Chris Farley Was My Summer Camp Counselor

Fred Parker, a camper assigned to Chris’s cabin, remembers Chris demanding that his boys do things designed to get them in trouble. And when the campers followed his wayward instructions, it was Chris’s job to reprimand them. “There was a large bear skin hung up in the mass hall,” says Parker. “If you got in trouble, he was like, ‘OK, you gotta go kiss the bear.’” Worse yet, Chris required you to fetch a stepstool so you could kiss the bear on the mouth. 

And yet, the kids couldn’t get enough. “We would literally fight with each other to see who got to sit next to Chris at mess hall,” says Parker, “because he would have you in stitches.”

But if Farley was entertaining the campers, the boys were also there for his amusement. “He was teaching a physical fitness class of all things,” says Dondanville. “So he arranges this game, sort of like Red Rover. I was big for my age because I was one of the oldest campers. Chris had me and the other big kid running into each other, slamming into each other like a football drill. He basically turned it into a jousting match for his own entertainment.” 

It wouldn’t have been surprising to see Chris in the middle of the scrum. A high school football player, Farley was surprisingly athletic, fast, and agile, remembers Arnheim. “He could do a cartwheel on a dime, and he would. And it was one of those things where maybe some of his bum crack was showing when he did a handstand. He was silly.”

But perhaps the funniest camp activity to visualize is Chris Farley: Master Equestrian. “They had Chris teaching horseback riding,” says Tom, reasoning it was a way to keep the rowdy counselor “way out in the fields separated from camp so at least he was out of sight, out of mind. Literally, put out to pasture.” The camp powers-that-be might have reconsidered the assignment the day someone brought in a pony for the young campers to see. “Chris got on and the thing just buckled. The equestrian was yelling “get off my horse!” and Chris was just laughing hysterically.”

It was all fun and games, except for the times when it wasn’t so much fun. If Chris knew your vulnerable spot, says Arnheim, “he would needle it.” And there was always the thrill and threat of physical danger. 

“I must have been 11 or 12 and I woke up in midair,” says Arnheim. Chris and another counselor were “throwing me around like I was baseball. It was an unpleasant way to wake up.”

Farley’s fellow counselors could find themselves in harm’s way as well. Dondanville remembers stories about counselors knotting themselves together with bulky tug-of-war ropes, then heading out on a multi-bar drinking binge. Dumb fraternity-style fun, until Chris would decide to, say, jump off a small bridge. “The other six guys would suddenly be dragged to the rail, shouting ‘damn it, why did we rope ourselves to him?’” 

Chris could do it all, from fairy tale villains to pelvis-thrusting Elvis impressions. And of course, anything for a laugh. There was a local guide near the camp who would take boys out to fish for walleye or other exotic creatures, and Chris created a comedy routine based on the character. “Part of the skit was he had to swallow a live minnow,” says Parker. His fellow counselors supplied the props--real, wriggling minnows, and huge ones at that. “He would down two or three. And when he got offstage, he threw them up.”

Even Chris’s dad got in on the act. “When I was young, he was the biggest man I'd ever seen in person,” says Arnheim. A camp show standard was a ballet spoof where the strongest counselors would do dance poses, then catch one of the biggest camp staffers in a hilarious leap. One year, the campers were expecting the heavy counselor to come out for his jump “when Papa Farley walks out and I'm telling you, he’s probably 550 pounds. And a voice exactly like Chris. ‘Hey there!’” Pandemonium. 

The laughs were catnip to Chris, but it was more than that. “It was Chris feeling that ensemble, feeling trusted and accepted,” says Tom. “That’s where he really learned that skill that he adapted so easily to Second City and of course SNL.” 

Oh yeah, Saturday Night Live. What’s it like for a kid when your camp counselor shows up on the biggest comedy show on TV? 

“We were all so excited,” says Arnheim, a counselor himself by the time Chris broke into the big time. “But I think everyone was so shocked.” 

It was no surprise to Dondanville. “He was a legend in grammar school, he was a legend at summer camp, he was a legend at Marquette. He’d been building up his fan base his whole life.” 

That star quality was obvious, and it had nothing to do with fame. When Chris was at Second City but not yet known outside of Chicago, he came back to visit Red Arrow when his younger brothers and Dondanville were counselors. “He wasn't a star yet but all the kids gathered around him,” he says. “Chris wasn’t in TV and movies yet but he was treated like a legend by all of us.”

He was always the funniest guy in the room, says Arnheim, quoting SNL castmates like Adam Sandler and Norm Macdonald who would tell you the same damn thing. “Every counselor wanted to be Chris Farley. They all joked like him. They all did his whisper thing, shook guys’ shoulders and shouted ‘get ahold of yourself!’ He was the funniest dude in the world.”