National Lampoon's Animal House



National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis. The film was a direct spinoff from National Lampoon magazine. It is about a misfit group offraternity members who challenge the dean of Faber College.

The screenplay was adapted by Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller, and Harold Ramis from stories written by Miller and published in National Lampoon magazine. The stories were based on Miller's experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth College. Other influences on the film came from Ramis's experiences in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, and producer Ivan Reitman's experiences at Delta Upsilon at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Of the younger lead actors, only John Belushi was an established star, but even he had not yet appeared in a film, having gained fame mainly from his Saturday Night Live television appearances. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers, although Tim Matheson was coming off a large role as one of the assassin motorcyclecops in the second Dirty Harry film, Magnum Force.

Upon its initial release, Animal House received generally mixed reviews from critics, but Time and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best. Filmed for $2.7 million, it is one of the most profitable movies of all time, garnering an estimated return of more than $141 million in the form of videos and DVDs, not including merchandising.

The film, along with 1977's The Kentucky Fried Movie, also directed by Landis, was largely responsible for defining and launching the gross-out genre of films, which became one of Hollywood's staples. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed Animal House "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was No. 1 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." It was No. 36 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2008, Empire magazine selected it as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time."

==Plot [edit] == In 1962, college freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) seek to join a fraternity at Faber College. They visit the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House's invitational party, but are not welcomed there. They then try next door at Delta Tau Chi House, where Kent's brother was once a member, making Kent a "legacy." There they find John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) urinating outside the fraternity house. The Deltas "need the dues" so they permit Larry and Kent to pledge. They receive the fraternity names "Pinto" (Larry) and "Flounder" (Kent).

Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), dean of Faber College, wants to remove the Delta fraternity from campus due to repeated conduct violations and low academic standing. Since they are already on probation, he puts the Deltas on something he calls "double secret probation" and orders the clean-cut, smug Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) to find a way to get rid of the Deltas permanently.

Flounder is bullied by Omega member and ROTC cadet commander Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), so Bluto and Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day (Bruce McGill) persuade Flounder to sneak Neidermeyer's horse into Dean Wormer's office late at night. They give him a gun and tell him to shoot it. Unbeknownst to Flounder, the gun is loaded with blanks. Unable to bring himself to kill the horse, he fires into the ceiling. The noise frightens the horse so much that it dies of a heart attack.

In the cafeteria the next day, smooth-talking Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson) tries to convince the stuck-up Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller) to abandon her boyfriend, the uninteresting Marmalard, and date him instead. Bluto proceeds to provoke Marmalard with his impression of a popping zit by stuffing his mouth with a scoop of mashed potatoes and propelling it at Marmalard and table mates, Chip Diller (Kevin Bacon) and Barbara "Babs" Jansen (Martha Smith). Bluto then starts a food fight that engulfs the cafeteria.

Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming psychology test, but it turns out the Omegas planted the exam stencil and the Deltas get every answer wrong. Their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer only needs one more incident to revoke the charter that allows them to remain on campus.

To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party, during which Otis Day and the Knights perform "Shout". The dean's alcoholic, lecherous wife, Marion (Verna Bloom), attends the party at Otter's invitation and has sex with him. Pinto hooks up with Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), a girl he met at the supermarket, and makes out with her only to learn she is the mayor's 13-year-old daughter. He later takes her home in a shopping cart. Due to the party, Wormer organizes a kangaroo court with the Omegas and revokes Delta's charter and all belongings are confiscated.

To take their minds off their troubles, Otter, Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert), Flounder and Pinto go on a road trip. Otter picks up some girls from Emily Dickinson College by pretending to be the fiancé of Fawn Liebowitz, a girl who recently died on campus. They stop at a roadhouse because Otis Day and the Knights are performing there, not realizing that it caters to an exclusively black clientele. The hulking patrons intimidate the guys and they flee, damaging Flounder's borrowed car and leaving their frightened dates behind.

Boon breaks up with his girlfriend Katy (Karen Allen) after discovering her sexual relationship with a professor (Donald Sutherland). Marmalard is told that his girlfriend is having an affair with Otter, so he and other Omegas lure him to a motel and beat him up. The Deltas' midterm grades are so poor that an ecstatic Wormer expels them all. He even notifies their draft boards of their eligibility. In the process, before Bluto attempts to speak to the dean, Wormer orders Flounder to speak with the words, "Well? Out with it!", whereupon Flounder vomits on the dean.

It seems time for the Deltas to give up, but Bluto, supported by the injured Otter, rouses them with an impassioned, historically inaccurate speech ("Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!") and they decide to take revenge on Wormer and the Omegas. The Deltas construct a rogue parade float with Flounder's car as its base and wreak havoc on the annual homecoming parade. During the ensuing chaos, the futures of many of the main characters are revealed. The last shot of the film is of Bluto driving away in a white convertible with his soon-to-be wife, Mandy Pepperidge. ==Cast [edit] == ===Delta Tau Chi (ΔΤΧ) [edit] === ===Omega Theta Pi (ΩΘΠ) <span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;">[edit] === ===Supporting characters <span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;">[edit] ===
 * John Belushi as John "Bluto" Blutarsky: A drunken degenerate with his own style, in his seventh year of college, with a GPA of 0.0. The film epilogue "Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update" reveals that he eventually became a United States senator.
 * Tim Matheson as Eric "Otter" Stratton: A smooth playboy whose room is a pristine seduction den amid the sheer filth of the rest of the Delta house. Otter is the fraternity's rush chairman and essentially the fraternity's unofficial leader. He becomes a gynecologist in Beverly Hills.
 * Peter Riegert as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein: Otter's best friend, who has to decide between his Delta pals and girlfriend Katy. He marries Katy in 1964, but they divorce in 1969. In the book adaptation Boon becomes a cab driver and part-time writer in New York City. In "Where Are They Now?" he and Katy remarried, re-divorced, and remarried a final time after a fling resulted in the conception of their son Otis; he also works as a documentarian.
 * Thomas Hulce as Lawrence "Pinto" Kroger: A shy but normal fellow, who becomes the editor of National Lampoon magazine. "Pinto" was screenwriter Chris Miller's nickname at his Dartmouth fraternity.
 * Stephen Furst as Kent "Flounder" Dorfman: An overweight, clumsy legacy pledge, later a sensitivity trainer in Cleveland.
 * Bruce McGill as Daniel Simpson Day, "D-Day": A tough biker with no grade point average; all classes incomplete. His later whereabouts are unknown.
 * James Widdoes as Robert Hoover: The affable, reasonably clean-cut president of the fraternity, who desperately struggles to maintain a façade of normality to placate the Dean. These efforts usually end with him willingly going along with the Delta lifestyle. He is at the top of his fraternity with a 1.6 grade point average with 4 C's and one F. He becomes a public defender in Baltimore.
 * Douglas Kenney as "Stork": During his first year, everyone thought the Stork was brain damaged; he only speaks two lines in the entire film. In the book adaptation, Stork is revealed to be independently wealthy as a result of several patents he holds. In "Where Are They Now?" he has died, just as Kenney later died in real life.
 * The Deathmobile. Originally Fred Dorfman's (Kent's brother) 1962 Lincoln Continental, it was transformed into an armored car equipped with a locomotive whistle and decorated with the head of Faber College founder Emil Faber's statue. Concealed by a parade float in the shape of a birthday cake with the words "Eat Me" emblazoned on the sides, the Deathmobile was used to disrupt the Homecoming Parade and demolish the reviewing stand. As of 2009, it was part of the George Barris Custom Car Collection.
 * James Daughton as Gregory "Greg" Marmalard: The president of Omega House and boyfriend of Mandy Pepperidge. He suffers from erectile dysfunction. He becomes a Nixon White House aide and is subsequently raped in prison in 1974.
 * Mark Metcalf as Douglas C. Neidermeyer: An ROTC cadet officer and scion of a military family who hates the Deltas. He is fragged (killed by his own platoon) in Vietnam.
 * Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller: A smarmy Omega pledge who is trampled by the panicking crowd at the end of the movie. In "Where Are They Now?" he became a born-again Christian missionary in Africa.
 * John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer: Dean of Faber College. He wants to revoke the Deltas' charter and kick them off campus because of their partying ways. In "Where Are They Now?" he was fired after the Homecoming parade debacle and is now in a nursing home.
 * Verna Bloom as Marion Wormer: The Dean's alcoholic wife, who attends the toga party and is shown going to bed with Otter. In the graphic novel written by Chris Miller, she wins the "Miss Congeniality" prize at the climactic toga party and is shown wearing a toilet seat painted to look like a garland of flowers.
 * Donald Sutherland as Professor Dave Jennings: A bored English professor who tries to turn his students on to left-wing politics and smoking marijuana. In the "Where Are They Now," we learn that he became Chairman of Faber's English Department the same year that Dean Wormer entered the nursing home.
 * Karen Allen as Katy: Boon's frustrated girlfriend who has a dalliance with Jennings but subsequently goes on to marry, then divorce, Boon. In the "Where Are They Now" we find out she and Boon remarried then re-divorced then re-re-married.
 * Sarah Holcomb as Clorette DePasto: The mayor's 13-year-old daughter.
 * DeWayne Jessie as Otis Day: The leader of the band that plays at the toga party. Jessie adopted the Day name in his private life and toured with the band.
 * Mary Louise Weller as Mandy Pepperidge: A cheerleader and sorority girl who dates Greg, but is not satisfied with the relationship. She later marries Bluto.
 * Martha Smith as Barbara Sue "Babs" Jansen: A Southern belle who wants Greg for herself and finds the Deltas repulsive. After being indecently exposed in public by the Deltas she becomes a tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood.
 * Cesare Danova as Mayor Carmine DePasto: The shady local mayor with suggested mafia ties.
 * Sean McCartin as "Lucky Boy": The Playboy-reading child who shouts "Thank you, God!" after a Playboy Bunny flies through his bedroom window onto his bed. McCartin later became pastor of a Eugene church.
 * Stephen Bishop as Charming Guy with Guitar on stairs at toga party who gets his guitar smashed by Bluto.