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 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. 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
Clark’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.”
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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.
Even though the movie was a commercial failure, that did not stop the Feds. 
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