O, Bluto, it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
But it almost never began.
“National Lampoon’s Animal House,” the rowdy blockbuster that launched a thousand campus toga parties and reinvented the college comedy, barely found a studio backer.
Warner Bros. passed. Universal Studios boss Ned Tanen said, after eyeing the outline, “Everybody is drunk, high or getting laid. I hate this treatment. I’d never make this movie!” He didn’t change his mind until producers promised to bring it in for less than $3 million.
FIRST DRAFT OF ‘ANIMAL HOUSE’ WAS TOO VILE TO FILM
Even after the green light, a series of power struggles, casting choices and pressure from the studio easily could have made “Animal House” a much different film. Picture this: Chevy Chase, as ladies’ man Otter, pitches a football to Harold Ramis’ Boone, who follows a couple of Delta blockers past the snobby Omegas but fumbles into the muddy end zone where it’s pounced on for a touchdown by John Belushi. The Deltas hoist Belushi onto their shoulders, hollering his frat name: “Hydrant! Hydrant! Hydrant!”
Co-producer Matty Simmons, a founder of the National Lampoon, reveals the entire backstory — the who, where, what and “Why Pinto?” — of the comedy blockbuster in his book “Fat, Drunk, and Stupid! The Inside Story Behind the Making of ‘Animal House,’ ” out Tuesday.
In 1969, fledgling magazine publisher Simmons welcomed three young Harvard students into his office at 1690 Broadway. One was Doug Kenney, the brilliant and more than slightly off-kilter head writer of the satirical Harvard Lampoon, who wanted to expand the magazine’s brand of cutting, offbeat, sardonic humor to a national audience.
At the height of anti-Nixon, Vietnam-era counterculture, the National Lampoon magazine debuted the following year with contributions from budding talents such as P.J. O’Rourke, future “Saturday Night Live” head writer Michael O’Donoghue and filmmaking legend John Hughes.
With a hit magazine and successful publishing spoofs of Time magazine and high school yearbooks, the Lampoon soon ventured into live comedy with an off-Broadway variety show called “Lemmings,” a parody of Woodstock directed by a young Ivan Reitman. Several cast members, including John Belushi, were recruited from Chicago’s Second City comedy group. A second production, “The National Lampoon Show,” brought Bill Murray and writer-performer Ramis to New York.
With a rabid following and a growing stockpile of comedy talent, conquering Hollywood was the next step. Lampoon co-founder Kenney was paired with Ramis to write a movie, “Teenage Commies from Outer Space.” After that high wore off, they adapted the Lampoon’s hit parody “1964 High School Yearbook.” Their first outline made Charles Manson a student and included copious sex, drugs and orgies.
After shifting the action to college, they added co-writer Chris Miller, who’d penned many popular short stories for the Lampoon based on his Greek debauchery at Dartmouth, where he and his Delta buddies earned their frat the nickname Animal House.
The trio hammered out a new screenplay. Ramis recalled hitting golf balls at ROTC troops while at Washington University in St. Louis. In it went. “Double secret probation” came from Kenney. At Dartmouth, Miller’s frat had a ladies’ man named Otter and a Flounder, as well as an Eel and a Troll. The real-life Delta’s version of Bluto was named Hydrant.
Miller himself had received the pledge name Pinto, though the origin was never explained in the film. In his youth, Miller had spilled hot tar on his manhood that left a mark — not unlike a splotch on a pinto horse.
Like the Manson scenario, many new ideas never made it to the screen. At the parade finale, the script originally called for an airborne keg to burst through the head of the John F. Kennedy float along the same trajectory as Oswald’s bullet. Other lost scenes included a football game against the Omegas and a visit to a whorehouse.
Simmons and co-producer Reitman struck a deal with Universal (mostly back-end money, which Universal never imagined paying out for such a niche ribald flick) and a $2.8 million shooting budget. The University of Oregon agreed to stand in for fictional Faber College for a month’s shoot — after the University of Missouri passed. An abandoned frat house became the fictional Delta Tau Chi, and Simmons found a director in John Landis, who’d previously made the offbeat though hardly linear “Kentucky Fried Movie.”
“This guy has our sensibilities,” Simmons told Reitman. “By that I mean that he probably has no respect for authority, very low morals and continually roots for the underdog.” All that remained was herding up the rest of the animals.
When casting began, the only sure thing was Belushi, who was hooked from the outset. Writers Miller and Kenney took bit parts, respectively, as background frat brothers Hardbar and Stork (memorably, in overcoat and high-top sneakers, Stork led a marching band down an alley in the finale). The third co-writer, Ramis, passed on a bit part, unhappy that he failed to land the role of Boone.
Universal executives hoped Chevy Chase would take the role of the cool, womanizing frat brother Otter. But privately Landis thought Chase was too over-the-top. Simmons also rooted against Chase, fearing it might associate the Lampoon too much with “Saturday Night Live.” To their relief, Chase instead signed on for a bigger role and more cash in “Foul Play.” Tim Matheson became Otter.
Studio execs wanted a known slapstick comic like Buddy Hackett or Shecky Greene to play Dean Wormer, and Landis even pitched it to Jack Webb of “Dragnet,” who refused because of its raunchiness. To the Lampooners’ delight, John Vernon got the role, his ability to project true villainy a trait crucial to the Nixon-inspired college heavy.
An unknown Kevin Bacon was chosen to play snotty Omega pledge Chip simply because his headshot was the “smarmiest” in the pile. Everyone who read for D-Day was crossed off the list, after which Landis asked, “Well, who’s the best scratched-out actor?” Bruce McGill got the part.
Uneasy with the rookie cast, Universal insisted on one more “name” actor, if only to punch up the movie poster. Donald Sutherland agreed to play pot-loving Professor Jennings, but the production could only afford him for a single day of shooting — for which he got $35,000.
Landis sought to establish camaraderie among the cast members portraying Delta House, so he arranged for them to gather on set a week early. Otter, Katy (Karen Allen), D-Day, Hoover (James Widdoes) and Boon (Peter Riegert) bonded by crashing a real frat party, drawing attention from female party guests and getting in a fight with jealous Greek brothers.
In a foreshadowing of his famous “Pearl Harbor” pep talk, Belushi arrived a day later, after filming “Saturday Night Live,” saw his bruised brethren and bellowed, “We gotta go back! We gotta get those guys!” The crew talked him out of it.
When the Omega actors arrived at the Rodeway Inn in Eugene, Landis encouraged the Deltas to antagonize them. Mark Metcalf, by all accounts a likeable young actor who, ironically, had read for Otter before landing the role of arch-villain Niedermeyer, walked into the motel’s dining room on his first night and was immediately showered with dinner rolls and cake. It was the food fight before the dining hall “Food fight!”
Metcalf, in true Method style, loved Landis’ strategy and immersed himself completely in the feud. He asked for a room directly over McGill’s, where the Delta actors gathered to party after shooting. Night after night, Metcalf would sit on his bed above the ruckus, shine his shoes and grow irritated with the animals below.
The monthlong shoot went surprisingly smoothly, perhaps because the cast was almost entirely newcomers eager to make a good first impression. Even Belushi was in a sober period.
Much of Belushi’s dialogue was cut, as it became apparent that his gift for physical comedy was welcome in an otherwise “talky” film. Landis described Belushi as a cross between Harpo Marx and the Cookie Monster.
The most out-there outtake was a scene shot for the second-act road trip, in which the guys pick up a hitchhiker with a guitar, who introduced himself as Zimmerman. When he starts singing, it’s clear that they’re being serenaded by a young Bob Dylan.
That was replaced with another folk music gag, which found singer Stephen Bishop — who had just scored a huge pop hit with “On and On” — crooning “The Riddle Song.” The venerable tune was chosen because it was hundreds of years old, in the public domain and wouldn’t cost a dime. Bishop, meanwhile, had no idea that as he sang “I gave my love a cherry” to an entranced co-ed, Belushi had been directed to grab his guitar and smash it to bits.
On July 24, 1978, “National Lampoon’s Animal House” premiered at the Astor Theatre in Times Square. Landis arrived late and sat on the steps of the balcony. Stephen Furst, who played Flounder, rode in his first limo. Belushi arrived at the Village Gate for the after-party wearing, from the movie, his navy blue “COLLEGE” sweatshirt.
Most critics found the film lived up to the Lampoon’s brilliant bad taste. Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, “The movie is vulgar, raunchy, ribald and occasionally scatological. It is also the funniest comedy since Mel Brooks made ‘The Producers.’ ”
Despite its “R” rating, “Animal House” was the No. 1 movie in North America for eight straight weeks and earned $140 million (more than $500 million today.) Comedy filmmaking was never the same and lines from the film were incessently quoted: “My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.” “Face it, you f – – ked up, you trusted us.” “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”
Simmons went on to produce the “Vacation” series with Chevy Chase. Reitman made “Stripes” and “Ghostbusters.” After seeing the film, John Hughes recalled, “I said to myself, I’m going to make movies.” Which is how Bluto inspired “The Breakfast Club.” Doug Kenney wrote “Caddyshack,” which Ramis directed en route to his own string of successes, including “Groundhog Day” and “Analyze This.”
And, lest we forget the Deltas: Otter became a gynecologist in Beverly Hills, D-Day’s whereabouts are unknown and John “Bluto” Blutarsky was elected to the US Senate.
mkane@nypost.com