What if all you knew about fraternities came from the film Animal House? Would it be reflected in Dean Vernor Wormer’s admonition to Kent “Flounder” Dorfman, with his 0.2 GPA, “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son”? Would it be that food fights, toga parties and rank debauchery are seemingly more fun than living within the law? For four decades, the film has been part of American culture. In the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest comedies, it ranks 36th. And who among us hasn’t referenced “double secret probation” one or twice?
On July 24, 1978, National Lampoon’s Animal House premiered in New York City. A few weeks later, it opened in Portland, Oregon, a little more than 100 miles from where most of it was filmed in Eugene. The University of Oregon had been transformed into the fictional Faber College, a small southern school. About a year earlier, William Beaty Boyd, the University’s president, signed a contract with Universal Studios. In return for allowing the film to be shot on campus, the University received $20,000, plus revenue lost at the cafeteria when it was used to film the food fight scene, and assurance that the university would not be identified. Filming began in late October 1977, and students were hired as extras for $2.30 per hour.
Chris Miller was initiated into the Dartmouth College chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. Harold Ramis, who died in 2014, was a Zeta Beta Tau from Washington University. (Books from the Becque Archives)
Two Oregon fraternities allowed their facilities to be used in the film. The Sigma Nu house was used for the interior shots of the Delta Tau Chi house and the exterior was used as the Tri Pi sorority house. The Sigma Nus received $6,000 and a redecorated living room in return. The former home of Dr A.W. Peterson and his wife Amanda, seen below, served in the outdoor shots of the Delta Tau Chi house. Although it had served as a fraternity house in the 1950s and ’60s, by the time of the film’s production, it was in sad shape. It was razed in the mid 1980s and a plaque on a boulder marks the spot.
Boyd’s office was used as Dean Wormer’s office and the cafeteria was used for the food fight scene. The nearby Dexter Lake Club served as a destination in the road trip scene and the parade finale was shot in Cottage Grove, about 20 miles away.
The plaque which marks the spot where the fictional Delta house once stood.
The college unrest of the late 1960s and 1970s, had a negative effect on fraternity and sorority membership. The number of students going through recruitment and joining GLOs plummeted. According to the 20th Edition of Baird’s Manual of American College Fraternities, “1973 statistics showed the lowest percentage of growth, or increase in membership since the conferences began keeping records, and for the first time the conferences had fewer chapters at the end of the year than they did at the beginning.”
The popularity of Animal House helped fuel the growth of GLOs in the 1980s. But selling the obligations of membership and the values and history of an organization was made more difficult by the images portrayed on the big screen. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to say that many members joined GLOs because they wanted the emulate the Animal House mentality they had watched in the theater, and later on VHS (and even later on DVD and through on-demand services).
The home of the Oregon Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi was used as the Omega Theta Pi house.
Phi Kappa Psi’s Oregon Alpha chapter house as it appeared on the cover of The Shield shortly after the film became popular. The Sigma Nu chapter no longer owns the house used in the film. It was sold to Northwest Christian University.
The sweatshirt John Belushi wore in the film was purchased in Carbondale, Illinois, in the early 1970s when Belushi visited his brother Jim, who was a student at SIUC at the time. Until it closed in the last few years, Gusto’s had in its windows the story and pictures about the shirt. Van Anderson, who made the shirt, has recounted the story in the Southern Illinoisan more than once.
Full disclosure: I saw the film when it first came out and several times since. I have been to toga parties. And I have known characters like the ones in the movie.
