Chevy Chase and the 'Vacation' films.

[I Grok Spock]

This series is sort of a reverse situation from Star Trek in that the odd-numbered films are the best. I'm looking forward to our annual viewing of Christmas Vacation. I do find it hard sometimes to draw the line from Chevy Chase in that movie and the guy currently co-starring on Community.

 

[Balrog]

European Vacation may not be one of the best, but it's got one great quote:

"Look kids! Big Ben, Parliament."

 

[B.J.]

^ My wife & I say that every time we go around a traffic circle!

 

[Owain Taggart]

Come to think of it, it would maybe be fun to see them go on vacation in Canada...

I can almost picture Clark say, "Look kids, a beaver!"

 

[1001001]

^ My wife & I say that every time we go around a traffic circle!

I say that in the car all the time, too.

 

[Small White Car]

European Vacation may not be one of the best, but it's got one great quote:

"Look kids! Big Ben, Parliament."

A co-worker said this to me, just last week.

Come to think of it, I may have heard this line quoted in real life more times than any variation of 'beam me up, Scotty.'

Pretty remarkable.

 

[Trekker4747]

The European one is okay but lacking. The Vegas one is under-rated and the Christmas one is over-rated.

The original movie is by-far a classic, unfortuantely I can no longer watch it and enjoy it because doing so sort of brings on mild seizures. Even thinking about it slightly does or at least unsettling memories of the seizures.

And, yes, I'm dead serious.

 

[Distorted Humor]

the vacation idea where they have the son grown up with his kids, and chase as crazy old grand-dad would be classic.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

The original movie is by-far a classic, unfortuantely I can no longer watch it and enjoy it because doing so sort of brings on mild seizures. Even thinking about it slightly does or at least unsettling memories of the seizures.

Seizures from laughing?

 

[Trekker4747]

I suffer(ed) from Simple Partial Seizures -currently under control by medication. When I was in a bout of getting them (usually a handful a day that resulted in me mostly "spacing out" but not losing any sort of consciousness or awareness, just spacing out for a moment) for some reason my mind would wander to being in an amusement park and just odd, unsettling, feelings about it. Even including vivid dreams I'd have during a spell (I'd get the seizures over the course of a few days then they'd go away for a few weeks) that was just an unsettling feeling inside of an amusement park.

The seizures are now controlled (stopped) by medication but anytime I think about an amusement park or see one in a movie I still get a touch of the uneasy feelings associated with those seizures and when I had them parts of the "amusement park feelings" were centered around Vacation.

So, yeah, I tried watching the movie not too long ago and it was just hard to really watch it towards the end when they arrive at Wally World because I just got too many of those uncomfortable seizure-like feelings.

It's really hard to explain, in fact it took me a year or more to fully explain these "seizures" to doctors to get diagnosed since they were mostly just feelings of "spacing out" for a moment. No convulsions, no loss of consciousness, when having them I was mostly able to still function except for the times when I'd have them and maybe lose my train of thought on the conversation or maybe couldn't find a word I wanted.

But somehow during these moments I'd always get sort of a "forced internal day-dream" centered around being in an amusement park.

Hell, I love the movie Zombieland and I have a hard time watching the climax in the amusement park at the end of that movie but somehow I'm able to do it. (Maybe because the amusement park aspects are more fair/carnival or not as closely related to what the seizures center around.)

Anyway, that's a lot of discussion to un-load that had nothing to do with the topic.

I do think the original vacation is very good, very funny and an 80s classic and I can watch it through just I get an uneasy feeling during the Wall World parts at the end of the movie.

.... Did Clark make his own "Griswald Family Vacation" game cartridge on the family Colecovision?

 

[Gary Mitchell]

^ I'm glad that the medication helps.


I always thought it was funny that Brian Doyle Murray played the guy who rented tents to the Griswold's in the first movie and also played Clark's boss in Christmas Vacation.

 

[Captain Craig]

Glad things are under control for you Trekker.
In your defense it is a funny movie and those Griswold's are their own type hallucinogen.

 

[sidious618]

I watch Christmas Vacation every Christmas Eve and it somehow never stops being hilarious.

"Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, kiss my ass, kiss his ass, Happy Hanukkah."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Just thinking of the scene in the first film when the family has fallen asleep in the car, and the camera goes around from one member of the family to the next, at the very least puts a smile on my face. I could also just burst out laughing thinking about it, for no apparent reason to others.

 

[Dukhat]

Disagree... Other than the well portrayed country bumpkin in the first movie, I find Cousin Eddie the hardest part to watch in the follow ups. They just went too over the top with the character.

Really? Because in the original movie, Eddie came off as kinda creepy, sort of a "uncle we don't talk about because he once molested my preteen daughter" vibe. In Christmas vacation he was more of a lovable buffoon whose insults by Clark hilariously go over his head.

Regardless, I totally love these movies, and seeing CV is a staple of my holiday season.

Ethan Embry also acquits himself nicely as Rusty, but then again I've always liked Ethan Embry.

Funnily enough, I remember a website that ranked each Griswold kid from each movie by popularity. Ethan Embry's Rusty actually won, which considering the part he actually had in VV, I can completely understand. Second place was of course AMH, then Johnny Galecki, and in dismal fourth place is Jason Lively. The site ripped him a new asshole, basically saying he sucked and the EV producers should have gotten someone that more resembled AMH.

 

[Aldo]

You know, when I first saw European Vacation it never even crossed my mind that the kids weren't the same actors. Granted I was probably six when the movie was first released on video, but I had seen the first film before seeing European Vacation.

I'm sure that could be true for a lot of people who just saw Vacation than forgot about it by the time the sequel came out. Still, I always like the fact that the producers at least tried to get kids who resembled AMH and Dana Barron.

As an aside, I always wondered, if Dana Barron had returned as Audrey, would her character flaw still be that she thinks she's too fat?

 

[Trekker4747]

It was obvious to me as a young kid that they were different actors, in fact that pretty much became a running gag in the movies. In every movie the kids are played by different actors and are in fact different ages.

I think the best version of the kids is in "Vegas."

 

[B.J.]

^ Clark's line in Vegas Vacation: "You guys are growing up so fast, I hardly recognize you anymore!"

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, that was funny that the movie reached self-awareness and pointed out the running gag.

 

[Aldo]

It was obvious to me as a young kid that they were different actors, in fact that pretty much became a running gag in the movies.

Indeed. Which is why they didn't even bother casting kids that looked similar when Christmas Vacation rolled around.