So he sold his 8.7 percent stake March 16 to Grodnik and Matheson at $6 a share, or more than $761,400. Simmons said he was tired of trying to run the movie production company in California and the magazine in New York, and wanted to concentrate on filmmaking. Simmons may have balked at first, but he says now, ″The idea came from me of them buying my stock and taking over the management of the company.″ ″It became very obvious to him that we’re not going away,″ Matheson said, adding that their voting stake ″became irresistible. ″It wasn’t a takeover,″ Simmons said in an interview.īut Matheson acknowledged that, ″It was a surprise (to Simmons) that we came in with over 21.5 percent of the voting stock,″ and that it took some pressure to move the National Lampoon founder. Grodnik, Matheson and Simmons downplayed any resemblance between this deal and a classic takeover fight. The agreements gave the pair control over 18.5 percent of the stock, and a 3 percent stake they bought boosted the figure to 21.5 percent.Īt that point, late last year, they approached National Lampoon founder and chairman Matty Simmons and said they wanted to join the company’s management. These stockholders had bought at $7 or $8 a share, Grodnik said, and ″they wanted some relief.″ With Batchelder’s help, Grodnik and Matheson persuaded nine National Lampoon stockholders to assign the pair their voting rights. ″It was the best company that we came up with.″ ″It fit all of our needs and purposes,″ Matheson said. Was it a coincidence they chose the producer of ″Animal House?″ They settled on money-losing National Lampoon, whose stock price was languishing at around $2.50 a share. Grodnik quoted Batchelder as telling the pair, ″Just find a company that has an operating history and that you feel is undervalued in the marketplace.″ They retained Batchelder, telling him they wanted to raise $50 million to form a production company.īut Batchelder said it made more sense to buy an existing company rather than start from scratch - a lesson many corporate acquirers and entrepreneurs have learned. Matheson and Grodnik, an independent film producer, hankered for their own movie company after they co-produced the film ″Blind Fury.″ Yet the pair won National Lampoon through some tried-and-true methods of corporate acquisition - perhaps because they were schooled by David Batchelder, ex-adviser to another renowned takeover strategist, T. Memorial services are on hold pending resolution of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.″We want to build a company,″ Grodnik said in an interview, with Matheson chiming in: ″a significant entertainment company.″ Robert Lee “Otter” Anderson is survived by former wives Gay Anderson, Nancie Dreher Perlowitz and Jennifer Malloy daughter Shareen Anderson sons Michael Anderson and Cole Anderson step-children Nina, Ari and Ethan Gold grandchildren Liam Anderson and Zoe Anderson Gomes and his faithful companion, his dog Dude. He starred in football, basketball and track at Redlands High School and went on to Dartmouth College where he majored in history and joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, where he became the legendary “Otter” of National Lampoon’s “Animal House” fame. 19, 1940 and grew up in Redlands, the middle son of Carl Anderson and Varene Anderson. 2 according to Tom Conger, a business partner with “Otter” at The Konocti Winery in Kelseyville, Lake County, California.Īnderson was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on Feb. Robert Lee “Otter” Anderson, 80, died of complications from a pulmonary thrombosis in Vallejo on Nov. (Miller also modeled the composite character of John “Bluto” Blutarsky, played by the late John Belushi, after other Dartmouth alums Duane “Doberman” Cox ’61, “T-bear” Spetnagel ’57, and John “Magpie” Walters ’62). Nonetheless, the class of Dartmouth 1961 claims “Otter” as their own. While the shenanigans were either overly exaggerated or true depends on who you’re talking to. Miller was a pledge in 1960 and admired the exploits of his raucous campus fraternity when he penned the story. Few outside of Miller’s alma mater Dartmouth College are aware of the film’s origin. As portrayed by Tim Matheson in the 1978 film, “Animal House,” the character of Eric “Otter” Stratton was based on the real life of Robert Lee “Otter” Anderson, which brought the National Lampoon opus written by Chris Miller to the screen. They called him “Otter,” and his name lives on in cinematic history.
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