Having grown up in a family intent on making each other laugh, it wasn\u2019t a surprise to Clayton Jacobson when his younger brother Shane came into the advertising production company he owned and started improvising a character for the amusement of the staff.<\/p>\n
Shane was working as a lighting technician at stadium shows and festivals, rubbing shoulders with the \u201cdunny men\u201d of toilet-hire companies. He appreciated their sense of humour and began riffing on it. \u201cEveryone\u2019s going to have a joke at their expense, so they had gags ready for everything,\u201d Shane says. \u201cThey were \u2018working classy\u2019, as we called them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clayton, who\u2019d cleaned toilets himself while at Swinburne Film & TV School and had an admiration for this kind of labour, was struck by the poignancy in the humour of Shane\u2019s routine. \u201cWithout sanitation, you have nothing. You have disease, you have anarchy, you have death,\u201d he reflects.<\/p>\n
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Kenny, the Jacobsons\u2019 low-budget mockumentary about a hardworking, heart-of-gold portaloo plumber, which became an unexpected success, pulling in nearly $8m at the box office. This month, it will be honoured by a screening and Q&A session at the Aacta awards festival.<\/p>\n
The titular Kenny may now be forever lodged in the P-trap of the Australian psyche, but initially he was only bound for short-film festivals. The Clayton brothers originally co-wrote a 47-minute feature based on the character, asking permission of real portaloo hire company Splashdown to depict him as one of their crew. The film was made on the smell of an oily rag, using the company\u2019s trucks and equipment.<\/p>\n
Shane, who had done stints as a standup comedian and MC, took the lead role. Clayton, who also directed, played his nouveau-riche brother. Their father, Ronald, and Clayton\u2019s son Jesse also played family members. Real locations and events such as the Melbourne Cup and the Calder Park Raceway added an authentic touch.<\/p>\n
(Left to right) Ronald, Shane and Clayton Jacobson. Brothers Shane and Clayton co-wrote the movie as well as acting in it, while Clayton also directed, produced, edited and served as camera operator. Photograph: Clayton Jacobson<\/p>\n
The early to mid-2000s saw a peak in the mockumentary genre, with Best In Show, A Mighty Wind and Borat pulling in impressive numbers at cinemas and The Office and Arrested Development capturing TV audiences. While Kenny embraced that format, it was more of a kneejerk response to the political climate of the Howard government \u2013 particularly the \u201cbe alert, not alarmed\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was so much talk about watching your neighbours,\u201d Clayton says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel very Australian. I\u2019m not political, I just knew that the world that I\u2019d grown up in was, for the most part, very tolerant.<\/p>\n
\u201cKenny is a bit of a fantasy character. He has a strong sense of self and what\u2019s right and wrong. Kenny was a riff on decency.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Australia has a long history of grimy depictions of the criminal working-class (\u00e0 la Animal Kingdom, Chopper and Two Hands), Kenny Smyth \u2013 like the Kerrigan family in 90s comedy The Castle \u2013 is a very different kind of underdog.<\/p>\n
Clayton points out that both movies were \u201cmade by film-makers that lived five streets away from each other in Avondale Heights [and] were embedded in this real laconic sort of environment\u201d. The Jacobsons\u2019 father worked at carnivals and slept under canvas. Kenny was a homage to him, and to the uncles who took jobs in abattoirs and road gangs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always thought that the way that blue collar Australians have been portrayed is simple and uneducated,\u201d says Clayton. \u201cThe smartest people I knew growing up wasn\u2019t a doctor down the road, it was my uncles. They could be anywhere in a story and you didn\u2019t know there was a punchline just around the corner. They talked with a rhythm \u2013 I call it \u2018up the hill, down the hill\u2019. Humour was at the centre of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shane and Clayton Jacobson on the set of Kenny. Photograph: Clayton Jacobson<\/p>\n
When the short version of Kenny made its premiere at the St Kilda film festival in 2004, Clayton was in Japan filming a commercial, but Shane rang him as soon as he saw the audience response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were laughing really loud or were really silent when they were feeling something, and they were with it all the way,\u201d Shane recalls.<\/p>\n
When the Jacobsons heard about a Pumper & Cleaner expo being held in Nashville, they realised they could expand their film into a feature-length fish-out-of-water tale. \u201cThe Crocodile Dundee idea,\u201d as Clayton says.<\/p>\n
Critics may have been divided (on At The Movies, David Stratton awarded two stars while Margaret Pomeranz gave four), but audiences rooted for this unlikely hero. Shane won best actor at the AFI awards (now Aacta), and the film was nominated in five other categories.<\/p>\n
The Jacobson brothers worked as hard as their protagonist when it came to promotion, and Shane did the entire press cycle in character. He was particularly convincing, because he\u2019d temporarily taken a job helping run Splashdown.<\/p>\n
Clayton recalls: \u201cI said to Shane, \u2018You\u2019ve got to [take the job] for one reason only: there won\u2019t be a single question when we do the tour that you won\u2019t have an answer for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019d hoped that the film would resonate with tradies and their families\u2019 \u2026 Shane Jacobson as Kenny. Photograph: Madman Entertainment<\/p>\n
Since the release of Kenny, mockumentaries have fallen out of favour; a 2008 spin-off series, Kenny\u2019s World, wasn\u2019t renewed for a second season.<\/p>\n
But the fandom for the original film has seemingly not diminished: the Jacobson brothers frequently receive videos of Kenny cosplay. One terminally ill woman asked permission to screen the film at her funeral, and another man told Clayton that his family had taken his sister, who had cancer, on a world trip, and that her rule was that at every location they all had to watch Kenny, to keep things light.<\/p>\n
Shane\u2019s also been asked to sign plenty of restaurant toilet seats and the odd bum. \u201cI say, \u2018How about this bum just signs a bit of paper for you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Clayton thinks the film\u2019s success is attributable to Kenny Smyth\u2019s relatability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d hoped that the film would resonate with tradies and their families, and hopefully film-makers,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m still shocked that it has resonated with so many people, and I\u2019ve come to realise it\u2019s that thing of validation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe number one thing we all look for in life is to be validated. We need to know that we have been put on this earth for some reason. The saddest thing is a person that\u2019s invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n