50 best television shows set across the United States

Maine: Wet Hot American Summer

The premise: Netflix picked up where the 2001 movie left off. The film of the same name is a satire of American romantic movies about a group of campers at Camp Firewood. The film, and the two subsequent Netflix series, is a parody and spoof, and there is very little to take seriously in the franchise. It’s funny and silly, and you’ll recognize every single rom-com cliche and trope.

Wet Hot American Summer is about a group of campers trying to make romantic connections in their final hours at a summer-long camp. It’s pretty easy to figure out what the subsequent installments are about: Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, and Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. 

The setting: Camp Firewood is in Maine, near the actual town of Waterville, Maine. The camp is located in a rural part of the state and has all sorts of outdoorsy things to do. The franchise gets a lot of mileage out of the slapstick of camp activities.

The most Maine thing about it: The movie (and proceeding series) is based on actual experiences the creator had. As a child, David Wain went to Camp Modin in Belgrade, Maine, and he translated some of what he did there into the film and series. Since Wain and his writing partner are camp alums, so much of what you see is an authentic picture of what an upstate camp would look like in the early 1980s.