National Lampoon's Vacation
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National Lampoon's Vacation is a 1983 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, Randy Quaid, and Imogene Coca.
The screenplay, written by John Hughes, is reportedly about his own family's ill-fated trip to Disneyland when he was a boy, written in short-story form for National Lampoon magazine. The success of the movie helped launch his screenwriting career.
The film was a significant box office hit, earning over $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.
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Plot
In the film, Chase and D'Angelo portray a married couple (Clark and Ellen Griswold) with two children (Rusty and Audrey), living in a Chicago suburb, who decide to take a cross-country trip to an amusement park (Wally World, played by Six Flags Magic Mountain) in California with a side trip to a Kansas farm where Cousin Eddie (Quaid) lives, where the couple agrees to drive D'Angelo's crotchety aunt to Phoenix.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Chevy Chase | Clark W. Griswold, Jr. |
| Beverly D'Angelo | Ellen Griswold |
| Imogene Coca | Aunt Edna |
| Randy Quaid | Cousin Eddie |
| Anthony Michael Hall | Rusty Griswold |
| Dana Barron | Audrey Griswold |
| Eddie Bracken | Roy Walley |
| Brian Doyle-Murray | Kamp Komfort Clerk |
| Miriam Flynn | Cousin Catherine |
| James Keach | Motorcycle Cop |
| Eugene Levy | Car Salesman |
| John Candy | Guard Lasky |
| Christie Brinkley | The Girl in the Ferrari |
| Jane Krakowski | Cousin Vicki |
Trivia
Wagonqueen Family Truckster
The Wagonqueen Family Truckster was a station wagon created specifically for the film. It was nothing more than a Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon with a modified front end and a "metallic pea" paint job, based on the Dodge Aspen/Plymouth Volare line, which, due to rushed production, suffered much wear in a relatively short period of time.
The production staff intentionally styled the Truckster to be ugly and ridiculous, with the following features:
- "Metallic Pea" paint
- overdone wood paneling
- eight headlights, four on each side in a rectangular cluster
- a grill area largely covered by bodywork, with two small openings about midway down, and a small grille at the bottom (Similar to a 1982 Oldsmobile Toronado)
- large chrome hubcaps with a large "Wagonqueen" logo in the middle
- an oddly-placed gas tank access door (in the hood)
- dull, brown cotton interior
- a rather poor-built engine (as demonstrated when Clark drives the car into his driveway and the engine knocks while it is running, and keeps running, even after Clark removes the key.)
- an airbag made out of a trashbag.
Clark ends up purchasing the car after attempting to trade in his old station wagon, an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. By the time Clark finds out that the car he wanted isn't available, the dealer has had his old car crushed. During the trip the Truckster encounters a series of mishaps, including one where Clark drives it off a small cliff in the middle of a desert.
Other trivia
- The crew bet stuntman Dick Ziker that he couldn't jump the Family Truckster fifty feet; Ziker won the bet.
- Anthony Michael Hall grew three inches during production, leading to continuity errors over the course of the film.
- In this film, almost everyone in the Griswold family (minus Audrey) wear Lacoste polos.
Sequels
National Lampoon's Vacation spawned a number of sequels:
- National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
- Vegas Vacation (1997)
- American Adventure (2000)
- Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003)
Many fans of the original Vacation claim that none of the sequels, with the possible exception of 1989's Christmas Vacation, live up to the humor of the original. With the exception of the latter two films, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprise their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold in each sequel. The "Rusty" and "Audrey" characters are played by a different set of actors in each sequel (although Barron and Hall were asked to reprise their roles for European Vacation), with the exception of Christmas Vacation 2. The latter two sequels were released direct to video. Miriam Flynn and Randy Quaid reprise their roles as Cousins Catherine and Eddie in each film aside from European Vacation and American Adventure. Each sequel also manages to reference "Wally World" in some way.
External links
{{{2|{{{title|National Lampoon's Vacation}}}}}} at The Internet Movie DatabaseTemplate:Comedy-film-stub