National Lampoon's Animal House is on TV right now.
I am watching it...and eating Cheetos.
It is raining.
For all Duke grads: What fraternity would you say mostly mirrors the Delta fraternity in Animal House?
-Phi Earla Jamma
When I was a student I would say it was the KA's or perhaps the Kappa Sigs; especially Kappa Sigs as I recall.
Hopefully the above posters mean the Pre-Ban KA's, rumored to have done evil things to a quad dog, as legend tells. Early 70's? I was a KA from '86 to '88, and we hope to have not had the earned the same impression.
Class of Billy King and Chris Moreland
I'm referring to KA Order 1963-68... known to give off campus parties which left apartments uninhabitable. Most of the parties included a flesh pile made by the brothers among whom were many offensive and defensive linemen.
The best parties in terms of the music and site were given by ZBT. Their annual Chinese Open House in January over semester break featured Doug Clark and The Hot Nuts.
No question in the mid to late '60s, the period of time when the movie's writers, Tom Kenney and Chris Miller, were in school: The KAs. Banished in 1970, they burned their furniture in a bonfire on the quad. Their philosophy of rushing was that if you were man enough to join then they would have you.
But they were mostly football players, unlike the fraternity in the movie. Phi Kappa Cocktail in the early '70s, which got an infusion of KAs after they were abolished, might merit a comparison.
The perpetrator, according to what I heard at the time, was an ATO football player. May have been in '69 when he was a freshman, though possibly a year or two later, after the book The Godfather came out describing a similar episode. The rumored perp was an Italian from New York. It was about as ugly a thing as you can imagine.
I don't know if he did it, but I can believe it. My one experience with the guy came at a mixer freshmen year with a couple of busloads of girls from UNCG, which was all women at the time. When my turn came to chat up the very obvious belle of the ball after she'd shot down several others, she suggested we go for a walk -- what can I say, sometimes life coughs up little victories. As we walked out the door, this guy blurts out, "Good luck, buddy," while staring at her chest and all but salivating. That kind of behavior was far more unusual back in those days.
In the late 60s, when all fraternities at Duke were still housed in sections of the West Campus dorms, the KAs and the ZBTs were in adjoining sections of the same quad. The KAs were football players, mostly hard-core Southerners, who believed the principal purpose of college was to party hard and raise hell. The Zebes were mostly urban Jewish guys from the NY/NJ area who believed the principal purpose of college was to party hard and raise hell...and maybe get into med school. So despite their enormous cultural differences, those two groups shared a common disdain for the rules, for authority, and for conventional mores--resulting in some memorable simultaneous parties that entailed hilarious interactions. Somewhere in that dark, loud, awful-smelling area where the KAs and Zebes overlapped, there you'll find the essence of Animal House.
I attended parties given by both fraternities during that time period. The Zebes' parties were undoubtedly the best... and they were elevated to a higher level when the Duke chapter went over to the Carolina chapter to share a party. The Carolina ZBT house overlooked Finley Golf Course. The Durham chapter referred to their brothers by the golf course as Zillions Billions and Trillions.
Duke still has frats?
oh really? thats just hysterical.
I actually just called a buddy of mine who is still at Duke and sure enough he was eating at the loop (restaurant off of the BC walkway or underneath the old Oak Room for you old timers ) and I asked him to go to the Great Hall and find the plaque with the skull and cross bones on it (somehow I knew that was the 'shield' of this frat) and he found it and the official name is/was Phi Kappa Sigma.
I knew they got kicked off (i presume thats what u meant by "went local") around my dad's time so maybe thats why he always called them that...
They were Phi Kappa Sigma until 1971, and one of the main basketball frats in the '60s (Jeff Mullins, Steve Vacendak, etc.). In '71 they went local (disaffiliated with the national fraternity) for a few years. At some point they rejoined the national fraternity, eventually turned into a bunch of druggies (reputedly), and got themselves banished sometime in the '80s or '90s. But while your Dad was in school, or at least the first couple of years, they were an unaffiliated local fraternity, officially called Phi Kappa Cocktail.
www.juicycampus.com
search for frat rankings or something
That's not really what I meant. As my Duke years were winding down, and from what I've heard in subsequent years, fraternities at Duke in general haven't exactly enjoyed considerable favor from the administration. The "Campus Cultural Initiative" or whatever that thing was named all but called for the de-emphasizing (if not outright death) of Greek culture at Duke, and I was just wondering as to the current status of that whole situation.