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Oregon town marks 25th anniversary of Animal House

Courtesy The Globe & Mail

Associated Press

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2003 - The Globe & Mail

Cottage Grove, Ore. — They put a wrecking ball through the building that was Delta House in the classic comedy Animal House, so what's left?

Toga! Toga! Toga!

Fans of the film broke out the robes Saturday at a town-sponsored toga party, intended to be the world's largest, to mark the 25th anniversary of the film, which was made in Cottage Grove and Eugene, Ore.

An Animal House parade crawled up Main Street, a small-town thoroughfare that still looks the same as it did in the wild fraternity comedy. Thousands lined the street in the town of about 8,000, chanting: "Toga, Toga!"

Dozens of residents who had bit parts in the film compared fading photographs and memories.

The party animal award went to Greg Hamilton, a health technician at a Portland hospital who resembles the movie's late star, John Belushi.

Hamilton said he became fascinated by Animal House while a student at the University of Oregon in the early 1990s, when he saw a hole, lovingly preserved, that Belushi had knocked in a fraternity house wall with his guitar.

The National Lampoon-film, about drunken, unruly Delta House's attack on the uptight ranks of Faber College, earned more than $140-million, as well as the No. 36 spot on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest film comedies. It also helped some Hollywood stars rise, including actors Kevin Bacon and Tim Matheson and director John Landis.

Universal Studios marked the anniversary with the release last week of the updated DVD Animal House, Double Secret Probation Edition, a reference to Dean Wormer's covert fraternity house punishment.

Event organizers in Cottage Grove sought out actors who had bit parts in the film. Requests for tickets came from as far as New England.

Sean McCartin, who was 14, played Lucky Boy, the kid whose eyes were glued to a Playboy centrefold when a Playboy bunny came flying off a parade float through his bedroom window, knocking the wind out of him.

"Thank you, God," he said, and now he's still saying it.

He and his wife founded the Eastside Faith Center in Eugene nine years ago.

Column courtesy The Globe & Mail © worldwide 2003