Wet Hot American Summer (2001) Stories

Howdy there Friends and Neighbors,

This is a review of the movie Wet Hot American Summer (maybe I'll do the Netflix series later). There will be spoilers. Although if you haven't seen the movie - and enjoy the premise and delivery style of a David Wain show - I can't imagine being upset by knowing anything about the plot. The writing and performance is everything.

For a decade or so, I was the good scout who left whatever employment I had each summer to work at camp. This meant every time I told a story between August and May it started with "one time at camp...." Back then the phrase "this one time at band camp" was popularized through the movie franchise American Pie, so each time I started a story with the words "this one time at camp" someone would inevitably try to draw it back to the sexually-charged joke. I rolled my eyes each time, as I had never been to a band camp and didn't watch American Pie.

I was first introduced to Wet Hot American Summer at some point in the year 2006. I felt the title was off-putting, but my friend Mike was adamant the movie was amazing. Mike has great taste in art, and he figured this would be the perfect movie for the camp kid. He was right.

Over time I came to realize that any kind of camp can create the same value I experienced by building a small community, over a short amount of time, in a somewhat remote location. Within these boundaries the participants get to experience success, failure, and growth with each other in ways that are hard to explain to those who did not have the same experience. I love telling stories though, so I told them regardless of how they were perceived.

One of my favorite things to do at the bar after work was tell a 4 hour story to my fellow pizza folks. Mind you, the story did not last 4 hours continuously - I'd usually get interrupted a minute or two into the story by the bartender taking an order, or someone new arriving to the table, or because the story was getting boring. I would then wait until there was a lull in the conversation and pick up right where I left off - I usually got a laugh out of this because it took a few seconds for folks to figure out what the hell I was talking about - as most stories do not start in the middle.

The pizza place I worked at was called "The Rockin' Tomato" at the Far West location. Just like a camp, we were a small community who shared all of our experiences of success, failure, and growth. Also like a camp, we often had evening activities. Unlike a camp, some of these activities took place after 2AM after the bar closed. We called these evening activities "Rocking the Tomato" - the time when we would head back to work to drink a couple-few more beers and perhaps watch a movie or two. Mike had been telling me about this fantastic camp movie for a while, so one evening (I guess technically it was a morning) he put his copy (there were not many at that time) in the DVD player. He was very excited for me to see it.

It is important to note I had only worked at Boy Scout camps before seeing this movie. The laissez-faire tone of camp culture presented in the movie was foreign to me. The camps I worked at ran on a strict schedule. Staff members were never allowed to lay around in the grass and just hang out, there was never a moment without a task that needed to be accomplished, and there definitely were way less girls at Boy Scout Camp.

Even so, I connected with this movie through the central theme of "camp" that David Wain and Michael Showalter had created - inspired by their own experiences at summer camp. There was the smelly kid someone had to get to take a shower. The camp chef is always at least a little angry, and always unpredictable. Romance was usually very intense and dramatic. The leadership had to deal with immediate and existential threats that constantly came up, such as pink eye or Skylab falling from the heavens.

To be clear - this is a very silly movie. There is a talking can of mixed vegetables (H. Jon Benjamin). Detective Stabler from Law and Order (Christopher Meloni) plays a camp chef who enjoys smearing mud on his ass and humping a fridge. The junior counselors are played by adults, so you have people in their mid-late 20's acting as 16 year olds. Skylab threatens to destroy the camp completely, and the Emergency Action Procedure put in place involves donuts on a trashcan.

The movie follows the last day of camp, which is always a bitter-sweet day for everyone involved. Time stamps are used throughout for comedic effect. As we know, time is relative, but camp-time is a whole different animal all together - another genuine camp thing they got right.

My favorite scene is when the Camp Director (Janeane Garofalo) is heading into town and a bunch of the staff jump in her truck, against her wishes. The act of "going to town" while working at camp is always exciting. It is like entering a portal to a different reality than the one you've been living in for weeks of camp-time, which again, is very different from real time. Walmart is no longer a chore - it becomes a mystical playground to compete at capture the flag, put a Snickers bar on layaway, or call your friend over the store intercom from the guest services desk after they've been banned from Walmart for stealing milk crates from the back dock. Also you usually get Whataburger.

In this brilliant montage the staff from the movie end up in an opium den. The line at the end is "It's always fun to get away from camp, even for an hour." I never ended up in an opium den, though some of my best times at camp were spent during that hour rediscovering civilization - only to realize I wanted to be back at camp more than I wanted Whataburger.

One summer, during Area Director Training, the Program Director showed us a movie he had been shown as a part of his Program Director Training called Meatballs. I thought this movie was alright. There is a scene (below) of Bill Murray getting the staff to buy into the camp experience by getting them to chant "It just doesn't matter!" This scene, and especially the chant, encompasses what it is like to a part of a small community. In a small community you don't have to worry about winning, or being cool, which is a huge relief to humans of any age. When "it just doesn't matter" you get to focus on what is in front you.

Anyhow, I connected Wet Hot American Summer so much that the next summer I asked the Program Director if I could show it during Area Director Training. I was sure there were plenty of lessons throughout the silliness and talking cans of mixed vegetables, but mostly I wanted my friends to see the movie.

About half-way through I realized I had completely forgot about the sex scene involving McKinley (Michael Ian Black) and Ben (Bradley Cooper). This was during a time in the mid 2000's when the Boy Scouts were very much not cool with homosexuality, however, our small community was in favor of that type of thing... most things that involve people being their true selves, really. We had an amazing community.

Once I realized that scene was coming up I quietly excused myself to the bathroom, from which I could hear the reaction of my fellow Area Directors. Their reaction was not disgust, but surprise that the good Stein scout would recommend this movie that clearly did not aline with the current values of The Boy Scouts of America. I was a little embarrassed, but mostly because I forgot about the scene completely. I was proud to make it a part of training. Nobody visited an opium den that summer, or if they did it didn't impact program.

My second favorite part of Wet Hot American Summer was the final scene (here's the spoiler part I warned you about). If you haven't seen the movie this is what happens: there is the cliche "good guy" character - Cooperberg (Michael Showalter) - and most of his arc throughout the movie involves pining over the "hot girl" Katie (Marguerite Moreau - also in The Mighty Ducks - as I have mentioned in a previous post).

In this last day of camp 'Coop' clearly wants her companionship, only to watch while she makes out with the cliche "asshole guy" Andy (exceptionally played by Paul Rudd, who apparently did this movie for free). Cooperberg gets his chance (in a goat pen) to make out with Katie, then mistakenly thinks that making out means Katie his girlfriend. After she tells him that was not the case, he goes through a hilarious montage with Detective Stabler (the oddball Chef) to experience some type of growth. Following the montage he wins Katie over after the talent show in dramatic fashion (despite a near-miss from Skylab falling out of the sky).

That is how movies go, right? The good guy gets the girl, all the loose ends are tied up, and everyone goes home with some optimism. Not this movie.

In the final scene it is the next day - departure day. Katie comes up to Coop and gives him my favorite monologue of the movie. She says wants to be with Andy (the Paul Rudd asshole character) - she doesn't care if he is lame, or cheats on her, but because she is 16 years old and only interested in sex (this was paraphrased a great deal - watch the movie or the clip for clarity).

This is my favorite scene in-part because it is hilarious - no movie I had seen before ended that way - but mostly because Katie was absolutely honest. Despite his heroic evening, Coop took this heartbreaking honesty just fine. His successes, failures, and growth allowed him to take the honesty with grace. He appreciated the honesty, even if it wasn't the ending he wanted.

At some point in my camp career I was given the task of hiring folks to work at various camps, and I had many potential staff members ask "what is the most important aspect of camp?" I've always responded "the social growth." The campers, staff members, and leadership - everyone who gets to be a part of the small community - all experience a great deal of social growth. And sometimes you get to play capture the flag in Walmart.

-Stein