80s | Pop Culture | Movies
10 Facts About 'National Lampoon's Vacation' That Will Make You Dust Off This Gem Of A Movie For A Rewatch
Kicking off a quadrilogy of comedies starring Chevy Chase as well-meaning doofus Clark Griswold, National Lampoon's Vacation is a classic comedy from the 80s that still holds up well today.
The movie throws tons of jokes at you one after the other, and watching Clark struggle to give his family the best vacation ever while slowly descending into insanity is completely hilarious. However, even if you're a massive fan like we are, we're pretty sure you probably don't know a few of these facts about the movie!
It was directed by Harold Ramis, who you probably know as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters
Anthony Michael Hall grew three inches between finishing the movie and reshoots
They had to change Rusty to being the oldest sibling because of it.
The ending was changed after test audiences hated the original one
The original ending had the Griswolds take Roy Walley hostage, which got repurposed into the ending of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Imogene Coca had a hard time playing Aunt Edna
She couldn't handle how mean Edna was, and kept apologizing to the other actors after her scenes.
The facts just get crazier from here...
Chevy Chase and James Keach could barely keep it together during the "dog tied to the bumper" scene
They had to hold back their laughter the whole time. Fun fact: after the movie came out, the studio got swamped with letters from people admitting to making the same grievous mistake.
John Candy was paid $1 MILLION for his brief cameo at the end
He was brought on after audiences hated the original ending.
The blue Chicago Bears cap worn by Chevy Chase shows up in all four Vacation movies
Christie Brinkley refused to strip naked for the pool scene
She argued the producers down to jumping into the pool in her bra and panties.
The poster for the movie is a parody of the poster for Conan the Barbarian
The actors actually had a terrible time at Wally World
The rides made them all extremely motion sick, and they often had to shoot each ride scene about 8 or 9 times. Anthony Michael Hall has said his look of terror during the roller coasters is genuine.