‘Salute Your Shorts’

Oh, Camp Anawanna we’ll always hold you in our hearts. It’s hard to believe the kids from ‘Salute Your Shorts’ are all grown up. Well, it was difficult to believe, until a Super Bowl commercial Sunday during the game when the Patriots blew their undefeated season.

In the commercial, ‘Shorts” lovable slob Donkey Lips attaches jumper cables to his nipples, dances to Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Push it’ and guzzles down an Amp before restarting a broken down car.

Sure it was an enjoyable commercial, and who wasn’t a fan of Donkey Lips’ goatee? But remember the amiable children of our favorite summer camp and their persnickety camp counselor Kevin Lee, affectionately known as ‘Ug.’ And who can forget the mullet-sporting smartass Budnik. Plus, there was someone named ‘Sponge.’ Not sure who that was, but man, this show had great nicknames. The crazy antics made all us middle- schoolers long to attend a sleep-away camp and play capture the flag.

‘Salute Your Shorts’ was part of that classic Nickelodeon lineup that included ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete,’ ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark?’ and the fairly awful ‘Hey Dude.’ Yep, those were the days.

And in the end, we all learned a little bit about life: ‘We run, we jump, we swim and play. We row and go on trips. But the things that last forever are our dear friendships.’

Additionally, Budnik said the word ‘fart’ in the theme song, which at the age of 10, that was the maturity equivalent of attaching jumper cables to your teats and dancing to hip-hop from the 80s. In other words, it was funny.

Published on February 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm