This is something I’ve wondered about for a long time.
In the scene after they play Bob’s Country Bunker, Elwood asks to settle up. Bob said the gig paid $200, but the band drank $300 worth of beer, so they end up owing the bar $100. They then skip out on the tab after the real Good Ol’ Boys show up and chaos ensues.
Anyway, just how much would $300 worth of beer have been in 1980? There are nine guys in the band. Let’s say a beer in Bob’s establishment would go for $3, about what one would expect to pay for, say, a Budweiser in a similar establishment these days. That’s 11 beers per band member. And remember $3 is presumably on the high end of the price scale for 1980.
Now I imagine these guys would probably have a pretty high tolerance for alcohol, but still you’d expect a few of them to be drunk off their asses or at least inebriated enough to not be able to play their instruments properly after drinking nearly half a case of beer. That’s a hell of a lot of beer.
Or could it be that Bob just pulled the figure out of his ass in attempt to ripoff the band?
The joke is none too subtle as it demonstrates the excessiveness of Jake and the band. Consider the fact that Belushi was the very picture of self-abuse two years prior in Animal House and I can easily imagine why the gag was included.
$3 a beer isn’t a lot, considering they played both kinds of music there…
They’re in a band.
Probably more like $1.50 each in 1980, so call it 22 beers each, for nine band members.
Now, I have never been in a band, but I *have *been on a softball team. And at tournements away from home, 22 beers each is not an unattainable goal.
I am not exactly a big guy. I can drink a cheap weak beer once an hour all day long and not be drunk off my ass. Make me significantly bigger, allow for more drunkeness, and for that matter some practice at being really drunk and I think you could bump that up to 3 beers an hour easily, and possibly more. Take that number (or bigger) and multiply by many hours in an evening and before you know it, you got lots of beers per person.
Like someone else said, I think part of the joke was they drank a lot of beer (but not an absurd amount IMO). But the bigger part of the joke was obviously that they drank more beer than what they earned for playing.
And in real life, too . . .
For the most part, John Belushi was not a heavy drinker, especially during the last couple years of his life, when cocaine became the focal point of his substance abuse…
Mmmm… $300 in beer…
As someone who has worked in … er … the performing arts, I can say that while it is a touch excessive, isn’t impossible… 
Three-dollar beers today would be about $1.15 in 1980. But weren’t they–and it’s been a while since I’ve seen it–getting pitchers in a small-town dive? That wouldn’t cost $3 per beer today.
In the scene where they’re disassembling their equipment and packing up you can see the guys knocking beer bottles off the amps. Also when Jake and Elwood initially walk in, they’re served bottles.
Could also be that the owner was deliberately screwing them, pulling a ‘company store’ type scam where the game is worked so his hired bands ALWAYS come out owing more than they made for the night.
What Chimera said plus, only about half the beer brought to the stage would have been drunk. Between playing and stage lighting, they get warm long before being finished.
I’ve always wondered what else they played that night besides Rawhide and Stand by Your Man over and over.
I have friends that would have no problem killing 22 beers over a few hours…yeah, they’d be drunk, but they could still function and they don’t have nearly the tolerance that that band would have. Also, come to think of it, I don’t believe there was any heavy drug use in the movie, but if any of them had any cocaine it would allow them to drink even more.
How many bottles were thrown back at the crowd?
Chicken wire :dubious: ?
It’s still fun to toss 'em.
I’ve known regular sized women that could polish off a case of Bud in 4-6 hours. I don’t have any problem imagining musicians doing 2 cases.
Jake Elwood is a man of large appetites. He orders five shrimp cocktails at a time, four fried chickens for a meal. Drinking $300 worth of beer is easy for him. The band probably had five or six beers each, and he drank the rest.