National Lampoon's 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] 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.
Produced on a small ($2.7 million) budget, the film has turned out to be one of
the most profitable movies of all time; since its initial release, Animal House has garnered an estimated return of more
than $141 million in the form of video and DVDs, not including merchandising. In 2001, the United
States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it
for preservation in the National Film Registry.[2] This film is first on Bravo's
"100 Funniest Movies."[3] It was #36 on AFI's "100 Years, 100 Laughs" list of the
100 best American comedies.[4]
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 are out of their league. The Omegas quickly steer them to an area
where they have segregated the other "undesirables": Mohammed (a Turk), Jagdish (an
Indo-Aryan), Sidney (a Jew), and Clayton (who is blind and in a
wheelchair).
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 John "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 rudely awakened in the middle of the night, sworn in as pledges and given the
noms de pledge of "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 little shit" Neidermeyer (Mark
Metcalf) working on a way to get rid of the Deltas once and for all.
As the campus ROTC detachment drills, Neidermeyer, its pompous cadet
commander, spots plebe Flounder wearing a pledge pin on his uniform and begins berating him. He orders Flounder to clean his
horse's filthy stable stall. 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.
John Belushi as Bluto.
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) lies to Gregg Marmalard, telling him
that his girlfriend, Mandy (Mary Louise Weller), and Otter are having an affair (in fact, they
only had a one night stand, which Mandy later said "wasn't that great"). 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 climactic 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).
Characters
The Deltas in front of their house
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, rumored to have
attended an elite New England boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut;
- 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 once (Well, what the hayl' we s'posed ta do,
ya moe-ron?!).
- And the two pledges:
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. When the fates of the characters are revealed at the end it mentions that Neidermeyer was killed by his own troops in
Vietnam.
- Chip Diller, an Omega pledge (Kevin Bacon in his on-screen debut).
Other significant characters
- Dean Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), who wants to revoke the Deltas' charter and kick them
off-campus; also noted for putting Delta House on "Double Secret Probation"
- 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.
Production
Origins
Animal House was the first movie produced by The National Lampoon, the most popular humor magazine on college
campuses in the mid-1970s.[5] The periodical specialized in
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.
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 at 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 and Ramis wrote the part of
Bluto specifically for the comedian.[6] 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."[7] Surprisingly, the studio green-lighted 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.’"[7]
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 Thom 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 Riegert was cast instead. Landis did offer Ramis a smaller part,
but Ramis declined, saying gruffly, "I'm too proud to be an extra." 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."[8] 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."[7]
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.
Belushi received only $35,000 for Animal House with a bonus after it became a hit.[6] 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
because they said that the whole movie doesn't have a star; just a lot of sub-plots. 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).[7] 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.[7]
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 the 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.
Locations
Plaque at the site where the house used to portray the Delta House formerly stood
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 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, Berkeley and
the University of Southern California. 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 graveled 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 Omega House was actually the Phi Kappa Psi House. The Patterson house was demolished in
1986.[9] 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]
The selection of Oregon as a the principal location would have a profound effect on Belushi's career. While in the state for
filming, Belushi (who had at the time a budding interest in blues music) would meet and be
inspired by longtime Oregon bluesman Curtis Salgado, after which time Belushi became a
devoted fan of the blues. This led to Belushi and fellow Saturday Night Live
veteran Dan Aykroyd's formation of The Blues
Brothers. The Cab Calloway-portrayed character "Curtis" in the 1980 film was so named in honor of Salgado, and the first Blues Brothers album is dedicated to
him.[10]
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.[7]
While shooting the film, Landis and Bruce McGill staged a scene for reporters visiting the set where the director pretended to
be angry at the actor for being difficult on the set.[11] Landis grabbed a breakaway pitcher and smashed it over McGill's head who fell to the ground and
pretended to be unconscious. The reporters really believed the incident and when Landis asked McGill to get up, he refused to
move.[11] The film was shot in 28 days.
Soundtrack and score
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[citation needed] 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.[12]
Soundtrack album listing
- "Faber College Theme", composed by Elmer Bernstein
- "Louie Louie", written by Richard Berry;
performed by John Belushi
- "Twistin' the Night Away", written and performed by Sam Cooke
- "Tossin' and Turnin' ", written and performed by Bobby Lewis
- "Shama Lama Ding Dong", written by Mark Davis; performed by Lloyd Williams
- "Hey Paula", written by Ray Hildenbrand and
performed by Paul & Paula
- "Animal House", written and performed by Stephen Bishop
- Intro
- "Money (That's What I Want)", written by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford; performed by John Belushi
- "Let's Dance", written by Jim Lee; performed by Chris Montez
- "Dream Girl", written and performed by Stephen Bishop
- "Wonderful World", written and performed by Sam Cooke
- "Shout!", written by Rudolph Isley, O'Kelly Isley, Jr. and Ronald Isley; performed by Lloyd
Williams
- "Faber College Theme", composed by Elmer Bernstein
Other songs in the film
Reception
The first preview screening for Animal House 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.[7] On its opening weekend, Animal House
grossed $276, in 12 theaters and made $120,091,123 in North America,[13] well above its $2.7 million budget.[6]
In his review for the Washington Post, Gary Arnold praised Belushi's
performance: "...he can seem irresistibly funny in repose or invest minor slapstick opportunities with a streak of
genius."[14] David
Ansen wrote in Newsweek, "But if Animal House lacks the inspired
tastelessness of the Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody, this is still low humor of a high order."[15]
Universal Pictures spent four million dollars promoting the film at selected college campuses and helped students organize
their own toga parties.[16] One such party at
the University of Maryland attracted approximately 2,000 people while students at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison tried for a crowd of 10,000 people
and a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.[16]
For those who hadn't seen the movie or lacked contacts among a generation who might have been educated in the fine art of the
toga party, there was an added source for inspiration. Universal Pictures which produced "Animal House," thoughtfully provided
more than $4 million and a battalion of promoters to visit selected college campuses and help the students organize their very
first toga parties.
TV series, sequel
-
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.[17] 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.
In the TV series, John Belushi's character from the film (John "Bluto" Blutarsky) was replaced with Bluto's brother, Jim
"Blotto" Blutarsky[18] played by Josh Mostel (son of Zero Mostel). The name "Blotto" is a reference to drunkenness.
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.[19] 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.[20] Like ABC's Delta House, Brothers
and Sisters lasted only three months.[21]
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.[16] 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.
Pop Culture
Since the film's initial success, the film has become pop culture treasure.
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.
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.
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. One of the girls whom he is
serenading is John Belushi's wife, Judith. Bluto then hands him a splintered piece and says "Sorry."
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,
memorably by Worf on Star Trek: The Next
Generation. 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.
The hole in the wall made by the guitar was the only damage done to the Sigma Nu fraternity house where the Delta House
interiors were filmed. Instead of repairing the damage, the hole was framed with an engraved brass tag commemorating the
event.[22]
DVD editions
A "Collector's Edition" DVD was released in 2002 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 2003 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: 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.
See also
References
- ^ Peterson, Molly. "National Lampoon's
Animal House", NPR, July 29, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-12-17.
- ^ "Films Selected to The National Film Registry, Library of Congress 1989-2006", National Film Registry. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.
- ^ "Bravo's 100 Funniest Films", Boston.com, July 25, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs", American Film
Institute. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.
- ^ Peterson, Molly. "National Lampoon's Animal
House", NPR, 1998. Retrieved on 2007-1-31.
- ^ a b c Schwartz, Tony.
"College Humor Comes Back", Newsweek, October 23,
1978.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Nashawaty, Chris. "Building Animal House", Entertainment
Weekly, July 29, 2002. Retrieved on 2007-1-31.
- ^ Olson, Eric. "DVD.com Director, John Landis: The Dean Speaks", Digital Movie
Talk. Retrieved on 2007-1-31.
- ^ "On Film", University of Oregon Archives. Retrieved on 2007-08-16.
- ^ Curtis Salgado. Biography. Retrieved on December
16, 2006.
- ^ a b Arnold, Gary. "The Madcap World of John Landis", Washington Post, August 13, 1978.
- ^ Olsen, Eric. August 25, 2003. Animal
House Soundtrack, Blogcritics.org (retrieved on October 19, 2006).
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- ^ a</
