Camp Camp Commentary Notes - Season 1, Episode 2: Mascot
Kerry doesn't remember anything about writing this episode
Except that he does because he wrote the Rube Goldberg scene to mess with the crew because it would be hard to animate and they did it anyway
Miles worked with Al McClelland, Jr (storyboard artist) to come up with the different parts of the machine, including the inhaler, another reused element from the scrapped pilot
Kerry helped to establish the levels of weird the series could go which had not been properly foreshadowed in the first episode, likely due to time
Kerry, as well as Rooster Teeth pariah Gray Haddock, had the most involvement in making the Quartermaster who he is
Kerry took this being the second episode very seriously, trying to figure out what a normal episode after the pilot is, but then decided making it "normal" was a bad idea so they made it weird instead
At this point, the only three episodes that were in progress were this, the pilot, and Scout's Dishonor.
Lots of little details that come up because the crew thought it would be funny
David has very red elbows
Yet another repurposing from the scrapped pilot is Neil's line about the camp being a future Walmart parking lot
In fact, it was part of a much bigger blowup Neil had in that pilot, compared to the one we got
Quartermaster has a lot of his own sound design, like changing his hook hands, which they deliberated on for a moment
Bear ears don't have bones, likely added for clarity
Lots of jokes added by Al, not all make it in
Kerry will sometimes write entire episodes around single lines he comes up with, such as Quartermaster's "grumble grumble jews" bit (which does come off as anti-semetic but could really mean anything, according to Kerry)
Said line being uncomfortable is the point, in that way it's no different from anything else about the Quartermaster
Before Harrison's backstory was his brother was pinned down, his initial shtick was just being bad at magic
The "bad idea in hindsight" line was added to justify them running to the dock
Point of the episode was to give the camp the worst mascot imaginable
All the other animals, the crew made as cute as possible, meanwhile the platypus "eats the shit out of Larry" per the script
MYSTERIOUS BLACK HAIRED GIRL (it's really more of a dark blue)
Jordan, Maggie, (Sick) Elizabeth, (Healthy) Cole
Larry's screams were done by Maggie
Platypus has 3 voices: Alena Lecorchick on snarls and growls, Miles doing the "Donald Duck talk", Jordan did all the muacks
This was the first episode to be really worked on start-to-finish, the pilot didn't get too far before being reworked
Quartermaster's bag might have dead goose or whale carcass
The nose-wiping bit is highlighted in both commentaries, it was part of the crew trying to understand the characters, as was the whole sub-plot with Max and Quartermaster
Elizabeth makes her friends watch Camp Camp, something she doesn't do with most of her filmography, help get some of them hooked
Some backgrounds here were reused in Season 2
Some consideration was put into perfecting the creepy atmosphere of certain scenes, like the centipede
Okay, so the bear skeleton in the cave was changed specifically to look more bear-like
Plug for the out-of-print Platypus plush (have fun searching eBay!)
No one is quite sure where the "King of the Forest" bit came from
Matt Hullum lost it when he saw it, which is a sign they've done something right
The stab was initially way more gruesome, it was toned down for the final episode
Everything Nerris sees is magic, established with the tin can/"wizard's amulet"
Docks give the crew trouble, they can't remember if there's supposed to be one or two
Mysterious camper again, this was part of the initial concept of the camp being bigger than just what we see, with extra camps and campers strewn about, but this was eventually phased out
