Kenny vs. Spenny

Half-Hour Comedy Reality TV

Remember your buddy in college, the one you used to make all the really stupid bets with, usually after a couple of rounds at the bar? Do you ever think back and wonder just how stupid you must have been to try some of those stunts? Aren't you kind of glad that the only people who know about them now are people you don't see anymore?

The difference between you and the two guys who make Kenny vs. Spenny is 1) they're still doing it and 2) they air it on TV.

Kenneth "Kenny" Hotz and Spencer "Spenny" Rice have, since 2002, been attempting to out-do each other in juvenile, frequently bizarre competitions. How bizarre? Some of the competitions include:


 * Who can sit on a cow the longest?
 * Who makes the most convincing woman?
 * Who can stay naked longest?
 * Who can sell more bibles?
 * Who do gay guys like more?
 * Who can wear a dead octopus on their head the longest? (This one is classic.)

The loser, as determined by the rough rules set out at the beginning, suffers a humiliation determined by the winner. The loser of the "most convincing woman" competition, for example, had to walk in drag through an area known for prostitution. On the rare occasion of a double forfeit, the humiliation is set by the filming crew; these are some of the most amazing moments of the show, while draws impose no humiliations.

The real draw is not so much who might win or lose, but the dynamic between the two men's personalities. Spenny is rather keen on establishing rules and sticking to the letter and spirit of the competition. Kenny, on the other hand, uses unorthodox approaches frequently and will cheat if he feels he can manage it - the film crew does not "snitch" and Spenny does not see the footage before the end of the competition.

This Canadian show has inspired several versions in other countries; see the other wiki for details.

As of December 2010, Kenny and Spencer both announced that the show is canceled, and it ended with a big Christmas special.

The show provides examples of:
 * Aerith and Bob: In "Who Can Keep Their Head In A Chicken Coop The Longest", Spenny names his chicken Ruthie. Kenny names his Xyklon Craw X, his baby chick Killbot, and his falcon Tron.
 * In Who can win a rat race, Spenny's rat is Sally. Kenny's is Zontar lord of the underworld.
 * Affably Evil: Dr. Goldfeld, the kindly herbologist, who gleefully assists Kenny in his evil schemes.
 * Alter Kocker: Kenny's mother.
 * And Knowing Is Half the Battle: In order for them to be allowed to air the episode "Who can smoke the most pot", they were required to make multiple drug-awareness PSAs about the dangers of drug use. Of course they didnt take any of their messages seriously, partly because they were completely high while making videos about how its bad to be high.
 * Ascended Fangirl: In Who can kiss more girls, a girl who's a fan of the show sees Spenny on the streets and assists him in the competition, while flirting with him successfully using all her knowledge she learned from watching the show. Spenny thinks he might have found the girl of his dreams, until one of the crew point out she might have been hired by Kenny to distract him.
 * Batman Gambit: In the "Who can blow the biggest fart?" contest, Kenny grinds up anti-gas pills and puts them in chili. After that, he sticks a tube up his ass and blows air into it which made him blow giant farts, which in turn made Spenny think that it was the chili's doing and he eats it and as a result cannot blow a fart and loses.
 * The entire "Who Ever can be Obese The Longest" episode is one pulled off by Kenny.
 * "Who Do Disabled People Like More?". Kenny's strategy was to tell the three judges that he was Spenny and act completely horribly and hope they'd vote for Kenny. It worked on two of the three, but one of the judges had lied about not seeing the show, knew who Kenny was, but voted for him anyway because he liked his strategy. Also, even though Kenny was intentionally rude, he actually treated the judges like human beings, while Spenny was patronizing and almost condescending.
 * Good Lord, Kenny's week-long gambit to win the "Who Can Sell The Most Bibles?" competition. With the help of a professional impersonator and some friends, Kenny convinces Spenny that the latter's children's film script (about a helpful genetically altered hippopotamus-rabbit hybrid creature) has been bought by Robert De Niro and a Hollywood production company. Spenny, who gets delusions of grandeur, ends up buying a stack of bibles from Kenny just to prove a point (that he doesn't care about the show anymore) and flies out to Hollywood to meet the (non-existent) executives. The look on Spenny's face when he gets back home is priceless.
 * The "Who Can Be A Better Figure Skater?" competition. Kenny sets up a complicated gambit involving EMT's and a physician to make it look like he broke his leg during a practice run. He ends up getting Spenny to wait on him, hand and foot, for an entire week while wearing a fake cast, then (when Spenny leaves because he's frustrated with Kenny's demands) cuts the cast off and leaves for a vacation, completely avoiding the competition altogether.
 * Beach Episode: in the episode who can survive on a island the longest, kenny manipulated the word 'survive' and simply had a relaxing holiday in cuba with his and Spenny's crew.
 * Better To Die Than Be Humiliated: In Who has the bigger balls, Spenny threatens to actually jump off of a cliff to the rocky waters below unless Kenny forfeits. Because Kenny is not insane, he does.
 * Beware the Silly Ones: Beneath Kenny's farting and dick joke exterior is a devious, snarky evil genius, Also doomed Butt Monkey Spenny out 'kenny's' Kenny by finding a loophole in Kenny's tactic in episode 'who can earn the most money'
 * Body Horror: Kenny's compount leg fracture during the ice skating competition. It causes Spenny to nearly vomit, and makes audience members cringe to see. ... Until he reveals it's fake of course.
 * Body Sushi: Spenny's humiliation for losing a competition involves him having to eat sushi off of Kenny's naked, hairy body.
 * Butt Monkey: More often than not, Spenny falls into this role. His own crew even occasionally sides against him.
 * Even the judge in "Who Is The Best Soldier" picked on Spenny, often ignoring Kenny's antics and reprimanding Spenny. He even pours toilet water on his face to wake him up.
 * Can't Hold His Liquor: Kenny, according to Spenny. He doesn't get drunk that often, and can't hold his beer. Which causes him to immediately begin cheating in Who can drink the most beer.
 * Spenny himself is shown to turn pretty violent and ugly when drunk.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Kenny, in his own words, is "A psychopath narcissistic genius!"
 * Comedic Sociopathy: Kenny takes this trope as far as the confines of the medium allow.
 * The Comically Serious: Spenny can't tell a joke, hates Kenny's jokes, and had a huge advantage in First to laugh loses, as Kenny has no idea how to make Spenny laugh, only how to annoy him.
 * Companion Cube: In "Who can stay off the ground longest" Kenny seems to go completely insane and starts taking a loaf of bread with googly eyes around with him through town.
 * "Ryan..."
 * Crazy Prepared: Kenny. His cheating schemes often require a high level of planning.
 * Cringe Comedy: See the two-part episode "Who Do Black Guys Like More?" for many examples.
 * Any time a competition involves Spenny interacting with other people. Oddly enough Kenny seems to usually do fine even when he tries his hardest to be offensive. Largely because people get that he's pretending to be shocking, and Spenny winds up trying too hard.
 * Dada Ad: In who can make a better commercial, Kenny decides to not worry so much about product and advertising, but more on just making incredibly bizarre web videos that focus more on being memorable and causing internet memes.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: Kenny.
 * Dead Baby Comedy
 * Determinator: Kenny
 * Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: For the most part, averted. Kenny goes way out of his way to find convoluted ways to cheat in competitions he likely would have won anyways, but almost always wins. But in the episode "who can go the longest without touching the floor", he lost because he was spending too much time trying to scare Spenny into defeat while playing super-villain, and ends up losing his balance.
 * Different in Every Episode: Every episode Kenny wears a new shirt relevant to the episode, and always offensive.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Spenny, in the "Who can kiss more women?" episode
 * Dull Surprise: The male porn star Spenny hires in "Who can make a better porno" was always speaking in a bored monotone, and looking into the camera frequently. Much to Spenny's frustration, as he wanted this to be "classy".
 * Egg Sitting: "Who Is The Better Parent?"
 * Embarrassing Old Photo: In the episode "Who is the better jew" Kenny wears a t-shirt with a photo of Spenny as a child sitting on Santa's lap.
 * Escalating War: In Who Can Win a Rat Race, Kenny steals Spenny's rat and holds it hostage. Spenny then steals Kenny's record collection and holds it hostage, and then Kenny takes Spenny's mom in a van and says he can't be held liable for what should happen if the records aren't returned.
 * Evil Laugh: Kenny is very good at this. Throughout the "no arms" and "don't touch the ground" episodes, he and his friends laughed maniacally profusely.
 * Faux Affably Evil: Kenny.
 * Fan Disservice: Anyone who thought the "69" episode would be hot, was immediately disappointed to realize it would be hours of two men screaming at eachother while farting into their mouths.
 * Fan Service: The male stripper episode. Good god who was expecting Spenny to pull that one off?
 * Flanderization: The show used to have little to no profanity, censored when one profane word was spoken, and very few sex/gay/crude jokes were made, if at all. Then the show moved to Showcase...
 * Foe Yay, to some extent. Kenny himself regularly comments on how much Spenny wants to do obscene things with him. Spenny, of course, denies it. Whether he's being honest or not is up to you.
 * Oh come on, we are just waiting for the sex/bdsm tape of the two of them to come out.....
 * Good-Looking Privates: The corporal hired to train them in who's the better soldier has a scene where he comes onto the camera wearing tight boxer briefs and showing off his huge muscles.
 * Gonk: Kenny's friend Bobby, who is fat, hairy, ugly, has missing front teeth, and several disgusting unknown growths on the left side of his torso. His body is used a few times for humiliations.
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: Kenny's mom. "Spencer, I told you just Eff off!"
 * Groin Attack: Taken about as far as possible in "Who can Win a Cockfight", but both men's genitals take a fair bit of abuse in general.
 * Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: In "Who do gay guys like more?", Spenny would repeatedly remind the gay man he was on a "date" with that he was straight. Despite this for some reason Spenny still thought it would be a good idea to try and kiss the poor guy, who was understandably put off.
 * Ho Yay: Along with the above foeyay, there was the episode where they were competing over who could go the longest without getting an erection. For the final test they hired two strippers to give them lapdances. Kenny hired a male one for Spenny. One striptease and dance from a guy later, and Spenny lost the competition.
 * In the episode Who Do Gay Guys Like More, Kenny looks at the camera and says that he and Spenny "Have been lovers for years." before pulling down his pants and trying to get Spenny to have sex with him right there in the kitchen. ... it... was an interesting episode.
 * Then there was the episode where they competed over who could sodomize themselves with a foot long hotdog the farthest.
 * Inspirationally Disabled: Kenny hires a mentally handicapped man to pretend to be his little brother so that he can impress a group of old ladies with how sweet and loving he is.
 * Intoxication Ensues: Who Can Drink the Most Beer, Who Can Smoke The Most Pot, also in Who Can Wear A Dead Octopus On Their Head The Longest Kenny gives Spenny acid. In Who is coolest Kenny pretends to become addicted to extreme hard drugs.
 * In the Blood: Kenny's entire family is made up of scheming manipulative people who enjoy tormenting Spenny. The only difference is they are able to hide it behind loving facades. The crowning example is the ten mile race where all of Kenny's relatives pretended his mother died and were in mourning.
 * In what was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for dear Spencer, he arrived late to the footrace, dressed in his best suit - and trounced his devious, scheming roommate.
 * Jerkass: More often Kenny, mainly due to the fact most of the time he has no idea where to draw a line or stop. Winning a beer drinking contest by swapping his own beer for non-alcoholic beer? Magnificent. Winning a humor contest by tricking Spenny with a fake medical letter that he's contracted HIV? Kenny, you ASSHOLE.
 * One REALLY wonders, depending on certain things (it IS a TV show, there's likely some trickery afoot) why Spenny is still friends with him. REALLY.
 * It gets to a point where one REALLY wonders how much of the show is unscripted and unplanned....
 * Spenny has alleged in commentary they actually get along well when not trying to beat the other.
 * In one episode Spenny went through some trauma and Kenny comforted him. Spenny took a moment to tell the viewers that when it comes down to it Kenny is a good friend. Of course, the effect was ruined when Kenny won the competition using the aforementioned HIV prank.
 * Spenny himself can be somewhat obnoxious. In the episode where he goes on a date with a gay guy, he tries way too hard to act like the "mature" one, while at the same time every five seconds reminding him that he is not gay. At least Kenny acts offensive on purpose.
 * Spenny's personal trainer in their pilot episode. He believes Kenny is cheating and demands that he forfeit and make Spenny win. Kenny tells him that he isn't doing anything of the sort, and the trainer starts physically threatening him, and then putting him in a headlock until Kenny passes out.
 * In who can be the better news reporter, Spenny does the exact thing a reporter is not supposed to do, which is chase after ambulances and police cars to try and snoop on them for a story, which ends up causing the men to get really pissed at Spenny.
 * In Who is Funnier, Spenny confesses to a whole audience at a stand up club that he has HIV, or atleast he thought he did at the time. The comedian that went on stage immediately after Spenny walked out as an emotional wreck then proceeded to make jokes about Spenny having aids.
 * In the ten mile race episode, while driving to Kenny's mother's (fake) funeral, Spenny talks about what a bad mother she was and that she failed at bringing Kenny up into a decent person and this is really the only thing he ever says about her specifically after finding out about her death. Keep in mind that while she wasn't dead, he actually believed she was.
 * Jewish and Nerdy: Spennny
 * Jews Love to Argue: Both Kenny and Spenny are of Jewish heritage, (Though Kenny admits he's more of an atheist. And Spenny is not at all religious.) and the premise of the show is that they fight, so I suppose it's an example of this trope.
 * Karma Houdini: Kenny usually gets away scot-free with his antics.
 * Kavorka Man: Kenny, who manages to inexplicably be able to seduce virtually any girl he wants- except for Spenny's incredibly hot cousin, who he pines over.
 * Kick the Dog: In one episode, Spenny makes it clear that he's not homophobic and is supportive of gay rights after Kenny starts making gay jokes. Later in the episode, he angrily screeches that Kenny is "SO GAY IT'S PATHETIC". Classy.
 * Large Ham: Kenny.
 * Loophole Abuse: KENNY.
 * Every episode, Spenny lays out the rules and restrictions, trying to think of as many ways Kenny could find a way to cheat and prevent it. This rarely hinders Kenny, and only serves as his real challenge that week.
 * Loser Gets the Girl: In the challenge "Who can be a better journalist" Spenny goes out on the streets and in sewers to find a good story. Kenny hires some sexy celebrity impersonators to be seen in public so he could cause some paparazzi panic. Spenny ends up winning the challenge because Kenny never actually got around to writing anything, and completely missed out on the official decision by the editor because he was too busy having sex with a Beyonce impersonator. Kenny argues that he was still the winner in the end.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Kenny.
 * Musical Episode: In "whoever stops singing loses", it's pretty much a terrible version of this trope. Spenny ends up getting stuck on "row row row your boat" all day, and Kenny's crew contemplates quitting over how stupid this whole scene is.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: When Kenny locked Spenny in a room for a day to keep from having to fight him in boxing, even he thought he went too far. He was so disgusted with what he did that he rushed home early, let Spenny out, and then let Spenny win the fight.
 * Nerds Are Sexy: The reasoning behind Spenny's nerd costume for the stripper episode.
 * Never Work with Children or Animals: "Who Can Be Tied to a Goat the Longest", "Who Can Win a Rat Race", "Who Can Sit on a Cow the Longest", "Who Do Kids Like More", Spenny's gambit with his cousins in "Who Can Stay Awake the Longest".
 * Nice Jewish Boy: Kenny tries to play this up in "Who do the elderly like more"
 * Nightmare Fetishist: Kenny has a collection of rare collectible vintage records. Included in this collection are Nazi war songs, and recordings of speeches by Hitler and Jim Jones.
 * Noodle Incident: In the episode "who can get the farthest with the other's mom" Kenny legally can't say what happened, only that he won.
 * Off the Rails: The episode, "Who Can?" Kenny shows up dressed as a Roman Emperor and demands worship, and it just sort of... goes from there.
 * Every now and then there's the occasional episode where Kenny decides to just ignore the competition entirely to simply indulge in himself, or to torment Spenny, usually both.
 * Only Sane Man: Spenny tries to be...but usually ends up holding the Idiot Ball.
 * In recent seasons his sanity seems to have snapped. Easily flustered, and when flustered prone to angry outbursts of garbled, incoherent ranting, spastic violence and a tendency to injure himself, others or his possessions.
 * Paranoia Gambit: The most spectacular example of this trope on the show being Spenny's reaction to his admirer/helper/fan in "Who Can Kiss the Most Girls"--Kenny didn't even HAVE a Paranoia Gambit, and yet Spenny still fell victim to the trope.
 * Pixellation: Whenever someone is on camera that doesn't want to be seen on the show. Such as Spenny's mother, which is likely a good move, considering she's pretty much the go-to punchline for all of Kenny's most vulgar insults.
 * Also for obvious censorship of inappropriate things. Rather odd though, in that they are able to show a puppet wearing a gigantic floppy erect dildo completely uncensored, but when Spenny starts putting that very same puppet's member in his mouth, they have to censor it.
 * Please Don't Leave Me: In "Who Can Lift More Weight With Their Genitals", Kenny, in his own way, begs for Spenny not to move out and quit the show. Of course the emotion is sort of lost, as Kenny is only wearing a t shirt.
 * Popularity Power: The reason Kenny seems to win more competitions that are decided by a third party. He may be crass and offensive, but he also knows how to be fun and is fairly charismatic. Spenny tends to just make people feel uncomfortable.
 * Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Spenny, during Who is the best rapper. Bonus points for thinking Eminem's name is pronounced E-mine-um
 * Red Right Hand: Kenny is missing the tip of one of his fingers. And is pure evil.
 * Refuge in Audacity: Kenny's strategy for winning often depends heavily on this trope. Five seasons in, however, there isn't exactly much territory left for him to take refuge in--I mean,, there isn't much audacity left to take refuge in.
 * Refuge in Vulgarity.
 * Replacement Goldfish: The minute Spenny leaves in one episode, Kenny starts looking for awesome new replacements.
 * Robosexual: In First person to talk loses, it seems Spenny's laptop's text-to-speech program has fallen passionately in love with Kenny.
 * Running Gag: Almost any time Kenny is ever talking to ladies on the street, he will ask them for a simple peck on the cheek, and then at the last second he turns his head so that they accidentally kiss him on the lips. It works every time.
 * Pretty much every other episode will bring up Spenny's extreme self-consciousness over the size of his penis.
 * Serious Business: The season three finale, Arm Wrestling Competition. Spenny hires a crack team of security guards to protect him from Kenny to prevent any possible sabotage.
 * Shirtless Scene: Kenny spends a large percent of the show walking around in his underwear.
 * Sore Loser: Kenny generally takes his losses much worse than Spenny does. For example, in "Who Can Produce More Semen" Kenny storms away when its revealed Spenny won. Spenny, especially in later seasons, generally takes his losses and humiliations with a little more grace. In "Who Is the Better Soldier" Spenny was puked on by the entire crew and he took it while laughing.
 * Stupidity Is the Only Option: Kenny didn't seem to like the idea of making a pornography film in "Who can make a better porno". so instead, he decided to make a bunch of short sketch clips involving sex related jokes, featuring only himself. The end result was pretty much the exact same stuff he made for "Who can make the better commercial".
 * Technical Pacifist: Kenny isn't actually a violent person. He will lie, manipulate, torture, and Mind Rape Spenny, but outside of light rough housing, Kenny does not like to get into serious fights. It's why they had to forfeit the wilderness episode, and why he took such extreme measures to get out of the boxing episode.
 * Throw the Dog a Bone: Sure, Kenny's film crew get to have a lot more fun and excitement than Spenny's team. But you know what, Spenny's team got to film a porno.
 * Both Kenny and Spenny's film crew got to have the time of their life torturing the duo during "Who can 69 eachother the longest", with the two tied down together and almost completely immobile, the entire crew joined in spraying them with any liquids available, throwing random objects at them, and breaking plates over them. For once they were the ones not screaming for mercy.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Kenny and his coffee. Which has been exploited for a humiliation.
 * Trans-Atlantic Equivalent: Ported to the U.K. as Ed vs. Spencer, to Germany as Elton vs. Simon and to Quebec as Frank vs Girard.
 * As well as two different versions in Netherlands. One has two guys, the other has two girls.
 * Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Kenny, natch.
 * Versus Title
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Midway through "Who can go the longest with their head in a chicken coop" Kenny and Spenny change the challenge to "Who can win a mature and serious debate against each other while wearing a chicken coop on their head."
 * Write Who You Know: In "Who can make a better porno?" Spenny writes out a scenario that's been his personal fantasy since he was an adolescent.
 * Wrong Genre Savvy: Spenny seems to be under the impression that the show's audience are kids looking for life lessons on honesty and fairness.
 * You Were Trying Too Hard: Spenny's defining flaw. Usually if Kenny loses it's because of this.