>>PREVIEW
KENNY VS. SPENNY
Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.
Showcase
When former Minnesota governor Jeese "The Body" Ventura was in his wrestling heyday, he had a simple mantra. It went, "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat."
Kenny Hotz of the cult hit Showcase comedy/reality series Kenny vs. Spenny seems to follow a similar philosophy. On the show, Kenny often steps well outside the rules to win the show’s trademark lowbrow competitions, like who can drink the most beer and who can stay naked the longest.
Losing a competition on Kenny vs. Spenny carries dire consequences. The defeated party is subjected to a cringe-inducing humiliation, like licking bird crap off a car window or having a live rat placed in one’s underwear.
To some viewers, Hotz’s cheat-my-way-to-victory tactics are made all the more dubious by the fact that they are always perpetuated against his self-described best friend, Spencer (Spenny) Rice. Spenny says that often fans of the show that speak to him are "angry that Kenny will do whatever it takes to win instead of actually competing with me fairly."
Climbing higher on his moral high horse, Rice declares, "I see Kenny’s way of living as analogous to Enron, people who club baby seals over the head, Nazis and con men."
As much as Spenny disapproves of Kenny’s underhanded actions, there’s no denying that many die-hard fans of their show tune into see the devilish little guy (Kenny) screw over the lanky self-righteous guy (Spenny). It’s the sort of slobs against the snobs formula that makes movies like Animal House and Caddyshack popular from one generation to the next.
Now in its third season, Kenny vs. Spenny is a cult hit phenomenon that not only airs in many countries worldwide, but has been adapted into homegrown editions that include England’s Ed vs. Spencer and Germany’s Elton vs. Simon.
Here at home, Kenny vs. Spenny originally aired on CBC, but moved to the "Television Without Borders" landscape of Showcase in the fall of 2005. Still to come in the current season are highly anticipated episodes that determine which guy can keep a dead octopus on their head the longest, who can produce more semen and who can stay longer in a haunted house.
While Kenny and Spenny live as odd couple Toronto roommates during the taping of the series, a new wrinkle was added for the current season. "This is the first year," Hotz says, "where Spenny had an alternative apartment outside of the set for weekends. When he realized what I did to him on the show, he got so fucking furious that he had to go cool off for a couple of days."
Kenny says that whenever Spenny returned from one of these brief sabbaticals he would be "full of piss and vinegar, ready to win. It’s so pathetic, but better for me. The more he is convinced he might win and the harder he tries, the more joy I get from totally crushing and humiliating him."
Having suffered much abuse through the course of shooting three seasons of Kenny vs. Spenny, an obvious question arises: why does Spenny continue to do the show? Rice says, "I see the show as more than just what it appears to be on the surface. What I am doing is documenting a trend in our society where people cut corners and use Machiavellian tactics to get ahead. And I am hoping the show on a certain level will make people subconsciously or consciously wonder about ethical boundaries."
Kenny of course offers an alternate theory on Spenny’s coming back for more punishment. "Personally, I think it’s his fetish. I don’t think anyone would do this unless they were sexually frustrated and got some joy and pleasure out of it. Me? I am just a total scumbag who wants to make people laugh." |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.