The theatre was full on Jan. 25 at Algonquin Commons Theatre to see Kenny Hotz and Spenny Rice. It has been six years since their crude and humorous show, Kenny vs. Spenny, ended on Showcase. As Kenny strolled out with a Hitler t-shirt and Spenny raising his middle finger to the crowd, the two men in their 50s have clearly not changed at all.
The show began with a predictable verbal argument, with Kenny making homosexual jokes and Spenny complaining about Kenny.
While Spenny was determined to create an open dialogue between the audience and himself, he fell quite short. Spenny explained how when he would go on dates with girls, he would ask the girls if he could touch himself.
“If this is wrong,” Spenny said, “I want to talk about it. Especially the girls in the audience, let’s talk about it,” he said to silence in the crowd.
This setting was definitely not an open dialogue forum or a place where Spenny actually wanted to talk to women about their feelings toward consent.
“Being drunk means you cannot give consent. Remember this guys or you will get in trouble,” Spenny said as he explained the “real” problem about consent.
“Women are all animals, they want to be slapped and they want their hair to be pulled,” Spenny said. “I have peed on women and I doubt any guys will raise their hand to say they have too.”
When one man raised his hand, “You are a god. You are what society needs,” Spenny said and applauded.
“You are a god because you pee on girls?” Kenny asked, as he obviously noticed the huge flaws in Spenny’s odd need to create a “social justice” discussion and it was the perfect fuel for Kenny’s insults.
It’s surprising to hear Spenny’s views about sex, and it is concerning knowing he writes a sex advice blog.
Kenny and Spenny played a few video clips that were unable to be aired on their show, including Kenny pretending to make love to a fake goat and Spenny ACTUALLY making love to a porn star he hired. It was shocking the amount of people in the audience who got their phones out to film Spenny’s naked ass.
I was disappointed in the lack of character development seen in Kenny and Spenny. Though the show has been off the air since 2010, Kenny and Spenny seem to be determined to remain these predictable black and white personas. Kenny continually tries to say the most offensive thing for shock value and cheap laughs, while Spenny tries to bring philosophical meaning or intellectual debate to important subjects. Yet, when Spenny was actually questioned about his character’s persona or his morals, Spenny would not answer.
The audience clearly loved Kenny’s abusive dialogue towards Spenny, and it is interesting whether the show would have gotten the same feedback if it was just Kenny. The show’s humor was entirely based off mocking each other, the audience or any name they randomly thought of.
“Margaret Atwood is a c***,” Kenny confidently proclaimed.
“Jesus is real and whoever doubts it is a stupid person,” Spenny announced happily.
If you loved the old show, you may be happy to hear Kenny and Spenny are keeping it alive by redoing the exact same stunts/bits on the college campus tours. However, it is disappointing they have not tried to use their publicity to start a new project.
In an interview from 2012, Conan O’Brien asked Kenny and Spenny whether their show would be sad or depressing when they are 50, 60 or 70-years-old and still performing the same immature stunts? The answer to this question:
Yes, yes it really is.
