Wet Hot American Summer



""Well, we made it through the summer in one piece, except for a few campers who are lepers.""

- Beth (Janeane Garofalo)

Wet Hot American Summer is a 2001 comedy cult film directed by Stella's David Wain (yes, that David Wain, also known for directing Role Models). The film is about the adventures, both physical and emotional, of the preteen campers, teenage counselors and adult camp directors on last day of summer camp at Camp Firewood on August 18th, 1981. It stars Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Marguerite Moreau, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Christopher Meloni, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Zak Orth, A.D. Miles and members of MTV's sketch comedy group The State. It was written by Wain and Showalter.

It is in many ways a send-up of the goofy teen comedies (often set at college or camp) that were quite popular around the time period the movie is set in, without ever parodying individual scenes. It is a rollercoaster ride through almost the whole spectrum of teenage emotions, from angst to Wangst. It is the last day of summer camp. It is the first day of the third week of August. It's a masterpiece.

This film includes examples of:
"Andy: I'd give anything for two minutes in the closet with Lindsay.
 * Ambiguously Jewish: The entire camp. Listen to the names Janeane Garofalo calls out in the cafeteria for the "early bus to Boston" (they're all incredibly stereotypical Jewish names, and include "David Ben Gurion", played as if she is literally just trying to come with names that sound Jewish with "Ira Goldberg…stien).
 * American Title
 * Anything That Moves: Abby.
 * Character Filibuster: First Coop to Katie ("I don't care that you're bowlegged, and I don't care that you're bilingual...") and then vice versa.
 * Covers Always Lie: This DVD cover, which was designed and released after the success of David Wain's Role Models starring Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks, prominently features Rudd, Banks, and Molly Shannon (the latter of whom was a secondary-to-tertiary character), but makes no references to Michael Showalter and Marguerite Moreau's characters, who are at the heart of the entire story(although Showalter's name thankfully still makes the cover).
 * Dawson Casting: Parodied. The 16-year-old camp counselors are all played by actors in their late 20s.
 * Dead Baby Comedy: More like dead 6-year-olds. ("It's your job to make sure kids don't drown!")
 * To be more specific, at least two children die over the course of the movie, two more are left in the woods to die after witnessing the aforementioned deaths, and several more probable deaths are referred to offhand, including the "lepers" in the page quote and children whom Beth "forgot to mention" were trapped in the ropes course... yesterday.
 * The Eighties: Oh boy....
 * "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Subverted. Victor and Neil's subplot ends with a parody of one of these, but it's well before the movie itself is over.
 * Give Geeks a Chance: Played straight with Coop and Katie for almost the entire film, and then subverted at the last minute when Katie . It's a surprisingly truthful ending for such an otherwise ridiculous movie.
 * Good Times Montage: The counselors "hourlong" trip into town, which starts out innocently but then . Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
 * Handsome Lech: Andy.

J.J.: What about Katie?

Andy: Who?

J.J.: Awesome."

"Gary: You said you were going to... fondle your sweaters.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Nearly all of the camp counselors, actually, who were mainly unknown actors prior to doing the film. Much of the cast went on to become super famous, including (but not limited to) Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, and Elizabeth Banks, and frequent viewers of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will recognize A.D. Miles as that show's head writer.
 * Judah Friedlander, aka Frank shows up for one scene.
 * Detective Elliot Stabler is the camp kook... I mean cook.
 * There's also a very tiny Kyle Gallner as the camper who reminds Andy that he can't let kids drown.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks dubbed Artie's voice. And Jon Benjamin of Home Movies voices a can of mixed vegetables.
 * Hide Your Lesbians: Averted with McKinley and Ben, whose relationship is perhaps the only one in the film not played for laughs.
 * Hollywood Genius: Deliberately/satirically, with David Hyde Pierce's Henry.
 * Insult Backfire: "Douchebags are hygenic products. I take that as a compliment."
 * Intentionally Awkward Title: Oh dear god, try convincing your friends this isn't a porn flick once you tell them the title.
 * Jerkass: Andy, and Victor to a certain extent.
 * Just calling Andy a Jerkass doesn't quite do the character justice; quoth Seanbaby: "Paul Rudd is so good at playing a dick boyfriend that Rihanna ducks when she watches Wet Hot American Summer."
 * Katie's final speech cements her as one.
 * Lame Rhyme Dodge: Gene tends to accidentally mention his odd fetishes and then offer up a lame rhyme dodge:

Gene: Ah, uh - no I didn't. I said... fondue the cheddar... I was thinking about making fondue with cheddar cheese for dinner tonight."


 * A Man Is Not a Virgin: Forcefully parodied between Neil and Victor.
 * Nice Guy: Coop, who is more-or-less an early prototype of Michael Showalter's Baxter Elliot Sherman.
 * Notable Original Music: "Show me the fever/Into the fire/Takin' it higher and higher!"
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Intentional with Victor's raft rescue.
 * Pool Scene: More like lake scenes, but two notable ones, both mostly involving gratuitous shots of Elizabeth Banks in bikinis.
 * Precision F-Strike: Several of the best in movie history, notably from Janeane Garofalo and Zak Orth.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: One of the counselors is hyping up the camp baseball team for the climactic game against the Rich Kids from the other side of the lake. He re-tells their season story, which of course involves every single stereotype of this very trope including its name, only for the kids to complain that they don't really want to play because it's all kind of trite. So they call off the match, and their coach, the other team's coach and all their players are totally cool with it.
 * Sex as Rite-Of-Passage: Meathead jock Victor is secretly a virgin, desperate for one night with camp bicycle Abby.
 * Straight Gay:, for the most part.
 * Summer Campy: Parodied pretty much throughout the entire film.
 * Training Montage: Parodied beautifully as Gene teaches Coop "the new way", all set to the strains of "Higher and Higher".
 * You Must Be Cold: Another trope, another absurd parody.