Christmas Vacation (1989)

Merry Christmas! The shitter was full!

Todd was hot.

Todd was hot.

Ellen, are you smoking again?

No! *chop*

Forget "shitter's full". That doesn't compare to...

I’ve never seen it

Can't watch Chevy Chase in anything.

“Sorry. Shittin’ rocks”

Chevy Chase looks so bad today & Julia Louis Dreyfus looks so great.

Great movie. Love his humor. Even though he is a totally evil dick - the straight male version of Ellen.

Love the theme song by Mavis Staples.

FML, I remember seeing this in the theater.

Chevy Chase is not funny.

Here's some "Best Of" clips.

Top 10 Christmas Vacation Moments.

I love when Bev D’Ang inadvertently grabs Chevy’s package.

Worst Audrey & Rusty EVER.

Chevy ruins the movie. Steve Martin would have made this better.

I've lost count of how many times I've seen this film -- I watch it at least twice every holiday season.

And the scene where Clark is watching old home movies in the attic always, always makes me tear up. (Yes, I know, MARY!)

THE BLESSSSSSSSSING

I’ve never really liked this movie. The tone is off from the first two Vacations, both of which I love. Too much slapstick and Chevy Chase mugging.

R21 = Dan Ackroyd from the set of Ghostbusters 2

[quote] I’ve never really liked this movie. The tone is off from the first two Vacations, both of which I love. Too much slapstick and Chevy Chase mugging.

This is a huge improvement over the last one and a damn sight better than [italic]Vegas Vacation[/italic], which was so bad they couldn't even use the "National Lampoon" name over the title. Except for the game show at the beginning with Paul Bartel as the head of the other family, [italic]European Vacation[/italic] was just the first movie done over in Europe. This shows the Griswolds at home for the holidays having their family come to them.

Did I break wind?

I loathe Chevy Chase. Can't watch any movie he is in.

And why is the carpet all wet?

I don't KNOW, Margo.

R21 has never seen Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure.

John Hughes wrote them all

Chevy was still studly in this. I'd love to suck his huge cock.

"She falls down a well, eyes go crossed. She gets kicked by a mule, they go back"

My favorite Christmas movie growing up. I quote this regularly.

If you need any help, I’ll be upstairs...asleep.

I really shouldn’t, my hands are all chapped.

Anything else I can do for you? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere? Leave you for dead?

After you’ve showered, of course!

I’m freezing my baguettes off!

Of all the cheap, lousy ways to save a buck!

If I had a rubber hose...

I could literally go on and on...

This was my dad’s (RIP) favorite Christmas movie. As a kid, I would quote Randy Quaid’s lines just to make my dad laugh. He laughed a lot at that movie. I miss him!

Chevy Chase was and is an asshole, but he was hot as a firecracker when he was young. By '89 he was a bit past his prime (although still daddy-hot). For CC at his handsomest, check out Foul Play ('78) with Goldie Hawn. His character is less of a doofus than Clark Griswold and he and Goldie make an attractive cold.

r33 sure, oh my

"He worked really hard, grandma."

"So do washing machines."

Chevy had some luscious lips. It looked like he could’ve sucked a golf ball through a garden hose.

I loved the ancient aunt and uncle.

R37 We thought they were reductive.

This is the only part that makes me laugh:

Todd: Hey, Griswold. Where do you think you're gonna put a tree that big?

Clark: Bend over and I'll show you.

Todd: You've got a lot of nerve talking to me like that, Griswold.

Clark: I wasn't talking to you.

R29 Yuck. Although he was objectively good looking in his prime, he is such an asshole that I just can't.

This is probably the only thing I can even stomach him in. The best of the Vacation movies by far.

The neighborhood gay boy probably wanted that hot daddy.

Grace? She died 40 years ago.

Jello of the month instead of a bonus

I thought Nicolas Guest and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were hilarious: "Todd, why is the carpet all wet?" I don't KNOW, Margo!"

Haven't we all known a Todd and Margo?

We are Margo.

We always watch on the Friday after Thanksgiving, just finished. Official kickoff of our Christmas season.

Aunt Bethany! 😄

It wasn't until years later that I realized that young Rusty was played by Johnny Galecki.

Is Rusty still in the navy?

I love this film. Back when Chevy Chase was still likable (on screen).

I'm surprised there was never an official soundtrack since the title track, the beautiful The Spirit of Christmas by Ray Charles and Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby are such important songs to the film.

"Save the neck for me, Clark."

"Okay, Eddie."

[quote]I’ve never really liked this movie. The tone is off from the first two Vacations, both of which I love. Too much slapstick and Chevy Chase mugging.

I know what you mean. I can watch the movie, but it’s definitely my least favorite of the first three (the ones after this one don’t even count IMO because they’re so awful). I think one thing I don’t like is how awful the Audrey and Rusty are in this movie. The other thing I think causes the tone to be off is that this is the first vacation movie that they don’t actually travel anywhere.

Great scene, R15. Sparky wears a smart little turban in it.

"What is that clicking sound?"

I LOVE Todd and Margo’s house and wish the late 80s decor would make its comeback full force.

Christmas Vacation should've been a modern holiday classic like Last Christmas and All I Want For Christmas Is You.

It's just a little dry.

Fa-la-la-la-la and ho-ho-ho!

Mavis, your Christmas Vacation is my favorite Christmas song. I listen to it all year long.

Shitter's full!

I love how Audrey has no lines in the movie after the grandparents show up.

Do you sleep with your brother? Do you know how sick and twisted that is?

Well, I‘m sleeping with your father. Quit being so dramatic.

I wonder if Juliette Lewis tried to recruit Johnny Galecki into Scientology during the filming of this movie.

Johnny Galecki and Juliette Lewis played a couple on The Conners. The pairing seemed kind of... off.

I love it when Clark and Eddie are shopping and Eddie randomly adjust his rather obvious VPL right after he hosts the bag of dog food into the cart. This movie had a lot of little sight gags like that.

S Q U I R R E L!!!!

Aunt Bethany was Betty Boop

R64, John Randolph (Clark Sr.) played Roseanne's dad in the first two seasons.

John Randolph also played George Costanza’s father Frank in Seinfeld. When Jerry Stiller started playing Frank Costanza I told my mother & sister that he wasn’t the original Frank Costanza. I remembered seeing the episode where Frank makes George be his butler and that it was Emily’s father on The Newhart Show who played Frank. They didn’t believe me. A couple of years later, when the show was in syndication I happened to be at my mother’s house when the episode came on. I made my mother come into the living room. I pointed and said “Watch! George’s father is going to come on in the next scene.”

In the next scene, Jerry Stiller came on as Frank. I was dumbfounded, I KNEW Stiller hadn’t played Frank in that early episode. Sure enough, once Seinfeld became a cult show, it was a trivia point that not only had Jerry Stiller not played Frank in that episode, but they actually reshot the scenes in that episode with Jerry Stiller after Stiller took the role.

Vindication

[quote]Aunt Bethany was Betty Boop

And Olive Oyl and Aunt Bluebell!

Todd and Margo were resurrected last year as a pretty funny meme about greyhounds in turtlenecks.

"And why is the CARPET wet, Todd?"

"I don't KNOW, Margo!"

R65 my favorite part of that scene is Eddie dropping the bag of dog food on top of the bulbs Clark just put in the cart.

Netflix has a new documentary series "The Movies that Made Us."

The director of Christmas Vacation said working with Chase was a nightmare because "he is an asshole."

Ooooh, I'll have to check it out. I love The Toys That Made Us series.

Can't see the line can ya Russ?

Everyone - including Chase himself - agrees he is an asshole. At least he’s honest about it. I wonder what made him that way? Apparently he was like that before he even was on SNL. Regardless, I love Xmas Vacation. Laugh every time.

We're gonna have the hap hap happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap danced with Danny fucking Kaye!

I love this movie. I adore Beverly D’angelo

I loved Juliette Lewis' bitchy teen phase, between this and Cape Fear.

beverly d'angelo deserved better roles / waste of talent

I’m watching it now

Diane Ladd said this role was a low point in her career.

I read Chevy Chase had/has mental illness and has been on and off meds. A while back I read some blog he wrote. He was saying that “people” were advising him to stop taking his meds and he stopped.

[quote]Diane Ladd said this role was a low point in her career.

Doubt she said that, she knows it's a bona fide classic. She's one of those actress that will manage to weasel in her two Oscar nominations in every conversation. When it was announced her daughter Laura Dern was going to star in Spielberg's next big movie "Jurassic Park", Roger Corman put together a zero budget rip-off quickie to be be released before JP. He hired Diane Ladd to star. I always thought that was a shitty thing to do, trying to steal your daughters thunder.

Has anyone seen that sequel that I think was made for TV about Cousin Eddie?

Overrated and unfunny...never got how this became a "classic."

Imagine what Ladd will do r84 when Dern wins the Oscar this season.

I usually watch this once a year when it’s on TV.

Now, The Ref is an actually funny Xmas movie.

R89 Okay, Breeder

Didn't like this one, loved the original, though. None of the sequels came close; the one set in Vegas was the worst.

I guess I don't consider this one a true sequel to the other films because it stands on its own and the fact that it's become a Christmas classic kind of disassociates it - for me - from the other Vacation films.

Please r90 is there anything more breeder friendly than Christmas Vacation?

It may be a classic but it had a nothing role for Belle.

Quaid was disconcertingly thin for someone playing a “huge, beastly, bulging man.”

I think a part of Chase being an asshole is that he was considered the "star" of SNL when he quit in 1976.

I read an interview with him where he stated that the movie offers he was expecting never materialized.

Perhaps this is why he was so pissed off all the time.

I agree with earlier posters. I've always thought Chase was hot as hell in his 70's movies, like SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES and FOUL PLAY. And his early years on SNL. Not just his looks, but combined with his on-screen persona was really charming. Yum! Apparently in real life he was an asshole who alienated everyone in Hollywood. A story as old as the wind. Whatever.

“You? You couldn’t hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant!”

R9 That's because Chevy Chase was 50 and Julia Louis Dreyfus was 26

Love this movie. Chevy, Beverly, Randy, Doris, Nicholas and Julia are all hilarious in it. I've seen it so many times I've lost count.

Is everything ok with the dog Eddie? Oh, he's just yacking on a bone. He's got it up now.

John Hughes hired the same decorator for every movie. The houses were all center hall colonials with plenty of molding & wallpaper & a big staircase.

Very interesting, r101. Thanks.

Nothing with Chevy Chase in it is "a classic."

Ever notice how many sitcoms and comedy movies of this era are set in Chicago? And I don’t think it’s just the Second City influence.

R93 Well, yes there is hunty. There's "National Lampoon's Family Vacation" and "Animal House" (also a National Lampoon movie) for films in the same vein.

Except the word “family” wasn’t in the name of the original.

[quote] Ever notice how many sitcoms and comedy movies of this era are set in Chicago

They were all John Hughes movies. Center hall colonial homes in Chicago suburbs

Uncle Buck

Home Alone

Christmas Vacation

This

Sixteen Candkes

The Ferris Bueller House is actually in Long Beach, CA

And they all had similar decor

Sixteen candkes

Home Alone

[quite] The Ferris Bueller House is actually in Long Beach, CA

It doesn’t doesn’t matter where the actual house is. .The movie settings are all in the Chicago suburbs.

I know that, but all the other houses in John Hughes movies were actually IN the Chicago area. It seemed odd he couldn't one there that fit the bill.

The outdoor scenes of Chicago were filmed by Chris Columbus. He agreed to direct the movie because he liked the script. He filmed exterior shots, then he met Chevy Chase. He couldn’t stand Chase & told Hughes he couldn’t do the movie. Hughes offered him Home Alone, so he did that film instead.

I laugh at Aunt Bethany every year. She’s just perfect. And the crunchy dinner scene.

[quote] Everyone - including Chase himself - agrees he is an asshole

They banned him from visiting our local hospital about 25 years ago. Something about a car in a ditch.

[quote]Now, The Ref is an actually funny Xmas movie.

Shame on you. I just downloaded and watched that mess based on your comment and it was awful. No wonder I'd never heard of it. Non-stop domestic bantering from beginning to end. None of it funny nor interesting in the least.

Is Rusty still in the navy?

The Ref was a funny movie, Judy Davis was a riot.

r121 If you hated the movie so much why did you watch it from beginning to end? Life pro tip: If a movie rubs you the wrong way, STOP WATCHING. IT'S NOT GOING TO GET ANY BETTER.

The Ref is perfection.

The Ref is one of the best Christmas movies ever.

Gus: You know what, lady? I'd like to tie you to the back of a fucking truck.

Rose: You don't have the balls.

Lloyd: Don't do it! It's not worth it.

Gus: I fucking hate her, Lloyd!

Lloyd: I know, I know.

Lloyd: She's my mother.

Gus: She's a fucking Bitch, Lloyd.

Lloyd: Mother.

Rose: What?

Lloyd: Is it possible for you to shut the fuck up for five minutes?

Julia Louis Dryfuss was funny in this.

Oh wow, R126. Sounds like the height of sophisticated, witty dialog.

The ref is terrible.

The Ref is funny. I guess you have to be from the Northeast to think so.

Enough about The Ref! This is a Christmas Vacation thread. Why didn't Mavis Staples song become a modern classic?

The Ref is HILARIOUS if you enjoy 90 minutes of non-stop domestic bickering about absoluetely nothing of interest to you, the viewer.

r132 I guess you only watch movies that reflect your own life, then.

If you like listening to people argue for an hour and a half straight, more power to you. I found it nauseating.