Welcome To Camp Reruns: Now Sit Down And Watch TV So Your Parents Can Work

Katie McKelvie
Slackjaw
Published in
3 min readJul 13, 2020
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Rise and shine, camper! And then sit right back down.

It’s too bad summer camp was canceled. But guess what, chicken butt? Now you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the very special camp your parents attended every summer, all summer when they were kids — all the way back in the 1980s, when benign neglect and kids falling in wells were all the rage. That’s right, it’s time to play the music / it’s time to light the lights / it’s time to sit down, be quiet, and watch TV all day every day so your parents can get some work done. Welcome to Camp Reruns!

At Camp Reruns, we don’t have fancy camp stuff like rock climbing, filmmaking, or other campers. But you will get to sit on your tuchus for the entire day and stare at a screen. Just like your parents did when they were little. And thanks to or possibly despite our enriching programming, they turned out just fine. (See how Mom and Dad type diligently on their computers all day like dutiful cogs in the bone-crushing wheel of capitalism? With any luck, that will be you someday!) So just sit right down and enjoy some classic escapist television.

Every morning will start with a Toaster Strudel and an array of delightfully mind-numbing classic shows, carefully assembled around a special theme, such as pastel blazers (Designing Women, Golden Girls, Miami Vice), kick and stretch (The Incredible Hulk, Inspector Gadget, Fame), and secrets and lies (Murder She Wrote, Columbo, The Cosby Show). At lunchtime, you’ll rice-a-roni right into an hour of Price is Right and then through a confusingly racy episode of Family Feud. After a few candy cigarettes, we’ll fast forward past Soap Operas with Gross Kissing to a solid six hours of Gilligan’s Island and at least one Teddy Ruxpin commercial every eight minutes.

You’re not sold? Why can’t you just play video games or surf the Internet all day? Well, my friend, your parents don’t want you rotting your brain this summer with things that they don’t understand — like TikTok and liberals who hate Joe Biden. Your parents want you exposed to more wholesome content from a simpler time — a time of neon bracelets, perms, and crippling nightmares about nuclear war.

Moreover, unlike your parents’ parents, who went and left them at home alone all day like the ill-fated kids in the Cat in the Hat, your Mom and Dad are looking for an intergenerational, shared summer experience that will deepen your family bonds for years to come. Also, tbh, last week they torched your iPads and Xbox in a blind rage because there’s something in those infernal machines that make kids go absolutely batshit bonkers.

So here we are! Camp Reruns: your parents’ last hope for enough peace and quiet to send one single solitary goddamned work email is that too much to ask. And if at any point in the day’s programming you grow weary of our offerings, you can always check out our sister retro camps: How About You Shoot Baskets in the Driveway By Yourself for Six Hours, Make a Mix Tape off the Radio And Make Sure You Press Pause Before the DJ Starts Talking, and the ever-popular I Don’t Care Where You Go Just Go Outside and Don’t Come Home Till Dinner. No? We didn’t think so. Now sit down and watch till this is all over.

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