Rick Perry = Doug Niedermeyer….The best things in life are free
Yesterday I was reading Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish, a constant source of interest, amusement and erudition and saw the above pictures of Gov. Rick Perry in his Texas A&M days. I was immediately reminded of both W and Animal House‘s legendary villain Douglas Neidermeyer. (Picture above taken from the Dish.)
I had been thinking about Animal House recently and how long it has been since I ‘ve seen it and this pushed me over the edge. I needed this on my DVR. Lo and behold, it was actually airing last night on one of the 10,000 HBO’s I pay for but never watch. I watched. It was fantastic – even funnier and more on point than I recalled, and just filled with classic lines. I am very proud that someone associated with this classic is working on the Big in China movie – Ivan Reitman, who is optioning my book to produce and direct, produced Animal House.
Here’s the classic Neidermeyer clip… BTW, when I checked out the Dish this morning I saw that another reader had made the Perry/Neidermeyer connection. No surprise. I think those Perry pictures just show how much AH got right.
A classic. The guy who created Animal House was a couple of years ahead of me at Dartmouth. My cousin, Dick, who was 6 years ahead of me there, swore to me that he was the role model for one of the last scenes in the movie–the scene where, after the Delta House is kicked off campus, one of the brothers is seen leading a small bull out the front door of the fraternity house. Dick told me that he bought a bull at a farmer’s auction and had it in the fraternity house until the Dean got wind of it and ordered him to get it out of there. I later joined that fraternity and lived in that house for two years.
Uncle Ben
And the legend of Uncle Ben grows. I now have it on DVR. Let’s watch it together soon.