Horrible Camping Trip: Difference between revisions

 

See also [[Macho Disaster Expedition]] and [[Summer Campy]]. [[Don't Go in The Woods]] is the darker and deadlier [[Horror]] equivalent of this.

 

* Episode 8 of ''[[Persona 4: The Animation|Persona 4]]'' takes the game's school camping trip and turns it into this. [[Up to Eleven]]. [[Broken Base|And it breaks the fanbase over whether]] [[Crosses the Line Twice|it's funny]] [[Dude, Not Funny|or not.]] (Though there's no doubt about how much [[Butt Monkey|it sucks to be Kanji]].)

 

* ''[[Deliverance]]'', like the James Dickey novel on which it's based, plays this trope completely straight and to its logical, tragic extreme.

* The premise of ''[[Cheaper By the Dozen]] 2'' has the Patriach of the Baker family taking his family to a camping lodge. Of course, things do go awry but what really dampens the trip is the father competing with his arch-rival and his family.

* [[Cannibal Holocaust]] portrays this in the most scary, bloody, gory and violent way imaginable.

 

* In one of the [[Bruno and Boots]] books, the students go on the annual "wilderness survival" camping trip, which is nicknamed "Die in the Woods". (The canoe they bring along is christened the SS Drown In The Woods.) {{spoiler|It really does become a matter of wilderness survival when all their supplies end up in the lake.}}

* One of the ''[[Berenstain Bears]]'' books details a horrible camping trip that's tainted not only with everything imaginable from floods to swarms of insects, but [[Hype Backlash]]. (Papa bear spends the first third of the book hyping the trip up to be the experience of a lifetime)

* Charlie goes on one with his dad and friends in [[Stephen King]]'s (writing as Richard Bachman) ''[[Rage (novel)|Rage]]''. He overhears his father discussing the Cherokee Nose Job with his friends (slitting the nose of an adulterous wife) and how he would do it to his own wife if she cheated on him.

 

* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', "Strange New World"

* ''[[Happy Days]]'', "Ugh, Wilderness"

* In ''[[The Middle]]'', the Hecks go on a camping trip during summer vacation, since Frankie wants them to have a family bonding experience and they can't afford anything else. Axl gets fed up with Sue constantly pestering him about what high school will be like, Brick spends as much time as he can reading instead of actually experiencing the great outdoors, and Mike and Frankie reflect on how their honeymoon was ''also'' a Horrible Camping Trip. To top it off, Sue gets [[No Periods, Period|her first period]] during the night, which attracts a [[Everything's Worse with Bears|nearby bear]] and forces everyone to seek shelter in the car. [[My Car Hates Me|They can't even escape from the bear by driving away]], since Brick had inadvertently drained the car's battery by keeping the dome light on for hours so he could read by it.

 

* The [[Yes]] song "South Side of the Sky" sounds like it's obliquely describing something like this.

 

* Comics example: Bill Watterson did this a few times in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'', when Calvin's dad drags the family along on a camping trip. One time, Calvin dropped a bag of supplies in the lake and accidentally broke his dad's glasses; another time, it rained the whole trip and didn't stop until Dad, having decided to pack it in and go home, had finished loading the car. Cue [[Face Palm]] (and then [[Narrative Profanity Filter|shouting words that Calvin didn't understand]]).

** It's mentioned Dad takes them on these trips every summer, in spite of Mom and Calvin openly hating them. Dad on the other hand, seems to enjoy the great outdoors no matter how many bad things happen on every trip. One comic however had him explain he takes them on those trips every summer instead of a cruise or more enjoyable vacation so the rest of their year will feel better by comparsion, but given his habit of sarcasm it's hard to say if he's being serious about that.

* [[Dilbert]] has also gone on one - to Clyde Canyon, which turned out to be a three foot hole in the ground. After spending the weekend sitting in the hole, Dilbert and Dogbert learn that the ''real'' Clyde Canyon was just over the next ridge.

 

* One episode of ''[[King Street Junior]]'' involved a school camping trip. By the end of it, each of the four teachers present had suffered an accident.

 

* [[Jim Gaffigan]]: You ever notice that whenever someone uses the phrase "happy camper" they're being sarcastic? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qle-vjHoQa4 That's because they only happy camper is the guy who's leaving the campground!]

 

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 2'', Lan decides to go on a camping trip with his friends out of boredom. First, they run into a swarm of bees. After dealing with that, they soon run into a [[Everything Is Online|malfunctioning electronic bear]] in which Lan sends Megaman.EXE to go delete the virus that is causing it to malfunction. Finally, they find themselves in the middle of an internet terrorist plot to blow up the nearby Okuden dam.

** Rehashed in Magnetman/Knightman's chapter in ''Battle Network 5'', with a fishing trip, a cave, and a ''giant'' [[This Is a Drill|mining drill]].

 

* One is ''planned'' in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', when the teachers take the students out into the woods in the rain. Then [[Training Accident|pretend there's an emergency]] and retreat to their luxurious home while something lurks in the woods. The kids quickly figured out it's "the kind of thing adults would do to make a trip more interesting" and devised a counter plan... Among them were at least two fledgling [[Mad Scientist|mad scientists]] and three magic users ''known'' to us. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* Ben and his family from ''[[Loserz]]'' once go on such a trip. Maybe not as bad as other examples on this page, although [[Everything's Worse with Bees|bees]] are still involved.

* Lampshaded in [http://www.applegeeks.com/lite/index.php?aglitecomic=2010-03-29 this] ''[[Apple Geeks]]-Lite'' strip.

 

* ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'', "Hut Sut Raw"

* ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', "Camp Keep a Good Mac Down", where in the time it takes to walk from the camp to the campsite, Bloo eats all of the food, then finds blueberries. On the way back to the campsite he eats them all to test that they're safe, then drinks all of their water trying to wash the taste out. Herriman's no help either, keeping the others from putting up a tent by repeatedly criticizing every inconsequential detail and then having them tear it down.

** In the survival episode where Spongebob and Patrick fall out of the back of Sandy's truck and must fend for themselves.

** In the episode with the conch shell where Spongebob and Patrick do fine, but because Squidward doesn't believe in the powers of the conch shell, he's not allowed to eat anything.

* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]!'' has two horrible camping trips:

** In "Roughin' It," Arnold and Gerald are taught by Grandpa Phil camping the old-fashioned way, much to their chagrin. Meanwhile at a adjacent camping spot, Helga and Phoebe live high on the hog as Big Bob Pataki tests out the high-tech (but cheap) camping gear that he plans to sell. When the gear fails the kids and Big Bob during a hike in the woods, Arnold saves the day by applying the survival skills Phil taught him earlier to get back to camp.

* Spoofed on the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "I Should Not Have Gone Ziplining", which is presented as a ''I Shouldn't Be Alive''-type show with shots of the boys screaming in horror. The horrible part of the trip, however, [[Faux Horrific|is how horribly ''boring'' the boys found it.]] {{spoiler|So much that Kenny dies of boredom.}}

 

 

* ''[[Frasier]]''

* ''[[Family Matters]]''

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[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Tropes of Nature]]