Cited as "one of the funniest movies ever made" in Video Movie Guide, Animal House, directed with madcap zest by John Landis (Blues Brothers) and produced by Matty Simmons and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), continues to be a perennial year-round video seller and grossed over $141 million in the U. S. alone. The film was released in the summer of 1978, and was one of the most profitable pictures of the year.
Animal House follows the hilarious adventures of Faber College's Delta fraternity house. Funnyman and "Saturday Night Live" alumnus John Belushi became an international superstar after the premiere of Animal House and went on to star in such comedy hits as Blues Brothers and 1941.
In addition to Belushi as the guitar-bashing, beer-can-smashing,
garbage-eating Bluto Blutarsky, the outstanding cast includes head
skirt-chaser Tim Matheson (Yours, Mine and Ours), innocent freshman Tom Hulce (Amadeus),
frat brat packers Peter Riegert (Crossing Delancy, The Mask), Stephen
Furst (The Dream Team), Kevin Bacon (Apollo 13), menacing college dean
John Vernon (M*A*S*H), and Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H) as the bored young
professor who smokes pot with Riegert and his pretty but fed-up girlfriend,
Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark). Otis Day and The Knights do a
show-stopping performance of Shout
