Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp

In 2001, 'Wet Hot American Summer' introduces a group of relatively unknown young comedic actors. Some of them played teenage camp counselors despite being too old. Fifteen years later, most return to play the same characters in a prequel during their first day at Camp Firewood in the summer of 1981. The time bending silliness of that construction is boldly inventive and utterly hilarious. On top of that, this eight-episode Netflix series doubles down and goes even more ridiculous. The plot is insane. The jokes are even broader. The original confused me on my first viewing. Its satirical take isn't consistent enough and the varying range of comedy left me a little discombobulated. The original is inconsistently awkward funny but this time around, the gang is going completely nuts. They are not holding back and it is glorious.

When I saw this pop up on Netflix I was intrigued by the cast. It had to be funny right? I tried to watch the first couple episodes and left midway through the second. I didn't know if it was because I did not see the movie or what. It just did not seem funny or nostalgic. That was a few months ago, fast forward to this summer and I saw that the WHAS 10 years later was out. So I decided to check that out, just to see if it was anything better. I don't know why but I found it hilarious, I loved the first episode so much I immediately stopped watching and went back and started watching the original series, then the movie that started it all. Maybe I didn't get it the first time or the "10 years later" premise sparked a renewed interest. The idea of these older comedians playing kids was magic and their naivete made it priceless. For whatever reason you gave up on it from the start, try it again, you might be glad you did.

Crazy? Check.

Stupid? Check.

Nonsensical? Check.

Hilarious? Check.

But did you expect anything less from a Wet Hot American Summer prequel?

Fans of David Wain's 2001 cult comedy Wet Hot American Summer will be jumping for joy at this show. The humour is much the same yet somehow manages to become even more random with some of the craziest subplots I think I may have ever seen, however it is all consistently funny and had me laughing non- stop. But above all the show is incredibly meta, a tough job done well!

Seeing the cast of the original return for this was a real joy to behold. The likes of Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper and Amy Poehler effortlessly slip back into their roles and seem to pick up right where they left off in 2001, seeing how these actors have hit the big time with their careers only heightens the hilarity of seeing them return to their roles 15 years on, the meta aspect of this being a prequel series with the older actors only adds in to make the mere concept of the show even funnier.

However seeing the likes of Janeane Garofalo, Michael Showalter, Zak Orth, Michael Ian Black and Christopher Meloni reprising their roles is also a real joy to behold, especially given that they may not have had careers that reached the same heights as Rudd and Cooper. And you can tell that they are all having a blast!

The rest of the cast is simply hilarious with a whole host of big, new names joining the show furthering the meta aspect of the show. New additions include Randall Park, Jason Schwartzman, Michael Cera, John Hamm, Lake Bell, Kirsten Wiig, Weird Al and Chris Pine among others.

But in the midst of all this hilarity, just when you think that it can't get any funnier, something dawns on you...

All these events are happening over the course of one day.

One day.

The only downside to this show is that there are only 8 episodes, we need more!!!

For fans of the original, this will not disappoint.

For new Wet Hot American Summer viewers, welcome to the chaotic comedy that is Wet Hot American Summer.

WHAS:FDoC is awesome. Its not really a series of 30m stand alone episodes, its much better digested as one looong movie which is easily watched over a couple sessions. Fortunately netflix makes this easy.

The show is a lot of fun. As with the movie, its not really easy to describe. Its part parody but often played very straight and not even necessarily for the joke. There's a lot of the show (and movie) which come across as a straight forward camp storyline. Some of the jokes miss. Some a predictable. But when you put it all together its a TON OF FUN. There's goofy stuff. There's creative bits. There's wonderful cameos. Amazing setpieces. Perfect music. And a lot of laughs. It also manages to poke fun at at least five or six movie/TV themes (camp films, courtroom drama, rock bio, military, coming of age, etc).

It should be noted that the finished product is really pretty amazing given the limitations of schedule and trying to recapture the look/tone/feel of a movie made many years ago. They do some VERY creative camera-work and editing to stretch each actors involvement to feel like everyone was there the whole time.

So...check it out..and stick with it. The first few episodes are pretty straight forward..then stuff gets wacky around ep3 and doesn't let up. Its awesome!!

We tried watching the movie (which I'd never heard of until about a week ago), and just didn't get it. But we decided to try the show anyway since 40-somethings in wigs playing teens seemed like an amusing idea. And it was! For me, that joke never got old. Besides that, there were some great parody story lines, playing on old TV and movie tropes, that I found very funny.

-Standout Actors-

The show is worth watching for Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks alone. They both went hilariously over the top, plus their story lines were among the funniest. Kristen Wiig, Josh Charles, Chris Pine, and Michael Cera were standouts in smaller roles, for the same reason.

-This show is polarizing -- for a reason-

Some people won't get the humour here, perhaps because they just don't appreciate irony and absurdism. But maybe there's another reason… I think some people haven't been exposed to all the cheesy after school specials and movies of the week that this show is parodying. TV has become pretty sophisticated in the past decade or so; it's not quite as innocent (and in some cases, silly) as it used to be. And if you're not familiar with what's being parodied, it's hard to get the joke.