Which college is the 'real' “Animal House”? An investigation
- - Which college is the 'real' “Animal House”? An investigation
Jordan HoffmanSeptember 1, 2025 at 11:30 PM
100
Courtesy Everett
John Belushi in his iconic College sweatshirt from 'Animal House'
In the Merchant Ivory production of E.M. Forster's Maurice, James Wilby and Hugh Grant's characters spend their time at Cambridge University reciting verse, rowing, and arguing the aesthetics of Tchaikovsky's piano concerti. It is a glimpse at a noble, erudite form of higher education that, no doubt, is completely anathema to what most 18-year-olds are looking for in a college experience. The template will forever be Animal House.
John Landis' 1978 celebration of frat house chaos and debauchery — red meat for those who like to grouse "you couldn't make this today" — was the first film production from the brain trust of National Lampoon magazine, itself a spinoff of The Harvard Lampoon. Its pages already contained several wild college stories, fertile soil from which to grow a legendary movie.
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett
John 'Bluto' Blutarsky, the gold standard of collegiate excellence, in 'Animal House'
Animal House's screenplay is credited to three writers, and was overseen by producer Ivan Reitman, who attended McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Among the writers was National Lampoon cofounder Douglas Kenney (a Harvard alum) and Harold Ramis, the Chicago-born writer and actor (and later Ghostbuster) who came to National Lampoon's radio show and stage productions via Second City. In his younger years, Ramis attended Washington University in St. Louis and was indeed in a fraternity — Zeta Beta Tau, to be precise. Furthermore, John Belushi, the beating heart of the movie, attended University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where the legend goes that he once drove a motorcycle up a flight of stairs, something a different character does in the film.
Experiences from all of these fine gentlemen made it into the script that eventually became Animal House. But if there's a lodestar here, it comes from the cowriter Chris Miller, who in 2006 published a book called The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie. And since no one sued him, we have to imagine that what he says is true.
Miller, who was a writer at National Lampoon before segueing into films, and who later cowrote the Michael Keaton-Andie MacDowell comedy Multiplicity, is a proud graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. He matriculated in 1963 and was a member of the Delta Phi fraternity, where he was dubbed "Pinto" by his peers.
You may recall that Tom Hulce's character in Animal House also has the nickname Pinto, and when he asks "Why Pinto?" he is told "Why not?" (In Miller's Animal House stories, we learn that Hulce's character has some discoloration on his genitals, thus the name. Surely Hulce was pleased with the change.)
Courtesy Everett
Tom Hulce, John Belushi, and Stephen Furst enjoying a quiet evening in at 'Animal House's Delta House
All these years later, you may wonder if Dartmouth — a member of the elite "Ivy League" alongside such schools as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale — has embraced its Animal House heritage. After all, the movie does take a very cavalier attitude toward binge drinking, students hooking up with faculty, spying on women as they disrobe, smashing guitars for no reason, making a mess of a cafeteria, pretending to have a relationship with a woman who died in a kiln accident in an effort to score with their roommate, and a gag about potentially violating drunk girls who turn out to be way below the age of consent.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty
John Belushi enjoying his post-'Animal House' fame during a night out in New York City
The answer is, yeah, kinda.
The school, which dates back to 1769 and boasts alumni like Secretary of State Daniel Webster, poet Robert Frost, author Dr. Seuss, and classicist Richmond Lattimore, has resigned itself to accepting that the madness seen at the Delta Tau Chi fraternity has its roots in the verdant meadows of the Hanover campus. An essay in The Dartmouth Review argues that the toga parties (based very much on truth) represented students from Miller's generation rebelling against conformity.
Scott Eisen/Getty
Dartmouth College dates back to the year 1769
Landis shot most of the location footage at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore., and the story suggests that Faber College is located somewhere in Pennsylvania, despite a Tennessee state flag appearing in one shot. Nevertheless, Dartmouth students were privy to an early screening back in the day. Cowriter Miller (who also has a small role in the movie; he's the one who releases marbles at the parade during the big finish) presented the film like a returning hero, claiming that all of the antics were true. (Surely not the horse!)
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Perhaps as a result of its association with Animal House, Dartmouth has something of a reputation for being the most "hard partying" of the allegedly studious Ivy League schools. The Simpsons etched the phrase "drinking like a Dartmouth boy" into the vernacular back in 2000, for example.
As kids get ready to go back to school this fall, it's something to consider.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL AOL Lifestyle”
