I recently DVR'ed five episodes of the short lived, but much loved, nineties television program Salute Your Shorts. A quick Google consultation confirmed my suspicion that there's no current website that features Salute Your Shorts recaps.
And you call yourself an internet.
For those of you allergic to summer camp based hilarity, Salute Your Shorts is a television show about a bunch of kids who learn about life, love and hijinks at woefully under-supervised Camp Anawanna. In an effort not to over-stimulate our prepubescent brains, the characters were created as one dimensionally as possible.
They are:
Bobby Budnick: The Bully
Michael Stein: The Everyman
Donkey Lips: The Fat Kid
Sponge: The Nerd
ZZ Ziff: Nature Chick
Telly Radford: The Athlete
Dina Alexander: The Spoiled Pretty Girl
Kevin "Ug" Lee: The Clueless Camp Counselor
Our first episode is the eighth of the first season and centers around Donkey Lips and Sponge's efforts to gain/lose weight in order to join the wrestling team.
Cold Open:
Our story begins with camp bad-boy and unironic mullet owner Bobby Budnick selling food and other miscellaneous trinkets to his fellow campers, much to the chagrin of camp counselor extraordinaire Kevin "Ug" Lee. Ug informs Budnick that camp policy clearly states that there's no outside food allowed and that whatever parents send, he eats. Seems unfair, but he's a forty year old camp counselor who's routinely outsmarted by twelve year olds, so I'm not going to question the logic of his decision making. Ug then mistakes an actual shoelace for a candy shoelace and eats it.
First Act:
The gang laments the fact that their camp culinary options are less than ideal, and ZZ makes a joke about eating Earthworms, which was insulting to both Earthworms and jokes in general. Like most intelligent adults, Ug decides to publicly weigh Donkey Lips and Sponge in front of their friends to see if they qualify for the oddly stringent camp wrestling team. Since all great comedy derives from conflict, they do not, and Ug announces in front of all their friends that Donkey Lips and Sponge are too fat and skinny respectively to join the wrestling team. This saddens our heroes because they wanted to go on the annual wrestling seafood restaurant trip and because Donkey Lips wanted a trophy to prove to his parents he wasn't a loser. If I'm the Camp Anawanna Wrestling coach I'm not heartbroken since "actually wanting to wrestle" doesn't appear too high on their priorities for joining the team. Telly, unencumbered by any type of organized camp activities, volunteers to whip our boys into shape.
We move to the cafeteria where in non-wrestling or repeatedly pointing out that Donkey Lips is fat news, Budnick devises a plan to order some hamburgers from the outside. Despite the fact that Budnick has proven time and time again to be an unsavory character, Michael, Dina and ZZ agree to pay him in advance. Over at the "Wrestlers Weight Training Table" (Telly hung a multicolored sign which suspiciously looks like an art and/or craft, so I'm assuming she bought it from a neighboring camp) Sponge is drinking a protein shake that "taste like Donkey Lips' socks smell." Oh right, because Donkey Lips is overweight. Got it. Sponge crawls underneath the table to dispense of Telly's shake when he runs into Budnick who (for reasons unknown) is also crawling around underneath the table. Sponge wants in on the burger deal and the two temporarily forget that bullies and nerds are mortal enemies and high-five.
After lunch, with no discernible camp related activities in sight, Coach Telly decides to have Donkey Lips run a mile while Sponge eats twenty bananas. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to remind the viewer that Donkey Lips is overweight, this takes him four hours to achieve and is subtly scored with the Benny Hill theme song. Four hours to run a mile? Donkey Lips should quit worrying about wrestling and concentrate on a far more pressing opponent: Diabetes.
Great, now I'm doing it.
Back in our Burger-rific B-Plot there's a scene with ZZ and a piggy bank which I'll skip because ZZ offers nothing to the plot or this show in general. Ug catches Budnick making a telephone call, which I'm assuming is also against camp policy, because the kids are forced to pick up trash for their transgression. While picking up trash and formulating a new burger plan I notice a few kids in the background going on a nature hike with a much more professional camp counselor. Must be nice.
The "plot" intensifies as Budnick politely informs Donkey Lips and Sponge that they have to sneak out of camp to pick up the burgers or get "pounded." Donkey Lips, ignoring the fact that he outweighs Budnick by about one hundred and fifty pounds, agrees. Sponge appears heartbroken that the high five he and Butnick clandestinely shared underneath the cafeteria table apparently meant nothing to Budnick.
Act Two:
We catch up with the "paradigm of children's education" himself Ug Lee as he takes a break from doing nothing and decides to catch some sun while sipping a cocktail. Telly interrupts to ask if Donkey Lips and Sponge can skip "activities" for the day to go jogging. Ug, most likely surprised that there were any discernible activities planned for the day, agrees, but only if Donkey Lips pushes Sponge in a wheelbarrow to prevent Sponge from losing weight; a plan both practical and degrading.
On the way to pick up the burgers Donkey Lips and Sponge engage in a legitimately sincere conversation about why they're bullied and how it's okay because of how successful they'll be when they grow up. Glancing at their IMDB pages, I disagree, but it was a surprisingly tender moment that genuinely showcased their budding friendship. Sadly, if those nerds would have suppressed their feelings, like all great men are taught to do, they would have heard all their burger money falling out of Donkey Lips' pocket. The lesson as always: Never Feel.
Finally Ug finishes his sun bathing and is a little too excited when he discovers a trail of pocket change. I can't imagine a camp counselor makes that much, but keep it together dude. He follows the trail and ends up, yep you guessed it, at the same Burger Shack as Donkey Lips and Sponge.
Meanwhile a clearly agitated Burger Shack employee waits for Donkey Lips and Sponge to pay. I imagine her antipathy comes not from working at a desolate Burger Shack that's hilariously isolated from everything except a summer camp that explicitly forbids its campers from eating there, but from the sad realization that her life hasn't turned out quite the way she expected it to. This show is deep y'all.
Sponge and Donkey Lips realize they've lost the money and notice Ug walking to the Burger Shack. The Burger Shack employee yells through the loudspeaker that "their order is ready and she doesn't want to waste the rest of her life waiting for them." Something tells me that this lady won't be around for future episodes. Or possibly tomorrow.
Ug notices the attractive girl in distress and, of course, tries to woo her. Based on their mutual admiration for poor job performance and degrading children you would think this would be a match made in vocational apathetic heaven. But it's not. The pretty young girl uses the promise of a swim date to trick Ug into paying for the burgers. While Ug cartoonishly attempts to pay, my favorite dialogue from the episode takes place:
Sponge: Kicked off the wrestling trip, kicked out of camp... my parents aren't going to get a refund.
Donkey Lips: And Ug is touching our food!
Sponge and Donkey Lips steal the hamburgers with a giant stick and the Burger Girl closes the window and puts up a sign that says: Closed... For Your Convenience... which doesn't make any sense, but I'm not here to review signs, I'm here to review television history. Once again Ug gets the short end of the stick and Burger Girl is off to finally put an end to all the pain.
Sponge and Donkey Lips race back to camp to give their ungrateful friends their burgers. But Ug, who found, and then lost, thirty dollars in change AND got his heart broken all in the span of ten minutes, is right behind them! The campers decide to eat the evidence. Now if you're a fan of logic you may want to skip to the end. Donkey Lips and Sponge bought thirty six burgers which means that each camper would have had to eat six burgers in about two minutes (Donkey Lips admirably didn't eat any because of his diet).
Ug enters and asks if everyone is having a party and wonders out loud why he wasn't invited. This is where I'd normally make a joke about Ug, but I think he meant that question earnestly. I don't think he has any friends. He then invites Donkey Lips and Sponge down to the lodge so he can weigh them because the wrestling tournament, the one that was just announced four hours ago, is tomorrow. That makes sense.
Just before he leaves Ug notices a certain smell in the air. Budnick comments that maybe Donkey Lips should shower more often. Everyone, including Ug, laughs.
We're finally here. The weigh in. I think I'm a lot closer to understanding myself after watching this episode; also, I'm definitely closer to understanding why nobody has ever written a review of this show before.
First up, Donkey Lips. Ug weighs him and then says in dramatic fashion that he's one... pound... over. You generally do the dramatic vocal spacing when you have good news for someone, but Ug is in all likelihood mentally challenged, so I'm going to give him yet another pass. Donkey Lips gives Sponge his claw cracker (which he had in his pocket and easily weighs over a pound) and sadly waddles off. Sponge makes weight and a crowd of about fifteen very bored children cheer. Coach Telly gives Sponge a dumbbell and tells him to start training (for a competition that's twelve hours away) but Sponge is more concerned about his friend.
I like Sponge. He'd make a fantastic acquaintance.
Sponge places the five pound weight on the scale, but then realizes that the scale says seven pounds. Ug looks at the scale like a dog trying to understand quantum physics, but (eventually) realizes that the scale is off and that both of our heroes made weight!
Sponge finds Donkey Lips and tells him the good news and the episode ends on a lighthearted note of friendship. Did Sponge get his lobster? Did Donkey Lips receive a trophy? Who knows. Does it really matter? It's about the journey not the destination. Also, the episode is over, so I'm happy.
I rate this episode a B- due to its over-reliance on two characters I don't really care about, refusal to give my main man Michael some more screen time and lack of Awful Waffles. A successful Salute your Shorts episode should be:
70% Budnick/Michael*/Ug
20% Telly/Dina/Sponge/Donkey Lips
9% Threats of People Receiving an Awful Waffle
1% ZZ
Camp Anawanna, I hold you in MY heart.
* Or Pinsky
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