"
Kamp Krusty" is the first episode of
The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
' fourth seasonThe Simpsons fourth season originally aired on the Fox network between September 24, 1992 and May 13, 1993, beginning with "Kamp Krusty." The show runners for the fourth production season were Al Jean and Mike Reiss. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...
, which originally aired on the
Fox networkFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
in the United States on September 24, 1992. During summer vacation, the children of Springfield attend Kamp Krusty, a summer camp named after Krusty the Clown. The camp is extremely unpleasant, leading to the campers rebelling against the camp director. The episode was written by
David M. SternDavid M. Stern is an American television screenwriter. Among his first work in television was writing episodes of The Wonder Years in the late 1980s. He then proceeded to write several episodes of The Simpsons in the 1990s. In 2010, he developed the animated television series Ugly Americans...
and directed by
Mark KirklandMark Kirkland is an American director. He has directed 69 episodes, from 1990-present, of The Simpsons, more than any other person.-Career:...
.
Plot
BartBartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
and
LisaLisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
excitedly discuss their visit to Kamp Krusty, a
summer campSummer camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers....
run by Krusty the Clown.
HomerHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
has made Bart's visit conditional on him getting at least a C average on his report card. Bart receives a D- in each subject from
Ms. KrabappelEdna Krabappel is a fictional character from the animated TV series The Simpsons, voiced by Marcia Wallace. She is a 4th grade teacher at Springfield Elementary School. Krabappel is the only character Wallace voices on a regular basis.- Profile :...
, so he changes each grade to an A+. Homer chides Bart for not faking plausible grades, but lets him go to camp anyway because he does not want Bart “hanging around all summer".
The camp's director, Mr. Black, has licensed Krusty's name from the comedian. Kamp Krusty turns out to be a nightmare: The cabins fall apart, the lake is too dangerous to swim in, and the kids are fed nothing but Krusty Brand Imitation
GruelGruel is a food preparation consisting of some type of cereal—oat, wheat or rye flour, or rice—boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and need not even be cooked...
. Springfield bullies Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney, the ruthless camp counselors, take the children on
death marchA death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees. Those marching must walk over long distances for an extremely long period of time and are not supplied with food or water...
es and force them into making knockoff
wallets for exportChild labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
.
Homer and
MargeMarjorie "Marge" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the eponymous family. She is voiced by actress Julie Kavner and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
enjoy their summer alone, with Homer losing weight and growing hair. Lisa writes to them describing the camp's brutal conditions but her parents think she is exaggerating; "she complains now, but when we go pick her up, she won't want to leave". Bart hopes that his hero Krusty will save them, but the clown remains unaware of the camp's nature.
To keep the children complacent Mr. Black tells the campers that Krusty has finally come, but it is only a badly-dressed
Barney GumbleBarnard "Barney" Gumble is a fictional character on the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. The character is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the town drunk and Homer Simpson's best friend. His capacity for...
. Bart leads the campers in rebellion, driving out Mr. Black and the bullies. The stress of seeing
Kent BrockmanKent Brockman is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer and first appeared in the episode "Krusty Gets Busted"...
's TV reports on the revolt causes Homer to immediately lose the hair he grew and regain the lost weight. Krusty apologizes to the kids, saying that he was bribed to approve the camp; as compensation Krusty takes them to "the happiest place on Earth". The episode ends with a montage of the kids enjoying their time in Tijuana, Mexico.
Production
The idea that the children should go to a camp run by Krusty was first suggested by
David M. SternDavid M. Stern is an American television screenwriter. Among his first work in television was writing episodes of The Wonder Years in the late 1980s. He then proceeded to write several episodes of The Simpsons in the 1990s. In 2010, he developed the animated television series Ugly Americans...
. The animators were enthusiastic about making this episode because they had all gone to summer camps as children and thought it would be a fun episode to write for. The writers also thought that "it would be fun if while the kids are gone Homer and Marge find that as the kids are miserable their marriage is better than ever." The layout for Bart and Lisa's cabin was influenced by the director,
Mark KirklandMark Kirkland is an American director. He has directed 69 episodes, from 1990-present, of The Simpsons, more than any other person.-Career:...
, who as a child went to a
Boy ScoutA Scout is a boy or a girl, usually 11 to 18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split this age group into a junior and a senior section...
camp that had exposed wires and other similar faults. Kirkland was also sure that the character Mr. Black was going to reappear later in the series, but he never did.
Al JeanAl Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
commented "I guess that the
hydrofoilA hydrofoil is a foil which operates in water. They are similar in appearance and purpose to airfoils.Hydrofoils can be artificial, such as the rudder or keel on a boat, the diving planes on a submarine, a surfboard fin, or occur naturally, as with fish fins, the flippers of aquatic mammals, the...
really got Mr. Black out of the show forever."
After he saw the completed episode,
James L. BrooksJames Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the...
called the writers and suggested that the
Kamp Krusty script should be used for a
The Simpsons film. However, the episode ran very short, and to make it barely fit the minimum time the
Kamp Krusty song had to be lengthened by a number of verses. The episode was also chosen to be the first episode of the season, further complicating matters. As Jean told Brooks, "First of all, if we make it into the movie then we don't have a premiere, and second if we can't make 18 minutes out of this episode how are we supposed to make 80?" This was also the last episode to be animated at
Klasky CsupoKlasky Csupo, Inc. is a multimedia entertainment production company located in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, founded by artist/producer, Arlene Klasky and animator, Gábor Csupó.- History :...
.
Cultural references
Some elements of the plot are borrowed from the
Allan ShermanAllan Sherman was an American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer , became the fastest-selling record album up to that time...
song "
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh"Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh " is a Grammy Award-winning novelty song by Allan Sherman, based on letters of complaint he received from his son Robert while Robert attended Camp Champlain in Westport, New York. The song is a parody that complains about the fictional "Camp Granada" and is set to the...
", a song about a kid who went to camp and hated it. The idea for the song sung by the children was from a 60s TV show called
Camp RunamuckCamp Runamuck is an American sitcom which aired on NBC during the 1965-1966 television season. The series was created and executive produced by David Swift, and aired for 26 episodes.-Synopsis:...
, which has a theme song that is similar to the
Kamp Krusty song. The scene where Lisa gives a bottle of whiskey to a man on horseback (payment for delivering a letter) is a reference to
Meryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
's scene from the film
The French Lieutenant's WomanThe French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1981 film directed by Karel Reisz and adapted by playwright Harold Pinter. It is based on the novel of the same title by John Fowles...
. Some aspects of the episode are references to the novel
Lord of the FliesLord of the Flies is a novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding about a group of British boys stuck on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, with disastrous results...
(a pig's head on a spear, kids using primitive weapons and wearing war paint and a burning effigy.) The scenes of the camp in chaos and Krusty's meeting with Bart echo similar ones in
Apocalypse NowApocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
. The scene where Kearney beats a drum to make the campers work in the sweatshop is taken from the slave galley scene in the 1959 film
Ben-HurBen-Hur is a 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the third film adaptation of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay was written by Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The score was composed by...
. The episode ends with the song "
South of the Border"South of the Border" is a popular song describing a trip to Mexico, written by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr and published in 1939 for the film of the same name starring country star Gene Autry....
". According to the commentary, the song is not sung by
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
but by another artist impersonating him. The plot of the episode is also similar to the 1991 video game spin-off from the television series called
Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp DeadlyBart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly is a 2D platform game for the Game Boy hand-held gaming console. Developed by Imagineering, it was published by Acclaim in North America in 1991. The game was released in Europe in 1992 and Japan in 1993...
.
Reception
In its original broadcast, "Kamp Krusty" finished 24th in ratings for the week of September 21-27, 1992, with a
Nielsen ratingNielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 13.5, equivalent to approximately 12.6 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week. Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, the authors of the book
I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, had mixed views about the episode. They said that it is "A bit baffling to non-Americans unfamiliar with the summer camp system. But top grade stuff nonetheless. Anyone who's worked as a counsellor in such a place can testify to this episode's authenticity." The episode's reference to
Ben-Hur was named the 31st greatest film reference in the history of the show by
Total FilmTotal Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
's Nathan Ditum.
External links