TV - Old School or Just Old?

Yesterday, I was walking down the hall at work and I started humming a song that gets stuck in my head a lot. It goes like this:

We run, we jump, we swim and play.
We row and go on trips
But the things that last forever are our dear friendships.
Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts
And when we think about you it makes me wanna fart!--"It's 'I hope we never part,' Now get it right or pay the price!"
Now we will share a lifetime of the fondest memories
By the lake of Anawanna set in the old pine trees
Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts
And when we think about you (This thing came apart)
Think Anawanna. Speak Anawanna. Live Anawanna -- Ugh!



Do you recognize it? It is the theme song to one of my favorite old Nickolodeon shows that I used to watch all the time, Salute Your Shorts, which aired 26 episodes over two seasons from 1991 to 1992.

I used to watch this show all the time, I watched it everyday when I got home from daycare. I must have seen each episode at least 20 times. The show took place at Camp Anawana, which I always thought was a joke (say it slow and it sounds like "I don't want to"), but turns out was a real camp from the early '60s to 1992 in upstate New York. I don't think the show was actually based on this camp, but they shared a name. The kids in the show are all classic stereotypes: the nerd, the jock, the fat kid, the rebel, the athletic black girl, the bully, the princess, the new kid, and the hippie girl. But the actors all played their roles well and they made my little 10 year old day (and probably shaped my ideas about what it would be like to be older as most of the kids were onle 3-5 years older than me).

This show made summer camp look so great to me. They got to do something new and cool every week, play tennis, wrestle, put on a play, fake being sick (I'm obviously easily excitable), play in a lake, and all sorts of other things that I can't recall at this moment with my quarter-century year old brain. I went to camp once and I hated it. It wasn't nearly as fun as Camp Anawana seemed. Crappy food, mean kids, boring crafts, and terrifying nights (that was the first time I slept away from home besides with friends). It was not cool.

Check out the video (made way after the show by the way, this is not a real trailer) to see how tuly awesome the show was.



After Pete and Pete and Clarissa Explains It All came out on DVD I was sure Salute Your Shorts would be released, but alas, we are all out of luck. I mean come on, even Are You Afraid of the Dark? is out! Well, I will just keep hoping. Oh, and while we're at it, I would be remiss if I didn't mention:



Also awesome!

So, what about the title of this post? While I was YouTubing (new verb!) Salute Your Shorts I came across a bunch of videos with names like "old nickelodeon shows" and "remember how great nickelodeon was." I thought to myself "well, of course, Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude, Doug, all greats." But, when I watched the videos, they were about a bunch of weird stuff like Cat-Dog, Angry Beavers, and Animorphs. Practically nothing I remember and it is being called old. Now I feel old. I say bring back the real classics!

I will try not to make you sit through any more posts where I whine about how great the '90s were, but I can't make any guarantees.