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The problem with toga parties? There are so many rules.
As far as anyone remembers, the original record-setting toga party began as a whimsical last-minute addition to the larger 25th anniversary celebration of 1978's Animal House that was shot in the Eugene area. An enterprising local flack contacted Guinness World Records, more than 2,200 revelers raided their linen closets, and proctors documented the results. But nearly a decade later, 3,700 college students in Brisbane, Australia, rocked their bedsheets and stole the title.
Turns out breaking an existing record isn't nearly as much fun as proclaiming the supremacy of something you happen to be doing anyway, because as Cottage Grove tried to reclaim victory Aug. 18 during a 40th anniversary party for the college comedy, participants noticed there were a lot more rules.
"It's a little different now—a very tight time period, a lot more stringent," said Cottage Grove resident Stephen Lawn, who helped organize the celebration. "No shared togas. They have to be white. Specific regulations that we have to follow."
With Brisbane's larger population along with an apparent knack for satisfying Guinness' increasingly byzantine requirements, the championship toga belt seemed destined to remain down under. But carpetbaggers ensured maximum turnout in Cottage Grove and the trophy will probably come home (the unofficial count tops Brisbane's, but Guinness officials say it's under review).
Animal House did not invent the toga party. As with hazing rituals and homecoming parades, the archetypal collegiate farce merely thrust a particular conception of toga parties upon the larger cultural consciousness. Noleen, a sprightly Cottage Grove senior center volunteer who lived just down the street from the crumbling edifice that once was the Delta House before it was torn down, recalls similarly themed parties thrown by her sorority a decade before the filmmakers invaded Eugene and forever linked the Greek system with Roman couture and acts of perversion. "No," she frowned, "we never partied that way."
Most who arrived early to the event trended toward the original cast's demographic—particularly the bit players who mimicked the film's what-happened-to-them ending by sharing life-in-review stories and pointing out their younger selves on blurred screen captures.
John Mithen, the beanie-topped Delta pledge squatting bottom left in the original poster, ended up a Sweet Home gym teacher. In a gold sweater up one row and to the right, Warren Hildreth flunked out of the University of Oregon, but rebounded as a bar staffer in Hawaii before returning to Oregon as a background actor and Fred Meyer XL model. (Turns out big, tall and academically disqualified isn't a bad way to go through life.)
DeWayne Jessie had already found some small parts in Hollywood before landing the literal role of his life in Animal House. After signing on to play the frontman (vocals were lip-synced) for the fictional band Otis Day and the Knights, he became helplessly identified with the character. Instead of fighting it, Jessie taught himself to sing and legally changed his name to Otis Day.
If early-afternoon crowds resembled a shambling white sale, clumped throngs of cherubic partygoers resembled downmarket angels as night fell. Notably, none of the entertainers complied with the tunic dress code. Justifiably proud of remaining toga-free over decades spent soundtracking linen-clad yahoos, Otis Day begrudgingly agreed to don one as a last hope of breaking the record.
"If they're one away," he mused, "one away." But few observers doubted the evening's count would come close to the Aussie record.