National Lampoon's Animal House

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National Lampoon's Animal House
theatrical poster
Directed by	John Landis
Produced by	Ivan Reitman Matty Simmons
Written by	Harold Ramis Douglas Kenney Christopher Miller
Starring	John Belushi Tim Matheson John Vernon Tom Hulce Peter Riegert Stephen Furst
Music by	Elmer Bernstein
Cinematography	Charles Correll
Editing by	George Folsey Jr.
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	July 28, 1978 (premiere)
Running time	109 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3,000,000
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

National Lampoon's Animal House (often called Animal House) is a 1978 comedy film in which a misfit group of fraternity boys take on the system at their college. It is considered to be the movie that started the gross-out genre.^[1]

It stars John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, John Vernon, Thomas Hulce, Cesare Danova, Peter Riegert, Mary Louise Weller, Stephen Furst, James Daughton, Bruce McGill, Mark Metcalf, James Widdoes, Verna Bloom, Martha Smith, Kevin Bacon (in his film debut) and Donald Sutherland. The movie was adapted by Douglas Kenney, Christopher Miller and Harold Ramis from stories written by Miller based on his experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth College and published in National Lampoon magazine. It was directed by John Landis.

In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Produced on a small ($3 million) budget, the film has turned out to be one of the most profitable of all time; since its initial release, Animal House has garnered an estimated return of more than $200 million in the form of video and DVDs, not including merchandising.

This film is first on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It was #36 on AFI's "100 Years, 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters 2.1 Deltas 2.2 Omegas 2.3 Other significant characters 3 Production 3.1 Origins 3.2 Writing the screenplay 3.3 Casting 3.4 Locations 3.5 Principal photography 4 Ask For Babs 5 Double Secret Probation 6 Analysis 7 Soundtrack and score 7.1 Soundtrack album listing 7.2 Other songs in the film 8 DVD editions 9 TV series, sequel 10 The smashed guitar 11 Cultural influences 12 Trivia 13 Goofs 13.1 Anachronisms 13.2 Continuity 13.3 Mistakes 14 See also 15 References 16 External links

[edit] Plot summary

It is Rush Week 1962 at fictional Faber College, a mediocre school whose motto is "Knowledge is Good." Vietnam, the Sexual Revolution and the counterculture movement are not even blips on the horizon. A 1950s mentality still pervades the campus, typified by the Omegas—the most prestigious, elitist fraternity. At the other end of the spectrum stands the Delta Tau Chi House, a repository for every campus misfit.

Two freshmen, Larry Kroger (Thomas Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst), described respectively as "a wimp and a blimp", are trying to pledge a good fraternity. They first try their luck at the Omega House rush party, but they are totally out of their league. The Omegas quickly steer them to an area where they have segregated the other "undesirables": Mohammed, Jagdish, Sidney, and Clayton (who is blind).

They try the Deltas next door, despite their reputation as "the worst house on campus". As they approach, a headless female mannequin comes flying out of a window and lands at their feet. They meet "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi), outside taking a leak. Bluto turns to greet them and urinates on their legs without noticing it. Another member, "D-Day" (Daniel Simpson Day) (Bruce McGill), rides his motorcycle through the front door and up the stairs, where he gives a surprisingly good rendition of the William Tell Overture—using his throat as a percussion instrument. The Deltas "need the dues" (and in Dorfman's case, he's a legacy since his brother Fred was a '59 Delta), so they are accepted and given the pledge names "Pinto" (Kroger) and "Flounder" (Dorfman).

Meanwhile, Dean Wormer (John Vernon), is trying to kick the Deltas off campus. Since they are already on probation, he puts them on "double secret probation" and tells Omega president Gregg Marmalard (James Daughton) to get the sneaky Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf) working on a way to get rid of the Deltas once and for all.

Flounder joins the ROTC. Neidermeyer, its pompous cadet commander, despises the overweight Flounder on sight and begins berating him. Two Deltas, "Otter" (Tim Matheson) and "Boon" (Peter Riegert), witness this and object to the mistreatment (only they are allowed to abuse their pledges). They take turns hitting golf balls, aiming for the horse Neidermeyer is riding. A ball eventually strikes the horse, causing it to rear up. Then, a second ball hits Neidermeyer on the head, knocking him out of the saddle. The already-spooked animal bolts, dragging a screaming Neidermeyer behind, entangled in the stirrups.

Later, Neidermeyer, wearing a neck brace, orders Flounder to clean his horse's filthy stable stall. Bluto and D-Day talk Flounder into sneaking the animal into the Dean's office. They give him a gun and tell him to shoot the hated animal. Unbeknownst to Flounder, the gun is loaded with blanks. He can't bring himself to kill the horse and fires into the ceiling, but the noise of the shot causes it to have a heart attack and die anyway. The Deltas panic and flee. The next day, a chainsaw is required to remove the horse, in rigor mortis, from the office.

In the cafeteria the next day, Bluto provokes Gregg and Omega pledge Chip (Kevin Bacon) with his impression of a zit and triggers a wild food fight. Not done, Bluto and D-Day rummage through a trash bin to steal the answers to an upcoming psychology test. Unfortunately, the exam stencil had been planted by the Omegas, and the Deltas get every answer wrong. Their grade point averages drop so low that the Dean only needs one more incident to revoke their charter.

Undaunted, they organize a toga party. Pinto invites Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), the cashier at the local supermarket; she turns out to be the underage daughter of shady Mayor Carmine DePasto (Cesare Danova). When she gets drunk and passes out, Pinto is tempted to take advantage of her (an angel and a devil appear over his shoulders and have a frank discussion of his choices); in the end, he takes her home in a shopping cart. A drunken Mrs. Wormer (Verna Bloom) crashes the party (both figuratively and literally) and spends the night with Otter. That turns out to be the last straw. Wormer gets the fraternity's charter revoked, and everything is confiscated, "even the stuff we didn't steal!"

To take their minds off their troubles, Otter, Boon, Flounder, and Pinto go on a road trip in Flounder's brother's new car. They pick up some girls from a liberal-arts college and by mistake, go to a club with an all-black clientele. Some of the hulking regulars are not amused and intimidate the guys into fleeing without their dates, badly damaging Flounder's brother's new car in their panic.

Things go from bad to worse. "Babs" (Martha Smith) reveals to Gregg Marmalard that his girlfriend, Mandy (Mary Louise Weller), and Otter are having an affair. Marmalard and some of his fellow Omegas lure Otter to a motel and beat him up. The Deltas' midterm grades are so bad that they are all expelled from school (and their draft boards notified of their availability) by the ecstatic Wormer.

For revenge, the Deltas decide to wreak havoc on the annual Homecoming parade, inspired by Bluto's impassioned speech invoking the memory of the "Germans" bombing Pearl Harbor. In the climatic scene, the Deltas crash the parade with their own float. In the ensuing chaos, Bluto steals a car, abducts Mandy and drives off into the sunset...or rather to Washington, DC, as the futures of many of the main characters are "revealed" (Bluto and Mandy become Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky).

[edit] Characters

[edit] Deltas

• Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson), a smooth Playboy-style sex maniac (the nickname suggests a sleek player), whose room is an uncannily pristine seduction den amid the sheer filth of the rest of the Delta house;
• Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert), Otter's best friend, who is forever having to decide between his Delta pals and his girlfriend Katy;
• John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi), an abject, drunken degenerate with a style all his own; GPA of 0.0;
• Robert Hoover (James Widdoes), the affable, frequently nervous, reasonably clean-cut president of the fraternity, who desperately struggles to maintain a façade of normalcy to placate the Dean;
• Daniel Simpson Day (Bruce McGill), "D-Day", a tough biker with a penchant for riding up the stairs; has no grade point average: all classes incomplete;
• "Stork" (real name not mentioned, but in the book adaptation is listed as "Dwayne Storkman"). During his first year, many thought the Stork was brain damaged; This character was played by Animal House co-writer Douglas Kenney and speaks only twice (Well, what the hell're we s'posed ta do, ya moe-ron?!) and (I've never seen anything like this before. Down to her underwear. I had a boner. I know I did.).
• And the two pledges:
  • Larry "Pinto" Kroger (Thomas Hulce), a shy but normal fellow;
  • Kent "Flounder" Dorfman (Stephen Furst), a hopeless, fat, clumsy loser—a "total zero" even by Delta standards.

[edit] Omegas

• Gregg Marmalard (James Daughton), the president of Omega House, who dates Mandy Pepperidge;
• Douglas C. Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), an ROTC cadet officer and scion of a military family who hates the Deltas with unbridled passion;
• Chip Diller, an Omega pledge (Kevin Bacon in his on-screen debut).

[edit] Other significant characters

• Dean Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), who wants to revoke the Deltas' charter and kick them off-campus;
• Marion Wormer (Verna Bloom), the Dean's dipsomaniac wife, who succumbs to Otter's charms;
• Katy (Karen Allen), Boon's fed-up and not-exactly-faithful girlfriend;
• Professor Dave Jennings (Donald Sutherland), who is bored with his job as English professor, smokes marijuana, and tries to turn his students on to left-wing politics;
• Clorette DePasto (Sarah Holcomb), the mayor's 13-year-old daughter, who (possibly) sleeps with Larry;
• Otis Day (DeWayne Jessie, who later legally changed his name to Otis Day), the leader of the band (Otis Day and the Knights) that plays at the toga party;
• Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller), a cheerleader and sorority girl who dates Gregg, but is not entirely "satisfied" with the relationship;
• Barbara "Babs" Jansen (Martha Smith), a Southern belle who wants Gregg for herself and is turned off by the crude Deltas.

[edit] Production

[edit] Origins

Animal House was the first movie produced by The National Lampoon, the most popular humor magazine on college campuses in the mid-1970s.^[2] The periodical specialized in tasteless humor and satirized politics and popular culture. Many of the magazine’s writers were recent college graduates, hence their appeal to students all over the country. Doug Kenney was the magazine’s first editor-in-chief and also wrote for the Lampoon. He had graduated from Harvard College in 1969 and had the kind of resume that the Omegas would have envied but, like the Deltas, he had a wicked sense of humor (he could fit his entire fist in his mouth). He was also responsible for the first appearances of two characters that would appear in Animal House – Larry Kroger and Mandy Pepperidge. They made their debut in Doug Kenney’s High School Yearbook.

However, Kenney felt that fellow Lampoon writer Chris Miller was their expert on the college experience. Faced with an impending deadline, Miller submitted a chapter from his then-abandoned memoirs (later published in 2006 as The Real Animal House) entitled, “The Night of the Seven Fires” that recalled his fraternity days (Alpha Delta Phi) at the Ivy League's Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire. The debauched antics of the Alphas became the inspiration for the Delta Tau Chis of Animal House. Filmmaker Ivan Reitman approached the magazine’s publisher Matty Simmons about making movies under the Lampoon banner. Reitman had worked on The National Lampoon Show in New York City that featured several future Saturday Night Live cast members, including John Belushi.

[edit] Writing the screenplay

Kenney met with another Lampoon writer, Harold Ramis, over brunch at the suggestion of Simmons. Ramis drew from his own fraternity experiences as a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity Washington University in St. Louis and was working on a treatment about college entitled, "Freshman Year" but the magazine’s editors were not happy with it. Kenney and Ramis started working on a treatment together and created the premise of Charles Manson in high school and called it, "Laser Orgy Girls". Simmons wasn’t crazy about this idea so they changed the setting to college. Kenney was a fan of Miller’s frat stories and suggested using them as a basis for a movie. Kenney, Miller and Ramis met for brunch and began brainstorming ideas. One thing they agreed on was that Belushi should star in it. At the time, he was a big star thanks to Saturday Night Live and ended up doing the show while shooting the movie, spending Monday through Wednesday making it and then flying back to New York City to do the show on Thursday through Saturday.

The result was a 110 page treatment (the average was 15 pages) that Simmons pitched to various Hollywood studios. He met with Ned Tanen, an executive at Universal Studios who hated it. Ramis remembers, “We went further than I think Universal expected or wanted. I think they were shocked and appalled. Chris’ fraternity had virtually been a vomiting cult. And we had a lot of scenes that were almost orgies of vomit...We didn’t back off anything."^[3] Surprisingly, the studio greenlighted the film and set the budget at a modest $3 million. Simmons remembers, “They just figured, ‘Screw it, it’s a silly little movie, and we’ll make a couple of bucks if we’re lucky – let them do whatever they want.’"^[4]

[edit] Casting

John Landis got the job directing Animal House based on his work on the Kentucky Fried Movie. That film’s script and continuity supervisor was the girlfriend of Sean Daniel, an assistant to Universal executive Tom Mount. Daniel saw Landis’ movie and recommended him to direct Animal House. Landis then met with Mount, Reitman and Simmons and got the job. Ramis originally wrote the role of Boon for himself but Landis felt that he looked too old for the part and Peter Riegart was cast instead. Landis remembers, “When I was given the script, it was the funniest thing I had ever read up to that time. But it was really offensive. There was a great deal of projectile vomiting and rape and all these things."^[5] There was also a certain amount of friction between Landis and the writers early on because he was a high school dropout from Hollywood and they were college grads. Ramis remembers, “He sort of referred immediately to Animal House as ‘my movie.’ We’d been living with it for two years and we hated that."^[6]

The initial cast was to feature Chevy Chase (as Otter), Bill Murray (as Boon), Brian Doyle-Murray, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi but only Belushi wanted to do it. Chase turned them down to do Foul Play. The character of D-Day was based on Aykroyd, who was a motorcycle aficionado. Aykroyd was offered the part, but he was already committed to Saturday Night Live. Landis met with Jack Webb to play Dean Wormer and Kim Novak to play his wife. The director chose John Vernon as Dean Wormer after seeing him in the Clint Eastwood film The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Landis also met with Meat Loaf to play Bluto in case Belushi didn’t want to do it. Much of the cast, including Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, Mark Metcalf, Bruce McGill and Kevin Bacon, were struggling actors just starting out. Despite the presence of Belushi, Universal wanted another movie star. Landis had been a crew member on Kelly's Heroes and had become friends with actor Donald Sutherland (he even used to babysit his son, Kiefer). Landis called up Sutherland and asked him to be in the film. He ended up becoming the highest-paid member of the cast. Sutherland's casting was essential for the movie being picked up by Universal as they were reluctant to produce a picture with no stars, and the veteran actor was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s. For two days work on the picture, Sutherland was offered either a $40,000 flat fee or a percentage of the film's gross; assuming that the movie would be quickly forgotten, he opted for the sure money, a decision which (by his own admission) has cost him millions.

To get the role of Neidermeyer, Mark Metcalf lied about his ability to ride horses. After he got the role, he immediately took equestrian classes. Dee Snider, lead singer of the heavy metal music group Twisted Sister, was so enamored of Metcalf's performance that he had the actor perform a similar role in the music videos for two of Twisted Sister's songs, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock"; the latter video featured Stephen Furst (Flounder) in a brief cameo at the end.

John Belushi's then girlfriend (later wife), Judy Jacklin (now Judith Belushi-Pisano), shows up as an uncredited extra in several toga party scenes.

[edit] Locations

The filmmaker’s next problem was finding a college that would let them shoot the film on their campus. They had submitted the script to a number of colleges and universities, and the movie was set to be filmed at the University of Missouri-Columbia until the president of the school read the script and refused permission. The University of Oregon agreed because after consulting with student government leaders and officers of Pan Hellenic Council, the Director of University Relations advised the president that the script, although raunchy and often tasteless, was a very funny spoof of college life.

The president of University of Oregon had been a senior administrator of a major California university years before. Back in the late 1960s his campus was considered for being the location for the film The Graduate. After he consulted with other senior administrative colleagues who advised him to turn it down, production moved to the University of California, Berkley. The reason given by the president was that the board believed the film script to be without artistic merit. The Graduate went on to become a classic. He was determined not to make the same mistake twice, even allowing the filmmakers to use his office as Dean Wormer's. As Landis relates in the DVD special features, Oregon was pretty much their last hope for a shooting location.

This movie was filmed in Cottage Grove, Oregon and at the University of Oregon, in Eugene and features numerous sites from that campus and the surrounding area. Johnson Hall, the university's administration building, is prominently featured throughout the film (including then-UO President William Boyd's office), as is Gerlinger Hall (the women's dorm), the Erb Memorial Union (renovated since that time), Carson Hall (Dormitory), Fenton Hall, Straub Hall, Earl Hall, Hayward Field, the Knight Library (the building behind Emil Faber's statue), and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (seen in the opening credits). Despite all the campus locations, UO officials insisted that the university not be identified by name in the film's credits.

The actual house that was depicted as the Delta House was originally a residence in Eugene, the Dr. A.W. Patterson House. Around 1959, it was acquired by the Psi Deuteron chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and was their chapter house until 1967, when the chapter was closed due to low membership and the house was sold and slid into disrepair, with the spacious porch removed and the lawn gravelled over. It was the sad state of the house that probably made it attractive as the chapter house for a degenerate fraternity. The interior of the Sigma Nu house was used for nearly all of the interior scenes. The individual rooms were filmed on a soundstage. At the time of the shooting, the Phi Kappa Psi and Sigma Nu fraternity houses sat next to the old Phi Sigma Kappa house. The exterior of the Omega House was actually that of the Phi Kappa Psi House. The Patterson house was demolished in 1986.[1] A suite of physicians' offices now occupies the site. A large boulder placed to the west of the entrance to the parking lot displays a bronze plaque commemorating the Delta House location. Local fans of Animal House arranged for its placement when their efforts to preserve the original building failed.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Principal photography

Landis brought the actors who played the Deltas up five days early in order to bond. Actor James Widdoes remembers, “It was like freshman orientation. There was a lot of getting to know each other and calling each other by our character names."^[7] This tactic encouraged the actors playing the Deltas to separate themselves from the actors playing the Omegas, helping generate authentic animosity between them on camera. The film was shot in 28 days.

The first preview screening was held in Denver four months before it opened nationwide. The crowd loved it and the filmmakers realized they had a potential hit on their hands.

[edit] Ask For Babs

After the closing credits, a card appears advertising the Universal Studios tour. To correlate with the film, it reads, "When in Hollywood, visit Universal Studios. (Ask for Babs.)"

Some later Landis films, such as The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London also carried this tagline in their theatrical releases, partially as an inside joke and reportedly as a tongue-in-cheek promotion for Universal's studio tour and its theme park in Los Angeles.

As of 1989, Universal Studios no longer honors the "Ask for Babs" promotion, which was either a discount or a free entry.

[edit] Double Secret Probation

Double Secret Probation is a condition of arbitrarily imposed scrutiny of a given person or group's activities in an organizational or academic setting without procedural warning. In the film, Dean Vernon Wormer tells Inter-Fraternity Council President Greg Marmalard that he has already placed the offending Delta Tau Chi house on "double secret probation". The expanded release of the original movie on DVD in 2003, was titled the Double Secret Probation Edition.

[edit] Analysis

The film has become known as the archetypal fraternity film; for better or worse, it has promoted many stereotypes and formed a distinct image of fraternities in American culture. Decades after its release, Animal House still exerts a powerful influence on today's college students. Despite having been born well after the film was released, students—especially men—on American campuses can often be seen wearing shirts emulating the Belushi character's generic "College" model. Quoting liberally from the film is a popular leisure activity, particularly at social events. In addition, the film is notable for having introduced the toga party to popular college culture. Before the movie's release, toga parties were apparently quite rare, but after 1978 many campuses experienced a massive upsurge of them.

[edit] Soundtrack and score

Animal House: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack by various artists
Released	1978
Genre	Rock and roll, R&B, film score
Length	36.23
Label	MCA
Professional reviews
All Music Guide Link

The soundtrack is a mix of rock and roll and R&B, mostly of songs that were popular around the approximate time period in which the film is set.

The original score was by film composer Elmer Bernstein, who had been a Landis family friend since John Landis was a child. According to the DVD special features, Bernstein was easily persuaded to score the film, but was not sure what to make of it. Landis asked him to score it as though it were serious. Bernstein said that his work on this film opened yet another door in his diverse career, to scoring comedies (he would write the so-called "God music" segment in the Landis picture The Blues Brothers, for example).

In the film, the R&B band Otis Day and the Knights, is depicted performing Shout! at the Delta house toga party and later at an all-black club doing "Shama Lama Ding Dong". On the soundtrack album, the tracks are credited to a singer named Lloyd Williams. In the film, Otis Day is portrayed by actor DeWayne Jessie, who later legally changed his name to Otis Day and formed a real-life Otis Day and the Knights. Additionally, blues guitarist and singer Robert Cray is seen in the film, playing bass in the Knights.

Due to music licensing concerns, some DVD releases of the film have a new score that replaces the original songs heard in the film.^[8]

[edit] Soundtrack album listing

1. "Faber College Theme", composed by Elmer Bernstein
2. "Louie, Louie", written by Richard Berry; performed by John Belushi
3. "Twistin' the Night Away", written and performed by Sam Cooke
4. "Tossin' and Turnin' ", written and performed by Bobby Lewis
5. "Shama Lama Ding Dong", written by Mark Davis; performed by Lloyd Williams
6. "Hey Paula", written by Ray Hildenbrand and performed by Paul & Paula
7. "Animal House", written and performed by Stephen Bishop
8. Intro
9. "Money (That's What I Want)", written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford; performed by John Belushi
10. "Let's Dance", written by Jim Lee; performed by Chris Montez
11. "Dream Girl", written and performed by Stephen Bishop
12. "Wonderful World", written and performed by Sam Cooke
13. "Shout!", written by Rudolph Isley, O'Kelly Isley, Jr. and Ronald Isley; performed by Lloyd Williams
14. "Faber College Theme", composed by Elmer Bernstein

[edit] Other songs in the film

• "Louie, Louie", written by Richard Berry; performed by The Kingsmen.
• "Theme from A Summer Place", composed by Max Steiner; performed by Percy Faith and his Orchestra
• "Who's Sorry Now", written by Ted Snyder, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby; performed by Connie Francis
• "Washington Post March", composed by John Philip Sousa
• When Kroger and Dorfman go to the Omega pledge party, "Tammy" is being played on the piano. It was a song done by Debbie Reynolds in the late 1950s.

[edit] DVD editions

A "Collector's Edition" DVD was released in 2003 and featured a 30-minute 1998 documentary entitled, "The Yearbook - An Animal House Reunion" by producer JM Kenny with new interviews with many of the cast and crew, including director Landis, stars Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, Peter Riegert, Mark Metcalf, and Kevin Bacon. Also included were production notes and the theatrical trailer.

The "Double Secret Probation Edition" DVD released in 2004 features the members of the cast reprising their respective roles in a "Where Are They Now" mockumentary, which purported that the original film had been a documentary:

• Boon and Katy remarried, redivorced, and remarried for a third and final time when she became pregnant with their son Otis (presumably named for Otis Day). They live in New York City, where Boon works as a documentarian
• Babs is still working as an extremely bubbly Universal Studios tour guide, and is also coordinating the reunion
• Hoover is working as a district attorney in Baltimore after defending a man who stole dentures for no reason. He claims to have provided advice to the prosecution for the O.J. Simpson murder case
• Otter claims to have calmed down, but appears to be sleeping with his gynecological patients
• Dean Wormer was fired over the parade debacle, and his marriage to Marion ended shortly thereafter. She's an alcoholic in Chicago, while he's senile in a rest home in Florida and flies into a rage whenever somebody mentions Faber College
• Flounder has been trying unsuccessfully to manage his weight. He also went through e.s.t. with Mike Tyson, who beat him "savagely" during the process
• Stork died under unknown circumstances (an almost-certain reference to the odd death of Douglas Kenney, who fell off a cliff while vacationing in Hawaii two years after Animal House)
• Hardbar, whose real name was revealed to be Curtis Wayne Fuller, had intended to go into business with Stork, but instead claims to have become a writer who penned a hundred nearly identical novels in five years. He works in an adult video store in Hollywood, California.
• Chip Diller (who opted for an audiotape statement rather than an on-camera interview) stayed out of the Vietnam War due to his father's conservative political connections, and instead earned an MBA. He developed problems with drugs and alcohol, until he was born again after seeing Jesus in his food on multiple occasions. He's now a missionary in Africa (as evidenced by photos of Kevin Bacon from The Air Up There and Tremors).
• Otis Day is performing in Memphis, Tennessee. He can remember the names of all seven of his children, but not playing Delta House
• D-Day was eventually tracked down to Modesto, California, where he pretended to be Spanish in order to avoid talking to John Landis' film crew. His activities between then and now are largely unknown, but theories of being an Elvis Presley impersonator or having infiltrated al-Qaeda are mentioned. (A photo of Bruce McGill from the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Felonious Monk" is shown in a montage)
• Bluto is President of the United States

This DVD also includes "Did You Know That? Universal Animated Anecdotes," a subtitle trivia track, the making of documentary from the "Collector's Edition," MXPX "Shout" music video, a theatrical trailer, production notes, and cast and filmmakers biographies.

One slightly scary fact is revealed in the DVD special section on the making of the film. On the eve of shooting, key members of the cast made the rounds on campus and had a violent encounter with members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity who had no idea who they were and thought they were trespassers. Several of the actors suffered minor injuries in the scuffle which, as the actors told it in 2004, was a very close call. (Sigma Alpha Epsilon was the inspiration for the Omegas in the movie.)

[edit] TV series, sequel

Main article: Delta House

The film inspired a short-lived half-hour television sitcom, Delta House, in which John Vernon reprised his role as the long-suffering, malevolent Dean Wormer. The series also included Steven Furst as Flounder, Bruce McGill as D-Day and James Widdoes as Hoover. Tim Matheson declined. The producers had the right to call the show Animal House but for some reason, the network decided against it. Michelle Pfeiffer made her acting debut in the series.

Animal House also inspired Co-Ed Fever, another sitcom but with none of the involvement of the film's producers or cast. Set in a dorm of the formerly all-female Baxter College, the pilot of Co-Ed Fever was aired by CBS on February 4, 1979, but the network canceled the series before airing any more episodes.^[9] NBC also had its Animal House-inspired sitcom, Brothers and Sisters, in which three members of Crandall College's Pi Nu fraternity "interact" with members of the Gamma Iota sorority.^[10] Like ABC's Delta House, Brothers and Sisters lasted only three months.^[11]

The film's writers planned a movie sequel set in 1967 (the "Summer of Love"), in which the Deltas have a reunion for Pinto's marriage in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. The only Delta to have become a hippie is Flounder, who is now called Pisces. Later, Chris Miller and John Weidman, another Lampoon writer, created a treatment for this screenplay, but Universal nixed it because the sequel to "American Graffiti" (More American Graffiti), which had a few hippie-1967 sequences, had not done well. When John Belushi died, the idea died along with him.

[edit] The smashed guitar

In one scene during the toga party, John Belushi's character, John "Bluto" Blutarsky, smashes an acoustic guitar belonging to a folk singer (portrayed by singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop, who is credited as "Charming Guy With Guitar") who is serenading a group of girls with the time-worn folk tune "The Riddle Song" ("I gave my love a cherry that had no stone", etc.) One of the girls he is serenading is John Belushi's wife, Judith.[2] Bluto then hands him a splintered piece and says "Sorry." To this day, Stephen Bishop keeps the smashed guitar as a souvenir.^{[citation needed]}

In an episode of 8 Simple Rules, directed by "Hoover" actor James Widdoes, Rory sings while playing his guitar, then Kerry breaks it and says "Sorry!". This sight gag has been imitated on TV several times, most memorably by Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation and (loosely) on The Simpsons episode, "Bart of Darkness" where during a heat wave, a hippie on the street with a guitar sings John Denver's "Sunshine on my Shoulders" before getting punched in the face by a passerby. During the second season of the television show Scrubs, Dr. Perry Cox abruptly ends a song by Colin Hay in the same manner. Bishop wrote and performed the "Animal House Theme," and claims to have framed the smashed guitar.

[edit] Cultural influences

• This film is credited for introducing "toga parties" into mainstream culture, which were virtually unheard of before.^{[citation needed]} They still remain a popular theme for college fraternity parties to this date, though some Greek societies try to distance themselves from the movie and the stereotypes it created.

• In the motion picture Twilight Zone: The Movie (also directed by John Landis), an American GI, lost in a Vietnamese jungle, tells his fellow soldiers "I told you we shouldn't have fragged Neidermeyer!", an allusion to the epilogue of Animal House.

• National Hockey League players (and brothers) Scott and Rob Niedermayer have reported that young hockey fans familiar with this movie have sometimes approached them in a joking way with one of the movie's famous lines: "Neidermeyer...DEAD!"

• The Futurama episode Mars University is a tribute to Animal House.

• The Simpsons episode, Homer Goes to College, makes many references to Animal House, including the use of the song Louie, Louie and a still image of Homer wearing a toga in the end credits. Margical History Tour features Homer singing a takeoff of the Animal House theme ("Nobody ever went to class. Then we saw Donald Sutherland's ass...then they did the end like American Graffiti, where you found out what happened to everyone") at the end, while a similar "where are they now" sequence played ("The next morning, Homer went to work in a toga.")

• In the movie 10 Things I Hate About You in the prom scene the band and crowd break into an impromptu song of Shout! in the middle of another song.

• In an episode of Family Guy, Herbert - an old pedophile - stares at Chris through a bathroom window using a ladder in the same style as Belushi and looks at the camera, raising his eyebrows. He then falls onto his back just as Belushi does in the film.

[edit] Trivia

• D-Day's rendition of the William Tell Overture on his windpipe was a special talent of Bruce McGill's.
• On Delta's fraternity banner, the motto "Ars gratia artis" can be seen. This is the motto of MGM.
• The Faber College football team is called the Mongols. Faber Mongols are a brand of pencil.
• In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted Animal House the 19th greatest comedy film of all time.
• The original Animal House script reveals how Pinto got his nickname. As a kid, he swam at a local beach and climbed onto a raft held up by 55-gallon drums made waterproof by tar, getting some of it on his crotch. His father tried cleaning it off with turpentine, but at the end of this unpleasant process, Pinto found himself with a two-toned member. In the original screenplay, the pledges had to reveal a secret about another pledge in order to get into Delta. Dorfman (Kroger's dorm-mate), reveals the secret of Kroger's stain. In the movie, when Kroger asks Bluto: "Why Pinto?" Bluto answers: "Why not?" But in the original screenplay, after Kroger asks why he'll be called Pinto, every Delta brother turns to him and says: "Because you've got a spotted dick!" This nickname had earlier appeared in a couple of National Lampoon stories, "The Night of the Seven Fires" and "Pinto's First Lay." In the latter, Pinto's penile uniqueness was also explained. In addition, in his memoir, The Real Animal House, Miller confirms that this was the actual reason why he received the nickname Pinto from his fraternity brothers.
• A promotional album was released by MCA (L33-1981) that had four songs from the soundtrack and an 8:36 interview of John Belushi by Harold Ramis who co-wrote the script.
• John Belushi's "COLLEGE" sweatshirt is perhaps the single most recognizable item of clothing in National Lampoon history.^[12]

[edit] Goofs

[edit] Anachronisms

Although the action takes place only sixteen years prior to the date the film was made, the intervening time span had seen a dramatic change in styles, technological development, politics and social attitudes. As a result, some anachronisms stand out sharply:

• When hapless Delta pledge Pinto attempts to shoplift from a local grocery store, he meets the mayor's gum-smacking 13-year-old daughter, Clorette DePasto, who is working the cash register and whom he later dates at his peril (see above). While a period register is used by Clorette, a second cash register behind Pinto features an LED (Light Emitting Diode) display. Interestingly, 1962 was the very year in which Nick Holonyak Jr. created the first practical visible-spectrum LED, but the technology did not come into everyday use until several years later.

• Similarly, while Boon and Katy are getting stoned at Professor Jennings' apartment, they sing "Hey, Paula", which was not released until 1963. It is also played in the car when Boon is making a call to Katy at the Phone Booth.

• At Jennings's apartment, the television unit is a Westinghouse 'Jet Set' model from no earlier than 1965.[3]

• At the party following the induction of Pinto and Flounder into the fraternity, the Delta frathouse jukebox plays the song "Louie, Louie" as performed by The Kingsmen, which would in turn become integral to countless parties staged by U.S. college students seeking to emulate Animal House. However, The Kingsmen did not record their version of the song until April 1963.

• When actress Karen Allen is shown in a kitchen, she passes a refrigerator decorated with a sticker from the Bicentennial—fourteen years in the future, but two years before the film was actually produced.

• The term "Camelot" in reference to the JFK administration came into general usage after his assassination (it comes from an 1964 interview with Jackie where she mentions that the Lerner and Lowe musical of Camelot (1960) had been a favorite of Jack's, and that was how she thought of the White House years)^{[citation needed]}. Also Jackie's raspberry pink outfit with pillbox hat was created in 1963 and worn by her only on the assassination day. It did not exist in 1962 so couldn't have been used for an iconic float, and would have been considered extremely poor taste for a float in 1964.^{[citation needed]}

• Flounder's Lincoln Continental, which the boys eventually convert into the "Deathmobile," was actually a 1964 model, although the "suicide doors" were typical of that period. JFK was assassinated in a 1961 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors.

[edit] Continuity

• Shelly Dubinsky's brooch appears alternately on the left and right sides of her sweater.
• In the scene when Boon and Otter are teeing off golf balls at Niedermeyer, the first time they are shown the golf bag gets set down; then when they go back to the scene, Boon is holding the bag again.
• In the scene between Katy and Larry in the fraternity bar, Larry switches back and forth between holding his beer mug by the handle and holding it by the mug.
• In the scene where Bluto pours mustard on himself, the second shot shows the stain before he actually dumps it on himself in the scene's third shot.

[edit] Mistakes

• The full name of the Delta House changes during the movie. When the movers are taking out the contents of the frat house, the name is Delta Chi Tau. Earlier in the movie, it is Delta Tau Chi.
• Although the film takes place in Pennsylvania (the state capital of Harrisburg is mentioned in multiple instances, as well as nearby Dickinson College in Carlisle), a Tennessee flag is shown in the courtroom. This is because set decorator Hal Gausman was unable to find a large enough Pennsylvania flag for the scene, and the blue Oregon state flag wouldn't work because it had "State of Oregon" text on the upper part. So Mr. Gausman used the most generic flag he could find, which turned out to be the Tennessee state flag.^{[citation needed]}
• During the parade scene, some members of the Pershing Rifles drill team forget to spin their rifles.^{[citation needed]}
• Even though the film takes place in 1962, the people at the Parade can be seen wearing 1970s clothing and having longer / shag hairstyles.
• When the crowd are "fleeing" the parade, many of the extras can be seen laughing and smiling.

[edit] See also

• Rick Meyerowitz, the illustrator who drew Animal House's iconic poster
• 1950s Nostalgia Films
• Robot House

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• National Lampoon's Animal House at the Internet Movie Database
• Entertainment Weekly retrospective article
• Interview (MP3) with John Belushi biographer Tanner Colby and widow Judith Belushi Pisano on the public radio program The Sound of Young America regarding their book, "Belushi." Includes clips from Belushi's work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
• NPR retrospective article
• IGN interview with Stephen Furst
• DVD.com interview with John Landis
• American Sexuality Magazine Q&A with Chris Miller