'80s Movie Montage
Breaking down our favorite decade of flicks. Hosted by Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke.
'80s Movie Montage
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
In this season six finale, Anna and Derek discuss the absurdity of getting an in-ground pool in Illinois, if maybe Cousin Eddie is better in smaller doses, and much more during their chat of the holiday classic National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989).
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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.
And I want to look him straight in the eye. I don't want to tell them what a cheap lying, no good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty lip, worm-headed stack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the title?
SPEAKER_03:Hello, and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek.
SPEAKER_01:And this is Anna.
SPEAKER_03:And that was Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold having a very Merry Christmas in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation from 1989.
SPEAKER_01:And our season six finale movie. Yeah, it is.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Last show of the year. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And what's kind of uh funny is that, I mean, we didn't really plan it out this way, but uh vacation. I don't plan anything. You don't you don't plan any of it. Yeah. Um, that's okay. You don't have to. Um our mid-season episode, I wouldn't say finale, but our mid-season episode was just vac National Lampoons Vacation.
SPEAKER_03:And that inspired the uh intro to this episode. I figured like, you know, it makes sense to have him just Clark's rant.
SPEAKER_01:Doing the Clark rants. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so I mean, we are already in season six and we've never done Christmas vacation. So it felt appropriate to it there are far. No one ever asked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but we are getting down to like there aren't that there's a like okay amount of Christmas movies from the 80s, but not a ton. So like this was one of the last like heavy hitters that we just hadn't covered yet. So here we are.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. After that, we'll just start doing more horror movies.
SPEAKER_01:Silent Night, Dead Light Night.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Okay. So, like you said, uh Christmas Vacation, season six finale, and comes in in the last year of the decade, 1989. Uh a lot of familiar names, um, especially in front of the camera. But as far as writing is concerned, we have Mr. John Hughes.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. Yeah. He wrote this. Um didn't didn't wasn't it like uh if if it seemed like a story was right, then he would do something and he had like something called like Christmas 59.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh yeah, I think uh some of these stories are based on like I don't know if I'd say short stories that he wrote, but just like ideas that he had.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And this is one of them. And then of course, like this is at this point, we have not covered European vacation just yet, but this is the third installment of the vacation movies with the Grosswealth family.
SPEAKER_03:I always forget that this is the third one because I always try to forget that the European vacation happened.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure when we're gonna cover European vacation. I feel like in a weird way it almost was the one I saw the most as a kid. Uh I don't know if it's because like on TV or something a lot.
SPEAKER_03:I don't think I was seeking it out, but the best part about it is that uh Johnny from Karate Kid is in it. Yeah. And he's not in it that much.
SPEAKER_01:He's not in it that much. Uh so yeah, at this point we're like familiar with the Griswolds, except for the fact that like they all change. The kids. Yeah. Yeah. The kids get swapped out in every movie. And as far as Hughes is concerned, I mean, we've covered him quite a bit over the course of the show. Many times. Many times. Uh, you know, in retrospect, things that could most certainly be called out about his work, but there is a lot of nostalgia around the films that he was behind, whether as just a writer or writer-director, writer-producer. Um, he is the reason for a lot of movies that we love. So he strictly speaking, 53 writing credits, and he's already been passed for it's crazy, more than 15 years. He passed in 2009. Uh, also, just a heads up, because of um the fact that the cast has a lot of uh senior actors.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:There's gonna be quite a few people that we discuss. It's a huge ensemble cast. I tried to narrow it down as much as I could, but um yeah, like Betty Boop was in her 80s. Yes. Yeah, she's in the 80s. She's one of the people we'll cover, but I like kind of condensed her filmography a little bit. Um, but yeah, Hughes obviously behind the camera, but we will have quite a few people that have passed in this episode. As far as Hughes is concerned, I mean, I feel like at this point, you know, the films that we've covered and the films that we have yet to cover, there are probably very few films that he was a part of in some regard that people aren't familiar with. We have Mr. Mom, which we have covered and a lot of these movies we've covered. So Mr. Mom, go check that one out. That's that's one of my favorites. I mean, that for that he had solely writing credit. He didn't direct or any, he wasn't a director yet.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:But love that film as mentioned. He was the writer behind National Lampoons Vacation. Uh you brought this up a long time ago, and I really like the suggestion. So it probably will be what happens. We started this show with Breakfast Club. We are not planning on quitting the podcast anytime soon, but probably whenever that day comes, I bet our final episode will probably be 16 candles.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. I didn't realize that was my idea, but I like it.
SPEAKER_01:That was that was your idea. Okay. Yeah. But as mentioned, we did Breakfast Club was our very first episode.
SPEAKER_04:Please don't listen to it.
SPEAKER_01:We were just babies. Um, yeah. National Lampoons European vacation. We have yet to do weird science. That will probably come up at some point. I'm kind of shocked. I'm I'm gonna put this on for next season. I'm just gonna say it right now. Yeah, yeah. We gotta do pretty and pink. We have done Ferris Bieler's Day Off. That was with Julia. Go check that one out. We did some kind of wonderful as well. Love that one. That I don't know, I kind of like switch off between the teen films, which one's my favorite, but I feel like I come back to some kind of wonderful quite a bit. I love that movie.
SPEAKER_03:West Coast.
SPEAKER_01:West Coast, Pretty and Pink. Uh, except with the ending that we were supposed to get. We just last season did Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Go check that one out as well. Uh, She's Having a Baby, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck. I mean, just movie after movie.
SPEAKER_03:Uncle Buck is kind of a Christmas-ish. It's winter.
SPEAKER_01:It's winter. Yeah. Yeah. Close enough. Definitely do it. Uh, and now we're getting into the 90s. 1990 to be exact, Home Alone. Uh, he wrote that one. That was a Chris Columbus film. And then he has the writing credit on the sequel, Home Alone 2, Lost in New York.
SPEAKER_03:So Home Alone was just the year after Christmas Vacation came out.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:I wonder what would have happened if he was supposed to have directed Vacation and then decided not to for reasons, and then ended up directing an arguably more successful movie. Because that happened.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, who are we talking about? Oh, Christopher Columbus. Okay. Or I should just say Chris Columbus. I don't think he calls himself Christopher Columbus.
SPEAKER_03:No. No one wants to be associated with that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. So Chris Columbus was supposed to direct Christmas vacation?
SPEAKER_03:He was, and a couple meetings with Chase convinced him that he could not do it because they were just um bizarre encounters where he felt like Chase either just wasn't like engaged or was just acting kind of like to to whatever happened, he just was like, I would rather just not work or just go back to writing than try to direct this movie. So he didn't, and he ended up directing Home Alone, which turned out to be wildly successful.
SPEAKER_01:And now that you're bringing that up, I have vague recollections of hearing about that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Like he had a he had this like the first meeting, he was talking to him for a while, and then Chase was like, Wait, you're directing this? I thought you were the drummer. And Columbus was like, What?
SPEAKER_01:Drummer for what?
SPEAKER_03:There there was like a drummer with that same name, but it was just like oh. It was it was uh an odd, odd encounter.
SPEAKER_01:I'll say. Uh more writing credits for John Hughes. We he goes into kind of his like family uh Fast and Furious?
unknown:No, no.
SPEAKER_01:Oh but just as I mean, like, look, in some ways a lot of these are family films, but like maybe for younger audiences. He does Dutch, Curly Sue, Beethoven with the pseudonym Edmund Dantes, Dennis the Menace, Baby Stay Out, 101 Dalmatians, Flubber, and among some of his final credits, Mate in Manhattan. So okay, well, speaking of directors, we have up next Jeremiah. Uh I just missed his name. Jeremiah asked Churchick?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's that's the best guess I have too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This was, I mean, it's kind of funny given the story you just said. This was his uh film directorial debut. So he was a newbie. I don't know if that was like wholly intentional because they needed somebody who maybe would be more uh is the right word amenable to Chevy Chase's whatever.
SPEAKER_03:They needed someone to do it, and Hughes considered it, but he was still doing post stuff for Uncle Buck, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, interesting. Yeah. So here we go. I mean, he's had a great career, and I mean, still very much working. Earlier in his career, he was like firmly in film, but I think for most of his latter career, firmly in television. Okay. So a couple of the other films that he's directed, Benny and June and the 1998 The Avengers, very different.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Based off of that like British franchise.
SPEAKER_03:It was very, very different. No, we're not talking about Marvel people.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so as far as TV goes, he directed on a TV mini-series called The Bronx is Burning, but some pretty well-known shows that he directed on Gossip Girl, Burn Notice, Chuck. I haven't heard of this one, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight. Intriguing title.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I never heard of that.
SPEAKER_01:Rogue, and then more recently, Reginald the Vampire.
SPEAKER_03:Reginald the Vampire Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's the kid from Spider-Man, the best friend.
SPEAKER_03:The best friend from Oh.
SPEAKER_01:The um Tom Holland best friend.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I think he is Reginald. Okay. Oh, yeah. I think I think you're right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there we go. Okay. Cinematography. Thomas E. Ackerman. We have a lot of middle initials. And not the first time we have brought him up. I'm wondering, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There might be another, another instance of us bringing him up in the future because I know you've kind of wanted to do back to school.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think we'll we'll have to do that at some point. I mean.
SPEAKER_01:And that happens to be one of the films that he shot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We also, uh, Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
SPEAKER_03:Amazing cinematography.
SPEAKER_01:Go check that one out. He covered that film. As well as this long time ago, Beetlejuice. Yeah. That is good cinematography. It is. So go check that one out. He also shot Moonwalker. Uh, so a couple of these familiar titles we just brought up. I don't know. I mean, he's a DP, and I don't know how much of a relationship he had with Hughes, but maybe it's a coincidence that he shot Dennis the Menace and he shot Baby Stay Out. I don't know. Um, he also did Jumunji, George of the Jungle, Snowdogs, Anchorman, Cullen, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Balls of Fury, and I put this one in because somebody that I work with is one of the writers on this movie. He shot the film Night of the Living Deb.
SPEAKER_03:Night of the Living. Nice. I like it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I was like, oh my God, I'm including that one. It's fun. Yeah, fun. Okay, we're flying through. Sorry, we kind of have to fly through a lot of these people because we have a huge cast to talk about. So apologies. Trying to give due diligence to everyone, but music. Angelo.
SPEAKER_03:Badalamente.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was really well done. Uh, he composed on this film. He has passed. He passed away in 2022. And he had quite a career. He very much could come up in the future. Looks like he had uh definitely some kind of like creative collaboration with David Lynch. He was the composer on Blue Velvet. I'm skipping around, so I'm not saying this is a David Lynch film. Although it'd be fascinating if he did direct a nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Dream Warriors.
SPEAKER_03:That would have been, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That would have been, I mean, it's already a good movie, but that would have been interesting as a David Lynch film. And uh Angelo, he composed on that. He composed on Cousins. Another Lynch film, Wild at Heart. Uh, of course, I mean, this is iconic music. He was the composer on the TV series Twin Peaks.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:As well as the film Twin Peaks Fire Fire Walk With Me.
SPEAKER_03:Do they is there like a one where it's like Twin Peaks, Colin We Explain it? Because I'd be interested in watching that.
SPEAKER_01:To my knowledge, no. God damn it. Go on YouTube. I bet you there are a million videos on YouTube explaining Twin Peaks.
SPEAKER_03:Probably.
SPEAKER_01:He composed on a TV series called On the Air, mostly movies though. Lost Highway, Arlington Road, The Straight Story, Holy Smoke, another David Lynch, the TV movie of Moholland Drive, as well as the film Mulholland Drive, The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio, uh Secretary. I think two episodes in a row that Secretary has come up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's weird.
SPEAKER_01:Cabin Fever, the 2006 The Wicker Man, and then he composed again on that return of Twin Peaks to television. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So he and then That's the one where they so they've explained it all, right? When it came back. Okay, moving on. I don't know. I don't think they didn't.
SPEAKER_01:I have no idea. This I thought was really interesting though. So I don't know if I didn't I don't know if I could say I really watched it, but that show inside the actor studio. Oh yeah. So he was the composer on that. So that's interesting. I didn't realize that show was on for holy cow, um, from 94 to 2019.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That show was on for like 25 years.
SPEAKER_03:And only 274 episodes.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I was just gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. So uh there you go. Okay, film editing. We have actually two people to talk about as far as editing goes. The first of which, Gerald, another initial Gerald B. Greenberg. He has passed as well. He passed in 2017. And it's kind of crazy that he was one of the editors on this film when you look at his filmography. No disrespect to Christmas Vacation, but he kind of the same with the music.
SPEAKER_03:Like you look at that filmography and you're like, oh, and Christmas Vacation. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I mean, Greenberg, he was an Oscar-winning editor. So very early in his career, uh, and yeah, I have I have all films for him. Bye-bye, Braverman. We brought up this movie a lot, but I still don't really know what it's about. They might be giants.
SPEAKER_03:I'm not gonna say it.
SPEAKER_01:Your joke?
SPEAKER_03:No, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:About the band?
SPEAKER_03:No, I'm not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01:You're not gonna do it. Okay. He got his so first of his nominations, and he got the win for the French Connection.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I figured, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Probably deservedly so. I it's been a really long time since I've watched that movie. He cut the 1974 The Taking of Pelum 123. He cut the Missouri Breaks. He gets another, I mean, God bless him. He got uh Oscar nomination film editing for Apocalypse Now. That was probably a monster, monster job. Yeah. He also got an Oscar nomination for Kramer versus Kramer. I think, I think maybe the same year. He might have gotten double nominations. Dress to Kill, Heaven's Gate, Scarface.
SPEAKER_03:So he's all these movies and then Christmas Vacation.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Um, which also shows you uh, it seems like he had a relationship with De Palma because these are a lot of De Palma films.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Untouchable, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So so he has come up because we did cover the Untouchables, so go check that one out. But we probably will bring him up again. We should do Scarface soon. So he cut Scarface, Body Double, as mentioned, The Untouchables, The Accused, not gonna probably cover that film anytime soon.
SPEAKER_03:That's a rough, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That is a very tough film to get through. Awakenings, School Ties, another tough film to get through. American History X. Fortunately, that's a 98, so 90s, so we're not covering that ever. Duets, and then um one of his final films was the 2015 point break.
SPEAKER_03:Is duets the one where I'm supposed to believe that Huey Lewis is a singer, like a struggling singer or something?
SPEAKER_01:A struggling singer, and then it has um Gwyneth Powtron in it as well. I do like the rendition of um Cruisin. Is it Cruzin Together or Cruisin? The name of the song.
unknown:I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:It's a good rendition of the song. Because isn't the original Smokey Robinson?
SPEAKER_03:Is it?
SPEAKER_01:I think. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I believe you.
SPEAKER_01:I'm convincing.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:The other editor, Michael A. Stevenson, another middle initial. Uh, he has come up before, although I think when we brought him up, it might have been like an uncredited credit. He cut Annie, but he might have been uncredited for that one. He also, uh, or maybe it was the other person on Annie who was uncredited. He cut the toy. This is, see, the films that he's done feel much more aligned with Christmas Vacation. He cut three men and a baby, as well as he did a couple sequels. Three men and a little lady. He cut Honey I Shrunk the Kids, as well as Honey I Blew Up the Kid. He cut The Sandbot, Look Who's Talking Now, Flubber. So this all feels very much in the world of what yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh not like Apocalypse Now and Christmas Vacation.
SPEAKER_03:It's tough to go from like Scarface to Christmas Vacation.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh Muppets from Space and then Garfield Cullen, the movie. Okay, Buckle Up, stars of the movie. We got a lot of them. Starting with Chevy Chase.
SPEAKER_02:That guy.
SPEAKER_01:That guy, Clark Griswold. Now, because about six months ago we covered a couple of these people, we will probably go through them a little quick. Um, I mean, you brought up earlier, you know, like look, we've all, I think, heard stories about Chevy Chase and how agreeable or not agreeable that he is with, is, has been, was, whatever, um, on his projects. We have. Yeah, we sure have. We brought it up. We have, but we have. Because it's like I don't tend to go down those rabbit holes too deeply, but it's the stories are out there. It's fine, whatever. We're just gonna cover his filmography. Um, I think I brought this up when we covered vacation. I mean, he had an incredibly strong 1980s. He was like in every other movie that came out. Yeah. So uh, I mean, this is earlier than that, but he was very early in his career in Oh Heavenly Dog. Then it's shocking to me, and we'll have to do Caddyshack. Although I can't say it's one of my favorite films from the decade.
SPEAKER_03:But Well, it's certainly better than Caddyshack 2.
SPEAKER_01:Which he's also in. Yeah. Thank you for teeing that up. Haha. Get it?
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:That was a hole in one.
SPEAKER_01:So he's in both of those. Of course, like you can't have a vacation movie without him. I can't imagine that they would ever uh recast the role in any regard. So he is they did.
SPEAKER_03:Well, but like decades later.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, it's Rusty. Rusty is the just the main character in the Helms is like the new Rusty. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Was Chase in that make?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. Yeah, he is still he's still Clark Griswold. Yeah. It's just the story is following Rusty. So he is in vacation, which we covered, European vacation, Vegas vacation, and the one that you were just alluding to, which is just called Vacation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the the one that we I don't know if we'll cover it. Maybe if we do this long enough, we'll cover 1981's modern problems.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm sorry. I think I skip that every single time.
SPEAKER_03:It is the most feverish fever dream of fever dreams that have ever been fever dreamed. Okay. It's like if you just watch a trailer for it, you're gonna be like, that's not a movie. It's just interesting. Yeah. I mean, the most normal thing about it is him getting psychic powers from driving behind a truck with toxic chemicals.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like a lot of old trailers that we see were always like, that's not a trailer. It's like before trailers were really trailers. Sometimes it's just like a clip from the movie.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's super weird. I remember seeing it, and then it was so strange that I thought like maybe like I just had imagined this movie existing, but as we've been like covering more movies with him in, we look at the it is like photography. I'm like, I think that might be it. And I watched a trailer and I'm like, holy shit, it's real. It's a real movie.
SPEAKER_01:It really happened.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Also, what really happened is that we covered Fletch.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That smooth segue uh that I just made. So um, please go check that one out. We covered that one with Steve, and he is a big Fletch fan. It's very fun to cover films, I've said before, with people who are just have a a lot of love for the movie that we're covering. So go check that out. He also, of course, returns for Fletch lives. Probably sooner than later. Because I think you've said the same thing. I would rather cover Spies Like Us than Three Amingos.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So we'd probably do that one sooner. He was in Funny Farm, Nothing But Trouble, Man of the House, Orange County. He a little bit later now in his career, he turns to television. He's on Chuck for a little bit. I mean, also early, I should kind of bookended. Um, early in his career, of course, he was on Saturday Night Live. The reason why that credit comes much later is because as far as IMDB is concerned, if you make any like appearances down the road, it shifts the timeline back to like the most current. Yes, exactly. But of course, he and I think I said this the last time we brought him up that like you know, maybe one of his more famous um roles on SNL was like him as Gerald Ford and just like the physical comedy. Although to my knowledge, Ford was not clumsy at all.
SPEAKER_03:I think he like slipped once and it just became it just became its a thing.
SPEAKER_01:So uh also community that ties into what we were saying earlier. So there's like a lot of stories around how he has been as a collaborator collaborator, I should say, on projects.
SPEAKER_03:Whether like people didn't talk about that kind of thing before, they sure do now. Like more modernly, there's like it feels like there are different expectations on people collaborating and being able to work together. Yeah. So like I I feel like a lot of the people that were on that show have all had things to say about challenges and making that show with him.
SPEAKER_01:And even earlier, I don't want to turn away, turn around my face from the mic. You totally did. I'm like, what's happening? Behind me is a book about a lot of comedians from the 70s and 80s. Yeah. And there's a lot of stories in that book about Chase and like specifically Bill Murray. The two of them did not get on. And just anyway. Anyway. Um, more recently, one of his letter credits, The Christmas Letter. Yeah. Okay. I bring that up because we have a couple other people who are in that movie as well. Beverly D'Angelo, she plays, in my estimation, the long-suffering Ellen Griswold.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, she why the fuck she put up with his shit.
SPEAKER_03:Like, why you mean Chevy Chase or Clark Griswold?
SPEAKER_01:Both. I mean, especially in this movie. I mean she she does it, I think, in all the movies where she's like trying to kind of be the voice of reason, trying to bring him back from his kind of mania that he has at times.
SPEAKER_03:Right, the fucking very beginning when he when they're like driving out in the middle of nowhere, which was not Illinois. I don't know where they were, but that was not Illinois.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, yeah, he he um consistently does like really ridiculous things.
SPEAKER_01:And she's constantly trying to be like, You sure you really want to do that? Don't you want to, you know, like trying to steer him back, and usually he disregards her. You know what? That's why look, you're gonna have an affair with Wayne Newton in Vegas vacation.
SPEAKER_03:Go for it.
SPEAKER_01:Go for it, Ellen. Okay. So D'Angelo, as far as her credits go, I mean, to me, she is most well known as Ellen Ellen Griswold, but she's definitely had a career outside of this franchise. Earlier, preceding vacation, she was in bit part, Annie Hall, Every Witch Way But Loose. Oh, yeah. Hair, the coal miner's daughter. So then she cements her role in the first National Lampoons vacation as Ellen Griswold. She is part of all the movies as well. So she has been in European vacation, Vegas Vacation, Vacation. She's also been in, do I have well later on I have some TV work, but the film's Made to Order, High Spirits, Man Trouble, Eye for an Eye. She is in American History Acts.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm pretty sure she's Ed Norton's mom.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And um T2 Kid.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Him too.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Fur Furlong? Oh, thank you, Edward Furlong. She was in Sugartown, Harold and Kumar Escape from Quantal and Moby. The House Bunny. Well, yeah, you were in that. My my movie. Yeah. The House Bunny. She's in. And then a lot of TV work. She for a while was on Entourage, Shooter, the TV series of True Lies. And then more recently, she was in the movie Summer Camp, which I think in our last episode I had said was Diane Keaton's last film. I think that that's it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. And uh it wasn't just her in this film. Her cat was also. That's her cat? And Snotz was her dog.
SPEAKER_01:No way!
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Snotz, I hate the name, but that was a good dog. It was. That was a good dog, eighty. Okay. I'm so happy that we finally get to cover Juliet Lewis because I don't know if there's gonna be another time where we'll be able to. Um she is Audrey Griswold in Christmas Vacation.
SPEAKER_03:She is in this one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:She's in this, yeah. In this one, she's Audrey Griswold. And I love Juliet Lewis. I think she's a phenomenal actress. She's done some really interesting work. Uh, I think she's I don't know. Maybe this sounds silly to some people, but I think she's a really fearless actress. Like she takes on a lot of roles where it's just a very unique kind of character that maybe even is not um a character that would come across in a positive light, but she takes on the role anyway. Like, that's even who she was most recently.
SPEAKER_03:In uh yellow jackets.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, in yellow jackets. So she she does really great work, and but she had a really strong 90s. Like she's still very, very young in this movie. Yeah. So she doesn't have a lot in the 80s. Very early in her career, she was on the TV series called I Married Dora. I guess possibly she might come up if we cover my stepmother as an alien.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's uh Akroyd and Kim Basinger.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So we could that movie is I don't know if we'll be doing it anytime soon. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We don't do TV movies, otherwise, we could do Too Young to Die question mark. And I think Is it a question? It is a question mark. Okay. Um, I think when I was going over her filmography, and I think that came up recently. Somehow we were talking about Brad Pitt, and I don't know if you remember that, like, when they both were super young, they were a couple. My guess is that they met on that project because they're both in it. Really? Yeah. Okay. So she is an Oscar nominated actress, very young. She got a best supporting actress nom for Cape Fear. So here we go. Like, these are some of the roles where I'm like, I think it was brave that she took on this work, especially as a young actress. California.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That was a good movie. Yeah. With a K. California with a K. Yeah. Romeo is bleeding. I think she's sublime. I know that's but I I can't think of a better word. And what's eating Gilbert Grape. She's great in that movie. Another, I would say, I mean, I'm sure this film elicits strong reactions from people, but Natural Born Killers. I don't care for it, but I know that some people really like it. I'm not saying I like the film, but I think that like Yeah it was like a interesting role to take on for her. Yeah. Mix Nuts, that's a Christmas movie.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. 94 though.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The Basketball Diaries, Strange Days From Dusk Till Dawn.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, she's good in that. She's um she kind of like becomes a badass in that.
SPEAKER_01:The Evening Star. She so we brought this up in the last episode because of Diane Keaton. She is the lead in The Other Sister. Oh yeah. So very different kind of role for her. Uh, The Way of the Gun. She's so funny. It's a very small role, but she's hilarious and old school.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. She's right at the beginning, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And at the very end. Yes. She runs into Will Farrell, I think, in the grocery store. Right, yeah. She's in Starske and Hutch, Whip It, The Switch, Due Date. Uh I think this came up in our in Baby Boom as well. She's in August Colin Osage Osage County.
SPEAKER_04:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And then uh oh, she's also in the film A Million Little Pieces, but a lot of TV work later on. She was in the TV series of the firm, TV series Secrets and Lies, TV series Camping, TV series Queer as Folk. Um another film in there, Ma, the horror film.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then you mentioned it a couple minutes ago. So she was, I believe her character, sorry, spoiler, dies, but she was in the first couple seasons of Yellow Jackets.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I wanted to get into that show. I watched I did too. I watched the first season for sure. And then in the second season, it was just, you know, is there some supernatural component to this? Like what what what's happening? Um, yeah, it it lost me. And and like looking up comments on like the most current seasons, it doesn't really look like it has a like good, satisfying conclusion.
SPEAKER_01:For me, I'm fine with complicated characters. I don't need there to be these like clear demarcations of like you're a good guy or you're a bad guy. Yeah. Like I like characters that have complexity, but I just did not fucking like except for Juliet Luce's character. That's maybe why I stopped watching it. Except for her, I just didn't care, didn't fucking like anybody. I just like did not care about any of these people. So that's why I dropped off because I just it really had like a ton of momentum.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, momentum, me mentioning it has killed all of momentum getting through the list of this huge cast.
SPEAKER_01:That's okay. That's my segue. Sorry. All right, let's move on. Johnny Kalucki. So he's rusty in this one. And he too was very early in his career at the time, but he's gone on to have an amazing career. I mean, he was part of the one one of the biggest shows of the last, what, 25 years?
SPEAKER_03:Um I mean, it is it is absolutely lost on me.
SPEAKER_01:Not my show, it's I can't deny that it was hugely popular.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it kept the lights on at CBS.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, exactly. So very early in his career, he was in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. We probably brought him up because he does have a little bit Part and Prancer.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We did that one with Casey and Laura. Go check out that. Uh, some TV work, American Dreamer, Billy. So we have some films. I know what you did, and now he's like kind of an adult actor, still young, but adult actor. He's not like a kid anymore. Yeah. I know what you did last summer, The Opposite of Sex, playing Mona Lisa, Bounce, Vanilla Sky, Rings. So his first big TV series when he was still a kid, although he came back later on, so that's why again the credit gets shifted down. Roseanne.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. David?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I think this is his character.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Darlene's like on again, off again little boyfriend. Yeah. And he also, he's uncredited, which I thought was interesting, but it sounds like we never really watched the Connors, but it sounds like he came back to make a couple appearances on the Connors.
SPEAKER_03:We started watching it, and then Roseanne did some shit, and I'm like, I'm just not watching this. And then they killed her off, anyways, but the momentum was gone. I'm like, I don't care.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I have nothing to say that's like rah-rah for Roseanne. Um, but the fact that she did step away from the show to allow the show to continue to allow jobs to continue. Yeah, I can appreciate that gesture. Um, so that's about as much as I can say about that.
SPEAKER_03:This is the the strangest credit, but I'm gonna give it for Mr. Golecki. He was quote, a young dater in the music video by Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band for night moves.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:So there you go. Night moves.
SPEAKER_01:And then the TV show that we I don't know why we're being so coy about it, but we were talking about the Big Bang Theory.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, I feel like everyone, it just in case.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I mean he's made so much fucking money off that he can do or not do whatever he wants for the rest of his life.
SPEAKER_03:You know what's a really horrifying experience is to watch scenes from the Big Bang Theory without the laugh track.
SPEAKER_01:Oof.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's really difficult.
SPEAKER_01:But he good for him, made his bank and probably living his best life. So, okay. So now we're moving on to do I have them all in a row? Yeah, I do. All the all the grandparents. So first we're gonna cover the two actors that play Clark's parents. The first is John Randolph. So he is Clark Griswold Sr. He passed in 2004. And apologies, we're gonna about to go through a bunch of people who have all passed on. Uh all these people though, huge careers before this movie came along. Yeah. So I one of the okay, when I was going through his filmography, I was like, ooh, I heard about this movie recently. I really want to watch it. It's called Seconds. It's kind of like a horror-ish film. Uh, it also I believe has Rock Hudson in it. It sounded fascinating. I really want to watch that at some point. Okay. He was in Sweet Love, Comma Bitter. What wait, what's it called? Sweet Love, Comma Bitter.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, comma. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know which one that is.
SPEAKER_01:Cerbico. Cerbico! Earthquake. He was on a TV series. Okay, first of all, all these people too, a ton of TV work, like sprinkled in there. As far as like series where he was on for a little bit of a longer stint, Lucas Tanner was one of them. He was, I'm guessing this was like, what, the 76 King Kong? If I have this in chronological order.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:He was on a TV series called Richie Brockleman, comma, private eye.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:The movie Heaven Can Wait, the TV series Lucan. Am I saying that right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_01:Uh Angie, another TV series. Dynasty, another TV series. He was in the film Pritzy's Honor, which will come back again for another actor. He was in the TV series Annie McGuire, the film You've Got Male, and then his final credit, Numb. Was film Numb. I mean, look, he does a great job in this film. I think the way that he plays the role, it's very clear that he's Clark's dad. Like he's just this very jovial, sweet, um old dude.
SPEAKER_03:He's got a bit more wisdom than Clark.
SPEAKER_01:He does.
SPEAKER_03:Which he tries to uh pass on after the rant that started this episode.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I mean okay, so as we're going through some of these older actors, like there are two that the it's cool to have them in the film because they're these like storied actors who have had really interesting careers. I think we could have kept it to the grandparents because then they maybe would have had more to do. But it's like it's so spread out.
SPEAKER_03:Started packing more people in and there wasn't enough time for it to do.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. And also I think that like you know, I was thinking about it when I was prepping my notes for this episode. There's not there's not a strong through line as far as the plot is concerned. It's just it's Christmas time, family's coming over. The one the one thing that I think is the through line is like Harks waiting on his bonus.
SPEAKER_03:That's a shitty through line.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But that's kind of it, right?
SPEAKER_03:I can't really think of anything stronger than that. It kind of is because what did he he's he like overextended his bank account.
SPEAKER_01:So he didn't even have$7,500 in his bank account.
SPEAKER_03:That would be the equivalent of about$20,000 today. Just under$20,000, but still.
SPEAKER_01:Still.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it's pretty reckless in my I mean, where are the kids' college funds?
SPEAKER_03:No idea. Those kids aren't going to college.
SPEAKER_01:So I'll just say, like, I think he is like a sweet character. And you're right, I do really like the moment he has with Clark after his outburst, but that's about it as far as that character is concerned. You know, like he's like very um optimistic, like when Clark's getting really frustrated with the lights and all that kind of stuff. Like this movie's made up of bits.
SPEAKER_03:I yeah, I don't think they wanted, I don't think there was any interest in like really fleshing out these characters. They just it was like the supportive parents and then the not supportive in laws. Right. For for Clark.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Right, yeah. Exactly. So there you go. Okay, so moving on to Clark's mother, played by Diane Ladd, uh Nora Griswold is her name, and she just passed away. Um, as of this recording this month. She passed away on November 3rd. Uh she was Laura Dern's mother. She was, I don't think they were together when she passed Bruce Dern's former partner. Um yeah, she had an amazing career. Multi-Oscar nominated actress. And over the course of her career, we have Chinatown. I think you brought that up at some point, right?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I mentioned it because she's in Chinatown, and there's another name that you'll bring up that was the voice of Betty Boob.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, sure.
SPEAKER_03:In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was described as a parody of Chinatown. I think there are some common themes, but I wouldn't call it a parody.
SPEAKER_01:I could see that it was like there was some inspiration drawn from Chinatown. But she got her first, so all of her Oscar noms are for Best Supporting Actress. She got her first nomination for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Then she was on the TV series Alice. She was in the film Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I think we could cover. I think that's an 80s film.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've I've that's a um Ray Bradbury story turned movie. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:She starred with her daughter, Laura Durin, a few times because she got Best Supporting Actress for or the nomination for Wild at Heart. She got another Oscar nom for Rambling Rose. She um most I have, I mean, she did do a lot of TV work, but I have mostly films that I wrote down for her. The Cemetery Club, Ghosts of Mississippi, Primary Colors, 28 Days. Not the horror film, 20 Days Later. Oh. But the one with Sandra Bullock. Son of a, okay. Umniest things I ever saw, though, was somebody putting together 28 days, 28 days later, and I think like, what was it, 28 weeks later or something? And like, this is the weirdest trilogy ever. I thought that was so funny. She was in the TV series Kingdom Hospital, and then her final credit was a film called Isle of Hope. Okay. So those were Clark's parents, and then we have, as you mentioned, his in-laws. So Ellen's parents. Uh Ellen, apparently, her maiden name is Smith. Her father is Art Smith, played by E.G. Marshall. He passed in 1998. Again, these people, they had tremendous careers before this film came along. I have mostly movies for him. The Cain Mutiny, The Silver Chalice, The Left Hand of God, Twelve Angry Men.
SPEAKER_03:The Left Hand of God. Is God left-handed?
SPEAKER_01:No, but they always I thought that so I put that one in because they always talk about like standing at the right hand of God. Oh. Like left hand, like the left hand is always gets the shaft.
SPEAKER_02:Rude.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, rude. So I thought it was interesting to have a film called The Left Hand of God. Man on Fire, Torah Torah Torah. He was on the TV series The Bold Ones, Colin, The New Doctors. Okay. He was in the film Interiors, Superman 2, Creep Show. Oh. Which maybe we'll do next season. The TV series Chicago Hope and the film Nixon. I mean, as far as his character goes, we just get a lot of like stank face from him.
SPEAKER_03:Very classic uh father-in-law kind of stuff. Yeah. Like when the lights don't work, he's kind of like giving him grief about that. When they do work, he mentions that some of them aren't blinking.
SPEAKER_01:He's like, they're not twinkling.
SPEAKER_03:They're not twinkling, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Which is funny. Yeah. But he I mean, I guess I appreciate that he took the role, but there's not a lot that he does in the movie. It's good work if you can find it. Sure, sure. I mean, same thing even with um Diane Ladd, that she like she's just like a sweet, sweet mom. And but she there's not a lot that she does. Um, which again, like the cast is so huge that I think if it was a little bit more contained, I know that that cuts down on like the chaos of having so many people over for Christmas, but then there'd be more for them to do.
SPEAKER_03:I think we've spent more time talking about their filmographies than they spent time doing anything in the movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, exactly. That's yep, that's exactly my point. Okay, moving on to Doris Roberts. She plays Frances Smith, so she's Ellen's mother. She has passed as well as she passed in 2016. And actually, really similar to John Nikoluckey, like she had an amazing career, but there's like one role in particular that I think probably most people know her from. Before we get to that, she and also one thing I should note.
SPEAKER_03:I think we're about to hit a commercial or something. Before we get to that, a word from our sponsor.
SPEAKER_01:I just wanted to say that I think she did a lot of stage work before she transitioned into like film and television. Oh, okay. So she had, and none of that stuff's really represented in on IMDb. So I'll just say, um, I have like a more contained filmography for her, but that doesn't mean that she did less. She just did less that isn't reflected on IMDB. So she was in The Little Murders, The Heartbreak Kid, The Rose. She also was on the TV series Angie. She was on the TV series Remington Steel. Wow. Fun. I always think that's a fun name. She was in the film Used People, the TV series Dream On, the film My Giant. So over the course of her career, she did do a lot of TV work, but one role that I think everybody knows her from is the mom slash grandma in Everybody Loves Raymond.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I never even watched the show, but I remember her from just commercials of the show.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So she is Raymond's mother. She plays a really similar character, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Where she's just like can never really be satisfied. She's always a little grumpy. Um yeah, and that's kind of what she is in this film, too. And again, doesn't get a lot to do. So those are the grandparents.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, moving on to the cousins. Starting with Randy Quaid, he returns. So, to my knowledge, those grandparents, that's the first time we've seen the grandparents in this franchise.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01:But we have seen cousin Eddie before. So he's in the first film, he returns for this cuddy cousin Eddie Johnson.
SPEAKER_03:And he was um his absence was like Hughes thought maybe the reason that European vacation didn't do as well was because that character wasn't in it. So he's like, we'll have him back in for Christmas vacation, but it's gotta be this guy. It's gotta be Quaid. And he was like, Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean But was that was that the reason? No, no, it wasn't. I mean, in my humble opinion, like, look, he's he was an interesting character in the first film. He has too much in this movie.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:There's too much cousin Eddie. It's it's a joke that plays itself out far too quickly. I agree.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, but that's neither here nor there, because it is what it is. Uh Randy Quaid's career, he's had uh, I mean, he's an Oscar nominated actor. Won't go down the rabbit hole. He's had kind of an interesting later part of his life. Uh so I don't know, although he was in something quite recently. Among his credits, we have The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc. So he He was in The Last Picture Show? Yeah, I don't remember who he would have been. Oh. But he certainly seemed to have a relationship with Peter Bogdanovich because he's in like all his early movies.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So he's in What's Up, Doc, Paper Moon. He gets his best supporting Oscar, not uh it's a lot to say, best supporting actor Oscar nomination for The Last Detail. He is in the Missouri Breaks, Midnight Express.
SPEAKER_04:Oof.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. He is, like I said, in the first vacation movie. He also returns for Vegas vacation. He's in the Wraith, which we could do. Yeah. He's in Kevy Shack 2. Parents, Days of Thunder. Uh, he has had a couple stints on SNL. He was on a TV show called Davis Rules, but I mostly have films for him. The Paper, Independence Day. That's probably besides this role, this character, I would say what most people know him from.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I remember him from flying a jet up into an alien spaceship.
SPEAKER_01:Or maybe King Penn.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, maybe some people King Pen's interesting because he had like as much of a leading role in that as any as any movie I can think of him being in.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So that one too. Yeah. Not another teen movie. He's in Brokeback Mountain. And then more recently he reteams with Chase for The Christmas Letter. Alright. Okay, moving on to Cousin Catherine Johnson, played by Miriam Flynn. We brought her up, not well, we brought her up for vac for vacation, but I like her more subdued role in Mr. Mom. She's one of the neighbors. She's really fun in that. Very early in her career, she was, and I think I said this last time, she was on a TV show called Maggie. I think she was the titular character of Maggie. She too returns for Vegas Vacation. She's in for keeps, Stealing Home. She's done a lot of voice work. Uh, we'll get to the like queen of voice work in a minute, but she voiced on a TV series called Tasmania, as well as the spectacular new adventures of Casper, as well as Chalk Zone. So that's all voice work. She was in the film Waiting for Guffman, Evolution, the TV series Grounded for Life, Call Me Cat, and then just beyond these roles, just a lot of TV appearances. Okay. So okay. So we are stepping outside of the Griswold family for just a moment to talk about their neighbors.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Talk about long suffering.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:They make them seem intolerable, but honestly, I'm fully on their side.
SPEAKER_03:They they may be assholes, but they're just living their lives.
SPEAKER_01:They're just living their lives. Trying to live in their home. I'm sorry, Clark's a terrible neighbor. He really is. He's a fucking terrible neighbor. Like.
SPEAKER_03:What a sigh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because like when they come home and the guy's like, you know, what are you gonna do with that tree? And he's like, Why don't you bend over and I'll show you? And he's like, How dare you say that to me? He's like, I wasn't talking to you. I mean, like, that's that's a really fucking aggressive thing to say.
SPEAKER_03:It really is.
SPEAKER_01:And she hadn't even done anything. She was just literally standing there and he makes that statement towards her. Yeah. Um, we'll get to her in a second. But Nicholas Guest is the guy in the couple, Todd Chester is the character name. This is his uh two first names. What?
SPEAKER_03:Two first names.
SPEAKER_01:Two first names. I don't think I've ever met anybody named Chester before, though.
SPEAKER_03:I haven't, but I I recognize it as likely a first name.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. So he he's still working, he does a lot of voice work as well. Um, a lot of TV work, but he very early in his career, he actually was in Star Trek 2, The Ratha Khan.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was a cadet.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we probably didn't bring him up. But go check out that episode.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We did that one with Owen. He, same thing, probably didn't come up, but he was in Trading Places. He was in a couple films that we've covered. Cloak and Dagger. Oh shit. He's the taxi driver. Okay. Yeah. So he did that one just this season. Yeah, isn't that fun? He was in the Joy Luck Club, a TV series called USA High, another TV series, uh, Roughnecks, Cone, the Starship Troopers Chronicles. Oh. I guess this was my guess is a spin-off of the 1999 film. He's in the TV series The Mummy.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm.
SPEAKER_01:As well as Sons of Anarchy. And like I said, uh, besides being in front of the camera, he does a lot of voice work.
SPEAKER_03:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:I I was gonna say behind the camera, it's not really behind the camera, but it's not really in front of the camera. Anyway. Yeah. In front of the mic, I don't know. In front of the mic. Okay. Moving on to uh, I'm so glad we finally get to talk about her. Cause this is well, maybe there's one more chance. Julia Louis Dreyfus. That's right. She is Margot. Yeah. Margot Chester in this movie. Love, love, love her so much. Um, very similar to Doris Roberts and Johnny Galecki. She's known for a lot, but there's one role in particular that probably most people know her from. Uh as far as her filmography goes, I mean, mostly TV, to be quite honest. But very early on. So I was gonna say maybe at some point we'll do Hannah and her sisters.
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna say, we're absolutely not doing Soul Man.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_03:No.
SPEAKER_01:But that is one of her credits. Sure is. Day by day, the TV series, Deconstructing Harry. So, uh, while she's done a ton of work past Seinfeld, probably still to this day. My guess is that most people know her as Elaine from Seinfeld.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So she was also on the TV series watching Ellie. She's she was early in her career on SNL. So we have a lot of SNL alums um in this film. The I I did watch this for a minute and liked it. The New Adventures of Old Christine.
SPEAKER_03:88 episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was on for for a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:She is phenomenal in Veep.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:She's so fucking good. I was never really a Seinfeld person, but I love her in Veeep.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, she's very different. It's a very different.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But I just love her. I'll just say, like, most people associate her with Seinfeld. I more so associate her with Veep.
SPEAKER_03:Her her character in the Marvel movies.
SPEAKER_01:And that was my last set of credits for her.
SPEAKER_03:It feels a lot more like Veep.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like because she's like kind of a baddie, right?
SPEAKER_03:In a yeah, in this government role. So it just feels like uh what's her name? Selena Myers. Yeah. Gone bad.
SPEAKER_01:Gone bad.
SPEAKER_03:Um Selina Meyer, no, no S. Meyer.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So yes, to your point, she was in Black Widow, Black Panther, Colin Wakanda Forever, and Thunderbolts. Yeah. Same character.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, she had a pretty, pretty big role in Thunderbolts, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Moving on to uh Clark's boss, Frank Shirley, played by Brian Doyle Murray, so of the Murray family, of which Bill is probably the most famous. And I mean, his career, if you look at his filmography, it's kind of funny. I mean, he's very much in the world of like he's had roles in like his brother's movies, like mostly comedy, whether or not Bill Murray was part of it. Um, with some some notable exceptions. He was in Caddyshack. He was uh bit parts, um, National Lampoons Vacation.
SPEAKER_03:He uh was at the um one of the like motel or hotels that they stopped by. Yes. So it's funny that like he really like moved up in the world by getting whatever promotion or switching careers to become like the the CEO or like bot big boss at Clark's company.
SPEAKER_01:That is funny that they brought him back for the same franchise as a different character. Yeah, yeah. He was in Sixteen Candles, The Razor's Edge, so that's a very different kind of movie. Legal Eagles, Scrooged, yeah, Ghostbusters 2, another different kind of movie outside of his comedy work, JFK, Wayne's World. He was on the TV show Get a Life.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was he He's done a ton. That show was so weird. It was like Chris Elliott living with his parents as like an adult paper delivery boy, and I think Murray was his dad.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. Okay. He's in the film Groundhog Day, TV series Bakersfield PD. Wow. The film Waiting for Guffman, as well as the film As Good as It Gets. He was on the TV series Yes Dear. The TV series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I put this in for you.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I know what it is.
SPEAKER_01:What is it?
SPEAKER_03:He was in one episode of Supernatural.
SPEAKER_01:There you go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Do you know which episode?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I don't.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:No. I don't expect you to know by memory all 15 years worth of episodes. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. But you know a lot. Uh Sullivan and Son, that's TV show, The Middle, Lodge 49, and then he too is in the film The Christmas Letter. So he reteams with Quaid and um Chase. Okay. Okay, last two people. Sorry. Huge cast. I think I have 15 people who are who are credited or that we are talking about in this episode. William Hickey. So what what exactly is the relationship of these two people? Are they like the great aunt and great uncle? I don't know. I think I think that's what they were going for. Okay. Yeah. Because they're even older than the grandparents.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I'm not. Although trying to think. So it would probably be on Clark's side of the family. Maybe. I don't know. I don't anyway. So Lewis is the gentleman. He passed in 97. And he's the one, I mean, he has a very distinctive voice. And there's this one role in particular that everybody's like, oh my God, that's him.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. I agree. I know which one it is. Not gonna say it, but yes.
SPEAKER_01:So very distinctive voice. He's real craggly in this film. He's just mostly towards his wife, I presume, Bethany, is the character.
SPEAKER_03:Because she's like kind of this, like not really aware, barely aware of what's going on around him.
SPEAKER_01:Barely lucid. Yeah. It's played as a joke. I don't know if it's really that funny. Um, but he's he's very like just snippy with everybody, but especially her. Uh as far as his career goes, I mean, he had a career long before this film, but I actually have a ton of films from like very much later in his career. He gets a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for Pritzzy's Honor. So he's in that film.
SPEAKER_03:We could we could cover that. We could at least one other movie that I'm sure we will cover at one point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there are a couple. Yeah. Um, I mean, I know that Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins, has come up a couple times.
SPEAKER_03:It's a movie where I feel in my in my soul that when I watch it, I'm gonna realize how poorly it's aged, and yet I'm still gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I'm guessing the film you're referring to is One Crazy Summer.
SPEAKER_03:No, it was Rema Williams.
SPEAKER_01:It was really okay. There you go. Uh, as well as the name of the Rose. So there's a couple films that we could do. Pink Cadillac, My Blue Heaven. Here we go. So for an entire generation of people, he will forever be known as Dr. Finkelstein.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. From Nightmare Before Christmas. There you go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that's him. Uh, he was in the Jerky Boys and Major Pain.
SPEAKER_03:He was in the Jerky Boys. Yeah. Was that a movie?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:They did a jerky boys movie? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:What the fuck?
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, final credit. Final credit that we're covering.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. I know who we got.
SPEAKER_01:Bethany. So Lewis's wife played by Mae Questel. Do you think I'm saying that right? Questel? Just Questel.
SPEAKER_03:I wish I knew for sure, but let's go with that.
SPEAKER_01:She should be remembered. Like, the only reason why I was like, okay, I don't want to cut these people. I was very close to, but I was like, I want to bring up the fact that he was Dr. Finkelstein. And then I wanted to bring up for her, first of all, go to her filmography. 414 acting credits.
SPEAKER_03:That's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:She has passed as well. She passed a year after William Hinky. Um, she passed in 1998. But if you go through her credits in part the reason why okay, so much voice work. Yes, almost entirely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it and just like it's it's insane.
SPEAKER_01:And also just the type of entertainment back then. In a weird way, we've kind of circled back because a lot of shorts, shorts as primarily Betty Boop.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And olive oil.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So she was the original voice of these two iconic characters. And if you go through, like probably a good, I don't know, probably more than 350 credits belong to these two characters. And her credits date back to like 1930. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So it almost a hundred years.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't that amazing? So that is an amazing claim to fame for her. She and you can hear it. You can hear it in this character. Absolutely. Oh, that's Betty Boop. More so than I would say Olive Oil, but for sure Betty Boop. Um, but beyond her being these two iconic characters for most of her career, um, she also in front of the camera was in the film It's Only Money, Funny Girl, and the TV series Somerset. Okay. Whew. That's a lot. That might be the record for the number of people we've covered. Uh film synopsis.
SPEAKER_03:Clark Griswold wants a pool.
SPEAKER_01:Also, the Griswall family's plans for a big family Christmas predictably turn into a big disaster.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. There's there's really no story, so it's fine if the synopsis offers no story.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And like, look, it's fine, but it I was thinking about that a lot coming into this recording. Just like, what is the story here? And in a way, like it was the first time I kind of put it together. We were talking about it, I guess while we were watching it. I was like, oh, I can see a lot of similarities with vacation, and that there's this like expectation that Clark has. So in vacation, it's like they're gonna go to Wally World. And in this film, is he's gonna get this huge bonus so he can have a pool for his family.
SPEAKER_03:It's also like the the um the pool and the bonus is something to get us to an ending. Yeah. Because he also just wants to have like the Griswold family Christmas. And so in the same way that he had this like idealized picture of what the vacation would be, he also had this like unrealistic expectation for Christmas.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that is definitely a through line with this character of just unrealistic expectations.
SPEAKER_03:But with like the vacation movie, the first vacation movie, well, cool. We'll just not even have the park open.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so for this, like the whole bonus thing, I feel like they they focused on it maybe a bit too much at times, although it gave us it gave us like an opportunity to see his coworker, who's like the one guy that we didn't mention, but was like the really scummy guy in Raising Arizona.
SPEAKER_01:But he's actually a good guy in this nice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was a decent guy. He's like, I'm sure you'll get it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's it's kind of a throwaway role for him. He I wish he had he that again, if they if we had just like kind of cut down overall on the cast, the people who stayed around could have done more.
SPEAKER_03:You know, if we had just taken the uh sledding scene and maybe shaved like 10 minutes off of that.
SPEAKER_01:Because I didn't even bring up the kids, Eddie and um what's her faces, like the kids in the film. Like I had to make some cuts somewhere. Um, otherwise it'd be going on forever. But um, yeah, I mean, the only thing that I actually kind of got out of the whole bonus storyline is when Eddie kidnaps Shirley and brings him to the house. First of all, the one redeeming thing that Eddie does in its own weird, twisted way.
SPEAKER_03:And at the end of the clip that we started the episode with, it cuts to Eddie with this look on his face. We were like, oh yeah, we kind of know what he's gonna do now. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So I do appreciate that he tried to do something in his own weird warped head, he wanted to do something nice for Clark. Yeah. So he kidnaps his boss. Um, but I do appreciate that at the end of the film, I mean, it's very timely to this day, you know, Clark is saying to him, like, look, if you don't want to give bonuses, that's fine. But if you have run a company where people have come to rely on their bonus as a significant part of their uh income, and then you cut that, like that's that's shitty. Yeah. So I actually appreciated that one moment in the film. I'm not saying that I hate this movie, it's just that I wish that there was something that like kind of anchored it a little bit better.
SPEAKER_03:I like how his wife was like, you piece of shit when she found out that that's what he had done with the bonuses.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that his wife called them out too. Yeah. Um, so I did appreciate that a lot. I mean, Clark is still extremely reckless with his money. I mean, it seems like he makes a good living. So I'm like, why do you have no money in the bank? Like, why did you uh overextend yourself to put down a deposit on this pool? And for and also don't don't get an in-ground pool in Illinois. Yeah, what? Don't do it.
SPEAKER_03:That that seems that seems uh like just looking for problems.
SPEAKER_01:But that does take me to the um I was gonna say hallucination, but the fantasy scene where he's fantasizing about that chick that he saw at the mall.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that is like seems to be a direct rip-off of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, I would guess.
SPEAKER_02:It had to have been.
SPEAKER_01:Even with the same color bathing suit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I thought that was kind of interesting that they ripped that off. Um, but yeah, it, you know, it's the series of, like I said, little bits, whether it's like the cat getting electrocuted or um you know, Lewis burning down the tree with his cigar, or Eddie pumping out human waste into the story, you know, like it's all these like little bits, but they're not really a story that come together. So as far as like this film goes, like I can't say that it's one of my like favorite holiday films, but there is a familiarity and a nostalgia about it that like it's always gonna be on at some point over the holidays.
SPEAKER_03:Nice thing about the story that you mentioned is that you can literally turn it on at any point. Yes, yeah, and it's like, all right, you don't you're I haven't missed anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, actually, this is a weird um comparison, but somebody, because I don't know, every it's so stupid when they do this stuff. Like people rating the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, which was just on They rate it, or you know, like, oh, it was a good parade or it was a terrible parade. Who cares?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I I've never it never even occurred to me to like give my two cents on what I thought of the parade, but people do it.
SPEAKER_03:And I had the tension on this year's parade because of the uh K-pop Demon Hunter's performance.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, interesting. That's that's I think in large part why the ratings were through the roof for um but I I saw a comment on some article where somebody was saying, like, who who the fuck sits down and just watches the parade from start to finish? They're like, it's one of those shows where it's like you have it on in the background as you're like getting your Thanksgiving meal together or you're doing stuff with family, or you're doing other things. I was like, and that's exactly what this movie is.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, no, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine putting on the parade and just like sitting down and watching the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like it makes me so happy because look, I love Thanksgiving Day, and I'm sorry to take this away from Christmas, but like it is not something that I'm just like sitting down and putting my full attention towards. And if I'm being really honest, that's how I feel about this movie as well. Like, this was the first time in ages that I sat down and tried to just keep my focus on the film.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, it it really has no like, like you said, like no through line or story. It's just kind of like watching these individual like comedy bits, but it actually moved quicker than I expected.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's a tight film. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of people who love this film, and this is one of their top holiday films. I'm not trying to talk anybody out of that. Um the comedy, this type of comedy has never been like what I gravitate towards, but who cares? Like, if other people love it, that's great.
SPEAKER_03:I have nothing to say to that.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, where do you fall on it as far as like your holiday films?
SPEAKER_03:The the beginning like really annoys me, but once they actually get past the him driving under the semi the logging truck, um, and having the altercation with like the rednecks and the old beat up truck, from that point forward, I'm like, okay, it's not like I can have it on and just kind of like have it in the background. That's but yeah. It's like my favorite vacation movie is probably Vegas Vacation because it just is crazy. You do seem to really like that one. Yeah, and it's not because it's a fantastic, amazing movie, it's just my favorite of the bunch. Like I can't imagine a movie that would replace the uh European vacation on my bottom of the list.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. One thing that this is such a random thing to call out, but one thing that I do really appreciate about this movie is um when Audrey's in the kitchen with Ellen, and Audrey's like complaining about having to sleep in the same bedroom as Rusty, and Ellen is trying to find a pack of cigarettes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And she does, but literally the second she lights up a cigarette, I think it might be her own mother who calls out and she's like, Are you smoking again? And she's like, No. And to alleviate her frustration, she just like puts a knife through a head of lettuce. And the head of lettuce is iceberg lettuce. I was like, Oh, that's very Midwestern. That they're preparing a salad with like iceberg lettuce. That felt very appropriate to the Midwest. So I thought that was kind of funny.
SPEAKER_03:They so just going back real quick to uh Clark and the pool and the not rip-off, but homage, we'll say to Fast Times. That um that individual that was Nicolette Scorsese. No way. And I think they had thought about getting Christine Brink, Christy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But they they didn't for whatever reason, so they got Nicolette Scorsese. No relation. No relation to Martin Scorsese.
SPEAKER_01:That's so funny.
SPEAKER_03:But but yeah, that that's the name.
SPEAKER_01:That's really funny. Is she she looked a little different? Is it the same person that is in the mall? Is it that she just looked a little different in a bathing suit? I guess. I think it's the same.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So call to action. I mean, I'm very curious.
SPEAKER_03:Do you love this movie as much as we do?
SPEAKER_01:I I do want to know where it ranks for people as far as like their holiday movies. I lean a little bit more into the classics, like It's Wonderful Life and White Christmas. Those aren't perfect movies either. But I I'm really curious where people stand with this film. I think you really have to want to enjoy the Chevy Chase brand of humor to have this be a beloved movie for you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that that's fair, because that's what it is. And that's even like what John Hughes said at one point is that the vacation movies are just like a vehicle for Chevy Chase.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:So if you like his style of humor and and you like him as a performer, then you're probably gonna like this. Or if you just like grew up with these movies and there's that nostalgia factor. Yep. I mean, that probably weighs in for me. Why like I don't mind having on in the background. I laugh at certain moments and I ask why certain other moments even happen in the first because it seems like very like w why? Why is this even happening?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you know what? One thing I want to bring up too, probably my favorite scene is when Clark is talking to the little girl.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. And she's like talking about how they don't get presents.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I actually do like that, if there's any moment in this entire movie that moves me emotionally, it's that that scene where she's talking about how they don't get presents and they're afraid that they're not gonna get presents again this year, and she kind of thinks that Clark might be Santa, and he keeps telling her that he's not. Like it's it's a very sweet scene. Like, I like when Chase is actually playing it kind of straight.
SPEAKER_03:It's a complicated movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But I like I like the way he engages with her. Yeah. Um, and like, because what did she say? She swears, and he's like, he's like, hey, be careful what you say. And she like still says fucking, but instead of like sticks, she said stones or something like that. It's very funny. And he's just like, okay. Um, so so there are there are some very heartwarming moments in the film. I'm not, I'm not at all an asayer on this movie. But if you want to get in touch with us, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach out through Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky. It's the same handle at all three. It is at 80smontage pod and 80s is 80S. Well, this was the season finale, season six.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there is no sneak peek for now.
SPEAKER_03:No, we gotta figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:We gotta figure it we gotta figure that out. You already know, I bet, but we're gonna I don't know if I have a set list, but you know, it's percolating. Remo Williams coming up next. Coming up next. What I will say, because I only do this a couple times a year, is just first of all, thank you to everybody uh for making the choice to want to sit down and listen to us when you have so many choices out there. And if you do enjoy listening to the show, if you would like to give us a complimentary rating, we'd really appreciate it. It does help with algorithms and all that good stuff to help other people find the show. But regardless, just thank you so much to everybody out there. I hope that everybody's having a great holiday season. Wishing you all a fantastic, healthy, joyful 2026 ahead. And we will talk to you again in two weeks' time with the opening of season seven.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you got like really intense.
SPEAKER_01:Bye, everybody, happy holidays.