Could ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ become more than ‘First Day of Camp’?

We’ll start this article off with an admission: We had never seen “Wet Hot American Summer” until a little earlier in the week, when we wanted to prepare for watching the upcoming Netflix prequel “First Day of Camp.” Split into eight parts, this is going to show you how Katie, Coop, and many other characters arrived at Camp Firewood for the first time.

Suffice it to say, we love the movie. It’s one of the weirdest, craziest things that we’ve seen, and we already love that the show is embracing the crazy. For one, you’ve got the cast fourteen years later effectively playing younger versions of themselves, and then you’ve got one of the biggest lineups of celebrities possible agreeing to do an appearance or two. Early reviews are coming in, with most suggesting that this is every bit as great as the original was.

One of the chief creative minds behind the series is Michael Showalter, and while promoting the series at TCA on Tuesday he did make it clear that these upcoming episodes are not necessarily the end:

“I always thought of the characters from ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ as comic book characters and there is no shortage of stories we could tell about them [over time] … If you want to do something do it, if there is a will there is a way.”

Basically, you do have an entire summer of stories that you could really run with in the event the show is well received. We’re not sure if you can ever move the story into another summer, since it’d be hard to sell all of the same people coming back; then again, this comes from a movie that sold us on a talking food can and also heavy objects falling from outer space.

We’re going to be reviewing every episode of the project, so stay tuned for some of that! Also, you can sign up to get some more TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Netflix.)