Summer camp - will there ever be the hormone-charged, activities-filled, no parents!, 'trip into the woods'-feeling again... Now I personally couldn't tell you what summer camp was actually like but if it was anything like the movies - what a dream, huh. Kicking off with Parent Trap back in the early60s and coming full circle with Wet Hot American Summer in 2001 - these movies are usually found on B-side movie-marathon tv channels on Sunday afternoons but you're always excited when it happens. Now if you can't tell, I enjoy hyphens and Searchles TV channels...make-your-own here and here.
1. Ernest Goes To Camp (1987). In his quest to become a full-fledged counselor, Ernest is - shockingly enough - assigned a set of misfits who at first mock him and resist his authority. He does however, begin to gain their respect as he defends the camp from an evil mining company out to buy their land. I get all worked up just thinking about it. In Weird Al's song "Callin in Sick Today", he mentioned that he can "spend all day in his underwear watching Ernest Goes to Camp"...for what that's worth...which is everything.
2. Meatballs (1979). It was a Canadian film - which works because of the high frequency of summer camps up there yonder - and Bill Murray's first movie. The rivalry with the camp across the lake, chasing the lady-counselors, Bill Murray, another popculture reference to a girl named Roxanne - all the signs of yesteryear are there.
3. Salute Your Shorts. A movie? No. I care not. They never told us what sort of punishment 'awful waffle' really was but they taught us for life that a giraffe's tongue...is black. Unlike other camp movies, I like how Bobby Budnick was more of a love-hate relationship than a full-fledged bully.
4. Sleepaway Camp (1983). Slasher films were in their heyday and what better place to kill people than in the woods. The film implies that the killer - a mixed identity boy who thinks he's his sister (?) - was driven to be a murderer because he/she found out his/her father was in a homosexual relationship. Yeah...puberty's a tough time.
5. Wet Hot American Summer (2001). Set on the last day of summer camp in 1981. This is the one that made me want to go to summer camp. Starring much of the cast from MTV's early90s sketch comedy show The State, it contains "lots of absurdism, non-sequiturs, and toilet humor." Oooh and training montages. Oh this one is fantastic.
6. Camp Nowhere (1994). This one pretty much had me at Andrew Keegan. Anywho, bunch of kids who hate going to summer camp (WTF???) hatch a plan to trick all the parents into sending them to a camp of their own design. They blackmail Christopher Lloyd into being their resident adult. He has not been heard from since. Oh and all I could find was a Brokeback Camp Nowhere clip. Enjoy.
7. Little Darlings (1980). Group of teenage girls heading to summer camp bet on which of the two of them will lose their virginity first. At the same time, the girls engage in typical teenager acts of fun, such as food fights and other activities. Both girls discover that "it" isn't what they thought it was. God I love wikipedia articles - such language, such wisdom...and other activities.
8. Troop Beverly Hills (1989). Yes, it's a Shelly Long movie and again, no...it's not about summer camp but I think a tale following the fate of "wilderness girls" counts. See them singing and selling cookies but kinda just throwing boxes into the roaring audience without collecting cash. Stupid hollywood with their inconsistencies. This one used to be on TBS a lot but has since disappeared and been replaced by the Bring it On Trilogy.
9. Canteen Boy (1993-94). Back in the Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, so and on so forth days of SNL when Alec Baldwin was hosting every five minutes (no complaints here). Canteen Boy is a "naive, childlike assistant scoutmaster with an acute attention to detail who also likes Seaquest."
10. Heavyweights (1995). Mayhem and hijinks and ballyhoo at Camp Hope - a weight-loss camp for boys. I have not actually seen this one but the fact that many of the actors in Heavyweights also appeared in the Mighty Ducks films makes it awesome by default...plus the fact that the movie's content was "on the verge" of getting a PG-13 rating. Oh me oh my.
11. Parent Trap (1961). Aaaand the camp movie that started it all - like your heart doesn't melt when Susan and Sharon discover their true identities and subsequently sing Let's Get Together. This one got me as a summer camp lover and as a divorced child. I thought about putting the Lindsay Lohan remake in here instead but I just can't do it...ugh...Lohans.
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