'Wet Hot American Summer': The raunchy 2000s comedy that was actually about a space station falling to Earth

LOS ANGELES – On a Saturday evening in Los Angeles, I found myself watching acclaimed actor Elizabeth Banks sing Tom Petty songs along with her fellow actors while writer/director David Wain played the drums.

This incredible, bizarre performance celebrated the 25th anniversary of the raunchy, summer camp cult classic "Wet Hot American Summer." But do you remember that it's actually a space movie? This movie — the debut feature film from co-creators David Wain and Michael Showalter — follows the events of "Camp Firewood," a sleepaway summer camp set in the summer of 1981.

It has a cast chock-full of now-A-list actors, including Banks, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and so many more.

Looking back, it's almost baffling how star-studded the cast really is.

Campy in every sense of the word, the movie manages to balance vulgar jokes with some serious heart.

And while the off-color comedy was infamously a box office bomb, this heart has cemented its status as a beloved cult classic, and watching it has become as time-honored a tradition as summer camp itself.

I am personally biased toward this film, as my teenage summers were spent as a camp counselor and the movie hits that perfect, nostalgic sweet spot.

But when I sat down to watch the film again on Aug.

8 at an outdoor anniversary screening, I realized it had been many years since I'd actually seen it.

And while I remembered the warm, summer camp vibes, somehow I had completely forgotten something: The movie hinges on the plot that a piece of Skylab (yes, that Skylab) is falling to Earth , and a nearby, vacationing astrophysicist teams up with the nerdy kids at camp to build a homegrown device to try and stop it.

The strangest part? In 1979, Skylab did fall back to Earth, and a couple of pieces actually survived the trip (just not at Camp Firewood).

An outdoor screening of "Wet Hot American Summer" for its 25th anniversary. (Image credit: Chelsea Gohd/Space.com) At its core, this beloved camp movie that I used to watch after camp with my fellow counselors (at our own camp, Summer Parks) is … science fiction.

It might seem like a b-plot, but if you find yourself rewatching the film, you might be surprised at how much of a space movie it really is.

The first inklings of this emerge when camp director Beth (Janeane Garofalo) meets astrophysicist Professor Henry Newman (David Hyde Pierce), who is vacationing in a cabin near the camp.