Summary
Camp Lazlo is an animated comedy series that aired on Cartoon Network from 2005 to 2008, In which three scouts wreak unintentional havoc upon their summer camp. Creator Joe Murray is also known for his series produced at Nickelodeon, Rocko's Modern Life.
Premise
In a Bean Scout summer camp called Camp Kidney, an excitable monkey scout named Lazlo and his cabin mates, Raj, and Clam, bring their own flavor of chaotic fun to a summer camp, despite the irritable Scoutmaster Lumpus and the average maintenence of the place. Sometimes they rub elbows with the Squirrel Scouts and their camp on the other side of Leakey Lake, Acorn Flats.
Characters
- Lazlo - An orange spidermonkey, the eccentric and happy-go-lucky protagonist who often breaks camp rules without trying.
- Raj - A peach elephant, Lazlo's cabin mate. Very smart and somewhat neurotic, especially about trying new things.
- Clam - A faded chartreuse rhino, Lazlo's cabin mate. An excitable scamp, misunderstood amongst his fellow scouts.
- Scoutmaster Lumpus - An irritable old moose, the authority figure who can't stand his own camp or its scouts.
- Mr. Slinkman - A banana slug, Lumpus's meek assistant who does most of the actual work of maintaning Camp Kidney.
- Edward - A cream platypus, a sarcastic scout who tends to be annoyed by his fellow scout's nonsense, and bullies them.
- Samson - A gray gineau pig, the biggest nerd and neat freak in camp, as well as the most allergic.
- Chip & Skip - Twin lavender dung beetles, who are both very dim-witted and gullible.
- Dave & Ping Pong - Twin pale orange loons, very chatty scouts who tend to butt into other people's business.
- The Lemming Bros. - Quadruplet teal lemmings, often in sync with each other, following the camp rules more than the other scouts.
- Patsy - A mongoose Squirrel Scout, very determined and smiley, and has her heart set on Lazlo.
- Nina - A giraffe Squirrel Scout, big nerd who loves comic books and science.
- Gretchen - An alligator Squirrel Scout, snippy, tomboyish, and makes most fun of Bean Scouts most often.
- Ms. Doe - The scoutmaster of Acorn Flats, whose peppy demeanor greatly contrasts Lumpus's. Guess what animal she is.
- Ms. Mucus - Assistant to Ms. Doe, a grouchy warthog who hates the Camp Kidney Bean Scouts more than anything.
- Commander Hoo-ha - Lumpus's boss, a strict bison who is the commander of all scouting in Prickly Pines.
- Nurse Leslie - A literal nurse shark who takes his job seriously, which is hard to tell from his deadpan demeanor.
Writing
Camp Lazlo is written in the outline-driven format. Episodes start out as outlines, but rather than going straight to script, the episodes are written and storyboarded at the same time, by teams of two. Rocko was produced with the same technique.
Much of the humor and stories are driven by the characters, based on the writers' own scouting experiences. Tonally, it bears similarities to Rocko, as well as SpongeBob Squarepants, as many people who worked on each show also worked on Lazlo.
Art Direction
The art direction for the series features traditionally painted backgrounds, done primarily with acrylic-gouache and natural colors used in unconventional ways. The goal of the art direction was to invoke the feeling of summer camp rather than a 1:1 depiction. Much like the character deisgns, trees and bushes are very geometric and warped, and come in various colors. The sky is yellow in the day and green at night. The style is also heavily influenced by storybook art, native artistry (especially Navajo weaving) and advertising design from the 50s and 60s.
Trivia
- The main setting of Leakey Lake is especially inspired by Lake Tahoe, where Murray camped in his scouting years.
- Like Rocko, Camp Lazlo features innuendo jokes scattered throughout, albeit much less frequently and not as obviously.
- A couple of writer/storyboarders went on to create their own shows for Cartoon Network. Thurop Van Orman went on to create The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, while J. G. Quintel went on to create Regular Show. Each of them voice main characters in their respective shows.
- The show heavily features production music (Music from production libraries not made specifically for the show), much like SpongeBob.
- Camp Lazlo ran from 2005 to 2008, the same years as another Cartoon Network show featuring an orange monkey and other anthropomorphic animals, My Gym Partner's A Monkey, which also frequently uses production music in its soundtrack.