CODCO is a Canadian comedy troupe from Newfoundland, best known for a sketch comedy series which aired on CBC Television from 1988 to 1993.
Founded as a theatrical revue in 1973, The show subsequently opened in St. John's, with Scott Strong replacing Sametz, and then toured the province with Robert Joy replacing Strong. When the show was taped by the National Film Board in 1974, Andy Jones appeared in the cast as well.
Sexton, Olsen, Malone, Cathy Jones, Andy Jones, Walsh and Joy subsequently performed in the show Sickness, Death and Beyond the Grave in 1974. In 1975, all except Malone, who was on a brief sabbatical to study at the Toronto Dance Theatre, appeared in What Do You Want to See the Harbour For, Anyway?; later that year, Malone rewrote the show as Das Capital.
In the fall of that year, the troupe compiled bits from their earlier shows for a week-long performance in Philadelphia, which was titled Philadelphia: Somewhere on the Hungry Coast of Newfoundland. That show was also taped for broadcast on CBC Television's Peep Show, as Festering Forefathers and Running Sons.
Joy and Olsen left the troupe in 1976.
Mike Jones, Cathy and Andy Jones' brother, was not a performing member of the troupe, but was associated with them as a frequent director of their stage shows.
Over the next number of years, the troupe's members only rarely worked together as CODCO, but often collaborated with each other individually on various projects, including the film The Adventure of Faustus Bidgood and the television series The Root Seller, The Wonderful Grand Band and The S and M Comic Book. — although where The Kids in the Hall often revelled in absurdist humour, CODCOs sketches were typically based around social commentary and satire, often with a strongly political edge. Their sketches were also strongly reflective of the troupe's background on the stage, sometimes playing more as humorous character or scene studies than as conventional sketch comedy. In another, a Newfoundlander brings his girlfriend from Toronto home to meet his parents; the sketch escalates to the brink of violence as the parents tried to explain why the Mi'kmaq, not Newfoundlanders, were responsible for the extinction of the Beothuk.
Malone performed a number of celebrity impersonations, including Margaret Thatcher and Canadian television journalist Barbara Frum, The troupe also parodied the conventions of television news through mock local newscasts; in one such sketch, a racist anchor character loudly blamed Africa for AIDS: "It's all your fault, it's all your fault. Nah nah nah nah nah nah. You're black, you're black, take your dirty bugs back. You're screwing green monkeys and giving it to our junkies. We give you all our foreign aid, and all we gets back is AIDS, AIDS, AIDS." Malone ran as the Green party candidate for the riding of Avalon for the 2019 federal election.