The King of Pain: CAMP CUCAMONGA

This is it gang – the lowest depths of hades. The most excruciating pain this monarch of agony will have to endure. No torture, no abuse, no misery is there…more insufferable…than early 90’s made-for-tv specials.

CAMP CUCAMONGA was a movie made by NBC in 1990. The concept was to gather a bunch of actors tv-watchers would be familiar with, and lob them together GRAND HOTEL-style into one big clusterfuck of crap. The result had actors from Cheers, Amen, Full House, Family Matters, The Wonder Years, Head of The Class, Mama’s Family, My Two Dads and the TV version of Ferris Beuller head off to summer camp. Oh, the humanity!!

This is a “movie” that wants me to believe that Jaleel “Steve Urkell” White is a lady’s man. The same film that wants me to buy Danica “Winnie Cooper” McKellar as a bad seed. Are you kidding me?? Putting the girl in a leather jacket and Mötley Crüe tee shirt can’t take the wholesomeness out of her face, or the sweetness out of her voice. (Sidebar – remember when leather jackets and Mötley Crüe were a sign of being badass??). As for Urkell, if there’s any doubt as to how cool he’s supposed to be in this film, he steps up to the mic and raps to prove it.

Yes really.

What you’re about to see is actually part of the plot, as the kids think a rap video can save their doomed summer camp. So they make…this…

Oh the humanity!

Here’s what I don’t get. Clearly this “movie” was aimed at kids, as were many of the shows the stars came from. Why is it that producers feel like when the audience is young that they have to play to the lowest common denominator? Do they think that kids can’t appreciate intelligent entertainment, or that if they don’t dot it with “hip references” that kids won’t tune in? We’re in an age where some really great young adult lit is being written that disproves that whole theory.

While I did get a slight chuckle from John Ratzenberger’s character continually changing the meaning of “Cucamonga” (“It’s Navajo for Enthusiasm!”…”It’s Cherokee for Determination”). I inevitably started counting the minutes until it would all predictably end. I can’t pretend that I didn’t watch more than one of the shows these actors were from…but I have no desire to go back and revisit them now.

And that’s what left me most perplexed. She might very well weigh in with the answer, but I haven’t the foggiest idea why Lady Hatter needed to own this dvd. There’s nothing wrong with saying she liked it back then, or that she remembers it fondly…but needing to have it on the shelf, to take it down and be able to watch it on a whim is something I don’t get.

There’s crap from my past that I would probably sit and watch were I flipping channels (old cartoons like G.I. Joe, old shows like Parker Lewis Can’t Lose)…but I’ve never felt the urge to clear a spot on the shelf for a dvd copy.

So while I go disinfect my eyes with bleach, and look forward to the last legs of this series where things get a bit better, perhaps my beloved still holds on to this steaming pile of 90’s idiocy.