happy camper

The Dictionary of American Slang suspects the phrase to have originated among California movie and show-business people as a reference to child clients of summer camps.

happy camper (plural happy campers)

1. (chiefly US, informal) One who is thoroughly content or satisfied.

   Synonym: happy bunny

   I will be a happy camper when they fix the potholes on my commute.

   • 1989 April 26, Shirley Marlow, “Quayle Visits Samoa, Decides He'll Give It a Break”, in Los Angeles Times‎:

     “You all look like happy campers to me,” Dan Quayle to the people of American Samoa.

   • 1997, Roz Denny Fox, Sweet Tibby Mack‎, page 132:

     "Call, but you can't fight union regulations" / "You're probably right. Still, their boss needs to know I'm not a happy camper."

   • 2008, Deepa Kumar, quoting Ron Carey, Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike‎, Appendix, page 194:

     I had kept telling people that this company would be looking for a victim to pay for this. They would not let it go. And it wasn't just them—look at all the Mob guys I threw out of the union. They weren't happy campers.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see happy,‎ camper.

• Christine Ammer (2013) “happy camper”, in American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 197.
• Eric Partridge (2005) “happy camper”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volumes 1 (A–I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 961.
• Jonathon Green (2024) “happy camper n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang