When Animal House was released in 1978 I was living in Santa Barbara California at that time. I saw the movie and my mouth dropped open. Not because of the extraordinary humor in the film. It dropped open for the humor too, but more to the point:
Every actor in that movie looked like one of the kids I had gone to high school with. Or they had a too similar name for the casting to be a mere coincidence.
The character, Doug Neidermeyer, looked exactly like like someone a year or two ahead of me in high school. And the guy I knew was just as big a prick as the Neidermeyer character. The name I knew is Niedringhaus. An old and influential family in St. Louis. Could Ramis have met them? Very likely. It's a small town in many ways. But not all of them known to me, could be known to Mr. Ramis, because, I went to several schools and there could not be a similar confluence to the Neideringhaus family. For the life! of me.
Douglas Kenney, who played the drum major is a clone of the drum major I knew. Same ugly face, same body type, same mannerisms. My drum major was a good 120 miles from St. Louis.
Ramis attended Washington University, in my home town. As he, being a few years older than I am, and travelling in different circles, we never met. I know none of the cast, producers or crew. But there it was, a similarity too big to be a coincidence.
I could go on and on about the eerie similarities. But this is to be a tribute to a wonderful actor, writer and guy-with-a-world-class-sense-of-humor.
So, where ever you are now, Harold, I miss your wit. And I still gotta know? Where did you get those people (in my life) from?
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