Camp Lakebottom

Camp Lakebottom
"Camp Lakebottom, where the zombies drool!" And so does nearly everything else, in fact.
Genre: Comedy-horror Action Adventure Fantasy Running Time: 11-12 minutes Country: Canada Release Date: July 4, 2013 (Canada) July 13, 2013 (USA) - July 24, 2017 Network(s): Teletoon (Canada) Disney XD (USA) Created by: Eric Jacobson Betsy McGowen Distributed by: 9 Story International Distribution Jam Filled Toronto Starring: Scott McCord Melissa Altro Darren Frost Carter Hayden Cliff Saunders Adrian Truss Jonathan Wilson Bryn McAuley Seasons: 3 Episodes: 64 (128 segments)

Camp Lakebottom is a Canadian animated series produced by 9 Story Media Group that aired on Teletoon in its home country, as well as on Disney XD in the U.S. It was created by Eric Jacobson and Betsy McGowen and ran for 64 episodes and three seasons from 2013 to 2017.

Plot

A young camper named McGee tries to go camping in Camp Sunnysmiles with his sister Suzi, but later rides a different bus with Squirt and Gretchen. Jordan Buttsquat, who is Sunnysmiles' King Supreme, uses his remote to change the direction of the arrow to go to the other camp called "Lakebottom", a run-down camp filled with mutant creatures.

"Oh Snap!" Qualities

1. The main problem with this show is that it overly relies on gross-out humor and toilet humor, to the point that it's more disgusting and nauseating than funny. Examples of this include:
   • Fart humor (especially from Squirt)
   • Disturbing snot shots (already presented in the title which is covered in a mucus-like substance)
   • Butt jokes (an example of this is Jordan having Toothy's missing tooth in his rear in "Jaws of Old Toothy")
   • Rancid food gags (which take over most of Rosebud's screen time)
2. Clichéd, unoriginal, annoying, and repetitive writing that never goes beyond the redundant gross-out and unpleasant jokes. A good chunk of the plots used in the show are also very cliché, generic, and also predictable. These include:
   • The body swap episode ("TBA")
   • The time travel episode ("Clockwork Slime")
   • The other dimension episode ("Now With 100% More Portal")
   • The journey to someone's body episode ("TBA")
   • The ugly character uses makeup to turn beautiful episode ("TBA")
   • The ageless birthday episode ("TBA") and the list goes on.
3. Frequent use of many character clichés, like McGee and Suzi's Brother-Sister hate relationship and the wrong bus that takes the main characters to an unexpected and mysterious area they didn't intend to visit.
4. Laughable, cringeworthy and/or nonsensical names for the characters and locations like Buttsquat, Rosebud, Squirt, Fittoblow, Ittibitticus, Lakebottom, Sunnysmiles and Ickygloomy.
5. The flash animation may look fluid, but it never really goes above average. Similar to the Total Drama series where the animation isn't terrible as a whole, it tries to be bouncy but fails and comes off as uncomfortable due to the quality being so limited. It isn't helping that it was animated by Jam Filled Toronto, who also animated another bad Canadian series, Numb Chucks (as a coincidence, Camp Lakebottom and Numb Chucks were both produced by 9 Story Media Group).
   • The art style is lazy and plain boring, and it features some of the most hideous background designs imaginable as well as one of the most disgusting you'll ever see in an animated series. They try hard to look desolate and bone-dry to assemble a barren atmosphere (dead trees, broken planks, moss all over the place) instead of showing an attempt to simultaneously keep their grotesque feel and make a gorgeous visual delight. This could've redeemed any of the show's unreformable flaws when it comes to its visuals, yet Camp Lakebottom took another path, acknowledging that its backgrounds look in the same level as the lazy characters, completely ignoring that possible fragmentary salvation in the process.
     • The color palette does not help either, since it mostly consists of mossy green, saturated tan, beige, and any wasteland-related colors.
   • Ugly and below-average-looking character designs, particularly the ones for McGee, Squirt, and Rosebud as well as the monsters (Armand, Sawyer, Ittibitticus, etc.). Some of the monster/mutant designs are very unsettling to look at as well, like Gretchen when she was turned into a were-chicken in "Cluck of the Were Chicken".
6. Almost all of the characters are forgettable, annoying and/or unlikable, as they derive from stereotypes with no original or interesting traits to redeem their genericness at the very least:
   • McGee, the main character, is an idiot that has no common sense and does stupid things for the plot to advance, just to be portrayed as the hero at the end.
   • Gretchen Gritcherson, while likable, is a Karate expert tomboy who always cries "Haya!" when kicking or slapping.
   • Squirt is a lizzo-sized kid that eats everything around him and has the most fart scenes out of the entire cast.
   • Suzi is a selfish, spoiled, and rich blonde fashion diva who wears pink clothes.
   • Jordan Buttsquat is a snooty, merciless bully who constantly taunts McGee and his friends just so he can take over Camp Lakebottom. He qualifies as a Mean Popular Boy because of this.
7. There are tons of insufferable or mean-spirited moments, such as:
   • In the first episode, "Escape From Camp Lakebottom", when McGee and his friends finally get to Camp Sunnysmiles, the campers there don't accept them and just as the trio lands on the beach, they are quickly trapped in a cage and made fun of.
   • In "28 Suzis Later...", McGee taunts Suzi and Jordan for losing the game of Tug of War, which upsets Suzi and makes her wish to not be McGee's sister anymore.
8. Nonsensical logic fails such as McGee and the gang building inventions that look worn out in "TBA".
9. Gretchen's voice is very annoying, and she sounds more like a drag queen than an actual tomboy. And while the rest of the voice acting is decent for the most part, it can be grating to hear at times (most notable with Ittibitticus' screaming in the middle of "The Sword of Ittibitticus", in which his screaming is painful, insufferable, and irritating, to the point where it will get on your last nerves. See it for yourself).
   • On that topic, the voice acting in both the Venezuelan and Dutch dubs is downright awful.
10. This show pretty much takes ideas from other camp-themed shows like Camp Lazlo, Scaredy Camp, and Bunk'd.
11. On the topic of its panoramic poor qualities, it somehow got greenlit for two more seasons, but it still wasn't enough for the show to improve, making these seasons just as bad, if not, much worse than how the show already was in its first season.

Spooky Qualities (Good Qualities)

1. Rosebud, Armand, Sawyer, and Gretchen are the only likable characters.
2. Despite it being annoying at times, the voice acting is decent (aside from Melissa Altro as Gretchen).
3. It has a few episodes that are actually good or decent, such as:
   • "TBA" (the series finale, which was a decent send-off to the series and is arguably the best episode)
4. The theme song is catchy and has better animation than the show itself.
   • Likewise, the ending credits theme fits the camp setting perfectly due to its music and the predominant blue colors, which are an undeniably better choice than the actual backgrounds seen in the show.
5. Some of the backgrounds are good, especially the nighttime scenarios.
6. The designs for a few of the characters (such as Gretchen, Suzi and Jordan Buttsquat) are also good.
7. It does teach a lot of helpful morals like facing your fears.

Reception

Camp Lakebottom received mixed to negative reviews from critics and audiences. It currently has a 5/10 on IMDb, though it strangely did receive a 91% on Google.

Episodes With Their Own Pages

• "Pranks for Nothing"

Trivia

• Bryn McAuley, who provides the voice of Suzi, also voiced Laney from Grojband and Eleanor from The Day My Butt Went Psycho! (two other Teletoon shows from 2013).

Videos

TBA

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