GRISWOLD FAMILY FUN
Christmas classic marks 30 years
For many movie lovers, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation — Chevy Chase and Beverly D’angelo reprising their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold with family, friends and neighbours — has become holiday classic viewing along with It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street.
Marking 30 years since its first release — in December 1989 — here’s a stocking-ful of Christmas Vacation trivia:
IT’S THE THIRD VACATION MOVIE
National Lampoon’s Vacation came out in 1983, followed by European Vacation (1985) and Christmas Vacation (1989). There’s also Vegas Vacation (1997) and 2005’s updated version, Vacation.
IT’ S BASED ON A SHORT STORY
Writer John Hughes, who had such hits as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, as writer-director) and Home Alone (1990, as writer), wrote a short story titled Christmas ’59 for National Lampoon magazine’s December 1980 issue. That was a followup to an earlier story, Vacation ’58, which Hughes made into the original Vacation movie in 1983 (directed by the late Harold Ramis). There’s a small nod to to the source story when Clark pulls out reels of old family Christmas films, including one titled X-mas ’59.
IT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANOTHER DIRECTOR
Warner Bros. studio hired Chris Columbus to direct the film, but he left early in a personality clash with star Chase. Warner replaced him with Montreal-born Jeremiah S. Chechik (sometimes seen in credits without the ‘S’), whose other directing includes Benny & Joon (1993) and TV episodes of Chuck (2009-10) and Gossip Girl (2010-11). It was Chechik’s first feature. He makes a small appearance, Hitchcock-like, as the man on the cover of the People magazine Clark reads in bed.
COLUMBUS BOUNCED BACK AFTER ALL
Columbus later directed the Hughes script to a bigger Christmas movie, Home Alone (1990).
THE GRISWOLDS LIVE IN A FAMILIAR NEIGHBOURHOOD
Unlike the previous Vacation movies, this one sees the Griswolds stay pretty close to home (except when they venture out to buy the Christmas tree). Since it’s filmed on a Warner back lot, the street has some familiar homes. Their neighbours Todd and Margo (Nicholas Guest, Julia Louis-dreyfus) live in the Murtaugh home from all four Lethal Weapon movies. When Clark is in the attic watching a home movie, we briefly see the house from the TV series Bewitched.
CHRISTMAS VACATION FEATURES FOUR SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE ALUMNI
Chase, Louis-dreyfus, Brian Doyle-murray and Randy Quaid have all appeared on SNL. Chase was in the founding cast of the 1975-76 season with Laraine Newman, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris.
GRISWOLD DINNER GUESTS INCLUDE BETTY BOOP AND OLIVE OYL
Christmas Vacation was the final movie for Mae Questel (as Aunt
Bethany). Questel (1908-98) provided the original voices for Betty Boop and Popeye’s girlfriend, Olive Oyl.
JOHNNY GALECKI AND JULIETTE LEWIS ARE THE THIRD PAIR OF ACTORS TO PLAY RUSTY AND AUDREY IN THE VACATION SERIES
Lewis went on to star in movies including Cape Fear (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994) and in various TV series. Galecki recently wrapped 12 seasons as Leonard Hofstadter on The Big Bang Theory. In Christmas Vacation they play siblings, while on the TV sitcom The Conners (2018) they are lovers.
THE STUDIO ORIGINALLY WANTED TO CUT THE SCENE WHERE THE CAT GETS ELECTROCUTED
Warner executives were worried about potential complaints of animal cruelty. But after test audiences claimed it was the funniest scene in the movie, the filmmakers convinced them to keep it in.
THE SQUIRREL WAS — SHOCKER! — UNTRAINED
The production originally had a trained squirrel ready to wreak havoc on the house. But sadly, it died the day before the scene was to shoot. Animal wranglers had to bring in an untrained squirrel, which may have wrought extra mayhem. Want to recreate the scene at home? Several online sites will sell you a “Christmas Vacation attacking squirrel with motion sensor and sound!”
BUT WAIT — IT HAS SEQUELS
Randy Quaid stars in Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure (2003). Christmas Vacation 2000 (1999), in Italian with English subtitles, has little connection beyond the title and general premise of chaos. Ed Helms and Christina Applegate star as a grown Rusty Griswold and his wife, Debbie, in Vacation (2015), with cameos from Chase and D’angelo as Rusty’s parents.
After all that, we don’t even know what the Griswolds did on Christmas Day. Despite its title — and despite all that lead-up — the movie ends on Christmas Eve. Sigh!
Sources: Wikipedia,
Imdb.com, Ifc.com