Series / Salute Your Shorts

Ug: Camp Anawanna...

Z.Z.: We hold you in our heart...

Donkeylips: And when we think about you-

Budnick: It makes me wanna fart!

[other kids laugh]

Ug: It's "I hope we never part"! Now get it right or pay the price!

— excerpt from the Season 1 opening theme. The Season 2 theme would have Budnick sing "I hope we wanna fart!" instead.

A 1991–92 Nickelodeon sitcom centered around a group of kids at summer camp Anawanna, Salute Your Shorts was a network contemporary of such shows as Clarissa Explains It All, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and like those three tends to be among the more clearly and fondly remembered pieces of the era. The fact that the show's No Budget, 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 Los Angeles).

The title of the show comes from a common prank in initiating new campers. Older, jerkier campers would loot their luggage, steal their underpants, 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 salute your shorts!"

The first episode introduced Michael Stein (Erik MacArthur), the Naïve Newcomer, to the existing ensemble cast. The other campers included:

• Bobby Budnick (Danny Cooksey): The Schemer and resident Jerkass, Budnick is a con artist and more than a bit of a bully, preferring to use manipulative 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.
• Eddie "Donkeylips" Gelfen (Michael Bower): The muscle (Donkeylips is fat, but tough enough to qualify) and sometimes Budnick's enforcer, though he is rather amiable in personality otherwise. Openly crushes on Dina, to her disgust... most of the time.
• Eugene "Sponge" Harris (Trevor Eyster^note  Then known as Tim.): the quirk, a smart, scrawny kid with occasional hyperactive tendencies.
• Telly Radford (Venus DeMilo Thomas^note  Credited by her first two names only.): the smart one, although more in a common sense way, Telly is an African-American tomboy obsessed with sports.
• Dina Alexander (Heidi Lucas): the pretty one - a bit of a Brainless Beauty (with more than a twinge of Asian Airhead), and can be a Rich Bitch.
• Z.Z. Ziff (Megan Berwick): the wild one - Granola Girl and Cloudcuckoolander, very conscientious about the environment but less conscious of just about everything else.

The only authority figure in sight is Kevin "Ug" Lee (Kirk Baily), the dim-witted loser guy counselor. Dr. Kahn, his superior, is only heard through loudspeaker (voiced by creator and executive producer Steve Slavkin^note  Not, contrary to popular myth, by Ben Stein.).

In season two, Erik MacArthur left the show; accordingly, Michael left camp (ostensibly due to chicken pox), and was promptly replaced by Ronnie Pinsky (Blake Soper^note  AKA Blake Sennett). Pinsky, in his debut episode, is established as a wise-cracking Ferris Bueller-like character (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.

Given the timing of the 25-year nostalgia cycle, the series was never on DVD. As of November 2018, it's available for download or streaming on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

This show contains examples of:

• The Ace: 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 High-School Hustler type.
• Adults Are Useless: Well, only one, really... Camp counselor Kevin "Ug" Lee. But he's still useless.
• Afraid of Blood: Telly.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Dina doesn't like Budnick unless he's a bad boy.
• Alliterative List: Ug's "Four F's of Leadership": Fearlessness, Fairness, Firmness and Control.
  Telly: Control isn't an F.
  Ug: Well then it's three F's and a C.
  Telly: Sounds like Donkeylips' report card.
• Alliterative Name: Z.Z. Ziff.
• Alpha Bitch: Dina, more or less.
• Amusing Injuries: Nine times out of ten, Ug.
  • "Budnick Loves Dina" had so many characters suffer accidents that by episode's end, those two were the only people not on crutches.
• And Starring: As Danny Cooksey was the most familiar face in the cast (through his appearances in Diff'rent Strokes and Terminator 2: Judgment Day 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).
• Anticipatory Breath Spray: Michael does this repeatedly in the "Cinderella Play" episode when he's cast as the male lead (who thus gets to kiss Dina). When the actual moment does come, however, he winds up chickening out and shaking Cinderella's hand instead.
• Artifact of Doom: The cursed cow skull found inside a cave in "The Cursed Skull". Legend say it was first used by a Native American tribe as part of a Rite of Passage, 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.
• Badass Bookworm: Sponge, occasionally.
• Batman Gambit: After concluding that the directions to Sara Madre's buried cash stash (which 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.
• Beautiful All Along: Telly has one of these moments when she loses her glasses in favor of contact lenses.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: One episode has 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?
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Sometimes Budnick and Donkeylips, although their "kinship" generally ends once the former screws over the latter in some way.
• Big Eater: Donkeylips
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Donkeylips and Sponge
• Big Girl on Campus: Telly.
• Blind Without 'Em: Telly in the first episode. She gets contacts soon after.
• Butt-Monkey: Ug. Sponge, Michael and Donkeylips are also this on occasion.
• Call-Back:
  • Pinsky's introductory episode is one Call-Back after another to Michael's, right down to the pranks. However, events don't play out the same way a second time, a few outcomes being reversed entirely.
  • "The Wrath of Kahn, Jr." references the "Awful Waffle" from the first episode. Also the music used when the girls' trap was tripped plays when Kahn's niece gets her just desserts.
  • In "The Cursed Skull", the boys try to form a secret society, like Budnick and Donkeylips tried to do in the first episode.
• Cant Get Away With Nothing: 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).
• Capture the Flag: Episode of the same title.
• Catchphrase:
  • Budnick's words of choice for victims of his scams and pranks are "Roasted, toasted, and burnt to a crisp."
  • Ug's preferred way to express complete indifference to campers' objections to his discipline is "Tough nuggets."
  • "This is Dr. Khan..."
• Cavalier Consumption: Pinsky nonchalantly continues to munch on his smuggled-in sausage even as the bed he's lying in is collapsed by Budnick, who'd rigged it to fall (the same prank he'd pulled on Michael, who was a lot more obviously irritated by it).
• Chained to a Railway: A model train rail, in this case. In "The Wrath of Kahn, Jr.", Sponge's first run-in with Dr. Kahn's niece Ellen ends with his head tied to the tracks of his model train set; his rescue invokes Mundane Made Awesome as Telly leaps across the room to... flip a switch and cause the train to take a different route.
• Character Development: In the first few Season One episodes, Budnick can't stand Michael and picks on him at almost every turn. In the fourth episode of the season ("Budnick And Michael Fake Being Sick"), the two find themselves alone in a doctor's office, which eventually leads to him opening up to Michael about his troubled family life. Later in the episode, the two toast over a ton of ice cream, and Budnick even invites Michael to see an Aerosmith concert with him. Throughout the rest of the season, Budnick treats Michael a lot better than he did before this episode.
• The Chew Toy: Ug.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Z.Z.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Often.
• Control Freak: Ug. Telly also has her moments.
• Continuity Nod: Michael's "wuss hat" is Harry the Hippo.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Punishments have included:
  • Having to fill the swimming pool with water, one bucket at time
  • Ringing a bell with your nose while doing push-ups
  • Having to clean entire rooms with your own toothbrush (a perennial favorite)
  • Hugging a tree (this is apparently terrifying)
  • Forced to hold out buckets of water at arm's length (similar to Standing in the Hall)
  • "There is a very deep hole in the middle of my infield. Eventually, the hole will fill up with water and the scum will float to the top! Then, Bobby Budnick, you will be mine!"
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: The reason for Pinsky's enormous popularity in his debut episode (see also: The Ace). Of course, throughout the remainder of the series, this attitude backfires on him at least as often as not.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: 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 Laser-Guided Karma, Donkeylips strikes a deal with one of their investors, Jessie Bartlet, to buy the birdhouses for his uncle (Captain Bartlet, who owns a souvenir shop) in exchange for a share of the profits. He then spends his own share of the profits on the other workers, leaving the five "executives" with nothing.
• Cringe Comedy: Ug has a few instances of this:
  • 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.^note Though the concession stand waitress/cashier was only flirting with Ug in order to get him to pay for the meal, that the kids ran from because Ug arrived unexpectedly. She promptly closes up the burger stand after Ug pays and leaves him hanging.
  • When he awkwardly tries to mingle with the theater security guard and shamelessly flirts with the concession stand hostess in "Sponge's Night Out."
• Crosscast Role: Almost happens in-universe with the Cinderella play. When Dina claims she lost her voice (she really got stage fright), Cinderella is nearly played by the only other person that knows all the lines: Sponge, who is briefly shown in costume. Michael is horrified at the prospect of having to kiss Sponge instead of Dina.
• Curse Cut Short
  Budnick: Right now we gotta swear to each other.
  Donkeylips: Ok! You're a big dripping piece...
  Budnick: I'm not talking swear like that. I mean, swear that whatever we find, we'll split 50/50.
• Dartboard of Hate: Budnick has one for Pinsky in the latter's introductory episode, but it's just a piece of paper with Pinsky's name written on it.
• Date Peepers: In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2", Budnick's date with Dina is observed by the entire camp. Pinsky hides behind a bush and uses a mirror tied to one of his crutches as a periscope to spy on them directly, then he relays events to Donkeylips, who signals in semaphore to Sponge on the other side of the lake; his translations are passed to Z.Z. to carry over to Telly, who is standing in front of the bleachers with a bullhorn to announce every moment to the rest of the campers.
• Decoy Protagonist: Michael is introduced as the main character in the first episode, but after that, it becomes clear this is more of an Ensemble Cast show. He's also the only character to leave camp permanently.
• Didn't Think This Through: When Mona Tibbs, now the new park ranger, gets into a fight with Ug over the various violations at camp, the boys realize that if the violations go unchanged and the camp shut down, Dr. Khan would not want to send everyone home because that would mean refunding their parents. So they figured he would end up sending them to nearby hotels for the rest of the summer, and all the closest hotels were next to the beach. So while the girls were trying all they could to patch things up with Mona and Ug, the boys were convincing Ug not to agree to fix the violations. Finally the girls inform the boys that if Dr. Khan is too cheap to refund their parents, he would definitely be too cheap to send all the campers to beachside hotels for the rest of the summer. As a matter of fact, they would be sent off to separate camps… camps even worse than Anawana. The boys quickly realized they screwed up and helped the girls to fix things.
• Diet Episode: Donkeylips and Sponge both decide to join the camp wrestling team. Donkeylips, however needs to lose at least 7 lbs. to qualify for his weight class. Sponge, meanwhile needs to gain at least 7 lbs. to qualify for his. They both end up helping each other to reach their goals, also thanks to some coaching from Telly.
• The Ditz: Both Z.Z. and Dina have exhibited ditzy traits.
• The Dog Bites Back: Despite being his friend and enforcer, Donkeylips has no qualms about doing this whenever Budnick goes too far.
• Drunk with Power
  • Happens to Budnick on Opposite Day.
  • Also Pinsky in "The Pinsky-Sponge Gazette"
    Pinsky: Material's no problem. If it's a slow news day, we'll just go out and create it ourselves.
    Donkeylips: But what will people think of that?
    Pinsky: They'll think what I tell them to think. (Cue evil music)
• Economy Cast: Now and again there will be some extras milling around, or even an additional speaking role, but for the most part as far as the show was concerned there could have been only seven kids and one counselor in the entire camp. This could be justified as it's repeatedly suggested that Anawanna is a really crappy camp.
• E = MC Hammer: Uttered by Dina during an Imagine Spot of Budnick's in "Budnick and Dina In Love, Part 1".
• Embarrassing Nickname: Michael is "Moosh-Moosh" to his grandparents.
• Ensemble Cast: There's no single main character; each of the eight primary cast members features in the A-plot of at least two episodes, although some of them get more A-plots than others.
• The Everykid: Michael.
• Evil Redhead: Budnick has bright red hair (the other main characters all have blond, brown, or black hair) and is by far the most scheming and manipulative person at Camp Anawanna.
• Failed Attempt at Scaring: After Budnick tells the other kids a ghost story, they make plans to get him back. They challenge him to spend the night alone out in the woods while they devise various means to try and scare him. Budnick anticipates this and leaves a number of warnings that will alert him to their presence, so he hears them coming and is able to foil all their attempts. Except for the last one, where they trick him into walking into some spider webs. He hates spiders.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: 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 where they'd been trying to hide. 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.
• Fat and Skinny: Donkeylips and Sponge.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Maybe friends is too strong a word, but after "Budnick and Michael Fake Being Sick," the two get along much better and pretty much have each other's respect.
• Flat Character: Downplayed with Mona. She isn't given much of a personality or presence beyond her role as Ug's girlfriend. However, there are hints of her being a bit of a quirk. Such as her love of croutons and, perhaps most egregiously, snuggling in bed with a plaster fish rather than a Teddy Bear.
• Flawless Token: Telly is the most athletic camper, and frequently the most honest and level-headed one as well.
• Flipping the Bird: Implied a coupled of times.
  • Once on a trip to the beach, Sponge informs Ug that Donkeylips gave half of a peace sign to a guy on a motorcycle. Ug asked which half. Cue police siren.
  • Another after Michael gets punched out by Thud 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.
• Fly Crazy: In "Citizen Pinsky", Ug is eating when he notices a fly. He swings the fly swatter around until he finally hits it. It then flies with a vengeance and attacks Ug. All of this is shown from the fly's point-of-view.
• Food Fight: Of course. The campers would much rather use the camp's terrible food as ammunition than nourishment, and several episodes feature scenes where they put the "mess" in "mess hall". Ug will invariably get hit in the face when he blows his whistle to stop food fights.
• Fool's Map: 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. 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, along with hitting a major water pipe, that Ug had been meticulously trimming.
• Free-Range Children: Since Ug was the only counselor, and he can't be everywhere at once, the kids were constantly shown doing activities without any adult supervision.
• Freudian Excuse: Budnick comes from a broken home.
• Friend in the Black Market: Budnick sells candy to campers at sizable prices. Given the "No Outside Food" rule, no one complains too much.
• Funny Foreigner: Z.Z.'s friend Spanakopita, a quirky Greek refuse and recyclables collector (whose name translates as "spinach pie").
• Gasshole: Donkeylips. In "Michael Comes to Camp", Budnick tells Michael and Sponge that if they don't go into the girls' bunk to steal valuable items from 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.
• Gold Digger: Budnick's favorite thing about Dina is her rich father.
• Gold Fever: "The Treasure of Sara Madre" episode being an obvious Homage/Whole-Plot Reference.
  Z.Z.: Look, I found a Junior Park Ranger's badge!
  Michael: Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!
• Granola Girl: Z.Z. Or as Telly puts it...:
  Telly: Are you out of your granola-munchin', whole-wheat, tie-dye, save-the-planet mind?!
• Happy Dance: On being told that the winner of the frog jumping contest gets a night on the town, Z.Z. starts to do a peppy little song-and-dance number around the room before Dina interrupts.
• Hated Item Makeover: One two-part episode sees Dina and Budnick fall in love, only for Dina to become repulsed when Budnick tries to become a good guy so that her parents will approve of him. In a bid to get him to dump her, she takes his treasured Axl Rose guitar pick and turns it into an earring.
• Hate Sink: Thud Mackie is a rude, intimidating bully who gets away with threatening and beating up Michael for accidentally sitting on his brownies. Unlike Budnick, there's nothing redeeming about him at all and his sole purpose for his only episode is to make Michael miserable.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: Telly is pathological about this. In "Zeke the Plumber", the forfeit she offers if Budnick succeeds in spending a night in the clearing where Zeke is alleged to have died is that she will wear a dress for a day, a nod to her Zeke-related nightmare about being trapped in a dance hall wearing a ball gown.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Generally Ug is portrayed as dim-witted, kind of lazy, and a bit of a loser, but he has moments of scary competence. He also 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 due to playing wargames, 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.
• High-School Dance: "Donkeylips Loves Dina" features a summer camp version of this trope. Dina tries to ask Michael to the dance, but her message is delivered to Donkeylips by mistake.
• High-School Hustler: Pinsky on his better days. His Zany Schemes backfire, he often promises more than he can deliver, and some of the stuff he gets away with is only by virtue of having no shame, but he does get Sponge a girlfriend and helps Donkeylips live out his dream of championing a game of "Capture the Flag."
• Homage:
  • More than a few elements of the show hearken back to M*A*S*H. The most obvious are 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 draws inspiration from Colonel Blake, down to wearing the same hat.
  • Ug also draws parallels from Frank Burns, Sponge sometimes channels Radar, and Pinsky fills in the Hawkeye role once he comes to camp.
  • DJ Giant Jim, from "The Radio Call-In Contest" is a kid-friendly version of Howard Stern.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Dina in particular supplies a lot.
  • In "Anawanna, Inc.", Ug tries to fill Sponge's time capsule with mementoes of himself, but when they find a previous camp time capsule, he is disgusted to find that it only contains mementoes from a previous camp counselor, whom he dismisses as an egomaniac. Sponge, clearly waiting for the penny to drop with Ug, sarcastically agrees.
• I Ate WHAT?!:
  • 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.
  • 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 sumac. Cue power puke (all over Thud Mackie, no less).
  • One of Z.Z.'s cures for Dina's apparent laryngitis in "Cinderella Play" involves giving her a thick white liquid. A few mouthfuls in, Z.Z. reveals that the liquid is made from milkweed and bullfrog. Dina spits it out in disgust, and is not consoled by Z.Z.'s insistence that it's not real bullfrog.
  • 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 Vomit Discretion Shot and Donkeylips informing the other campers that Ug threw up over everything including Dr. Kahn's sofa!
• I Just Want to Be Normal: 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. It also causes Jamie to form a friendship with Pinskey, who was the only one at camp not starstruck by him and treated him like a normal kid.
• Informed Judaism: In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2", when Budnick plans to video tape he and Dina's future dates. Sponge says when they get married and kids, he and Donkeylips will video tape his bar-mitzvah.
• Ironic Echo:
  • In "The Radio Call-In Contest", Sponge dismisses the girls' suggestions that the remaining two questions in the radio contest he has entered might require pop culture knowledge he doesn't have, such as "What is George Michael's real name?" Eventually, the second question is asked... and it's "What is George Michael's real name?"^note Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, for those who, like Sponge, don't already know.
    Telly: You know what my three favorite words are: "told", "you", and "so".
  • In "The Cursed Skull":
    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.
    [at the end of the episode]
    Telly: That's the problem with you guys, you don't know how to get along with each other.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Poor Z.Z., although she gets better.
  Z.Z.: I know I'm gonna hate myself for saying this. But if you tell Dina, what you just told me? She'd probably change her mind about you.
• Jerkass:
  • Budnick.
  • Ug is also this to some extent.
• Jerkass Ball: Dina isn't usually a full-on jerk (she's just a little stuck up and selfish). However, she is definitely one in "Dina And The Rock Star." First, she and Z.Z. invade rock singer Jamie Mallet Jr.'s privacy by breaking into his tent and falsely saying there are mountain lions in the woods so that he'll come to Camp Anawanna. She then lies to Ug by saying that Jamie promised to play a concert for the campers. And then, after he declines to play the concert, she attempts to blackmail him by spreading lies to the other campers about things he said about them. Eventually, they catch on to her ruse, and Jamie does indeed play the concert while she's stuck cleaning the floor with a toothbrush.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Also Budnick, whose good qualities start coming out more frequently in the second season.
  • Really, almost all of the campers tended to fall into this at one point or another.
• Judgment of Solomon:
  • Spoofed via "Shaggy Frog" Story in "Bunk Chief Elections", when Z.Z. can't decide between Dina or Telly as bunk chief, and Budnick's initial advice leaves a bit to be desired.
    Budnick: It's like when Solomon King had to make his decision.
    Z.Z.: You mean King Solomon when he had to cut the baby in half?
    Budnick: No, I mean Solomon King. I went to school with the guy. He had front-row tickets to two incredible concerts on the same night, he had to make a decision.
    Z.Z.: What'd he do?
    Budnick: Well, he came down with the chicken pox, so he couldn't go to either one of them.
    Z.Z.: That... doesn't help me much.
  • In "Counselor Budnick," the trope is played straight: Dina and Z.Z. have a dispute over the ownership of "Wartbreath", a frog Dina found (but initially wanted to squash) that Z.Z. had trained into a champion jumper, when it turns out the frog jumping contest actually has a prize for winning. When the old Let Him Choose method fails, Budnick has them both grab the frog and tug-of-war for it. Of course Z.Z. immediately lets go ("are you crazy!?") and Budnick declares her the real owner. The elegance of this solution confirms him as a real counselor to the other campers, but Budnick confesses it had been his own idea — the counselor's guidebook would have awarded the frog to Dina.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Dina and Telly in "Bunk Chief Elections". They leave the boys to take blame for the mess left in their personal Food Fight, with nary a qualm of guilt, even knowing Ug's been making their lives hell for some time already and is just looking for an excuse to dish out more punishment.
  • Thud Mackie also counts in "Brownies For Thud Mackie". In the episode's final scene, he beats Michael senseless after spending the entire episode threatening to do so unless Michael can replace the box of brownies he accidentally sat on, and he never receives any sort of punishment for it.
  • 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 Budnick, who is also there when it happens) might be too young to realize this.
• Keep the Reward: Z.Z. can't get the campers to pitch in and help the environment until she creates an incentive to save up for a trip to the water park. At the end of the episode, they (Budnick not included) decide to surprise her by using the funds to purchase a tree instead.
• "Kick Me" Prank: In "The Wrath of Kahn, Jr.", Budnick thinks he has managed to get through to Kahn's niece Ellen in getting her to reel in her prank-playing antics. That is, until Donkeylips kicks him in the backside and explains that he's just doing what the sign on Budnick's back told him to do.
• Last-Name Basis: Bobby Budnick and Ronnie Pinsky are always referred to by the campers by their last names.
• Let Him Choose: In "Counselor Budnick", Ug tries to resolve the fight for ownership of Wartbreath between Z.Z. and Dina by putting the frog in the middle of a circle and saying that the owner would be whichever the frog jumps to first. Unfortunately, Wartbreath jumps toward Pinsky instead.
• Limited Social Circle: As a result of the series' Economy Cast, the seven main campers are only very occasionally seen interacting socially with the other kids at camp.
• Locked in a Room:
  • The A-plot of "Budnick and Michael Fake Being Sick".
  • The "Cursed Skull" episode also becomes this, when Telly and Dina (after constantly bickering with each other over who gets to return the skull to where it belongs) find themselves in a cave full of garbage. A thunderstorm begins, so they spend the night in the cave and reconcile their differences.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In "The Cursed Skull", the eponymous object supposedly brought a lot of bad luck into camp. It turns out to be a cheap souvenir.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The final scene of "The Treasure of Sara Madre" features one with all seven campers. Dina, Michael, Sponge, Telly, and Z.Z. have gathered to mock Budnick and Donkeylips for falling for their revenge prank and digging a hole for non-existent treasure in the middle of the camp's baseball diamond, but as a furious Donkeylips smashes down his shovel, there is the clang of something metallic. Budnick eagerly digs at the spot with a pickaxe... and then water suddenly begins gurgling from where he is digging...
  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 Crowd Panic as Sponge, Telly, Dina, Michael, and Z.Z. run for their lives, with Donkeylips not far behind)
• Metaphorgotten:
  Pinsky: Look, I know we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I have another foot that you haven't even seen yet! This is the foot of honesty, and that foot spoke to me.
• Moment Killer: In "They Call Me Ms. Tibbs", Ug and Mona are about to kiss when Budnick arrives (which inadvertently leads to their near-breakup).
  "Somebody better eat this squash quick, it's starting to smell like sweat socks!"
• Mood Whiplash: The gang feeling depressed with Michael gone, only to cheer up when they meet Pinsky who one-upped Budnick.
• Motionless Makeover: Ug is in a trance after his girlfriend dumps him. One of the campers puts a pastry on his head.
• Mouthy Kid: Budnick and Pinsky.
• Naïve Newcomer: Michael. Pinsky... not as much, although it is lampshaded once.
  Pinsky: (to Dina) Look, I know you're normally a sweet, wonderful kid without an ounce of meanness in you—
  Telly: You haven't been in camp very long, have you...
• Nerd Glasses: Sponge, although Telly had a pair that were never seen past the first episode (she got contacts).
• New Job as the Plot Demands: Mona is 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.
  Donkeylips: I thought she's the mail lady.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: 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... and they all chicken out, with Michael not realizing this, and leave Michael to get knocked out alone.
• Noodle Implements: 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, but that would never fly on any show, ever.)
• Not So Above It All: Ug. Sure, he dispenses severe and exaggerated punishment, but in the context of the campers actually breaking the rules. Still, whenever given the chance to prank Budnick, he jumps at the chance.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Donkeylips is overweight and not too bright, while Sponge is intelligent but short and scrawny, but they are both social outcasts and/or bullying victims in their lives outside camp as a result, and they have bonded over this, seen most prominently when they are both trying out for wrestling in "Donkeylips and Sponge Weigh In", and when they are collecting merit badges in the two "Budnick Loves Dina" episodes.
  • Of all the campers, Ug is probably the closest to Z.Z. (probably because she's, usually, the best behaved) and she's one of the few campers who likes going on his nature hikes.
• Oh, Crap!: "The Wrath of Kahn, Jr." features two examples near the end of the episode.
  • First, Kahn's niece Ellen, having finally received her comeuppance at the hands of the seven regulars, storms off to her uncle's office in spite of Ug's attempts to keep her calm and keep his job. Seconds later, a loudspeaker announcement booms, "This is Dr. Kahn. Would Kevin Lee please come to my office... NOW." Ug leaves with the look of a condemned person being led to the scaffold.
  • But when the campers see Ug seemingly dressed to leave camp, he tells them that Dr. Kahn is 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.
• Onion Tears: In "Bunk Chief Elections".
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • Kevin Lee is almost universally addressed as Ug, as in "Ug Lee". Dr. Kahn is the only character who routinely uses his given name.
  • Although Eddie Gelfen occasionally uses his real name (most prominently in "The Treasure of Sara Madre" and "Donkeylips Loves Dina"), everyone else calls him Donkeylips.
  • Eugene Harris is always referred to as Sponge, in light of his brain's uncanny ability to soak up information, and then dispense it when you squeeze his head (in a headlock).
  • Z.Z. is known by her initials only; the second Z stands for Ziff.
• Opposite Day:
  • Budnick and Ug switch places as camper and counselor.
  • And the girls dressing up as guys and vice-versa. In fact, one of the girls says she looks forward to it because "it's the only time you can see Budnick in a dress." Make of that what you will.
• Pet the Dog: Both the kids and Ug have (rare) moments where they show they actually do care about each other somewhat.
• Playing Cyrano: Pinsky does this for Sponge, creating a new persona for him to get him with a girl from another nearby camp that's way out of his league. It later turns out that the girl in question was just as geeky, and her fellow campers also were pulling the same stunt.
• Playing Sick:
  • A popular ploy for getting out of instructional swim, as seen in "Budnick and Michael Fake Being Sick". Budnick has a killer recipe for realistic-looking vomit. Their fake illnesses seem to backfire on them when Ug takes the other five campers on a trip to the beach, but the beach trip ends up being a complete disaster while Budnick and Michael start bonding after spending the day stuck in the nurse's office.
  • 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 upending a bottle of water over her head, causing her to shriek and reveal that her voice is just fine.
• Please Dump Me: Dina employs this to break up with Budnick, who ceased being bad boy while they were a couple (and thus ceased to be interesting).
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: The pilot aired on a Nickelodeon anthology program called Special Delivery.
• Previously on…: 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.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Used a lot, though not exclusively. Tchaikovsky's March Slav is frequently used, as is Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.1. 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.
• Punny Name: Ug Lee. From the first episode, when he introduces himself as "Kevin Lee" only to have the kids start chanting "Ug Lee, Ug Lee, Ug Lee," one might get the impression the nickname "Ug" was actually picked by the kids for exactly this reason, although it's never stated outright.
• Radio Contest: 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. 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 but then confiscates the prize money.
• Rearrange the Song: Downplayed. The show's theme song is re-sung in Season Two, with the actors being a year older and Pinsky obviously replacing Michael as well as updated gags^note Budnick's "It makes me wanna fart" in Season 1 becoming "I hope we wanna fart" instead and Ug forgetting his line in the second verse of Season 1 being replaced by him getting splashed offscreen by presumably Budnick, who then sings the rest of Ug's line. The underlying piano melody, however, is left unchanged. And Michael Bower's fishing pole blooper is kept from the Season One opening.
• Replaced the Theme Tune: In the first half of Season One, the closing credits music is an instrumental version of the show's theme song. In the second half and in all of Season Two, it's a calm/peaceful-sounding stock tune.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Ug gets a few instances of this in "Dina and the Rock Star". Star-struck at meeting Jamie Mallet Jr., he introduces himself by saying "Hi there Jamie, Kevin is my namey," congratulating himself on the rhyme. At the end of the episode, when Dina's attempt to spread lies to turn the camp against Jamie backfires and she is forced to clean up the mess from a Food Fight, Ug tells her, "You told a mess of lies, now clean up the mess of pies," once again congratulating himself on the rhyme.
• Rich Bitch: Dina, although she tends to be shallow and ditzy more often than outright bitchy. Her family is loaded, so she has no shortage of luxury goods at camp, and she is not shy about showing them off.
• Right Through the Wall: Subverted in "Park Ranger Mona" when Ug and Mona start to fight. But they notice they're being watched, so Ug closes the door on the campers, but the door has glass so they can still see.
  Z.Z.: I can't believe they're fighting! This is terrible!
  Donkeylips: I know! I can't hear a word they're saying!
• Romantic Runner-Up: Near the end of "Budnick Loves Dina, Part One," Budnick tells Z.Z. he might have been interested in her if he didn't currently have a thing for Dina.
• Running Gag:
  • 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.
  • In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 1", someone gets their leg broken and ends up in crutches.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Donkeylips can not only track people but determine the kind of sandwich they were eating at the time. Dina, meanwhile, is not good at tracking most of the time but is a crack expert at following limo tracks.
• School Play: Though not set at a school, the series featured an example of this plotline in "Cinderella Play", with Ug and the seven main characters providing not just the entire main cast (Dina as Cinderella, Michael as the Prince, Telly as an ugly stepsister, Z.Z. as the Fairy Godmother, and Donkeylips as a rapping mouse) but also the entire technical crew (Ug, Sponge, and Budnick).
• Second-Person Attack: 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. The camera switches to Michael's POV for the confrontation just before Thud delivers an anticlimactic One-Hit KO and the screen goes black.
• Sentimental Music Cue: Considering the general tenor of the show otherwise, it can be a bit surprising when this gets played completely straight, most notably in the episode where Budnick and Michael play sick to get out of Instructional Swim, and in the "Budnick Loves Dina" two-parter.
• Serious Business: 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. Even Ug is grieving, and he takes the saddened campers with him to the post office (to mail the duffel bag which Michael left at camp) as a way for them all to say goodbye.
• The Short Guy with Glasses: Sponge is the shortest main cast member, one of the youngest, and the only one to wear glasses. He is also the most book smart of the group.
• Shout-Out:
  • "They Call Me Ms. Tibbs":
    • At the start, the kids were picking up garbage from the lake. Telly finds a hockey mask and a machete, which worries her.
    • The episode title itself is a reference to In the Heat of the Night.
  • Budnick forms a secret society in "The Cursed Skull", and the initiation ceremony begins with Sponge, Donkeylips and Pinskey marching and chanting in a manner similar to the Winkie march in The Wizard of Oz.
  • In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2":
    • Sponge and Donkeylips say she hit Ug with a golf ball from the "Left." "Right." "Left!" "Right!"
    • "To quote one of my favorite philosophers Baloo the Bear: 'He is gone, man. Solid gone'."
    • While Dina angsts over Budnick's clean act, Z.Z. says, "It's not the first time beauty has killed the beast".
    • The sun’s reflection off Sponge’s glasses being used to start a fire is a reference to Lord of the Flies.
  • When Sponge walks into the dining hall dressed as a little old lady on Opposite Day, Z.Z. comments, "Hi, Miss Daisy. Is Hoke takin' you to the store today?"
  • In "Cinderella Play", when Donkeylips is reading through his script out loud, he says, "And then I'm a horse, of course, of course."
• Shown Their Work: 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. These include Aerosmith (a 70's rock band who had a major comeback a couple years before the show premiered) and even Metallica (who, at the time of reference, was just getting ready to release "The Black Album").
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Ug and Mona, and Dina and Budnick for all of five minutes.
• The Smart Guy: Sponge is nicknamed for his ability to absorb information, and he is usually the first person the campers consult on factual matters. He was also ahead of the curve in acknowledging the value of computers and the Internet.
• Soapbox Sadie: 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 eventually devolves into outright, literal yelling at people.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Done by Donkeylips and Sponge (with Sponge's glasses) 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.
• Speech Impediment: "Donkey Lips" is so named at least partly because of his pronounced lisp.
• Spinning Paper: "The Pinsky-Sponge Gazette" features a montage of spinning papers with such headlines as "Dr. Kahn: Man or Myth?" and "Dewey Defeats Truman: 'He Sucker Punched Me', Says Truman".
• Spoiled Brat: Dina has rich parents who shower her with luxury items, contributing to her perception that she is above participating in the less glamorous camp activities.
• The Strategist: Donkeylips' ambition in "Capture the Flag".
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Lampshaded by Donkeylips in "Cinderella Play" while reading his script, which initially has lines that rhyme with "mouse", then abruptly switches to lines regarding his horse role.
  Donkeylips: Hey Ug, "mouse" and "horse" do not rhyme.
• Summer Campy: The entire premise. The food is better suited for fighting with than eating, the activities are a mixture of the unpleasant and the boring, the counselor is a rules-obsessed loser, the campers are divided into the bullies and the bullied, and the local wildlife is hostile. Sponge sums it up best in his first encounter with Michael:
  Sponge: The food bites, the bugs bite, activities bite... everything bites!
• Thematic Theme Tune: This would be a subversion, as while the song is supposed to be about how great camp is and how strong the friendships are, the obviously forced and insincere delivery of the sappy lyrics really serve to tell the audience how bad it is, while hinting at the flaws that are bound to cause friction in individual character relationships.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Mona says that's what everyone calls her in the episode "They Call Me Ms. Tibbs".
• Title Drop:
  • Sponge does it in the first episode, just before the cut to the theme song as Budnick runs a humiliated Michael's boxer shorts up the flagpole.
  • Happens again in the season 2 premiere as Budnick does the same thing to Pinsky. Pinsky does so happily and continues on.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Telly, who is one of the camp's top all-round athletes, and Dina, who obsesses over her personal appearance. Their conflicting priorities lead to a lot of friction between them over the course of the series.
• Troubled, but Cute: Budnick has had both Dina and Z.Z. crushing on him.
• Underwear Flag: Happens in both the opening title sequences and the first episode's teaser, where Budnick and Donkeylips take the camp flag down and put up a pair of boxers in its place. Three pairs that are different from those in Season 1 are used in Season 2's title sequence. Despite the different shots used each time, the Season 1 title sequence boxers match Michael's, so it's implied to be his in both instances. The instance in the aforementioned teaser prompts a Title Drop from Sponge in-episode.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Seems to have been invoked somewhat unintentionally. A number of episodes of the first season, in particular the Camp Dance episode, indicate Dina is attracted to Michael, while Michael is completely uninterested. But in the "Cinderella Play" episode, Michael is extremely psyched up about getting to kiss Dina and teases her about it constantly, while she acts disgusted by him and has a crush on a boy from another camp.
• The Voice: Dr. Kahn, the camp director, who 'appears' only as a disembodied voice over the loudspeaker. Someone once hung a sign on a goat saying "This is Dr. Kahn", and all they got was a loudspeaker request to remove it.
  Dr. Kahn: Man or Myth?
• Welcome Episode: "Michael Comes to Camp".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Donkeylips' parents are implied to be this. According to him, they only acknowledge him when he brings home wrestling trophies.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: In "Budnick Loves Dina, Part 2", Budnick starts cleaning up his act to make himself more attractive to Dina. This just creeps out the rest of his peers, and it makes Dina less attracted to him because she liked him better when he was a jerk.
  Sponge: I never thought I'd miss the old Budnick. I mean who wants to get beat up by a stranger?
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The exact location of Camp Anawanna or even the state that it's located in are never given. Various clues throughout the series indicate that it's in a very wooded forest heavy area, that it's not too far from a town at least large enough to have a movie theater, that it's also fairly close to a city large enough to have a Bloomingdale's, and that it's in relatively close proximity to a beach. That potentially points toward either somewhere like northern California or the Pacific Northwest, but no details beyond that.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "The Treasure of Sara Madre" to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and "Zeke the Plumber" to A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Budnick is perfectly content to spend an entire night alone in the woods, and laughs loudly and triumphantly at the others' attempts to frighten him. However, he breaks down crying and pleading for help when he stumbles into a large batch of spider webs.
  • Donkeylips has this reaction while playing "Capture the Flag" when he sees the other team's flag being protected by a hundred tires (an obstacle he always failed at miserably on obstacle courses).
• Will They or Won't They?: Budnick breaks up with Dina, but Dina seems to still have feelings for him. He even lets Dina keep his Steve Vai guitar pick and says they might be back together someday.
• World of Snark: Pretty much everybody at the camp is a Deadpan Snarker (including Ug).
• You Can See That, Right?: Inverted. Ug gets hit on the head in one episode and hallucinates. He asks the kids to reassure him that the brontosaurus he sees tap-dancing in the corner isn't real.
• You Go, Girl!: Telly.

---

...And when we think about you

This thing came apart...

Think Anawanna, Sing Anawanna,

Live Anawanna, Ug! (Anawanna, Anawanna)