Camp Eberhart's Annual Lip Sync

When I was a camper/camp counselor at the BEST summer camp of all time, Camp Eberhart in Three Rivers Michigan, a summer tradition was The Annual Lip Sync (sometimes bi or tri-annual, but that's irrelevant). The cabins would all compete against each other in a battle of who had the best choreographed lip-synced routine to a chosen super awesome song. As a camper, I lip-synced to some of the world's best pop songs and I was an audience member to some truly epic routines, often from surprising sources, such as the 13-15 year old boys of Cabin 15/16 (yes, the cabin numbering got confusing at times). The following are the Hall of Fame, should-have-their-own-VH1-show-where-quasi-celebrities-talk-about-them, lip sync performances (and I'm putting in YouTubes of the songs so you can hear them and lip sync to them yourself):

"Leader of the Pack" - This particularly awesome 1960s jam by the Shangri-Las was very wisely chosen as the lip-sync entry by the junior girls, aka the 7-9 year-olds of Camp Eberhart. Now I'm sure you can imagine that anything where tiny little girls are doing basic choreography in (sort of) unison is highly adorable. They could all be doing the sign language alphabet without background music together and it would be cute. But with this performance they went above and beyond the cute factor by being good. This is more of a story-telling song so they proceeded to act out the verses, including a little girl dressed in a too-big leather jacket as "the leader of the pack" and a little girl in a too-big frothy prom dress as his lady love. But the best part, by far, was when the motorcycle sounds played during the chorus and this group of 25 tiny girls would all turn toward the audience, put their hands around imaginary handlebars and rev their Harleys. This makes you want to be a camp counselor doesn't it? Well you should, because to date, it's still the best job I ever had.

"Blinded by the Light" - This song by Manfred Mann is terrific, even if I still can't figure out the words after countless listenings. In the Lip Sync Hall of Fame forever, this song was performed by the group least likely to care at all about the lip sync, the afore-mentioned 13-15 year-old boys. At most lip syncs in my camp career, their performances would involve a lot of acting too-cool, tripping on themselves or moshing. But "Blinded by the Light" had a magical effect on these boys. It inspired them to do sparkle fingers in unison and actual synchronized choreography. It was like seeing a unicorn and every time I hear this song I will be forever reminded of these boys who decided to show that they really were too cool and rocked out hard.

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - I'm sure this seems like an obvious choice when you have groups of girls and boys doing choreographed dance routines, but this performance was special. This lip-sync didn't actually occur at The Lip Sync, it was a special performance during the water show. I know, you're all, what does a lip-sync have to do with a water show? Well we did this lip sync on windsurfing boards, that we paddled into the middle of the swim area, stood up on and did sweet moves that I still remember and do every time this song comes on. Did some of us fall off our boards? You bet. But those of us who fell, myself included, climbed right back up on that board dripping wet and waved our arms in the air like we just didn't care. Those girls, wait for ittttttttttttt, just wanted to have fun.

"I Think We're Alone Now" - Um, it's Tiffany. And this song has lyrics that were meant for acting out. No additional explanations necessary. (Except that this was another tiny girl performance and thus even more amazing.)

I could watch this video every day for the rest of my life.

"Seize the Day" - The all-time BEST lip-sync song of all time, hands down, no contest. This routine I'm particularly attached to because I was co-choreographer and I love Newsies as much as I love cupcakes. (And so began my Christian Bale lifelong love affair, no matter how weird he is or how much weight he loses for a role.) The moves for this routine were particularly awesome, as they involved a triumphant fist in the air every time "Seize the Day" was spoken in the song, which is a lot. It was almost a pre-cursor to the Jersey Shore fist pump, but I digress. The best part was that at the end of the song, our girls, faces smudged with "newsprint" to look like they just wanted to sell papes for a reasonable wage, reached down at the end of the song, grabbed the strategically placed newspaper at their feet and flung it into the air so that the stage was raining papes at the end. You have chills, don't you? I know, me too.

The Annual Lip Sync is a perfect example of how amazing camp was. I'm confident I will share more camp propaganda with you because it definitely is responsible for large chunks of who I am. And for my love of Bon Jovi's "I'll Be There For You," complete with hand signal choreography.