Paul Bellini

Last updated
Paul Bellini
Born (1959-09-12) September 12, 1959 (age 66)
Timmins, Ontario, Canada
OccupationsComedy writer, television actor
Years active1990–present

Paul Bellini (born September 12th, 1959) is a Canadian comedy writer and television actor best known for his work on the comedy series The Kids in the Hall and This Hour Has 22 Minutes .

Contents

The Kids in the Hall

Paul Bellini attended York University in 1978, where he received an Honours B.A. in Film. It was there, at the Vanier College residence, that he met [1] Scott Thompson, an acting student who later became a member of The Kids in the Hall. For the troupe's eponymous TV series, which ran from 1989 to 1995, Bellini served primarily as Thompson's writing partner.

Their principal creation during this period was monologist Buddy Cole. Thompson preferred the character to be sexual and sassy, whereas Bellini emphasized the 'magical whimsy' of the character. The character and his monologues appeared frequently on both the television show and in live appearances, and is still active in Thompson’s touring repertoire. [2]

During the same era, Bellini and Thompson also collaborated with various musicians in an experimental rock band called Mouth Congress. [3] [4] Their early songs were silly, often about things like cigarettes or wigs, but later they delved into deeper topics like manhood and sexuality. They performed frequently at The Rivoli in Toronto, until the demands of making a television show took over Thompson’s free time. Bellini carried on, releasing two solo albums - The Northland’s Own (1995) and Put Paul First (2000), both available on Bandcamp.

Bellini's on-screen presence in The Kids in the Hall began when the producers suggested the troupe conduct a contest in order to determine the demographics of the show's fan base. Turning down such conventional ideas as meeting the Kids or a cash prize, the members of KITH decided the 'prize' would be Paul Bellini wearing only a towel. [5] [3]

Thus the 'Touch Paul Bellini' contest was born, wherein the winner was granted the chance to gently poke Bellini with a stick. This contest took Bellini to Florida, New Brunswick, Ohio and Ottawa to meet the winners. To win, a viewer had to draw a picture of Bellini emerging from a giant box of condoms. During these and other appearances on the show, Bellini would often wander into a sketch silently, thus becoming the show’s absurd mascot. At the end of the final episode, after the cast is buried alive during the end credits, the usually silent Bellini approaches the grave, turns to the camera, and for the first time ever, he speaks, saying, “Thank God that's finally over.” He then picks up a flower and proceeds to dance on the grave.

Bellini was subsequently a writer and show runner for This Hour Has 22 Minutes , winning three Gemini Awards and a Writers Guild of Canada award as part of that show's writing team. He was also one of the writers of two independent films made with Josh Levy,  the 1998 film Hayseed and 2003’s doUlike2watch. Levy and Bellini also collaborated on the television series Locker Room (2003-2004) for PrideVision in Canada.

In 1998, Bellini was the subject of an autobiographical documentary, Bellini's Drive [6] , which among other things explained his thoughts on being the second-most famous person from Timmins - the first being Shania Twain. In the same year, he and Thompson co-authored Buddy Babylon [7] , the comedic autobiography of renowned Kids in the Hall character Buddy Cole. It was published by Dell Trade Paperbacks in 1998, and in 2022 was re-released as an Audible audiobook, with Thompson reading the text as Buddy Cole.

Following his time with This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Bellini was a columnist for fab, a gay magazine in Toronto, for 12 years. In 2012 he self-published The Fab Columns [8] , a compilation of his writings for the magazine. Over the course of 12 years he interviewed such luminaries as Bea Arthur, Elaine Stritch, Bob Mackie, Tab Hunter, Peter Berlin, Jack Wrangler, Sandra Bernhard, John Waters, Tura Satana, Buck Angel, and Ken Russell, as well as dozens of Toronto-based figures in the queer community.

In 2015, Bellini and Thompson uploaded all their Mouth Congress recordings to Bandcamp, [9] , bringing them to the attention of Brooklyn-based record label Captured Tracks. A compilation of the band’s songs, called Waiting for Henry, was released as a two-disc set in December 2021 [10] , and the band reunited the following year for several live shows to promote the release. They launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a feature-length documentary film about the band. The film, Mouth Congress, premiered at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in 2021. [11]

The band's final show took place on August 22nd, 2025 at the Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema.

Inspired by the reaction to the Mouth Congress film, Bellini embarked on an ambitious project in which he would make two feature films per year, starring his various comedy writing students, shot entirely on iPhone s and edited with Final Cut Pro. The films are: An Irrelephant (2018), Gone, with the Wind (2018), Christmas Sucks (2019), The Eplet Triplets (2019), Bergmanesque (2020), The Chubby Children Charities (2020, shot entirely on Zoom during the Covid-19 lockdown), Hi-Tech Detectives (2021), This City Is Insidious (2021), Biopic (2022), auditions for Her Nightmare (2023), and A Day in the Life of Dr. Borgo Pinti (2025).

All the films were uploaded to YouTube under the production company banner $100Cdn Productions, so-named when one of his actors joked that the average budget for each film was, 'about a hundred dollars.'

In November 2024 the Kids in the Hall performed a benefit for Bellini [12] at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall to help Bellini through his treatment for multiple myeloma.

He has since been cleared of the cancer.

Currently, Bellini teaches sketch comedy at Humber College in Toronto. [13] He has also taught courses for The Second City in the past. [14]

Writing credits

Film and television appearances

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Locke, Jesse (March 11, 2022). "The long lost musical project of 'The Kids in the Hall' alums Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini finally gets its due". Xtra!. Archived from the original on September 8, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  2. ↑ Molls, William (March 8, 2024). "Scott Thompson brings Buddy Cole show to Sketchfest with material censored by Amazon". Next Magazine. Archived from the original on August 18, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  3. 1 2 Hughes, Felix (August 20, 2025). "Review: "Mouth Congress" doc shines light on "legendary" unknown band". Next Magazine. Retrieved February 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ↑ Khanna, Vish (March 10, 2020). "Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini Try to Explain Their 'Mouth Congress' Movie, Plus the Scoop on the New Amazon Series". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on June 15, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  5. ↑ Bianchini, Elisabetta (May 20, 2022). "'We'd sort of buried how tough it was': The Kids in the Hall get candid about troupe tensions in Prime Video documentary". Yahoo! News. Retrieved February 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ↑ listing, IMDB (February 6, 2026). "Bellini's Drive (1998)". IMDB. Archived from the original on April 21, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  7. 1 2 Bellini, Paul, Thompson, Scott (May 11, 1998). Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole (1st ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Dell. ISBN   978-0440508281.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. 1 2 Bellini, Paul (June 1, 2012). The Fab Columns (1st ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Self published. ISBN   978-1475190984.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  9. ↑ Mike Vanderbilt, "Now you can listen to Scott Thompson’s pre-Kids In The Hall band online" Archived 2024-09-10 at the Wayback Machine . The A.V. Club , September 28, 2015.
  10. ↑ Blistein, Jon (October 25, 2021). "Kids in the Hall's Scott Thompson Preps First Compilation for His Queercore Band Mouth Congress". Rolling Stone Magazine. Archived from the original on June 7, 2023. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  11. ↑ Wilner, Norman (March 2, 2021). "Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini resurrect a gay punk band you've never heard of". Now Magazine. Archived from the original on April 16, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  12. ↑ Kids in the Hall, The (February 6, 2026). "Kids in the Hall live: Benefit for Bellini". The Kids in the Hall. Archived from the original on August 17, 2025. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
  13. ↑ Morrigan, Leah (July 25, 2012). "Creative entrepreneurs: Q&A with Toronto-based Fab magazine columnist Paul Bellini". The Toronto Star. Retrieved February 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  14. ↑ Feist, Jeremy (June 11, 2013). "Paul Bellini talks Second City's LGBT Writing Intensive". Xtra!. Retrieved February 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ↑ Bellini, Paul (July 8, 2021). Monsterpiece (1st ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Self published. ISBN   979-8527485448.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.