Review: Camp Camp “Preston Goodplay’s Good Play”

Encore! Encore!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

When David reveals his past as a clown school graduate in Paris, he demonstrates that even though his French is still fluent, his juggling skills aren’t. As a result, he topples over with his balls, causing the campers to burst into laughing fits. Preston takes this opportunity to make a character based off of him: “Wacky Camp Counselor.” It’s an immediate hit among the campers, and this causes Preston to want to combine his juggling caricature of David with theater. He writes an artistic show about the character’s struggle to juggle, but the campers don’t want any avant-garde storytelling — they just want to see a dumb bozo drop his balls and fall over. He decides to give in, and do just that.

As Preston becomes famous throughout the camp, he argues with himself over what matters more to him: being adored, or being true to his art. The campers then try to control what he should do in his shows, which causes Preston to have a mental breakdown over his artistic integrity. He doesn’t want a future where he sells himself out for cheap slapstick comedy, so he goes to kill himself — until David coincidentally stops to talk with him. He convinces Preston that audiences will love him for his passion, not his content, so Preston decides to write the artsy “Wacky Camp Counselor” show he’s always wanted to perform. The campers hate it, of course, but Preston thanks David anyway for restoring his “high-brow” taste.

Our Take

Brava! We finally got a proper Preston episode.

In a few ways, the comedic stylings and setups for this episode were very reminiscent of two cherished Spongebob Squarepants cartoons: “As Seen on TV” and “Squirrel Jokes.” Preston gets in over his head with his fame, desperate to keep up with what his fans want, while making fun of David’s juggling mishap (which, as seen in his internalized flashback, was not a fun thing for David to relive.) Both of these toon hijinks that were executed in a hyperbolic way that managed to land that classic feel, without being too predictable. While David could have easily realized Wacky Camp Counselor was about him, they chalked his ignorance up to his sweetened naivety. Also — Preston was going to straight up kill himself. That’s a flair for the comedic and the dramatic!

This episode kind of emboldened the reason why we don’t get a lot of Preston-led plots (other than the fact that the writers have several main and side characters to juggle [juggling reference intended.]) He really is a character that is so entertaining to watch, that he really could just wind up stealing the spotlight from the intended main characters. Everything from his voice acting to his neurotic tendencies makes him a very animated individual to watch. If Camp Camp decides to just forgo the deeper plot (like it’s been seemingly doing) they might as well just do a bunch of fun Preston episodes.

Seriously, though — how long are they going to keep ignoring the Cameron-David stuff? It just feels really awkward that Cameron’s appearance has barely been a baseline for the season. On the subject of David, seeing the campers bully him (even if he wasn’t aware of it) really harkens back to the problem with the first season. It really isn’t entertaining to watch such a sweet guy get pushed around like this — it’s just upsetting. It is, however, heartwarming to see him being so supportive and encouraging towards the kids again. On another note, it is just good to see him play a bigger role this season in general, considering he really hasn’t been around much thus far.

Did we get David content? Yes. Was it guessable that said content would be more about his estranged years in clown school where he learned French and realized his purpose was nature? No, it was not.

But god damn, do I want more.