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National Lampoon's Vacation

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See also: National Lampoon's Vacation (film series) 1983 American film
National Lampoon's Vacation
Theatrical poster, illustrated by Boris Vallejo
Directed byHarold Ramis
Written byJohn Hughes
Produced byMatty Simmons
StarringChevy Chase
Beverly D'Angelo
Anthony Michael Hall
Dana Barron
Randy Quaid
Imogene Coca
CinematographyVictor J. Kemper, ASC
Edited byPembroke J. Herring
Music byScore:
Ralph Burns
Songs:
Lindsey Buckingham
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • July 29, 1983 (1983-07-29)
Running time99 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15 million
Box office$61,399,552

National Lampoon's Vacation, sometimes referred to as Vacation, is a 1983 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall. The film features numerous others, such as comedians John Candy and Imogene Coca, model Christie Brinkley, and Jane Krakowski, in smaller roles.

The screenplay was written by John Hughes, based on his short story in National Lampoon Magazine, Vacation '58 (the screenplay changes the year to 1983). The original story is a (reportedly) fictionalized account of his own family's ill-fated trip to Disneyland (changed to Walley World for the film) when Hughes was a boy. The success of the film helped advance his screenwriting career.

National Lampoon's Vacation was a significant box-office hit, earning more than $61 million in the United States with an estimated budget of $15 million. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted National Lampoon's Vacation the 46th greatest comedy film of all time. It is widely considered to be the best film in National Lampoon's series of Vacation films, and continues to be a popular film and a staple on cable television channels. It also currently garners a 94% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Plot

Clark Griswold (Chase), wanting to spend more time with his wife Ellen (D'Angelo) and children Rusty and Audrey (Hall and Barron), decides to lead the family on a cross-country expedition from Chicago to the Los Angeles amusement park "Walley World", billed as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park". Although Ellen wants to fly, Clark insists on driving, so he can bond with his family. In preparation, he has ordered a new sports wagon for the trip, but when the dealer pulls a bait-and-switch, insisting the sports wagon won't be ready for 6 weeks, Clark is forced to take a failing behemoth Wagon Queen Family Truckster.

As the family travels, they have several mishaps, such as being tagged by vandals while in a rundown part of St. Louis, while Clark is tempted several times by an attractive young woman (Brinkley) driving a flashy red Ferrari 308 GTS. They stop in Coolidge, Kansas to visit Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her husband Eddie (Quaid), but this creates more tension among the Griswolds. Catherine and Eddie foist crotchety old Aunt Edna (Coca) and her dog Dinky on the Griswolds, asking them to drop her off at her son Normy's home in Phoenix. After stopping at a campground in South Fork, Colorado for the night, Clark forgets to untie Dinky from the car's bumper before leaving, killing the dog.

While Ellen and Clark argue, they become stranded in the desert, and Clark eventually finds a mechanic that scams him out of the rest of his cash to fix the car. Frustrated, they stop at the Grand Canyon; when Clark cannot convince a hotel clerk to take a check, he takes cash from the hotel's cash register but leaves behind the check. Leaving the Canyon, they find that Aunt Edna died in her sleep. When they reach Normy's home, they discover he is out of town, and leave Edna's rigor mortised body in the backyard.

Despite all the events and the begging of Ellen and the kids, Clark is more determined to get to Walley World. They finally arrive the next day to find the park closed for repairs. Clark, slipping into madness realizing that all his efforts have been for nothing, buys a realistic-looking BB gun pistol and demands a park security guard named Russ Lasky (John Candy) to take them through the park at gunpoint; Ellen and kids follow him, attempting to placate their husband and father. Eventually the SWAT team arrives along with park owner Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken). Roy understands Clark's impassioned epitome of the American Vacation, bringing back memories of his own childhood years ago. Roy does not file charges against the Griswolds and lets the family enjoy the park as his guests. The credits show various photographs of the Griswolds enjoying the rest of their vacation, including returning to Chicago via plane.

Cast

Production

Walley World

In John Hughes' original short story, the theme park was Disneyland. Because of this, all of the names were altered to soundalikes. Walt Disney's Disneyland became Walley World, itself a good-natured parody of the Anaheim location. The name of the mascot, Marty Moose, is reminiscent of Disney's Mickey Mouse and the "Marty Moose theme song" that the family sings in the car is a parody of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. Roy Walley himself is a pastiche of both Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney, right down to the thin mustache.

Walley World is represented in the film by Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California and Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Santa Anita Park's large parking lot and blue-tinged fascia serve as the introduction scenes, while all park interior scenes were shot at Magic Mountain. The two roller coasters seen in the film are Revolution, which can be recognized by the vertical loop, and Colossus, the double-track wooden roller coaster.

Music

The film's music was composed by Ralph Burns, featuring original songs by Lindsey Buckingham. A soundtrack album was released in 1983. While it did not chart, Buckingham's single "Holiday Road" reached number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Side one
  1. "Holiday Road" – Lindsey Buckingham
  2. "Mister Blue" – The Fleetwoods
  3. "Blitzkrieg Bop" – Ramones
  4. "Deep River Blues" – Ralph Burns
  5. "Summer Hearts" – Nicolette Larson
Side two
  1. "Little Boy Sweet" – June Pointer
  2. "The Trip (Theme from Vacation)" – Ralph Burns
  3. "He's So Dull" – Vanity 6
  4. "Christie's Song" – Ralph Burns
  5. "Dancin' Across the USA" – Lindsey Buckingham

Sequels

National Lampoon's Vacation spawned a number of sequels:

With the exception of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, each sequel saw Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprise their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold, enduring their unique and unenviable brand of vacation misadventure in various locales. However, the children Rusty and Audrey are played by a different set of actors in each film (except for Audrey in the last sequel). This fact is joked about early in Vegas Vacation: when we first see the kids again, Clark tells them that he "hardly recognizes" them anymore. The various actors were Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron in Vacation, Jason Lively and Dana Hill in European Vacation, Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis in Christmas Vacation, and Ethan Embry and Marisol Nichols in Vegas Vacation. Dana Barron again plays Audrey in Christmas Vacation 2, but Rusty, like his parents, could not make it for Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, an NBC TV movie. However, Miriam Flynn and Randy Quaid reprise their roles as cousins Catherine and Eddie, as they did in each film aside from European Vacation. Christie Brinkley reprised her role as The girl in the red Ferrari in the 1997 sequel Vegas Vacation and later spoofed it in a 2008 DirecTV commercial interspliced with footage from Vacation, recreating the famous swimming pool scene.

Each sequel also manages to reference Walley World in some way.

In July 2012, it was announced that Ed Helms would star as Rusty Griswold in the upcoming film, New Vacation. The new version of the vacation adventures will follow Rusty, who now has his own family misadventures on the road. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein will write and direct the film. It is currently unknown if Chevy Chase or Beverly D'Angelo will reprise their roles in the new film or if any of the other cast members from past films will appear.

Legacy

  • HomeAway, Inc. hired Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo to reprise their roles once again in an advertisement campaign to be aired during Super Bowl XLIV.
  • The teaser to Episode 2 of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, "The Creeping Creatures", consisted of an homage to the scene from the movie where the Griswold family is lost in a rundown area of St. Louis. In the teaser, a family consisting of a Dad, Mom (voiced by Beverly D'Angelo), daughter and dog are lost on their way to Manhattan. They stop to refuel what is clearly a Wagon Queen Family Truckster when they encounter the gator monster central to the episode's mystery.
  • Wally World Water Park opened in Canada several years after the release of the film.
  • In the Family Guy episode Blue Harvest, a parody of the first Star Wars film, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprised their roles from National Lampoon's Vacation, in a cameo as Clark and Ellen Griswold.
  • In the November 27th, 2011 Family Guy episode Amish Guy, a spoof of National Lampoon's Vacation final rollercoaster shot, then it goes on to parody its end credit sequence with "Dancin' Across the USA" being played by Lindsey Buckingham.
  • During the time Wally Joyner was playing for the California Angels, the club was sometimes jokingly referred to as "Wally World".

References

  1. "http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/national_lampoons_vacation/". Rottentomatoes.com. 2011-11-20. Retrieved 2012-01-05. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  2. Hughes, John. "Vacation '58 / Foreword '08". American Zoetrope. Retrieved December 18, 2012.
  3. "Christie Brinkley filmography in The New York Times". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
  4. "Christie Brinkley Takes It Off For DirecTV".
  5. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=92434
  6. "HomeAway Brings Back Griswolds".

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