Super Cool & Collected

Double feature night! I finally got two horror flicks on 4K that I was most excited for this year:

In Audition, a widowed movie producer stages a fake audition in hopes of finding a wife… with disastrous results. From the prolific Takashi Miike, I credit Audition as my formal introduction to Japanese horror. I saw it in the early 2000s and has terrified me since.

♪ Camp Anawanna We hold you in our hearts And when we think about you It makes me wanna FART! ♪

I love a theme song with the word “fart” in it! Salute Your Shorts is MY FAVORITE TV SHOW OF ALL TIME. Exactly 35 years have passed since its premiere on Nickelodeon, and I just felt like a fossil typing that. Watching it again at the start of summer proved quite the nostalgia trip. Gen Z will never grasp how “fire” the show was to ‘90s kids like me. For many, Salute Your Shorts, which ran on Nickelodeon for just two seasons from 1991 to 1992, represented a much simpler time before smartphones, streaming, and social media permeated our lives. 1991 to 1992. Wow. I was only in first grade!

Nickelodeon during the ‘90s had entered a golden age of programming, and Salute Your Shorts became one of the channel’s most popular shows even after its initial run. The show’s about a group of summer campers at Camp Anawanna that gets into all kinds of funny shenanigans while avoiding the watchful eye of their strict yet bumbling counselor Kevin “Ug” Lee (rest in peace, Kirk Baily). Ug and the campers were all likeable, and the standouts to me were mullet-headed bully Bobby Budnick (Danny Cooksey who likely did this show immediately after Terminator 2), his adipose partner in crime Donkeylips (Michael Bower), nature lover Z.Z. Ziff (Megan Berwick), and snobby rich girl Dina Alexander (Heidi Lucas) whom I had the biggest crush on. New kid Michael Stein (Erik MacArthur), brainiac Sponge Harris (Tim Eyster), sports buff Telly Radford (Venus DeMilo), and season two’s charismatic Ronnie Pinsky (Blake Soper), who replaced Michael after he left camp, are the others. The young cast had great presence and chemistry in front of the camera, making their performances all the more natural.

All 26 episodes of Salute Your Shorts had a little something for everybody. Here are the ones I love most:

"First Day" - The first episode sees fresh-faced Michael Stein arrive at Camp Anawanna where he's introduced to the place's regulars and quickly develops an antagonistic relationship with Budnick and Donkeylips. Just when you thought Michael's first day couldn't get bad enough, it gets even worse when he's forced by them to do something so risky that it can potentially get him kicked out of camp if caught. And if he refuses? "Donkeylips sits on your head and farts," warns Budnick. There is a fate worse than death, folks. I was at Griffith Park in L.A. a couple years ago where the exteriors of the real-life Griffith Park Boys Camp were shot as the fictional Camp Anawanna. Franklin Canyon Park, a favorite among many Hollywood productions, was also used. ⛺

“Zeke the Plumber” - One of the BEST episodes period. If Salute Your Shorts was made today, I've no doubt everybody's favorite ghostly janitor would get his own spinoff origin series, possibly airing on Halloween. "Zeke the Plumber" will certainly appeal to horror fans who've never seen it. More on this later... 🪠

“Treasure of Sara Madre” - “Raiders of the lost fart!” Budnick loves saying “fart” a lot, doesn't he? The kids hope to strike it rich by digging up money supposedly buried in the camp. But as far as Ug is concerned, they're digging themselves into a world of trouble from which there is no escape. 💰

“Telly & Dina” - I fondly remember this one for the epic pie fight at the end between Telly and Dina. The girls were like, “Screw the bunk chief election. Let's settle this with pies instead!” And then the boys get blamed for the mess afterwards. Classic! 🥧

"Telly and the Basketball Team" - Telly would've been a great player in the WNBA. With the exception of Michael, no one else among the campers equaled her competitiveness. 🏀

"Sponge Saga" - Sponge calls DJ Giant Jim to answer trivia questions for a chance at winning $1,000. But even Camp Anawanna's resident genius needs a little help from his friends with them. Without googling, do you know what George Michael's real name is? Or the tongue color of a giraffe? 📻

“The Clinic” - Michael learns more about his arch nemesis Budnick who shows a vulnerability we've never seen before. On the pretense of being sick to skip Ug's instructional swim trip (that ryhmes!), they eventually gorge on a fridge full of ice cream all to themselves in Nurse Julie's clinic. And who knew Budnick can complete jigsaw puzzles with the pieces facedown? 🍨

“Dina Loves Donkeylips” - No, Dina does not love Donkeylips despite the episode's title. Donkeylips thinks she does after getting her love note to the dance, which was meant for Michael, by mistake. She did show her warmer side by finishing their dance together – but not before finding out from Donkeylips himself that nobody in camp actually wanted to ask her to it because of what a snob she was. Are women out of your league the loneliest? 💌

“Z.Z. Saves the Planet” - Z.Z. scolding everybody about the environment cracks me up every time! On another note, she has a very beautiful singing voice. 🌎

“The Man Who Would Be Ug” - The role reversal between Ug and Budnick was hilarious, but I still wonder if the show was somehow rebooted with a few of the original cast members back, would Budnick return as the counselor himself? Perhaps an older and wiser Budnick is running things at Camp Anawanna? 🥾

“Dina and the Rock Star” - Keep in mind that celebs are normal people too and should be treated as such. But not to Dina! She was at her meanest in this episode, constantly bugging the crap out of rock star Jamie Mallet, Jr. to perform at camp when he just wanted some R&R. At least Pinsky was nice to him. I know most fans consider "Dina and the Rock Star" terrible, but I'm Team Dina and got a kick out of her telling lies about Jamie as revenge for not performing. 🎤

“Clan of the Cavegirls” - A cursed skull brings bad luck to Camp Anawanna. I swear, the place is full of these dreaded objects!I love how the girls bonded in the end. 🫂

“Budnick and Dina in Love? (Parts I & II)” - Then, I couldn't see the two as a couple. Now, I can understand why bad boys get the girls. 💕

"Citizen Pinsky" - When Pinksy becomes editor-in-chief of the camp newspaper, he increases readership with yellow journalism. But will Pinsky risk hurting Dina by spreading something deeply personal about her? Honestly, I didn't really like Pinsky much ever since he took Michael's spot as the new kid at the start of season two. However, he won me over here. 📰

“Capture the Flag” - It was basically a war flick with water balloons, and Donkeylips was the hero! 🚩

One of the coolest things about Salute Your Shorts is the allusion to genre films. I can’t say for certain if this was the first sitcom to do this, but I thought it seemed innovative at the time. In "Zeke the Plumber,” for example, Budnick tells the others the spooky tale of Zeke, a Freddy Krueger-esque janitor without a nose who died in a gas pipe explosion. This memorable villain wears a creepy mask that would feel right at home in any ‘80s slasher flick and haunts the dreams of those who touch his cursed plunger. The latter part of the episode where someone impersonating Zeke and chases Budnick in the woods is obviously a tribute to Friday the 13th, a popular horror franchise also taking place in a similar setting. And in the season two episode called “They Call Me Ms. Tibbs,” Telly even pulls out a hockey mask and machete from the lake while the kids clean it! Does that mean Camp Anawanna and Camp Crystal Lake share the same universe? Series creator Steve Slavkin wrote the 1989 slasher Cutting Class starring a really young Brad Pitt in his first leading role, so it's no surprise to find horror references peppered throughout!

Salute Your Shorts was not just a major part of a bygone Nickelodeon era. Along with Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Clarissa Explains It All, it was a major part of my childhood. I wish it lasted longer than two seasons, but after reading about Nickelodeon's future plans for the series then, stopping at two was probably a blessing in disguise. And it's unfortunate that licensing issues are keeping it from getting a proper Blu-ray release because I'd buy it faster than Donkeylips can eat a plate of uncooked, spray-painted macaroni. For now, I just have to settle for a fan-made disc. Rewatching Salute Your Shorts allowed me to live my idyllic summer days in the early '90s all over again. Carefree days with no smartphones, streaming, and social media but with Now and Later, a Capri Sun, and a beanbag chair instead. So one last time in the words of Ug:

"I kind of clung to what I thought was creepy. When she does these things, when she snaps back into her body for a second and she's conscious and it's the real Nikki – what would that feel like, to be teleported into a random spot and not really know where you are or what's happening? That was just something that was really intriguing to me, so I tried to explore it."