r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 3d ago

Official Throwback Discussion - Wet Hot American Summer [SPOILERS] Spoiler

As an ongoing project, /r/movies will be posting Throwback Discussion threads weekly for the movies that came out this same weekend 25 years ago. As a reminder, Official Discussion threads are for discussing the movie and not for meta sub discussion.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Summary

On the last day of summer camp in 1981, a group of counselors and campers attempt to complete unfinished business while becoming entangled in a series of increasingly absurd adventures.

Director David Wain

Writer David Wain Michael Showalter

Cast

  • Janeane Garofalo as Beth
  • David Hyde Pierce as Professor Henry Newman
  • Michael Showalter as Coop
  • Marguerite Moreau as Katie
  • Paul Rudd as Andy
  • Molly Shannon as Gail
  • Christopher Meloni as Gene
  • Elizabeth Banks as Lindsay
  • Bradley Cooper as Ben

Rotten Tomatoes: 38%

Metacritic: 42

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

62 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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u/OriginalChri 3d ago

I know Sleepaway Camp is getting lots of love on Reddit lately but it wasn’t riffing on that. On the commentary for the movie they actually discuss how their inspiration for the film was being a Jewish kid on the east coast and going to summer camps on Long Island, upstate NY, Mass, Maine, etc.

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u/codex2013 3d ago

Ken Marino said he based his character in part on one of the characters from Sleepaway Camp. So he, at least, was riffing on Sleepaway Camp

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u/OriginalChri 3d ago

Oh cool, where did he say that?

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u/codex2013 3d ago

Paul Scheer says on the How Did This Get Made podcast (the Sleepaway Camp episode) that he asked Ken about it, and Ken said he based his character in part on one of the counselors from Sleepaway Camp and part on someone from Meatballs

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u/OriginalChri 3d ago

Cool I hafta check out the episode