Wet Hot American Summer: First Day At Camp

Recently, Netflix released an eight-episode mini-series that was a prequel to the 2001 cult comedy film Wet Hot American Summer, from State alumni Michael Showalter and David Wain (with other State alums in the cast.) While the film was not a success in the theaters, it has become a beloved cult film, particularly among my own circle of friends.

When we were in High School and during the summers between years at college, my friends and I would make what I like to call "negative budget" movies - stuff shot on a camcorder and with essentially no production value, though I like to think we had enough self-awareness to make this lowest of lo-fi productions part of the charm.

Wet Hot American Summer was definitely an inspiration in terms of tone and eagerness to point out our own inconsistencies. Many of our earliest productions were parodies of individual movies - the first really big one being "Battle Royale with Cheese," a parody of the Japanese movie Battle Royale (which you might have heard of as the story that the Hunger Games ripped off.) To give you an idea of the level of creativity we were working with, we at one point worked in essentially the whole training montage from WHAS into the middle of a parody of a movie about a group of high school kids killing each other by government mandate.

The purpose of my telling you all of this is that Wet Hot American Summer holds a dear place in my heart. And now, the movie's creators have made a prequel fourteen years later, stretching to even greater absurdity the fact that they're all playing teenagers.

And holy crap, it works.

The tone of the series fits completely with that of the movie. Some of the absurd elements of the film are given origin stories - a move that might be controversial, but the origin stories themselves are quite entertaining. But overall, enough new absurd elements are introduced that none of the illogical spirit of the original is lost.

Excitingly, essentially everyone form the original cast is back, and it's kind of fun to realize how many of them have become far more recognizable stars. Elizabeth Banks, for example, had a fairly small role in the movie, but here she's given an beautifully bizarre backstory and arc.

Several new characters are introduced as well, and we have the fun of finding out why they aren't there on the last day of camp (the setting of the movie.)

WHAS might embody the epitome of the comedy subgenre I like to call "Delightfully Self-Indulgent," where the excesses of the work are part of its charm (though not quite at the same level, Hot Rod would be another example of this. Also, much of Will Ferrel's movies like Anchorman would fit in this category.)

As such, some are sure not to like it as much, but I think those people are probably too pretentious or serious for their own good. This is silly, silly fun.