Western Animation / Kevin Spencer

Kevin! Spencer!
Something's wrong with that kid
Kevin! Spencer!
His head don't work, it never did
Kevin! Spencer!
You better not cross his path
Kevin! Spencer!
He's a chain-smoking, alcoholic sociopath
Sociopath!

Kevin Spencer (1999-2005) was a Canadian animated series that aired on The Comedy Network and was based on an online Flash cartoon created by Mondo Media in the late 90s. Kevin was a silent, sociopathic juvenile delinquent who was born without the ability to feel emotions, was addicted to cough syrup and cigarettes, and spoke to an imaginary friend, Allen the Magic Goose, who always gave him horrible advice. His parents were fat, abusive alcoholics, who spent most of their time swearing at each other and committing illegal acts. Very dark and cynical, the show made light of the Canadian justice system and the nation's disadvantaged.

With its simplistic art style (and in season one, narration), season one played out like someone narrating a very twisted children's book. The second season altered this to present-day storytelling with less narration (the narrator would tell the audience what Kevin "says", as well as explaining certain plot elements to the audience), constant swearing (including many uncensored instances of the word "fuck"), and full half-hour episodes. The stories were often vulgar and crass with low-brow humor, but would jump into philosophical, intelligent and surrealistic events.

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Tropes used in this series:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Subverted in that Anastasia is physically repulsive, but this doesn't seem to keep her from cheating on Percy with just about every guy she can lay her hands on. Occasionally Lampshaded in that some of the guys she hits on throw up in revulsion.
• Actually Pretty Funny: As much as the Spencers don't like being insulted, occasionally they'll laugh and agree with insults directed their way.
• All Just a Dream: "Drunken Welfare Man" was just a dream, or rather a hallucination by Kevin. Lampshaded by Percy at the end:
  Percy: Yeah, that's right. It was all a dream. The whole fuckin' episode, got a problem with that?
• Animated Shock Comedy: The series is full of crass humor, sexual references, and animation that resembles South Park (especially in season one). Notably, Greg Lawrence stated in one interview that he thought Kevin would be the next South Park.
• Arch-Enemy: Slappy Bigelow was a prison inmate who only appeared in the first season and the season two episode "Runaway". He was Kevin's main rival for control of the contraband black market in prison.
• Artistic License – Biology: Percy and Kevin constantly suffer what the narrator describes as "strokes". What they actually suffer are heart attacks.
• Art Shift: Greg Lawrence apparently felt that the format of the first season was too chaotic, which was why he changed the format to full half-hour episodes from the second season onward.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: They routinely fight with and cheat on each other, but Percy and Anastasia still express love (or at least lust) for each other. They also get extremely jealous when the other cheats— Anastasia gets pissed off when Percy hires prostitutes, while Percy will cheerfully attempt to kill anyone who does his wife besides him.
• Author Avatar: Rick Kaulbars is pretty much the only other writer the show ever had besides Greg Lawrence. Along with Lawrence (see Her Codename Was Mary Sue, below), Kaulbars also inserted himself into the episode "Air Show" as a drugged-out writer who desperately needed to come up with a script for the season's final episode. Kaulbars also includes Lawrence in this episode—Greg mentions that he would have written the script himself, but he was tied up looking after all the teenage runaways at Camp Whosyourdaddy.
• A Wizard Did It: On one occasion when Kevin died of a heart attack, Percy asked the wizard who lived in the Spencers' backyard to resurrect him. The wizard does so, and then Percy repays him by telling him to get off his property.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Anastasia is so offended by Percy taking her and Kevin to "Boobies", a Writing Around Trademarks version of the real-life Hooters chain, that she and her bisexual mistress Vivica decide to show Percy up by starting their own restaurant called "Peckers" that only employs handsome young men. The restaurant is a success... but Anastasia doesn't really get back at Percy because Peckers' clientele is all gay men.
• Berserk Button: Percy and Anastasia both get extremely pissed off whenever they find out that they've been cheated on by the other one. Anastasia also gets really hot under the collar whenever people are really rude to her and don't speak to her like a "fucking lady".
• Bilingual Bonus: What with Canada being a bilingual country, the characters encounter a few signs in French. When the Spencers are riding on a train in Quebec, they see a sign on the wall that reads "Defense de fumer". Percy wonders what it means, and Anastasia thinks that it says "Fasten your seatbelt". What it actually means is "No Smoking". Of course, even if Kevin and his parents really knew what it meant, they obviously wouldn't obey it anyway.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: In "Operators Are Standing By", Percy gets upset at his workman's compensation being cut off. Kevin reminds him that he's defrauding a bunch of other government agencies. Percy replies that welfare, UI (Unemployment Insurance, a program designed to support people between jobs), the Veteran's Pension and the government arts grant are all bound to wise up sooner or later...except maybe the arts grant, after which Percy winks at the camera. ^note For context, Canada's federal and provincial governments subsidize many homegrown cultural productions with funding grants and tax credits.
• Black Comedy: Make no mistake, this show is grim from start to finish. The fact that it's all Played for Laughs only accentuates it even further.
• Canadian Equals Hockey Fan: Surprisingly downplayed. Kevin and Percy are hockey fans but it's also just an excuse to get loaded and the subject of the sport only comes up in a few episodes.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Slappy Bigelow was never seen again after the first season, while characters like Charlie Plunt and Pete Wilcox all became regulars.
  • However in the end of the season 2 episode "Runaway", a inmate that may or may not be Slappy Bigelow does appear and plans to make Percy his bitch for lying to him about having no smokes after Percy is caught smoking. The inmate does look exactly like him but it's never revealed if it is him or not.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Kevin. He gets visits from an imaginary friend, never speaks, and is addicted to various substances.
  • And then there's Pete Wilcox, a towering mental patient who's so messed up he makes Kevin look normal. Pete has dissociative identity disorder, resulting in alters such as a teenage stripper named Brandy Love, a sheepdog, a John Deere tractor (among many other things), and also believes that Kevin is Jesus. He's also the closest thing Kevin has to a friend, besides Allen and Bull the legless and armless junkie he met at Ward 9.
• Continuity Porn: Surpisingly enough - characters from other, earlier episodes (such as Pete from the first season) could show up at any time, being for a plot-point, or just a cameo.
• Crapsack World: Virtually every character is poor white trash, alcoholic, criminal and insane.
  • Except for the rich people. No, they are racist, uptight snobs who are not above trying to kill off people they don't like.
• Dumb Muscle: Pete Wilcox is completely insane, built like a Sherman tank, and completely obedient to Kevin. He's served as Kevin's bodyguard in prison, dug escape tunnels for Kevin to escape from jail, and gave Percy a visit from "Mistress Esmerelda" whenever Kevin wants to see his father suffer.
• Deadpan Snarker: The narrator describes things like "Kevin told him to go fuck himself" without the slightest hint of inflection.
• Decided by One Vote: Percy runs for Ontario Premier but loses by two votes, which as the lady interviewing him points out, he would've won had he and his wife voted. Percy doesn't really care because it would've been too much effort to go vote.
• Deconstructive Parody and Deconstruction: Often zigzagging between episodes, or even scenes. Kevin's upbringing and behavior is presented as a deconstruction of a tragic life, to most people. To his parents, it's normal or funny.
• Dissonant Serenity: One episode features a cute young college boy inviting Anastasia to a frat party. It turns out to be an "ugly date" party and a contest to bring the ugliest date, with the winner getting admitted to the fraternity. When Anastasia's "date" wins the contest and reveals the truth, she's astonishingly calm and seems to take everything in good humor as she leaves. Then she returns...by driving a semi-truck into the frat house and releasing all the dangerous genetically-modified wild animals inside it on the partygoers. Anastasia watches the partygoers' suffering with a Slasher Smile.
• Domestic Abuse: Percy and Anastasia get into fistfights all the time. Hilarity Ensues.
• Double Standard: Averted, as both Anastasia and Percy physically hit each other on a regular basis.
  • Percy also attempts to shove one of Kevin's video games up her ass. He shoves it up Marty the bartender's ass. Then Anastasia finds out what he wanted to do and throws a toilet seat at him.
  • Marty actually punches her in the face in one episode.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Compared to the later seasons of Kevin Spencer, season one played out like someone narrating a very twisted children's book with its simplistic art style and narration; also, in the same season, Charlie Plunt does not have his French Canadian accent that he has from season two onwards. It was until season two that Kevin Spencer shifted towards present day storytelling while still keeping its edgy humour with social commentary thrown in along the way.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Percy Spencer may be an alcoholic, chain-smoking, drug-abusing repeat offender, but even he recognized that Adolf Hitler was an asshole.
  • In "The Cruise", Kevin is clearly afraid of the Widow Coulson because he believes she is much crazier than him. Even Allen agrees with Kevin.
  • There are times when Kevin thinks that Pete Wilcox is even crazier than him.
  • In "Runaway", a man gives him money when he finds out Kevin was a runaway. Due to being a sociopath, Kevin's response to this is to violently attack the man and steals the money anyway. Allen the Magic Goose is actually shocked by this and mused that the kindness of others could put his faith back in humanity.
  • There are times Kevin gets turned off by the sociopathic behavior of his love interest Shawna. He even displays shock over the fact that Shawna murdered her own mother in "Mother's Little Helper", as he never took a life before.
• Failure Is the Only Option: One of Kevin's goals is to just fit in and have people like him. Unfortunately, a combination of bad luck and his sociopathic nature conspire to make him a hateful Misanthrope Supreme and Cloud Cuckoolander who despises everyone around him as much as they despise him.
• Fan Disservice: Anastasia usually goes around in a tube top and spandex pants. It gets worse whenever she takes off her top.
• Flipping the Bird: Kevin's usual response to anyone that bothers him. His parents aren't much better in this regard.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: The first and third theme songs had a bouncing ball with its lyrics.
• Gainax Ending: "M.O.W." ends with Kevin somehow placing a studio audience in each room in this house, and recording everything his parents do to put the video up on the internet. He keeps his parents in the house with lasers.
• Genius Ditz: Kevin's generally pretty stupid, but he's a remarkably skilled singer and chess player. He also builds a robot spider in one episode.
• Gonk: Anastasia more or less defines this trope.
• Grand Finale: The last couple of episodes can be seen as an extended finale. Characters like Charlie Plunt and Porn Man are Killed Off for Real, Jimmy permanently closes his pawn shop, and in the final episode all the Spencers die before Allan wakes up and realizes the entire series was All Just a Dream.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Percy and Anastasia pretty much define this trope. The main reason they keep Kevin around is because the childcare support checks they get for him are a major source of booze and smokes. They're also extremely neglectful, not worrying at all when Kevin disappears for months at a time. They explain that the boy always comes home eventually... and oddly enough, they're actually right.
• Hates Being Touched: Kevin doesn't like being touched, especially on the head. Displaying his shiv is the only warning most people need.
• The Heckler: "Runaway" has Anastasia become a standup comic after a comedy club owner sees her insult Percy on television. During one of Anastasia's performances, a heckler berates her for smoking, saying that it kills people. Anastasia shoots back that Adolf Hitler killed people too, but the heckler wasn't raking him over the coals and accuses her of being a Nazi-lover. When the heckler asks what Hitler has to do with smoking, Anastasia simply tells her to fuck off.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: "Merry Christmas, Asshole!" features Greg Lawrence as a wealthy and buff sex god who considers himself the King Of Comedy, to the point that he has the title tattooed across his back. The trope is subverted as the animated version of Greg threatens, abuses and murders his staff. They eventually get back at him by causing him to overdose on insulin at the office Christmas party.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Porn Man and Afro Man are a pair of adult film entertainers who not only co-star in their films, but also co-own their own swinging bachelor pad.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Anastasia at least attempts to provide a good life for Kevin, and tries to get close to Percy. Also, in the episode "Dogfight" when a frat boy tricks her into attending a party so he can enter her unknowingly in an "ugly date" competition, she gives a surprisingly good breakdown of how cruel a prank it is and makes a mature and dignified exit. (She drives a bus into the frat house five minutes later, but it's hard to think the fratboys didn't earn it.)
  • Kevin himself may be a drunken sociopath, but one of his most sincere wants is to be popular... and to have a hat with a weapon on it.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Percy and Anastasia are extremely neglectful and verbally abusive of their son. They don't actually physically beat him, though, partly because they're too lazy to even get off the couch to answer the phone, partly because they don't want to offend a potential kidney donor, and partly because they're freaking scared of him. Occasionally Lampshaded as Kevin feels rage and hatred for his parents and his miserable life, but doesn't seem inclined to do anything about it.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Parodied. Anastasia is picked up by a rich man who attempts to pull a 'Pretty Woman' on her, but it fails miserably.
• Hope Spot: "Kevin's Girl" has Kevin successfully woo Lisa, the janitor from the place for old folks. He manages to fix his house and trick her into thinking he's a chef in order to impress her. In the last few minutes, Kevin's parents return home, expose his charade, and ruin the relationship. The episode ends with Kevin, sad, running upstairs.
• Hypocritical Humor: There are times when Kevin admits that Pete Wilcox is crazy.
• I Am the Noun: When Percy and Kevin are out and about during the Christmas holidays:
  Charity Santa: Would you like to donate to the poor?
  Percy: Hey, I am the poor, so eff off!
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Kevin has often expressed this. Unfortunately, both bad luck and his sociopathic nature prevent it from ever happening.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: In "A Day in School":
  Anastasia Spencer: ...Busting into the welfare office, stealing the car, and framing me.
  Percy Spencer: Welfare office? Car? Shitting on a desk? Why, I don't know what you're talking about!
  Anastasia Spencer: Then how'd you know about taking a dump on the desk?
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: A Rare Female Example occurs with Anastasia, who justifies her cheating on Percy by saying that she has "needs" that she can't satisfy just by sleeping with Percy. Surprisingly enough, Percy occasionally agrees with this.
• Imaginary Friend: Allen the Magic Goose. That said, they constantly argue and fight, and Kevin's psychiatrist sees it as less a friendship and more a master/slave relationship. Allen occasionally threatens to let the "Axe Monkey" off its leash if Kevin doesn't do what he says.
  • Everybody but Allen: the characters are all part of Allen's mind, according to the series finale.
• Insult to Rocks: The blind, inbred mountain hicks asked the Spencers to stop showing up at the family reunions because they were embarrassing them.
• Laser-Guided Karma: A teenage boy is playing pinball and is on the verge of setting a new world record for the highest score, while he's surrounded by admirers. Kevin then comes up and whacks the pinball machine, causing it to "tilt" and making the boy lose the game. The boy breaks down sobbing, and his admirers all glare at Kevin, who merely flips them off. The admirers all swarm Kevin and give him a mass No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that puts him in a temporary coma.
• Laxative Prank: Percy spikes some of Anastasia's drinks in "Practical Jokes". He also took care to lock both the women's and men's bathroom doors of the bar she was in. She doesn't last long.
• Like Father, Like Son: Percy and Kevin are both chain-smoking, drug-abusing, alcoholic repeat offenders. Kevin has also inherited his father's bald spot, a trait which Porn Man and Charlie Plunt share for some reason.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Thanks to many years of substance abuse, Percy has a hard time getting it up in bed. It doesn't help that his wife is a Gonk. Sometimes she'll take pity on him, other times she'll laugh at him for it.
• Long Runner: Eight seasons might not be long by American standards, but eight years is everything in Canada. Kevin Spencer is the country's longest-running animated series that wasn't a co-production, in-addition to being The Comedy Network's longest-running animated program.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Kevin may be the son of Percy or his brother Lester. Anastasia flipped a coin and Percy "won".
• Moustache Of Evil: Subverted by Kevin's Uncle Lester, who has a moustache that looks like Adolf Hitler's but is actually sober and respectable, unlike the rest of the Spencer family. It's Lampshaded when Percy points out that Hitler was an asshole, and Lester replies that he pretty much ruined that type of moustache for everybody else.
• Mr. Exposition: The narrator's role decreased starting in the second season, but he continued to tell the audience what Kevin "said", and explained certain plot elements like Percy being trapped in a room he set on fire or Kevin suffering from a serious illness.
• My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: There are jabs taken at Canadian health care and the Spencers themselves can be seen as typical Canadian hillbilly welfare cases.
• Never Learned to Read: Percy is illiterate, mostly because he's really, really stupid. Anastasia often has to read things to him. Kevin is occasionally depicted as illiterate too.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: A couple of episodes imply that Allen is some sort of spirit/demon entity that simply lives in Kevin's head. When Kevin temporarily dies from a heart attack, Allan returns to the "Imaginary Friends Galactic Headquarters" to be reassigned, while in another he becomes fed up with Kevin and tries to find another head to live in, interacting with several other characters.
• Nostalgia Filter: One psychologist tells Kevin that helping the kid was "what [his] wife would have wanted," and starts to tear up. Subverted when Kevin tells the man that his wife was a cruddy old skank and the man agrees, adding that his wife also farted in her sleep.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Charlie Plunt, Marty the bartender, and all the other guys that Anastasia cheats on Percy with get very scared whenever Percy finds out, and with good reason.
  • Percy reacts like this when a much bigger inmate is about to sodomize him for lying about not having any smokes.
  • Kevin has this reaction when Percy reveals that Kevin ratted him out to the cops for breaking into a liquor store. The Stool Pigeon tends not to last long in high-security prisons.
    • Percy then has this reaction when the inmates call him a stoolie for exposing Kevin and decide to sodomize him.
  • Percy is terrified when he learns the Leduc Brothers, a group of Quebecois bikers, are being released from prison after 15 years. They were arrested because Percy snitched on them, and now they're out for blood. Percy is even more scared when he and the Leduc Brothers are all sent back to prison and they're all put in the same police wagon. The episode ends with Kevin and Anastasia waving goodbye to Percy as the Leduc Brothers beat him up in the wagon.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping and Poor Communication Kills: Allen overhears Percy talking to Anastasia about moving. Though Annie quickly shoots down the idea of leaving their home, Allen has misses this part. He tells Kevin that he should kill his parents stop the move. Subverted in the next scene, however: Kevin just talks to his mom about it, getting clarification that they aren't moving. Kevin then thinks about how they just avoided the following tropes by talking things out, instead of running with a misunderstanding like a sitcom.
• Potty Failure: Percy's years of heavy drinking have destroyed his bladder control.
• Prison Rape: Percy has been sodomized in prison several times, and it's played for laughs.
  • One example was when Percy revealed that Kevin had ratted him out to the cops. All the other convicts are mad at Kevin, and it looks like they're going to sodomize him as a punishment, but Kevin manages to get released by spiking everybody's urine tests with drugs, with his own urine being the only "clean" sample. All the other inmates were pretty pissed off at having a few extra months tacked onto their sentences, and looking for someone to take it out on. Then they realize that Percy was the one who ratted out Kevin...
  • In the end of "Runaway", a inmate who may or may not be Slappy Bigelow threatens to make Percy his bitch for lying about having no smokes after he is caught smoking.
  • In the episode "In Like Plunt", Anastasia teases Kevin about having to go into a truckstop washroom, saying that they're full of perverts who'll make Kevin their "love doll", like Percy was for a Filipino gang in prison.
  • "Allen the Magic Goose" has Kevin ordering Pete Wilcox to give Percy a "visit" from one of the alters in his system, a cross-dressing dominatrix named "Mistress Esmerelda".
  • After Percy rats out Charlie Plunt and some of his other friends, they give him a "non-consensual prostate exam" the next time he's in jail.
• Promoted to Opening Credits: Besides the main family and Allen, various side characters like Marty and Charlie will take turns in the opening credits, depending on the season.
• Really Gets Around: Anastasia is pretty much the town slut.
• School Is for Losers: Percy firmly believes this, and thinks Kevin reading or trying to learn things is a sign of his becoming "fruity".
• Self-Deprecation: At the end of "BUZZ", Daryn Jones and Morgan Smith are confronted by their boss, who demands that they get the Spencers and film more footage with them due to viewers enjoying their antics. Jones then asks "Who the hell in their right mind wants to watch a comedy show about some fat, unemployed, alcoholic white-trash parents and their psychotic kid?! Not even in Canada." The episode ends with the boss winking at the viewers.
• Self-Made Orphan: Subverted with Kevin. He fantasizes about killing his parents and occasionally holds pretend funerals for them, even when they're standing ten feet away. Anastasia is creeped out by this, but Percy points out that if Kevin was going to kill them, he'd have done it a long time ago.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: All the stuff Pete Wilcox saw while serving in The Vietnam War pretty much drove him insane. All the LSD, cocaine and marijuana he did certainly didn't help things.
• Silent Bob: Kevin "speaks", and the other characters react to what he "says", but the audience never hears it. Instead, the narrator tells us what Kevin "said". The only times Kevin actually verbally speaks are either in hallucinations or dreams, one episode where he told one of the Lozers to "fuck off", and the Grand Finale.
• The Stool Pigeon:
  • In a first-season episode, Kevin rats Percy out to the cops for breaking into a liquor store. Kevin's reputation and black market business are ruined when Percy tells the other inmates, and the only thing that saves him from getting sodomized is getting paroled because he had Pete Wilcox spike everyone else's urine samples with drugs. The other inmates are all angry at having their sentences extended for their failed drug tests, and want to take it out on someone. Then they decide that Percy's a stoolie for exposing Kevin, and decide to all sodomize him as punishment.
  • In a later episode, Percy sells out the Leduc Brothers, a gang of Quebecois thugs, and gets them sentenced to 15 years in jail. When the Leduc Brothers are released after serving their sentences, they're determined to get payback on Percy.
• Stylistic Suck: The entire series, but the first season has stiffer, cruder animation than South Park in its early days. Greg Lawrence mentioned in interviews that the first production meeting consisted of everybody laughing at how bad his original drawings were. He also said that he recruited the show's animators when they were fresh out of school and proceeded to destroy their training.
• The Sociopath: The opening theme song specifically describes Kevin as this trope, but let's examine the checklist:
  • Persistent lying to mess with other peoples' heads? Check.
  • Lack of remorse or empathy for others by laughing at their suffering? Check.
  • Cruelty to animals by killing his dog when he was seven years old? Check.
  • Poor behavioral controls through a tendency to commit robberies and beatings on people who piss him off? Check.
  • A history of childhood conduct disorder by smoking and drinking? Check.
  • Recurring difficulties with the law by going to juvenile hall and adult prison? Check.
  • A tendency to violate the rights and boundaries of others by robbing and beating them? Check.
  • Substance abuse from alcohol, tobacco and any number of drugs? Check.
  • Aggressive and violent behavior by punching or hitting people who make him angry? Check.
  • Inability to tolerate boredom and committing crimes as a way of relieving boredom? Check.
  • Disregard for safety with reckless behavior? Check and mate.
• Take That!:
  • In "Quest", after Kevin whacks an upper class asshole with a boat oar, the narrator chimes in with this little barb:
  Narrator: The man collapsed quicker than common sense at an NRA meeting.
  • "The Buck Stops Here" has Percy launching an incredible rant lambasting the American President at the time: George W. Bush. For bonus points, a message flashes at the bottom of the screen: "Please don't bomb us!"
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In "Squirrels", Percy participates in an illegal bare-knuckle boxing match. His opponent is Gary "Grim Reaper" Morgan, who's hasn't lost any of his 33 fights and killed a record 8 opponents. Meanwhile, Percy is a middle-aged, overweight chain-smoking drunk. Gary knocks Percy down almost immediately, and then crushes his last smoke. Percy gets mad, and seems like he's about to have a Let's Get Dangerous! moment. Reality then ensues as Gary crushes Percy with a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Thicker Than Water: Averted. Kevin and his parents have no problem ratting each other out to the police, or even framing each other for their own crimes.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: None of the Spencers deserve any sympathy, as they're all horrible people. What separates them from others in this trope is that they know they're horrible people, they just don't care.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Series creator Greg Lawrence does this occasionally, mocking his own abilities as a writer. "That Guy Who Liked Pie" had Allen know how to work a time machine, causing Kevin to think how his life is like a TV show, with the plot moving forward though contrived and convenient coincidences, rather than through solid storytelling. This results in a rabid wolverine suddenly materializing and mauling Kevin's foot, which makes Kevin not want to think about such things again.
• Word Salad Lyrics: The second-season episode Dreamland meanders all over the place and concludes without even resolving the plotline of what the social worker was going to do with Kevin. On the Straightening Things Out DVD, Greg Lawrence explains that he'd forgotten to write a script to meet a production deadline, so he pretty much threw one together at the very last minute. Dreamland was the result.
• World of Jerkass: Basically every character in the show is an unrepentant piece of shit.

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