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| December 14, 2021
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9 Fun Facts About Christmas Vacation

9 Fun Facts About Christmas Vacation

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation made its debut in movie theaters on December 1, 1989. Christmas Vacation unleashed more Griswold family dysfunction upon the world and created a classic holiday movie. Here are some things you might not know about one of my favorite Christmas comedies.

1. Christmas Vacation is based on a short story

Christmas Vacation is based on the short story, “Christmas ’59,” written by John Hughes for National Lampoon in December 1980. The movie pays tribute to the short when Clark is trapped in the attic and pulls out a box of old home movies, including one labeled “Christmas ’59.”

2. The Christmas Vacation cast was very impressive

Christmas Vacation’s cast is chock-full of seasoned comedy performers, including leads Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo but also featured older stars and early roles for younger actors.

  • Johnny Galecki – Rusty Griswold, went on to star in Roseanne before being cast as co-lead Dr. Leonard Hofstadter in The Big Bang Theory. He earned a Golden Globe nomination for Big Bang Theory.
  • Juliette LewisJuliette Lewis – Audrey, made more movies post Christmas Vacation including Natural Born Killers, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, for which she received a best-supporting actress Oscar nomination.
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the Griswolds’ yuppie neighbor Margo Chester. Soon after Christmas  Vacation, she would debut on “Seinfeld” and the rest is television history.
  • Randy Quaid – Cousin Eddie, earned a best-supporting actor nomination. He was a Saturday Night Live member from 1985 to 1991. He also starred in the Roland Emmerich disaster sci-fi Independence Day.
  • E.G. MarshallE.G. Marshall – Art Smith, played the father to Ellen Griswald. Before his role in the Christmas classic, appeared in 1957’s 12 Angry Men. His TV credits include  The Defenders, The Cosby Show, and Chicago Hope. He died at the age of 84 in 1998.
  • Doris Roberts – Francis Smith (Clark’s Mother-in-law), career began in 1951. Her most notable role is probably as Ray Romano’s outspoken mother, Marie, in Everybody Loves Raymond. She died in 2016 at the age of 90.
  • Diane Ladd – Nora Griswold, the mother to Clark. her career started in the 1950s. Her credits include Gunsmoke, Alice, and The Love Boat and the movie Chinatown and Primary Colors.
  • Mae Questel – Bethany, Clark’s aunt. Her career began in 1930. She was the voice of both Betty Boop and Olive Oyl. She passed away at the age of 89 in January of 1998.

3. Christmas Vacation has ties to another holiday classic

Footage from the Frank Capra classic holiday movie It’s A Wonderful Life appears in the Christmas Vacation. In the scene where the Griswolds are putting up their tree, Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life is on the TV. Christmas Vacation has another fun tie to It’s a Wonderful Life: Frank Capra’s grandson, Frank Capra III, is Christmas Vacation’s assistant director. 

2. Clark Griswold grew up in Samantha Stevens’s house

BewitchedClark’s childhood home is the same house featured on Bewitched as well as The New Gidget. It is part of the Warner Bros. backlot, located on what is known as Blondie Street. And if the home of their snooty neighbors, Todd and Margo, looks familiar, that’s because it’s where Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and his family lived in Lethal Weapon.

9. Clark’s rant was fake

Beverly D’Angelo explained in a 2015 conversation with The Dinner Party Download, that Clark’s rant was scripted.

… this particular scene … was blocked in a way that would allow each of us to have around our necks a piece of rope that was attached to a big cue card. The rant was divided into sections so that he could go all the way through from the beginning to the end without a chance of forgetting his lines … If you watch it, you can see him. His eyes go from character to character as he’s going on in the speech because we’ve got the lines there.

 

8. Ellen Griswold lied to the cops

In the scene where Ellen Griswold apologizes to Mrs. Shirley—the wife of Clark’s boss/Eddie’s kidnapping victim—assuring her that “This is our family’s first kidnapping,” when, it was the second kidnapping that we know of. In the first Vacation film, the Griswolds force Lasky (John Candy), the security guard to open Wally World for them.

6. You can buy your own Dickie

Randy Quaid borrowed many of Cousin Eddie’s mannerisms from a guy he knew growing up in Texas, most notably his tendency toward tongue-clicking. But Eddie’s Dickie? That was an idea from Quaid’s wife. You can buy your own Cousin Eddie dickie at the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Collectibles, a website dedicated to all things Christmas Vacation.

5. Roger Ebert did not like Christmas Vacation

Though it has become a bona fide holiday classic, not everyone was a fan of Christmas Vacation. Roger Ebert gave it two stars out of five in his review of the film. Mr. Ebert described the movie as “curious in how close it comes to delivering on its material: Sequence after sequence seems to contain all the necessary material, to be well on the way toward a payoff, and then it somehow doesn’t work.”

Stay safe out there!

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Holidays | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
| December 9, 2018
Comments Off on Rollo the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rollo the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rollo the Red-Nosed ReindeerSanta’s reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen have been around since 1823 when they first appeared in Clement Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. But Santa’s most famous reindeer, Rudolph didn’t even exist until 1939. As shocking as that is, here are some more secrets about Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

RudolphRudolph worked for Montgomery Ward In 1939, execs for the now-defunct Montgomery Ward department store decided they needed a character for the freebie coloring books they were handing out to kids who visited Santa. That character ended up being Rudolph, who was an immediate hit with the kiddies. Montgomery Ward gave out 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph booklet in the first year alone. In 1948 Fleischer Studios, the home of Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman created a Rudolph cartoon as an advert for Montgomery Ward.

He could have been Rollo. Rudolph might have had another name. Robert L. May, a copywriter for Montgomery Ward’s mail-order catalog division, who wrote the story considered a number of names. Santa’s new reindeer might have been named Rollo, Reginald, Romeo, or Rodney until they settled on Rudolph.

Rudolph nearly lost his red nose. At first, Rudolph Montgomery Wardused a different method to guide Santa’s sleigh. Instead of having a red, glowing nose that cuts through the fog, Mr. May considered giving Rudolph large, headlight-like eyes that would light the way. After much consideration, he decided mean kids would be more likely to make fun of a red nose than huge eyes.

He has a son named Robbie. The BBC developed three cartoons based on Rudolph’s offspring, but the name of Robbie’s famous dad is never actually mentioned. The plotline tells us that the villain of the series, Blitzen, can’t stand to hear Rudolph’s name. In reality, it’s because the BBC couldn’t get permission to use it (or didn’t want to pay to use it). Fox Family ran the show in the U.S. for a few years in the early 2000s with re-dubbed voices, including Ben Stiller as Robbie, Hugh Grant as Blitzen, Britney Spears as Donner, and Brad Garrett as Prancer.

Robert May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks who wrote the lyrics for some of the most beloved holiday songs including, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Run, Rudolph, Run,” and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” also wrote the lyrics and melody for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Gene AutryThe song was recorded 10 years after the character was invented. Bing Crosby turned down the song and Gene Autry nearly passed on the tune, but his wife urged him to give it a shot. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” became number 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1949. Since Mr. Autry recorded it, the tune has sold more than two million copies in its first Christmas, with over 150 million copies sold to date.

The Ventures recorded their version of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1965 – In which they included a very noticeable riff from the Beatles.

rb-

Have a coffee and relaxThe 1964 Rankin/Bass stop-motion TV special is the longest-running holiday special ever. However this year Rudolph has come under attack, led by the Huffington Post. What the hater miss is the Jewish experience baked into the story. In the Rudolph story, the author turned a mark of antisemitism into a point of pride. Mr. May and company made the stereotypical Jewish nose noble at Christmas-time.

Rudolph’s red nose first has other reindeer laughing, calling “him names,” never letting “poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games.” “Then one foggy Christmas Eve” Rudolph with his “nose so bright” helps guide Santa’s “sleigh tonight.”

Author May explained,

Today children all over the world read and hear about the little deer who started out in life as a loser, just as I did. But they learn that when he gave himself for others, his handicap became the very means through which he received happiness.” Thus, Rudolph’s mass marketing and altruistic message, not just Rudolph’s gift-delivering-heroics, “will go down in history.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Holidays | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,