The film features an ensemble cast, with Janeane Garofalo and David Hyde Pierce starring alongside Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Showalter (and various other members of the sketch comedy group The State), Marguerite Moreau, Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Zak Orth, A. D. Miles, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper (in his film debut), Marisa Ryan, Kevin Sussman, Joe Lo Truglio, and Elizabeth Banks.
It takes place during the last full day at a fictional summer camp in 1981, and spoofs the sex comedies aimed at teen audiences of that era.
The interleaved story threads meet in the evening at the camp talent show: Cook Gene, a Vietnam War veteran, clumsily tries to hide his various sexual fetishes.
But after being encouraged by a talking can of vegetables, he proudly admits them all in front of the packed food hall, to great applause.
Beth forces Ben and Susie to give the last slot of their talent show to strange outsider Steve.
He surprises everyone when during his time on stage an intense storm breaks out inside and outside the venue, seemingly created only with the power of Steve's mind.
But when both bid farewell the next morning, she explains that she has returned to Andy again, even though she knows he is a terrible boyfriend, because he is very attractive and she is only interested in sex at the moment, leaving Coop speechless.
After rudely rejecting her first, he changes his mind and does science projects with a group of nerdy children, bonding with them and getting closer to Beth, eventually sleeping with her.
He is promised sex by the promiscuous Abby this night, but is told by Beth to go on a rafting trip with several campers and Neil.
With the help of the children, especially Aaron, she finally finds the courage to reject Ron when he arrives during the talent show and asks her to come back to him.
Wet Hot American Summer premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it was screened four times to sold-out crowds,[14] though it failed to attract a distributor.
The website's critical consensus reads, "Wet Hot American Summer's incredibly talented cast is too often outmatched by a deeply silly script that misses its targets at least as often as it skewers them.
[19] Newsweek's David Ansen also lauded it, calling it a "gloriously silly romp" that "made me laugh harder than any other movie this summer.
Actress Kristen Bell stated on NPR on September 2, 2012, that Wet Hot American Summer was her favorite film, having watched it "hundreds of times.
[29] During a 2015 interview with Variety, Wain and Showalter stated that they wrote a pilot for a possible Fox television series based on the film.
Alongside the prequel series, a making-of documentary, Hurricane of Fun: The Making of Wet Hot, was released on Netflix on July 24, 2015, consisting of behind-the-scenes interviews and footage shot during the filming of the movie.