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If President Hillary or President Barack decide to reopen NAFTA, I want some assurances and protections.

No. 1: The Kids in the Hall must be designated a protected resource.

Since disbanding in 1995, the Kids have spread far and wide, ending up in everything from U.S. sitcoms to weird little indie movies and Disney cartoons. I fear we may lose the lovable lads to the U.S. celebrity machine and its orgies of supper-club parties, easy flesh and lucrative product endorsements. The thought of Scott Thompson shilling for Denny's or of Mark McKinney hosting wrestling matches sends shivers down my nationalistic spine. Don't make me call Maude Barlow.

At least we don't have to worry about Dave Foley getting buried in a Malibu mudslide. Despite jumping directly from The Kids in the Hall to four seasons of NewsRadio and voice work in A Bug's Life (plus about three dozen other U.S. television and film appearances), Foley can be counted on to return to the simple pleasures of Canadian cultural production at least once a year - most recently on Odd Job Jack, the TV movie Prom Queen: The Marc Hall Story and Little Mosque on the Prairie.

In a delightful bit of cultural back-pedalling, Foley is now playing an obnoxious, swaggering Texan in CTV's Robson Arms. His performance is a broad, winking burlesque of American mannerisms, complete with pointy cowboy boots and garish belt buckles. One wonders if Foley tucked a pistol behind his back before each scene. Welcome back, please hand over your passport.

You are in the middle of a Kids in the Hall reunion tour. How's it going?

The tour's going extremely well. We're all having a good time, and the show's mostly new material. It's been a lot of fun for us to go out and do jokes people haven't actually heard before.

Do the fans expect the Chicken Lady and other greatest hits?

I think people are in the mood to hear something new. There is a Chicken Lady sketch, but it's not the one we normally do. None of the so-called greatest hits are in the show in their original form. There is a head-crusher scene, and a brand new Cathy-the-secretary scene - so even some of the old characters are in new scenes.

Are you all still getting along? Or are you like the Rolling Stones, travelling in separate planes?

No! We actually get along better now than we have in a decade. We've had time apart, and our previous tours were both fun. We're also just enjoying that we are the Kids in the Hall. We're able to appreciate what we've done in the past. And things aren't life and death any more. It used to be everything was, you know, a battle for the "true path of comedy," it was very intense. Now, we realize that if we do something that one of us doesn't like, it's not the end of the world. We just agree to try and make it work for each other.

Not a single tantrum?

We haven't had any tantrums yet. But it's early going! We move onto the bus soon, travelling together on a bus for several weeks, so ...

It's tricky to be the new character on an established show. Did you worry you might be the shark that Robson Armswill jump over?

Not really. To be honest, when I agreed to do the show, I'd never seen it. Mark McKinney had been on it, and he recommended it, so I read the script, and I thought it was good. So I don't know yet if I'm destroying the show or not.

Are you a permanent cast member now?

Honestly, I don't know. If they get picked up for another season, I know we've talked about me coming back and doing more episodes.

You appear to be channelling your NewsRadio co-star Stephen Root with your bumptious American character.

Ha! By "channelling," do you mean stealing?

Yes.

Yes! Maybe a little, I don't know. But what's fascinating about my character, Chuck, and his wife, Trixie, is not that they're Americans, but that they are con artists, and complete freaks.

There's a lot of talk lately about the death of the sitcom. Is it dying?

It really started when the networks starting shifting over to reality TV. When they did that, sitcoms started disappearing, because they're a fairly expensive form. And at the same time, the networks formed a cabal and decided to make only [bad] sitcoms. Then, when things go wrong, they blame it on the form and not on the content. But it all turns around as soon as somebody makes a good show. Then everyone piles on again.

Does the Robson Arms cast treat you like a star?

Yes, and quite appropriately so! My demands were that they be in awe of me constantly.

Can we expect more frontal nudity from you?

I sure hope so! Because it distracts from my belly. You show your penis, and nobody will talk about your weight gain.

*****

Particulars

BORN

Jan. 4, 1963, Toronto.

KIDS PLAYING TOGETHER

Working together from their teenage years, Foley and his fellow Kids in the Hall had a rapport that let him stretch his skills. In one sketch with the famous Chicken Lady, "I was the straight man... but I was getting laughs off the responses," Foley said once. "I'm like the bass player, keeping the rhythm going."

SIREN CALL OF HOLLYWOOD

After the Kids in the Hall split up, a move to L.A. seemed natural, and Foley got there through a dream gig. HBO's The Larry Sanders Show "was my favourite show on television," he said in 1995. "Last summer, I was negotiating for another sitcom on CBS and I wasn't sure about it. My wife said, 'You don't have to take it. Maybe somebody from Larry Sanders will call you up instead.' " Then Sanders producer Larry Simms called him to offer a tailor-made show, News Radio.

REUNION BLUES

The Kids' 1996 movie project, Brain Candy, didn't go sweetly. After a reportedly fractious production, the movie flopped. And Foley wasn't credited as a writer. But the next couple of reunions - in 2000 and 2002 - smoothed things over.