"Thank You God!": The Animal House Thread

And the advice on how not to go through life--I can't see that that's outdated.

Just read the piece (pretty quickly) and thought it was fine.

...That doesn't mean the movie deserves to be banned or condemned, but it has lost the meaning it once had.

...It should go without saying that none of this is Animal House's fault.

...We could never wipe Animal House from the face of the earth even if we wanted to; its influence is too vast, and its best jokes are justifiable classics.

That's fair. The writer isn't trying to 1984 something out of existence--I hate that kind of thing. I don't know what prompted him to rewatch it, but he did, and he found some of it bothered him. I put up posts like that here all the time.

oh, agreed

I just disagreed with the “they’re slobs, Trump is that kind of slob” assessment and the complete lack of reference to the 1962 framing device

I’ve talked to a lot of younger people who, having seen Animal House, think that the time period in the film was concurrent with the time it was filmed!

I'm sure some contemporary reviews, particularly by women, pointed out some of the problems.

Was curious about this, so I tried to track down some contemporaneous reviews. Kael didn't officially review it, but she had a few words in one of her state-of-the-movies things that basically amounted to inept-but-fun. Kauffmann and Simon didn't review it--no surprise there, I guess. Sarris's review is archived online:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=KEtq3P1Vf8oC&dat=19780731&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

"But the basic problem remains: Animal House is a disorganized collection of set-smashing exercises performed largely by nobodies whom it is difficult to tell apart from one scene to the next."

A lot of those "nobodies" became famous...But yeah, it's not like reviewers were proclaiming it a work of comic genius at the time.

not that many of the nobodies became famous, really!

it’s a ratio that’s probably no worse than many of the high school/college ensemble flicks, but the number of people who appeared in AH and maybe one other comedy, or disappeared entirely, is pretty high

I'd count Kevin Bacon as famous, but more for an internet fluke than anything he ever actually did. But you're right, that's it. Peter Riegert, Karen Allen, and Tom Hulce are semi-famous for one role or one movie. The most famous cast member was already famous.

kevin bacon is famous by any metric

i have no idea what internet fluke might refer to in relation to the fame of very famous actor kevin bacon

otoh i only know who tom hulse is cos i remind myself of his name every six months to hate the cunt by name because of amadeus

nobody has ever heard of peter riegert his parents furrow their brows when his name comes up

few enough ppl would imo remember karen allens name if her roles were brought up

bizarrely wrong post rly

Loved this at the time, still like it a lot now, showed it to my 11-year-old (with some scenes skipped) and he liked it too. The idea that Donald Trump is the grown-up Belushi and not the grown-up Greg Marmalard is too ridiculous to even discuss.

darraghmac: I think Peter Riegert is fairly well known for roles on Seinfeld and The Sopranos, Karen Allen for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kevin Bacon's done a lot of well-known films, but surely he's most famous for the thing that grew out of him having done a lot of well-know films: https://oracleofbacon.org/

I didn't find this movie funny when I first saw it at 12 or so, and I didn't find it funny again when I last checked it out some time in my 20s. I remember recognizing a few things as fairly repulsive during my last viewing--the angel/devil debate over whether to take advantage of a drunk girl, of course, but I've also always found Landis' propensity towards animal violence as a source of comedy especially sour (see also, Into the Night)--but on the whole, its more just "not my thing" than anything else. I've read reviews that praise it for its satire, but I don't really see that: I actually think National Lampoon's Vacation is considerably stickier, not to mention funnier.

I would like to smash the metaphorical guitar that is this thread

This movie has given the world at least 3 "hey, it's that guy!" actors who've gone on to work in every TV crime drama (and the occasional movie) you've ever seen: Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill and Peter Riegert have each been in about eight dozen movies. McGill in particular now plays judges, owners of crooked companies, etc., etc. on a regular basis.

I don’t wanna live in a world which doesn’t appreciate Animal House

I think Peter Riegert is fairly well known for roles on Seinfeld and The Sopranos, Karen Allen for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/417AW0B10NL._SY445_.jpg

An ex-girlfriend of mine was particularly fond of quoting the "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life" line when describing her misspent adolescence.

i find it fairly apposite now and i'm 50 this year

i am aiming to cut it down to one in three at any one time, while being realistic about it yknow

Forgot about Local Hero--I guess that's Riegert's most well-known movie role (unless it's AH itself). His Seinfeld appearance isn't as well known as, say, Philip Baker Hall's or Teri Hatcher's, but he does get off one of my favourite Seinfeld lines ever: "Or we could not do the show altogether, how about that?"

John Landis is a primary culprit for destroying Hollywood comedy, along with Ivan Reitman, Nora Ephron, and Ap*t*w.

if only Bob Hope could've stayed young forever

And Woody Allen could've REDACTED

they were very funny once, so i'm glad you figured that out

John Warner is great playing Dean Womer. You also got Donald Sutherland in almost a walk on role (maybe another scene with him wasn't used).

that's John VERNON. He was better in Point Blank.

Woody Allen is at the top of my "was never funny/sign of someone with shitty taste" list.

"I'd count Kevin Bacon as famous, but more for an internet fluke than anything he ever actually did."

Footloose made $80 million.

It’s true tho that he is most famous for the meme that stemmed from his widespread fame

Kevin Bacon is famous ffs, the Internet has warped your minds

Animal House did not make him a star, tho... in fact i probably did not know he was the piece of pledge chicken on all fours til the '90s.

He's actually had three films besides Animal House with 100-million+ in box office:

"Thank You God!": The Animal House Thread

I'll have to disagree, though. Minus the Six Degrees thing, I think he'd be like Ed Harris, a well-known character actor--Harris has had six 100-million+ films, and he's also had numerous Academy Award nominations, which Bacon hasn't. Is Harris famous? Not as famous as Bacon, I don't think, and I'd attribute that to Six Degrees. I think Wikipedia is a decent generalized measure of these things: "Bacon has become an icon for the concept of interconnectedness (as in social networks), having been popularized by the game 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon'." It gets a pretty sizable section on his page, and also a separate page of its own.

Wrong link:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/people/chart/?view=Actor&id=kevinbacon.htm

We should poll this vs Revenge of the Nerds as dubious frat comedies of their respective eras.

judging Footloose strictly by it's box office and not decades of being a vhs/expanded basic cable/dvd staple/80s pop culture touchstone is incredibly disingenuous

Ed Harris has no movie that's a pop culture artifact like Footloose

How would you explain Lori Singer's relative obscurity then? I'm not trying to be disingenuous, I just have a different opinion. I assure you that Footloose is not any kind of a touchstone for me.

counting up $100 million grossers when the guy was not the star (or when most ppl seeing the film were not aware of him) is pointless

Footloose is sufficiently 'iconic' of '80s pop crap that KB reprised it on one of the late-night junk shows in the last 2 years... it also inspired a flop Broadway musical and a film remake.

How about we split the difference here? The summary sentence from his biography.com page:

Kevin Bacon is known for hit movies like 'Footloose,' his marriage to Kyra Sedgwick and the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Which is probably more or less how his NY Times obituary will begin.

That game, btw, whose premise would simply not work at all if nobody knew who tf kevin bacon was before the invention of the game

Like how the fuck would ppl play it?

xxxpost because Kevin Bacon was the star of the movie and the teen heartthrob and also has been more successful since!

you are being ridiculous

Footloose is like 16 Candles etc, how were you when it came out?

go on eBay now there's like Tiger Beat posters of Kevin Bacon you can buy, do you think there are of Ed Harris?

i stood over an underwear-clad Kevin Bacon in an 'immersive' off-Broadway play in the '80s

would not have had that opportunity if he was John Stamos-level

I think the premise of the game was that he'd done a whole bunch of films, not that he was especially famous: "In a January 1994 interview with Premiere magazine Kevin Bacon mentioned while discussing the film The River Wild that 'he had worked with everybody in Hollywood or someone who’s worked with them.' Following this, a lengthy newsgroup thread headed 'Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe' appeared." It's not the Six Degrees of Marlon Brando or the Six Degrees of Marilyn Monroe--I don't think fame entered into it. There's a baseball version, and to get the shortest chains, you don't type in Babe Ruth or Willie Mays--you use guys like Bobo Newsom. (Do you have to know who Kevin Bacon is to play it? You don't even have to type in his name, which is the default setting on the Oracle site.)

I was 23 when Footloose came out; it meant nothing to me then and nothing to me now. I haven't seen it. (Are you able to argue your side without the "you're being ridiculous" stuff?)

Also worth noting, I think: "They appeared on The Jon Stewart Show and The Howard Stern Show with Bacon to explain the game. Bacon admitted that he initially disliked the game because he believed it was ridiculing him, but he eventually came to enjoy it."

If the game was a celebration of Bacon's already-established fame, I doubt he would have been reacted that way.

i stood over an underwear-clad Kevin Bacon in an 'immersive' off-Broadway play in the '80s

I’m glad this thread has moved on from “is Animal House good” to the more interesting and controversial topic “is Kevin Bacon famous”

Kevin Bacon is famous because Footloose was/is gigantic

yes he had a rough start but eventually was able to realize his vision: not one but two Fletch movies

The Bad News Bears, now yer talkin'.

look i've been out all day, has somebody done a "is famous movie star Kevin Bacon famous?" poll yet?

i mean thanks to UK advertising i hate the cunt but please

Is bacon star famous movie

(xpost) I think the disagreement concerned why/when rather than whether. But we did move on.

I watched Fletch recently and it's kind of a fascinating artifact.

the plot makes no fucking sense

the gritty beach scenes is such a cool world

it takes some serious conjones for an approaching middle age guy to wear a Lakers jersey with nothing underneath to the office

Harold Faltermeyers score is brilliant

XPS

https://media1.tenor.com/images/76595bd5d8fdcbc68afa6f8b138ddee4/tenor.gif?itemid=3409083

^^ the expression that put the humor in the mayhem

xxxpost

The thing that surprised me most about Fletch when I watched it was how well it plays as a straight-up mystery thriller. At the risk of sounding seriously trolly, I'll note that I prefer it to The Big Sleep (speaking of plots that make no sense).

Also, we polled the films of Michael Ritchie a while back.

I've never seen the movie 'cause even as a kid I was like "Fuck Chevy Chase," but the book was a good California noir with some jokes.

I’ve never seen it for that reason, although it’s my dumb bias

I love when send-ups do a genre by the books so I’ve probably done myself a disservice

I've known two separate women who were enormous Bacon Brothers fans.

u sure they werent saying "butty"?

I really love "Fletch", a great saturday evening watch

I had no idea there was a TV spin-off of Animal House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_House

When the most notable thing about your show is that Jim Steinman adapted his theme song into Meat Loaf's 'Dead Ringer For Love', you're onto a loser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWR94gcQX1o

i remember that

i liked this movie for a few weeks during high school. feel like it was really sold as "this is an important comedy movie" something that professional comedians, Lampoon types or Simpsons writers all held in high esteem but was kind of from an older generation for me to really relate to.

Belushi was def funny but imo the Simpsons/Futurama parodies are as good or better than the movie. ROBOT HOUUUUSE!

So weird how networks thought they could develop a prime-time series based on an R-rated comedy (see also: "Black Bart," based on Blazing Saddles, starring Lou Gossett, Jr. and Steve Landesberg).

xp

They even thought they could turn Jim Bouton's Ball Four into a series. They're very optimistic that way.

So weird how networks thought they could develop a prime-time series based on an R-rated comedy

because... M*A*S*H?

oh, haha, right

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore worked out OK...

what was that Fox show that was basically a rip-off of Ferris Bueller?

it was a PG, tho (and pretty different in tone nonetheless) xp

Parker Lewis Can't Lose

there was also a Ferris sitcom (featuring Jennifer Aniston!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Bueller_(TV_series)

So weird how networks thought they could develop a prime-time series based on an R-rated comedy

because... M*A*S*H?

Also "Fame" ?

Parker Lewis Can't Lose

I have really fond memories of this show but am sorta scared to re-watch. it was pretty po-mo iirc

Fame was a solid 5-year hit on TV, but MASH became a juggernaut.

I have really fond memories of this show but am sorta scared to re-watch

Me too. I remember it being much funnier, and much weirder, than the Ferris Bueller movie (and, obviously, the Ferris Bueller TV show).

xpost also Hogan's Heroes

the 70s was a fucked up time. once i caught an episode of The Love Boat on tv and pure exploitation just two women in nighties w bits blurred out for modern broadcast.

well that was a loose (dumb) variation on Stalag 17. You might as well call the original Battlestar Galactica a Star Wars series.

xp

The Love Boat was based on the last scene of Some Like It Hot, iirc.

Well, nobody's perfect.

That or "Ship of Fools".

have we lol'd about VICE of all places publishing this nonsense yet

Eh, the absurdity of their "We're moral voices now - stop laughing!" schtick is just taken for granted at this point.