Kenan & Kel is Nickelodeon's live-action television sitcom franchise created by Kim Bass only for the Nickelodeon Group. The television show based on the franchise premiered on Nickelodeon on August 17, 1996, and ran for 65 episodes over four seasons. Set in Chicago, Illinois, the series follows the misadventures of two high-school-aged teenagers, Kenan Rockmore (Kenan Thompson) and Kel Kimble (Kel Mitchell). Episodes typically begin with the events leading to and, subsequently, the consequences of Kenan's half-thought-out scams, which the nimble-minded foil Kel invariably follows. Other major characters in the series include Kenan's parents, his younger sister, and his boss at Rigby's, a local grocery store. The series finale, a television film titled Two Heads Are Better Than None, aired on July 15, 2000.
Premise[]
Set in Chicago, Illionis (USA), Kenan & Kel follows Kenan Rockmore and Kel Kimble, a pair of high school students who go on several misadventures, which usually occur as a result of Kenan devising a scheme to get-rich-quick, or avoid trouble from his elders. These schemes are often foiled as a result of Kel's aloof, happy-go-lucky nature.
The show employs a number of running gags. Episodes open and close with Kenan and Kel breaking the fourth wall by interacting with a studio audience, standing in front of a red curtain that is placed in front of the main set while they are still in character. A running gag of the openings is Kel never knowing what the night's episode would be about and Kenan refusing to tell him, while the closings frequently feature Kenan coming up with a new scheme, often asking Kel to get various assorted items and meet him somewhere. Frazzled both times, Kel exclaims his catchphrase, "Aww, here it goes!".
Main characters[]
Kenan Rockmore (Kenan Thompson)[]
Kenan is the oldest child of Roger and Sheryl Rockmore. He is Kyra's older brother and Kel's best friend. Kenan is relatively intelligent, but he hardly does any schoolwork. Instead, he spends his time getting in trouble and plotting schemes (such as transforming the grocery store at which he works into a nightclub, trying to buy a car, or telling everybody that Kel has extrasensory perception). Despite being good-natured, he tends to use his intelligence to frequently annoy his parents and boss. A trait that Kenan shares with Kel is that when someone uttered a nonsense word, the duo would repeat the word confusingly. In one episode, Kenan said the word huckleberry. This prompted Kenan's boss Chris and Kel to repeat the word confusingly. Kel also taught their adopted chimpanzee from the local zoo to do the same thing. His catchphrase is "WHYYYYYY?!" and he usually yells it when Kel does something wrong or he will angrily say, "Kel!". He also passes out when something good or bad happens to him due to being overwhelmed. He is shown to be very physically strong, being able to break an iron handcuff, destroy a block of cement punching it, and even removing a steel bar off a concrete wall with his might. Kenan also has a habit of yelling from across the room.
Age: 15 (Season 1), 16 (Season 2), 17 (Season 3) and 18 (Season 4)
Kel Kimble (Kel Mitchell)[]
Kel is the slightly nutty, dimwitted, and clumsy best friend of Kenan Rockmore. In fact, his impulsive, usually lack of attention, naïvete and strange behavior, make Kel to be accident-prone, being able to create the biggest disaster with the most ordinary things and actions. But despite this, Kel is actually highly intelligent as witnessed by his IQ test score, but this does not show in his everyday life. He loves orange soda (which he professes by talking in the third person: "Who loves orange soda? Kelllll loves orange soda. Is it true? Mm-hmm! I do, I do, I do-ooooh!") and never pays for the soda he drinks at Kenan's place of business, Rigby's. In the episode "Who Loves Orange Soda?", it is revealed that his steady diet for orange soda have caused his insides to be "bright orange". Since Kel's parents (who have never appeared on the show, though mentioned several times) are rich, busy scientists, he often visits and stays in Kenan's home to keep him company. Kel also tries to avoid Kenan's little sister, Kyra, who has a crush on him, but later on in the series, Kel feels more comfortable around Kyra. Kel also manages to get on Kenan's dad's bad side with his clumsy behavior and is always forced to go home. He might resist following Kenan's schemes at first, but ultimately he is included anyway and Kel somehow usually ruins them, although there are a few episodes that end on a high note. Despite being clumsy, Kel is also an incredible painter, an excellent violinist, a rapper and does very well in school (unlike Kenan). He is always wearing a hat during the course of the series. He is scared of pancakes, butterflies, brassieres, flying, ponies, crime, Berlin and monkeys. His catchphrase is "AWWWW, HERE IT GOES!" which he says right before the start of the show, and right at the end of the show. At the end of the first part of a 2-part episode, Kel would say, "AWWW, TO BE CONTINUED...", as the words, "TO BE CONTINUED...", would appear on the screen.
Age: 15 (Season 1), 16 (Season 2), 17 (Season 3) and 18 (Season 4)
Roger Rockmore (Ken Foree)[]
Roger is Kenan and Kyra's father. Roger is a very tall, stern and intimidating father with a big bald head and a deep bass-like voice. Although he is incredibly strict, he is mostly shown to be quite fair to his son. He works at O'Hare Airport as an air traffic controller, and is the only Rockmore who dislikes Kel. This is mostly due to the fact that Kel often makes a sarcastic remark about Roger's baldness and short-tempered attitude and tends to injure him and damage the Rockmore house during his visits. He usually tolerates Kel's presence, due to his friendship with Kenan, but he has been prone to get mad with Kel when he goes too far in his stupid actions. In the episode, Get the Kel Out of Here, Roger bans Kel for good from his house after Kel almost killed him, refusing to listen or forgive him (In the finale of the same episode, Kenan added that the only reason that Roger allows Kel to come back to his house is because he jumped out of the bedroom window after Kel, hit a tree with force, and forgot everything that had happened). Though he's a caring father, Roger has little to no patience with Kenan's schemes and has punished him multiple times as a result of his troublemaking. In addition, Roger usually ends up having to pay for Kenan and Kel's mishaps, such as fixing the Crams' house or repairing the glass display at the jewelry store. He hates spending money and is also grumpy, especially with Kenan's schemes and Kel's accidents. He has also been shown to be a sore-loser because he nearly always wins games.
Sheryl Rockmore (Teal Marchande)[]
Sheryl is Kenan and Kyra's mother. Sheryl is kind and caring, however, like her husband Roger, she is just as oblivious as to what schemes Kenan and Kel are up to. She is also much more patient with Kel than her husband, being much more of a listener than a punisher; she'd rather talk out problems with Kenan than punish him, though she has demonstrated her anger in several episodes.
Kyra Rockmore (Vanessa Baden)[]
Kyra is Kenan's younger sister. Kyra's biggest mission is telling on her brother Kenan, but she has devoted herself to Kel, having a major crush on him. Kel being aware of Kyra's crush on him, tries to get far away as possible from her. But seeing as this helps Kenan, Kel normally convinces her to help them with their schemes. For most of seasons three and four, Kyra did not appear, even in scenes showing the whole family; she did, however, appear in the series' finale TV movie. She often interrupts Kenan by saying "I was talking to Kel!".
Age: 9 (Season 1), 10 (Season 2), 11 (Season 3), and 12 (Season 4)
Christopher "Chris" Potter (Dan Frischman)[]
Chris is Kenan's boss, friend and the owner of the local grocery store, Rigby's. He lives with his unseen mother, (or the other way around) and most of his personal life involves taking care of her as she is an extremely unhealthy woman with an unorthodox lifestyle (attending lumberjack school, for example). Chris is usually Kenan and Kel's mentor and friend on the show, but sometimes he is annoyed by their antics and Kenan's schemes. Chris is dedicated to his store, but becomes annoyed when Kel takes so many things (mostly orange soda) without paying. This once prompted Chris to put a chain lock on the orange soda cooler until Kel began paying for orange soda. However, this only happened once, after which Chris let Kel drink all the orange soda he wants like he always does. He also has frequent nightmares of being chased by a giant rabbit, as well as an irrational phobia of sandwiches. Chris is sometimes caught in the middle of some of Kenan's schemes and may sometimes get hurt. One of his catchphrases is "I have a radio in my car!" Chris usually uses nonsense words, and in earlier seasons, had a quirk of adding the "be" sound before certain words in his sentences, such as telling Kel, "You be-bruised my bananas!", usually leaving Kenan and Kel confused but the quirk was phased out as the series progressed. He also had a nervous twitch, seemingly brought on by stress and anxiety, however this was quickly phased out after the pilot episode. Chris had a mullet during the first season of the series, but beginning in season two, he kept a much shorter hairstyle for the rest of the series.
Media[]
Main series[]
- Main article: Kenan & Kel (television series)
The main series was greenlighted by Nickelodeon right after Kim Bass, and stars Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell as the title characters. The actors previously starred in the Nickelodeon series All That.[1][2] Mitchell and Thompson would frequently joke around on the set of All That, which caught the attention of producers, including Bass, who wished to package Thompson and Mitchell in a series.[3] During a hiatus of All That, the producers kept Thompson and Mitchell so they could tape the pilot for Kenan & Kel.
Television specials[]
:Main articles: Kenan & Kel: Bye Bye Kenan and Kenan & Kel: Aw, Here It Goes to Hollywood
The franchise itself has two television specials on the show's Season 2 & 4.
Crossover[]
- Main article: Cousin Skeeter: Hoo, I'm Wild Wild West
In 2000, The characters of Kenan and Kel also make a crossover appearance on the Nickelodeon series Cousin Skeeter.[4]
Television film[]
- Main article: Kenan & Kel: Two Heads Are Better Than None
On July 15, 2000, The television film based on the show was released in the Summer 2000. the plot of the tv film starts when the Rockmores set off on a road trip, with Kel stowed away in the back of the car.
Legacy[]
In May 1st 1998, on the Sabrina the Teenage Witch Episode: "Sabrina's Choice", Sabrina's aunts are watching the Kenan & Kel show on tv when Sabrina plays one aunt against the other to get her way, Hilda and Zelda decide it's in Sabrina's best interest if they live in separate homes and Sabrina has to choose between them.
In a December 3, 2022, Saturday Night Live comedy sketch, Kenan Thompson, a longtime SNL cast member, appears in a spoof of Kenan & Kel called Kenan & Kelly with guest host Keke Palmer. In the skit, Palmer explains her desire to reboot Kenan & Kel after meeting Thompson and expressing her fondness of him during his Nickelodeon years. The skit is intercut between pseudo-interviews and recreations of the Rigby's grocery store set from the original series featuring Thompson, Palmer, and Mitchell. The addition of elements such as Palmer's disapproval of the word "idiot" to describe her, her pregnancy reveal, the robbery of Rigby's, and the subsequent shooting death of Kel are played for dramatic effect, which Thompson concludes as a reason why the "reboot" failed.[5]
References[]
- ↑ Orlando
- ↑ Video
- ↑ Video
- ↑ "The Hoo, I'm Wild Wild West: Part 1". Cousin Skeeter. September 18, 1999. Nickelodeon.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto module").
- ↑ Wang, Jessica (December 4, 2022). "Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell Reunite for Gritty Kenan & Kel Reboot on SNL". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2022-12-06.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto module").
External links[]
