On July 28, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie spoof about 1960s college fraternities starring John Belushi, opens in U.S. theaters. Produced with an estimated budget of $3 million, Animal House became a huge, multi-million-dollar box-office hit, spawned a slew of cinematic imitations and became part of pop-culture history with such memorable lines as “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
Set at the fictional Faber College (the University of Oregon served as a stand-in during filming), Animal House centered around the disreputable Delta House fraternity, whose members enjoyed beer-soaked toga parties and crude pranks such as putting a horse in the dean’s office. Animal House was the first big hit for director John Landis, who went on to helm The Blues Brothers (1980), Trading Places (1983) and Coming to America (1988). The film’s cast included a then-unknown Kevin Bacon (Footloose, Mystic River), Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Tom Hulce (Amadeus), all of whom were then just beginning their movie careers.
Animal House was co-written by Doug Kenney, Harold Ramis and Chris Miller, whose days at Dartmouth College in the early 1960s served as an inspiration for the film. Animal House marked the first film produced in affiliation with National Lampoon, a college magazine that was first published in 1970 and known for its dark humor. Other National Lampoon movies included Vacation (1983), which was written by John Hughes, directed by Ramis and starred SNL alum Chevy Chase.
At the time Animal House was released, John Belushi, who played party animal Bluto Blutarsky, was starring on the TV sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Belushi, who was born January 24, 1949, appeared on SNL from 1975 to 1979 and co-starred in the hit movie Blues Brothers with his SNL castmate Dan Akroyd. Belushi died of a drug overdose at age 33 on March 5, 1982, at the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood, California.
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Haven’t seen the movie. Really.
Watched the 10 minute clip.
Wish I had those 10 minutes back!
That movie is supposed to be funny??
Maybe if you’re in 8th grade, and somewhat retarded.
I guess I’m in the 8th grade and somewhat retarded cause I laughed through that movie a dozen times or more. Everyone has a different sense of humor and what you think is funny, I may not, but I wouldn’t insult your sense of humor. Or, maybe I would being a 70 y/o Eighth Grader.
I lived through a dorm at LSU in 1980 that was just about as bad.
This movie was released a few months before I started college. It made me want to be in a frat . I joined ATO…we were just like the movie and yes we got put on probation a time or two for our antics but never academically . Our frat GPA was a little over 3.1 .
We had a funnel sling shot that would shoot water balloons a long way from the 2nd floor balcony of our frat house . The college campus was the target .We went through on average 10 kegs a week-end and about 15 gallons of hooch …plus reeefer .
Twice a year we had little sister rush parties that served up the Southern concoction called “Purple Jesus ” ( Purple Jeebus in honor of Stuck) . It was fruit juices,fruit and grain alcohol fermented in a 30 gallon trash can . . We used to say that the mating call of a Southern girl was, ” I’m so drunk” . The college had 6 girls to 1 guy. It was paradise . Thankfully the Kavanaugh women’s mindset wasn’t around during those days .
*At the black bar with doo-wop band*
“What are you majoring in?”
“Primitive cultures.”
You mind if we dance witch-o dates?
Fawn Leibowitz
0.0
They took the bar! The whole fucking bar!!!!
Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor
“Seven years of college down the drain!” ~ Bluto
Loved this movie.