Meatballs

Meatballs Movie Poster

"The summer camp that makes you untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind, disobedient, and very hilarious."

Meatballs was first released in 1979, but we include it here because it is one of those girlie movies that most of us saw in the early 80's.  This silly show starred Bill Murray as North Star Camp counselor Tripper Harrison, and was one of the earliest roles for Murray and the launch of his career.  The movie was successful enough to warrant a number of follow-ups.  Meatballs Part II was released in 1984, Meatballs III: Summer Job in 1986, and Meatballs 4 in 1992.  On a budget of 1.6 million dollars, the movie made nearly 50 million.

The movie basically follows the shenanigans of the head camp counselor, Tripper Harrison (Murray).  There a number of sub-plots in the movie, including Tripper taking a nerdy kid named Rudy under his wing, his attraction to another counselor named Roxanne, and the camp's rivalry with a nearby rich-kids camp called Camp Mohawk.

The two camps have a sporting competition every year, with Camp Mohawk normally coming out on top, using every underhanded trick they can think of.  After the first day of competition, the campers are North Star are feeling demoralized, but Tripper manages to raise their spirit with a rousing speech.  In the end, it is Tripper's nerdy friend Rudy who wins the last competition and stops Camp Mohawk's winning streak.