Camp of approval: The (surprising) return of Wet Hot American Summer

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If there's any doubt that we're living in a golden, or at least sepia-tinged, age of nostalgia, then take a look at the pop-culture calendar for the next year and a half. Mulder and Scully will crack cases for the FBI, the Tanner family will live under one roof, Jeff Goldblum will foil the advances of aliens set on conquering America on its mightiest of holidays and Agent Dale Cooper will drink some damn fine coffee.

As depressing as the returns of The X-Files, Full House, Independence Day and Twin Peaks may be, though, they all make sense. Each was either a massive critical hit or once sparked such a tremor in the cultural conversation that the desire for a second life has only metastasized with time, even if most properties proved they could barely withstand their own original lifespans. But who, exactly, was begging for a follow-up to Wet Hot American Summer?

The 2001 comedy was neither popular (total box-office take: $295,000 U.S.) nor critically adored (sample line from The Washington Post's review: "It was so depressing I almost started to cry"). Yet, thanks to a number of disparate factors, the film is enjoying a welcome, if not raucous, resurrection: On July 31, Netflix will release Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, an eight-episode prequel miniseries featuring the entire original cast and a rash of high-profile guest stars. But unlike the retreads involving cigarette-smoking men and John Stamos – not to mention the current and equally dispiriting déjà vus of Jurassic World and Go Set a Watchman – Wet Hot American Summer is worthy of a rebirth.

Directed by David Wain and co-written with the film's star, Michael Showalter, Wet Hot American Summer is, in its own way, the most successful bomb ever made. From its remarkable, if originally little-known, cast down to its extremely absurd sensibilities, the film set a template for the future of American comedy, one that can be felt today in everything from the mainstream sitcom world to the lighter corners of the Marvel cinematic universe.

Ostensibly a parody of the tiny, niche summer-camp movie boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s – think Meatballs, Porky's, and, um, Meatballs Part II and Porky's II: The Next Day – Wain and Showalter simply use that log-line as an excuse to wallow in non sequiturs and delightfully weird riffs on pop tropes.

To list just a few examples, all of which are played for laughs: A succession of young campers drown thanks to a careless lifeguard; a group of kids are left hanging in mortal danger near the edge of a waterfall for hours on end; and a trip into town for happy-go-lucky counsellors descends into a heroin-induced breakdown on par with The Panic in Needle Park. Oh, and there's a talking can of vegetables.

If all that sounds like material from a way-too-late night of sketch comedy, then you're not far off: Wain and Showalter, along with cast members Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino and Joe Lo Truglio, were all members of The State, the oft-bizarre and pitch-black comedy group that, for a brief time, enjoyed a run on MTV. The group's dedication to absurdism always bordered on the surreal, and in Wet Hot, it's cranked up to Dada-esque levels of nonsense. But it's also undeniably hilarious nonsense – and a style that would go on to spawn the so-silly-it's-smart comedy of Adam McKay (Anchorman), NBC's better sitcoms, nearly everything ever aired on Adult Swim (here's looking at you, Too Many Cooks, and the entire career of Wet Hot co-star Paul Rudd, up to and including Ant-Man (a project Wain was once circling).

Speaking of Rudd: Nearly every member of Wet Hot's cast went on to dominate the comedy world, including Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation), Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect), H. Jon Benjamin (Bob's Burgers), A.D. Miles (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) and even Bradley Cooper (hey, he was funny in Wedding Crashers). Whether or not Netflix shares its appreciation of the film's legacy, it would be foolish to refuse a project where each of those A-listers – plus a few of those lower on the alphabetical index – was eager to return.

Audiences may not have known it at the time of its disastrous debut, but Wet Hot American Summer was priming the comedy world for an era where the weird was finally welcome. For those who discovered it on home video and cable – and there are many – the film acted as a kind of cinematic gateway drug to the alt-comedy scene and was even a sort of cultural barometer. As Showalter recently told Rolling Stone, the film "became a thing where if you were on a date with somebody and they didn't like Wet Hot, you know it's not gonna go well."

The new series, of course, is less consequential. That's not an insult – set a few months before the events of the first film but with a noticeably older and fatter cast who make little effort to disguise that fact, First Day of Camp is just as wry and unorthodox as Wain and Showalter's original creation.

Yet, in an era where transgressive comedy is the norm – an era Wet Hot itself created – it can't help but lack the strange calling-to-arms spark of the original. But as a refined piece of nostalgia, it's more than worth reliving.