I always thought that John Hughes gave the impetus to 'youth comedies', as it turned out I was wrong. Director John Landis, who blew up the American public with his Menagerie in 1978, proved otherwise. At that time, the states in many ways did not fully understand what was happening, even in the most prestigious universities in the country. And here a film with a budget of only 3 million dollars, collects more than 141,000 million, and this is in 1978, and if you add the box office in the world, the film exceeds 200,000! And was able to open many eyes. Find me now films that have such fees ?. If they do exist, then the budgets of the films are correspondingly very large. At that time, the viewer was not whimsical to special effects, etc., but this does not take away the merit of everyone who participated in the filming of this film! And by the way, Kevin Bacon made his debut here, this was his first full-length film, because before that he was filmed only in serials.
If we talk about the picture itself, then when viewing it you understand that there is, as it were, nothing superfluous. The director showed how 'college' lives on weekdays, on weekends, how it rests, how it comes off. And most importantly, the film shows the so-called 'youth protest', which in the past will gain even greater resonance in the world. Young people do not give up, even when they are kicked out and 'hammered' with grades. This protest of youth is shown very strongly in the film and almost the whole picture is not built! Excellent jokes for that time, having seen and heard which it is immediately evident that in the current comedies everything was taken from that time. Even in films like Police Academy, 100 Girls, King of the Parties, etc. you can see the jokes, it is from the 'Menagerie'.