Want to experience the great outdoors from the comfort of your couch? Prefer A/C to bug spray? Good news, there’s no shortage of television shows about summer camp. Whether you enjoy color wars, talent shows, summer romance, serial killers, or talking cans – there’s something for everyone. So grab the remote and break out the marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers because s’mores still taste just as good indoors.
Salute Your Shorts – Nickelodeon (1991)
Camp Anawanna, I do hold you in my heart. This classic 90s Nick show ran for two seasons and followed a ragtag group of campers determined to make the most of their summer vacation, even if it was at the expense of their camp counselor’s sanity.
Bug Juice – Disney Channel (1998)
Salute Your Shorts was the show that made me want to go to sleep-away summer camp; this was the show that made me realize I would have most likely been the kid that didn’t really fit in and kind of did their own thing the entire time. Needless to say I never went to summer camp when I was younger, but I did enjoy watching other kids go to summer camp in Disney’s reality series Bug Juice. The show aired for three seasons and as the theme song says, it was “…real kids, making friends, having fun”.
Update: Bug Juice was revived by Disney Channel in 2018 for a 16-episode season entitled Bug Juice: My Adventures at Camp.
Huge – ABC Family (2010)
ABC Family’s original series Huge was based on a YA novel of the same name and followed a group of teens at a weight loss camp called Camp Victory. It may have only lasted ten episodes, but it remains memorable for the way it ably handled complicated coming-of-age issues such as body image and self-discovery.
Camp – NBC (2013)
Camp was one of those shows that tried to have its cake and eat it too. Set at a fictional family camp, is that a real thing (?), Camp tried to balance the storylines for its youth campers, adults campers, counselors, counselors in training, a rival camp, and a few other extraneous figures. If that sounds like a lot to juggle, it was. Unsurprisingly it only ran for one season.
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp – Netflix (2015)
The now-cult classic film Wet Hot American Summer was released in 2001. Fourteen years later it’s prequel landed on Netflix as an eight part TV series. Despite the huge lapse in time, the core cast, which included Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Michael Ian Black, Molly Shannon, Janeane Garofalo, and many more returned to Camp Firewood to reprise their original roles. The follow-up to this “sequel-prequel”, Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later is also on this list, see below.
Bunk’d – Disney Channel (2015)
I’ll be honest, this is the only one of the bunch I haven’t see, but according to Wikipedia and IMDB, Bunk’d is a spin-off of the Disney original series Jessie. The show follows the three Ross kids, Emma, Ravi, and Zuri, from New York City to Camp Kikiwaka in Maine. New episodes are still airing on the Disney Channel.
Dead of Summer (2016)
The Freeform TV series Dead of Summer premiered in 2016. Created by Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis, and Ian Goldberg of Once Upon a Time, Dead of Summer followed Freeform’s traditional blueprint of putting young people in creepy situations (see also: Pretty Little Liars, Guilt, Shadowhunters, and Stitchers). In this instance, you guessed it, they were trying to survive summer camp. While Camp Stillwater proved to be deadly for its campers, and DOA in the ratings, most summer camps thankfully aren’t nearly as difficult to survive.
Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later (2017)
At the end of the original Wet Hot American Summer movie, the core set of counselors we all know and love picked a date 10-years in the future and promised to reunite on that day at Camp Firewood. And wouldn’t you know it, they all kept that promise. A decade later we return to Camp Firewood for more zany camp antics, but this time with more 90s fashion. Like the Netflix prequel that came before it, much of the main cast returns, along with some new faces including Alyssa Milano and Dax Shepard.
Camp Getaway (2020)
Camp Getaway is a new reality series on Bravo that follows the staff at Club Getaway, a weekend summer camp for adults located in the Berkshire Mountains of Kent, CT. Much like the Below Deck franchise, Camp Getaway shines a spotlight on what it’s like to deal with ridiculous guests and what it’s like to live in tight quarters with your coworkers, only this time the cabins are on dry land.
Funnily enough, I’ve actually attended this camp, at least five times, and even wrote about it too.
Killer Camp (2020)
I may have spoken too soon when I said that Dead of Summer was deadlier than most summer camps because The CW has a new reality show called Killer Camp that’s supposed to be your worst nightmare. I guess they assume all of our true crime consumption has infused our dreams with killers, a la Jason Voorhees instead of some social faux pas you suffered at summer camp in your adolescence.
Anyhow the show looks to be a big game of “whodunnit” as contestants try to simultaneously survive and solve the ongoing string of murders.
Animated TV Shows About Camp:
- Camp Candy (1989) – NBC
- Camp Lazlo (2005) – Cartoon Network
- Summer Camp Island (2018) – Cartoon Network
Where to Watch:
The Wet Hot American Summer prequel and sequel are available via Netflix. New episodes of Bunk’d are still airing on the Disney Channel. But if you’re looking for one of the other series, trying Googling the show to see where it’s streaming or try searching YouTube. Most of the older shows can be found in some way shape or form on there. Maybe just not in one piece.
Happy Summer and Happy Viewing!
