{{Good article}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}} {{Infobox Simpsons episode | image = | caption = | season = 4 | episode = 1 | director = Mark Kirkland | writer = David M. Stern | production = 8F24 | airdate = {{Start date|1992|09|24}} | guests = | blackboard = "This punishment is not boring and pointless" | couch_gag = The family finds Fred Flintstone, Wilma, and Pebbles already sitting on the couch.<ref name="bbc">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/simpsons/episodeguide/season4/page2.shtml|title=Kamp Krusty|access-date=September 21, 2007|last1=Martyn |first1=Warren |author-link1=Gary Russell |last2 = Wood |first2=Adrian |author-link2=Gareth Roberts (writer)|year=2000|publisher=BBC|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 31, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070831191914/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/simpsons/episodeguide/season4/page2.shtml}}</ref> | commentary = Matt Groening<br />Al Jean<br />Mark Kirkland<br />David Silverman | prev = Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes? | next = A Streetcar Named Marge"<hr>"Kamp Krustier }} "'''Kamp Krusty'''" is the fourth season premiere of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. The 60th episode overall, it originally aired on the Fox Network in the United States on September 24, 1992. It was written by David M. Stern, and directed by Mark Kirkland.
In the episode, the children of Springfield attend Kamp Krusty, a summer camp named after Krusty the Clown. The camp is extremely unpleasant, leading to the campers rebelling against the camp director. Meanwhile, with the kids away, Homer and Marge enjoy more time together, and Homer becomes physically and emotionally healthier.
Both the writers and animators were excited to work on the episode, with the latter having experience with summer camps, and wanted to work to portray them correctly. Although it never came to fruition, it was suggested that the plot for "Kamp Krusty" could be an outline for a possible ''The Simpsons'' film, but the episode itself barely fit its own runtime minimum. Retrospectively, the episode received generally positive reviews from critics. A direct sequel episode, "Kamp Krustier", aired as part of the series' twenty-eighth season, on March 5, 2017.
==Plot== Bart and Lisa attend the summer camp Kamp Krusty, leaving Homer and Marge to have some time alone for the summer. The camp's director, Mr. Black, has licensed the camp's name from Krusty the Clown. However, the camp turns out to be a dystopia; as Lisa explains in a letter to her parents, "Our nature hikes have become grim death marches. Our arts and crafts center is, in actuality, a Dickensian workhouse." The camp counselors are bullies Dolph, Jimbo and Kearney, who feed the campers Krusty-Brand Imitation Gruel while enjoying deluxe accommodations themselves; the bullies sip brandy with Mr. Black, who intones: "Gentlemen, to evil!" Worst of all, Krusty himself is unaware of the camp's conditions and is currently on a vacation in London.
To appease the restless campers, Mr. Black tells the children that Krusty himself is coming to visit. However, "Krusty" turns out to be a poorly disguised Barney Gumble, and the ruse does not fool Bart. Bart then leads the campers in revolt, driving out Mr. Black and the bullies and changing the camp's name to Camp Bart. Meanwhile, Homer and Marge see a breaking news report of the campers' revolt. After learning that Bart is the leader of the rebellion, Homer instantly loses the hair he grew and regains the weight he lost since the children went to camp.
After the real Krusty is informed of Kamp Krusty's conditions, he returns from London to visit the camp. He apologizes to the campers for their ordeal and his ignorance of their plight; Mr. Black had bribed Krusty with a "dump truck full of money" in order to gain full control of the camp. To make it up to the campers, Krusty takes them for "two weeks at the happiest place on Earth: Tijuana!". As "South of the Border" (sung by Gene Merlino) plays, a montage is shown of Krusty and the campers vacationing in Tijuana, but Krusty misses the bus home at the end of the trip.
==Production== [[File:Jameslbrooks.jpg|thumb|James L. Brooks originally wanted the episode to become a film.]] The idea that the children should go to a camp run by Krusty the Clown was first suggested by David M. Stern. The animators were enthusiastic about making this episode because they had all gone to summer camps as children and thought it would be a fun episode to write for.<ref name="Mark Kirkland.">{{cite video|people=Kirkland, Mark|date=2004|title=The Simpsons The Complete Fourth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Kamp Krusty"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref> The writers also thought that "it would be fun if while the kids are gone Homer and Marge find that as the kids are miserable their marriage is better than ever".<ref name="Al Jean and Mark Kirkland.">{{cite video | people=Jean, Al; Kirkland, Mark|date=2004|title=The Simpsons The Complete Fourth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Kamp Krusty"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref> The layout for Bart and Lisa's cabin was influenced by the director, Mark Kirkland, who as a child went to a Boy Scout camp that had exposed wires and other similar faults.<ref name="Mark Kirkland."/> Kirkland was also sure that the character Mr. Black would reappear later in the series, but he never did. Al Jean commented, "I guess that the hydrofoil really got Mr. Black out of the show forever".<ref name="Al Jean and Mark Kirkland."/>
After he saw the completed episode, James L. Brooks called the writers and suggested that the "Kamp Krusty" script be used as a plotline for a film. However, the episode ran very short, and to make it barely fit the minimum time, the ''Kamp Krusty'' song had to be lengthened by a number of verses. The episode was also chosen to be the season premiere of the fourth season of ''The Simpsons'', further complicating matters. As Jean told Brooks, "First of all, if we make it into the movie then we don't have a premiere, and second, if we can't make 18 minutes out of this episode how are we supposed to make 80?"<ref name="Al Jean.">{{cite video | people=Jean, Al|date=2004|title=The Simpsons The Complete Fourth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Kamp Krusty"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref>
Along with the following episode, "A Streetcar Named Marge", "Kamp Krusty" was a holdover from the previous season's production run. It was the final episode to be produced in this run and so the last animated at Klasky Csupo, before the show's producers Gracie Films moved its domestic production to Film Roman.<ref name="Mark Kirkland."/><ref>{{cite news|author= Bernstein, Sharon|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-01-21-fi-739-story.html|title='The Simpsons' Producer Changes Animation Firms|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=January 21, 1992|page=18|access-date=January 15, 2022}}</ref>
==Cultural references== Bart's dream sequence at the beginning of the episode ends with the students destroying Springfield Elementary School to Alice Cooper's "School's Out".<ref name=":0" /> The idea for the song sung by the children was from a 1960s TV show called ''Camp Runamuck'', which has a theme song similar in structure to the ''Kamp Krusty'' song.<ref name="bbc" /><ref name="Al Jean and Mark Kirkland." /> The scene where Lisa gives a bottle of whiskey to a man on horseback as payment for delivering a letter is a reference to a similar scene with Meryl Streep in the film ''The French Lieutenant's Woman''.<ref>{{cite video | people=Kirkland, Mark; Groening, Matt|date=2004|title=The Simpsons The Complete Fourth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Kamp Krusty"| medium=DVD|publisher=20th Century Fox}}</ref>
Some aspects of "Kamp Krusty" are references to the novel ''Lord of the Flies'', such as a pig's head being placed on the end of a spear, kids wielding primitive weapons and wearing war paint, and a burning effigy.<ref name="Mark Kirkland." /> The scene where Kearney beats a drum to make the campers work in the sweatshop is taken from the slave galley scene in the film ''Ben-Hur''.<ref name="Al Jean." /> The episode ends with the song "South of the Border". According to the DVD commentary, the version used in the credits was not sung by Frank Sinatra, but by another artist impersonating him.<ref name="Al Jean and Mark Kirkland." />
==Reception and legacy== In its original broadcast, "Kamp Krusty" finished 24th in ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1992, with a Nielsen rating of 13.5, equivalent to approximately 12.6 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week.<ref>{{cite news |title=Nielsen ratings|work=Daily Breeze|agency=Associated Press|page=D4|date=September 30, 1992 }}</ref>
Nathan Rabin of ''The A.V. Club'' gave the episode an A, ultimately saying the episode began ''the Simpsons''' fourth season in an amazing way.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.avclub.com/the-simpsons-classic-kamp-krusty-1798172210|title=The Simpsons (Classic): "Kamp Krusty"|first=Nathan|last=Rabin|website=www.avclub.com|date=April 1, 2012|access-date=January 15, 2022}}</ref> Gary Russell and Gareth Roberts,<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/tsv51/garyrussell.html|title=Gary Russell: From Peladon to Placebos|author=Preddle, Jon|date=June 1997|magazine=Time Space Visualiser|issue=51|access-date=20 August 2020|publisher=The New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club|quote=I've just done my first non-fiction book, Oh No It's A Completely Unofficial Simpsons Guide for Virgin, co-authored with Gareth Roberts which has, to be frank, been more of a nightmare than it needed to be [the book was published as I Can't Believe It's An Unofficial Simpsons Guide, with Gary and Gareth writing under the pseudonyms Warren Martyn & Adrian Wood].}}</ref> the authors of the book ''I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide'', had mixed views about the episode. They said that it is "A bit baffling to non-Americans unfamiliar with the summer camp system. But top grade stuff nonetheless. Anyone who's worked as a counsellor in such a place can testify to this episode's authenticity."<ref name="bbc"/> The episode's reference to ''Ben-Hur'' was named the 31st greatest film reference in the history of the show by ''Total Film''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Nathan Ditum.<ref name="totalfilm">{{cite news|url=https://www.gamesradar.com/the-50-greatest-simpsons-movie-references|title=The 50 Greatest Simpsons Movie References|last=Ditum|first=Nathan|date=June 6, 2009 |work=Total Film|publisher=GamesRadar|access-date=July 22, 2009}}</ref>
A direct sequel episode, "Kamp Krustier", aired as part of the series' twenty-eighth season, on March 5, 2017. This was the series' first direct sequel of a previous episode. Like "Kamp Krusty", "Kamp Krustier" was written by David M. Stern, who had not written for the show since 1999.<ref name="St. James">{{cite web|last=St. James|first=Emily|author-link=Emily St. James|url=https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/12/14887250/the-simpsons-kamp-krustier-recap-review|title=The Simpsons' "Kamp Krustier" revisits a classic episode with surprisingly funny results|website=Vox|date=March 12, 2017|access-date=July 23, 2023|archive-date=July 23, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230723215602/https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/12/14887250/the-simpsons-kamp-krustier-recap-review|url-status=live}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|The Simpsons}} * "Kamp Krustier"
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikiquote|The_Simpsons/Season_4#Kamp_Krusty|Kamp Krusty}} * {{Snpp capsule|8F24}} * {{IMDb episode|id=0701142}}
{{The Simpsons episodes|4}}
Category:The Simpsons season 4 episodes Category:1992 American television episodes Category:Television episodes set in summer camps Category:Tijuana in fiction Category:Television episodes set in Mexico Category:Television episodes directed by Mark Kirkland