The Canadian Who do you think you are

The Canadian Press: Scott Thompson traces roots on CBC show, longs for 'Kids in the Hall' reunion: "TORONTO - Scott Thompson, arguably the most memorable of 'The Kids in the Hall' gang, giggles as he confesses he's always had a strange antipathy towards the Irish.

'I'm a bit of a contrarian and Irish pride is sometimes a bit overwhelming - I just find ethnic pride silly,' Thompson says on the line from his home in L.A. 'And they're the loudest about it. It's like 'Oh please, shut up, there are lots of other people in the world, so going on and on about your ethnicity is nonsense.''

But the CBC celebrity genealogy show 'Who Do You Think You Are?' traced back Thompson's roots on the episode airing this Thursday and discovered that he is, in fact, almost entirely Irish and not, as he'd always thought, a Scot.
'I guess my self-loathing knows no bounds,' he says with a laugh before launching into a typically outrageous riff that's vintage Thompson: 'So I find out I'm Irish and now I'm wearing green and I've got a bottle of Bushmills on the side and I'm beating my youngest and I'm frying up a rat because there's a famine and I'm chewing on grass.'

the controversial Canadian comic says he was fascinated to learn about his ancestors and their unimaginably humble existence - something that came as a shock to his elderly mother.

Thompson, who did a legendary impersonation of Queen Elizabeth during his "Kids in the Hall" days, says he and his siblings have always resembled the Windsors, and suspects his mother had fanciful dreams that the family blood was seriously blue.

"We really do resemble the Windsors - my features align perfectly with some of them," says the 48-year-old Thompson.

"My mother was hoping that they'd find that we were somehow related to the Royal Family and then it would be like: 'Oh my God, you're a lady!' and then they'd bring her back to England and she'd sit in Parliament and live the life of Riley, but apparently no - that's not going to happen."

Quite the contrary, in fact, Thompson points out.

"What the show basically told us is that there's not a hint of poshness, there's no aristocracy, it's just one pauper after another - dirt-poor farmers, sailors, maids. My great-great-great-grandmother was a young widow, she had three boys, she died at 47, 48 of a broken constitution and her occupation was listed as a pauper. That's pretty humble."

"