YMMV / Wet Hot American Summer

• Adorkable: Gerald has no idea what girls are attracted to, but we love him for it.
• Awesome Music: The whole soundtrack and score, packed with cheesy, late-'70s-to-very-early-'80s hits, easily qualifies, but the true Crowning Music has to be the tailor-made '80s-movie-training-montage original song "Higher and Higher".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The "trip to town", which pushes the film into a new realm of outrageous absurdity and kind of sets a new tone for it. Essentially the story revealing its true colours, it also doubles as a Funny Moment.
• Cargo Ship: Christopher Meloni and the refrigerator.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Many jokes, but special mention goes to Andy's scene with the van. Letting a kid drown on his watch? Not that funny. Dumping the kid who witnessed it out of a moving vehicle? Funny. The exact same events happening again later in the film? Hilarious.
• Cult Classic: Initially a flop, it's now regarded by many as one of the best comedies of its time.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gene. Andy is certainly one too. And J.J., and....
  • As one reviewer put it "You don't just have a "favourite character" with this film. You have at least four."
• Heartwarming Moments: Coop proclaiming his love for Katie in a passionate if nonsensical speech, and her running out on the talent show to return those feelings. If only it had lasted.
  • McKinley and Ben have a fair number of these.
    • Their wedding (which made Beth cry) and J.J. and Gary's subsequent acceptance of their friend's sexuality.
    • Their sex scene is surprisingly tender, especially since it could have easily just been another punchline.
    • After the performance of "Day by Day" in the talent show, they're the only people not booing the kids.
    • It didn't end up in the final cut, but originally, the flashforward to 1991 had a shot showing that they were still together and had a son. It's still visible in the making-of documentary Hurricane of Fun.
  • Sure, they've known each other all of one day, but Beth and Henry expecting a baby at the end of the movie is heartwarming in its own weird way.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Certain revelations in First Day of Camp add to the fun in a rewatch, like Lindsey being an adult who's undercover for a magazine article, and the talking actually being real rather than part of Gene's weirdness.
• Memetic Mutation: "THE PHONE! THE PHONE! WHERE'S THE FUCKING PHONE?!"
• Moment of Awesome: The windy portion of the talent show. Elliot Stabler humping the fridge. Take your pick.
• Retroactive Recognition: Nearly all of the camp counselors, actually, who were mainly unknown actors prior to doing the film. Much of the cast went on to become super famous, including (but not limited to) Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, and Elizabeth Banks, and frequent viewers of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will recognize A.D. Miles as that show's head writer. Bradley Cooper is Oscar-nominated Hollywood royalty nowadays, to the point that a lot of people were surprised he actually came back for the prequel (though they did have to film all of his scenes in one day to work around his schedule).
  • Bob Belcher is Mitch the Can of Vegetables.
  • Really, almost the entire cast is this to some degree. The Other Wiki even makes a point of mentioning that the film is notable specifically because so many of its stars are now extremely famous and successful.
• Values Dissonance: Parodied. The film features a gay wedding, which nobody finds odd or remarkable. In 1981. The two counselors who you think are going to bully the new couple actually go out and buy them a wedding gift from Crate & Barrel.
• The Woobie: Coop. He's a classic case of "nice guys finish last", especially at the very end.

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