Few Questions about Heavy Weights

First of all, let me say that I love this movie. It was a staple of my childhood and is still fun as hell to watch at age 26. Its a cliched 90s Disney story with content that sets it apart from everything else they were doing at the time. And it was the PERFECT movie & performance for Ben Stiller to be a part of. How many 90s kids saw that movie, had the demented Tony Perkis ingrained into their brains, and then grew up & saw Stiller in There's Something About Mary, Meet The Parents, Dodgeball, & Zoolander and thought "Hey I remember him! Lets go see that!". Its also a great look into the early career of Judd Apatow who has sort of been the king of comedy films in the last few years.

But I do have a couple of questions about the film. Things that have always stuck with me.


First of all WHAT WAS UP WITH SIMMS' INTRODUCTION!!! This always bugged me even after I saw the film the first time. Simms is the "Fattest Boy in Camp" that cries alot throughout the film. Does anybody remember how he was introduced though? Gerry & the others are coming into camp on the bus and Gerry spots him outside the camp entrance waving a stick, shaking his head, with ominous music playing in the background. When was watching it the first time, I thought Simms was going to be like an evil gang leader in the camp or something (he was pretty imposing upon first viewing due to his size). But no he wasn't. Then after the movie was over and I thought about it, I thought "maybe he knew Tony had taken over the camp from The Bushkins and he was giving a warning because he knew what was coming". But then I went back and watched it and thought that can't be it because when The Bushkins announce they are no longer the owners, he seems just as surprised as the other kids.

So...WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT?!?!?! They gave the largest (seriously, he could pass for Andre the Giant's kid) & wimpiest kid (he does cry alot) an over the top entrance but it leads to nothing? I don't get it and never did.

Second, is X = 11 the answer to the equation in the Hall of Intelligence? I just recently watched the film and I tried to figure out the equation myself using the best of my memory from high school algebra. Honestly, I don't think 11 could possibly be the answer as the way I was working it out, I wound up with numbers with decimals, so I doubt the real answer could even be a real number. Also, I plugged 11 into the equation and since no equal sign is in it, I assumed that plugging 11 in would cause everything to equal 0 (the left & right sides of the equal sign have to balance & with no equal sign, then what is given is entirely the left side and that should equal 0, the right side). However, plugging 11 in didn't work at all. Now granted, I haven't done this algebra stuff in years and even when I did, I wasn't the best at it anyway. So for those of you who are better at Math than I am, can anybody tell me if 11 is indeed the answer and if not, what is it?

Third, again regarding the Apache Relay, I was amazed at how unprepared both teams seemed to be. The Camp Hopers put a guy who is clearly afraid of heights in charge of climbing a wall. And they put poor Cody in the Sack Race even though he clearly isn't good at it. Go over to the MVPers and they put an IDIOT in at the Hall of Intelligence. Shouldn't they have prepared these guys for those tasks? But anyways, my question is, how on Earth did that moron for MVP make it past the Hall of Intelligence? They didn't really make the rules clear. I assumed that you had a time limit and if time expired you automatically advance, and if you give the right answer, you get to move through quicker, hence why Nicholas storming through the thing caught them up.

Fourth, didn't it seem odd to anybody that The Bushkins waited until the first day of camp to make the announcement that they were no longer the owners? I mean they didn't tell the parents that paid their money, or their own employees? They just decided to spring that up on them last minute? I mean this is something that had to have taken place at least some time prior to the first day since Tony's father had given new lights to the camp. Can't exactly hook all that in within a couple hours or something.

And lastly...WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT PURPLE STUFF PUT ON GERRY'S FOOD TRAY?!?!?! When he was writing his letter to his grandma and we see what is going on as Gerry is writing/reading/speaking the letter in his mind, when he says "I knew the food would be bad" we see a pile of this weird looking purple stuff put down on Gerry's tray. I know the idea was to make the food look disgusting as all hell (mission accomplished) but was it actually real food? I hope not because that looked to be about the nastiest thing I've ever seen on a dinner plate.

I realize there is probably no answer for a lot of these questions (except the Math question. I want an answer! GET TO WORK!!!, lol). I just thought it'd be fun to spark some discussion about this childhood gem.