Misleading satire

I recently saw a comedy called Wet Hot American Summer, which was apparently made by a comedy team called Stella, or the State or something. Anyway, I'd never heard of them and I was only aware of the movie through a rather facetious Roger Ebert review, and some offhand compliments in the onion. I rented it thinking it was a sincere summer camp comedy, and I found the first twenty minutes or so confusing, as it was so badly made and badly cast and the dialogue was so contrived. Then there's a scene that makes it clear that this is an Airplane-style parody of summer camp movies, and the rest of the movie is pretty goofy. I don't understand why they play it straight for so long, though. The Naked Gun movies, Airplane, Mel Brooks movies all start with big ridiculous gags so you know exactly what movie you're watching. Presumably, other people would know more about the movie than I did, or be aware that it was made by a comedy group. Nevertheless, going in blind hurt this movie in my case.
Still, once you get in the swing of it, it's pretty funny. Rent the DVD, though, as the best scenes were deleted for some reason; including a shot-by-shot remake of that scene from Animal House with Peter Reigert, Karen Allen and Donald Southerland, which I found clever.
And remember, it's a parody.