Luke Kalamar: Wet Hot American Summer – First Day of Camp

When I first watched Wet Hot American Summer in college (it was 2011 I think, I’m not that old), I had no idea what to expect. Sure I heard about the movie previously, but had no knowledge of its cast or the completely bonkers story. To be completely honest, I thought it was just a summer camp comedy. How wrong I was. The next hour and a half was a beyond surreal experience as I watched many major names (Paul Rudd! Christopher Meloni! Bradley Cooper! Amy Poehler!) before their prime and experienced a beyond weird concept involving falling space debris. It wasn’t long before I viewed this cult classic as a massive comedic gem.

Fortunately this didn’t make my wait for First Day of Camp very long. Only 4 short years compared to 14! All the promos got me extremely excited for this show, and my hopes were pretty high. I wasn’t expecting it to top the film, naturally, but any new material in this absurd environment was exactly what I wanted. July 31st could not have come fast enough (technically yes, this didn’t premiere in August, but with it coming right at July’s end, many people didn’t finish it until the next month. Such is Netflix).

First Day absolutely delivered too. All eight episodes were filled with insane references to 80s culture and effortlessly brought middle aged actors back to play teenagers. Most of them worked! Michael Ian Black, Cooper, Rudd, Meloni, and Molly Shannon looked so much like their characters from over ten years ago. Some didn’t age nearly as gracefully, notably Michael Showalter, but seeing a 16 year old with a 45 year-old body was hysterical in itself. True to the film as well, everything transpired across a single day too. It’s so easy to forget that when watching, but when Coop recounted all the day’s events in the finale, you remember how insane this structure truly is.

The most impressive feat by far is how the entire cast came back. If Arrested Development was able to pull something of this caliber, Season 4 wouldn’t have received as many complaints. Room was even found for newcomers like Michael Cera, Jon Hamm, Jason Schwartzman, Josh Charles, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, David Wain, and Lake Bell. Really, all this pales in comparison to bringing Cooper back. The man is beyond busy and literally had only one day to shoot his scenes. Naturally, that’s what happened. Cooper was picked up when he was in town for the Academy Awards and filmed all of his scenes in one day. His absence is a bit apparent as he’s never in any major group shots, but he still makes it work. They even used this to form a joke surrounding his persona DJ Ski Mask. Amazing.

I have no idea if we’ll ever get another WHAS. We’re lucky that we even got an eight episode series! Should these characters never come back, I’m fine with that. This was such a delightful little addition that honestly could not have existed anywhere outside of Netflix. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted more though. If Wain and company can pull something off like this, I’m eager to see what type of insanity they can produce in the future.

Read Pop-Break’s review of Wet Hot American Summer here.

wet hot american

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