Joe Camp was the creator, screenwriter, and director behind the beloved “Benji” movie franchise.
- Died: March 15, 2024 (Who else died on March 15?)
- Details of death: Died at his home in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, after a long illness at the age of 84.
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Joe Camp’s legacy
“Benji” was Camp’s first movie, first imagined while he was watching the animated classic “Lady and the Tramp” and wondering if a similar approach could work for a live-action dog movie. A dog lover, Camp saw his own dog’s facial expressions and emotions and decided to make the first live-action movie from a dog’s point of view, without a human narrating for the dog. He wrote the script, fundraised, and shot the film, and when major studios didn’t show any interest, he distributed it himself, releasing “Benji” in October 1974. The indie film became a smash hit – it was one of the year’s top grossing movies, received critical acclaim, and became a beloved family classic.
Camp went on to make five more Benji feature films, most recently the 2018 Netflix reboot, “Benji,” which he cowrote with his son, Brandon Camp. He placed Benji in several made-for-TV movies and gave him cameo appearances in his unrelated feature films, “Hawmps!” and “The Double McGuffin.” Camp even made Benji a sci-fi star in the 1983 Saturday morning TV series “Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince.” The 1980 short “Benji at Work” earned Camp a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program. After the success of the first “Benji” film, Camp continued to create and release his films independently, becoming one of the most successful indie directors in movie history.
An animal lover who also had horses, cats, and chickens in addition to dogs, Camp wrote the books “The Soul of a Horse: Life Lessons from the Herd” and “Born Wild: The Journey Continues.” He also wrote several novels and other nonfiction books. He was proud to note that the original dog that played Benji was rescued from a shelter, and the American Humane Association reported that Benji inspired more than a million adoptions of shelter dogs.
Notable quote
“[F]rom the time I was a young kid I’ve always had a dog at least, and now it has built up to four and two cats and three chickens (laughs)…you know they’ve just always been a part of my life. I’m not weird about it; they are just part of the family and they are always there. You’ve seen the thing that goes around the Internet of all the things that dogs are, and if we could be like that we’d be much better people. That’s pretty much what you feel if you have them around you all the time.” —from a 2004 interview for the Christian Broadcasting Network
Tributes to Joe Camp
Full obituary: The New York Times
