Animal House

In the fall of 1962, Faber College freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger and Kent Dorfman are seeking to join a fraternity. Finding themselves unwelcome at the exclusive Omega Theta Pi house party, the two visit the derelict Delta Tau Chi house next door. Kent believes that Delta will have to accept him as a "legacy" since his older brother, Fred, was a member. They meet John ("Bluto") Blutarsky, chapter president Robert ("Hoov") Hoover, charismatic ladies' man Eric ("Otter") Stratton, motorcyclist Daniel Simpson ("D-Day") Day, suave-yet-troublesome Donald ("Boon") Schoenstein and Boon's exasperated girlfriend Katy. Larry and Kent are accepted as Delta pledges and given the fraternity names "Pinto" and "Flounder", respectively. Meanwhile, Omega pledge Chip Diller is accepted into the fraternity and given a paddling as part of his initiation. The Delta house is on probation due to regular shenanigans and overall poor academic scores. Wishing to remove the unruly fraternity from Faber's campus, Dean Vernon Wormer elevates the Deltas to "double secret probation" and directs Greg Marmalard, the Omega house president, to get fellow Omega and ROTC Cadet Commander Douglas C. Neidermeyer to find a reason to revoke Delta's charter. Various misadventures increase the rivalry between Delta, Omega, and Wormer, including the accidental death of Neidermeyer's horse during a retaliatory prank following the abuse and ridicule Flounder received from Neidermeyer. Unbeknownst to Marmalard, Otter has had an affair with Marmalard's girlfriend, Mandy Pepperidge, a cheerleader and member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming midterm exam, unaware the Omegas switched it for a fake. The Deltas all fail and their lowered grade-point averages prompt Wormer to announce he needs only one more misdemeanor to revoke Delta's charter and permanently expel them. Meanwhile, corrupt Mayor Carmine DePasto demands that Dean Wormer and the University pay him money in order to use the main street in town for their upcoming College parade. Undeterred by Wormer's threats, the Deltas organize a toga party and recruit Pinto and Flounder to shoplift from a supermarket as a fraternity prank. At the market, Pinto meets a young cashier named Clorette, the daughter of Mayor DePasto, unbeknownst to Larry, and invites her to the party, while Otter flirts with an older woman, who turns out to be Dean Wormer's alcoholic wife Marion. During the toga party, at which Otis Day and the Knights perform, Otter seduces Marion, while Pinto and Clorette make out until she passes out, drunk. Pinto resists the temptation to take advantage of her while she is unconscious and instead delivers her home in a shopping cart. He later discovers that she is only 13 years old. Wormer organizes a kangaroo court led by the Omegas, which revokes the Deltas' charter and confiscates the contents of their house. Otter, Boon, Pinto, and Flounder take a road trip in a Lincoln Continental Flounder has borrowed from his brother, Fred. After reading about the recent death of a student at a nearby all-girls college, Otter poses as Frank, her fiancé, in order to find dates for himself and the others. The ruse works and the Deltas, along with their dates, stop at a nightclub where Otis Day and the Knights are performing, unaware that the clientele is exclusively African-American. As Boon and his date, Shelly are hitting it off in the car, some of the patrons intimidate the other Deltas into abandoning their dates and fleeing the club, damaging both Fred's car and several others in the parking lot. The next morning, Boon discovers Katy has spent the night with English professor Dave Jennings. Babs Jansen, herself in love with Marmalard, informs him that Mandy and Otter have been having an affair; Marmalard has Babs lure Otter to a motel where she tells him Mandy is waiting; Marmalard, Niedermeyer and several other Omegas ambush Otter at the motel and beat him up. Due to the Deltas' low midterm grades, Wormer announces they are all expelled from Faber and gleefully tells them he has notified their local draft boards that they are now all eligible for military service. Initially, the Deltas concede defeat until Bluto rallies the fraternity to seek revenge during the annual Homecoming parade. D-Day converts Flounder's heavily damaged Lincoln into an armored vehicle, which the Deltas conceal inside a cake-shaped breakaway parade float. The Deltas wreak havoc during the parade and crash into the reviewing stand, toppling the Wormers and DePasto and his wife, while also causing damage to DePasto's Oldsmobile dealership. As Hoover asks the weary Dean if it's possible to give the Deltas just one more chance, an epilogue amidst the chaos reveals the fates of the characters: Hoover became a public defender in Baltimore, Maryland. Pinto became an editor for National Lampoon. Marmalard became a Richard Nixon White House aide and was raped in prison in 1974. Otter became a gynecologist in Beverly Hills, California. Neidermeyer was killed by his own troops during the Vietnam War. Flounder became a sensitivity trainer at Encounter Groups of Cleveland, Inc. D-Day's whereabouts are unknown. Boon and Katy married in 1964 and divorced in 1969. Babs became a tour guide at Universal Studios, Hollywood. Bluto became a United States Senator and married Mandy.

Plot from Animal HouseCC BY-SA 4.0