Origin of "happy camper"

How did happy camper and not a happy camper originate?

I have been unable to find a definitive source for this phrase.

Solution 1:

In my opinion, camping is a miserable activity. A happy camper must be an unshakably happy person, and a lot of people seem to share my opinion:

obviously, the phrase unhappy camper refers to the homesick city kid who mopes about the countryside hating cows, cursing mosquitoes, refusing to make up a bunk, rejecting the hearty companionship of fireside storytelling and tossing his cookies with dismaying regularity.

The Autobiography of Lorenzo Waugh, written in February of 1883, and published in 1885, mentions happy campers on page 254:

Bouquets of beautiful flowers with their rich perfume grace our table, adjusted nicely by the hands of Mrs. Hittell and Katie. All seated, and thanks devoutedly tendered and the Heavenly Father's blessing invoked, all are helped, and such eating, and such rational free social pleasure is not to be conceived of anywhere only in such a group of happy campers.

In 1961, Camp Counseling: An Illustrated Book of Know-how for the Camp Worker highlighted enthusiastic distraction as the strategy to head off unhappy campers at the pass:

He is ever-mindful of the value of "'fun," for happy campers seldom become problems. If he is teaching a new skill, he is thorough, but patient and understanding, and proceeds by an informal, friendly manner. He knows the value of a laughter.

The phrase happy camper was used with a touch of sarcasm in the fictional account of two castaways in 1913 Everybody's Magazine - Volume 29 - Page 505, but castaways share in all the misery of campers:

One might have thought that we were a pair of happy campers enjoying a hard- earned vacation, rather than two forlorn maroons.

In 1978, we find the phrase "I am not a happy camper" used metaphorically in the dialogue of a Harlequin Romance novel, Sweet Twibby Mack:

"Call, but you can't fight union regulations."

"Still, their boss needs to know I'm not a happy camper."

Right. So take care of the call, then grab your clubs."

The oldest example for happy camper applied to non-campers seems to be a 1981 NY Times article about homeless people riding the bus. They were not happy, but they were homeless, which seems to be a lot like camping:

"It is not a group of happy campers that gets off the bus," wrote David Bird about homeless men in The New York Times in 1981.

According to Safire's Political Dictionary, the phrase mainstreamed metaphorically a few months later, when Mary McGrory applied the term in politics in maligning an optimistic political add from the Reagan campaign about Peoria, Illinois:

The happy campers in the commercial have few counterparts in the Peoria area today.

Politicians leveraged the word picture in the mid 1980's:

"I want the authors of the bill to know," warned Representative Thomas J. Tauke of Iowa, on the subject of toxic-waste financing, "that I am not a happy camper."

Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana agreed: "This is the most unhappy campsite in America."

From 1985, the metaphorical momentum of happy campers seems to increase steadily along side the unhappy campers.

www.nytimes.com

Safire's Political Dictionary

Solution 2:

I believe it entered popular usage with a comedy TV show called "Hi-de-Hi" that was set in a Butlins-style holiday camp. From memory, a catch-phrase was "Hi-de-hi, happy campers!" but pinning down a definite connection is a bit elusive.

However, "happy campers" on its own became popular in the 1980s which correlates nicely with the Hi-de-Hi show being aired in the 1980s, and the phrase "hi-de-hi happy campers" gets plenty of google hits though none in BNC.

Solution 3:

To the references, you can add the use of the exact phrase "He's not a happy camper" nearly 1:45 into the 1947 movie Tycoon, starring John Wayne. It thus predates all television references.

Solution 4:

It is perhaps worth noting that the reference to happy campers in The Autobiography of Lorenzo Waugh, 1883 [ScottM above], is a literal use, and simply a collocation rather than a colloquial idiom. I suspect that the 1913 Everybody's Magazine - Volume 29 - Page 505 is the same.

Likewise, the OED's entry starts with a literal collocation:

happy camper n. colloquial (originally U.S.) a content or satisfied person; also in extended use.Frequently in negative contexts, esp. in not a happy camper.

[1930 Altoona (Pa.) Mirror 25 May 1/6 At the meeting of the staff of Camp Shatter, the summer camp of the Blair-Bedford council, Boy Scouts of America, the slogan ‘Every Scout a Happy Camper’ was selected.]

This quote is placed in brackets as it is the literal sense.

The OED first records its use as a colloquialism in

1957 N.Y. Amsterdam News 22 June 34/ ‘I simply want to be a happy camper,’ says ‘Pocahontas’ whose real name is Miss Edna Riley.

Google Ngrams, however, has it suddenly increasing in popularity around 1982.

Back to the literal boy scouts, and in Scouting Sep 1988 there is an advert "Let Nestle-Bleich make you a happy camper" that is a clearly double-entendre, and that by 1988 the extended meaning had been established. It is this that makes me suspect that the Scouts' original 1930 slogan gave rise to the extended use / idiom.

[There is a British article in The Spectator 1958 that makes mention of "the Happy Camper type" but then relates this to people who stayed at British holiday camps.]

There is another 1988 reference but only a "snippet view on Google Books: Travel Holiday - Volume 170 - Page 32

Anyway, the sturdy three-axie rig was holding its own, marching up the snow-covered grades like a happy camper. The only thing left for us to do was to settle back in the cushiony chairs and sofas, help ourselves to the pizza we had picked up ...

This appears to be another transitional stage between literal and extended.

I have looked through all the Google Books entries from 1800 - 1996 and there appears to be an almost certainty that, prior to 1982, the references were literal. (The 1957 entry seems to be a sporadic) There then appeared to be an increase in camping, particularly in the USA, that caused the popularisation of the phrase as an idiom, and that idiom was founded on the 1930 literal meaning and aided by the Nestle-Bleich advert as, after 1988, the numbers of the extended examples increase exponentially.