The Burnzo Diaries: 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.