Monday, April 29, 2024

National Lampoon's Animal House 1978 John Belushi as John Blutarsky

john belushi in animal house

The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College. Verna Bloom already had over 30 film and television appearances, including "High Plains Drifter" before landing the role of the Dean's party-animal wife in the movie. While Belushi has been gone for more than twenty years, the characters he created and the performances he gave are still being enjoyed by his fans. He was named one of television's top 25 stars by People magazine in 1989.

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Belushi’s first film role was in Animal House, which was shot while the comedian was still a featured player on Saturday Night Live. The resounding success of Animal House was more than just a steppingstone in the career of John Belushi. It set NBC’s fledgling sketch show, Saturday Night Live, apart as a potential pipeline into film. Two years later, Belushi would star alongside fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers, an unusual comedy musical which would launch the pair into superstardom.

THE FINAL SCRIPT WAS THE RESULT OF A THREE-MONTH BRAINSTORMING SESSION.

Even before "Animal House," John Belushi was already a pro at the comedy genre from the theater troupe, The Second City, and the magazine National Lampoon. Eddie Money wrote "Passing by the Graveyard (Song for John B.)", from his 1982 album No Control, in tribute to Belushi. Belushi was interred at Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard.[39] Belushi's tombstone has a skull and crossbones with the inscription, "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on." In an interview with the National Enquirer in May 1982, Smith admitted that she had been with Belushi at the Chateau Marmont on the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the Enquirer article, the case was reopened. Smith was arrested, extradited from Canada, and charged with first-degree murder.

Early life

Many Deltas achieve unexpected success, with Bluto becoming a United States senator and marrying Mandy, while most of the Omegas have less fortunate outcomes.

Cast & Crew

After the banquet, they put on a large concert open to the public. Out of every club on campus, TOGA sells more tickets and draws more of a crowd than any other club-organized event. A new film about John Belushi is currently in the works and the cast appears to be star-studded.

To preserve the comedian’s energy and well-being, the production team of Animal House did everything they could to keep Belushi away from his infamous drug habit. Besides his prolific comedy career, Belushi was known for his avid drug use, especially alcohol, heroin, and cocaine. This drug use was a cause for concern for the production team of Animal House, who did everything they could to help the talented actor avoid the temptation of the substances. John Belushi is one of the most iconic comedians of all-time, mostly known for his time on Saturday Night Live and such movie roles as Jake in The Blues Brothers and John “Bluto” Blutarsky in National Lampoon’s Animal House. But as Belushi found fame, he also found himself deeper in the throes of addiction.

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Belushi was also captain of his school's football team and played in a rock band as a drummer. Now that the movie has reached its 40th birthday — it first hit theaters July 28, 1978 — The Hollywood Reporter breaks down what the principal actors have been doing since the fraternity members' expulsion from Faber College. The cast of comedy classic 'Animal House' have pursued careers in acting, directing and producing since the film's release 40 years ago.

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During a famous scene in Animal House, Belushi’s character Bluto chugs a fifth of a Jack Daniels bottle of whiskey. The classic comedy has become the inspiration of similar college-related films, many of which pay homage to Belushi and his frat’s wacky antics. The film also stars Tim Matheson, Bruce McGill, Stephen Faust, Thomas Hulce, and Kevin Bacon in his first feature film. The plot of the film revolves around the college antics of the fraternity at the fictional Faber College. Various incidents deepen the animosity between Delta, Omega, and Wormer, including the accidental death of Neidermeyer's horse during a retaliatory prank for bullying ROTC member Flounder. Otter flirts with Mandy, having previously had sex with her, unbeknownst to Marmalard.

John Belushi, Tim Matheson & Rest of 'Animal House' Cast 42 Years after Fan Famous Comedy Premiered

john belushi in animal house

On the night of March 4, 1982, he was reportedly partying with the likes of Robin Williams. Only thirty-three years old, he died from a drug overdose of a combination of cocaine and heroin, also known as a "speedball." The woman who was with him and had supplied him with drugs, Cathy Smith, was questioned by the police and released. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Thomas Hulce, Karen Allen, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers. Matheson, also cast as a student, was already a seasoned actor, having appeared in movies and television since the age of 13. Critics considered National Lampoon's Animal House to be cheap, terribly plotted, and in bad taste upon its release in the summer of 1978.

One of the movie’s most iconic scenes, the food fight, is just three seconds long. Wormer organizes a kangaroo court led by the Omegas, which revokes the Deltas' charter and confiscates the contents of their house. Otter, Boon, Pinto, and Flounder take a road trip in Flounder's brother Fred's borrowed Lincoln Continental. They arrive at Emily Dickinson College, an all-girls institution, where Otter poses as Frank, the fiancĂ© of a recently deceased student named Fawn Liebowitz to find dates for himself and the others. They stop at a roadhouse bar where Otis Day and the Knights are performing, unaware that the clientele is exclusively Black. Some of the patrons intimidate the Deltas into abandoning their dates and fleeing.

Jeff Kanew, director of Revenge of the Nerds, remembers that his studio told him to "Give us an Animal House, " and he directed a movie complete with food fights and beer-drinking contests. It was Belushi's portrayal of Bluto Blutarsky that was one of the movies most enduring images, virtually typecasting the manic Saturday Night Live alumnus as a gross, excessive, drinking party animalon-screen and off. For most of the movie Bluto speaks in unintelligible grunts, his big monologue coming near the end when he encourages a demoralized Delta House to take its revenge on the Dean. Thus, Animal House ends with a Delta-inspired riot at the college's Home-coming Parade. The characters then all head off into the sunset, with captions revealing their eventual fates (Bluto's was to become a Senator). Despite the lasting influence of the film, many movie studios agreed with the initial critics and passed on the script.

Mr. Reitman and fellow producer Matty Simmons wanted to turn the film into a showcase for the stars of television’s relatively new smash “Saturday Night Live,” but Mr. Landis had other ideas. One of the film’s most memorable lines was delivered by character Douglas Neidermeyer, the main antagonist in the film played by Mark Metcalf. “I wanted people to accept that character as Eric Stratton, not ‘I'm Chevy Chase and you're not,’” he added, referring to Chase’s popular "Saturday Night Live" signature line. Landis tapped composer Elmer Bernstein to do the score because Landis was childhood friends with Bernstein’s son.

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