Animal House

National Lampoon's Animal House (often called Animal House) is a 1978 comedy film in which a misfit group of fraternity boys take on the system at their college. It is considered to be the movie that started the gross-out genre.[1]

It stars John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, John Vernon, Thomas Hulce, Cesare Danova, Peter Riegert, Mary Louise Weller, Stephen Furst, James Daughton, Bruce McGill, Mark Metcalf, James Widdoes, Verna Bloom, Martha Smith, Kevin Bacon (in his film debut) and Donald Sutherland. The movie was adapted by Douglas Kenney, Christopher Miller and Harold Ramis from stories written by Miller based on his experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth College and published in National Lampoon magazine. It was directed by John Landis.

In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Produced on a small ($3 million) budget, the film has turned out to be one of the most profitable of all time; since its initial release, Animal House has garnered an estimated return of more than $200 million in the form of video and DVDs, not including merchandising.

This film is first on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It was #36 on AFI's "100 Years, 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies.