Mark McKinney
McKinney in 2004
Born	Mark Douglas Brown McKinney (1959-06-26)June 26, 1959 (age 66) Ottawa,Ontario, Canada
Education	Memorial University
Occupations	Actor comedian
Years active	1985–present
Spouse	Marina Gharabegian ​ ​ (m. 1995; div. 2017)​
Children	2

Mark Douglas Brown McKinney (born June 26, 1959) is a Canadian actor and comedian. He is best known as a member of the sketch comedy troupeThe Kids in the Hall, which includes starring in the 1989 to 1995 TV seriesThe Kids in the Hall and 1996 feature filmBrain Candy. He was a writer onSaturday Night Live from 1985 to 1986, and returned as a cast member from 1995 to 1997; and from 2003 to 2006, he co-created, wrote and starred in the seriesSlings & Arrows. He also appeared as Tom inFXX'sMan Seeking Woman. From 2015 to 2021, he appeared as store manager Glenn Sturgis onNBC'sSuperstore.^[1]

McKinney was born on June 26, 1959, in Ottawa, Ontario, to Chloe, an architectural writer, and Russell McKinney, adiplomat.^[2][3] Because of his father's career, he did a lot of travelling when he was young. Some of the places he lived while growing up wereTrinidad,Paris,Mexico, andWashington, D.C. He also attendedTrinity College School, a boarding school inPort Hope, Ontario. For a short while, McKinney was a student atMemorial University of Newfoundland, where he was a political science major.

He started performing comedy with the Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary, Alberta. There, McKinney metBruce McCulloch. Together they formed a comedy team called "The Audience." Eventually, McKinney and McCulloch moved to Toronto, and metDave Foley andKevin McDonald, who were in the process of forming a comedy troupe. Along withScott Thompson, who joined after coming to a stage show,The Kids in the Hall was formed in 1985.

After the Kids in the Hall caught the attention ofSaturday Night Live producerLorne Michaels, Michaels offered McKinney and McCulloch places on the writing staff. They accepted the offer, joining the SNL writing staff for a single season, the infamous season 11, from 1985-1986, after which SNL was nearly cancelled. Sketches written by McKinney in season 11 include El Spectaculare De Marika (episode 1), Fishermen (episode 5), and One Shoe Emma (episode 14), as well as commercial parodies Drums, Drums, Drums (episode 2), Ad Council (episode 4), and Brim Decaffeinated (episode 16). McKinney also provided a number of uncredited voice-over lines.^[4][5][6]

The troupe appeared in their own TV series,The Kids in the Hall, which was co-produced byLorne Michaels and ran from 1988 to 1995. Notable characters on the show played by McKinney include theChicken Lady, Darill (pronounced da-RILL),bluesman Mississippi Gary, and Mr. Tyzik the Headcrusher, an embitteredEastern European who pretended to crush the heads of passers-by between his thumb and forefinger.

AfterThe Kids in the Hall, McKinney returned toSaturday Night Live, in the cast this time, in the middle of the 1994–1995 season (season 20) as a repertory player. McKinney survived the cast overhaul that occurred at the end of season 20 and his firing was considered at the end of season 21, but he ultimately stayed onSNL until the end of the 1996–1997 (season 22).^[7][8] During his time onSNL, McKinney had six recurring characters (some of note include Ian Daglers from "Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly", Melanie, a Catholic schoolgirl, and Lucien Callow, a fop often paired withDavid Koechner's fop character Fagan) and twenty-seven celebrity impersonations (some of note includeMel Gibson,Barney Frank,Al Gore,Paul Shaffer,Mark Russell,Jim Carrey,Lance Ito,Tim Robbins,Steve Forbes,Wolf Blitzer,Bill Gates, andEllen DeGeneres).^[9]

He has appeared in several films, including theSNL spinoffsSuperstar,The Ladies Man andA Night at the Roxbury. McKinney also starred oppositeIsabella Rossellini inGuy Maddin's tragicomedyThe Saddest Music in the World.^[10] He also appeared in theSpice Girls' movieSpice World. In 1999 he appeared in the Canadian television film adaptationJacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

McKinney cowrote and starred in the Kids in the Hall movieKids in the Hall: Brain Candy, in which, among other roles, he spoofedSNL andKITH executive producerLorne Michaels.

His theatre appearances includeThe Ugly Man with One Yellow Rabbit at the Edinburgh Fringe festival andGlasgow. He was in the cast of The Roundabout theatre production ofFlea in her Ear andDavid Lindsay Abaire'sFuddy Meers for theManhattan theatre club. During the fall of 2001 McKinney performed the one-man showFully Committed at the Wintergarden theatre in Toronto and again in the summer of 2002 at the Centaur Theatre inMontreal.^[11] In September 2022 he appeared in the European premiere ofEureka Day atThe Old Vic theatre in London.^[12]

He also appeared in the first season ofRobson Arms, as well as on the Canadian comedyCorner Gas.

From 2003 to 2006, he co-created, co-wrote and starred in the TV seriesSlings & Arrows, about the backstage goings-on in a CanadianShakespearean theatre company struggling with financial problems as they rehearse and present various productions.

In 2006–07, he both worked as a story editor on and a recurring role inNBC'sStudio 60 on the Sunset Strip as Andy Mackinaw, a humourless widowed writer/story editor for theshow-within-a-show.^[13] He appeared as a cast member on theCBC comedyHatching, Matching, and Dispatching and its 2017 follow upA Christmas Fury.

He directed the short filmNot Pretty, Really for the 2006 anthologyShorts in Motion: The Art of Seduction.

As well, he directed and appeared on theCBC Radiopost-apocalyptic comedySteve, The First and its sequel,Steve, The Second, for his friendMatt Watts. He also wrote one episode of Watts' sitcomMichael, Tuesdays and Thursdays, which aired onCBC Television in fall 2011.^[14]

In the summer of 2007, he became the show-runner and executive producer ofLess Than Kind, a half hour comedy starringMaury Chaykin.

McKinney was in an episode of the Canadian children's TV showDino Dan called "Prehistoric Zoo/Ready? Set? Dino!" He plays Dino Dan's track coach in the second part, "Ready? Set? Dino!", of this two-part episode released 4 October 2010 (Canada).^[15]

He co-wrote and starred in theKids in the Hall 2010 reunion projectDeath Comes to Town.^[16]

In 2011, he was an executive producer ofPicnicface, a sketch TV series from the Halifax comedy troupe of the same name produced forThe Comedy Network.^[17]

In 2013, he co-starred inRocket Monkeys as the main antagonist, Lord Peel. In 2014, he appeared in the CBC television seriesThe Best Laid Plans.^[18] Beginning in 2015, he was a co-star on the NBC sitcomSuperstore which was cancelled in 2021.

In 2020, he appeared as a guest on theStudio 60 on the Sunset Strip marathon fundraiser episode ofThe George Lucas Talk Show

In 2022, he joined the other Kids in the Hall for an eight-episodesixth season on Amazon Prime.

In 2024, he hosted the documentary seriesMark McKinney Needs a Hobby forCTV.^[19]

In 2025, he appeared in several episodes of the sketch comedy seriesThis Hour Has 22 Minutes, as prime ministerMark Carney.^[20] According to McKinney, the idea was launched after a post he made toX was mistakenly attributed to Carney, with22 Minutes writers Mike Allison andMark Critch contacting him to offer him the role soon afterward.^[21]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMark McKinney.

• Mark McKinney atIMDb
• Mark McKinney onTwitter

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