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RIP Kenan & Kel

Posted by Richard Padley from Neath Port Talbot - Published on 28/05/2010 at 10:30
4 comments » - Tagged as Comedy, Culture, Movies, People

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It's fun to play the tragic game of nostalgia. 

You only have to look on Facebook to find fan pages of something obscure, something hidden deep in your memory that when you remember them for the first time in years, your face pulls the unique expression of someone simultaneously mourning the death of one person and celebrating the birth of another.

Rubbish Toys

For example, the Alien Birth Pods now has a fan page on Facebook - those idiot eggs that had two alien babies inside that you could genuinely do absolutely nothing with but look at, and yet were so sought after at one time they made Pokemon cards look like Digimon cards.

Supposedly, if you rubbed the heads of the two together you could get the female pregnant, but that never happened ever to anybody. They were simply pointless little alien babies that ended up mostly on the ceiling of the classroom. 

Except mine. 

I attacked mine with a pencil out of frustration.

I can't tell you the satisfaction you get from violently jabbing an insanely expensive but useless blob right in its eye. Go out, try it for yourself, I'm telling you, you'll love it. [Sub-Ed Note: TheSprout does not endorse stabbing expensive but useless blobs in the eye, blobs have rights too!]

Kenan & Kel

Recently I saw a couple of groups referring to Kenan & Kel, the outstanding Nickelodeon show from my childhood about two kids getting up to crazy mischief. 

The show plays essentially like a Drake & Josh episode in reverse - the fat guy's the sensible one, and the skinny guy is the crazy one (yes, I've seen Drake & Josh, and yes, I know they're both skinny these days, but you're following me, right?).

A friend of mine's father once said Kenan needed a diet and Kel needed rehabilitation. So true. Kenan's weight very much climbs and climbs with every episode, and the erratic Kel's shakes and shivers and whatnot becoming more and more of a spectacle with it.

It's hard to bring up the TV you watched as a kid without bringing up this show, and inevitably someone will claim Kel (or Kenan, but usually Kel) has died in a car crash. 

The first time I heard this rumour I remember being in secondary school and being a little devastated. Kel is dead? It's hard to imagine him being still enough to be dead, the man always had way too much speed in his head to be able to feign even sleep properly, yet now he's lying somewhere still as Theresa May at a gay rights rally.

For a couple of years after, I was under the assumption that Kel Mitchell was dead. What's to become of Kenan? I would wonder, what will the fat cuss do now that his sidekick is worm meat? How will his nightclub "Da Bomb" get off the ground now? And how will the silence feel? No more "Aw, here it goes!" no more "Who loves orange soda?", no more "I put the screw in the tuna!".

Coolio's fantastic theme tune prophesised that "You gotta watch Kenan cus, Kenan be scheming, with a plan or plot, to make it to the top", but who will he scheme with now? Nobody, that's for sure - he'll be cooped up in his room for the rest of his days, his homoerotic relationship with the only man he loved now over, sealed and discarded by the grim reaper?

These thoughts would run through my mind on those long nights of my middle teenage years, always wondering, always grieving for the jittery Nickelodeon mess.

The Peak Of Noughties Cinema

Then, Snakes On A Plane was released. 

My friends and I had been quietly watching the progress of this brilliantly titled film since it was written about on Josh Friedman's blog. It was summer 2006 when I saw it advertised on TV. My heart started to beat frantically, my eyes filled with tears. I grabbed my mobile and called my friend Jonny. 

"Are you watching Paramount Comedy?"
"Snakes on a Plane?" he said.
"We're seeing that today." I said.

Five minutes later we were walking with a few others to the beach, it took about an hour on foot, but we were all a little drunk already so none of us could drive there. We stopped by a couple of beachfront pubs on the way, making our walk much longer, but we were savouring the moment. Good things come to those who wait, I thought as I gulped down a pint of Guinness.

After teasing ourselves for a couple of hours, and getting crazy drunk, we headed to the Apollo Cinema, also conveniently located on the beach. I remember stumbling in and excitedly yelling at the poor cuss behind the desk "One for snakes on a mothercussing plane please!" [Sub-Ed Note: TheSprout does not endorse drinking or shouting at people in the service industry. OK, most people in the service industry]

We charged to the screen, all of us rambling excitedly and incoherently, some falling over into empty aisles as we scrambled up to our seats in the dark theatre. There wasn't many there, but the audience was loud enough for us to enjoy ourselves. We yelled and clapped, laughed and swore. When Samuel L Jackson uttered his infamous line, we screamed it with him and fell into piles of laughter. 

About ten minutes or so into the film, the screen filled with the doughy face of a man I hadn't seen for at least half a decade. Kenan was in the building (or plane, if you will), and hadn't changed a bit, except for, of course, a huge weight gain and a deeper voice.

Our aisle combusted with excited recognition.

"Holy cuss," Jonny said. "I thought he was dead."
I turned to him, my eyes squinting. "What? Kenan isn't dead."
"Clearly," he said, "but I thought he died in a car crash."
"You fool," I said, "that's Kel, you idiot. Dead as the dodo."

Jonny turned to me in awe. The film, the experience, had taken a sudden turn. It was mere background noise now as we spoke about the Abbott & Costello of our childhood, but we were soon hushed by our friends and continued enjoying that bat-cuss crazy film. 

When I got home that night, I remembered what Jonny had told me. Kenan, dead? [*SPOILER ALERT*] That was clearly untrue, although I'd have believed it had he not mere moments ago landed a plane that was under attack from venomous snakes.

The Answer

But the very fact that this rumour existed meant hope. Jonny had said he'd died in a car crash - had Jonny merely mistaken the two men, or was the same rumour circulating about both of them?

"To the IMDb!" I yelled to myself and began to type and click. My heart began to beat, my pupils widened, sweat began to pour. My nerves were getting the best of me - as the page loaded up I exited quickly, seeing nothing but a glance of his face grinning at me as he stood comically in his Good Burger uniform.

Did I want to know for sure? I'd been under the impression he had been dead all these years, to find out he's still alive, is that something I want to find out? Would it change me, my perspective on life? Did all my pessimism, my nihilistic outlook on life, did these stem from the grief of a man called Kel? Did I want all that to leave me?

And what if he was really dead? Would that push me over the edge? What would the definite confirmation of his death do to me?

I clicked back to the page. It loaded up. I stared at Kel Mitchell's IMDb page, and it stared right back at me.

"He's alive," I whispered, leaning back on my chair, stunned, simply staring. "That beautiful son of a cuss is still alive."

So, let's put this to bed once and for all - neither Kenan, nor Kel, are dead. 

Kenan Thompson is currently working on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, as-well-as recording the voice of Greedy Smurf in the upcoming feature length The Smurfs movie (yes, that's a real thing). 

Kel Mitchell is well, not quite as successful as his partner in comedy, but I read that he's doing stand up comedy (and heroin, apparently, but this is another rumour that is no doubt untrue, and if it isn't, it's completely unsurprising). He also has a lead in a film soon to be released called Chicago Pulaski Jones, about a dancer avenging the death of his uncle. Does it sound good? No. But at least he's still alive, for cuss sake.

Now, after reading this you can go out into the world and tell your loved ones - Kenan and Kel breathe! Believe!

But before that, grab a clown, a flagpole, and a submarine, and meet me in my room - come on, Buffalo Bottom!

You know the words; 

Aww, here it goes!

4 CommentsPost a comment

Cezzie

Commented 72 months ago - 28th May 2010 - 11:54am

Coolio will never be that rapper guy who got famous from that one song (Gangster's Paradise). He'll always be the guy who sung the theme song of my childhood.

Kenan and Kel FTW! RIP Good Quality Kids' Shows!

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Dan (Sub-Editor)

Commented 72 months ago - 28th May 2010 - 13:48pm

Or that guy from Celebrity Big Brother who wouldn't shut up...

Richard Padley

Richard Padley

Commented 72 months ago - 28th May 2010 - 14:02pm

To "research" for this article I watched so many episodes of Kenan & Kel on YouTube I killed the nostalgia completely.

But I can still rap every word of that theme tune.

Sambow

Sambow

Commented 72 months ago - 30th May 2010 - 16:32pm

Great article!
I used to love that show so much...
It's always great to remember these childhood obsessions.
I love your line in particular "they made Pokemon cards look like Digimon cards." So true, so true. :P
-Sambow

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