Salute Your Shorts


Salute Your Shorts is an American comedy television series that aired on Nickelodeon from 1991 to 1992 with reruns until early 1999. It was based on the 1986 book Salute Your Shorts: Life at Summer Camp by Steve Slavkin and Thomas Hill.
The series is set at the fictional summer camp, Camp Anawanna. It focuses on teenage campers, their strict and bossy counselor, and the various capers and jocularities they engage in. It was primarily filmed at Franklin Canyon Park and the Griffith Park Boys Camp within Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
The title comes from a common prank campers play on each other: a group of children steal a boy's boxer shorts and raise them up a flagpole. Hence, when people see them waving like a flag, other children salute them as part of the prank.
In the second season, Blake Soper joined the cast, playing the part of a suave preppie and ladies-man, Ronald "Ronnie" Foster Pinsky. His clashes with the more rough-and-tumble Budnick become a recurrent theme and the source for various capers as the two boys vie for the attention of the girls at Camp Anawanna.

Cast

The series was not renewed for a third season due to budgetary disputes and most of the cast unwilling to relocate from Los Angeles to Orlando, the home of Nickelodeon Studios.

Episodes

The pilot for the series aired as a special on Nickelodeon in October 1990. After the pilot episode was picked up to series, all of the actors had to re-audition for their roles.

Reception

The series was the second highest rated cable TV series in kids 6–11 during its second season. Despite having not aired new episodes in four years, Salute Your Shorts was among the top 15 highest-rated, regularly scheduled basic-cable series in 1996 according to Variety.

Availability

In March 2010, six episodes from season two became available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon.com, and Zune marketplace. In August 2010, six episodes from season one became available for purchase on each place. Six episodes are also available on Media Go. As of May 2018, the series was the #1 voted show that had yet to see a physical release of a full season in all of television.
Salute Your Shorts has appeared frequently on The Splat, formerly The Are All That, a 1990s oriented program block on TeenNick. Because of the series' relatively short run, the series does not have a permanent time slot, but it has won several U-Picks and has also appeared in holiday blocks.

Reunions

Many of the original cast and crew reunited in September 2012 for a panel at the Comikaze Expo in Los Angeles.
Another reunion occurred in 2015 with most of the cast attending Portland’s Everything Is Festival. Danny Cooksey did not attend as he was recording an album with country and western band Shelter Dogs.

Awards and nominations

The series was also ACE Award-nominated.