Today is a day that I never thought would come: the cult classic film “Wet Hot American Summer” is now a Netflix original show (and the reviews are great). When it debuted in 2001 the movie sank nearly without a trace, and what many of my peers and I thought was a masterful showcase for some of the sharpest comedy and comedians of our time seemed to have been rejected by the larger world.

Now, a decade and a half later, it’s astonishing to see how many of the movie’s cast members—all of whom have returned for the series—have achieved mainstream stardom. Moreover, its shocking to find that the movie’s very particular, wildly absurdist, brazenly unfunny brand of funny has achieved widespread cultural acceptance. That’s something I never imagined could happen, and even if it did, I could never, not in a million years, have guessed that popular regard for the film could reach such a critical mass that a television adaptation would result. And yet here we are. Let this be a lesson to the cynical: anything is possible.