When I think about my childhood, one of the memories that often comes to mind is summer camp. It was a place away from your family where you could run free in nature, make friends with fellow campers, and discover what the world is like from a whole new perspective. While I had the fortunate experience of going to boy scout camps Camp Tadma, Mattatuck, and a few others on-occasion, nothing quite brings back those warm, fuzzy feelings like Camp Anawanna, a fictional summer camp from the 90s Nickelodeon TV show, Salute Your Shorts. A place, as Camp Director Dr. Kahn puts it, is “The happiest place on Earth!”

     To most people, such a bold claim may not be in-line with the imperfect realities of our daily lives. However, when kids turn on the tube to tune in to Salute Your Shorts, our escape into Camp Anawanna is the closest thing to perfection. Inside this sprawling landscape of nature, activities, and friendship lies a group of campers we’ve all come to know and love: ZZ, Telly, Dina, Donkeylips, Sponge, Budnick, Pinsky, and Michael are all kids we could relate to. They weren’t prim-and-proper like Disney child actors; they were gross, unrefined, and talked about things we cared about. We felt like they were one of us and we were one of them, and it was beautiful.

     For those who missed out on visiting “this show with ‘fart’ in their theme song”, Salute Your Shorts aired on Nickelodeon on July 4th, 1991 (after first airing a pilot special in October of the previous year) featuring 7 kids at camp occasionally getting into weird, wacky, and even frightening situations together. It features the campers mentioned above, along with their father figure camp counselor Kevin “Ug” Lee, who keeps them in-line but also likes to tag along with their antics. Occasionally, other side characters, like the mail carrier Mona or Dr. Khan’s niece, Ellen, would show up in an episode to shake things up. Filmed mostly at Franklin National Park in California, the setting perfectly captures the natural splendor of being out in nature during the summertime. It lasted for 2 seasons, 26 episodes, ending on June 29, 1992 (Hey, my birthday! Go figure!), and while it did not have the strongest impact on kids at the time, its true staying power in the minds of 90s kids came from reruns - endless runs of reruns during the mid-nineties. 

     Now 30 years later, Camp Anawanna remains fresh in the minds of die-hard 90s Nick fans who bonded with these campers in their bedrooms and living rooms. To celebrate and honor the show’s legacy, I’ve hand-crafted 15 individual sticker designs (with two variants) of every iconic character fans remember from the series, and before you ask, yes, Zeke the Plumber (the “Freddie Kruger of Custodians'' as ZZ puts it) is here too. I also have illustrations of every single episode that will be released later this summer, but if any of you would like to remember your summertime memories of visiting TV’s favorite summer camp, then look no further than these mementos made with love by Brett Wilson of Brett Wilson Art. You can find all of these retro products available on both my website and my store.

Before I leave, I’ll sing the honorary theme song with you: “Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts, and when we think about you, it makes me wanna fart! It’s ‘I hope we never part, now get it right, or pay the price! Now we will share a lifetime of the fondest memories by the lake of Anawanna, set in the old pine trees! Camp on… we hold you in our hearts, and when we think about you *splash* this thing came apart! Think Anawanna, Love Anawanna, Live Anawanna, Ug!”