Meatballs Quadrilogy Archive Collection

Meatballs is a 1979 Canadian comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman. It is noted for Bill Murray's first film appearance in a starring role and for launching the directing career of Reitman

The film was the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in the United States and Canada, winning the Golden Reel Award. 

Meatballs (1979)

Tripper Harrison leads a group of new counsellors-in-training (CITs) at  a cut-rate summer camp called Camp Northstar located in Ontario. In truth, he's young at heart and only marginally more mature than the campers themselves and leads practical jokes on camp director Morty Melnick, mainly by taking Melnick from his cabin late at night so that he awakens in unusual places.. Tripper befriends Rudy (Chris Makepeace), a loner camper who has trouble fitting in. As Tripper inspires his young charges to defeat rival Camp Mohawk in the annual Olympiad competition, Rudy plays matchmaker between Tripper and Roxanne (Kate Lynch), a female counselor at Northstar.

Meatballs was followed by three sequels: 

Meatballs Part II (1984)

The second in-name-only sequel to the first Meatballs summer camp movie sets us at Camp Sasquash where the owner Giddy tries to keep his camp open after it's threatened with foreclosure after Hershey, the militant owner of Camp Patton located just across the lake, wants to buy the entire lake area to expand Camp Patton. Giddy suggests settling the issue with the traditional end-of-the-summer boxing match over rights to the lake. Meanwhile, a tough, inner city punk, nicknamed Flash, is at Camp Sasquash for community service as a counselor-in-training where he sets his sights on the naive and intellectual Cheryl, while Flash's young charges befriend an alien, whom they name Meathead, also staying at the camp for the summer.

Meatballs III: Summer Job (1986) 

The ghost of a dead porn star comes to Earth to help a nerd with his sex life.

Meatballs 4 (1992)

Ricky is the hottest water-ski instructor around and has just been rehired by his former employer/camp to whip up attendance. Unfortunately, the camp is in serious financial trouble. The owner of a rival, more popular camp wants to buy them out. Therefore they will have to engage in a mean, winner-takes-all competition that will settle the score once and for all.

None of which involved either Reitman or Murray.

Only Meatballs III had any relation to the story or characters of the original, featuring Patrick Dempsey as Rudy Gerner.