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  • Animal House questions

    I hate to ‘jack threads (https://www.customerssuck.com/board/...rider-question), so I there are some questions I have about National Lampoon's Animal House (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0), specifically, attempted test cheating. (Yes. I’ll be the first to admit that I may be over-analyzing a screwball comedy).
    In that sequence, Kevin Bacon (Chip Dillard) pulled a mimeograph template for a Psych exam from the garbage and substituted a different one, which we later learn was created to make the Deltas all fail.
    John Belushi (Bluto) and Bruce McGill (D-Day) later pour through the building’s garbage for that mimeograph with Kevin Bacon and James Daughton(Greg Malmalard) looking on from an alcove in that basement, that later was smoking a pipe.
    In the test taking scene, we see the Deltas and Omegas smirking among themselves but for different reasons. James Widdoes (Robert Hoover) would later announce to Delta that after comparing notes all of their answers were wrong.

    Some questions/observations I had:
    1. What did the Omegas do with the original mimeograph? Did they use that unfair advantage or destroy it? I find the former so easy to believe as they are Omega Theta Pi not Alpha Phi Omega (https://apo.org/about-us/). I also find it even easier to believe that the dean would look the other way at cheating on their part.
    2. As mentioned earlier, Daughton was smoking a pipe in the same room within 20 feet (6m- estimating from the actors' sizes) as Belushi and McGill without the latter two noticing. Was smoking so ubiquitous in 1962, when the movie is set, that someone could smoke a pipe (the most odorous of all smoking devices) that close unnoticed?
    3. How did none of the Deltas notice differences between the purloined exams and the real McCoy?Did none of them go to the class to have an idea what to expect? Also why didn’t either fraternity have an exam file with all the typical exam questions?
    4. Did anyone notice the large number of seniors in a 101 class? What’s up with that? Are they all taking that as a grade point average booster? If that’s a required class why not more students there like Donald Sutherland’s English lit lecture?
    I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

    Who is John Galt?
    -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

  • #2
    Regarding #3, smoking was very ubiquitous in 1962. Look at many of the TV shows and movies from the time period.
    "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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    • #3
      1. My guess is that the Omegas used it to their advantage, and Dean Wormer looked the other way, because the Omegas were looked at as "upstanding" students. It's possible that Dean Wormer didn't know, either, that the Omegas even used the original mimeograph.
      2. I don't get this one, either. A pipe smells differently than a cigarette, but you'd think that they would smell it either way.
      3. Remember they didn't do well in their classes anyway. And it's possible that they thought they had a foolproof scheme, so they didn't pay close attention to the test in front of them, because they thought they had all the right answers.
      4. It's possible that there were seniors who had other majors taking it as an elective. I guess that's one possible explanation.

      One big question I have is how Bluto could make all that noise with that ladder along the side of the house to see Mandy Pepperidge (I believe it was) in her bra, and nobody noticed, especially her.
      Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

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      • #4
        Quoth mjr View Post
        One big question I have is how Bluto could make all that noise with that ladder along the side of the house to see Mandy Pepperidge (I believe it was) in her bra, and nobody noticed, especially her.
        Having been in college in the late sixties, when panty raids were popular, those inside the dorms were very much aware of what was going on outside, and sometimes were very encouraging.
        "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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