Chances are, if you love Wet Hot American Summer, you saw it for the first time on DVD. How can I be so sure? Well, approximately no-fucking-one saw it in theaters. The absurd lovechild of Michael Showalter and David Wain, shot on location at a real summer camp, and cast mostly with their buddies from The State,1 grossed just over half a million in theaters. It cost $1.8 million. Ouch. Though, is that really so bad for a movie where a lot of the jokes were that … there wasn’t a joke? Or there was a joke, but it was intentionally unfunny?
Wet Hot American Summer debuted in July of 2001, a time when absurdity and “joyful nihilism,” as Wain called it, weren’t as prized. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. was thrown into terror, war, recession, jingoism, and a whole bunch of shit that made reality … well, fucking suck. And if reality is going to be surreal in a bad way, why not revel in a movie that’s surreal in a fun way? By 2002, DVD distribution had already turned Wet Hot American Summer into a hit.
And what’s not to love? The cast is stacked. You want a movie with Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Amy Poehler, Janeane Garafalo, Molly Shannon, and fucking Bradley Cooper? How about H. Jon Benjamin playing a sentient can of vegetables? 2 There are tons of continuity gags, so you’d be forgiven for thinking scenes with rain pouring in the background one moment and sun shining the next were more fun from Wain. In reality, the movie had a small budget, tight schedule, and was filmed entirely on location — where it poured rain for 24 of the 28 days of the shoot. The weather called for a lot of creative decision-making, but somehow didn’t cause enough misery to take away what’s truly special about WHAS.
Yes, it’s completely fucking ridiculous. The script packs every single storyline a 1980s summer camp movie could possibly have into one spoofy, silly, and sometimes edgy (Molly Shannon gets life coaching, shoulder rubs, and a sudden romance with a camper who can’t be older than ten).3 But most people aren’t celebrating the 10th, 15th, 20th, and now 25th anniversaries of other spoof movies with the love and excitement folks put into the Wet Hot American Summer milestones. Around the 10th anniversary, we got a making-of documentary, Hurricane of Fun,4 a prequel featuring our decade-older camp counselors playing their characters in an 8-episode series that took place on the first day of camp called First Day of Camp, and the sequel, Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later. This year, 25 years later, we got a theatrical re-release. Does that happen with the Scary Movie franchise? (Actually, don’t tell me. If it does, I don’t want to know).
What makes the movie so special is that it was a group of friends living at a summer camp together for nearly a month, creating something they cared about. That warmth and earnestness comes through even the most insane moments in the film. The camp counselors are in their late 20s and early 30s playing high school kids. The story lines are over the top. The jokes are incomprehensible to anyone without a certain love for the truly fucking weird. But even the most caricature-like characters feel like real people.
In interviews, Wain has said he and Showalter based the storylines on real things they experienced at their own summer camps. Hell, he even admits that the Victor (Ken Marino) moment where he leaves his camp event early to go see a girl and crashes the van was based on Wain doing exactly that when he was a teenager.
And, once again, 25 years later, we find ourselves in a sociopolitical reality that calls for a little joyful nihilism. We may not have The State on any streaming platforms, affordable groceries, a functioning government, or hope for the future, but dammit! We have Wet Hot American Summer.
- Can we get this back on streaming? A DVD set? Fucking something? ↩︎
- I said it was absurd. ↩︎
- No, most movies would not do this. But this one did, and managed to keep it jusssst on this side of silly rather than gross. ↩︎
- I’m literally begging for more of the Michael/Michael/David stuff to be streaming again. At least give us the documentary. ↩︎
