backstories

An Oral History of the Wet Hot American Summer Fart Track

Photo: Eureka Pictures

In the history of DVD extras, there aren’t too many milestones you can point to and say, “That’s something I’ll remember.”

But the Wet Hot American Summer DVD contained an extra so bold, so unique in its madness that you couldn’t help but pay attention: an entire commentary track made up only of farts.

Perhaps certain fans have listened to the fart track all the way through, and heard the variety of farts represented. The timing of the farts was specific, too, with certain farts surprising you with their frankness, their length, their jolt of electricity. But where did these farts come from? Were they real? Were they canned farts or human-made?

Here, at last, is the real, unedited story behind the DVD fart track, courtesy of the film’s director, David Wain.

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David Wain: The idea for the fart track was similar to how a lot of the ideas we had come up. One or the other of us being like, “There should be an extra track on the DVD that’s only farts, right?” And the other one would be like, “Of course. You don’t even have to say that out loud. Of course that’s what we have to do.”

And then when we were doing sound work on the show, a couple of us just went into the studio. I think it was me, Michael Showalter, maybe Zak Orth. And we just sat in there and made fart sounds for a while. Until we got bored. Then we stopped, and looped the others.

Vulture: So those fart sounds are being made by your mouths only?

Yes. We were just going “pff, pff” with our mouths. I think we had a couple of whoopie cushions as well. It’s possible.

Interesting. So it wasn’t a fart button, or an effect of some kind?

No, we wanted live sounds. Had to be live.

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Well, there you have it. Was history made today? Yes. Yes it was.

Good night, and good luck.

The Oral History of the WHAS Fart Track