"ANIMAL HOUSE" EARNS LAURELS

          Cue lofty music:

          Venerating the shining example of that noblest of institutions, the lampoon.

          It's been 40 years since Animal House was cinematically erected, and to this day more students enroll in college specifically because of it than for all other reasons combined.

          The year is 1962, the college is Faber, and the dean is Wormer (John Vernon, perfectly cast). Dean Wormer, when not readily acceding to the mayor's extortion threats, is the kind of fun-hating dean who points and says things like, "You'll get your chance, smart guy!"

          And in so doing exemplifies the poor attitude from higher education toward the heroes of Delta Tao Chi, aka Animal House.

          The star of the movie, John Belushi, was the funniest part of TV's hip hit "Saturday Night Live". He was the draw, in both cases, in a highly ensemble cast. Tom Hulce (frat pledge Pinto) played Mozart a few years later in the smash hit Amadeus, and Karen Allen traded up for Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

          Also featuring Donald Sutherland as a Satan-like English prof. In a sense, the students take their education directly from none other than Hawkeye Pierce himself. Animal House resembles M*A*S*H (1970) not just as a lampoon of an institution, but in its adept use of many characters. 

          Everything about the film constantly entertains. Packed with unforgettable characters in hilarious situations, Animal House is a movie with zero down-time. Gleefully raunchy and dead-on in every way, there isn't a funnier film.

          Talk about character delineation, the dichotomy between the privileged frat house, Omega, and the mocking mockeries at Delta could not be more clear: At Delta, there's wine, women, and song. At Omega, they're consecrating the Bond of Obedience by assuming the position and paddling each other. 

          Little known fact: Douglas Kenney, the guy who plays Stork ("Well what the hell we 'sposed to do, ya mo-ron?") not only co-wrote the script, but co-founded National Lampoon magazine (1970 - 1998). A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018), which is about Kenney, who died in an accident at age 33, can be found on Netflix.

          Harold Ramis, who also co-wrote the Animal House script, directed SNL alum Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation (1983).

ANIMAL HOUSE

Starring John Belushi,

Tom Hulce,

Stephen Furst,

Tim Matheson, 

Peter Reigert,

Karen Allen,

Mark Metcalf,

John Vernon,

Mary Louise Weller,

Martha Smith,

Donald Sutherland

Directed by John Landis

Written by Harold Ramis, 

Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller

Runtime 109 minutes

Rated R

Stewart Kirby writes for

THE INDEPENDENT

and 

TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE