EUGENE, Ore. — You can visit the Willamette Valley in Oregon just about any fall to sample wines, beers and spirits, hike the buttes, float in a river or cycle alongside one.
But this past August, there was a baby boomer bonus: the chance to see “National Lampoon’s Animal House” slip awkwardly into middle age.
“Animal House” was filmed on and near the University of Oregon in Eugene in 1977. It was released in 1978 to riotous laughter despite, or perhaps because of, its poor taste. It made John Belushi a movie star and launched the directing career of John Landis.
To mark its 40th birthday, many in and around Eugene put together celebrations in August — especially the people in nearby Cottage Grove, scene of the film’s climactic parade.
The campus
The Erb Memorial Union got a gleaming upgrade in 2016. But look closely at the glass-walled dining area known as the Fish Bowl: This is where Belushi overloaded a tray, did his impression of a zit, then set off a food fight.
The cafeteria line is now a Chipotle Mexican Grill. But there’s still a series of window booths, and two of them are within a few feet of the spot where Belushi and company sat.
Elsewhere in campus, the Johnson Hall administration building is where the “Animal House” team filmed scenes of the Delta gang sneaking a horse into Dean Wormer’s office. And Gerlinger Hall stood in for Emily Dickinson College.
From the beginning, the college was wary of “Animal House.” Even when the University of Oregon’s president agreed to let Universal film on campus for a month in exchange for $20,000, he insisted that the campus go unidentified.
That was fine with the producers, who wanted to create a generic college landscape; they labeled the campus Faber College.
Still, the university doesn’t completely ignore the movie today. Between the third and fourth quarter of every Oregon Ducks football home game, the crowd sings “Shout!” And most campus tours mention it.
Fraternity row
Fans can linger along campus-adjacent East 11th Avenue, where the “Animal House” fraternity row was. A few minutes’ visit may be instructive. And, as somebody once said, “Knowledge is good.”
The bad news is that the original bedraggled “Animal House” at 755 E. 11th — a farmhouse-turned-frat-house-turned-halfway-house that was near collapse when location scouts found it — was leveled in 1986. (There’s a plaque half-hidden in the bushes along the sidewalk.)
Next door is the Phi Kappa Psi house, which stood in for the movie’s snobbish Omega house, where Kevin Bacon’s character is seen asking “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” in a hazing ritual.
The club
The Rattlesnake BBQ at the Dexter Lake Club, about 20 miles southeast of Eugene, was the bar where the road-tripping boys of Delta House found Otis Day and the Knights playing. The club’s neon sign remains, as well as a few reminders of the movie.
What’s truly amazing is that Landis and company could shoot anything in a room with such a low ceiling — less than 7 feet in some places.
The Deathmobile
Now, on to Cottage Grove, the town whose Main Street was the scene of the disastrous parade that ends the movie. On Aug. 18, Cottage Grove closed Main Street to stage an anniversary dance party and parade that drew about 3,000 people in togas.
Many of them lined up to admire a facsimile Deathmobile, designed to match the parade-disrupting, Belushi-bearing vehicle in the film.
Unfortunately for visitors, the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce, which owns the Deathmobile, keeps it mostly under wraps. But it will be on display on Halloween at the corner of Main Street and Highway 99.
