wet hot american summer

I’m a child of the 90’s so I missed out on the summer camp experience, of course the camps were still around, but they were all the rage back in the late 70’s and 80’s. Actually, I can’t decide if would have rather been a camp goer, or a camp counselor. So, to substitute the first-hand experience, I’ll bask in the glory that is Wet Hot American Summer.

Before Judd Apatow made Freaks and Geeks, there was David Wain who was part The State, which was originally a comedy troop from NYU, and later made to a sketch comedy show on MTV during the early to mid 90’s. Wain was able to bring together most of the MTV version of The State, among both already established actors and newcomers. What he created is arguably the best camp themed comedy since Meatballs, some would even rate this higher than the Bill Murray classic.

Where to begin, the cast of this movie is one to be reckoned with, just about every character has gone on to do awesome things, while the most successful being Bradley Cooper and Amy Poehler. But the shining star of this movie is easily Paul Rudd, his character Andy is the perfect douche bag. The way he plays this character is something of which I’ve never seen. The amount of improv is off the charts, and every decision he made with his character is golden.

Wet Hot American Summer is obviously poking fun at the slew of camp centered movies of the 70’s and 80’s, but it’s also unique in its own right. If you haven’t seen this, the humor is somewhat in the same vein as Apatow films, but only in that it’s extremely dirty. One thing that this has over Apatow comedies is the absurd behavior and situations regarding some of the characters. To give a couple examples on this, Gene (Chris Meloni) is the camp’s cook, who has a back and forth conversation with a can of mixed vegetables. Another would be during what starts out as a feel good montage of the counselors going to town, quickly turns into a full on heroin binge, but arrive back to camp only after an hour as if nothing ever happened.

Besides the stand outs which I’ve already mentioned, other camp counselors include Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Bradley Cooper, Molly Shannon, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter. I could easily spend all day watching something involving these people, none of the dialogue is wasted and everything is downright hilarious, my only complaint would be that I wish the movie was longer. Some of my personal highlights would be all of the Paul Rudd scenes, the motorcycle chase between Lo Truglio and Marino and of course the overly explicit sex scene between Michael Ian Black and Bradley Cooper. Cooper’s sex scene is downright hilarious, mainly because I saw this movie after he had the role in Wedding Crashers, which was his first big break in movies. He’s now a sex symbol, but in 2001 he was getting his ass pounded by Michael Ian Black.

With all that being said, this is a grossly underrated comedy, everyone needs to see this, and make it a point to watch often.