WELCOME TO SCOTTLAND.

Comedian Scott Thompson has long been out but not in front, His new cyber project may change all that

Scott Thompson may be one of the longest-out celebrities around, but his career has been all about team effort. He was part of the intimidating ensemble of HBO's biting, much-missed comedy The Larry Sanders Show (as Brian, the pert personal assistant). Before that he spent 11 years as one of the cutups in the Kids in the Hall, the incendiary comedy troupe that gained a devout cult following via its series that hopped around different networks from 1989 to 1995. But the former Kid is on his own now. Fresh from a charming turn as a (straight) FBI agent in the current Hugh Grant comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, he's the driving force of what is being billed as the first Internet sitcom, ScottLand, on ComedyNet.com. "I'm the star and the network," says the 40-year-old Thompson, sitting in the backyard of his West Hollywood, Calif., home. "I'm mature enough now to know I can handle it."

Kelly Makin, who began directing Thompson in Kids back in 1992 and also helmed Blue Eyes, says, "The change in Scott is definitely there. He's more seasoned." Makin adds that leading man Grant was bowled over as well. "After the first day of working with Scott, Hugh came over and said, `This guy's got energy and inventiveness to spare.'"

Much of that snap is heading to ScottLand. A free-of-charge multicharacter, multimedia Web site sitcom launched August 10, the monthly (later to be weekly) ScottLand--which Thompson compares to a Web version of crazy live-action kid shows like H.R. Pufnstuf--treats onliners to his strange interactive world through elaborate drawings, stories told in text, and quintessential Thompson characters played out as streaming video segments. Not unexpectedly, he's created a wild, far-flung premise to anchor it all--and to allow him the latitude to play many roles. "The show takes place in my head while I lie in a deep coma in a hospital," he says. "It's very Coronation Street--Canadian television, bad sound, cold light."

Canada is where Thompson was born and got his start with the Kids in the Hall, who delivered sketch comedy that was as off-the-wall and uncompromising as Monty Python and SCTV; it also catapulted Thompson and fellow members such as Dave Foley (of the NBC sitcom NewsRadio) to stardom. "We pummeled the standards of Canadian television," Thompson declares proudly. Indeed, not a week went by that at least one of the cast members wasn't doing a character in drag--matter-of-factly and to perfection. The Kids skewered Canadian lifestyles, the queen of England, housewives, and gays.

Of the latter, Thompson says he is still catching flak for his Buddy Cole character, a lewd, nasty queen who outraged some gays who accused the comedian of homophobia. Others found Cole harmless. "As someone who myself has been accused of not being the best `type' of gay to sell the gay movement to Middle America, I always rebel against that kind of criticism," says Village Voice columnist Michael Musto. Cole's impetus was revenge, not politics, says Thompson. "I was just imitating a guy who dumped me," he says. "I had no thought other than revenge on the motherfucker."

Although Thompson has griped in the past that gays and lesbians have misunderstood him or even ignored him, "there are no sour grapes right now," he insists. The new generation's response to Cole tins helped boost his attitude. "Young kids don't see him as anything other than a funny character," he says of Cole, who's alive and well as the rude prime minister of ScottLand. "They don't take him politically; they don't think about his message or think, Oh, that might not be an empowering role model." Pouring a cup of tea, Thompson tosses, "Was Bugs Bunny one, after all?"

With The Kids in the Hall seen continuously in reruns, the troupe's 1996 film Brain Candy a video rental hit, his occasional live performances, and a special on Comedy Central in May, Thompson's own silly wabbit persona is in full bloom. As is his love life: The performer says he is enjoying domestic bliss with his French boyfriend, a filmmaker who is producing a documentary about Saddam Hussein. Their courtship has been "as cute as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the movies," he says with a wink.

ScottLand too is more a labor of love than loot. He's not exactly making the salary of a Friends star. "The payment for me is the freedom I have and to be at the beginning of something exciting and brand-new," explains the one-man network. "After all, I was there at the beginning of the homosexual thing. Now Mama needs a new toy."

Find more on Scott Thompson and his new sitcom on the Net, ScottLand, at www.advocate.com

Zachary is an Emmy award-winning television news producer and writer of the serial Dating Hell for gay. net.