Animal House
While hunkering down during the coronavirus pandemic, we binge watched several TV shows, most specifically This is Us and Virgin River. After watching several episodes of each, there was a character on both that looked vaguely familiar. For Virgin River, when the doctor in the show was shown in casual clothing while fishing and when the father of Mandy Moore on This is Us was shown golfing, it dawned on me that this same actor was in the 1978 classic movie Animal House.
The actors name is Tim Matheson, nicknamed Otter, who portrayed the president of DTX fraternity in Animal House. The movie depicted college fraternal life in the 1960’s, the heyday of fraternities. I was in a fraternity during the same time and agree it was a fantastic era to be in college.
The DTX house was on probation for several violations, but after a toga party initiated by Bluto played by John Belushi got out of hand, the fraternity was threatened with dissolution and expulsion. The fraternity officers had to pitch their case in front of the Student Court and college administration. Otter gives the closing appeal in this clip. He’s the one in the red plaid coat and it didn’t go so well.
Shortly after being shutdown, a fire broke out in the Delta house, so it was in shambles as well. But the movie ends well after Otter, in his own inimitable way, appeals to the dean's wife (who was at the infamous toga party as shown on the right) to extend the fraternity's probation rather than a full suspension.
My fraternity in college was Theta Xi and our nickname on campus was Theta Zoo, so you can definitely imagine the similarities to Animal House. My fraternity brothers and I all felt the show represented with some exaggerations how things really were back in those days. Like Animal House, everyone in our fraternity had nicknames. As pledges we were all given nicknames as shown below, many after bars in Buffalo, NY, the hometown of a crazy brother with the real name of Wackerman who used the excuse he couldn’t remember our names.
During my sophomore year, the fraternity officers felt it was time to improve our image on campus, so we dramatically cleaned up our act. Annually, the university recognized the Most Outstanding Fraternity, an honor we had never won. So that became our goal. The award was based on academics, athletics and activities To enhance academics, we had what was called a crib room, to bin every test that had been administered in all the various classes. Those prior tests as well as some aggressive tutoring by upperclassmen were a great help for us underclassmen. Whenever a test given matched exactly the sample test in the crib, we called it a dead-nuts crib (DNC). To enhance our activities score, we had members join every campus club and volunteered for all community service projects imaginable. We were already pretty strong in athletics; in fact we had the not-so-famous version of the Fab Five, in that our pledge class as freshman handily beat the house team made up of upper classmen in basketball and other sports. However, to rake up even more points for athletics, we made sure someone participated in each and every intramural sport on campus.
For example, I recall signing up for horseshoes, a game I played as a youngster. Turned out winning the event to garner more points towards the top fraternity award, which we ended up earning by a thread. But it didn’t last, as we created an irreverent button after the award that exhibited an abbreviated form of Theta Xi is Tops In The School! Plus, over the years our house has been on probation several times, and there was a fire as well. And of course we had countless toga parties just like in Animal House.
My fraternity brothers from that era get together for lunch several times a year to relive the old stories and enjoy some camaraderie; always a great time. Times haven't changed much; as for example, below are photos from recent get-togethers with such activities as hatchet throwing, go cart racing, exploring an Escape Room, bocce ball and football bowling, just to name a few! Theta Zoo through and through.
Back to binge watching until this pandemic is over so we can hold another frat get-together. Or maybe we try paintball now - looks safe!
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