Whatever happened to Senator Blutarsky anyway?

July 28th, 2008 at 08:23am Will Pfeifer

It was 30 years ago today — today exactly, in fact — that NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE arrived in theaters. It’s success led to decades of dumb, dopey, crude, crass comedies, but ANIMAL HOUSE was — and remains — a razor sharp satire not just of college life, but of life in general. And it’s damned funny, too.

ANIMAL HOUSE had perfect timing, hitting movie screens just when the youngest boomers were looking for a comedy to call their own, and the oldest Gen-Xers (yours truly included) were just starting to consider the concept of sneaking into R-rated movies. ANIMAL HOUSE was also lucky enough to be written by some budding comic geniuses (Doug Kenney and Chris Miller of NATIONAL LAMPOON magazine, plus Harold Ramis), directed by a young goofball willing to try anything (John Landis) and starring SNL’s John Belushi and a cast of young talents, including Kevin Bacon, Tom Hulce, Tim Matheson and Bruce McGill (who seems to be in every movie made these days).

It also was lucky enough to have John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer, one of the all-time great movie villains. Most comedies — especially the dumb, dopey, crude, crass comedies that followed in ANIMAL HOUSE’s wake — make their villains silly straw men, too dumb or weak to pose any real threat, but Wormer is different. He’s as clever as our heroes and twice as nasty. When he smiles and tells them that he’s notified their draft boards of their impending expulsions, it’s a great villainous moment.

So here, in honor of the 30th anniversary of the time our beloved Delta Tau Delta laid waste to the streets of Faber, is Otter’s defense of his brothers before the student court. I’d say it ranks among the all-time classic courtroom scenes:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/4MFGeEil090" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

And here, for further reading courtesy of the excellent movie blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, is a link to a series of columns Mark Metcalf — aka Douglas C. Neidermeyer — wrote, interviewing his ANIMAL HOUSE co-stars. Surprisingly, he remains close to his old onscreen tormentee, Stephen Furst (aka Flounder).

Entry Filed under: Classic movies