Precursors and Legacy
Animal House is considered to be the movie that launched the gross-out genre, although it was predated by several films now also included in the genre. It was a great box office success despite its limited production costs and thus started an industry trend, inspiring countless other comedies such as Porky's, the Police Academy films, the American Pie films, and Old School among others. However Animal House included a subversive bodily humor and political references that got lost in the subsequent innocuous derivatives.
On the left-wing and counterculture side, it included references to topical political matters like Kent State shootings, President Harry S. Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement. Precursors of this counterculture subversive humor in film were two non "college movies," M*A*S*H, a 1970 satirical dark comedy, and The Kentucky Fried Movie, a 1977 formless comedy consisting of a series of sketches.
In 2012, Universal Pictures Stage Productions announced it was developing a stage musical version of the movie. Barenaked Ladies will write the score, and Casey Nicholaw will direct; author Michael Mitnick is also reportedly involved.
Read more about this topic: National Lampoon's Animal House
Famous quotes containing the word legacy:
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)