12 Days of Christmas; Movie Blog Style.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: Christmas Vacation (1989)
A lot can be said about Chevy Chase’s career. Successful, unsuccessful, his attitude and a number of other shots you could take but I know that for me, his character Clark W. Griswold, is one of those characters who will stay with me for the rest of my life. The Vacation movies are all good comedies, some better than others -and we all have our favorite-, but I think we can agree that each one can hold its own.
Christmas Vacation is my personal second favorite from the franchise -Vacation being my first-. This third installment of the Griswold family not only gave us what we would want from the Griswold’s but managed to give us so much more by diving deeper into this famous dysfunctional family.
Returning to there roles as Clark and Ellen are Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo. This time the Griswold’s are not piling into the family truckster or traveling across the world, but staying in Chicago and attempting to have a good old fashion family Christmas. As you would figure this doesn’t happen and laughs line up one after another.
Following suit in this sequel, the Griswold kids are played by new people and their ages change. Daughter Audrey is now the oldest and played by Juliette Lewis. Taking on the part of Rusty is Johnny Galecki. The mixing up of the kids has never been a problem for me in the Vacation movies. No matter how they set the kids up it always fits well into the movie. They are not the main characters so your attention on them is not high, but what they do add to the story works and their age and faces don’t get in the way.
Clark invites the whole Griswold clan to the house, this list consists of Grandma and Grandpa Griswold (played by Diane Ladd and John Randolph), Grandma and Grandpa Smith (played by E.G. Marshall and Doris Roberts), crazy Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis (played by William Hickey: Puppet Master). Along with the invited guests an unexpected family pack drops by for the Holiday’s in a RV. We all wanted to see him so they gave us more Cousin Eddie (played by Randy Quaid) and his band of poor country bumpkins.
With this group all together in one house, the opportunity for big laughs is a piece of cake. Between putting up the lights and tree to the dog eating the dry ass turkey, every problem Clark has this Holiday is great. What’s even funnier, is Clark’s reaction to these escapades and how he makes things worse trying to fix them.
Along with the family issues, Clark is planning on getting the family a large Chrismas present with his bonus from work. When this goes wrong, he losses it in typical classic Clark W. Griswold style. Trying to make things right the wrong way, Clark kidnaps his boss (played by Brian Doyle-Murray) and pretty much screws things up even more.
Radical sledding, “shitter’s full”, squirrel’s, wrapped cats, jello molds with cat food, swat teams, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and a flaming Christmas tree, all help make this a Christmas movie to laugh and love. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend Chrismas Vacation and if you have, revisit this funny favorite. It will make your Holiday the “hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Fucking Kay!”
A good list of Chrismas Vacation moments can be found here.
