Unfortunately, they got the wrong house and Doug had to give it back. I don't know how Doug thought he just got to keep the package that must have obviously been delivered to the wrong house, but he did, and he was very disappointed when the men from the post office broke into his home, entered his room and tapped him on the shoulder to demand the package back. Doug also mentions lame surprises like some exercise equipment he ordered. The best surprise he's ever gotten was a letter from Bolivia.
The whole family is very interested in the letter from Bolivia. Perhaps the letter will explain what happened to the backs of their chairs. Doug refuses to tell them what the letter is about without starting from the beginning. So it all began last summer. Doug was really excited about his summer vacation. He wanted to be super organized for summer to get the most out of it.
He's planned out the first half of his day, which is almost over as he's checking off items on the list. His day, and summer, falls apart completely at noon when he finds out Skeeter was accepted to Camp Einstein last night and had to rush off this morning. According to Doug, the only thing left on his schedule for the day was at 4:00, and that event was "avoid Roger." Doug does this by hanging out alone at the Honkerburger. Here's how that plan worked out.
Roger makes jokes about Doug getting rejected from camps and steals some of his fries.
At home, Doug's parents suggest he go to a summer camp
Camp Sullen sounds like a dream. It's not that they want him to change his attitude. They just want him to be sulky and bored somewhere else so they can have sex and get pregnant. Right after he tells them that he's just not the summer camp kind of guy, the doorbell rings.
Patti just wants to return his Smash Adams tape before she goes to sports camp. She says, "too bad you're not going! We'd have a lot of fun!" Doug immediately gets on his knees and begs his parents to let him go to sports camp.
The next day Doug has the typical goodbye scene with his parents. They tell him to write and tell him to be safe and give him sunglasses and slap him so hard in the ass that he falls down as he's getting on the bus. At first he thinks he's on the wrong bus, but then Patti starts calling out to him.
Patti is excited that he's come along, and says the camp will be fun and sporty. He has the same fantasy as earlier with the same song using different lyrics because camp is fun and sporty now instead of fun and educational.
At camp, Doug is surprised to find that it's not as relaxed and fun as he assumed. Coach Spitz runs the camp, and he has no patience for Doug's sunglasses.
Please note the gentleman wearing the shirt pointing at his crotch, and please, if you wish to get me something for Christmas, consider such a shirt.
Anyway, Coach Spitz reveals that Patti and Chalky are his assistants. This entire camp is run by one adult and two children. This should be good. Coach Spitz tells them to put their shit up and regroup at the obstacle course in 15 minutes.
In a letter home, Doug talks about how great camp is. On the first day they went rowing, swimming, rock climbing and life saving.
All of these activities were a result of the previous activity sucking. The row boat capsized, so they had to swim to shore, where they had to climb a whole 10 feet, and wait for a helicopter to airlift them back to camp. This camp is amazing.
Doug says they trained for a big basketball game with the camp across the lake. Predictably he sucks at basketball and is worn out by his feeble attempts to keep up. After plopping down on his cot for a rest, Leonard pops down to let him in on a secret.
Leonard plans to escape from Grinning Bear Sports Camp. He's already escaped from 3 other camps this summer. His plan to escape this one is called "Operation: Moo Moo" and involves a cow suit made of old baseball gloves.
"Got room in the rear if you're interested."
"...uhhhh"
Coach Spitz, Chalky and Patti are watching the shittiest news report on the slowest news day ever. The news is talking about the big basketball game Grinning Bear Sports Camp will be participating in. There's a few shots of the other team training.
They also have a see-saw and real exercise equipment. There's an interview with Camp All Star's coach, Piney Ziegler, where we just find out that Camp All Star is a super exclusive camp where everyone has their own personal trainer (among other things) and so their winning streak is hardly unexpected. After the interview, Coach Spitz squeezes a tomato. He says they'll beat Camp All Star this year because they have the drive to win, the will to win, and fruit. He makes Patti and Chalky squeeze the banana and grapes they have, and no that is not a euphemism. I hope. Coach Spitz mentions a secret weapon, but won't reveal what it is. Looking out the window, he sees Leonard in his cow suit and tells him to get back to his bunk.
At Camp All Star, Coach Ziegler is talking on the phone with someone he calls Falcon. Falcon tells him about Grinning Bear's secret weapon.
At dinner, Doug hides his pain from Patti as she tells him how great he did today.
Percy Femur sits down and makes a joke at Doug's expense. Patti defends him in a way that makes him feel worse than Percy's joke. Percy then plays up how awesome Camp All Star is, and Chalky asks him how he knows so much about it. "One word: SHUT UP!" So yeah, Percy's the spy. After dinner, Doug finds out about Operation: Trash Dump.
The next morning, Leonard comes walking back into camp with flies buzzing around his head. Coach Spitz welcomes him back over the intercom system. Doug says that Leonard inspired him to come up with his own plan: Operation: Impress Patti. Nothing's more inspiring than two miserable failures. Doug imagines his plan in action. Basically he's just awesome at basketball.
And he's taken Nike's slogan and shoved it in their fucking face.
In practice, his plan sucks. He can't do any fancy dribbling, and he really sucks at making baskets. He throws the ball into the trash once, through a window once, and into an old woman in a wheelchair that's actually Leonard in disguise once. Another escape plan foiled!
Patti tells him to work on his accuracy a bit, and one of the easiest ways to be more accurate is to throw underhanded.
He finally gets one in the basket, but is worried about looking cool. She dismisses his concern, but Chalky comes along and shows off.
Chalky and Patti leave him to practice on his own. He just sits down on the ball. Percy walks up and makes more jokes and comments that reveal he is obviously the spy for Camp All Star.
Doug says the big game was on everyone's minds for the next week. The only thing on his mind was not looking like a dork in front of Patti. At practice, he throws the ball at Coach Spitz's head. Because of this, he has to stay behind and practice more. Patti offers to stay and help. Then Chalky stays too, which pisses Doug off.
Somewhere else, Coach Spitz is making the other students squeeze tomatoes. He's finally going to reveal his secret weapon.
What a let down. One girl asks him what it's made out of and he tells her not to worry about that. He tosses her another tomato and says, "just keep squeezing." All the kids squeeze tomatos and we get to follow the juice as it runs into a drain on the floor, through a rube goldberg of pipes and sieves, and into more bottles with the Liquid Spitz label. Gross and criminal.
After the secret weapon is revealed, Percy sneaks off to make a phone call.
No one is surprised and Coach Ziegler is relieved to know he doesn't have anything to worry about. Meanwhile, Coach Spitz makes everyone present drink Liquid Spitz, and it's a gross drink (obviously) and no one likes it.
At practice, Patti is barking orders and Doug fails to make a shot again. She asks why he won't shoot underhanded, and he says he doesn't want to look like a dork. She points out that shooting air-balls is dorky and he gets offended. Chalky tries to help and Doug gets offended and calls him a ball hog. As Doug storms off, Chalky asks Patti about it and she sort of reinforces Doug's point by pointing out that he takes a lot of shots. Chalky is stunned, but Patti chases after Doug. She tries to get Doug to see the point, but he gets snarky and shuts her down. He's such a douche sometimes.
The next morning, Doug wakes up worried he's hurt Patti's feelings. Also he see's Leonard's next brilliant plan.
Dressed as a plumber, he's going to escape through the sewer. Before the game, Leonard gets started on his great adventure through the sewer.
At the game, Coach Spitz notices all his players look sick and offers them more Liquid Spitz. This makes them all sick and they run to the bathroom.
The ensuing flushes rush into the sewers and make Leonard panic.
Meanwhile, at the game, Coach Spitz finds he doesn't have enough players. With everyone sick, he only has Doug, Patti, Chalky and Percy. They need at least 5 players. As Percy smugly points out that they'll have to forfeit, Leonard comes shooting out of the sewer. They've found their fifth man. Doug sees this as his last chance to prove himself to Patti.
The first half of the game sucks. Doug can't shoot. Chalky keeps passing the ball to Doug. Percy hands the ball to the players on the other team. Instead of a good halftime speech, Coach Spitz just yells at everyone. Doug interrupts to give a real halftime speech.
He says he's just jealous of Chalky and that Patti is a great assistant coach. His speech is so motivational even Percy is moved. In the second half of the game, Chalky plays like he should, Patti plays like she should, Percy switches sides, and Doug and Leonard are as useless as they normally are. Right at the end of the game, as Grinning Bear is losing by one point, Doug is fouled by this tall fucker.
Hardly seems like a fair game. Doug gets to take a couple of free throws. He immediately goes into a fantasy.
In the fantasy, he's in the same situation in a larger venue but he just imagines he's shooting free throws underhanded and the entire stadium is laughing at him. After the fantasy, Doug says it's just a game and he wants to go out in style. He throws overhanded and misses. Everyone laughs. He realizes that he's let his team down because he didn't want to look stupid. He throws the last free throw underhanded and makes the shot. It ties up the game and his team celebrates.
The ref calls overtime, and Grinning Bear wins the game by 6 points. During the celebration, Judy finally interrupts Doug's story to ask what this shit has to do with a letter from Bolivia.
Fucking finally. Did you forget this had something to do with a letter from Bolivia? So anyway, that letter from Boliva was just from Leonard. It may be several months later, and school may have started weeks ago, but Leonard finally escaped that awful two week camp and Coach Spitz will never find him.
Oh wait, no...there he is, right behind Leonard in Bolivia.
This episode is fucking insane. Doug gets a letter from South America and in telling his family why, he had to explain how he became a hero at summer camp after being so unnecessarily worried about being dorky for two weeks? No. Did he really sit there and tell his family this whole story where he mostly looks like a stupid asshole instead of saying, "oh there was this weird kid at camp that kept trying to escape. I guess he finally made it and I should find his parents and tell them where he is. Haha...Bolivia, huh? How the fuck did he make it that far!?" Maybe. If this is the first they've heard of this story, then it didn't happen. If this happened, Doug would have told them when he got home from camp. Maybe he was just a narcissistic asshole the whole time he was at camp and it took him a few months to figure out a way to tell his family his summer camp story without looking like a total shithead.
As for the letter from Bolivia? Who knows? I remember at some point during elementary school, I was made to write letters to some pen pal at another school across the country. I had no interest in the project, and apparently neither did my pen pal. Maybe Doug had a similar project set up for him in elementary school and it finally paid off in the best possible way for him; as an excuse to lie to his family to make himself look better.
Since the whole show is Doug recounting events for us via journal entries, this episode is extra annoying. It's a flashback within a flashback.
ReplyDeletefunny how this all could have been avoided had he just said, "It's from some kid I met at camp."