Camp Candy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Camp Candy
Genre	Animated series
Created by	Joel Andryc Ellen Levy Phil Harnage
Directed by	Scott Shaw! (season 1) Dan Thompson (season 2) Winston Richard (season 3) Animation Directors: Robert Alvarez (Season 1)
Starring	John Candy Lewis Arquette Valri Bromfield Danny Mann Cree Summer
Country of origin	United States Canada
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	40
Production
Executive producer(s)	Andy Heyward (seasons 1-2) Haim Saban (seasons 1, 3) John Candy (season 3) Robby London (season 4) David Campbell (season 4)
Producer(s)	Scott Shaw! (seasons 1–2) Winston Richard (season 3)
Running time	23 minutes
Production company(s)	DIC Animation City (seasons 1-2) Saban Entertainment (season 3)
Distributor	Worldvision Enterprises (Season 3)
Release
Original network	NBC (1989–90) Syndication (1991-1992)
Original release	September 9, 1989 (1989-09-09) – Fall 1992

Camp Candy is a 1989-1992 American-Canadian animated television series produced by DIC Animation City, Saban Entertainment and Worldvision Enterprises, in association with Frostbacks Productions, with comedian John Candy providing the voice for an animated version of himself.

The show is set in a fictional summer camp run by John Candy. Twenty-seven episodes of the series aired during the 1989 and 1990 television seasons on the NBC television network. Thirteen new episodes ran in syndication in the 1992 season, distributed by Worldvision Enterprises, along with repeats of the previous episodes. The series was later rerun on the Fox Family cable channel from 1998 to 2001.

In the third season, Candy also appeared in live action segments, talking about nature and ecology.

Harry Nilsson wrote the series' theme song, which he sang with Candy. In both versions, the closing credits featured songs about Camp Candy that were sung to the tune of various traditional camp songs such as “Bingo” (spoofed as “Candy”), “Miss Suzie,” (parodied as "We Have a Camp Called Candy,") “On Top Of Old Smoky,” (parodied as "On Top of Mount Frostback"), “Yankee Doodle Boy” (parodied as “Big John Candy”), “She’ll Be Comin’ Around the Mountain” and “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” (parodied as “Circus Parade").

The animated series spawned a brief comic book series based on the show; also entitled Camp Candy, it was published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint.

Episode formula

Almost all episodes would begin where John Candy would be trying to show an outdoor skill to some kids, to which he would then say it reminded him of a story, where he would tell of the episode in narration. John was a dedicated leader of Camp Candy, a summer camp that is presumably built by him, and he tries to get various kids to get along.

The children included:

• Robin McHale - a nature-loving girl.
• Alexandra Dawson - a redheaded tomboy who is into sports.
• Vanessa Carter - a rich valley girl and snobbish fashionista.
• Iggy Jarvis - a bespectacled hypochondriac.
• Gregory "Binky" Jarvis - Iggy's more adventurous younger brother, and the youngest member of the gang.
• Rick Rogers - an amateur but talented prankster.
• Theodore - A chubby blonde kid who only appears in the third season.

Adult characters included Nurse Molly, a nurse who had a crush on John, but he never seemed to take notice, as he was interested in an attractive redheaded receptionist called Miss Sweetingham. Another adult added during the second season was a man from an unnamed Eastern European country named Botch, who worked as the camp cook and was a basketball junkie, being seen shooting hoops or in some sports-related activity when not working.

John's main antagonists were Xavier "Rex" DeForest III — a man who seeks to demolish Camp Candy in order to make way for a condominium, and Chester — a dimwitted greaser employed by DeForest. Another antagonist included Hob Nayles, a strict disciplinarian who headed the rival Camp Kickboot and sought to humiliate John, but was really a coward at heart.

Cast

Additional voice cast

Episodes

Series overview

Season 1 (1989)

Season 2 (1990–1991)

Season 3 (1992)