Kenny & Company (1976)

[TannerBoyle]

This is one of my favorite flicks of all time.

For me, it all started way back in 1989. After a three-year hiatus, my local horror movie host was back on the air. From '79 to '86, Rich Koz had haunted the Chicagoland area as "The Son of Svengoolie"...but when our local UHF station switched over to the Fox network, they gave him the axe. In the summer of 1989, he was back under a new persona--a video pirate who was breaking into the station's transmission to air his own movies.

At first, he was doling out some great horror flicks. I remember he put on a forgotten '70s classic this one weekend--1976's Dogs...and the very next weekend he aired Kenny & Co.

Because it wasn't a horror flick, he actually apologized because a "kid flick" was the fare for that night. And, I gotta admit--at first I was miffed that he was playing that type of movie. I mean, come on...not only was it a slice of cheese from the '70s (that decade had yet to achieve the nostalgia status it's had for the past 15 years or so), but it wasn't even a monster movie!

That's how I felt going into it...and yet it turned out to be one of the most effective flicks I'd ever seen.

In the space of 2 hours...I laughed out loud. I cried. And, I literally cheered. I fell into those characters like I'd known them all my life, and I could relate with everything they were going through even though they were a generation ahead of me. It was as timeless as it was dated--it dealt with stuff that every kid experiences at one time or another, and at the same time it was classic 70s retro.

Much to my dismay, he didn't do a repeat of Kenny & Co.

And, it wasn't available on VHS.

I kept an eye on the tv listings for it...but it never resurfaced.

Years later, I found a video store that specialized in hard to find stuff. Nothing.

Eventually, like most people, I finally embraced the computer age...and found next to nothing about this movie online.

The DVD revolution gave me hope, but I still waited for years for someone to put this one out. Just as I was about to bid $120 for a bootleg copy on Ebay, a sympathetic friend of mine tipped me off that Anchor Bay was due to release it in about a week's time...and after over 15 years of waiting, I finally got a chance to see this forgotten classic again.

If you haven't seen this movie, do so. You won't be disappointed.   

Most of it has been uploaded to Youtube.  Here's the first chapter...just to get you started:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0MtsTdrfyM&feature=channel_page

And, if you like what you see, you should be able to pick up the DVD at Best Buy for less than ten bones.

Excelsior!