Original series

Spin-off

Hotel Hell Vacation (2010)

Hotel Hell Vacation is a short film directed by Bryan Buckley. On their way to visit Rusty and his family at a vacation rental, Clark and Ellen decide to have a romantic getaway at a hotel before they get there. Everything goes wrong and they hastily make their way to Rusty's rental.

The film was a campaign ad for HomeAway that originally aired in part during the broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV and in entirety on Homeaway.com.^[2] While it was sanctioned by Warner Bros., it was not sponsored by the National Lampoon label.

Principal cast

Key

• A ^Y indicates the actor portrayed the role of a younger version of the character.
• A ^V indicates the actor or actress lent only his or her voice for his or her film character.
• A dark gray cell indicates the character was not in the film.

Additional crew

Development

After the success of National Lampoon's Animal House in 1978, it was decided that another story from the National Lampoon magazine should be adapted into a film.^[3] One of such stories chosen for development was John Hughes' "Vacation '58" that was originally published in the September 1979 issue of National Lampoon. Hughes wrote the screenplay for the first Vacation film as "a fairly straight adaptation of the short story", with the exception of the ending that was rewritten and reshot after being "thoroughly despised by preview audiences".^[4] In addition to Hughes, Vacation involved the crew of many people connected to National Lampoon. The film was produced by Lampoon co-founder and Animal House producer, Matty Simmons, and directed by Lampoon alumnus and Animal House co-writer Harold Ramis.

Released on July 29, 1983, National Lampoon's Vacation proved to be a financial and critical success. Simmons went on to produce two sequels, with scripts by Hughes. While involved with the early stages of a third sequel, Vegas Vacation, Simmons resigned from production due to creative differences.^[5] As a result, the film was made without the "National Lampoon" title.

During an interview on the TBS series Dinner and a Movie, Beverly D'Angelo revealed that due to the success of Animal House, the original Vacation was envisioned as a raunchier R-rated comedy targeting young adults.^[6] This was principally the reason for nudity such as D'Angelo's shower scene, and Chase's profanity-laced tirades and pool scene with Christie Brinkley. However, the movie's success with larger family audiences who identified with Chase's everyman-father character caught the filmmakers by surprise. As a result, the subsequent sequels prior to the 2015 R-rated revival were toned down and family friendly, with PG-13 or PG ratings.

Casting

Along with John Belushi, who starred in Animal House, Chevy Chase had previously performed in The National Lampoon Radio Hour and in the stage show National Lampoon Lemmings, both of which were spin-offs from National Lampoon magazine.^[7]

In each of the main films of the series, the Griswold children are portrayed by different actors. This is usually attributed to the fact that after Anthony Michael Hall declined to reprise his role in European Vacation in order to star in Weird Science, director Amy Heckerling requested both children be recast.^[8] Chase has indicated that it was his idea to continue recasting the children by explaining: "I always wanted to make the joke, 'Geez, I hardly ever get the chance to see the kids anymore. I hardly know who they are. We should go on a vacation'. That was funny to me: the idea that Clark was such a great family man, but still didn't even recognize his own children".^[9]

Unproduced scripts

Shortly after making European Vacation, Chase and Eric Idle began to write a script for a follow-up called National Lampoon's Australian Vacation.^[10] According to Idle: "We spent some time working together on it. It had some nice shark gags, but I can't pretend it was in any way finished".^[11] The concept of Australian Vacation resurfaced in the 90s as a potential fifth installment of the series, but nothing ever came of it.^[12]

Prior to the confirmed plans of New Line Cinema rebooting the series, Chase made note that he has developed another sequel tentatively titled Swiss Family Griswold.^[13] In 2011, Chase revealed that he and Beverly D'Angelo have been working on the idea: "There's a cruise, there's a fire on the ship, we think the whole ship's on fire and we jump —- it's just a little fire —- and we end up on an island where we meet Randy somewhere who's been left there from an old Survivor series".^[14]

In January 2023, Beverly D'Angelo revealed that in the 2010s, actor Michael Rosenbaum had developed a sequel film which involved Clark and Ellen divorcing. They would then be forced to drive to Audrey's Wedding in Arizona together and slowly rekindle their relationship. The film was scrapped in favour of the 2015 reboot, due to market research believing a film with older actors wouldn't be successful^[15]

In December 2019, a television spin-off series entitled The Griswolds entered development. The series is set to be aired on HBO Max, though it has not been officially picked up, with former Rusty actor Johnny Galecki serving as executive producer.^[16] As of 2023, no recent update has been given on the project. As of March 2023 there has not been updates on the series development.

In June 2023, Dana Barron expressed interest in a new film which focused on Clark and Ellen taking their grandkids on another crazy vacation. While Audry and Rusty went on their own adult vacation.^[17]

Remake turned sequel

New Line Cinema (owned by Warner Bros., which released the previous films) confirmed a new Vacation film in 2010.^[18] The film, titled simply Vacation, was ultimately released on July 29, 2015, exactly 32 years after the original film was released into theaters.^[19] It was produced by David Dobkin and written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.

The film is a direct sequel to the previous films (picking up years after the events of Vegas Vacation), starring Ed Helms as Rusty Griswold, as he takes his own family to Walley World.^[20] Leslie Mann appeared as Audrey Griswold. Original series stars D'Angelo and Chase appeared in cameo roles.^[21] The film also starred Chris Hemsworth, Charlie Day^[22] and Christina Applegate.

Box office performance

When released in 1983, National Lampoon's Vacation was a significant box-office hit. The film earned over $61 million in the United States with an estimated budget of $15 million.

Without being adjusted for inflation, the profit earned by the individual Vacation films follow behind National Lampoon's Animal House as the highest-grossing films of the National Lampoon brand.^[23]

Critical and public response

Legacy

In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted National Lampoon's Vacation as the 46th greatest comedy film of all time. The film was also nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs list in 2000.^[39] Christmas Vacation has additionally become a television staple, especially during the holiday season, as it has often been labeled as a contemporary Christmas classic.^[40][41][42]

Old Navy ad campaign (2012)

In November and December 2012, series regulars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo were featured in a set of commercials for Old Navy. Joining them in one commercial were Juliette Lewis (from Christmas Vacation), Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall (from Vacation), and Jason Lively (from European Vacation); that spot featured three Rustys and three Audreys (including a "new Rusty" and a "new Audrey", both of whom were children).^[43]

Ford Mustang ad campaign (2020)

In 2020, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprised their roles as Clark and Ellen in a Ford commercial for the Ford Mustang Mach-E. The commercial spoofed the house lighting scene.^[44]

The Goldbergs

Christie Brinkley reprised her role as the Girl in the Red Ferrari, while Anthony Michael Hall played a theme park security guard in the seventh season of the television series The Goldbergs.^[45]

Other appearances

In the Family Guy episode "Boys Do Cry", there is a scene where a woman is driving next to Peter and gets hit by a truck, which mimics the Christie Brinkley car scene from the first Vacation; Lois responds "Eh, you marry Billy Joel, it's gonna happen one way or another". In "Blue Harvest", the Griswold Family is seen driving past the Death Star during the battle at the end. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo reprise their roles here.

In 2008, Christie Brinkley spoofed her role as "The Girl in the Red Ferrari" in a DirecTV commercial that recreated the swimming pool scene from Vacation by inter-splicing footage from the original film.^[46]

In 2015, Christie Brinkley reprised her role as "The Girl in the Red Ferrari" as the mom in an Infiniti QX60 TV spot, in which she comments about another blonde beauty driving by in a red convertible. Ethan Embry, who played Rusty in the 1997 Vegas Vacation, plays the dad.^[47]

In popular culture

On December 25, 2014, in Clark, NJ, signs for the Garden State Parkway Exit 135 were vandalized from "Clark and Westfield" to "Clark Griswold", making national news headlines.^[48]

Australian hip hop artists, Hilltop Hoods issued a single "Clark Griswold" (July 2018) featuring Adrian Eagle, which reached the Australian Singles Chart top 50,^[49] and won the ARIA Award for Best Urban Release in 2018.^[50]