Kenny vs. Spenny

Jonathon turned me on to Kenny vs. Spenny with the caveat that he wasn't entirely sure that he liked it. Oh, the concept was solid - two best friends who are roommates compete in all kinds of asinine contests, but the humiliation forced on the loser and the tactics sometimes crossed the boundaries of tastefulness.

No problem for me there!

Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice are a modern day odd couple, but with competitive streak. Kenny is a crass, coffee-amped deviant with notoriously poor hygiene and pretty much no morals. Spencer is a neurotic, awkward introvert who is naive and conscientious of fair play. The two live in Canada in a multi-level row house, and each have their own cameraman and soundman to follow their exploits and preparation as they battle each other.

And it's all hilarious.

Every episode, the two begin a challenge that lasts no more than three days, and there is almost always arguing about the rules of the competition, as Spenny tries to rein in Kenny to prevent him from cheating. Kenny is ruthless in his pursuit of victory, employing whatever trickery or manipulation he can, while Spenny almost always follows very strictly both the rules and what he perceives as the intention and spirit of the competition statement. Strangely, Spenny wins his fair share of competitions, but not without being seriously fucked with by Kenny.

In the first episode I saw, the competition was who could drink the most beer without vomiting. Right off the bat, Kenny switched out his beer with an identical, non-alcoholic brew and feigned getting drunk while Spenny slowly got bombed. He also made Spenny think he had gotten special pills from an herbalist to counteract the alcohol. After nearly 60 bottles of beer, Spenny passed out and Kenny forced himself to vomit next to him. He woke Spenny and tricked him into thinking he vomited after passing out, making Kenny the winner. For his humiliation for losing, Spenny had to eat some of his (Kenny's) vomit.

And that's not the worst Kenny throws at Spenny.

In trying to win, Kenny has employed decoys to confuse Spenny or people ruling on the outcome, slipped acid into Spenny's drink, threaten destruction of Spenny's property, created a fake death threat from gangsters, and imprisoned Spenny so he couldn't make the competition -- which surprisingly have not all yielded victory for Kenny. Spenny's honest attitude and endurance are the opposite of Kenny's savvy and diabolical plots, which he is relentless in serving until he achieves victory or gets Spenny to quit.

When a rat racing competition looks to be going in Spenny's favor, Kenny steals Spenny's rat. Spenny threatens to smash Kenny's prized record collection if the rat isn't returned, so Kenny kidnaps Spenny's mom under the guise of getting lunch and gets Spenny to believe he'd hurt her if the records are not returned. Finally, Kenny gets a monster sized South American jungle rodent to race for him, but the dog-sized rat is still beaten by Spenny's average rodent. For losing, Kenny has a live rat dropped into his underwear.

Some of the titles of the episodes only hint at the bizarre and entertaining hi jinx that come from the competition:

Who Can Wear A Dead Octopus On His Head The Longest?

Who Can Stay Naked The Longest?

Who Will Use Their Arms First?

First One To Laugh Loses

The program is currently airing on Comedy Central, but fortunately I have many of the episodes and past seasons from Showcase, a Canadian cable network (who also aired Trailer Park Boys) that doesn't bleep or censor the program like American television would. Downloading rules (again)!