Revealing mistake: When Bluto is watching the sorority girls have their pillow fight and he falls down with the ladder, you can see him land on a grass mat that is cut into the lawn. It's funny because you can see the grass push in. (00:40:00)
Animal House (1978)
Directed by: John Landis
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, John Belushi, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst, Mark Metcalf
Continuity mistake: During the classroom scene, Donald Sutherland writes the word "Satan" on the board. In the first shot, the "t" in Satan in directly over the crease on the chalkboard. In the next shot, it is clearly on one side of the crease. (00:18:00)
Continuity mistake: When the Fraternity house is being taken down, the Greek letters switch places. (01:06:05 - 01:06:55)
Trivia: The moment where Blutarski breaks the guitar and then apologises was unscripted, and improvised by John Belushi.
Trivia: During the scene where John Belushi is sneaking around, you see him slip and then get back up. The slip was accidental but the film makers left it in the movie.
Trivia: Faber college, where the movie takes place, was actually the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Dean Wormer: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Katy: Boon, I think I'm in love with a retard.
Boon: Is he bigger than me?
Hoover: They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!
Question: Near the end, when Dean Wormer and Mayor DePasto are in the grandstand, officially launching the parade, there is an elderly gentleman in the background (also in the grandstand, about 2 levels up, on the left side of the screen) who is making odd, excited gestures and comical facial expressions. His appearance and odd mannerisms are so striking that he draws my attention away from the dean and the mayor every time that I've seen this film, and that's a lot of times. Surely, director John Landis must have been aware of the gentleman and his antics in the background through multiple takes, so it would seem Landis intended the peculiar distraction. Who was that gentleman, and was there any significance to his appearing in the scene?
Question: Kent Dorfman is a member of Delta fraternity, so why, later in the movie, is he seen in a military uniform with the Omega fraternity?
Answer: He's in R.O.T.C. The Omegas are in the class, too. Military uniforms are required dress.
Question: Why didn't the mayor try and have the Deltas arrested for both the mayhem they caused at the parade and that one of them may have had fun with his underaged daughter? Obviously the audience knows the member didn't but the mayor doesn't.
Answer: There's no indication that the Deltas didn't face legal ramifications from their actions at the parade, nor that Pinto didn't get in trouble (when we last see him, he's literally being chased by the mayor). The film ends at that point and, although the film provides title cards telling us what happened to the characters far in the future, we don't see the immediate aftermath.
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Answer: Sometimes these things get left in because it's simply the best take. (The child covering his ears before the gunshot in "North by Northwest," for example.) It could also be that John Landis cast the extra because he wanted someone with goofy expressions in the crowd. He simply could have told the extras "Ok, be excited that you're at a parade," and that's how this extra did it.
Captain Defenestrator