When a person thinks of "Canadian" humor, they would probably confuse stereotypes about the country: kind, friendly, clean, with the reality of the kind of comedy Canada has recently produced. Mike Myers was arguably the most famous comic to emerge from the great white north, but notoriety came to Canadian humor specifically by way of Tom Green. The Tom Green show ran on MTV for only a year, but spun off a movie and launched Green into the mainstream. The show relied on absurdist, realistic, and often gross-out humor that Green is now famous for.
Following in the footsteps of Green is the comedy duo Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz. Their show Kenny Versus Spenny follows the two as they compete to win various inane competitions like 'Who Can Eat the Most Meat', 'Who Can Stay Tied to a Goat the Longest', 'Who Can Keep His Head in a Chicken Coop the Longest', 'First One to Talk Looses', and so on. At the end of the competition, the looser must perform a “humiliation” as chosen by the winner.
The show generally follows Kenny as he bends the rules and often cheats, and straitlaced Spenny as he acts as Kenny’s foil, putting up with Kenny’s various antics. The humor of the show resides in both Spenny’s self-deprecation and touchiness, Kenny’s absurd comedy, and the ridiculousness of the acts they have to perform. Many of the shows feature 1. Kenny’s gas 2. Kenny using a phallus of some kind to question Spencer's sexual orientation 3. Kenny cheating and 4. Spencer whining about the loose rules and him losing the competition. In this clip from 'Who Can Where an Octopus on Their Head Longer', Kenny puts LSD in Spencer’s orange juice in order to convince him that the Octopus is poisoning him and take it off.
These simple formulas might not ensure hilarity if you're either easily nauseated or don’t respond well to the nice guy always loosing. I might fall into both of these categories but still think that Kenny versus Spenny is one of the funnier guilty pleasures allowed to air on TV. Although they are shown only late at night on comedy central but the show is featured on the Canadian channel Showcase.
The novelty of the show combined with its 'reality' is what elevates the humor to something that most people can relate to. The show has even been adapted to many different foreign countries-much like the office- with characters names that are country appropriate, Ed vs. Spencer in Britain, Cenk vs. Erdem in Turkey, and Dennis vs. Valerio in the Netherlands. Despite being co-produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, this global hit didn’t quite catch on in the US and this is probably because of censorship issues concerning the content that makes the show so hilarious in the first place. The sixth season just ended, and I highly recommend at least checking out some of the episodes online, many can be found on Youtube. Yes Canada has produced something besides hockey that is extremely entertaining, and the wittiness and grossness of the humor makes Kenny V. Spenny definitely worth checking out.
Who Can be a Better actor
I had never heard of this show before but it seems so funny! I can definitely see why it doesn't air in the US, because of how crazy the pranks can get, especially if we are seeing someone get his drink spiked with LSD! This show seems like it would be something like Borat or even The Tom Green show which was pretty controversial and would cause a lot of conservative Americans to get pretty upset.
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