The novel chronicles the life of Doug Kenney, one of the original writers of National Lampoon. Before Kenney came on, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman had been working on a script called "Freshmen Year" based on Ramis's experience at Washington University. Ramis and Kenney then worked on a script called "Laser Orgy Girls" that involved aliens and a Charles Manson like character all in high school. Deciding to move the story to college, the two brought on Chris Miller who supplied frat stories from his times at Dartmouth. At a writer's meeting they all agreed that "at the heart of every great fraternity, there is a great animal." They all immediately thought of Belushi. (278) The main drive of their treatment would be a "renegade" fraternity bent on "fun and chaos in equal parts" against a "Nixonian administration" and a desire for the characters to "create chaos." (279) All three writers, especially Kenney, were confident that they would write the "ultimate youth comedy." (280) In the end, "their desire was to tear down the institution they despised while celebrating the anarchic, sex-obsessed, beer-swilling teenager that they believed was within every decent red-blooded American male." Karp realizes that Animal House was one of the first movies to look at, in an "unflinchingly honest manner," American taboos on "sex, masturbation, race, and other previously unspeakable topics." (313)
    Karp's biography of Doug Kenney provides useful insight into the working and beginnings of what would eventually become Animal House. One can see the formation of the dominant themes discussed in the other sources that became the staple of college comedies. More importantly, the writer spurposefully set out to make a college movie that had never been done before, with themes that they knew would resonate with not only the youth of the day, but with every "red-blooded American male."