Animal House high school graduation party

A group of high school students decided the best way to celebrate graduation would be in togas- with a party at Libby Montana restaurant in Mequon. It seems the party planners chose Libby Montana because the actor who played Neidermeyer in the movie "Animal House" - Mark Metcalf - owns the place.

The results were pretty much what you would expect when teenagers wrap themselves in bedsheets and consume alcohol.

By the time police restored order inside the restaurant's Volley Dome, they had given about 75 alcohol breath tests and written 18 tickets for underage drinking.

According to a police report, one officer found what "appeared to be a pair of male feet and a pair of what appeared to be female feet" inside a stall in the women's restroom. The male feet were those of an 18-year-old Whitefish Bay man who was sitting on the toilet wearing only "tennis shoes and a bathrobe." He had vomited on himself and did so two or three more times before his parents arrived to pick him up. The bathrobe apparently was this man's version of a toga.

No one got hauled off to jail, but "For almost all of them, it was the first time they were that close to a uniform and a weapon that wasn't pointed at a deer," Metcalf said. Metcalf was quick to point out that the party-goers brought their own alcohol and were not served by restaurant staff.

The party was hosted by the parents of a student at the University School of Milwaukee. More specifically, the parents rented the Volley Dome, a metal building with three sand volleyball courts just behind the white-tablecloths restaurant.

Several times during the party, police reports say, kids were causing a disturbance in the parking lot. The restaurant staff tried to get the kids back in the Volley Dome and appealed to the handful of parent chaperons for help, but finally called police.

That's when things began to look a little like "Animal House," the 1978 movie that made the late John Belushi a star. Officers rounded up about 75 kids and lined them up on the west wall of the Volley Dome for breath tests, according to the police report.

Underage drinking citations were issued to 18 male and female partygoers between ages 16 and 18. Another was given a ticket for resisting an officer.

Metcalf said that when he was called to the scene and saw a half-dozen squad cars, he initially thought police had overreacted. "In a state that celebrates its drinking habits as much as this state does, how can you have a graduation party and not expect kids to drink?" he asked.

On the other hand, Metcalf praised the officers for their professionalism and for their efforts to protect the public. He also said he hopes the partygoers who received citations and their parents don't fret too much. "The guys who got cited," Metcalf said, "will probably be running for senator someday." In "Animal House," Belushi's character did one better. According to an epilogue that preceded the film's closing credits, he ran for U.S. senator and got elected. Article here.