Wet Hot American Summer: First Day Of Camp
"Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" will see all of the original cast of the first movie return for an eight-episode miniseries premiering Friday, July 31 on Netflix. Netflix

It's summertime campers and that can only mean one thing, Netflix's "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" is finally here. The prequel to the cult 2001 hit will drop an eight-episode TV season, starring the original cast, on Friday, July 31.

Those that want to watch the movie that inspired it all can stream "Wet Hot American Summer" on Netflix right now. However, those that are planning their Thursday night or Friday morning around binge-watching the new Netflix series will need to wait until 3 a.m. EDT. Netflix releases all of its originals at midnight Pacific time on the day that they're supposed to come out. So, unless you're on the west coast, staying up to watch the new episodes might put you way past lights out.

Despite not being very well received when it first came out 14 years ago, "Wet Hot American Summer" gained a cult following in the years to follow thanks to its all-star cast that, at the time, were relatively unknown.

Speaking to Yahoo TV, writers Michael Showalter and David Wain joked that it was easier than people think to wrangle all (literally "all") of the original cast back together to do this bold and silly prequel idea.

"[It was] ultimately not that much harder than anything else," Showalter revealed. "Mainly because everyone wanted to do it, and everyone wanted to make it work."

The eight-episode series will see the return of Elizabeth Banks, H. Jon Benjamin, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Janeane Garofalo, Nina Hellman, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, AD Miles, Christopher Meloni, Marguerite Moreau, Zak Orth, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Marisa Ryan, Molly Shannon and Michael Showalter. Newcomers include Kristen Wiig, Jason Schwartzman, John Slattery, Jordan Peele, Michael Cera, Josh Charles, Chris Pine, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Lake Bell and Jon Hamm.

Speaking to Time, Janeane Garofalo was asked if the revival of Camp Firewood would have been possible were it not for the avenues created by services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon. She revealed that she believes that's true, but that the stellar comedy of the original film is what's really to blame.

"I'm assuming that's the case because with new avenues there needs to be content on these avenues. More importantly, it wouldn't have happened if the popularity of the movie itself hadn't grown. I don't think Netflix would be like, 'Let's show this thing that was not seen by that many people,'" the 50-year-old comedian said. "But they had the unbelievable good fortune of Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd becoming enormously successful."

If you're already a subscriber to Netflix, all you have to do is launch the service from any device that runs it (tablet, computer, smart TV, gaming console, smartphone, etc). Meanwhile, for those that don't have a subscription to Netflix, you can sign up now for a free one-month trial - more than enough time to binge all of "Wet Hot American Summer." However, if you find you like having a Netflix subscription, simply do nothing and you'll start to be charged $8.99 each month. You can also cancel your subscription before the time limit at any time, according to the company's website.

Will you be staying up to binge-watch "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp"? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.

RELATED STORIES