Netflix Without Chill: No School Like Old School

NETFLIX WITHOUT CHILL NO SCHOOL LIKE OLD SCHOOL

Animal House & Old SChool

By Georgi Sarafov

Animal House is one of the most important college humor movies and it is also one of the first films to shape the form of modern comedies. Being one the first in the genre, there was only an idea at first, that turned into a screenplay and subsequently into pop culture and film history. Before the film there was a magazine called The National Lampoon. Ivan Reitman, who would become the film’s producer, was one of the many readers and always saw the humorous articles, caricatures and stories as something that could be transferred into film. Most of the pieces were not episodic or

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having continuity but the overall feeling for laughs and unapologetic humor were universally present.

So he got in touch with the National Lampoon publisher, they had a meeting and visibly impressed by the young and intelligent man, he revealed that the company was looking for a stage play producer. The magazine already had some vinyl records with sketches, now they were looking to expand into the theatrical stage. After all, it was the second highest grossing magazine in North America. Playboy was probably the first. Among the people from the theater show was a writer who made these sketches, Harold Reims. In the near future, together with his friends, he will create Ghostbusters. This theatrical production attracts comedians from local acting schools. Some of them were Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, John Belushi and Gilda Radner. After several years of playing the show, almost all of them became part of the most successful comedy cast from the first season of Saturday Night Live. Everyone except Harold Reims was taken to SNL. Reitman then suggested, "Why don't we both write a screenplay and make a movie." Having done what all good friends do, instead of waiting for the opportunity to work on a film that is not theirs, which may not come at all, they create something without considering what others would say or shoot. The publisher of National Lampoon was also sympathetic to the idea, because so far only a film has not had the name of the magazine. The original title of the comedy was Laser Orgy Girls, and it was about girls from space and the high school years of a serial killer. Very, very far from Animal House at the time. They are joined by longtime magazine writer Doug Kenney and begin to move in the right direction. After seven or eight successful years as an author and editor of the magazine, Doug already felt exhausted because he had already created and said what he wanted. He had ideas for other projects in other aspects that were not applicable in the magazine and this made him sad with the passage of time. His friends saw this, being worried about him they suggested "you're going to leave anyway, let's make at least one movie."

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At this point, I want to debunk a myth that screenwriting is a complex, scary and impossible process. The most important thing is what you want to say and if and how you can tell the story. Everything else comes in the process of writing. The more descriptive, the more easily your idea would be conveyed.

Eight studios rejected the script. Universal considered it a cheap film project. They asked the owner of National Lampoon, "Can you do it for 3 million?"

"I had no idea about the film industry back then, 3 million seemed like a lot of money to me, so I told them 'Absolutely !!!' 3 million would not be enough for a low-budget film. But this communication error helped to greenlight principal photography. Not all things that seem impossible to us in the beginning remain so in the end. All they had to do was find a college campus for the filming to begin.

They were very lucky. Eugene University in Oregon was expecting them, without even knowing. Nine years before the creation of Animal House, the dean received a script to read. After reading the script, the dean thought the film was rubbish and did not allow the filming on campus.

This film was the Graduate, and the university missed an opportunity to become a part of the film history and popular culture.

So when the boys send the script to the university, the dean agrees without even reading it, realizing that he clearly doesn't understand anything about the movies’ potential. It actually helped that he didn't read it, because Animal House was one of the first modern uncensored comedies. It was during my student years that I watched it for the first time. John Belushi's anarchist comedy style coincides with my views on humor, and if it weren't for his death in 1982, there would have been Animal House 2, happening after the college years in San Francisco when the hippie movement began to emerge.

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*** After that, many comedies had the slogan "National Lampoon Presents" in their title, but they were not made by the same director and actors and did not reach high comedy value.

Old School is one of the exceptions. There is a comedy era in film, starting with Animal House in 1978 and ending with The Girl Next Door-2004. The Old School was published a year earlier, in 2003 and shows the daily life of several good friends since childhood. The time of high schools and universities has already passed. Characters struggle to fit into the mediocre, boring daily life, but at the first opportunity to recreate the feeling of the good old days, they do it by renting a house on the university campus and registering it as a school fraternity.

Old School is described in IMDB with the words "ALL THE FUN OF COLLEGE AND NONE OF THE EDUCATION", and the opinion of the creators towards critics (film and others) goes like this, CRITICS SAY: OLD SCHOOL IS DUMB AND POINTLESS. WE SAY: WHO CARES ”.

I have always liked this attitude and I try to apply it in my daily life. Try it if you haven't tried, it's not half as bad.

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