How The Cast Of National Lampoon's Animal House Found Themselves In An Actual Frat House Brawl
Many consider their time spent at college as the best years of their lives. For a number of people, that's their first taste of independence as they're the ones who pick their classes, figure out what to eat for dinner, and determine when it's a good time to go to bed. And when theses kids decide to make all those decisions by picking all the wrong answers, it certainly makes for a wild time, which is essentially what "Animal House" is all about.
A pioneer of the boundary-pushing sex comedy, the 1978 film from director John Landis, producer Ivan Reitman, and writers Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller, and Harold Ramis planted the seeds for generations of Greek life antics and alcohol-fueled hijinks. Even my peers, who became college freshmen 30 years after the Universal Pictures classic premiered, were taking part in toga parties and getting a little bit louder now with Otis Day and the Knights. Obviously, some things have rightfully changed and bits from the movie no longer hold up for the modern audience, but the spirit of having unsupervised, care-free, adolescent fun still persists in its own way. After all, what else would you expect from a movie inspired by the crass, subversive humor of "National Lampoon?"
But in bringing the feel of the magazine to life, the cast and crew may have even gone too far while they were shooting the movie by starting a real life brawl at a fraternity house.
Who's sorry now?
In a New York Times oral history of "Animal House," the cast revealed that they had gotten into a huge fight with a University of Oregon fraternity. Landis wanted to create a bond between the brothers of Delta House before filming began, so he took them to a party on campus. But from the second they stepped foot into the soiree, they felt unwelcome. As Peter Riegert (who played Donald "Boon" Schoenstein) put it, they "were like wasps in a bumblebees' nest."
James Widdoes, who played Delta President Robert Hoover, was actually the one that started the fight by knocking a cup of beer into one of the real frat brother's faces. Judging by his admission that it wasn't his "proudest moment," he totally did it on purpose. Seeing what was about to happen, Tim Matheson (Delta's smooth talking Eric "Otter" Stratton) suggested that they run. But the front line of the football team made sure that they didn't get far.
In the end, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" star Karen Allen, who was making her feature debut in the film, lost her voice from trying to stop the fighting and Bruce McGill (the mustachioed wild card D-Day) got a black eye. But Widdoes ended up in the worst shape. He got some teeth knocked loose, which isn't ideal for any actor preparing to shoot a movie. Luckily, a student referred him to their dentist father who fixed him up bright and early the next day.
Ultimately, though it probably wasn't what the director had in mind, this experience did bring the cast closer together. And according to Allen, their kinship even extends decades after they wrapped because she has "never worked on a film where I stayed closer to the cast" to this day.