Back in the early days of Saturday Night Live, the movies that came out featuring the stars were raucous affairs like Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Caddyshack – the latter famous for its legendary off-set exploits. The film, on- and off-screen, was filled with madness, and director Todd Phillips was eager to bring that sense of anarchy back to a new audience.
The film would be called Old School, and would focus on a trio of men all looking for a new adventure. Vince Vaughn’s character Beanie is desperate for the fun of his youth and eager for a temporary sanctuary away from his wife and kid. Luke Wilson’s character Mitch is still reeling from finding out his wife is a serial adulterer, and then there’s Will Ferrell’s character, Frank, a man who has transformed from his wild partying ways and crazy alter ego, Frank the Tank, into a respectable man, thanks mainly to his new bride. However, when Mitch finds himself new accommodation right next to a college campus, his friends decide to make it a new fraternity. High jinks rightly ensue, and it forms one of the most distinctive and influential comedies of the millennium.
It was brought together by Todd Phillips, who had already made an award-winning documentary entitled Frat House. The idea of Old School was one that excited him. He said in the film’s production notes: ‘These aren’t college kids. These are three guys in their thirties who are at that point in their lives when they have to choose what path they’re going to take. In a nutshell, it’s responsibility versus irresponsibility. So they take what most people would consider to be a step backwards and devolve over the course of the story, but it ends up being to their advantage.’ Phillips added: ‘The genesis of this film was inspired by a friend of mine in the advertising industry named Court Crandall. He loved Frat House, and one day he said to me, “You know what would be funny is a movie about older guys who start a fraternity of their own.” I told him he should write it, and he came back with a loose version of what eventually became Old School.’
The film’s executive producer was Ivan Reitman – a comedy veteran, and one who was well versed in working with Saturday Night Live stars, including directorial work on Ghostbusters with Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray, and the king of Frat-house comedies, Animal House, which starred SNL legend Jim Belushi. ‘Ivan is amazing,’ said Todd. ‘He really knows plot structure and character development and all the nuts and bolts of writing a great comedy that I am, frankly, still learning. He’s just on top of it.’ In the film’s production notes, Reitman recalled: ‘There are only so many original college-based movies you can do, and I thought there was a funny movie to be made out of these three good friends who each come to a crisis point at about the same moment in their lives, and their solution is to start a fraternity – the fact that they are long gone out of college notwithstanding. I thought that if we could capture that transitional moment when you have to make the decision to mature into full adulthood, it would be something audiences could relate to.’ Phillips added: ‘These guys are in their 30s and out of step with college kids today, but they want so badly to fit in again, each for different reasons. Old School is about their usually left-footed attempts to recapture those times. Maybe because I’m 31 and sort of at that same point, it was a topic I felt was fun and interesting to explore.’
Talking about the casting, Phillips said: ‘Vince was the guy I wanted from day one. I think he’s one of the funniest actors around, which has gone pretty much untapped, at least in the mainstream. Once we had Vince, I thought it would be amazing if we could get Will and Luke, and it all just fell into place. I feel very lucky. These guys all come from different places and their comedy is different, too, but the chemistry was just perfect.’ Reitman added: ‘There is something in their energies that mixes together to create something that’s delicious to watch. The cockiness of Vince Vaughn is a perfect foil to the kind of innocence of Will Ferrell. And then you have Luke Wilson, God bless him, who is right down the middle and is the glue that holds this unusual ensemble together.’
Ferrell talked in the film’s production notes about what attracted him about the role: ‘Number one, I wanted to be able to run naked through the streets of Montrose. Once I found a role that satisfied that, I knew I was OK. Actually the opportunity to work with Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson was the biggest thing for me. Then I met Todd Phillips and thought that the combination of the four of us working together, along with the premise of the movie, had the potential for a really fun comedy.’
Each of the trio brought a different comedic dynamic to the movie, with Ferrell mastering the over-the-top physical humour, Vince Vaughn perfecting the sarcastic Bill Murrayesque persona and Luke Wilson mastering the deadpan, sarcastic humour. Talking about the improv on the shoot, Luke added to About.Movies.Com: ‘You get a good script and then when you get somebody like Todd [Phillips] who wrote it, and that helps, and that he’s directing it. Then, of course, Will and Vince would come up with really good ideas so it’s fun to be able to show up on the set. It’s like you’re blocking out a scene or trying to figure out how you’re going to do it physically and where everybody is going to stand. Then, you start getting ideas. Not all the time, but a lot of times you get an idea of something to add. Especially with a comedy, you’ve got the clear-cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It’s not like drama where you’re trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You’re trying to figure out what’s the funniest way to do something. So then, yeah, you do end up trying to improvise.’
What Ferrell brought to the screen, previously untapped in his performances on screen, was his vulnerability. He could play brash, and in the character of Frank, most notably his party-going alter ego Frank the Tank, he was a force on the silver screen. But it was the quieter moments that Will imbued in this character that gave Frank, and indeed the film its heart. Will said to Movies.About.com: ‘I definitely think that’s what this movie brings [that’s] a little different than what you think you’re going to see. It’s kind of what attracted the three of us to the material in the first place. There was a little more behind the characters than just going from one funny scene to the other.’ Vince Vaughn added to the same website: ‘I started in Chicago at the Improv Olympic, which is live improv and team improv. The first thing that I did that started things off was with Favreau and Swingers, which was a comedy but a character-driven comedy. I prefer that kind of comedy. Then we did Made, which is a darker, smaller, character comedy. [After Swingers] I got offered mostly comedies but I chose not to do them because I didn’t really think they were funny. I find the things that make me laugh are over-commitment to a very real thing, not just falling down for falling down’s sake. That’s why I’m a fan of Will’s work because even with a broad comedy, he’s very much in his circumstances and there’s a lot of truth there.’
One of the film’s biggest highlights was the scene where Frank the Tank runs down the street naked, much to his shock of his new wife who just happens to drive by. Ferrell said about the scene: ‘The fact that this character, that his streaking was kind of a result of falling off the wagon, the fact that it made sense was the reason why I was really into doing it, and was why I was able to commit on such a level. If it was just for the sake of getting a crazy shot, then I don’t think it makes sense.’ Wilson joked about Ferrell’s bare-faced spirit for the scene, saying: ‘Well, I know Will flew in his acting coach from Kentucky, Jimmy Beam, that night.’ The scene was extra nerve-racking for Will, as he had to perform the nude scene in front of rapper Snoop Dogg. Will remarked: ‘Snoopy, as I like to call him. That was probably more intimidating because we shot that the very last day of shooting, so I’d already done the streaking part by myself. But to actually be in front of Snoop Dogg that close naked, that was more intimidating than anything.’
Snoop has a cameo in the film, playing himself as a special guest appearance at the first party of the new frat house. Phillips offered the Snoop the part of Huggy Bear in his upcoming adaptation of Starsky & Hutch, but only if he made the short appearance in Old School. Phillips said of the cameo in the film’s production notes: ‘That was done through bribery. If you remember the TV show … Huggy Bear was this street informant, sort of a pimp. And you never knew what he did but he was kind of like a snitch. So all these guys, all these great African-American actors, really wanted to be Huggy Bear because they grew up like I did on the show, and he was the coolest guy on TV. So I know Snoop wanted it … and out of respect I had to go to him first anyway because he is the coolest guy in the world. So when I went to him I said, “I want you to do Huggy Bear,” he was really excited. And I said, “Oh yeah, also will you do this little thing for me in Old School, a little cameo?” So he kind of had to do it I think.’
Vince said about working with Snoop: ‘They knocked on my door and said, ‘Snoop Dogg’s a big fan and he wants you to come, hang out, and play video games.’ It was the last day of shooting and [it was] the party scene with no real dialogue except one scene that me and Snoop shot that wasn’t in the movie. [My friends and I] went in there and just had a good time and played video games and laughed and hung out for a while. I came out and saw Luke; he was watching the news. He was like, “No one told me everyone was in Snoop’s trailer.”’
The film works because of the easy-going chemistry of the leads, and, just by listening to the film commentary, you can tell that the banter was replicated on and off screen. Luke added: ‘We kept having this phrase like, “Let’s shoot this movie 70s style. Come on, it’s us three, let’s have fun.” We got caught up in how well-behaved we were all the time. Really we were, and we never did manage to go “70s style” but that was our mantra throughout the whole movie. “Let’s get 70s style.” But we never really did do it.’ Vince Vaughn remarked: ‘We had a lot of fun and were always joking around with each other. We call ourselves “The Wolfpack” because we always turn on each other and make fun of each other. It was never safe – who was getting picked on – because five minutes later we would turn on someone else.’ The digs that flew around including Vaughn mocking Luke’s film Legally Blonde alongside Reese Witherspoon, calling it Legally Bland.
Remarking on the film, and his upturn in fortune, Will said to Den Of Geek: ‘I got lucky. I left Saturday Night Live without a film to go to, and I’d filmed Old School while I was in my last season of the show, and that hadn’t come out yet. I was a free agent, in a way, but I knew it was time to leave the show and test the water. The first three movies leaving the show were Old School, Elf and Anchorman, so I had those three in a row that were good ones.’
The BBC said about the film: ‘Turning this unlikely set-up into a comedy goldmine, Road Trip director Todd Phillips breathes new life into the gross-out formula … Trading on the combined charms of Wilson, Vaughn, and Saturday Night Live’s Will Ferrell, not to mention a killing performance from Jeremy Piven as the university’s uptight dean, Old School turns out to be something more than just another Road Trip American Pie rip-off. It’s a hilariously funny and unexpectedly warm look at three men who just want to be boys again. With all the silliness that wish entails.’ Rolling Stone remarked: ‘Only fitfully funny, except when Ferrell is onscreen – then you won’t stop laughing’, while AskMen.com stated: ‘Rotten Tomatoes has Old School listed at a barely fresh 60%, but it doesn’t take into account the appeal it had for the average moviegoer. Not only was this a huge hit in theatres, but it became a film that people quoted freely and often, some of the lines becoming part of the cultural lexicon (like, “Once it hits your lips, it’s so good!”). It’s also the film that helped introduce Will Ferrell to the masses and helped Vince Vaughn find his footing as a comedy superstar. The characters that they cultivate in this film (the gentle buffoon and the caddish loudmouth, respectively) helped to shape and define their careers for the next decade. Perhaps Old School isn’t the most shining example of what film is capable of, but it does what it is supposed to do: It makes you laugh hysterically.’
Old School was a box-office hit, scoring an impressive $75 million at the domestic box office. Lad comedy would soon be a new boom at the box office, and with films that followed like Starsky & Hutch and Wedding Crashers (both featuring hilarious cameos by Ferrell), as well as Dodgeball, the media would soon label the regular roster of comedians that starred in the films – Ferrell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller – as being members of the Frat Pack.
Ferrell said, however: ‘It doesn’t really exist, this Frat Pack. We run into each other on occasions and we all like each other’s films, I guess, but there isn’t some big funny restaurant or bar where we all hang out. At least, if there is, they haven’t invited me. I wasn’t in You, Me and Dupree, Luke Wilson’s last movie, and none of them was in Talladega Nights with me and, actually, nobody gives a shit.’ (The Observer, 19.11.2006) Despite his misgivings about the tag when asked years later, it did seem he was more fond of it following their early spate of films, with Will saying at the time: ‘Well there’s this kind of comedy community that’s forming. We all think each other are funny and are all just willing to be in each other’s movies. You know we called in some favours and it just works really well. There are some surprises as to who you see and the type of characters that they get to play.’ (LOVEFiLM interview, 4.2.2014)
The Frat Pack tag was first labelled in a story in USA Today in 2004, and it stuck, a lot less than the first attempt to coin a name for this new Hollywood group that were blazing a trail at the box office. USA Today called them the Slacker Pack, no doubt aware that the Frat Pack had been used a few years earlier to describe the rising young talents of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. However, the term Frat Pack stuck for the crazy comedic group. ‘They’re almost like a comedy troupe with a new episode every few months,’ said Brandon Gray, a box-office analyst in Los Angeles. ‘All of their movies seem to have the same goofy tone to them – they’re very light, with a bit of parody, and often devoid of any connective tissue between the scenes.’
The tag would eventually dissipate, with Vaughn adding years later to USA Today: ‘I love working with those guys and have had a lot of fun, and I would love to do stuff with them again. But the whole Rat Pack-Frat Pack thing that came out is overblown. It was really Ben Stiller giving opportunities to people. There was never a conscious movement of “Hey, let’s all do this.”’