Editorials
Zeke the Plumber: Remembering the Most Traumatic Episode of “Salute Your Shorts”
Horror tends to be at its most effective when we least expect it. When fear catches us completely off guard. Take children’s comedy series Salute Your Shorts, for example. The Nickelodeon ‘90s sitcom ran for two seasons, and revolved around a group of teen campers in the fictional summer camp, Camp Anawanna. Often the episodes centered around pranks, camp life, and the dynamics between the diverse personalities at camp, but the second episode opted to go for the jugular with its creepy slant on a camp staple: the ghost story.
Titled “The Ghost Story,” episode two sees the campers gathered around to spook each other silly with tales of terror. Resident bully, Budnick (Danny Cooksey), spins the yarn of Zeke the Plumber, the camp’s former custodian that had no sense of smell because his nose had been bitten off by a parrot. Because of this, Zeke couldn’t smell the gas leak when digging a hole. He strikes up a match and sparks an explosion, leaving only his beloved plunger behind. Anyone who finds and touches the plunger is cursed with nightmares of Zeke.
“What is this guy? The Freddy Krueger of custodians?” a skeptical camper asks Budnick.
In a way, the description fits. Both Michael (Erik MacArthur) and Telly (Venus DeMilo Thomas) touched the plunger during Budnick’s story, and both dream of Zeke the Plumber soon after. Or rather, suffer traumatic nightmares. In these nightmares, Zeke is waiting for them, digging into their deepest memories and twisting them to evoke fear. There are even threats of death. Just like Freddy Krueger. And also like Freddy, Zeke died in an explosion, and he’s covered head to toe in disfiguring burn scares. What makes Zeke so traumatic for the unsuspecting child, though, is that he covers his scars with a stiff human mask stretched over his face. His eyes lost behind it. He speaks through it in hushed tones. It’s deeply unsettling.
Granted, Salute Your Shorts is a comedy aimed at kids, so the terror eventually eased up and delivered the requisite cheerful ending. That is, Zeke the Plumber was just a figment of imagination, save for Counselor Ug Lee (Kirk Baily) trying to seek revenge by donning the costume and sneaking around the woods. Budnick did get his comeuppance in the form of arachnophobia, and all was right in Camp Anawanna again.
Still, though, for the target audience, Zeke the Plumber’s appearance was unexpected and terrifying. The mask, the unassuming outfit, and the gravelly quiet voice instilled actual nightmares for the generation that watched this infamous episode in 1991. A boogeyman that appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. At least with Nickeoldeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which had just wrapped up its inaugural season a month prior to the airing of this episode, you knew to expect the horror and could brace yourself accordingly. There was no mentally preparing for “The Ghost Story.” For a certain age group, Zeke the Plumber remains one of the most traumatic figures from childhood.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Kraus took the literary world by storm back in 2023 with the release of his hit novel Whalefall. A terrifying yet intimate survival thriller with mythological undertones, the book was almost immediately bombarded with offers from movie studios wanting to adapt its claustrophobic imagery to the big screen.
Fast forward to June of 2026, and we finally got our first glimpse at Brian Duffield’s long-awaited adaptation of Whalefall, starring Austin Abrams as our unfortunate lead who gets swallowed alive by a sperm whale. While this two-and-a-half-minute teaser only covers the beginning of the story, it’s already been making waves online (and in-person at select 4DX promotional screenings) as one of the most stressful cinematic experiences of the year.
In fact, my own wife had to cover her eyes and exclaim, “You’re definitely not dragging me to watch this one” when we saw the whale’s jaws begin to close in on Abrams, with this incident alone already leaving me convinced that this will likely be one of the biggest genre hits of the year. With that in mind, I’d like to invite you to take a closer look at the teaser in order to break down interesting details and get a better idea of what’s in store for genre fans when the movie finally comes out this October.
Of course, as usual, don’t forget to comment below if you noticed something we didn’t!
Now, without further ado, here are five things we learned from the Whalefall trailer!
5. Austin Abrams Performed Many of His Own Stunts
Much like in his previous film, No One Will Save You, Duffield insisted that this visceral experience should be grounded by our main character’s believable reactions, regardless of the plot’s effects-heavy setup. That’s why the camera always makes sure to linger on Abrams through his diving mask, so we know that it’s really him going through this ordeal alongside the audience.
While plenty of CGI was used in order to bring this larger-than-life story to the big screen without killing our leading man, Abrams apparently insisted on performing many of his underwater stunts himself (several of which are visible in the trailer) – much to the chagrin of a worried Duffield and the flick’s stunt coordinator, Shauna Duggins.
4. The Film Seamlessly Transitions Between the California Coast and Underwater Sets
Duffield obviously wasn’t about to drag his crew out to the middle of the ocean and shoot inside a real sperm whale, but it’s reassuring to see the filmmaker blend on-location footage with the underwater tank segments and the literal belly of the whale set.
There may be plenty of CGI stitching these elements together, but the trailer shows us that only the truly impossible shots are completely digital, meaning that the filmmakers didn’t take the easy way out when it came to adapting this unique story.
3. The Whale is Only Part of the Story
Book adaptations tend to leave out inner monologues and the occasional flashback in order to streamline the narrative (which is one reason why it’s so difficult to translate Stephen King novels to the big screen), but a claustrophobic parable like Kraus’ Whalefall would get a bit dull after a while if the whole thing was entirely set within the creature’s stomach.
That’s why it’s such a relief that the trailer hints at how Duffield will also be adapting many of the book’s introspective moments chronicling our protagonist’s harsh upbringing under his troubled father. Not only do these inclusions give the audience some much-appreciated breathing room, but they also give Josh Brolin a chance to shine as a truly complicated character.
2. The Movie is Keeping the Book’s Scientific Accuracy…
While Kraus’ novel was inspired by a viral video of kayakers nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, the writer ended up consulting with marine biologists about exactly what kind of situation might lead to a whale actually eating a human being alive.
The answer was surprisingly specific, as cetaceans are almost universally known to be friendly towards humans. However, even a gentle giant can make mistakes, and as we see in the trailer, Abrams’ unpleasant fate is more of an accident than anything else – with the massive sperm whale only trapping the poor diver in the first (and thankfully acid-free) chamber of its stomach due to a mix-up involving a giant squid.
Fortunately for the film’s special effects artists, they can now reference the first-ever footage of a real-life sperm whale chowing down on one such squid, as this freaky recording was released late last year.
1. …With a Catch!
Duffield may be doing his best to recreate the grounded (or is it submerged?) thrills of Kraus’ novel, but there are limits to what can be depicted onscreen while still guaranteeing an entertaining movie. That’s why it’s no surprise that Whalefall will take advantage of certain cinematic parlor tricks as the director tests the limits of both physics and biology so we can actually watch his movie.
For starters, the innards of the whale itself have been greatly exaggerated so there’s enough space to make out the action, and in the spirit of movies like Neil Marshall’s The Descent, there also seems to be plenty of non-diegetic lighting meant to show us what’s going on even if Abram’s character wouldn’t necessarily be able to see anything.
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