Camp Lazlo

L-A-Z-L-O! L-A-Z-L-O! L-A-Z-L-O! And Lazlo is his name-o!

Camp Lazlo is an Emmy-winning Cartoon Network show, running from 2005 to 2008. Created by Joe Murray, previously known for Rocko's Modern Life. It is about the adventures of Lazlo, a spider-monkey; Raj, an elephant, and Clam, a pygmy rhino, along with other campers on the summer camp of Camp Kidney for scout-like campers The Bean Scouts under the direction of Scoutsmaster Lumpus and his second-in-command, Mr. Slinkman.

To Scoutmaster Lumpus' dismay, Lazlo's search for adventure around the camp and obliviousness to danger makes him uncontrollable.

Tropes used in Camp Lazlo include:
  • Abnormal Ammo: Edward's lice cannon in "Mascot Madness".
  • Accidental Dance Craze: Raj creates one while trying swat a mosquito in "Slap Happy". It also happens to be same as the secret handshake of Scoutmaster Lumpus' Brotherhood of Funny Hats.
  • Ambiguously Gay: Chip and Skip.
  • Animals Not to Scale
  • Ascended Extra: Samson started off as just a background character in the first season, until one writer decided to develop the character and add him to the regular cast.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: The guy-dresses-as-woman variant has happened to Lumpus a couple times. The first time, after leaving a restaurant without paying, he and Slinkman must sneak back in dressed as women. Sure enough, an employee falls for Lumpus even after he bangs on the men's room door, shouting in his normal voice for Lazlo to let him in. It was done hilariously later in the series, when Jane, the love of his life, was engaged to the most disgusting character on the series. Lumpus happens to be in a dress when he finally confesses his love for her...and everyone thinks he's a lady confessing her love for Jane's fiancé, who simply says, "Sorry, Jane, she's hot," and chases Lumpus.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Slinkman
  • Berserk Board Barricade: Subverted where the Bean Scouts barricade the door of their cabin to keep the Squirrel Scouts out. In order to get the wood for the barricade, they completely dismantle the back wall of their cabin.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Be very afraid when Slinkman is pushed to the breaking point.
  • Black Belt in Origami: Patty claims to have a black belt in bok choy.
  • Non Sequitur Episode: The final episode itself, "Lupus' Last Stand." Lupus discovers how to turn paint into a cheap alternative for clothes, making him a hero of society. Two green moose travel back in time to see him be honored for his wonderful invention, bringing a statue made of all the world's dirty laundry. Then... it rains... washing off everyone's painted clothes. The future changes- the moose lose their antlers and body fat, and the Lumpus statue reverts back to a mountain of filthy clothes. Prickly Pines's people scramble to cover up in said clothes, then form an angry mob to attack Lumpus. However... a policeman shows up with a cow... and it's an older Heffer! Heffer says he's the actual Camp Kidney scoutmaster and Lumpus is an impersonator, who locked him up from the very start of the show. Lumpus gets put in a straightjacket and hauled off to prison. Despite this, Lazlo somehow sees a bright side, though Edward immediately calls him out for it. Finally, the campers, stuck in the buff, all walk offscreen, while Sampson gets the last line of the show, where he lampshades the whole ordeal and pretty much sums up why this is the last episode:

Samson: It's official. Things can't get any weirder around here.

  • Blatant Lies: Raj resorts to an increasingly improbable series of lies to explain Clam's absence in "Where's Clam?", culminating in him attempting to claim that a traffic cone and a bag of chips is Clam, and then that Clam is invisible and flying.
  • Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: "The Big Cheese" and "Cheese Orbs" both center around cheese.
  • Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Scoutmaster Lumpus is a member of one of these, the Legume Council.
  • Butt Monkey: Sampson. He's a catastrophe magnet with nothing but bad luck, poor social graces, and allergies galore.
  • The Cameo: Heffer Wolfe from Rocko's Modern Life, Joe Murray's other cartoon made a cameo in the last episode as the real scout master who is older and has all his hair shaved off.
  • Canada, Eh?: The alien/cheese episode had excange campers from Canada.
  • Cardboard Pal: In "The Weakest Link", Scoutmaster Lumpus creates fake scouts after all the scouts go missing on the day when Commander Hoo-Ha is due to make his inspection.
  • Chained to a Railway: Happens to Lumpus after he is captured by the clowns of Slapstick Mountain.
  • Chew Toy (and Butt Monkey): Lumpus, which, as usual, is played entirely for laughs.
  • Coincidental Accidental Disguise: At least twice, turning Raj into a yeti in "Marshmallow Jones" and Lumpus into a snipe in "The Great Snipe Hunt".
  • Comically Small Bribe: In "The Tusk Wizard", Raj attempts to bribe Nurse Leslie into removing a perfectly healthy tusk by offering him a quarter.
  • Completely Missing the Point: No matter how many times they tell him, Lazlo just won't get it that HE's the Hugger.
  • Continuity Nod: On the episode "Hello Dolly", Edward has a Barbie-esque doll named Veronica, who makes cameos later on "No Place Like Gnome" and "Beans in Toyland". On another episode, the campers start the Camp Kidney radio station back up, and Lazlo is shown in the station at the start of the episode "Samson Needs a Hug".
    • We can safely say that this show is pretty consistent. Other examples include when Raj and Clam flashback to when they first arrived at Camp Kidney with Lazlo, and splashing in the lake despite Raj not being able to swim (yet). In another, Samson and Raj try to argue over a hot spring, and when trying to embarrass the other with their gross secret, Edward and the other campers show the rash they got on their behinds from that same spring to get them to shut up. Few episodes later, he's trying to mail himself out and takes off his shirt for less weight. When he goes to collect more stamps, Samson covers his eyes and remarks that he's still got his rash.
  • Deus Ex Machina: Lumpus is riding atop his walking lawnchair the elves built him (don't ask). He has Santa, who is armed with naught but a tetherball, down on the ground (don't ask). Slinkman and the kids have failed in rescuing the jolly old elf and are lying in a heap. This looks like the end...'til Lumpus is hit by a meteor. There was mention of a meteor shower at the very beginning, but still.
  • The Ditz: Chip and Skip. Because they're so dumb they run up to the speaker every time the camp announcements come on looking for the voice and also can't think at all. Their brains work to make them become geniuses when hung upside down but right side up, they're ditzs. This all happened in just in one episode too and they demonstrate this the rest of the time.
  • Door Step Baby: Chip and Skip did this to themselves to get Jane, the scoutmistress of the girls' camp, to adopt them. Jane assumed Lumpus did it to get out of taking care of them, and was less than pleased with him.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Edward pantsing everyone in Camp Kidney. His last target is Lazlo, who he ends up tricking into a bunker to pull his pants down.
  • Downer Ending: It looks like something's gone right for Lumpus, when it turns out that he's just some looney who has the real Scoutmaster, an aged version of Heffer from Rocko's Modern Life, locked up in a closet and is dragged off to a looney bin.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Commander Hoo-Ha
  • Education Through Pyrotechnics: In "Sweet Dream Baby" the Jelly Beans manage to put their cabin into orbit with something they mixed up in a store bought chemistry kit.
  • The Eeyore: Sampson.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Lazlo.
  • Everything's Better with Platypi: Edward.
  • Exact Time to Failure: In "The Big Cheese", Raj says that anyone who eats the cheese will disintegrate in exactly 13 minutes. Scoutmaster Lumpus, naturally, eats the cheese.
  • Expy: Chip and Skip's must be the show's version of Jimmy The Idiot-Boy (split into two).
  • Extreme Doormat: Slinkman, in earlier episodes.
  • Farts on Fire: One episode turned this Up to Eleven for a hilariously disastrous fuel-air bomb when Lazlo was invited to a ceremony right after a bean-eating contest. The beans caused gas to build up and overload Lazlo's tummy. The moment the ceremonial torch was lit, he let it all go.
  • Fence Painting: In "Bowling for Dinosaurs", Scoutmaster Lumpus tricks the Bean Scouts into clearing the space for his new bowling alley by getting them to dig for dinosaur bones.
  • Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: Slinkman deliberately does this to Lumpus in one episode.
  • French Jerk: The swim instructors
  • Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult: Miss Mucus has a room in her trailer full of toys she has confiscated. Scoutmaster Lumpus also has elements of this but, in his case, he tend to confiscate items so he can use them himself (like his stash of confiscated candy) rather than to deprive the children of them.
  • Furry Confusion/Carnivore Confusion: In one episode, Clam attempts to insult the Squirrel Scouts by calling them "animals". This results in awkward silence, because after all, they are animals.
    • At the end of an episode with all the Bean Scouts partaking in meat hot dogs, Edward actually brings up the question of what the hot dogs are made of, to the revulsion of all.
      • Interestingly, no one bats an eyelash at Lumpus (a moose) and his love of meat, except when he attempted to eat a bird that was still alive. Hmmmm.
    • Everyone freaks when Lazlo brings a bear into camp, despite the fact that one of the campers is a bear. This is never addressed.
  • Gainax Ending: Wait Lumpus is a psycho, wait what? What just happened.
  • The Generic Guy: Lampshaded agressively in one episode. Samson complains that he's never noticed.

Edward: So what? (Edward holds up one of the generic campers) This guy doesn't even have a name, but you don't see him complaining!

  • Genius Ditz: Clam. "Prodigous Clamus" is built entirely around this trope.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Being made by the same people behind Rocko's Modern Life, naturally this show has more than its fair share of radar evasion. A personal favorite comes from an episode where the three main characters make hot dogs for their camp-mates, with Raj in charge of making the hot dog buns.

"Edward, There's a party in my pants, and you're invited."

    • Also, in the episode where their camp literally gets taken away.

Samson: This stool is way too hard.
Edward: Just rub a little stool softener on it.

Raj: Must. Get. Retainer. Before. WATERFALL!

  • Interspecies Romance: Somehow, a moose and a Migrating Mulberry Tree can get married and have offspring.
    • There's also the matter of Commander Hoo-Haa (a buffalo) who is somehow the father of Patsy, a mongoose. We never see her mother, so it's a possibility.
  • It Is Always Spring: it's always summer. Makes sense, since they're at summer camp, right? Except it's still summer, and they're still at camp on Valentine's Day. Most of the Christmas Episode took place in July, for crying out loud.
    • Though it's shown that the Bean Scouts go home around Halloween.
  • Jerkass: There's Lumpus, Edward, Gretchen and Miss Mucus.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Edward sometimes, when he shows appreciation for Lazlo despite his hostility. Also Commander Hoo-Ha and, in very rare cases, Lumpus himself.
  • Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: In "Movie Night", according to the Bean Scout regulations, Edward is too young to watch Mountain Zombies of Scab Lagoon (rated BB, Big Boys), and has to watch Mr. Cotton Goes to Bubbleland instead. He later locks himself in the projection room and watches Mountain Zombies of Scab Lagoon alone and scares himself silly.
  • Knife-Throwing Act: The clowns of Slapstick Mountain make Lumpus the unwilling target of one.
  • Know Your Vines: "Raj? Why are you hiding in that poison ivy?"
  • Lint Value: Lumpus attempts to pay a restaurant bill with the contents of the Bean Scouts' pockets: buttons, lint, string, a frog...
  • Long Pants: Some of the campers, including the entire main trio, wear these instead of no pants at all.
  • Loud of War: Raj and Samson trying to get each other to leave a secret hot spring by singing very loudly and very badly.
  • Merit Badges for Everything: In one episode Scoutmaster Lumpus bemoans the failure of any of the Bean Scouts to achieve a single merit badge. Edward thens reveals that he has full set (having dishonestly bought them). We never find out a full list but it does include 'Motorcycle Maintenance'.
  • Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Ms. Doe, the scoutmistress for the Squirrel Scouts.
  • Mistaken for Dying: Lumpus in "The Big Cheese".
  • Mistaken for Pregnant: In episode "Ed's Benedict", Dave and Ping-Pong slip an egg into Edward's bed as a prank. For the rest of the episode, all the kids think he's expecting while Lumpus and Slinkman awkwardly try to explain the concept of pregnancy to them.
  • Mistaken for Special Guest: In "The Weakest Link", the three Jelly Beans are mistaken for three eccentric Finnish princes.
  • Moose Are Idiots: Lumpus, who is a Jerkass who doesn't even like his Scoutmaster job.
  • My Name Is Not Durwood/Its Pronounced Tropay - Scoutmaster Lumpus Lupus
    • And several characters, including Miss Doe and Commander Hoo-Ha, keep referring to Slinkman as 'Slugman'.
  • The Napoleon: Edward.
  • Neat Freak: Samson.
  • Nerdy Inhaler: Samson. He even calls it his "Asthma Buddy".
  • Noodle Incident: In "Snow Beans"

Lumpus: Quick, Slinkman, I was holding this chair so tight my fingers are welded to it.
Slinkman: Should I get the pliers again, sir?

  • Odd Friendship: Edward, Chip and Skip.
  • Odd Name Out: All the cabins in Camp Kidney are named after types of beans. The central trio live in Jelly Cabin; A Jelly Bean is candy, not a real bean.
  • Only Sane Man: Mr. Slinkman.
  • Orphaned Punchline: The show would often feature the central trio walking in at the tail end of one Edward's stories to the rest of the scouts; e.g. "...so that's why I don't play croquet any more."
    • One of the lemmings (of all characters) delivers this classic in "The Weakest Link":

...So the man says to the chicken "How are you going to get your taxidermy badge if you never learned to play the accordion?"

  • Pec Flex: Commander Hoo-Ha does this in the Valentine's Day episode.
  • Plank Gag: Happens to Chip and Skip, using a pair of skis rather than a plank, in "Snow Beans".
  • Potty Emergency: Pretty much the entire plot of "Hold It Lazlo". Lazlo having unwittingly annoyed Edward (again) by beating him in a lemonade drinking contest soon has to go (bad). Edward takes advantage of this and repeatedly thwarts all of Lazlo's attempts to go (he eventually uses Lazlo's predicament to trick him into wearing a diaper, but it backfires of course). The potty emergency comes to it's peak when in the middle of it, Lazlo relieves himself in the lake, only to be reprimanded by a fish, forcing Lazlo to suck it back into himself. Ouch!
    • Not to mention that the fish was a puppet controlled by Edward!
  • The Power of Friendship: How the Jelly Bean Trio usually resolve their problems.
  • The Quiet One: Clam rarely says more than two words at a time
  • Retro Universe: The setting was made to evoke the 1950's and 1960's
  • Running Gag: Lumpus being unable to identify Clam's species.
  • Saving Christmas: Santa wants to cancel Christmas to take a vacation, but Lazlo convinces him to take a short vacation at summer camp and return in time to finish the presents. Christmas is saved...right? Nope; Santa doesn't want to leave camp. Laz finally convinces Santa to go home. Saved! Except, while Santa was gone, Lumpus hijacked his home and servants. An epic battle ensues, with Lumpus armed with a walking lawn chair and Santa a tether ball. Lumpus is hit by a meteor at the last second, and Christmas is saved.
  • School Nurse: Nurse Leslie, a male Nurse Shark.
  • Scout Out: The Bean Scouts and the Squirrel Scouts
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Edward
  • Second Place Is for Winners: Edward wins a race, only to find that Lazlo's Middle Place trophy is bigger than his First Place trophy. The Stinger shows that Chip and Skip's Last Place trophy is shiny, golden, and huge.
  • Shout-Out: In "Tree Hugger", there's a point where they're using The Flying Dutchman's Leitmotif, I swear.
    • A lot of the music from SpongeBob is public domain stock music, actually. This show was the first to make this obvious, by sharing a few of the themes iconic to the show.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Edward carries heavy shades of this.
  • Snipe Hunt: "The Great Snipe Hunt"
  • Spelling Song

"L-A-Z-L-O! And Lazlo was his name-o!"

  • Strange Syntax Speaker: Clam rarely utters complete sentences; most of his verbal interjections consist of an echolalia-like repetition of a key word or phrase from another character's dialogue. When he occasionally does utter an original statement, it tends to be syntactically-challenged.
  • Stuck on a Ski Lift: Happens to Lumpus in "Snow Beans".
  • Sudden Downer Ending: Lumpus was an insane kidnapper.

Lazlo: Boy, what a happy ending!
Edward: Lazlo, we're standing in Prickly Pines naked, and the moose we thought was our scoutmaster just got hauled off as a deranged lunatic to a funny farm.
Lazlo: Yeah, what a great summer! I can't wait for next year!

  • Summer Campy
  • Surrounded by Idiots: Slinkman and Edward.
  • Swivel Chair Antics: Nurse Leslie is always sitting on one. When the chair is broken, he can't even use his own two legs to support himself standing up.
  • Talking to Himself: Tom Kenny was both Lumpus and Slinkman, while Carlos Alazraqui was both Lazlo and Clam.
    • Jeff Bennett is the voice actor for both Raj and Samson. Joe Murray is on record as saying Bennett should get some kind of award for "Hot Spring Fever"; an episode that consists almost entirely of Raj and Samson arguing with each other.
  • Those Two Guys: Chip and Skip
  • Tongue on the Flagpole: In "Beans Are From Mars", Chip and Skip get their tongues stuck to an ice cream truck. Which then drives off.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Chip and Skip.
  • Toothy Bird: Edward is a platypus with teeth.
  • Totem Pole Trench
  • Treasure Map: Raj gets a treasure map marked out on his butt in mosquito bites in "Lumpy Treasure".
  • True Companions: Lazlo, Raj and Clam, the "Jelly Bean Trio". They are inseparable friends who mean the world to each other, and will put their friendship in first place above all difficulties.
  • Ultimate Job Security: Scoutmaster Algonquin C. Lumpus, who is generally extremely incompetent and apathetic, and doesn't even like being a Scoutmaster. At least until the Grand Finale, where he's finally removed... because it turns out he was never actually the Scoutmaster -- he'd actually locked the previous Scoutmaster in a closet and stolen his job; The Reveal here gets him imprisoned as a dangerous lunatic.
  • The Unfavourite: From the way his brothers treat him, Edward seems to be this in his family.
  • Unusual Euphemism: In one episode, an air conditioner falls from the sky during a heat wave. They ascribe its arrival to "The Great Scoutmaster in the Sky".
    • Brought up in another episode wherein they refer to this "Scoutmaster in the Sky" as "Smits"
      • Scout Master In The Sky
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: There's Scoutmaster Lumpus and his assistant Slinkman. The former treats the latter like crap, and Slinkman sometimes hits back, but they are shown to be inseparable, and Slinkman is the only one whom Lumpus genuinely cares about (in his own way).
    • Lazlo and Edward. Lazlo is nothing but friendly towards Edward, but Edward detests and is jealous of him. That said, he occasionally shows he does appreciate his friendship, acting like a Tsundere towards him.
  • Walking on Water: Clam, as a oneshot joke in the swimming episode.
  • Wallet Moths: When Scoutmaster Lumpus opens his wallet in "Prickly Pining Dining", a large cloud of dust escapes.
  • Went to the Great X In the Sky: The campers (or at least Lazlo) use "Scout Master in the Sky", or "Smits" for short, as an Unusual Euphemism for God. One episode centers on an air-conditioning unit that drops out of an airplane and becomes something of a Holy Grail in the middle of a heat wave.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: PINE CONE-SITTING!!

Ms. Doe: Oh, my! It's too exciting!

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