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Compensation

The Kids in the Hall
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

A burned-out young builder learns from his foreman that workers' compensation is the blue-collar road to paradise.

Community rating

– / 10

The premise

Here’s the bit.

On a building site, a sullen twenty-nine-year-old labourer shows up late and admits he hates his job but dreads looking for another. His foreman recognizes the look of a man fantasizing about a convenient injury and introduces him to the gospel of workers' compensation, praising it as a generous but fickle goddess while his silent sidekick Sam mimes a lifetime of claimed injuries. A cautionary tale about a pipe cutter who sacrificed a hand, only to be sent back to the same machine, convinces the kid that his accident has to happen on the job and look genuine, so he politely asks Sam to hit him with a claw hammer. After the blow, the dazed kid soars through the clouds beside the long-haired Mama Compensation, who offers him a television and a six-pack while his coworkers cheer from below.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 4

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

I hate this job. I'm in a rut deep enough to hang up posters.

Compensation. It comes from the Latin word meaning free money.

Hey, guys! Thanks for hurting me!

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

The fan episode guide at kithfan.org lists this sketch under the title "Momma Compensation".

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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