Fraternity-house pranks, which depend on humiliating your rivals and yourself at the same time, may be the lowest of all forms of humor, but they have a necessity that anyone can see: They are probably the only form of rebellion available to square college boys. (Hip kids tend not to join fraternities, i.e., they get laid off campus.) In a few years those boys will be doctors, lawyers, businessmen, but at nineteen they can make outrageously cruel and infantile jokes and no one will give them too hard a time. At college I halfheartedly admired the guys who tore themselves apart on Saturday night, but I never wanted to join their revels. National Lampoon's Animal House, which is a genial, uneven, occasionally hilarious celebration of frathouse anarchy, doesn't give you the chance to stand back: The movie says that anyone who won't join the fun is a...