Editing Animal House (section)

===Development===
''Animal House'' was the first film produced by ''[[National Lampoon (magazine)|National Lampoon]]'', the most popular humor magazine on college campuses in the mid-1970s.<ref name="Peterson">{{cite news | last = Peterson | first = Molly | title = ''National Lampoon's Animal House'' | work = [[National Public Radio]] | date = July 29, 2002 | url = https://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/animalhouse/ | access-date = February 1, 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100128032723/http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/animalhouse/ | archive-date = January 28, 2010 | url-status = dead | df = mdy-all }}</ref> The periodical specialized in satirizing politics and popular culture. Many of the magazine's writers were recent college graduates, hence its appeal to students all over the country. [[Doug Kenney]] was a ''Lampoon'' writer and the magazine's first editor-in-chief. He graduated from [[Harvard University]] in 1969 and had a college experience closer to the Omegas in the film (he had been president of the university's elite [[Spee Club (Harvard)|Spee Club]]).<ref name="Peterson"/> Kenney was responsible for the first appearances of three characters that appeared in the film: Larry Kroger, Mandy Pepperidge, and Vernon Wormer. They made their debut in 1973's ''[[National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody|National Lampoon's High School Yearbook]]'', a satire of a Middle America 1964 high school yearbook. Kroger's and Pepperidge's characters in the yearbook were effectively the same as their characters in the movie, whereas Vernon Wormer was a P.E. and civics teacher as well as an athletic coach in the yearbook.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

However, Kenney felt that fellow ''Lampoon'' writer [[Chris Miller (writer)|Chris Miller]] was the magazine's expert on the college experience.<ref name="Peterson"/> Faced with an impending deadline, Miller submitted a chapter from his then-abandoned memoirs entitled ''The Night of the Seven Fires'' about pledging experiences from his fraternity days in Alpha Delta (associated with the national [[Alpha Delta Phi]] during Miller's undergraduate years; the fraternity subsequently disassociated itself from the national organization and is now called Alpha Delta) at [[Dartmouth College]], in [[Hanover, New Hampshire]]. The antics of his fellow fraternities, coupled with experiences like that of a road trip to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and its Delta Chi fraternity, became the inspiration for the Delta Tau Chis of ''Animal House'', and many characters in the film (and their nicknames) were based on Miller's fraternity brothers.<ref name="Peterson"/> Filmmaker [[Ivan Reitman]] had just finished producing [[David Cronenberg]]'s first film, ''[[Shivers (1975 film)|Shivers]]'', and called the magazine's publisher [[Matty Simmons]] about making movies under the ''Lampoon'' banner.<ref name="Nashawaty">{{cite magazine |last=Nashawaty |first=Chris |title=Building ''Animal House'' |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |date=July 29, 2002 |url=https://ew.com/article/1998/10/09/animal-house-behind-scenes/ |access-date=December 4, 2021 |archive-date=February 8, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208133807/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,285149,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Reitman had put together ''[[The National Lampoon Show]]'' in New York City featuring several future ''Saturday Night Live'' cast members, including John Belushi. When most of the ''Lampoon'' group moved on to ''SNL'' except for [[Harold Ramis]], Reitman approached him with an idea to make a film together using some skits from the ''Lampoon Show''.<ref name="Nashawaty"/>
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Addition: Please see the Von Summer story with images of Chris Miller and the actual Dartmouth Crew.  http://www.bergen.com/Animal_House_Recalling_Alex_von_Summers_college_days_at_Dartmouths_famed_Alpha_Delta_frat.html
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