Summer Camp Island

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Summer Camp Island is a Cartoon Network animated series created by Julia Pott, who was previously a writer and animator for another, more recognizable Cartoon Network show. The first half of the series' first season was simulcast on Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang on July 7, 2018, and the second half aired between June 23 and July 21, 2019. The following four seasons aired on HBO Max starting June 20, 2020. Summer Camp Island was among the many Cartoon Network series that was, in a move that pleased absolutely no one, unceremoniously axed from HBO Max's library on August 2022, following the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. Starting June 19, 2023, episodes from the second season onward, including the then-completed-yet-unreleased sixth and final season, premiered on Cartoon Network. The series concluded on August 11, 2023, but can still be watched via the Cartoon Network website/App, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV, among other places.

Summer Camp Island centers around the various adventures and escapades of Oscar Peltzer and his Childhood Friend Hedgehog, who are attending a summer camp on an island inhabited by various magical, mythological, or otherwise supernatural creatures, including witches, werewolves, aliens, elves, and sentient foods. The series explores themes such as friendship, time, trust, self-discovery, and forgiveness, all the while being Sweet Dreams Fuel.

Tropes used in Summer Camp Island include:

• A Dog Named "Dog"/Shaped Like Itself: No points for guessing what kind of animal Hedgehog's supposed to be.
  • Or for that matter, Dr. P. Shark.
  • Pajamas and Jimjams, anyone?
  • Same deal with Alien King, king of the aliens.
• All Myths Are True: The titular Summer Camp Island is populated with yetis, aliens, and other magical creatures. Faeries, however, are noted by Alice to be completely made-up, and the witch trio holds a similar belief for The Jersey Devil.
• Ambiguously Brown: Alice Fefferman, one of the camp counselors, is a wooly mammoth with brown fur.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Most everything on the titular island is sentient: the sun, the moon, the stars, foodstuffs, condiments, Oscar's pajamas, and, oh yeah, nature itself, just to name a few.
• Continuity Creep/Growing the Beard: From Season 3 onwards, Summer Camp Island gradually dropped its episodic slice-of-life adventures in favor of Worldbuilding. Come Season 6, the show ditched episodic adventures entirely in favor of a lengthy Story Arc meant to tie everything together.
• Dub Name Change: Hedgehog's name, being a species descriptor, often changes between dubs. In the Spanish dub, for instance, her name is "Erizo".
• Story Arc: Seasons 3 and 5 are both split into short story arcs lasting three to five episodes each. Season 6 is a single story arc about Susie coming to terms with her past.
  • Season 3 is split into three arcs of varying length:
    • Susie and Ramona, four episodes long, tells the story of Susie and Ramona's friendship and eventual falling-out.
    • Alien King and Puddle, three episodes long, centers around Alien King and Puddle's honeymoon, as well as Oscar and Hedgehog's stay on the Alien Planet.
    • Yeti Confetti, five episodes long, follows half-yeti Lucy Thompson's struggles to fit in with Yeti society.
  • Season 5 is split into five arcs of three episodes each:
    • Barb and the Spotted Bears follows the world's primordial days, as a newborn Barb tries to placate the Island's protectors, the Spotted Bears. Later, Barb encounters and outwits the Rascals.
    • Betsy and the Ghost follows the meeting and tragic separation of Betsy Spellman and Ghost the Boy.
    • Susie and Her Sister explores the formative years of the McCallister sisters, Susie and Mildred.
    • Oscar and the Monsters has Oscar travel back in time to the Monsters' years at Harvard, where he learns about the "Great Repression", a time when emotions were considered taboo.
    • The Babies follows Oliver, Alexa Mongello, and Alexa's sister Lem as they each discover their respective magical identities.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: The show's art style and premise are reminiscent of children's story books.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: S6E17 "Meeting of the Mounds" reveals that Susie was dilating time throughout the island. Everyone and everything on Summer Camp Island felt the passage of 129 days' worth of time, but in reality, only a week had passed.
• Worldbuilding: Episodes ending with the eerie "Witches' Lullaby" instead of the upbeat "Witches' Samba" are dedicated to this.
• World of Funny Animals: Many of the characters are anthropomorphic animals; Oscar's an elephant, Hedgehog's a hedgehog, Susie's a cat, et cetera.