β | You bastards! You goddamn bastards! Do you know who I am?! I am Cameron C. Campbell! I'm richer than all of you combined! I was the Prime Minister of Thailand for Christ's sake! | β |
—"Parents' Day" |
Cameron C. Campbell was the main antagonist of Camp Camp from seasons 1-3. He is the founder of Camp Campbell, of which is named after Campbell himself. He is also shown to be an internationally wanted criminal, con-artist, and even became the Prime Minister of Thailand at one point. He is seen to be a father figure and role model in David's eyes.
As of the final episode of season 3 "Camp Corp." and into season 4, Campbell is fulfilling community service hours around the camp in lieu of jail time for his previous and extensive list of crimes after turning himself in to the FBI. Thus, his role has shifted from antagonist to being more of a supportive character learning to make up for his mistakes and try to better himself.
Appearance[]
Cameron Campbell has a tall, brawny build and grey hair, sideburns and mustache, along with visible grey chest hair and arm hair as well as a cleft chin. He wears a brown vest over a brownish white polo with rolled up sleeves and a collar that's popped out. Along with yellow-brown pants supported by a black belt that has a gold belt buckle in the middle, and brown knee-high boots.
During his younger years, he had brown hair and sported the same gear as he does now, but with the exception of him wearing a neckerchief similar to how David wears his.
Personality[]
Though he initially appears to be a just and passionate man in the way he speaks, claiming to care for the welfare of others in the camp, in reality it is merely a facade to hide his true colors: "A rich piece of shit with terrible morals" as Max points out in "Journey to Spooky Island", and continues to harp on for the rest of the series.
It is unknown whether he has always been a greedy, manipulative con-artist, or if something in his life made him turn out this way. He did care for the well-being of his counselors and campers when David was a camper, but soon shifted into something more resembling of his selfish personality some time after "Jasper Dies at the End". However - in the same episode, it appeared that he was ready to kill David to hide Jasper's apparent death, so it may just be that his most negative traits became stronger over time.
Despite supposedly believing in traditional American values and wanting to create the perfect camp, he neglected the management of Camp Campbell, instead leaving it in the care of the positive and overly enthusiastic, yet naive and delusional David, and the cynical and short-tempered Gwen prior to the episode "Escape from Camp Campbell". In that same episode, Gwen mentions that Campbell has shirked his responsibilities for many years now, when he opted to welcome then-newcomers Nikki and Neil as a way to hide from the FBI agents on site.
He frequently hatches ideas for get-rich-quick schemes, such as selling platypus babies to foreign countries in "Eggs Benefits", or the "garbage collection program" he thought up in "Keep the Change". He is also unscrupulous about exploiting the general public's emotions by lying to a reporter in "St. Campbell's Day" that the holiday was created as the dying wishes of his campers, and insisting that she highlight this in her coverage. It is later revealed that the campers had been the ones to concoct that lie, and had allowed Campbell to use it on the condition that he would use the public's donations to their cause to install an actual working toilet. So although this specific incident had good intentions, he was never up-front with David and Gwen about it; rather, he and the campers collaborated in secret, leaving David to suspect he was relapsing into his old habits.
In seasons 1-3, Campbell would occasionally make brief appearances at Camp Campbell. Typically he would only be around to retrieve money or, in the case of "Escape from Camp Campbell" and "Parents' Day", hide out from the detection of authorities. His main goal in season 3 was to frame David for the "scheme" that is the philosophy of Camp Campbell (a place where anyone can do anything), and when his efforts were foiled he then went on to try and steal all the money from the sale of the camp in "Camp Corp." Despite backstabbing his partnership with David and Max and subsequently rebuking their disappointment, he soon realizes he doesn't want to continue embezzling people anymore, and willingly confesses his crimes to the FBI.
In season 4, he is undergoing a process of reformation, and is under orders from the FBI to obey David. He was resistant to David's lessons about what it means to be a good person in "Keep the Change", as he doesn't want to do good unless he stands to gain personal benefit, though he still does aim to be a better person - just on his own terms. This is shown a bit more in "After Hours" as he makes a sincere effort to remember the kids' names and recalling the tips David had given him to look after them. He further harps on his desire to change in "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum" and "Panicked Room", despite his efforts being selfish and not making any progress until letting his guard down. At the end of "Time Crapsules", he vocalizes that he still has plenty of self-improvement to do, but that he's feeling "better than [I've] ever been".
History []
Before he was born, he killed his twin brother in the womb and felt no remorse. During his childhood his father never hugged him and he was possibly molested by his Uncle Clark. All of this was revealed in "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum".
Looking back on his youth in the episode "After Hours", Campbell states his mom had "thrown him to the wolves of Wall Street, with only a meagre trust fund" to guide him when he became an adult. He reminisces on the experience as though he was abandoned/mistreated, and that he "sure showed her" with where he is now. He then goes on to speak fondly of the cookies she made (oatmeal raisin with a hint of molasses and a touch of exotic Himalayan juniper berries, which he says is "normal kid stuff"). This hints at him having had a privileged upbringing, and most likely ended up where he is now due to extremely poor financial management skills and a crippling addiction to gambling (mentioned in "Camporee").
At some point, he wrote a book called "Using People and Taking Advantage of So Called Friends". It was never a top seller but he said the publisher took the hint, which was revealed in "The Candy Kingpin".
During his adulthood, he was awarded the title of Generic Hiking Magazine's "Richest Outdoorsman of 1994, after that He was also involved with the Campwells in their efforts to create Camp Corp., but was fired due to his greed and some time later Camp Campbell was founded. In "Panicked Room", it is revealed that she was in a serious relationship with Miss Priss, but he broke it off with her 17 years ago due to fear of commitment. The pair had also started a controversial wine brand (containing bear blood) in that time as well.
Cameron also went on to have a son named CJ (short for Cameron Junior), who was introduced as a new counselor in the season 5 premiere "Welcome Back, Campers!". CJ's age and biological mother are currently unknown.
He would often be around camp when David was a camper, although acting less like a counselor and more like a lazy manager. He is forced to go on a nature hike with Jasper and teams up with David to rescue Jasper when he gets swept away. Campbell was ready to murder David over Jasper's apparent death (in order to leave no witnesses), though reluctantly agreed to search for him when it turned out the camper was still alive. He is very physically strong, having fought and killed two bears in the same episode, and having them mounted in his now-abandoned summer home. Some time later, he sent David and Jasper to fetch a list of ideas from his summer home that would supposedly prevent the camp from being shut down, and this ultimately led to Jasper's untimely death. Despite the fact that his death wasn't necessarily on camp grounds (as Spooky Island is technically off-grounds), it is possible that Campbell covered up his death, After retrieving the list, young David suggests that Camp Campbell should be a place where anyone can do anything, which ultimately became the camp's identity.
Nikki and Neil had brochures for "Adventure Camp, and more!" and "Space Camp, and more!" in "Escape from Camp Campbell", and Campbell states that this "and more!" fine print prevents them from being sued.
When "Parents' Day" rolls around, the FBI tasks Campbell to prove that this "camp camp" idea isn't just a scam, under the threat of jail time should he fail. Campbell relied on the counselors to make this happen, particularly the talent performances at the end of the day, wherein campers are meant to show off the skills they learned from the particular camps they had been signed up for. Upon learning about Max's parental neglect, David and Gwen bail on their group performance in order to look after him. Upon finding the trio gone, Campbell is pissed about having lost another camper, and is promptly arrested by the FBI and sent to Super Guantanamo. His true colors come out, resisting arrest while shouting about how rich and powerful he is in front of the campers and their parents as he is subsequently hauled off.
His financial assets were frozen in the season 3 premiere "The Fun-Raiser" but everyone pitched in to help raise money to keep the camp afloat a while longer. Intent on taking revenge, Campbell makes a return in "Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper". He tries framing David for suggesting the "scam" of an idea of what Camp Campbell eventually became ("Dial M For Jasper"), and even entertains the idea of revealing the fact that a camper had died here and pinning it on David, despite him being a child when both these things occurred. Campbell, who was wearing a wire, was ultimately tricked by Max into admitting his true intentions, and in an outburst of rage he lashes out at David "after everything I've done for you" for choosing to look after the campers in "Parents' Day" over going along with Campbell's own selfish intentions of tricking the FBI with the talent show. David is simply "disappointed" in Campbell's behavior, and the word seems to strike a chord in him as he runs off screaming into the woods.
He manages to elude the FBI by living in a cave somewhere in the forest for an undisclosed period of time, and Max eventually enlists his help in undoing the sale of the camp to the Campwells in "Camp Corp." Campbell double-crosses them by having all of the sale funds transferred to himself, thus bankrupting the camp and forcing it to shut down, and stealing the camp bus as a getaway vehicle. He ultimately decided that this was not the life he wanted to live anymore, and so turned himself in to the FBI, voluntarily confessing to all of his crimes. At the end of the episode, he is sentenced to perform community service hours at Camp Campbell, instead of serving jail time, and is placed directly under David's supervision and told by the FBI to follow his orders.
As of the following episode "Keep the Change" in season 4, Campbell has been performing his community service tasks as needed. Although he kept coming up with a ton of ideas to make money during the course of that episode, he does actively try to make honest work, so long as he isn't off the clock. Despite Max's scheming to get him to fall back into his old habits, his efforts ultimately fail due to Campbell's general obliviousness. He was left in charge of looking after the campers in "After Hours" and seized the opportunity to try and steal cable. Despite their constant interference, he genuinely makes an effort to use the kids' proper names (despite writing them on his hand incorrectly) and trying to remember the instructions David had given him for caring for them. He does overhear the Wood Scouts' invasion of the camp in "Camp Loser Says What?" but immediately decides he's not getting involved.
Campbell comically mistaking the David-squirrel for the real thing (in the episode "Squirrel Camp") shows that he doesn't pay much attention to what David says, and is profoundly annoyed by the sound of his voice (which he plainly confirms in "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum"), most likely reminding him about his community service tasks. This also indicates that Campbell is still resistant to taking direction from David, which he was ordered to do by the FBI. In that same episode, he admits he didn't follow through with his promises to become a better person, as making self-improvements would mean actually putting in constant effort and he was too lazy to do so, although now he finally seems sincere in wanting to change. He even expresses his motivation to be a better person to Miss Priss in the episode "Panicked Room" after the two rekindle their failed relationship after getting stuck in an escape room together. At David's request for help at the end of "Time Crapsules", Campbell steps in to explain that adapting to failure is an inevitable part of growing up, but the important thing is to make the most of what you've got, talking about his own path in life while using the camp as a metaphor, and ultimately concluding that "I never saw this coming, but this camp is the best it's ever been." He has way more potential room for improvement however, thus he hasn't been fully reformed at the end of his first season of community service work.
Affiliation[]
- Main article: Affiliation
Trivia[]
- Cameron Campbell, along with Preston Goodplay, Billy Nikssilp, Stephen van Petrol, Edward Pikeman, Dolph Houston, Meredith Miller, Jermy Fartz, Gaylord Nurfington, Neil Armstrong Junior, and Cameron Junior "CJ" Campbell are the only characters whose last names have been revealed at this time.
- It is currently unknown what his middle name is, though he has stated it begins with the letter C.
- He seems to have an ambiguous past as he is wanted by the federal government with extreme prejudice for unknown reasons and, as seen in "Camp Cool Kidz" and "Foreign Exchange Campers", he has a couple of different miniature vaults with some extremely illegal and thoroughly questionable paraphernalia.
- He has several false walls in his bedroom in the attic, as shown in "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum", also packed to the brim with illegal items purchased off the dark web.
- He has also written a book called "The Art of the Steal" as seen in the library of his mansion.
- Campbell has also authored another book titled "Using People & Taking Advantage of So-Called Friends", as seen in "The Talk".
- He is also shown to own a wine cellar at the back of his mansion which holds white beer, red beer, cheap beer, expensive beer as well as various unknown food and stocks along with Jasper's Pog collection.
- Campbell seems to not remember anyone's name and keeps on calling them something else. Though if this is intentional or not, remains unknown. It could either be because he doesn't care or he is very forgetful. This has been shown several times in the show, some of the include the times when he called Max "Mitchell" in "Eggs Benefits," Gwen "Grace" in "Escape from Camp Campbell," Pikeman "Teddy" and Sasha "Sally" in "Camporee."
- To try and counteract this in "After Hours", he wrote down the campers' names on his hand this time, which are (in order): Neil, Nerdress (Nerris), Neil (Space Kid), Ed (Ered), Norf (Nurf), Princeton (Preston), Harry (Harrison), Girl Neil (Nikki). To his credit, he did get Neil correct and Space Kid half-correct, as Neil is his real name ("Parents' Day") but prefers to go by his nickname.
- In "Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper", Campbell reveals he has stage 3 hemorrhoids, cysts on his back, and a twin brother that he ate in the womb. He still wets the bed which causes intimacy issues (and at his age is extremely unusual), never received hugs from his father, and is also heavily implied to have been molested by his uncle Clark.
- At the end of that same episode, we learn that Campbell has 23,487 hours of community service remaining, and as stated in "Keep the Change", his active hours are from 7am-7pm. If Campbell were to put in non-stop service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, this breaks down to: 978.6 days, or 139.8 weeks, or 32.17 months, or 2.68 years. As he only does 12 hours of community service a day all of those numbers should be doubled, thus it will take 5.36 years for him to serve the remainder of his debt to society if he puts in the exact same amount of hours every single day.
- Campbell reveals he has an obsession with Wikipedia in the episode "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum", making use of it every day but regrets rarely donating to their annual fundraisers.
- Unsurprisingly, Campbell hates children. In "Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper" he says "kids are diabolical monstrosities that drive you to the brink of insanity", and in "Cameron Campbell Can't Handle the Truth Serum" he calls the campers "tiny demons" and says that being around the camp acts like an IUD for him, effectively killing any desire he may have to father children.
- There is a bit of meta humor in the episode "Panicked Room": in one of his early speeches, Campbell says his eyes are "danube" blue. Every color that exists is given a "hex code" (and a corresponding "name", such as "sky blue", "lime green", etc), and these same hex codes are used by animators to maintain uniform colors inserted into character models. According to this wiki, his eyes use the hex code 7DABDD, which in layman's terms is known as "danube blue".
- Aside from Jasper, there has been at least one other camper death. In "Space Camp Was a Hoax", Gwen mentions she has had to fill out the paperwork for a dead camper before. However, Jasper's death did not happen while she was a counselor, and it is unknown how long ago they had perished. It is heavily implied that Campbell covered up Jasper's death, which Max later brings up in "Cameron Campbell the Camp Campbell Camper". It's possible he covered up the death of this unknown second camper as well.
- In "Panicked Room", it is confirmed that Cameron Campbell and Penelope Priss used to be in a relationship, before he went on a 17-year "break" and completely ghosted hr. Their relationship is passionately rekindled by the end of the episode. Later on in "With Friends Like These" it revealed two went on a cruise to Cabo, Mexico - however, it is unconfirmed whether they are still together, as she has not appeared in any photos with him that were published regarding his acquisition of a social media app during the trip.
Gallery[]
- To see the full gallery, go to Cameron Campbell/Gallery.