History Series / SaluteYourShorts

A 1991–92 Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} sitcom centered around a group of kids at summer camp Anawanna, ''Salute Your Shorts'' was a network contemporary of such shows as ''Series/ClarissaExplainsItAll'', ''Series/TheAdventuresOfPeteAndPete'', and ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'', and like those three tends to be among the more clearly and fondly remembered pieces of the era. The fact that the show's NoBudget, real-kids look and feel overlap so well between the Canadian productions that characterize '80s Nick and the Orlando-shot '90s Nick shows helps (''Shorts'' itself was made in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.)

* TriangRelations:
** "Donkeylips' Crush on Dina" is a type 5: Donkeylips likes Dina, who likes Michael, who isn't interested in anyone.
** "Budnick Loves Dina" also starts as type 5: Z.Z. likes Budnick, who likes Dina, who isn't interested; but becomes a type 4: Budnick and Dina are in a relationship, leaving Z.Z. a HopelessSuitor (who eventually decides she [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy just wants Budnick to be happy]]).

* PositiveDiscrimination: Telly is the most athletic camper, and frequently the most honest and level-headed one as well.

* LastNameBasis: Budnick and Pinsky.

** Another after Michael gets punched out by Thug Mackey, Ug asks if he's alright by asking "How many fingers am I holding up?" Michael just responds with "How many fingers am ''I'' holding up?'' And everyone else just snickers.

* IJustWantToBeNormal: When rock star Jamie Mallet, Jr. comes to camp in "Dina and the Rock Star", he just wants to be treated like everyone else = which supremely frustrates Dina, who has persuaded him to come to Camp Anawanna to perform at a camp dance.

* FoolsMap: Happens when Budnick finds directions from a long-dead camp counselor, in dance steps, to where she supposedly hid a fortune. Since the original was hard to read, he types it out and gives copies to the other kids in exchange for their boomboxes. The directions lead them to collect a bunch of junk, but they find something that makes him think they were very close to it, so he and Donkeylips start trying to get the directions back. [[spoiler:In this case, the player gets played, as the directions he gets back were fake as well, written by the other kids to lead Budnick to dig a hole in the middle of the softball field that Ug had been meticulously trimming.]]

** Donkeylips showed he had some decent wrestling chops in one episode. He is also a very clever strategist, as shown in "Capture the Flag". Plus, he's a pretty shrewd businessman in "Anawanna, Inc."

** In "Donkeylips And Sponge Weigh In," he flirts with the waitress at the concession stand the kids ordered burgers from, which goes fine until he makes a rude remark about her hands being clammy.

* DeadpanSnarker: Pretty much everybody (including Ug).

* Bobby Budnick (Danny Cooksey): The {{Schemer}} and resident {{Jerkass}}, Budnick is a [[HonestJohnsDealership con artist]] and more than a bit of a bully, preferring to use {{manipulative|Bastard}} ploys more often than outright coercion, though he has Donkeylips to back him up in that department as well. His attitude initially repulsed most everyone at camp, but as time went by his hostile veneer started to rub off. Essentially the leader of the group when he's ''not'' being a total jerk.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

The title of the show comes from a common prank in initiating new campers. Older, jerkier campers would loot their luggage, steal their underwear, and run them up the nearest flag pole to let them flap in the breeze. Seeing how there's no way to ''un''-steal it, the appropriate response is to "stand at attention, click your heels, and [[TitleDrop salute your shorts!]]"

* RearrangeTheSong: Downplayed. The show's theme song is re-sung in Season Two, with the actors being a year older and Pinsky obviously replacing Michael. The underlying piano melody, however, is left unchanged. And Michael Bower's fishing pole blooper is kept from the Season One opening.

-->-- excerpt from the Season 1 opening theme. The Season 2 theme [[EvolvingCredits would have Budnick sing "I hope we wanna fart!" instead]].

* "Budnick Loves Dina" had so many characters suffer accidents that by episode's end, those two were the ''only'' people not on crutches.

-->-- excerpt from the Season 1 opening theme. The Season 2 theme [[EvolvingCredits would have Budnick sing "I hope we wanna fart!" instead]].

-->-- excerpt from the opening theme

* TheGhost: Ug's first girlfriend Rachel.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Many times.
** In the episode "The Radio Call-in Contest", Eugene "Sponge" Harris quite clearly says "I'm pissed off because I'm not as smart as I thought I was!" The profanity was never removed from the episode. Also, several mentions of flipping the finger are made in "Budnick and Michael Fake Being Sick".
** In "Budnick Loves Dina":
--->'''Pinsky''' (re: Budnick's crush on Dina): I don't know what you're thinking with, but it is certainly not your brain.\\
\\
'''Budnick:''' ''(to Dina)'' You know, before we met the only time I used the word "bull" it was followed by another word.
** In "Brownies for Thud Mackie"
--->'''Budnick''' How many fingers am I holding up?\\
'''Michael:''' How many fingers am ''I'' holding up?
** In "Budnick and Michael Fake Being Sick":
--->'''Donkeylips''' (in an outhouse): Hey! There's this thing on the wall that sells balloons!
** In the first episode, Ug offers a milkshake and a pizza every night for the rest of the summer to the person who reveals to him who set up the trap that got him CoveredInGunge and feathers:
--->'''Budnick:''' And rat on our friends? Sorry, Big Bird, go pluck yourself!
** In "Cinderella Play", when auditioning, Budnik sings the "Beans, beans" song (both the "Good for your heart" and "musical fruit" versions) and gets cut off before he can say "fart" or "toot". Which is odd considering the word "fart" was said in the theme song.
** At the start of "Anawanna Incorporated", the campers are playing cards, using marshmallows as money:
--->'''Z.Z.:''' Donkeylips is eating the money!\\
'''Donkeylips:''' I won it!\\
'''Telly:''' How are we supposed to win it back?!\\
''(Donkeylips thinks for a moment)''\\
'''Telly:''' Don't answer that!
** One GetRichQuickScheme of Budnick's involves getting honey from what looks to be a wooden beehive. Donkeylips checks it out and tells him there's nothing in there but dirty old magazines.
--->'''Budnick:''' Wait, dirty old magazines or [[PornStash old dirty magazines]]?

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The pilot aired on another Nickelodeon program called ''SpecialDelivery''.

In season two Erik [=MacArthur=] left the show and accordingly Michael left camp, ([[RealLifeWritesThePlot ostensibly due to chicken pox]]), and was promptly replaced by Ronnie Pinsky (Blake Soper[[note]] AKA [[Music/RiloKiley Blake Sennett]][[/note]]). Pinsky, in his debut episode, is established as a wise-cracking [[HighSchoolHustler Ferris Bueller-like]] character ([[StraightMan Michael's]] polar opposite, really) and immediately becomes the most popular kid in camp (except with Budnick). Later in the season, however, he becomes much more restrained and fallible (though still with his moments of Bueller-like mischief), and his popularity is significantly lower.

----

* TheAce: Pinsky in his introductory episode. He's rich, athletic, handsome, immediately popular, continually gets away with pulling stunts, and -- most obnoxiously as far as Budnick is concerned -- almost completely unflappable, easily laughing off all of Budnick's insults and pranks. Clearly, "cheesing Budnick off with his mere existence" is Pinsky's ''greatest'' skill set, which seems to have been the entire point. In later episodes Budnick's dislike of him is completely forgotten, and likewise Pinsky's ace status seems to fade away, leaving him a more ordinary and flawed HighSchoolHustler type.
* AdultsAreUseless: Well, only ''one'', really...Camp counselor Kevin "Ug" Lee. But he's still useless.

* AmusingInjuries: Nine times out of ten, Ug, but "Budnick Loves Dina" had so many characters suffer accidents that by episode's end those two were the ''only'' people not on crutches.
* AndStarring: As Danny Cooksey was the most familiar face in the cast through his appearances in ''Series/DiffrentStrokes'' and ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' among others, he gets the "And" treatment in the opening credits, appearing last in both seasons; the other performers are billed in alphabetical order (Baily, Berwick, Bower, [=DeMilo=], Eyster, Lucas, [=MacArthur=]/Soper).

* ArtifactOfDoom: The cursed cow skull found inside a cave in "The Cursed Skull". Legend say it was first used by an indian tribe as part of a RiteOfPassage, where those that fail are forever cursed. At the end of the episode, it turns out to be a souvenir that was made in Korea.

* BatmanGambit: After concluding that the directions to Sara Madre's buried cash stash that Budnick sold them in exchange for their boomboxes are worthless, Dina, Michael, Sponge, Telly, and Z.Z. get revenge on Budnick and Donkeylips with one of these. By planting a straw hat similar to the one Sara Madre is wearing in her photograph among the trash they empty over the two conmen, they get them to think the directions actually ''do'' lead to the treasure. As expected, Budnick and Donkeylips return the five boomboxes in an attempt to get the directions back, but they are unaware that they have been given a different set of fake directions. The five former marks then convince Budnick and Donkeylips that each is trying to get the treasure entirely for himself, leading them to go digging in the middle of the night... right in the middle of the baseball infield Ug has been meticulously grooming for a photograph. Every step in the plan relies on Budnick and Donkeylips' greed and selfishness - and, as a result, the plan goes off without a hitch.

* BedtimeBrainwashing: One episode had Budnick telling a ghost story about Zeke the Plumber, a custodian who was killed in a gas explosion. The gist of the story is that whoever touches his plunger will be haunted by them in their dreams, and since Telly was one of them, she has a sleepless night which causes her to nod off in the mess hall, after which Budnick comes up and starts whispering in her ear, "Zeke the Plumber, Zeke the Plumber..." Guess who she starts dreaming about?

* CantGetAwayWithNothing: In "Brownies for Thud Mackey", in an attempt to give Thud the brownies he owes him, Michael convinces his grandparents to send him some brownies. They get sent to the camp, but Ug finds out (and sees a letter saying that Michael asked them to send them), making Michael spend hours holding two buckets of water while saying "I should not have asked my grandparents for brownies" over and over, Ug gives away all the brownies but runs out before Thud can get one (therefore Michael still owes Thud), and as a result ends up missing the one decent meal of the Summer (due in part to Telly eating more as part of a challenge).

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: In "Anawanna, Inc.", Budnick, Dina, Pinsky, Telly, and Z.Z. become examples of this when they declare themselves the management of a wooden birdhouse making company as part of a Career Day venture, with Donkeylips and three other campers providing the labour. They spend all of the investment money on pizza and soft drinks for their meetings, with almost nothing left for the four campers who do the actual work. Eventually, the money runs out and the workers go on strike. In an example of LaserGuidedKarma, Donkeylips strikes a deal with one of their investors, Jessie Bartlet, to buy the birdhouses for his uncle, Captain Bartlet's, souvenir shop in exchange for a share of the profits, then he spends his own share of the profits on the other workers, leaving the five "executives" with nothing.

* TheDogBitesBack: Despite being his friend and enforcer, Donkeylips had no qualms about doing this if Budnick went too far.

* FakeOutMakeOut: After sneaking out of camp to go to the theater, Sponge and his date manage to avoid detection from Ug by kissing passionately in the phone booth they'd been trying to hide in. Ug (who's being dragged out the door anyway for disturbing a patron he thought was Budnick, who turned out to be female) reasons it can't be Sponge if he's getting some action... meanwhile, in the booth, Ug has been long since forgotten and the episode ends with them ''still'' kissing.

* FlyCrazy: In "Citizen Pinsky", Ug was eating when he noticed a fly. He swings the fly swatter around until he finally hits it. Then flies with a vengeance and attacks Ug. All this happened from the fly's point-of-view.

* {{Gasshole}}: Donkeylips. In "Michael Comes to Camp", Budnick tells Michael and Sponge that if they don't go into the girls' bunk to steal a valuable item from each of Telly, Dina, and Z.Z., Donkeylips will sit on their heads and fart. Michael and Sponge agree to the challenge without a moment's hesitation.

'''Budnick:''' ''(to Dina)'' You know, before we met the only time I used the word "bull" is followed by another word.

-->'''Telly:''' Are you out of your granola-munchin', whole-wheat, tie-die, save-the-planet '''''mind'''''?!

** Generally Ug is portrayed as dim-witted, kind of lazy, and a bit of a loser, but he has moments of ''[[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass scary]]'' [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass competence]], usually sees through most of the kids' schemes, and is a certified athletic trainer. He may seem a little high-strung sometimes, but dealing with those kids would drive someone to drink. Add in that while taping the Cinderella auditions with Sponge's camera, Ug shows off some rather bodacious biceps.
** Donkeylips showed he had some decent wrestling chops in one episode. He is also a very clever strategist as shown in "Capture the Flag". Plus, he's a pretty shrewd businessman in "Anawanna, Inc."
** Budnick is revealed to have done SO MANY puzzles in his life that he can easily put one together in no time at all,...with the picture side ''down''.

* HighSchoolHustler: Pinsky on his better days. His {{Zany Scheme}}s backfire, he often promises more than he can deliver and some of the stuff he gets away with is only by virtue of [[RefugeInAudacity having no shame]], but he ''did'' get Sponge a girlfriend and helped Donkeylips live out his dream of championing a game of "Capture the Flag."

** More than a few elements of the show harked back to ''{{Series/MASH}}''. The most obvious were the frequent establishing shots of the camp overlaid with some bizarre news or orders from Dr. Kahn's PA. Ug's general character as the erstwhile but hapless authority figure drew inspiration from Colonel Blake, down to wearing the same hat.

** One Cold Open sees Budnick's candy black market get busted by Ug. He calls out various tricks he used to smuggle candy inside, and culminates with him eating "red shoelace licorice." When the others sympathize with him briefly, Budnick tells them that "those shoelaces he ate weren't made out of licorice..." and he shows his bright red shoes sans laces.

** In one episode Ug was eating a meal, which just so happened to have ants from Sponge's ant farm crawling all over it because it was knocked over. Ug doesn't notice anything wrong until one of the peas starts ''crawling''. Cue VomitDiscretionShot and Donkeylips informing the other campers that Ug threw up over everything 'including Dr. Kahn's sofa!'
* IJustWantToBeNormal: When rock star Jamie Mallet, Jr. comes to camp in "Dina and the Rock Star", he just wants to be treated like everyone else, which supremely frustrates Dina, who has persuaded him to come to Camp Anawanna to perform at a camp dance.

--->'''Telly:''' You know what my 3 favorite words are: [[IWarnedYou "told", "you", and "so"]].

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Poor Z.Z., yet she got better in part 2.

** Also in "Brownies for Thud Mackie", Ug opens the package sent to Michael, on grounds that it's unauthorized mail. Opening mail addressed to somebody else is a federal offense, and Ug gets away with it. Possibly justified, since Michael (and Budnik, who is also there when it happens) might be too young to realize this.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: In "The Cursed Skull", the eponymous object supposedly brought a lot of bad luck into camp. It turns out it's a cheap souvenir.

-->'''Budnick:''' I've struck gold! I've struck silver! I've struck... ''(he swings the pickaxe one more time, and water suddenly starts pooling around the end of the pickaxe; rapid cut to extreme close-ups of all seven campers' eyes, wide with fear of impending doom)'' ... a water main!... ''(water begins gushing out of the broken pipe in a fountain, sparking a CrowdPanic as Sponge, Telly, Dina, Michael, and Z.Z. run for their lives, with Donkeylips not far behind)''

* MomentKiller: In "They Call Me Ms. Tibbs", Ug and Mona were about to kiss until Budnick arrived (which inadvertently led to their near-breakup).

* MotionlessMakeover: Ug is in a trance after his girlfriend dumps him. One of the campers puts a danish on his head.

* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: Mona was a mail carrier in season one. She becomes a forest ranger in season 2, because she won't work in a place that put Elvis Presley on a first-class stamp.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In "Brownies for Thud Mackey", after running out of options for facing Thud, the gang decide they will all fight Thud together. As Michael leads them, he over-confidently points out that Thud could easily beat any of them at any time, to which they all chicken out, with Michael not realizing this, and leave Michael to get knocked out alone.
* NoodleImplements: The "Awful Waffle" from the first episode, requiring syrup and a tennis racket. The viewer never gets to see what one looks like, and the ingredients list grows longer and stranger each time it's invoked. It probably started off based on the real-life hazing of a bare-skin paddling with tennis racket applied to leave a "waffle-like" bruise pattern. (It also needs to be said that there's another, much more disgusting version of an awful waffle, that would '''never''' fly on ''any'' show, ever.)

** Of all the campers Ug is probably the closest to ZZ (probably because she's, usually, the best behaved) and she's one of the few campers who ''likes'' going on his nature hikes.

** But when the campers see Ug seemingly dressed to leave camp, he tells them that Dr. Kahn was delighted that someone finally taught Ellen a lesson about going too far with pranks, and he has given Ug a raise and permission to take the campers to a rock concert. However, the gang are now the ones with the expressions of horror when they learn that Ellen will be coming back to camp the next summer. And she learned a few tricks from them.

** In "Cinderella Play", a stage fright-struck Dina claims to have lost her voice on the day of the performance. Sponge "cures" her laryngitis by shocking her by upending a bottle of water over her head.

* PreviouslyOn: At the beginning of "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2". Donkeylips uses flag signals explaining the events that happened in "Part 1" as Sponge writes them down while we cut to the accompanied clips from said episode. In-universe: they do this to get another merit badge. But then, a bee was buzzing around Donkeylips and he tries to swat it with his flags, confusing Sponge.

* RadioContest: An entire episode revolves around Sponge entering a radio trivia contest; if he can answer three trivia questions asked by the DJ at random intervals over the next few days, he will win $1,000. [[spoiler:Technically, he only answers the first one correctly; he has to recruit help from the girls for the second, and Ug supplies the answer for the third and then confiscates the prize money.]]

** If a food fight breaks out Ug is always the one to blow the whistle to stop it and always gets hit with something ''immediately'' after he blows the whistle.

* SecondPersonAttack: In "Brownies for Thud Mackie", Michael is leaving camp to avoid a beating by Thud Mackie after he accidentally sits on Thud's box of brownies and fails to deliver a replacement. In the episode's climax, Michael decides to face Thud down. The camera switches to Michael's POV for the confrontation just before [[spoiler:Thud delivers an anticlimactic OneHitKO]] and the screen goes black.

* SeriousBusiness: When Michael leaves camp due to getting chicken pox and it's revealed that he won't be coming back after he recovers, the campers (with the exception of Budnick) treat his departure as if it's a memorial service.

*** Sponge and Donkeylips says she hit Ug with a golfball from the [[Film/{{JFK}} "Left." "Right." "Left!" "Right!"]]

*** While Dina angsts over Budnick's clean act, Z.Z. says "It's not the first time [[Film/KingKong beauty has killed the beast]]".
** When Sponge walks into the dining hall dressed as a little, old lady on OppositeDay, Z.Z. comments, [[Theatre/DrivingMissDaisy "Hi, Miss Daisy. Is Hoke takin' you to the store today?"]]

* ShownTheirWork: Danny Cooksey, who played Bobby Budnick on the show, was/is a big heavy metal fan. Thus, Budnick occasionally drops some surprisingly astute references to bands of that era. Such as Music/{{Aerosmith}} (a 70's rock band who had a ''major'' comeback a couple years before the show premiered) and even Music/{{Metallica}} (who, at the time of reference, was just getting ready to release "The Black Album").

* SoapBoxSadie: Z.Z. In most episodes this is mild to the degree it is present at all -- she is usually among the nicer and more easygoing campers, as well as a bit of a dreamy {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. But she makes up for it with a vengeance in "The Environmental Party", when she is loudly opinionated, pushy, and harshly judgmental to the point that she comes off as less reasonable and likable than Dina, who actually tries to help her out until Z.Z.'s harshness drives even her away. Her hippie folk song about saving the environment [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments eventually devolves into outright, literal yelling at people]].

* WillTheyOrWontThey: Budnick had to break up with Dina. But Dina seems to still have feelings for him. He even let Dina keep his Music/SteveVai guitar pick and says they might be back together someday.

----

* CantGetAwayWithNothing: In "Brownies for Thud Mackey", in an attempt to give Thud the brownies he owes him, Michael convinces his grandparents to send him some brownies. They get sent to the camp, but Ugh finds out (and sees a letter saying that Michael asked them to send them), making Michael spend hours holding two buckets of water while saying "I should not have asked my grandparents for brownies" over and over, Ugh gives away all the brownies but runs out before Thud can get one (therefore Michael still owes Thud), and as a result ends up missing the one decent meal of the Summer (due in part to Telly eating more as part of a challenge).

** After Michael misses lunch in "Brownies for Thud Mackie" because of his brownie punishment, he goes to the kitchen to get something to eat and finds only oatmeal. As he leaves the kitchen while eating, Ug comes along and takes it, informing Michael that it's not for eating because it's his '''oatmeal bath''' for poison oak. Cue power puke (all over Thud Mackie, no less).

** In one episode Ugh was eating a meal, which just so happened to have ants from Sponge's ant farm crawling all over it because it was knocked over. Ugh doesn't notice anything wrong until one of the peas starts ''crawling''. Cue vomit discretion shot and donkeylips informing the other campers that Ugh threw up over everything 'including the Kahn's sofa!'

-->'''Telly:''' You know what my 3 favorite words are: [[IWarnedYou "told", "you", and "so"]].

-->'''Pinsky:''' That's the problem with girls, in every camp I've ever been to, you're always fighting with each other. Just gotta learn to get along.\\

** Also in "Brownies for Thud Mackie", Ugh opens the package sent to Michael, on grounds that it's unauthorized mail. Opening mail addressed to somebody else is a federal offense, and Ugh gets away with it. Possibly justified, since Michael (and Budnik, who is also there when it happens) might be too young to realize this.

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: Used a lot, though not exclusively. Tchiakovsky's "March Slav" is frequently used. The show's famous classical music soundtrack is used a bit less often in Season 2, with some admittedly catchy stock music being the norm by that time.

* SeriousBusiness: When Michael leaves camp due to getting chicken pox and it's revealed that he won't be coming back after he recovers, the campers (with the exception of Budnik) treat his departure as if it's a memorial service.

** At the start of "They Call Me Ms. Tibbs", the kids were picking up garbage from the lake. Telly finds a [[Franchise/FridayThe13th hockey mask and a machette]], which [[OhCrap worries her]].

** In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2", Sponge and Donkeylips says she hit Ug with a golfball from the [[Film/{{JFK}} "Left." "Right." "Left!" "Right!"]]

** In "Cinderella Play", when Donkeylips is reading through his script out loud, he says, "And then I'm [[Series/MrEd horse, of course, course.]]"
** In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2", while Dina angst over Budnick's clean act, Z.Z. says "It's not the first time [[Film/KingKong beauty has killed the beast]]".

* SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass: Done by Donkeylips and Sponge to get the last merit badge they need (task: start a fire without using matches, lighters, etc.) to go on a camping trip. Z.Z. gets the assist, demonstrating it to the two, with Ug watching.

-->'''Donkeylips''': Hey Ug, "mouse" and "horse" do ''not'' rhyme."