A Lot Happens on the Last Day of Camp

There’s actually a lot that can be done with a parody. A normal film has to play by normal rules, creating a set world for its events to take place in. If something gets too weird, or zany, or unnatural, then the immersion is broken and the movie falls apart. But a parody doesn’t have to worry about that. It can go as far afield as it likes for the sake of a good joke. Natural rules don’t matter in the slightest; if it’s funny, that’s the only rule that has to be followed.

Wet Hot American Summer is a solid illustration of that. Its core concept is documenting the last day of a 1980s summer camp season, following the tradition of so many other summer camp movies before it (like Meatballs, or Camp Nowhere). But while those films had to play by basic rules (even a film starring Bill Murray couldn’t go too far afield with its core world otherwise it would break the reality), Wet Hot American Summer doesn’t have to worry about that at all. All the basic conventions of storytelling, right down to how time itself works, can be thrown out simply for the sake of a gag.

It’s funny since most summer camp films tend to already be comedies. Watching kids get up to hijinx and have a good time makes for a feel good vibe (well, unless it’s a slasher movie, then something tends to interrupt those vibes). It’s easy to make a comedy that plays up those aspects. So Wet Hot American Summer has to really go the distance. It has to push all bounds, breaking its own world to absurd degrees, creating a parody that doesn’t care in the slightest about being real; it just wants to be fun.

It’s the last day of camp in 1981 at Camp Firewood, Maine, and all the kids have one last round of activities to get up to before their parents come the next day to take them home. The camp is run by Beth (Janeane Garofalo), who oversees her team of teenage counselors – Paul Rudd as Andy, Marguerite Moreau as Katie, Michael Showalter as Coop, Ken Marino as Victor, Michael Ian Black as McKinley, Zak Orth as J.J., Nina Hellman as Nancy, Amy Poehler as Susie, and Bradley Cooper as Ben – while the counselors are supposed to be overseeing the campers. Of course, they’re all off partying and having sex, while the campers try not to drown (or sometimes do).

But there’s more going on at the camp than just camping. Coop is in love with Katie, but she’s dating Andy. McKinley keeps sneaking away from camp, and the other guys think he’s seeing a girl, but really he’s seeing a guy. Victor says he’s a ladies man, but he’s never actually had sex before. Susie and Ben want to put on the best goddamned production of a Godspell song for the end of season talent show. And Beth even has her own secret: she’s got the hots for the professor next door, Henry Newman (David Hyde Pierce), and the two of them getting together might just save the camp from a piece of SkyLab that threatens to crush them all. You know, all in a day’s work at a summer camp. All of these plots will resolve themselves by the time Summer ends, and then it’s off for another season to come.

One reason why Wet Hot American Summer works so well is that it wraps itself tightly in the structure and story of a standard summer camp comedy. As I’ve noted before, the best parodies find a structure they can easily build off of and then follow that structure while stringing all their jokes along. It’s the Airplane! formula, functionally, creating a layered parody on the bounds of a tight story. Here, anyone that has seen any summer camp film before will know the story beats, the tropes, and the scenes. Wet Hot American Summer takes all that and makes an absurdist parody out of it.

There are any number of sequences that illustrate that. Beth has to go into town, and a bunch of the counselors jump into the truck with her. They’re there ostensibly to get supplies and find some books, but then they get into trouble, smoke pot, buy drugs, do cocaine, smoke crack, do crimes, get hooked on meth, and go on a drug filled binge that leads them to living in a crack den, itching for their next fix… and then the hour is up, they drive back to camp, and everything is fine once more. It not only couldn’t happen in an hour, but it’s also told as a montage (a classic form for 1980s cinema), really putting a hat on a hat for this whole joke.

So many sequences play this way, adding one absurd detail onto another, pushing the film far beyond the bounds of reality just for the sake of a solid joke. A guy running from a dude on a motorcycle should have no chance of escape, but in this movie he can easily run away thanks to a montage, a hay bail, and some good tunes. Nothing is too weird or out there for the film to use as a gag, and it’s much better for it.

It helps that it has a solid, game cast willing to throw themselves into the jokes. As weird, silly, and absurd as the sequences get, the cast never breaks character, acting like everything that’s going on is totally normal. If they reacted to what was going on around them the illusion would be ruined, but because everyone is able to keep a straight face the whole time, it makes the film even funnier. The film, directed by David Wain and written by Wain and Showalter, knows just how to mine humor from these situations, and is stronger for it.

I think probably one of the best in the cast is easily Paul Rudd, who plays an absolute asshole the whole time. He’s known for being a likeable guy in all his movies, but his character, Andy, throws tantrums at the slightest drop of a hat, acts like a real dick all the time, and is someone you absolutely want to hate… and somehow it’s always funny. Showalter is also solid as the always hopeful, lovelorn Coop, and you really want him to succeed even as his love story constantly yanks what he wants out from under him at every moment. Really, there isn’t a bad play in this whole cast, and they’re all able to make every scene work all the time.

Which is what makes it weird that this film, funny and strange as it is, failed at the Box Office completely. On a budget of $1.8 Mil, it didn’t even clear $300K. Critics hated it at the time, audiences didn’t show up, and the film withered on the vine. Thankfully it built up its status in the years since, developing a sizable cult following, to the point that it got two legacy continuations: First Day of Camp, which was filmed fourteen years later with all the same cast of counselors and purports to happen on the very first day of camp that same year (a hilarious joke all on its own), and then 10 Years Later, which follows up with the characters a decade later in their lives as they return to camp for a reunion. Both are enjoyed by fans, proving there was life to be found in this parody.

Because the film works. It’s fast, it’s funny, and it absolutely knows how to ring a joke out of its material. It’s a strange little comedy that pokes all the holes it wants into the summer camp film format. It’s a movie you can pop on and enjoy without needing to worry, the perfect summertime flick to just laugh with. Wet Hot American Summer is great, and it proves that parodies really can work for just about any genre, even when the originals its parodying were comedies themselves.