Meatballs (film)
Meatballs is a
1979 movie comedy from
Canada. It was the first film appearance of
Bill Murray and, though not his first film, launched
Ivan Reitman into a career of light comedies. It introduced child-actor
Chris Makepeace in the rôle of Rudy Gerner. It was considered somewhat raunchy in its day. It was followed by several sequels, including
Meatballs 2.
The film followed the antics and foibles of the counsellors-in-training (CITs) at Camp Northstar, a cut-rate
summer camp somewhere in the "north woods". The characters range from reasonably sane, to zany, to screwball.
The main part of the plot involves the rivalry with Camp Mohawk, another summer camp across the lake – one with a richer clientele – and Camp Northstar's attempt to come away with, if not outright victory, then at least its very own perverse version of pride, from the yearly "Olympiad" held between Camp Northstar and Camp Mohawk.
The film was made at
Camp White Pine, and other locations in and around
Haliburton, Ontario,
Canada, and features a number of Canadian personalities, notably the aforesaid Chris Makepeace, and also
Harvey Atkin as the long-suffering Morty, who is always the butt of some rather unkind
practical jokes, made possible by his tendency to sleep very deeply.
The original music was written by
Elmer Bernstein, and musicians contributing to the soundtrack included
Mary MacGregor, who performed "Good Friend", and
Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots, who performed the title theme.
One character in the film, a stereotypical
nerd character named "Spaz", struck a chord with viewers, though not always in a positive way. The character wore a broken pair of eyeglasses, fastened together at the bridge with a white piece of tape. In a number of schools there were reports of eyeglass-wearing children being taunted with the name "Spaz".
During the filming of the movie,
Camp White Pine continued business as usual, resulting in many campers and staff members being used as
extras and secondary characters in the film.
