Tagged: Clark Griswold
Clark Griswold’s Christmas Tree-Hunting Parka and Sweater
Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Vitals
Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold Jr., festive family man and food additive executive
Chicago*, December 1989
Film: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Release Date: December 1, 1989
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Let’s officially launch the Christmas season and continue this winter’s Car Week with the Griswold family in their “ol’ front-wheel-drive sleigh” in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, released 36 years ago today on December 1, 1989!
After the first two films took the Griswolds traveling across the United States and Europe, the family spends the holidays at home, where “the last true family man” Clark (Chevy Chase) and his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) are trying to spread yuletide cheer to their kids Audrey (Juliette Lewis) and Rusty (Johnny Galecki) with a snowy Saturday afternoon trek into the most mountainous region of rural Illinois* in search of “that most important of Christmas symbols.”
Audrey: We’re not driving all the way out here so you can get one of those stupid ties with the Santa Clauses on it, are we Dad?
Clark: No, I have one of those at home.
Rather than neckwear, the family is embracing the frosty majesty of the winter landscape to find the perfect tree that will anchor the “fun, old-fashioned family Christmas” envisioned by Clark, foregoing the pre-cut trees offered in Jolly Jerry’s lot to chop one down himself… despite forgetting a saw. Continue reading
Clark Griswold’s Christmas Eve Cardigan
Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Vitals
Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold Jr., food additive executive and “last true family man”
Chicago, Christmas Eve 1989
Film: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Release Date: December 1, 1989
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Merry Christmas! Now a perennial holiday classic, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was released 35 years ago this month in December 1989 as the third installment to feature Chevy Chase as the hapless head of the Griswold family.
After zany misadventures on an American road trip and a European vacation, Clark clings to his idealistic hope for a “fun, old-fashioned family Christmas,” which somehow means inviting both his and his wife’s sets of parents to stay with them for more than a week leading up to the actual holiday. In the meantime, Clark is eager to surprise his family with the news that he placed a down payment on a swimming pool… a payment he’ll be able to cover as soon as he receives his company’s usual holiday bonus.
(For modern readers, a “holiday bonus” is a monetary payment that employers used to give to their employees at the end of each year. In the late 1980s when Christmas Vacation was made, this often amounted to several thousand dollars; for most employees today, this may take the form of a branded reusable water bottle, already-obsolete Bluetooth earbuds, or simply not being fired.)
Inspired by producer and co-writer John Hughes’ semi-autobiographical short story “Christmas ’59”, the festivities culminate on Christmas Eve as both sides of Clark and Ellen’s families gather at the over-illuminated Griswold home for an over-cooked turkey dinner, a surprise rodent guest, and the family’s first kidnapping. Happy holidays!
Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vacation
Chevy Chase with Anthony Michael Hall, Beverly D’Angelo, and Dana Barron in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)
Vitals
Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold, Jr., hapless family man
Chicago to Los Angeles, Summer 1982
Film: National Lampoon’s Vacation
Release Date: July 29, 1983
Director: Harold Ramis
Men’s Costumer: Robert Harris Jr.
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Why aren’t we flying? Because getting there is half the fun, you know that!
Today is the 40th anniversary of the release National Lampoon’s Vacation, a comedy classic celebrating the great American tradition of the family summer road trip. Inspired by John Hughes’ short story “Vacation ’58” about a fictitious cross-country trip to Disneyland in a lemony station wagon that ends with our protagonist’s Dad shooting Walt Disney in the leg, Vacation introduced audiences to Clark W. Griswold, Jr., a well-intended family man who regularly goes disastrously above and beyond expectations to attempt to create memorable experiences for his family.
National Lampoon’s Vacation sends the Griswold family toward the fictional southern California destination of Walley World, a thinly veiled nomen à clef of Disneyland, though filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valenica. Clark packs his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and their children Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron) into a clunky conglomeration of American automotive excess for a nightmarish family vacation from the Windy City to Walley World that Clark eventually describes to Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken) as “two weeks of living hell.” Continue reading