Tyzik, the Headcrusher, an embittered Eastern European who pretends to crush the heads of passersby between his thumb and forefinger.
McKinney is considered by some to be the Kids' most versatile member, adopting countless different voices, accents, and personalities to match each bizarre skit.
Following the end of KITH, Mark joined the cast of another Lorne Michaels sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live.
He has appeared in several films, including the SNL spinoffs Superstar, The Ladies Man (2000 film) and A Night at the Roxbury. McKinney also starred opposite Isabella Rossellini in Guy Maddin's acclaimed tragicomedy The Saddest Music in the World.
McKinney cowrote and starred in the Kids in the Hall movie Brain Candy, in which, among other roles, he spoofed SNL and KITH executive producer Lorne Michaels.
His latest appearances on television have been as a cast member on the CBC comedy Hatching, Matching, and Dispatching, as well as on the hit Canadian comedy Corner Gas, as an American who came to Dog River by accident. From 2003 to 2006, he co-created, wrote and starred in the acclaimed mini-series Slings and Arrows. Currently (as of fall 2006) he is a writer/story editor and recurring guest star on NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
As well, he directed and appeared on the CBC Radio post-apocalyptic comedy Steve, The First and its sequel, Steve, The Second, for his friend Matt Watts.
Mark has two children, Christopher Thomas Russell (born March 4, 1996), and Emma Jane (born 2001). He is married to Marina Gharabegian. He has two siblings, an older sister, Jayne, and a younger brother, Nick, who was a member of the sketch comedy troupe The Vacant Lot and worked for The Awful Truth, The Daily Show and Insomniac with Dave Attell.
