The Maine camp memories that inspired ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ | Column
The sign at Camp Modin when it was located in Canaan. Filmmaker David Wain’s experience as a camper and counselor inspired his 2001 movie “Wet Hot American Summer.” (Courtesy of Camp Modin)
As a junior counselor at Camp Modin in 1986, David Wain was tasked with taking a group of campers up Mount Katahdin, then sleeping over in Baxter State Park.
Being 16 years old, having a brand-new driver’s license and wanting to meet up with a girl that night, however, he had other ideas.
In the pitch black, Wain left his charges, took the van and headed back toward the camp in Canaan. But before getting too far down Baxter’s winding, wooded roads, he crashed into a tree.
Sound familiar?
It’s the basis for one of several outrageous storylines from “Wet Hot American Summer,” the 2001 flop-turned-cult comedy that’s being re-released in theaters nationwide Aug. 14-21 to mark its 25th anniversary.
“ The way we wrote the movie was just me and Michael Showalter just downloading to each other everything we could think of about our camp experiences,” said Wain, who was also its director.
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The film, which has spawned two spinoff series, gained a following that’s only grown with the star power of its cast, including Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks, as well as Wain’s fellow alums from MTV sketch comedy show “The State,” his co-writer Showalter among them.
While Showalter went to summer camp in the Berkshires, it was Wain’s time in Maine that inspired the setting for the movie about the last day at the fictional Camp Firewood in 1981.
Wain, who is also promoting his new film “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” will return to Maine Sunday on tour with his Middle Aged Dad Jam Band for a performance at the Waterville Opera House that will include clips and memories from making “Wet Hot American Summer.”
“Wet Hot American Summer” co-writer and director David Wain, who attended Camp Modin in Maine. (Photo by Sela Shiloni)
Seeing the central Maine city embrace the movie may seem surprising, considering its depiction — as the site of an afternoon jaunt “into town” that starts with counselors getting ice cream cones and ends with them shooting heroin.
Between drowning children and the camp cook’s PTSD, it’s hardly the only dark humor in the film. But in light of the state’s protracted opioid epidemic, the heroin scene hits a little close to home.
Wain explained that the joke’s not on Maine’s cities or substance abuse problems, which weren’t as prevalent at the time. He said it’s about the way counselors feel when they set foot outside of camp, based on his own fond memories.
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“When we had a day off as a counselor, we would go to Skowhegan or Waterville, and it would be like we were in Shangri-La. We were so excited to just go to some random store and, like, buy gum,” he said. “Or get a slice of pizza. It felt like we were living large.”
Still, he said he’d welcome any criticism while he’s back in Waterville, which he thinks the film portrays “as a joyous place, where people are having a great time.”
Among those joining him on stage at the Opera House are actor Ken Marino — who played Victor, the counselor who crashes the van in the movie — and Craig Wedren, the film’s composer and the reason Wain attended Camp Modin in the first place.
Two boys at Camp Modin around the time filmmaker David Wain attended in the ’80s. (Courtesy of Camp Modin)
The two men grew up together in Cleveland, which Wain said always had a contingent at the Jewish summer camp in Maine and that included relatives of Wedren.
Wain attended as a camper from 1980 to 1985, then was a junior counselor the following year, an experience that informed the attitudes of the staff at Camp Firewood.
“ I had just memories of having almost no concern for being a counselor,” he said. “It’s like 90% of my energy was trying to just run around and hang out with my friends and make out.”
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Wain has been back to Camp Modin (since relocated to Belgrade), but not in a long time, and he imagines that, like all summer camps, it’s changed in lots of ways from when he went there, between liability concerns and parents wanting more amenities for their kids. He’s not surprised it doesn’t advertise its connection to the raunchy film. (The camp’s owner politely declined the Press Herald’s request for an interview and visit but did provide photos from around the time Wain attended.)
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Despite the debauchery displayed on screen, Wain’s experience at camp also left him with some very wholesome feelings about Maine.
“It was such an incredible, spiritual place for me,” he said, reminiscing about exploring the state’s towns and rivers, spending time on “magical” Lake George and walking 23 miles to Waterville once a summer to see a movie and get ice cream at Rummel’s.
Campers play tug of war by the lake at Camp Modin in the ’80s. (Courtesy of Camp Modin)
Wain would have liked to film the movie here, he said, but it made more sense to do it at a camp in Pennsylvania because it was closer to New York City, where most of the cast was based. Wain’s not sure if the state’s lack of tax incentives would have made a difference, considering the size of the budget — so small that the Maine license plate seen on the van was drawn on a piece of paper.
There was a noticeable drawback, though, when they went looking for a stand-in for Moose River, where the campers go rafting.
“We could never quite match what it’s really like in Maine,” Wain said.
IF YOU GO
Middle Aged Dad Jam Band Summer Blast, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Waterville Opera House, 1 Common St., $40-$50. watervillecreates.org
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Tagged: movies, summer camp
Leslie Bridgers is a columnist for the Portland Press Herald, writing about Maine culture, customs and the things we notice and wonder about in our everyday lives. Originally from Connecticut, Leslie came. More by Leslie Bridgers
