Before the Pit, there was Eclectic, the actual pseudo-fraternity at Wesleyan University that the Pit is based off of. Meet members and Wesleyan graduates as they share their experiences with this... rather odd, rather bizarre monkey house.

Marc ("Gutter") Flacks:

I stumbled across your site and thought you might be interested in a bit of PCU trivia. My name is Marc Flacks, and I was a classmate at Wesleyan of Zak Penn and Adam Leff. In fact, Zak's dorm room frosh year was across the hall from mine, and we have been friends pretty much ever since.

I became somewhat of a famous figure around Wesleyan in the '86-'90 era because I was one of the few "white guys with dreads" that anyone (in Connecticut) had ever seen. Being from California, I was already sort of a novelty there, but the dreads really caught some attention. I also was a source of amusement for Zak and Adam because of my occassional flakiness and air-headedness. So, when they originally wrote PCU, they included a character named "Flacks" who was a white dude with dreads. That's pretty much where my similarity to the character (who eventually became "Gutter") ends--i.e., I never passed out on the streets of Middletown; I would have definitely recognized George Clinton if he asked me for directions; I did and do "exhale" (and inhale); etc.

When Zak and Adam were writing the script, they were looking for material and arranged to visit me at UC Santa Cruz where I was then a grad student, since UCSC is quite a bit like Wesleyan, and is definitely a "PCU". They hung out with me and my friends, and asked all sorts of questions about student lingo, current political causes and conflicts on campus, egregious examples of political correctness, etc. At the time, I joked with them that if they named a character "Flacks" I would sue the pants of them. Their producer got freaked by this, and so they changed the name to "Gutter". This name, actually, came from the student lingo my friends taught them--"gutter" was a term they often used to refer to anything that was low-class, shabby, idiotic, etc.

Another reference in the movie to that visit, I think, is when PCU changes its mascot to some endangered bird--UC Santa Cruz had recently changed its mascot to the Banana Slug, which Zak and Adam found hilarious. Anyway, I had a lot of fun being involved in the early stages of the movie (I was not serious about suing them, but I'm still glad my name was not used for that character), and my best memory is meeting Jon Favreau at the cast party after the shoot, and standing there saying "this is weird, isn't it?" and him saying, "yeah, its really pretty creepy", and then we drank a few beers together.

Anyway, I teach college myself now at California State University Long Beach, where my students are always psyched to learn of my connection to "PCU". I still wish my character had been more likable, but I'm glad to see the movie has developed cult status, and I have had a great time following the career of Favreau, whose really done some great work since then.

My favorite line from the movie: "Yeah, yeah, I f***in' know Tom!"

From John Vigman:

Hello, I saw the website as a buddy of mine from another school said he saw “me” in it… (never heard of the film- perhaps I have been sheltered too many years here in the Netherlands from “Art”) and noted that the “Pigman” character is supposedly based on me. For the record, I did do a thesis and Ecletic was not really that wild a place (at least not in my eyes) -– there were some pretty interesting people who hung out there but there were also too many people trying to be something they were not. Wesleyan even in the early 80s was a pretty tame place, with the exception of a couple of pseudo-political rallies that sometimes made getting your mail difficult.

From Chuck O'Neill:

Who are you? Why do you know about my house? I am Chuck O'Neill. I am President of the Eclectic Society at Wesleyan University. I am also mentioned by Paul from the Adults in their Tour Diary pages. He wasn't seeing a show, he was playing one. If you want to know about Eclectic, you should come see it. If you would like to see the real Pit (it's less Pit-ish now. It got re-painted over the summer.) Feel free to come and see it. We are located at 200 High ST. Middletown, CT. There is usual someone awake, and there is usually someone drinking.