Welcome back to the start of month #2 here at Camp Crappabuttawipe at B-Movie Enema!

Alright, as we get into July, the months are getting hotter and, naturally, it’s time to really heat things up here at camp, Enemaniacs. Aside from another stop off in the Sleepaway Camp franchise, we’re really ratcheting up the comedy, sexual shenanigans, and horror this month. But we kick things off this July 4th weekend here in the States with… a Canadian comedy. My ability to read a calendar and select the most appropriate movie for that date/weekend knows no bounds.

Especially with what’s coming up in a couple of weeks…

Anyway, 1979’s Meatballs is a significant movie for multiple reasons. First, this is the movie that propelled Bill Murray from Saturday Night Live stardom to movie stardom. This was his first top-billing in a movie. Within a year from this release, he would leave SNL (though part of that is due to changes behind the scenes with Lorne Michaels and NBC), and begin to rattle off hit after hit with Caddyshack, Stripes, a role in Tootsie, and eventually leading to the big blockbuster Ghostbusters. This would also be the first collaboration that Murray would have with Harold Ramis. Ramis was largely known for being a comedy writer, and a very good one. Like Murray, he spent the late 70s on TV on SCTV with the likes of Eugene Levy, John Candy, and Rick Moranis. In 1978, Ramis co-wrote National Lampoon’s Animal House, which, itself, would go on to become a massive influence on comedies through the 80s. If you can think of a comedy from the 70s and 80s that remains funny decades later, it’s very likely it was written in some part by Ramis.

Meatballs also serves as the movie that firmly established Ivan Reitman as a director. However, Reitman has been involved with film for about a full decade leading up to Meatballs. In fact, I’ve reviewed two of his movies before this one. He served as a producer for several Canadian films, specifically horror films, like David Cronenberg’s Shivers and the final Ilsa film, Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia. Not only had I covered that last Ilsa film, but it also kind of has some horror elements to it. One of his very first films he ever directed was a kinda confusing, mostly bad exploitation horror flick called Cannibal Girls. I definitely covered that one because I saw that waaaaaay back in those halcyon days of Bizarre TV on Roku. It starred Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin who were both best known for their comedy work, especially on… what else? SCTV.

Reitman was well-connected and knew some pretty good talent. In fact, I would say he would know good, comedic talent best. Most of his films are comedies and his 80s films in particular are those types of movies that stood the test of time and remain quotable and loved to this very day. The combination of Ramis-Reitman-Murray in some sort of configuration of two or more of these figures would produce some of the best of the best in terms of 80s comedies. And it all started right here with Meatballs.

The film was shot over the course of a couple of months at Camp White Pine in Ontario. To this day, Camp White Pine operates as a summer camp for both boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 16. There are elements about this camp that seeped into the film itself, like the various section groups the campers are divided into based on their ages. That gets parodied by Murray during the film. Speaking of Murray, in typical Bill Murray fashion, Reitman told Ramis he wasn’t sure if he actually secured Murray to be in the movie until the actor showed up on the third day of filming to start doing his scenes. I can’t even imagine how this would have worked if Murray just didn’t, you know… show up to work. Would they have had to find an available actor on the fly? It boggles the mind becuase it’s actually Murray that gets most notably praised from the movie. He’s noted as being a clear star in the making based on his work in this. His presence in the movie probably also helped it get to about $70 million against it’s roughly $1.5 million budget.

Without further ado, let’s head off to Camp North Star (filmed at Camp White Pine) and get ourselves a heaping helping of Meatballs!

Because this is a zany comedy co-written by Harold Ramis and directed by Ivan Reitman, you better fuckin’ believe it starts with an alarm clock going off and a hand fumbling around to shut it off. Then, if you didn’t expect Bill Murray to be the owner of that hand, wearing a goofy helmet and sunglasses after a late night bender, then I simply cannot believe you have ever seen a movie from this era with this exact trio involved. Anyway, he gets the counselors and counselors-in-training out of bed, and the day starts. It’s the day before the start of camp. Right now, there’s a shitload of buses with a shitload of kids on each. I like to think one of these buses will soon have Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol on it.

As the buses load up, we have a collection of various misfits and what have you. One kid has lost his parents and wandering aimlessly in the parking lot. Another kid’s parents are warning him of all the diseases he can catch from raccoons and toilet seats. Two girls need to go to the gas station real quick to get some smokes before leaving. There’s also a special case kid named Rudy. Rudy’s been in the dumps since his mom died a year before. So, it’s typical business here.

Counselors are also a bunch of misfits who are looking for their own fun. One girl approaches Tripper Harrison (Murray) about the kind of action she’s looking for too. He tells her that he’s more than happy to give her all the action she can handle, but she needs to look out for a C.I.T. named “Spaz,” a super dork who has zits and tape holding together his plastic frame nerd glasses. Tripper talks about how he went out with Spaz one night and he scored with six nurses. Four of those nurses were so wrecked they couldn’t report to work the next morning.

Of course, there’s another camp. Camp North Star is the “normal kid” camp. The rich kids’ camp is called Camp Mohawk. Think of it like this… North Star is rustic and kind of rickety with a bunch of slackers serving as counselors. Mohawk is $1000 a week. The counselors are preppy and uppity. When Tripper was waking everyone up at the very beginning of the movie, he commented on how Camp Mohawk gets woken up with first class breakfast served to them while their breakfast is… less glamorous.

The counselors at Mohawk pick on Spaz and get news reports done about them, but Tripper gets the last laugh by telling the news reporter how Camp Mohawk can possibly be worth $1000 a week. They put on fancy pants Shakespeare plays. They get visits from world leaders. Then, they hire a bunch of hookers and give each kid a couple thousand dollars to compete in a Sexual Awareness Championship that will ultimately lead to the champion being allowed to rape and pillage. It’s everything you want to cast Bill Murray for in a minute-long clip.

Naturally, the teenagers all want to play grab ass with each other… Well, I mean the boys want to play grab ass with the girls and vice versa. I mean, I suppose some girls want to grab ass with other girls, and some boys grabbing the asses of other boys, but… Eh you get it.

So, back to Rudy, the kid is struggling with loneliness. He’s mostly moping around. Tripper immediately spots that the kid is depressed. While joking around with the kid about being the “depressed kid we ordered,” Tripper is kind to the boy and sees that he needs a friend. It’s a sweet moment, but he’s also done in a very Bill Murray way.

During a game of soccer, some of the boys on the losing team blame Rudy for the loss. Rudy decides to leave. He goes to the Greyhound station and buys a ticket out of there. Tripper finds him there to talk to Rudy and give him a pep talk. He jokes around about how he’s going to use his Swiss Army knife to set those kids straight for not listening to Rudy about not knowing how to play soccer. With a smile, Tripper tells Rudy that if he makes one friend this summer at camp, he’s going to be doing really well.

A lot of the early scenes of this movie contain the typical camp shenanigans. Boys talking about what girls get their motors running. Girls are dishing out gossip. The counselors are also trying to sate their own drives. This includes Tripper’s own needs. He’s particularly interested in the head girls’ counselor, Roxanne. He can’t stop hitting on her, and kind of sexually harasses her.

In that 70s sort of meet-cute/innocent/don’t take this shit too seriously sort of way.

Rudy and Tripper’s friendship really takes center stage. One morning, Rudy sees Tripper on a morning jog and follows, emulating him the whole way. They play Blackjack together. They guzzle soda water, and Tripper teaches him how to burp like a man.

Tripper isn’t just taking on Rudy on with a big brother role for the loner, he’s also the “sergeant” of his C.I.T.s, the titular “Meatballs.” Well, I think that’s what they are called because “Fink,” Spaz’s kind of overweight friend, called Spaz that. He teaches them how to pull pranks like stringing the camp’s head honcho, Morty (though everyone calls him “Mickey” as a joke), in a tree while he sleeps so he will wake up there when the campers’ parents show up for Parents’ Day.

I kinda think the one thing I REALLY missed out on in my youth was spending a summer at a camp where Bill Murray was a counselor because all of this sounds fantastically fun.

The primary grab-ass elements of this movie exist between the two camps of C.I.T.s. Both the boy and girl C.I.T.s are completely full up on hormones. Spaz and Fink crawl under the girl C.I.T.s’ cabin while the girls are reading from a lurid romance novel. The girls reading from the book give Spaz a boner, which leads to the two boys causing commotion and getting discovered by the girls. The girls de-pants Fink and hang them up the flagpole.

Between the scene with the pair of Meatballs trying to hear some sexy shit from the lady Meatballs (Ladyballs?) and the other various scenes of shenanigans, these are kind of the interstitial moments that exist between the primary scenes of actual plot. We also get back to the rivalry between Camp North Star and Camp Mohawk. North Star plays a basketball game against Mohawk, and they are woefully outclassed by Mohawk. Tripper tells them how they can still lose with some grace and dignity. So he draws up a play that, during a jump ball, the Meatballs will pull down the Mohawk players’ shorts. They flee from the resulting rioting campers from Mohawk, reveling in finally getting one over on the uppity Mohawk jerks.

More important than any basketball game or prank played on the campers over there at Camp Mohawk, that night is the big social that all the C.I.T.s look forward to every summer. It’s everyone’s chance to shoot their shot with whatever girl they have been crushing on all summer. Tripper sees Roxanne, and they dance. Trip’s been after Roxanne for three years, but while she takes her job seriously and resists his advances, she tells him that she doesn’t want him to stop trying to win her over. That’s another kind of sweet moment that will have some legs later.

Tripper heads off for an overnight camp with the other C.I.T.s. He leaves the all-important job of making morning announcements to his protege/little brother, Rudy. With each day that passes, there’s a scene of Tripper saying little funny things over the intercom speakers. Because each announcement scene just plays over a static shot of some part of the camp or over some B-roll footage, I wonder if this was written specifically for Bill Murray to do while the movie was being shot. The announcements never really connect to anything else. They are just some extra jokes thrown in to show the passage of time. I do have more to say about this later when I’m kind of wrapping all this up. Some positives and negatives might split some audiences and either detract from or enhance the experience.

During the overnight camp with the C.I.T.s, Tripper tells a spooky campfire story, the classic one about the guy with the hook for a hand, and it being left behind on a couple’s car door as they escaped home. You know the one, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” or that one story with the lady from Moonraker in Creepshow II. Tripper and Roxanne consummate their long, flirtatious courtship. Some of the C.I.T.s hook up, including Spaz holding a girl’s hand.

The big climax is the Olympiad between Camp North Star and Camp Mohawk. Naturally, North Star is just getting the floor mopped with them. They can’t do a high jump. They can’t box. Field hockey? Lord no. Granted, when one kid from North Star was doing well in the competition where you have to swim while using a beach ball as a flotation device (is there a name for this? No? Maybe?), a member of Camp Mohawk spits a dart at the North Star kid’s beach ball and pops it so Mohawk can win.

Tripper rallies Camp North Star by leading a chant of “It just doesn’t matter!” It doesn’t matter if they win or lose. They’re misfits and underdogs. Who cares if they win or lose when Camp Mohawk will always have money and power and will always be better anyway. The C.I.T.s from Camp North Star play inspired and begin to win just about every competition on the second day.

With one competition left and Camp North Star down only ten points, the final, four-mile marathon will decide the entire Olympiad. Jackie, the C.I.T. who is the best at distance running, has a broken ankle from an event on day one. Tripper nominates Rudy to take her place. Naturally, Rudy wins in a dramatic photo finish, making him the Camp’s hero and making everyone want to be his friend. Later, Rudy tells Tripper and Roxanne that he will come back next year. The North Star C.I.T.s spend one last campfire together for the summer and celebrate before leaving the next day. Trip and Roxanne decide to move in together and continue their relationship.

Alright, so, let’s really get into the nitty gritty here. Meatballs is a movie that is kind of terribly unfocused. You could say the movie is ostensibly about a group of counselors and counselors-in-training spending a summer together and having a series of adventures that hinge on coming-of-age type stuff. You could say this is a movie ostensibly about a lonely kid struggling with the loss of his mother, finding a big brother in a counselor who teaches him how to make friends and build confidence in himself. You could say this movie is ostensibly about a rivalry between a rag-tag, middle-class camp and a bougie, upper-class camp.

All of these things are elements of this movie, yes, but none of those elements are satisfactorily explored in any meaningful way.

The element that probably represents the lion’s share of what you can really say this movie is about is the adventures of the C.I.T.s and their various coming-of-age stuff, like finding romance, doing pranks, etc. Some of these characters are kind of interesting. Spaz and Fink definitely come to mind. Unfortunately, most of the other C.I.T.s do not really have discernible personalities to make them memorable. I guess there’s the one girl who likes one of the boys more than the other. There’s the one girl who has been “dating” one of the boys for a long time. There’s definitely the hot one with the tits. But I can’t tell you their names. I definitely can’t tell you the corresponding boys’ names. That’s a problem.

It’s especially a problem when you do have something that DOES work in this movie, and there’s about 30 minutes of the movie that pass that completely leave the thing that works stranded on a raft in the middle of the lake. That’s the whole relationship between Bill Murray and Chris Makepeace, who plays Rudy. THIS is the charming stuff of the movie that I kept really getting into during the whole experience. There’s a tenderness and an honest love between these two characters. It’s seen immediately when they meet after Rudy arrives at the camp. Trip sees this bummed out kid and makes an effort to reach him.

This whole thing is the entire reason why I can give Meatballs a passing grade. It largely rests on the shoulders of Bill Murray and his off-the-wall counselor character. Tripper can be funny, absolutely. Scroll up and watch that clip again with the news reporter. That is gold. Watch the clip of him telling the scary campfire story. That’s not really comedy, and it shows Murray is an exceptional presence and incredibly skilled at delivering dialogue. But damn, every scene between him and Makepeace is downright special and makes the character of Tripper that much richer and interesting. He’s a horndog, yes. He’s a prankster, yes. He’s a smart ass, oh definitely. But he’s really a counselor who knows how to work with kids and give them some sort of good experience at camp this summer, even if this kid’s got some serious shit on his mind. It’s wonderful and I really love the character of Tripper, thanks to Bill Murray.

I also just mentioned something else above: the experience of going to camp for a summer. This movie has no plot. It struggles with building any characters. It has these songs in the soundtrack that don’t seem to fit this movie at all. There are these really overly sappy songs that feel more appropriate for Little Darlings than Meatballs. The titular track from Rick Dees is very bad. The song that opens and closes the movie is a chorus of little kids. I’m not sure if the music is a pleasant experience.

The comedy is very hit and miss too. I mentioned earlier that I was going to swing back around for this, and here we are. There are funny things in the movie. There are some exceptionally funny scenes in the movie. However, the more times we got the Bill Murray snark over the intercom/loudspeakers over the B-roll of this camp, the more I couldn’t shake the thought that this was a note or added later from what the original script had. It likely was Murray himself directly writing or working with the writers (or just Ramis, who knows) to give the movie something more in the comedic personality of the film. Some of these lines were very funny, but they felt very out of place at times. So, it leaves me thinking that the comedy of this movie is going to be a very hit-or-miss, your mileage may vary sort of thing that will split audiences.

I’m not surprised this movie had mixed reviews from critics at the time it opened. It’s disjointed. It lacks plot. It has an emotional center that should have been the focus, but wasn’t. It’s a potential recipe for disaster. I can also say I’m not surprised it was a big box office hit. Billy Murray was a comedic star about to explode into the stratosphere. It’s from the guys who did Animal House and can have the same sensibilities as that movie.

It also has this charm that can only be explained as such… This movie is a tale of a summer camp that takes place over the entirety of the camp being open. The movie starts the day that the camp opens and ends weeks later when the camp closes for the year. Think about any kind of extended period of your life. I’ll use my Senior year of high school. I had a lot of fun times then. I have fun and fond memories of that year. But even if I tried to put all those fun and fond memories into some sort of sequential order, do you know what I wouldn’t have? A narrative plot. I’d have a collection of things that happened that were funny or heartwrenching or made me feel romantic or young and vigorous, etc.

Maybe that’s a counter to the complaint that Meatballs has no plot and is, ultimately, about anything. Maybe for a character like Rudy, it isn’t about creating an actual narrative, but instead focusing on how much he appreciates and, yeah, loves Tripper as this big brother figure in his life. There are movies this summer that built narratives throughout the entirety of their runtimes (ahem… looking at you, Little Darlings, Ernest Goes to Camp, and Marshmallow). But camp wouldn’t usually be that easy to say, “Here’s my story of how I started here and then ended up a changed person by the end of an entire summer at camp.” Instead, it is going to be a series of moments that may or may not become long-standing memories. So, while I don’t love Meatballs for most of its flaws, I can say that it may just be allowed to lose the plot.

Alright, we’re leaving the Great White North and Camp North Star and returning to the franchise that kicked this whole summer off. Yup, we gotta deal with a teenage wasteland that is Sleepaway Camp III. So come on back next week as Camp Crappabuttawipe rolls on and catches up with Angela Baker. Until then, please feel free to de-pants me and run it up a flagpole any time… I probably deserve it.