Animal House
John Belushi's performance in the cafeteria scene was entirely improvised. When he began piling food on his tray, director John Landis urged the camera operator to "stay with him". The infamous "I'm a zit" gag was also improvised, and the reaction from the cast is completely genuine.,At the ROTC inspection, Neidermeyer salutes Chip Diller and Diller returns the salute. Since Chip Diller is the lower ranking officer, he should have saluted Neidermeyer, and Neidermeyer should have returned the salute.,Bluto: TOGA! TOGA!,Four of the listings in the cast are "mean dude," "meaner dude," "meanest dude," and "gigantic dude".,The Australian R4 'The Full Story' DVD release features the version with the alternate 80's background music.,Edited into Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003),Animal House
Composed and Performed by Stephen Bishop
Supervised by Kenny Vance,You'll have to excuse me and some of the other proponents of 'National Lampoon's Animal House' if we seem a little defensive about the movie. That's because it's often not recognized as the superior comedy classic that it is. Instead, too often it is lumped in with the multitude of inferior films that it inspired, which is totally unfair.

Some of the conventional wisdom about 'Animal House' is absolutely right, though. John Belushi does give a bravura performance that is reminiscent of the great comics before him like Chaplin, Keaton (Buster, not Michael), the Marx Brothers, etc., and he does it with a wonderful economy of words. His character of "Bluto" Blutarsky is often emulated and imitated but many times the persons doing so have no idea what it was that made him and his performance so great.

Tim Matheson as "Otter" and his other frat house buddies were also prototypes that were much imitated too, and again often without success. Otter was the quintessential smooth talker, always working an angle on everybody, especially the ladies. When a woman tells him that his lovemaking wasn't that great, he cocks his head, points a finger at himself and mouths the words, "not great?" in mock disbelief. Before Tom Hanks got "Big" he made a career out of playing this character. Also John Vernon set a standard for straight men with his portrayal of the beleaguered Dean Wormer, plagued by his "zoo fraternity."

Not all of the movie's humor aims low, by any means; some of it is quite sophisticated. (Yes, you read it right.) The screenwriters and director John Landis did a great job evoking Kennedy-era America and they found a lot to laugh at. This comedy is an unqualified classic by the simplest definition-- it makes you laugh, long and loud.,