FFWD Weekly
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| Theatre by FFWD Staff Kevin Spencer Greg Lawrence spent his Ontario wonder years nursing a severely deluded sports fantasy. "I thought I was going to be a hockey star," says the writer/director/animator behind The Comedy Network’s Kevin Spencer, "but I pretty much sucked. "When I was about 10, I started playing hockey. I scored one goal all year and got so excited I pissed my pants. And when you score one goal and piss your pants, you don’t want to score more goals. I don’t know if that’s a Pavlovian thing, but... "I think that was my first inkling that things weren’t going to work out quite how I thought they would." Lawrence has come a long way, for a pantspisser. His Kevin Spencer cartoon shorts – chronicling the poorly-drawn adventures of a "a lovable little scamp as he blossoms into a full-blown sociopath" – have been picked up by both Saturday Night Live and Burly Bear, Lorne Michael’s mentally-monikered U.S. closed-circuit campus TV network. Even better, The Comedy Network dug the shorts so much they asked Lawrence to whip up 13 half-hour episodes. Kevin Spencer makes its series debut on Sunday, January 17. (Yet the question remains: is Greg still prone to the occasional self-inflicted trouser-soaking? "Sadly," he reports, "yes.") "Originally, I pitched eight ideas to The Comedy Network," he recalls. "Kevin wasn’t the strongest pitch." But the network believed in the chain-smoking, cough syrup-swigging scalawag (that’s Kevin, not Greg), and aired 13 two-minute shorts. "I thought the shorts would get a bit of airplay on The Comedy Network, maybe a few people would laugh...." Kevin Spencer has been called (by Greg Lawrence) "the funniest goddamned show ever made," and it is pretty goddamned funny. The title character is a mute teenage psychopath, currently serving a 25 years-to-life sentence in the big house. The show centers around Kevin’s regular couch sessions with Mr. Franklin (the prison shrink), allowing for plenty o’ flashbacks into Kevin’s messed-up childhood. Kevin’s lazy parents, just to give you some perspective, like to get really drunk and have wild sex in their trailer home, with the occasional crime spree to keep things interesting. When Kevin’s dad gets himself tossed in prison for a few months here and there (which is a frequent occurrence), Kevin’s mom has no choice but to get really drunk and have sex with other men. But she still brings the Spencer men smokes on visiting days. Kevin’s imaginary (and only) friend is Allan The Magic Goose. Lawrence narrates each episode in a codeine-heavy storytime hoser voice, and also sings the hilariously clunky theme song (complete with bouncing singalong ball). He thinks he may have missed his calling as a singer, but he is very wrong. Comparisons to South Park are understandable: in addition to sharing the time-honored subject of wayward youth, both shows are so crudely animated as to barely qualify as animation. Kevin Spencer’s visual style is reminiscent of the work being done in "special" classrooms all over the country. (Chalk another one up to happenstance; Lawrence’s original storyboard sketches proved so charmingly head-injured that he decided to just go ahead and use ’em as is.) The show flaunts its complete disregard for perspective, proportion, continuity and all them other Prince of Egypt/Antz animation hang-ups. "It’s the most intricate animation this side of Disney," claims Lawrence, for about two seconds. "Nah, it’s certainly not very complex, but it’s a style that suits the narrative tone of the show." As for the other ideas Lawrence pitched to The Comedy Network, big things are a-happenin’. Butch Patterson: Private Dick, a live-action hardboiled detective parody starring GL himself, will premiere in February. Also under way is The Daily Grind, a half-hour anthology series, comprised of two thematically-linked short films per episode. (Still no word on Lawrence’s proposed "one-off documentary about me and why I turned out mediocre.") Lawrence’s parents are happy he’s working, but aren’t exactly Kevin Spencer fans. "They don’t get it," he says. "They’ll watch it, nod their heads and say, ‘Oh, that’s good,’ but never laugh once." In contrast to his ballcapped little friend, Lawrence describes his own suburban childhood as "very normal," and his family "Rockwellian." Unlike Ma & Pa Spencer, Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence are not chronic jailbirds, nor violent alcoholics. "But," he notes with more than a hint of pride, "every Christmas Mom will get tanked and kill someone." |
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