Exclusive: ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ stars yell about camp color war in absurd 2001 video
The old video was exclusively shown to kids at Camp Modin, the basis for the cult classic film. Until now.
A hilariously absurd, newly surfaced video from 2001 features the stars of Wet Hot American Summer enthusiastically yelling about an actual summer camp’s Olympics-like color war.
The short scene was made exclusively for campers and counselors at Camp Modin, the Jewish summer camp in Maine where film creator David Wain spent his childhood summers that inspired the original film. Howard Salzberg, Camp Modin’s director for the past 25 years and a former co-camper with Wain, shared the video with Boston.com.
The 2001 video begins with the short scene at the end of the Wet Hot film in which the gang meets for a 10th reunion, a callback to an earlier joke.
It then shows a previously unseen 20th reunion, which appears to be filmed by a handheld camera on the side of the street. Actors Michael Showalter, Janeane Garofalo, and Molly Shannon start yelling “Go Mo!’’ and “Win Din!’’ referring to the two competing “Mo’’ and “Din’’ teams at Camp Modin’s color war.
Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Joe Lo Truglio, A.D. Miles, Judah Friedlander, and Zak Orth all join in for seconds-long spurts of cheering for their team of choice.
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Some necessary backstory is needed here. Wain used his experiences at Modin, as well as Showalter’s time at Camp Mohawk in the Berkshires, as the inspiration for and the heart of the movie.
Every summer, the camp held a color war known as “Mo & Din,’’ in which campers and counselors were split into red or blue teams and competed in a series of events. The announcement of the color war, called the “breakout,’’ was meant to surprise and excite the campers for the competition ahead.
Wain, who is still actively involved with the camp, organized the video as the “breakout’’ in the summer of 2001 by using the stars of his new movie.
Salzberg said Wain made a PG-version cut of Wet Hot to show the kids, which included this additional final scene.
“Because we know him and he’s connected to the camp, he actually helped us break our color war back in 2001 when the first movie came out,’’ Salzberg said. “Obviously the movie isn’t appropriate to show to kids, but he sent this edited, PG-version of the movie and many of the cast members filmed an additional scene for us to break our color war.’’
The video is only now reaching the wider world amid renewed interest in the franchise and its new Netflix series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. But it already succeeded in its main goal, Salzberg said.
“It was very exciting, and the kids loved it,’’ he said.
Gallery: The blockbuster movies of the 2015 summer
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