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No. 63: Animal House

Fraternal orders

by
Marc Tracy
December 06, 2011

1978, dir. John Landis. This absurdist comedy is Doug Kenney’s baby, not Harold Ramis’, which is why both the good and the bad guys are massive WASPs. (At least one viewer learned from Tim Matheson’s Eric Stratton that one’s shirt collars should always be tucked inside one’s sweater.) But Ramis, who co-wrote, was surely the source for Peter Riegert’s Boone—poor schmuck—and also for the line, “Bad news: I just checked with the guys at the Jewish house, and they say all our answers to the Psych test were wrong.” Today, that line would be about “the Korean house,” but the writer would still be a Jew.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.