National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) on Netflix
Clark Griswold wants his family to see Walley World, a theme park in southern California. He drives his wife Ellen and their children, Rusty and Audrey, from the Chicago suburbs.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.3/10129,722 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Clark Griswold takes his wife Ellen and their children, Rusty and Audrey, on a road trip from their Chicago-area home to Walley World, a theme park in southern California billed as America's Favorite Family Fun Park. Ellen would rather fly, but Clark thinks the long drive will bring the family closer together. The new car he ordered is not ready, so the dealer sells him the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, an oversized station wagon. Their route takes them through St. Louis, where vandals tag the car, and Dodge City, Kansas, where Clark annoys a bartender. In Coolidge, Kansas, they stay with Ellen's cousin Catherine and her husband Eddie, who ask the Griswolds to drop Aunt Edna and her dog Dinky at her son Norman's home in Phoenix.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In Hughes's original short story the theme park was Disneyland, and to avoid legal troubles all the names associated with it were altered to sound-alikes: the park became Walley World and the mascot Marty Moose, reminiscent of Walt Disney's own Mickey Mouse.
SPOILER
The original ending, in which the Griswolds take Roy Walley hostage, was judged poorly by test audiences, so a new ending featuring John Candy was filmed in its place several months later, by which point Anthony Michael Hall had become noticeably taller.- Producer Matty Simmons said the first person he took the script to was Jeff Katzenberg at Paramount, who said it would never make a movie because it was too episodic; Simmons argued that a road trip is supposed to be episodic, and his agent took it to Warner Brothers instead.
- The Wagon Queen Family Truckster was created specifically for the film, based on a 1979 Ford LTD Country Squire, with a "metallic pea" green paint scheme, extensive imitation wood-paneling decals and eight headlights, the second pair mounted upside-down above the stock pair.
- The movie's popularity gave rise to an ongoing habit of using the name "Wally World", spelled without an e, as a nickname for the real-life retailer Walmart.
