Everyone that I have meet, that has gone to college, claims that Animal House was based on fraternity from their alma mater. Since I seriously doubt that we are all correct, does anyone know: If it was based on one fraternity, at one specific college, and if so, what frat and college?
If you don’t know for certain, then what is the frat and college that you have heard.
Beta Phi Theta, Miami University
my daughter swears it was based on the party atmosphere at Dartmouth.
She did not know of any particular fraternity.
I have heard the Dartmouth thing before as well.
The screenplay for “Animal House” was written by Harold Ramis, Doug Kenney and Chris Miller. Kenney went to Harvard, where there aren’t any fraternities, and Ramis went to Washington University in St. Louis… which has always been regarded as a bastion of conservatism, not as a party school.
Chris Miller went to Dartmouth, and he’s freely admitted that much of the screenplay was based on fraternity antics he witnessed or participiated in there.
According to the Internet Movie Database:
“Co-writer Chris Miller based the National Lampoon short stories that gave rise to the film on his experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth (from which he graduated in 1962).”
This site provides excerpts from an interview with Miller, in which he states:
As someone who goes to Dartmouth, I can tell you for a fact that it is based on the Alpha Delta house here. That was the frat where Miller was a brother.
Here’s an article where Miller discusses his experiences with the campus newspaper:
The fraternity is Alpha Delta Phi, the “outlaw” fraternity Miller belonged to at Dartmouth.
according to this
I guess I was the only one not to know the true facts. A big thanks to all the movie buffs and Dartmouth people.