The Burnzo Diaries

Saturday, March 28, 2026

A TRIP DOWN DVD DRIVE

A couple weeks ago, I was browsing around in the CD/DVD section of a Barnes & Noble, kind of enjoying myself to be honest, thumbing through the DVDs, and seeing if they had any good deals. Barnes & Noble has, by the way, become a place to find good deals on DVDs and CDs. I’m not sure when exactly this happened because B&N used to be a place where you would find the exact opposite of a good deal. The DVDs and CDs were always so expensive there, probably even more than “retail price.” It was always better to go to either Walmart, Best Buy or (if you were from the New England area) Newbury Comics for all your DVD and CD needs. At least this was the case during the first decade of the millennium and probably even well into the second decade of the millennium.

Now, however, we’re in the third decade of the millennium and the world has turned around 180 degrees. Barnes & Noble is now one of the best places to go for new DVDs. This is partly because Walmart and Best Buy barely even sell DVDs anymore. As for Newbury Comics, only one store location sells them that I know of (the one in Norwood, MA.) and they’re used DVDs—not new. But Barnes & Noble? Not only do they still sell them but they sell them for really good prices, too.

There is a caveat, though. The quality of the DVDs sold at Barnes & Noble isn’t quite what it used to be. I’m not talking in terms of picture quality; if anything, the resolution of the DVDs is probably the best it’s ever been or at least the best that a DVD is capable of having. I’m talking more in terms of the DVD disc quality, which is usually a colorless silver with black text, and the DVD case quality, which is a soft plastic and rather flimsy. When you flip the DVD case over, you usually see a stamp somewhere on the box that says, “Made in Mexico.” DVD cases used to be made out of a durable hard plastic, many of them were even made with nice glossy cardboard, but that is no longer the case anymore.

This probably explains why the DVDs at Barnes & Noble are so cheap, usually around $5 or so: because they’re produced cheaply … in, yes, Mexico (no offense, Mexico, but it’s true). On one hand, it’s nice that there is still a place out there in the world that sells new DVDs for reasonable prices, but I can’t help but long for the days when DVDs were made in a higher-quality manner.

Anyway, while I was at Barnes & Noble, a group of teens came into the DVD section, looking like they had just smoked the grass, eaten 3-5 bags of Funyuns and were out and about wasting time with each other. They waltzed up to a display of DVDs, saw a movie they liked, said, “Oh, look, they have [name of the movie]!” but then proceeded to say, “Who the hell even has a DVD player anymore?!” and then they walked off into another section, eventually left the store altogether and likely went off somewhere to smoke more of the grass.

My heart felt broken.

Because you know what?! I (emphasis on ‘I’) still watch DVDs. And I watch them a lot. I LOVE DVDs. And I’m not ashamed to admit it, ok, you guys? You think you’re sooooooo damn cool smoking the grass and eating all your Funyuns and then you come waltz-i-ling into the DVD section of the Barnes & Noble and make me feel so foolish for looking through the DVDs in a serious (not an ironic) manner. Yes, it’s not like I’m a hipster looking through the DVDs to be all hip and retro. I’m just a regular totally serious non-hipster guy looking through DVDs.

Ok. Deep breaths, Matt. You’re sounding bitter now.

Ahem, so … um … uh … what I’m saying is my heart was kind of broken when I heard those Gen Z-ers put down DVDs. But let’s face it: what they’re saying is true. DVDs no longer have a whole lot of relevance. Most people streeeeeeeam their movies now and I don’t blame them. It’s easier and it’s better quality. If people do decide to go the physical media route, they usually go with Blu-rays or even the 4K Ultra-HD (aka UHD) Blu-rays that are becoming more popular now (albeit rather expensive). And I don’t blame them for doing this, either. Because Blu-ray image resolution is waaaaaaay better than DVD image resolution.

I always find myself trying to justify the reason why I still predominantly watch DVDs, but there really isn’t much justification. I often point out the fact that DVDs have so many cool “extras” on them, especially director commentaries, and you can’t get those on streaming platforms. You can, however, usually get those extras on Blu-ray discs, along with the superior image quality, so, at the end of the day, I’m left with little reason why DVDs should even exist anymore. They’re certainly cheaper than Blu-ray, though, and even cheaper than UHD Blu-ray.

But I think, more than anything else, I just like DVD for nostalgic reasons. There was a period of time, maybe from the year 2000 to about 2008 or so, when DVD was king! Hollywood was investing so much time, energy and (more importantly) money into making some serious, kick-ass DVDs. I mean, they were NOT messing around. Compare a DVD that has been released in the past 10 years to a DVD that was released in the early-to-mid-2000’s. It’s night and day. The DVDs released during the first 5-8 years of the millennium had extras up the wazoo and often even came with a whole second disc so they could include even moreextras. Compare this to a DVD made within the past 10 years and what do you see for extras? Oh … um … something along the lines of … NOTHING. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a few deleted scenes and maybe a blooper reel. Not to mention the fact that they come in the aforementioned soft plastic DVD cases. And the DVD box art? Oh, don’t even get me started. Boooooooring!

No, DVDs of the past ten years and DVDs of the early-to-mid-2000s are two different breeds. No, scratch that—they are two different species. This is why, if I do buy any DVDs, I usually only buy used DVDs, ones that were made near or around this 2000-2008 era. This is because they were made with so much more TLC back then …

… but also, again, it is undeniably for nostalgic purposes as well. Part of me is likely “chasing the dragon,” trying to recreate that high I got when I bought and watched my very first DVD.

I believe it was the summer of 2000, to be exact. I had just gotten a brand-new Mac PowerBook G3 for a high school graduation present (read about this computer in my blog RIP PowerBook G3). This computer was quite possibly the best computer you could get at the time. It had, like, 8 whole gigabytes of memory! (calm yourself, don’t have a heart attack). It was also powerful enough to edit video on (which I did). It had a great colorful, high-resolution screen. Firewire Ports. USB ports. Some other ports I definitely never used. But most importantly it had a DVD-ROM drive. This DVD-ROM drive was the very first DVD player I ever owned. Everything had been VHS in my life up to that point. This was certainly the dawn of a new era.

The very first DVD I bought and played in my DVD drive was Blade Runner. And it was Blade Runner for two reasons. Reason one: I really liked the movie Blade Runner. Reason two: I thought Blade Runner was the kind of movie that would look siiiiiiiiiiiick on a DVD.

Well, I was right.

I still remember the experience so vividly. I popped Blade Runner onto the tray of the DVD drive, slid the tray back shut and pressed ‘play’. Wow! It looked just like film! (or so I thought at the time). Also, helping enhance the experience was the fact that I had Cambridge SoundWorks speakers hooked up to my computer. These speakers were state-of-the-art at the time, came complete with a subwoofer and packed QUITE the punch. I just remember the opening shot of the movie where we see an aerial view of a futuristic, dystopian-looking Los Angeles, there are the petrochemical “flame flares” shooting up into the sky and there is a heavy bass sound that accompanies them. That bass sounded so unbelievable with the Cambridge SoundWorks subwoofer. I think I nearly cried because the experience was so visceral and, no, I’m not exaggerating.

I was officially hooked on DVD.

You may remember this DVD promo that played at the beginning of many DVD discs in the early 2000’s.

This was another DVD promo video that probably looks familiar, as it played at the beginning of all 20th Century Fox releases in the early 2000’s.

I subsequently went out and bought a few more DVDs and what was interesting was that I didn’t necessarily buy DVDs of my favorite movies. Did I like the movies I bought? Of course. But, more than anything else, I specifically bought DVDs that I thought would look and sound great on DVD.

This was why the second DVD I ever bought, I believe, was Gladiator. And this was a good move. Because Gladiator looked phenomenal on DVD. And sounded phenomenal, too.

The third DVD that I bought, I believe, was Jaws. Same deal. Looked phenomenal. And sounded great, too.

Oh, and I can’t forget about The Matrix, which was definitely a movie I bought knowing it would look and sound awesome on DVD (it did).

Now, the first generation of DVD releases—that is, the DVDs manufactured and released in the late-1990s to around the 2000 area—did NOT have many extras on them. For example, my Blade Runner DVD, which was released in 1997, was one of the first DVDs ever manufactured. The DVD came in a “snap case,” which were the standard DVD cases at the time. These cases were made out of a glossy cardboard bound with a plastic snap that you snapped open with your thumb. There were virtually no extras on this DVD with the exception of some “cast and crew bios.” Remember those bios? You would click on them and some silent, written biographies would load onto the screen. I don’t think anybody ever read these (although I think I did).

The Blade Runner ”snap case.” Don’t you just want to snap it open?

Around the turn of the millennium, however, the DVDs started to feature more and more extras on them. They at the very least included trailers, sometimes even two or three trailers, including TV spots. Occasionally there would still be written bios or written production notes as well. But, in addition to all these underwhelming DVD extras, you started to see more behind-the-scenes featurettes, more deleted scenes that had been left on the cutting room floor and even other random stuff like actor screen tests or features that were exclusive to DVD-ROM, such as the ability to download and read the movie’s screenplay.

And, of course, there were the director commentaries. But I should probably mention that director commentaries were not a completely new thing. Commentaries were featured on LaserDiscs before DVDs, the earliest one being done by Martin Scorsese for a 1990 LaserDisc release of his film Taxi Driver.

However, director commentaries became much more commonplace with DVDs.

Since I was a film student at the time and very interested in film, I LOVED the director commentaries. I would always listen to them if they were available on the DVD. I probably learned a hell of a lot about film by doing this, too. Tim Burton’s commentaries stand out as being among my favorites. And Ridley Scott’s. Quentin Tarantino’s. And so many others.

I remember the worst commentary I ever heard was the one for The Exorcist recorded by the film’s director William Friedkin. I don’t think he understood what he was supposed to do. Instead of giving behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the film, Friedkin basically just did a play-by-play-like commentary of the action that the viewer could already see with their own eyes. It was terrible! Maybe since doing that commentary he figured out how to do them better, so maybe not all his commentaries are like the Exorcistone, but, man, it was the worst.

The Friedkin commentary, however, was probably the only really bad commentary I ever heard. Some were more boring than others but most were usually good and some were even great.

The other cool thing about the commentaries was that you could turn them on and off with ease. You could press the “audio” button on your DVD remote and the track would come on at any point while you were watching the film. This was also, by the way, how you would switch languages or switch from 5.1 DTS surround sound to 2.0 Dolby Digital surround and/or stereo sound or, in some cases—especially in the case of an older movie—you could listen to the original mono sound track. In rare cases, there would even be a “fart track.” Ok, there was only one DVD that had a fart track and that was Wet Hot American Summer. This was a track that had all the original audio from the movie except that, every once in a while, you would hear fart sounds. Yes, that was the whole track: you watched the movie with the original sound track only with added fart sounds. It was hilarious and all you had to do was hit the “audio” button a few times on your remote in order to access it.

Speaking of the “audio” button, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the “angle” button, too. Remember that? This allowed you to switch camera angles when you were watching a DVD. The only DVD that utilized this feature (that I remember, anyway) was the Beastie Boys’ Video Anthology Criterion Collection DVD, one of the best DVDs ever made. This DVD featured several Beastie Boys music videos from the 1980s and 1990s but contained multiple camera angles you could switch to by just pushing the “angle” button on your remote. There were also, by the way, a bunch of different song remixes for each video that you could listen to by just pushing the audio button on the remote. You could do all this angle switching and audio switching in real-time while you were watching the video. It was one of the most interactive DVDs ever made.

The Criterion Collection’s Beastie Boys Video Anthology DVD.
It really is one of the coolest DVDs ever made.

Now, I collected DVDs from about the early-2000’s to around the mid-2000’s, and when I say I “collected them,” I don’t really mean that I had too many of them. I mostly bought DVD copies of my favorite movies, I still bought some DVDs that I thought would just look and sound good on DVD, but I would also buy a DVD simply when it looked like it would be a good DVD. For example, I bought the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs “Platinum Edition” two-disc DVD because it looked like Disney had put a ton of effort into making it.

The Snow White “Platinum Edition” DVD complete
with “Saver’s” (the thrift store) price-tag.

I also remember the DVD for Dario Argento’s Suspiria (another two-disc special edition) looked so cool and I bought that DVD even though I had never seen the movie before and had no idea whether it was even good (as it turned out, it was, of course, a great movie). Included on one of the discs as an extra was a music video by the Italian progressive rock band Goblin. Goblin wrote the entire soundtrack for Suspiria. I loved that Goblin music video so much that I think I ended up watching it more than the actual movie itself.

The Goblin video, included as an extra on the Suspiria DVD. FYI: it’s a little dark.

One other great DVD I must mention was The Nightmare Before Christmas, which most notably featured some early short films by Tim Burton called Vincent and Frankenweenie.

The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD, which
is packed with hours of cool extras.

What am I forgetting? The DVD for Se7en was great. So was the DVD for Memento. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was an outstanding one, too. Again, these are not necessarily my favorite movies, but I remember the DVDs for these movies being top-notch.

My favorite DVD of all time … or, well, really it’s a whole box set of DVDs, is the Criterion Collection’s John Cassavetes “Five Films” box set. I got this DVD set sometime around the early-2005 area and I watched the hell out of those things. Sadly, there were no commentaries, but there were some excellent extras on those DVDs, including interviews (both video ones and audio recordings), featurettes, alternate versions of the films, alternate openings to the films, documentaries—all sorts of gems.

The John Cassavetes “Five Films” DVD box set.

After the 2005 area, I stopped buying DVD and this was for three main reasons: a) I didn’t have a lot of money to spare, b) DVDs were easy to get through the local library and c) Netflix was on the rise. I ended up selling most of my DVDs, usually to Newbury Comics. At the time, the thought of making some extra cash and downsizing my clutter sounded appealing to me. Granted, I kept a few super-favorite DVDs or DVDs that were too scratched to sell. But probably about 95% of my collection got sold off.

Years later, I regretted this decision to sell my DVDs. There were often times when, on a whim, I’d feel like watching my favorite movie, but I wouldn’t have any means of watching it since I no longer owned it nor was it currently available on any online platform (unless I paid an arm and a leg for it).

A few years ago, however, I started getting a lot of these DVDs back into my possession. See, around the time of COVID, people were doing a lot of cleaning around the house and my local library came up with the idea of allowing people to drop off their used books and, yes, also their used DVDs for free, just to get rid of them, and then the library would sell the books/DVDs to other patrons for a dollar each. It was a win-win for everybody. A win for the people wanting to declutter their house. A win for the library that wanted to make a few extra bucks to keep their ship afloat. And a win for people like me who still really like DVDs but would never spend a whole lot of money collecting again.

Long story short, I started “collecting” again and when I say “collecting,” I really only purchase a DVD if it’s one of my favorite movies or it simply looks like too good of a DVD to pass up. For example, not too long ago, I got The Wizard of Oz three-disc collector’s edition DVD for—that’s right—only a dollar. The Wizard of Oz is not necessarily a favorite of mine, although it is a movie I like and appreciate, but a three-disc collector’s edition for only a dollar? You can’t pass that up. And I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t, too, because I discovered a commentary track on there that was one of the best commentaries I ever heard. It was basically a commentary moderated by a film historian, but it spliced together all sorts of different interviews from Wizard of Oz cast members (including Margaret Hamilton—the Wicked Witch) and/or family descendants of the cast. For a person like myself who is very interested in old Hollywood history, this commentary was right up my alley.

The Wizard of Oz three-disc collector’s edition.

In fact, some of the best DVD commentaries I ever heard have been done by film historians or critics—not the directors themselves. The commentaries for the John Cassavetes films Husbands and Love Streams(the DVDs of which were released well after the aforementioned box set) come to mind. They feature some incredibly fascinating film critic commentary that would only be better if done by Cassavetes himself, although that would be impossible since he passed away in 1989.

But, yes, I guess one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and that is certainly the case with DVDs right now in 2026. People are practically giving DVDs away these days, but then there are people like me who take them into their homes, clean them, give them love and treasure not just the movies but all the interesting extras that were products of about a 5-10-year period of time when DVD was king, a time when Hollywood really cared about making some great DVDs.

Seriously, finding some of these DVDs is almost like finding a treasure chest or maybe a time capsule from a bygone era. When you really dig into the depths of these discs, you find it amazing to see how much effort was put into a lot of these DVDs that were made in the video format’s “Golden Age.” I’m thinking about The Lion King “Platinum Edition” DVD that takes you through a virtual African safari as one of its bonus features. Or the Jurassic Park DVD that has a whole bonus section on its disc that teaches you about dinosaurs. Not to mention the E.T. DVD that teaches you about the planets in our solar system.

The Lion King “Platinum Edition” DVD.

But, heck, forget about all the random extras you may find on DVDs and take something as simple as the DVD menus: some of them are so clever and well thought-out. If you want evidence of this, just pop in a Seinfeld DVD. Every single season and I think every single disc has its own menu theme, one that is usually inspired by one of the episodes on that particular disc.

Today, I am happy to say that I have actually managed to find another copy of pretty much every single DVD that I foolishly sold back in the mid-2000’s. Don’t get me wrong here: I am still well-aware that DVD is an inferior format to Blu-ray and the wave of the future for physical media is probably the 4K UHD Blu-ray or whatever the hell those things are called, but, again, those ultra-HD thingys are, like, forty bucks a pop and used DVDs are practically free these days, so, for now, I’m sticking with DVD.

Also, don’t think I don’t stream, either. I do stream movies. I stream a lot, actually. But I also like having a modest collection of physical DVDs. Because if I have the urge to watch my favorite movie but it’s not available on any streaming platform, then—boom—I can just pop in the DVD. Isn’t that great?

Do I sound like an old man? Have I turned into the very person I thought I would never turn into when I was a child? Am I sounding like Grandpa Simpson? “Back when I was your age, we watched our movies on DVDs!” Am I talking too much about something that is old and irrelevant? Do I need to stop holding onto the past and be “more present”?

Probably.

Or maybe I’m being smart. Maybe someday DVD will have a resurgence, much like how vinyl records have had one of late. Maybe I’m a few steps ahead of the curve and my collection of DVDs will become super-valuable one day. Or at least I’ll be able to say, “I was into DVD before it became cool again.”

Either way, DVD will always be my format of choice, the one I cherish the most. Most of my childhood consisted of watching VHS, so one might think I would cling to that format over DVD, but let’s face the truth about VHS: it’s terrible. The video quality was terrible back then and is even more terrible today since all the VHS tape has deteriorated over the years. No, DVD is my format of choice. As for Blu-ray? I will never have any beef with Blu-ray; I actually own several Blu-rays and appreciate its superior video quality, but at the end of the day I guess I just don’t have the same emotional attachment to Blu-ray that I do to DVD.

So DVD will always be for me. What say you? Do you think DVD is nothing but a dinosaur, or do you think there is still a future for DVD? Let me know in the comments.

…

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies!, The Woman and the Dragon and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, My Raging Case of Beastie Fever, Jungle F’ng Fever: My 30-Year Love Affair with Guns N’ Roses, Bostonwood and I Used to be a Gamer. Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

Other trending articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

Film-related articles:

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER TURNS 25 (and it’s only gotten better)

NOT PLAYING IT SAFE: How Todd Haynes’ Film Was Used to ‘Deprogram’ Me and My Fellow Film Students

How I Got into the Films of John Cassavetes

If I May Say a Few Words About FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR

35 YEARS OF TURTLE POWER: A Tribute to 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie

Revisiting the Blair Witch Project

My Childhood Obsession with Rambo

Video Store Memories

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)

Short memoirs/nostalgia:

CAPE CODDING IT: A Cape Cod Vacation Memoir

GREYHOUNDING IT, BABY! A Guide to taking a Greyhound Bus Long Distances

Visiting Mom in the ICU (short story contest winner)

A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)

NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)

Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics

Skateboarding in the 1990s

WAAF Goes Off the Air

Remembering That Time I Tried to Stop a Shoplifter at the Wrentham Outlets

The Strange, Surreal Moment of Being Called a DILF Inside a Panera Bread Restaurant on a Wednesday Afternoon

Weird Times en la Weirdioteca

Gaming/computers nostalgia:

RIP PowerBook G3

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time

I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)

I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years

Writing Tips/Advice:

THE AUDIO BOOK EXPERIMENT: Tips and Advice on How to Record Your First Audio Book

Getting Your Novel Done

Making Your Good Writing Great

Getting Your Screenplay Done

Writing the Sequel

Writing the Trilogy

No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher

The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!

The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon

Tuesday, March 24, 2026

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER TURNS 25 (and it’s only gotten better)

In 2001, a magnificent, state-of-the-art movie theater opened across the street from the Boston Common. It was a Loews theater and it had a whopping 19 screens, 4,200 seats and also an IMAX theater that alone had 600 seats. Everybody was so excited when this movie theater first opened, including myself. I was a student at Boston University at the time and I think the first movie I saw there was Spiderman.

What a lot of people may not know, however, is that, when this particular Loews opened, there was another Loews across town in the Back Bay that suddenly found itself unnecessary. See, this Loews, located in the Copley Mall, did NOT have any stadium seating or state-of-the-art sound, digital projection and certainly no IMAX screen. It probably hadn’t even been renovated since the early 1990s.

Instead of closing, however, the theater decided to specialize in showing independent films.[i] And when I say, “independent films,” we’re not talking anything overly indie; we’re talking Hollywood-indie, which, these days, would likely be films that would go straight to Netflix or some other streaming platform.

I used to walk through the Copley Mall quite frequently between the years 2000-2004. When I was going to BU, I usually took the train to and from school from the suburbs via the commuter rail. After a day of classes, I’d often have some time to kill before catching my train home and I would “take the scenic route” from BU to the Back Bay train station. This scenic route may have actually consisted of me walking all the way from BU to Back Bay, which was maybe a good 25-30-minute walk. If I didn’t feel like walking THAT much, I would take the Green Line from BU, get off at the Hynes Convention Center stop, which was on the corner of Mass Ave. and Newbury Street (pretty much right where Tower Records used to be) and then walk to Back Bay station from there. Either way, I would almost always cut through the Prudential Mall and then eventually the Copley Mall on my way to the train station.

The Copley Mall circa 2001. This was (and maybe still is?) the main mall atrium with the giant, two-floor waterfall. The Loews cinema was just behind and down a short concourse from where this photo was taken.

Now, in the Copley Mall, there was a restroom that I usually made a pitstop at before getting to Back Bay station because these bathrooms were a thousand times better than the bathrooms at Back Bay. Come to think of it, I can only think of maybe one or two times that I actually used the bathrooms at Back Bay, mainly out of desperation. I ALWAYS used the bathrooms in the Copley Mall.

The reason why I’m telling you all this is because the bathrooms in the Copley Mall were located in a corridor that was adjacent to the Loews Copley Mall cinema. This meant that I always knew what movies were playing there …

And, occasionally, there would be something there that I wanted to see.

There may have been more, but I can definitely remember at least three movies that I saw at the Copley Mall theater sometime between the years 2000-2004. I think on all three occasions, I saw these movies either in the late morning or early afternoon on a Friday. For much of my freshman and sophomore year of college, I would have one or two early classes on Friday morning and then have the rest of the day off. Since I didn’t feel like going home right away and I certainly wasn’t up for studying at the library on a Friday afternoon, I would often go see a movie somewhere in the city, sometimes at the Boston Common theater, other times at the Fenway theater (another beautiful stadium-seating theater), occasionally at the Kendall Landmark theater in Cambridge (another indie movie theater in Kendall Square), but, yes, sometimes even at the Copley theater.

The three movies I remember seeing at the Copley Loews were Shadow of the Vampire, American Splendorand Ghost World.

I bet you thought I was going to say Wet Hot American Summer.

No, regrettably, I never saw Wet Hot American Summer at the Copley Loews theater, but the reason why I told this whole story was because Wet Hot American Summer was definitely playing at the Copley theater in mid-2001 and it was while I was at the theater seeing another movie that I first heard of Wet Hot American Summer.

I had to research release dates to confirm this, but it must have been while I was seeing Ghost World at the Copley Loews when I happened to notice that one of the other movies playing at the theater was Wet Hot American Summer. The name of the movie sounded intriguing to me. I think I even saw the movie poster somewhere in the cinema as well. The poster looked just as intriguing, if not more intriguing. It looked fun, anyway.

The original movie poster for Wet Hot American Summer.

But, again, I never did actually see the movie in the theater. Yes, the title sounded intriguing, but I never looked any further into what the film was about or whether it was worth my time and/or the $6 or so it cost for a matinee movie ticket at that theater in those days.

Although I do regret not seeing the movie in the theater, it may have been better for me to wait until it was out on video anyway, because what I didn’t realize at the time was that this movie wouldn’t only be best appreciated with multiple viewings but it would also be a movie I would want to see again as soon as I finished it.

For whatever reason, I don’t think I saw Wet Hot American Summer until 2004, three years after its theatrical release. I think this was because I mostly forgot about the movie until one day in September 2004 when I was in a video store called Massive Video in Norfolk, MA. Massive Video was a great video store, but I mostly only rented non-new-releases there because they had a great deal: two DVDs for a dollar. Wet Hot American Summer was not a new release at the time, so I rented it along with another movie for only a dollar.

Rentals in hand, I went home, popped the Wet Hot American Summer DVD into the DVD drive of my Mac PowerBook G3 laptop and Wet Hot American Summer instantly became a favorite movie of mine, one that I knew I was likely going to watch time and time and time and, yes, time again.

The premise of the movie was simple and simple is always good. It’s the last day of summer camp and all sorts of fun activities are happening during the course of the day, amongst campers, counselors, camp directors and even the mess hall workers. It’s Meatballs meets Ernest Goes to Camp meets Sleepaway Camp. But it’s a parody of those movies. And a parody of 1980s teen movies in general. I think that pretty much sums Wet Hot American Summer up.

I can’t remember if I knew beforehand or when I actually realized that the movie was made by members of The State, which was an early-to-mid-1990s MTV sketch comedy show that I was a VERY big fan of. Statemember David Wain directed Wet Hot American Summer and co-wrote it with another State member Michael Showalter. Other State members featured in the film include Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Janeane Garofalo and Jo Lo Truglio.

Remember The State?

Overall, what I remember most about my experience first seeing Wet Hot American Summer is that I had never laughed so hard out loud at a movie before. I know that sounds like a dramatic exaggeration, but I will tell you exactly what scene I was laughing so hard at:

About halfway through the movie, there is a chase sequence between the characters Victor Kulak (played by Ken Marino) and Neil (played by Jo Lo Truglio). The two characters play camp counselors who take a group of campers off the campgrounds to go rafting on a nearby river. As soon as he drops Neil and the campers off at the river, Victor ditches them all and runs back to camp so he can lose his virginity to a girl named Abby Bernstein before she hooks up with somebody else. Neil then decides to hop off the raft while it’s floating down the river, also ditching the campers, so he can chase after Victor. He conveniently finds a motorcycle off the river and hunts Victor down. The chase sequence is on and it’s set to “Turn Me Loose” by Loverboy.

The chase sequence.

During the chase, we cut back and forth between Victor running and Neil chasing him on the motorcycle. There are blatant continuity errors, like Neil’s hair constantly going from long to short, the joke being that most of the motorcycling is being done by a stunt double. Also, in one shot, Neal is right behind Victor, almost within reach of him, but then in the next shot he is far away, then in another shot, he is back to being right up on him and so forth.

The funniest part of the sequence or at least what I thought was the funniest part when I first saw the movie was the very end where Victor comes upon a small, rectangular stack of hay in the middle of the road. He can of course run around it with ease and even hop over it with ease, but this hay stops him short as though it is a huge obstacle in his way. He decides the only thing to do is leap over it and this is done in dramatic slow-motion, as though it is an amazing stunt, when, in fact, all he’s doing is hopping over the foot-high haystack. Then Neil drives up to the block of hay on his motorcycle and skids to a stop when he of course can easily drive right around it. But once he stops, he gestures a “dammit,” as though he is stuck and can’t go any further. Then there is a close-up of Neil’s face where he shakes his head, smiles and has a look that basically says, “You got away again, Victor. You clever son of a bitch.”

Seeing the sequence for yourself is obviously better than me describing it, but let me tell you: I must have rewound the DVD more than a dozen times to rewatch that chase sequence, especially the hay part and even especially the part where Neil is shaking his head and grinning, knowing that Victor has gotten away from him … THIS TIME. I can’t remember ever laughing so hard out loud in my life.

Later in the movie, there is a montage sequence parody that I may have laughed just as hard at. The character Coop (played by Michael Showalter) has just gotten rejected by the girl of his dreams and he’s sitting in the woods, bawling his eyes out. The head camp cook Gene (played by the hilarious Christopher Meloni) comes out of nowhere, sits next to Coop and says, “It isn’t about the girl, Coop.” Coop says, “It isn’t?” Gene says, “Well, it is … but see if you can follow me here. It … isn’t.” Then Coop says he finally understands, “Oh. So it is … AND it isn’t.” Gene nods and says, “You are ready to be taught the New Way.” Coop then says, “Will you help teach me about this … what is it … a New Way?” Then the movie cuts to a gratuitous montage sequence of Coop being taught a “New Way”/being trained for something/doing other random stuff that makes no sense whatsoever, including learning dance moves, going for a hike through the woods led by Gene and participating in what-appear-to-be AA meetings. The montage then ends with a big slow-motion jump in the air where Coop and Gene high-five each other and then a freeze frame. It’s so funny because it makes absolutely no sense and it reminds you of all the other montage sequences you’ve seen in ‘80s movies that were so ridiculous.

The montage sequence.

I rewound and rewatched this montage sequence probably as much as I rewatched the chase sequence. And then I rewatched the movie again … and again … and again …

… rented it multiple times …

Years later, it was on Netflix and I watched it repeatedly while it was on that platform.

And then, many years after that, I bought a DVD copy.

The more I watched the movie, the less I laughed at the obvious humor like the chase sequence and montage sequence, but the more I noticed the movie’s more subtle, sophisticated humor, humor that is next-level in my opinion.

Here are a couple of examples:

Early in the movie, there is a scene where we first see Coop interact with the aforementioned girl he’s crushing on, a fellow camp counselor named Katie (played by Marguerite Moreau). There is some awkward interaction between them, Katie says she is determined to find Coop a girlfriend and then Coop says, all cutesy-wootsy, “Well I guess I’ll cancel that order of onions and Limburger cheese I made for lunch today.” Katie forces out a laugh, they start to part ways but then, as Katie walks off, Coop yells out, “I want you inside me!” Katie isn’t sure she heard right, she turns around and says, “What?!” Coop stumbles with his words and says, “Hm? Oh, hey what’s up? Um, I was just … um … from before.” Then Katie walks away and Coop adorably gestures in a manner that basically says, “Oh man, I’m sooooo crushing on her.”

The “I want you inside me” scene.

The reason why this scene is so funny is because of how shocking the “I want you inside me!” line is within the context of the scene. Coop is presented to us as the underdog character, the nice, wholesome, PG-rated protagonist everyone is rooting for to get the girl. But then, completely out of character, he yells out, “I want you inside me!” Not only does this make no sense (shouldn’t she be the one saying that to him?) but it is so abruptly R-rated or even X-rated that it’s so hilarious. It’s almost like the awkward Coop had heard that line be said somewhere, didn’t quite know what it meant, but then thought it was completely appropriate to say to the girl he is crushing on.

Later in the movie, there is another scene between Coop and Katie that is basically a parody of a scene we see in pretty much every Rom-Com movie when the guy and gal are starting to fall for each other. Coop and Katie are laying on the grass and have a conversation with each other that not only makes no sense but is actually completely incoherent. Yet they seem to be oblivious to all this and, by the end of it, they still seem to be falling for each other in classic Rom-Com fashion.

The scene goes something like this:

Katie asks Coop if he would go out with Susie (the character played by Amy Poehler in the movie). Coop says that he and Susie went out the first summer he was at camp, when they were 10 years old. Katie asks if they went all the way and Coop says that …

“Yeah, you bet we went all the way. We went all the way. And all the way back, too. We did doggy style. Pony style. Style Council, that’s a good band. They’re hot right now. Human League. They have some good stuff. League of Nations. That brings in the whole thing of the United Nations. And then that brings in the whole category of countries. I mean, where to start? Well, the obvious one, the birthplace of spaghetti and pasta, all that oily stuff. Italy. Now you go.”

Katie smiles at him. “Um,” she says. “How about Italy?”

“Yeah, good! It’s safe. Plus, I kind of paved the way with that one, but …”

Katie then gives him ‘the look,’ the look we’ve all seen before in every Rom-Com. The “I’m falling for him” look.

And Coop smiles at her and says, “What … what?”

I didn’t fully appreciate this scene until years after first seeing the movie. Actually, it didn’t even stand out to me until watching the movie very recently. I think, when you watch this scene, you just assume that what they’re talking about makes sense because they play it so straight and when we see them starting to “fall for” each other by the end of the scene, it’s so genuine that it’s pretty much indistinguishable from any other Rom-Com. It’s only until you take the time to carefully listen to what they’re saying to each other that you realize nothing makes any sense. Once you come to this realization, but also consider that the scene took itself so seriously and played out like a scene from any other Rom-Com, you are hit with a burst of laughter unlike you’ve ever experienced before.

This is a level of comedy rarely seen in any other movie. Maybe Airplane! comes close, which is a parody movie where the actors play the movie’s absurd humor very straight, but even Airplane! is probably not as subtle as what you often see in Wet Hot American Summer.

This isn’t to say, however, that the humor in Wet Hot American Summer is always so sophisticated. There are plenty of slapstick-type gags in the movie that you laugh at on a shallow level (think Coop stepping in a pail/slipping on a banana peel/falling into a kiddie pool or the camper lighting his fart on fire at the talent show). I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are probably three levels of humor in the film. The shallower humor (like the Coop pratfall or talent show fart gag), the somewhat-more-sophisticated humor (like the chase and montage sequence parodies) and the super-subtle humor (the interactions between Coop and Katie), the latter of which give you the biggest laughs when the humor finally hits you.

Coop’s slapstick-y pratfall.

It’s hard to say objectively that Wet Hot American Summer is one of the best comedies of all time, but I absolutely think it is and I’m not saying this to be dramatic. It is definitely at least in my top-five list of favorite comedies of all time and, honestly, very close to my number-one. Heck, it may even be my number-one.

Twenty-five years after its theatrical release, Wet Hot American Summer is definitely acknowledged both by critics and “the people” to be a hilarious cult classic, and although the appreciation of this movie has certainly grown over the years, I still don’t think it fully gets the credit it deserves. What movie is objectively considered to be the best comedy of all time by the American Film Institute? Some Like It Hot, something like that? Ok, that’s not a bad movie, but Wet Hot American Summer blows Some Like It Hot out of the water, in my humble opinion. If you haven’t seen it recently, watch Wet Hot American Summer again and keep a look out for the more subtle humor that often goes overlooked.

And if you’ve never seen the movie before?

Watch it immediately. You are in for a treat. In many ways, this could be the beginning of an entirely new chapter in your life. Since first watching the movie back in 2004, I have seen Wet Hot American Summer a zillion times. And even though I’ve seen the movie so many times, I either still find funny moments that I hadn’t noticed before or moments I HAD noticed before that hit my funny bone in a whole different way. There aren’t many movies that can withstand the test of multiple viewings, but this is definitely one of those movies that only gets better the more times you watch it.

…

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies!, The Woman and the Dragon and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, My Raging Case of Beastie Fever, Jungle F’ng Fever: My 30-Year Love Affair with Guns N’ Roses and I Turned into a Misfit! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.