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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret history and little known details behind your

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Speaker 1: favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more. We are your

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Speaker 1: Roy Wally's of way out pop culture stories. You're Marty

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Speaker 1: Moose's of Minutia, your Queen Wagon Family Trucksters of trivia.

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Speaker 1: You're Flashy Ferrari driving females of facts. My name is

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Speaker 1: Jordan run Togg.

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Speaker 2: You put so much more effort into these than I do.

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Speaker 2: At this point, I feel like I'm just coming home

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Speaker 2: and staring at you dead eyed across a long dining

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Speaker 2: room table, and not talking about my day at work,

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Speaker 2: and then not contributing to the household chores, and just

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Speaker 2: going to bed without saying a single word to you

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Speaker 2: or make an eye contact. Like a John Cheever short story.

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Speaker 2: The two of us are.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Heigel, and what a perfect amble to today's episode.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about the movie that taught me how

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Speaker 1: to be a dad. I'm Not a Dad theoretically, a

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Speaker 1: movie that managed to become a beloved classic despite the

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Speaker 1: presence of a dead dog and a dead grandma. A

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Speaker 1: movie that is so hilariously misanthropic that we can't help

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Speaker 1: but recognize at least a tiny part of ourselves. We

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Speaker 1: are talking about National Lampoons Vacation. For me, this is

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Speaker 1: one of those comedies where I can recite probably conservatively

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Speaker 1: two thirds of it by heart, and I never remember

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Speaker 1: actually sitting down and watching this for the first time.

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Speaker 1: It was just something that I absorbed through endless TV

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Speaker 1: viewings and maybe the occasional movie rental, which was always

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Speaker 1: a fun surprise because it had the nastier jokes and

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Speaker 1: more swearing that didn't make the cut for broadcasts, so

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Speaker 1: that was always fun. We all know the story. An overworked,

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Speaker 1: slightly neglectful dad uses his two weeks of summer vacation

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Speaker 1: time to make up for a year's worth of absentee

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Speaker 1: parenting by treating his kids to a road trip to

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Speaker 1: Wally World. Litany of disasters ensue, costing the man his sanity,

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Speaker 1: His optimism veers into psychotic intensity, and finally madness as

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Speaker 1: he hijacks a theme park to show his kids a

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Speaker 1: good time. It's an undeniably mean movie, but it redeems

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Speaker 1: itself not only by being hilarious but also making us

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Speaker 1: feel a little bit better about our own families. And

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Speaker 1: obviously it's deliciously eighties with it's John Hughes Penn's script,

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Speaker 1: Lindsey Buckingham Penn theme tune, Chevy Chase as a leading man,

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Speaker 1: and Christy Brinkley is the dream girl. But there's something

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Speaker 1: timeless about how seriously Clark w Griswold takes himself and

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Speaker 1: this trip. It is, as he says in the movie

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Speaker 1: A Quest for Fun, It's Ahab and his white whale,

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Speaker 1: It's Don Quixote and his windmills. And yet there's something

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Speaker 1: tragic but endlessly hilarious about watching this man trying way

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Speaker 1: too hard, only to repeatedly get knocked back again and again.

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Speaker 1: But he does it because he wants so badly to connect.

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Speaker 1: We've all had that moment where we're trying so hard

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Speaker 1: to deliver with all this self created pressure, and it's

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Speaker 1: just not happening. I think there's more of Clark and

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Speaker 1: all of us that we care to admit. Heigel, what

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Speaker 1: do you think about this movie? Oh? I love it.

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Speaker 2: I mean this is one of the old time I

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Speaker 2: had some older cousins, Aunta and Beth. This was one

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Speaker 2: of their favorites and I mean, we just watched it

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Speaker 2: a lot, and I, as a kid, I never caught

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Speaker 2: on to how mean it was because it just seemed

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Speaker 2: like it kind of seemed like the way that families

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Speaker 2: were supposed to be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And then also, you know, my my family and

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Speaker 2: I once went from Pennsylvania where I grew up to

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Speaker 2: Disney World on a long road trip with detours through Savannah,

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Speaker 2: Georgia and some other places. And so I have a

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Speaker 2: very I've never heard I have a very uh yeah,

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Speaker 2: my sister's cherished memory of it that she always talks

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Speaker 2: about is one night when my folks had already gone

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Speaker 2: to sleep, we like watched Rocky horror or not sorry,

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Speaker 2: Rocky four when my y quite the Freudian slip. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we watched Rocky four on like a hotel TV one

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Speaker 2: night and I had just read Midnight in the Garden

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Speaker 2: of Good and even so I was insufferable as a

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Speaker 2: as a child. But I mean for so many reasons,

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Speaker 2: but also because of that, and yeah, so the whole.

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Speaker 1: Road trip think.

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Speaker 2: And also dude Harold ramis Man, I mean, yeah, that

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Speaker 2: dude has a crazy high batting average. Caddy shat vacation,

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Speaker 2: Groundhog Day, I mean like one of those pros. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but I mean I would put like groundhog Day is

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Speaker 2: like a perfect film, you know. And then and then

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Speaker 2: even into I realized that, like you know, later he

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Speaker 2: did analyze this and Bedazzle and those are those pretty

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Speaker 2: competent like studio comedies, and like, as time goes on

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Speaker 2: and we get into this more horrifying sludge gray sludge

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Speaker 2: content of all the streamers and all this be you know,

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Speaker 2: and that just happened comedy, like low rent bad comedy writing,

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Speaker 2: you realize how even something like Analyze this, You're like,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, this was like head and shoulders above

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Speaker 2: this stuff that is being produced now like twenty years later. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Ramus is great, and it weaponizes Chevy Chase's like every

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Speaker 2: man and also like venomous scorn in a synergy that

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Speaker 2: I don't think has ever been replicated. Like I don't

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Speaker 2: I'm hard pressed to think of any other role because

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Speaker 2: even in Caddyshack, he's just kind of doing the grouchow

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Speaker 2: Marx thing where he just like strolls through the film

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Speaker 2: just riffing, and the whole film like bends around him.

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Speaker 2: But this movie really synthesizes the essence of him being like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that looks like a dad that I would see somewhere.

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Speaker 2: But he's also a terrible person and even to his

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Speaker 2: own family, he is a psychopath and a raging dickhead,

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Speaker 2: like and nothing. I don't know what their role hits

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Speaker 2: that mark for me, So I mean it's yay, though

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Speaker 2: the Hindus speak of karma. I implore you, I implored

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Speaker 2: chevy Chase.

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Speaker 1: Gotn't break, which is weird because look gets you later.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of a change of pace for him

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Speaker 1: because it's hard to remember now, but in the late

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Speaker 1: seventies early eighties, he was this slightly glamorous, very cool

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Speaker 1: figure and then this was like a real change pace,

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Speaker 1: embracing his his inner dork. He hit the middle aged

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Speaker 1: like you know, as like Bill Murray was right, there's

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Speaker 1: a graph somewhere where as Bill Murray was peaking in

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Speaker 1: likability and attractiveness, chevy Chase was falling. Yeah, and they

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Speaker 1: were doing so on a fixed ratio to each other.

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Speaker 1: You can't see it right now in the playback when

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Speaker 1: I'm gesturing to Jordan straight what I'm talking about where

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Speaker 1: you know, people just the myth of Bill Murray, like

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Speaker 1: increased exponentially, and the more people were exposed to Chevy Chase,

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Speaker 1: the more like man, that guy sucks. Well, I have

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Speaker 1: a very important question for you before we continue. Is

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Speaker 1: your I was gonna say it's your dad, but it

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Speaker 1: could be either parent. Did they have a Clark Griswold

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Speaker 1: esque energy to them?

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Speaker 2: Maybe in terms of like drive, you know, my dad

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Speaker 2: is very much like I think it's very telling that

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Speaker 2: at one point my dad probably could have become a

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Speaker 2: long haul trucker. He's a purposeful driver, and he's a

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Speaker 2: disciplined one, a literal driving then yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: And he's just like a road trip fiend, you know.

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Speaker 2: So he's not quite as openly psychotic as Chevy is

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Speaker 2: in this movie. Maybe I am the poison seeps through.

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Speaker 2: I think I might be, honestly in terms of just like, ye.

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Speaker 1: Know, we're getting we're getting there. Well, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk to the audience right now. I mean, Higo and

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Speaker 1: I have actually taken a road trip together when our

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Speaker 1: band did a tour and we drove from the greatest tour,

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Speaker 1: the greatest tour, World's greatest tour, uh from h I

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Speaker 1: think we called it Three Friends in a minivan tour

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Speaker 1: except the four of us, so that made it awkward.

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Speaker 1: How far do we go wing from New York to Richmond, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: That's correct, And I remember you having the psychotic intensity

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Speaker 1: of Clark Riswold, though.

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Speaker 2: Well you forget that. I wrote all the songs and

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Speaker 2: sang and played guitar on all of the things. So

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Speaker 2: I was trying to conserve my energy, you know, like

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Speaker 2: a like a proper diva should. But had I my brothers,

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Speaker 2: you know, we were supposed to drive from Jersey to

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Speaker 2: Harrisburg after.

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Speaker 1: Playing a show that one night. I paid, We're going

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Speaker 1: to a hotel.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, So yeah, I have that driving capacity and

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Speaker 2: I can drive. I love highway driving, dude. People have

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Speaker 2: talked about like I can't drive on the highway. I

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Speaker 2: get like highway hypnosis or whatever. I find it so meditative.

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Speaker 2: I would drive six hours without blinking, and then in

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Speaker 2: the city I will go to pieces in twenty minutes

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Speaker 2: trying to find a parking space.

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Speaker 1: Oh. I don't know how you guys let me get

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Speaker 1: away with not driving. I think I just flat out

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Speaker 1: said I am a kit Yeah you did, I did.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I feel really bad about that. Now.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what about you. You got any road trips

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Speaker 2: from where? Where the hell you from? Waltham, Worcester.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, outside of Worcester. Actually, every year on Christmas Day

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Speaker 1: to this day, my father and I drive down to

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Speaker 1: my aunt's house outside of DC.

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Speaker 2: And that's like, she's a ten hour drive. Okay, that's

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Speaker 2: a nuts, dude. I've never done that, and for a

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Speaker 2: family thing, like, holy god, eight hours a clip. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but do you wake up at like four duh?

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Speaker 1: Sometimes? Well, we'll get to this in the area. My

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Speaker 1: dad is one of those dads who gets irate if

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Speaker 1: he doesn't leave the house at his arbitrarily chosen departure time.

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Speaker 1: Better go to better early at day ahead of us tomorrow, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, we don't. Actually, now that I think

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Speaker 1: back on it, my nearest family member was six hours away,

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Speaker 1: So we done a lot of drives growing up. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: All right, man, Well, sixteen minutes in, let's start this

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Speaker 2: light this candle. I know this was gonna be such

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Speaker 2: a fertile topic for us.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's what's so great about this movie, though, I Mean,

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Speaker 1: it's got so many connections.

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Speaker 2: To everybody's life in one way or another. It's a

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Speaker 2: uniquely American experienced. The road trip to somewhere that sucks. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: because in Europe they just get take a train to

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Speaker 2: somewhere that trucks, but it sucks in a.

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Speaker 1: Very exotic way. Here you can drive ten hours and

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Speaker 1: be in the exact same like.

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Speaker 2: Flat stra Americ strip mall garbage. Yeah yeah, a series

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Speaker 2: of low lying sheds.

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Speaker 1: Is America Well from its roots is a short story

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Speaker 1: by a comedy legend to the prerequisite stories of Chevy

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Speaker 1: Chase being difficult, the way the Griswolds family car killed,

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Speaker 1: the station wagon, and the long lost original ending, plus

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Speaker 1: the psychotic cross country shoot that nearly killed one of

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Speaker 1: the film stars. Here is everything you didn't know about

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Speaker 1: National Lampoon's Vacation. Wow Wow. Like so many great eighties movies,

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Speaker 1: National Lampoon's Vacation starts with John Hughes, the patron saint

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Speaker 1: of cinematic suburbia in Reagan's America, Come on, you got

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Speaker 1: the breakfast Club pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off,

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Speaker 1: Weird Science. Need I say more? But Vacation predates all this.

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Speaker 1: It actually has its roots in a piece that John

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Speaker 1: wrote for the National Lampoon magazine in the late seventies

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Speaker 1: called Vacation fifty eight.

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Speaker 2: Should we backtrack and explain the National Lampoon like we

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Speaker 2: will the next paragraph, you idiot.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, all right. At this stage, John Hughes was

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Speaker 1: working at an unfulfilling day job. He's the creative director

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Speaker 1: of a Chicago ad agency called the Leo Burnett Company,

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Speaker 1: but managing the Virginia Slim's account was not exactly ideal

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Speaker 1: for this want to be creative. His ad job required

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Speaker 1: weekly trips from Chicago to New York City for what

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Speaker 1: he described as quote multi martini lunches because remember this

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Speaker 1: was just a few years after the mad Men era,

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Speaker 1: and whenever he was there, he would find an excuse

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Speaker 1: drop by the National Lampoon offices to try to rustle

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Speaker 1: up a writing assignment from editor in chief Tony Hendra,

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Speaker 1: who would later become most famous to me for playing

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Speaker 1: the manager of Spinal Tap and, as Hughes would later recall,

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Speaker 1: after many hours, over many weeks of sitting on a

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Speaker 1: worn cloth couch in the reception area trying to coax

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Speaker 1: a reaction from aloof staffers and freelancers. I was kindly

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Speaker 1: invited by editor in chief Tony Hendra into an office

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Speaker 1: where he explained how one becomes an editor. It amounted

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Speaker 1: to writing filler. I was delighted my work was accepted,

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Speaker 1: and I quickly became a contributing editor. I continue to

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Speaker 1: beg off client lunches to race up town for editorial meetings. Higel,

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Speaker 1: do you want to give us a little background on

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Speaker 1: The National Lampoon magazine?

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Speaker 2: Though it's best known these days as the titular preamble

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Speaker 2: for any number of film franchises, the National Lampoon initially

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Speaker 2: began as a print publication in nineteen seventy, an offshoot

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Speaker 2: itself of Harvard University's revered comedy paper, The Harvard Lampoon.

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Speaker 1: For those of you who are seeking.

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Speaker 2: More context or background for this, there's a great book

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Speaker 2: and a Netflix documentary, unrelated but with the same title,

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Speaker 2: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, which covers the founding of the

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Speaker 2: magazine by Doug Kenny and Henry Beard, the rise of

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Speaker 2: some of its famous writers like PJ. O'Rourke and future

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Speaker 2: SNL headwriter Michael o'donahue, and his expansion into radio in

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Speaker 2: stage shows, which is where basically the founding class of

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Speaker 2: the comedy of stars of the nineteen eighties got to start.

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Speaker 2: Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, Go Radner, and Chevy Chase.

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Speaker 2: And then the National Lampoon proper made its jump into

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Speaker 2: movies in nineteen seventy eight with Animal House, made on

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Speaker 2: an incredibly thin shoe string budget and an obvious insane

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Speaker 2: huge smash, But when John Hughes started writing for them,

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Speaker 2: it was still mostly known as a you know, like

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Speaker 2: I guess you would say, like a regional lit mag.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, somewhere between like Mad Magazine and McSweeney's. I guess, like,

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Speaker 1: I can't really, I mean, it was very popular. I

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Speaker 1: mean they the famous National Lampoon cover that everybody remembers

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Speaker 1: who lived for that era is the dog with a

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Speaker 1: gun being held to its head with the headline as

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Speaker 1: by this magazine and or kill the Dog. Incredible by

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Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, I know, it's I know, I feel

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Speaker 1: bad finding that as hilarious as I do.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of one of those you had to be

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Speaker 2: there things. It's just a great bit of marketing.

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Speaker 1: Man.

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Speaker 2: What do you even think the fact that they got

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Speaker 2: that on newsstands. God love them like no, It's a

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Speaker 2: different time.

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Speaker 1: So John Hughes started writing the sho short story that

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Speaker 1: would eventually become Vacation in the winter of nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: nine when he was housebound with his wife and young

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Speaker 1: baby during an especially horrendous blizzard, and in this pre

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Speaker 1: work from home zoom Era, he took advantage of this

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Speaker 1: unexpected stretch of free time to flesh out Vacation fifty eight,

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Speaker 1: which is a short story about a Detroit family who

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Speaker 1: takes a disastrous trip to Disneyland in California. Now, I'm

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Speaker 1: not really sure how he landed on this topic of vacations.

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Speaker 1: I know that National Lampoon was at that time planning

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Speaker 1: a vacation themed issue, so I'm guessing that was what

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Speaker 1: gave him his starting point. But John Hughes would describe

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Speaker 1: his story as quote a piece set in the days

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Speaker 1: when toddlers stood on the front seats of cars and

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Speaker 1: parent cigarette ashes blew into the faces of the children

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Speaker 1: standing in the back or hanging out open rear windows

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Speaker 1: of the station wagons. I had no story, but enough

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Speaker 1: anecdotes to get the assignment, and he literally went to

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Speaker 1: his car and got a ran McNally wrote Atlas from

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Speaker 1: the trunk and plodded out a root for this family

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Speaker 1: to take and dreamt up all these horrific things that

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Speaker 1: would happen along the way at each stop. And There

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Speaker 1: are several major differences between the short story and the

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Speaker 1: film version, the biggest being that the short story is

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Speaker 1: told from the point of view of the young boy, Rusty,

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Speaker 1: looking back on his youth twenty years earlier in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight. As we'll get to the film takes place

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Speaker 1: contemporaneously and focuses on the father. The fact that the

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Speaker 1: short story is told from the kid's perspective allowed John

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Speaker 1: Hughes to get away with elements that are arguably even

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Speaker 1: darker than the movie. For example, take the story's opening line,

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Speaker 1: if Dad hadn't shot Walt Disney in the leg, it

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Speaker 1: would have been our best vacation ever. Incredible. In this story,

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Speaker 1: the dad goes to jail for the attempted murder of

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Speaker 1: Uncle Walt, which is just it's amazing. They would obviously

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Speaker 1: change this to Wally World in the movie for a

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Speaker 1: bunch of reasons, all of which have to do with

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Speaker 1: not pissing off the Disney Monolith. John Hughes would say,

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Speaker 1: I wrote the first sentence and the rest was automatic.

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Speaker 1: I use the voice of a boy to cover my

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Speaker 1: lack of skins and to flatten the big moments in

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Speaker 1: Rusty's prosaic language, A ruined vacation and an assault with

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Speaker 1: a deadly weapon upon an entertainment legend enjoyed comparable importance.

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Speaker 1: And if you haven't read this, I highly recommend reading

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Speaker 1: the piece it's out there online because it is hilarious

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Speaker 1: and there are some great observances of over zealous dads

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Speaker 1: in trip prep mode which really resonated with me. We

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Speaker 1: have to get up at four in the morning. I

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Speaker 1: want to make Chicago by lunch, Dad said, showing us upstairs.

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Speaker 1: The telephone rang at nine forty five the next morning.

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Speaker 1: It was Grandpa Pete calling to see why we hadn't

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Speaker 1: gone yet. We'd all overslept, even the baby. Dad was furious.

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Speaker 1: I could see him screaming and pounding his fists on

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Speaker 1: the bathroom sink. Or five hours behind schedule, he yelled,

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Speaker 1: and we haven't even left the damn house.

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Speaker 2: It's so the rhythms of it in the writing did.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if he ever spoke about this, but

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Speaker 2: it's so similar to Gene Shepherd from like Christmas Story.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's what it.

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Speaker 2: And they're both those kind of I mean Chicago, about

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Speaker 2: those Midwestern boys with you like you're right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I love that. I highly recommend checking that out.

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Speaker 1: I mean I again, I just I see so much

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Speaker 1: of my dad in Clark, and sadly I have become

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Speaker 1: the exact same way. And you know, I understand it

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Speaker 1: as I've gotten older. It's about wanting to maximize fun

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Speaker 1: and having the best time possible. But it just makes

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Speaker 1: us come across as control freaks. I will both be

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Speaker 1: mocking my own father and defending all the ways have

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Speaker 1: become just like him throughout this episode, as is the

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Speaker 1: root of the American man in media. Yes, to quote

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Speaker 1: John Hughes writing in The Breakfast Club, we all become

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Speaker 1: our parents. It's unavoidable. It just happens anyway. Speaking of

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Speaker 1: John Hughes, truly peerless writing, he had this to say

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Speaker 1: about what drew him to the themes of vacation in

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Speaker 1: an essay for Zoetrope all Story, which I've never heard of.

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Speaker 1: I understood that the dark side of my middle class

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Speaker 1: middle American suburban life wasn't drugs, paganism, or perversion. It

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Speaker 1: was disappointment. There are no gnawing insects beneath the grass,

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Speaker 1: only dirt. I also knew that trapped inside every defeat

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Speaker 1: is a small victory, and inside that small victory is

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Speaker 1: the great defeat Capital Jesus. That's grim. It's grim, but

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Speaker 1: it's so good. Did he write that after Blue Velvet?

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Speaker 2: Is that a knock at the opening shot of Blue

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Speaker 2: Velvet where the Lynch pushes down through the grass and

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Speaker 2: you see all the worms and bugs and stuff not

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Speaker 2: in at the ear.

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Speaker 1: That you know what I mean. It's a very specific

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Speaker 1: reference he made, so perhaps well spotted, well spotted.

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Speaker 2: I would love it if John Hughes and David Lynch

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Speaker 2: hung out to be a fly on that wall.

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Speaker 1: I could almost see it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, just like talking about the fifties.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, some diner.

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Speaker 2: And darkness, suburban darkness.

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Speaker 1: I mean it does. Yeah. They both went very different

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Speaker 1: directions with it. Well. John hughes Vacation fifty eighth story

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Speaker 1: was inexplicably bumped from National Lampoon's Vacation the themed issue

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Speaker 1: and wound up getting published in an annual edition composed

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Speaker 1: of pieces that didn't make their intended issues, sort of

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Speaker 1: a grab bag issue. Despite this slightly ignoble debut, it

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Speaker 1: earned attention nonetheless from all sorts of places. As Hughes

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Speaker 1: would later write in this All Story Essay, unbeknownst to me,

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Speaker 1: Warner Brothers purchased a story upon publication in September nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine. I believe I was in Chicago, and my

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Speaker 1: only experience to any reaction to Vacation fifty eight occurred

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Speaker 1: on a flight home from New York when I heard

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Speaker 1: two businessmen laughing out loud and discovered they were reading

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Speaker 1: my story. As a salaried editor, I had no ownership.

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Speaker 1: The lampoon publisher Mattie Simmons generously invited me to write

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Speaker 1: the screenplay, despite my having never seen a screenplay, and

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Speaker 1: with that, basically they were off. And this is interesting

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Speaker 1: to me. John Hughes would always intimate that Vacation was

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Speaker 1: his first screenplay, but that's not strictly true. He wrote

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Speaker 1: an early national Lampoon flop, nineteen eighty two's Class Reunion,

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Speaker 1: which was a movie that bombed so hard that held

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Speaker 1: just owned it.

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Speaker 2: Were things just way easier back then. Yeah, oh yes, okay, cool, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: just checking. But do you wanna do you want to

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Speaker 2: expand on that?

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Speaker 1: Though? No? I just I don't. I don't give a

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Speaker 1: shit about screenwriting.

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Speaker 2: I mean, but it just bums me out that someone

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Speaker 2: like you know, you whops every drop of sweat on

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Speaker 2: their brow turns to blood. You know, you have some

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Speaker 2: unproduced screenplays and these guys are just like you want

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Speaker 2: to do this a lifetime, not even a full lifetime

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Speaker 2: ago just tripped into the entire careers.

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Speaker 1: We're like, ah, he is John Hughes.

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Speaker 2: Though, that's true, and John Hughes is an edge case. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's a very vis He's John Hughes, But I mean.

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Speaker 1: Did he not write Home Alone in ten Days?

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Speaker 2: The likes of not John Hughes were afforded similar at

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Speaker 2: least entry points into the industry.

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Speaker 1: Fair Well Vacation made the jump from the page to

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Speaker 1: the big screen thanks to the magazine's entrepreneurial publisher slash

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Speaker 1: resident adult in the room, Mattie Simmons, who inexplicably went

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Speaker 1: from running diners Club, which was the first credit card company,

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Speaker 1: to being the moneyman for National Lampoon, a magazine that

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Speaker 1: gave Rolling Stone Hunter s Thompson Era a run for

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Speaker 1: its money in terms of debauchery and chaos, so that's interesting. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: talking about the development of this film, Vacation involves mentioning

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Speaker 1: enemy of the pod Jeffrey Katzenberg. Mattie Simmons later recalled

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Speaker 1: when I brought the pitch to Hollywood, the first guy

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Speaker 1: I brought it to was jeff Katzenberg, who was at Paramount.

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Speaker 1: He said it would never make a movie. It was

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Speaker 1: too episodic, too consequential, too consequential. That's a weird quote.

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Speaker 1: I said, Yeah, it's a road trip. It's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be episodic. You go from town to town, place to place. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg deemed Vacation fifty eight unfilmable. It's a quote.

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Speaker 1: So Matty Simmons moved over to Warner Brothers, where an

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Speaker 1: executive named Mark Canton was gunning for it. So Warner

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Speaker 1: Brothers bought it, and for the director's chair, they brought

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Speaker 1: on Harold Ramis, a National Lampoon vet who'd recently made

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Speaker 1: his directorial debut with Caddy Shack. And despite his National

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Speaker 1: Lampoon connection, it's kind of surprising that they decided to

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Speaker 1: bring Harold Rames on because he'd had a rough time

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Speaker 1: making caddy Shack, But, as Warner Brothers executive Mark Canton

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Speaker 1: later said in a Making of documentary, Ramis had finally

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Speaker 1: learned which end of the lens to look through, so

429
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: they decided to give him the green light. OU I

430
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: know it's pretty good though. That's that's a cigar chair.

431
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: That's a literal cigar chopping executive quote. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

432
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 2: Oh well, considering who would play the Griswold family patriarch,

433
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 2: Clark Chevy Chase, It's not Chevy, right, I thought I

434
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 2: thought it was Chevy with a Chevy.

435
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: It's like the Z. It's Chevy with a Chuck.

436
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 2: Well, when considering who would play the Grizzwold family patriarch,

437
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,959
Speaker 2: Clark Chevy Chase was front of mind since Ramus had

438
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 2: just directed his fellow National Lampoon Vet in Caddyshack, though

439
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 2: Chase's career hadn't quite taken off as he'd expected after

440
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 2: his uh premature and precipitated for personal reasons, i e.

441
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 2: Being jag Uh departure after the first season of SNL

442
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 2: in seventy six, Caddyshack had been a hit and he

443
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 2: was relatively hot. I remember this quote from him talking

444
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,959
Speaker 2: about his career where he was like I'm best when

445
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 2: I'm playing guys who were either ahead of or right

446
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 2: behind the ball.

447
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: Ahead of the ball.

448
00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 2: He talked about like Caddyshack being like ahead of the ball,

449
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,119
Speaker 2: like that guy's like on and just super cool, and

450
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 2: then like Fletch and Vacation and all this other stuff

451
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 2: as being like a guy who's perpetually like on the

452
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 2: wrong foot.

453
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, his role in Caddyshack always kind of confused me,

454
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: cause like I don't remember there were I mean maybe

455
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: because I'm just so used to seeing him do pratfalls.

456
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: It was like he's the humor in that. That was

457
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 1: just his sort of sage you drugs, Danny Good, Yeah,

458
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: like very smooth, Yeah, which made him not as funny

459
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:08,679
Speaker 1: to me.

460
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no flop sweat, right, Yeah, there's no flop sweat.

461
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 2: And that's to me like one of the Chevy hallmarks. Well,

462
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 2: the producers of Vacation decided to maximize Chevy's then star

463
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 2: power by shifting the perspective of the movie from the

464
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 2: perspective of the sun. In the story rusty, like in

465
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: Hughes version to Chevy's character. It's important to remember at

466
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,400
Speaker 2: this point in the early eighties that the National Lampoon

467
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 2: film franchise was not exactly a powerhouse. Despite their strong

468
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 2: start with Animal House in nineteen seventy eight, they'd released

469
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 2: a string of flops, like a bunch of movies you

470
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 2: haven't heard of, including National Lampoon's Class Reunion and movie

471
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: Madness of Class Reunion. Roger Ebert observed, it has its

472
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 2: funny moments, but they're rare enough that we're acutely aware

473
00:25:55,240 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: of them. In a golf swing, Chu che got him

474
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 2: Roger Ebert murder scene.

475
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: God, he was good.

476
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 2: The rule of the hapless suburban Dad was a big

477
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 2: chef for Chevy, which is now again hard to recall.

478
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: Very cool.

479
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 2: Uh you know, his movies had been kind of a

480
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 2: checkered but he was still a big star from SNL

481
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 2: and uh, as his perennially quoted line from Weekend Up

482
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 2: Date went, he was Chevy Chase and we were not. Uh,

483
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 2: you know, he was tall. That goes a long way.

484
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 2: He still had all his hair back then, he still

485
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 2: had a jaw line. Uh that that would get you

486
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 2: a lot in seventies, America still does who's the Chevy

487
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 2: Chase analog today, someone who's widely derided for their comedic

488
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 2: chops but still in uh in demand. Colin jo just,

489
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 2: oh yeah, nailed it one shot. I mean the weekend

490
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,719
Speaker 2: call that we call that had a no scope headshot

491
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: in the gaming community. Jordan nailed it. Chase was tall, handsome,

492
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 2: Stillhetele's hair and positioned is something between Johnny Carson and Uh,

493
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 2: he said, carry grant. I've heard of quote that people

494
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 2: are stupid. Nope, that's dumb. I would say Jack Lemon.

495
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 2: He's like I could easily have seen Chevy Chase step

496
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 2: into something like the apartment.

497
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: Oh but a fast.

498
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:31,360
Speaker 2: Talking, kind of average looking guy who's funny but too nervous.

499
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 1: All right, Tony Curtis maybe like Tony. He's good looking,

500
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 1: he's tall. Okay, Well, you know, I don't make the rules. Uh.

501
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 2: Vacation was a chance for Chase to embrace his inner dork,

502
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: which would define the rest of his career. So, upon

503
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 2: taking the role, as anyone could probably see within a

504
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 2: mile of knowing who Chevy is at this point in

505
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 2: his career, UH, he decided to help rewrite the script

506
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 2: with Hair Ramis so that it would focus on himself,

507
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 2: a move that supposedly pissed off John Hughes to no end,

508
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 2: and why wouldn't it. John Hughes' entire career is predicated

509
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 2: on the internal complexities of the American teenager.

510
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 1: I wrote, he's very interested in teenagers, and then I wrote, phrasing,

511
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: you could assault that, but you didn't because you're better

512
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: than that.

513
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 2: Well that that remains to be seen. How many more

514
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 2: episodes left on my contract? I'll stop, I'll stoop lower?

515
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: Don't you think I won't. Ques remains one.

516
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 2: Of the most astute observers of adolescent American life, so

517
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: naturally moving the focus of the script of Vacation from

518
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 2: that to a middle aged man was not his bellowick

519
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 2: shall we say? Howard Ramis would later say, I saw

520
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 2: John quoted in an interview saying he was going to

521
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 2: start directing his own movies because he was tired of

522
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: seeing his scripts ruined by other directors, which is a

523
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 2: hell of a thing to read when you are directing

524
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 2: at John Hughes script. In addition to that pov shift,

525
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 2: Hughes would go on to write and direct sixteen candles

526
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four, a year after Vacation was released,

527
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 2: which is a pretty good middle finger.

528
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: As far as those things go.

529
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 2: You changed my script, I will make sixteen candles get bent.

530
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 2: In addition to that shift of point of view, Ramus

531
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: and Chevy also updated the time to the contemporary era,

532
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 2: which actually made a certain amount of sense from a

533
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 2: plot perspective. There was a desperate dad trying to relive

534
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 2: the road trips of his youth in the fifties in

535
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 2: the middle of Reagan's America, a very different era altogether.

536
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 2: Calib orton a guy on Twitter who has complimented my

537
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 2: current Twitter handle. I love Caleb really.

538
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

539
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 2: Caleb Porton's great, great writer. He wrote for MTV the News.

540
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: He's this piece that was from Vanity Fair. He writes

541
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 2: a lot about great California country music. He's a Merle

542
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 2: Haggard fan. Yeah, great photographer as well. Hire Caleb, he

543
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 2: writes of Vacation. They updated the setting to nineteen eighty three,

544
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 2: when suburban America tried to start from scratch and returned

545
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 2: to Eisenhower ideals. Despite the social upheaval and progressive shift

546
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 2: of the sixties and seventies, Norman Rockwell's sentimental idea of

547
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 2: piling into a car for ramshackle family adventure had a

548
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 2: more desperate appeal then, so Clark foisteds his own nostalgic

549
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 2: idea of fun on nineteen fifties invention when Disneyland was

550
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 2: new and the road trip was a conveniently packaged coming

551
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 2: of age ritual on his apathetic family. The change that

552
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 2: the kids don't necessarily give it about this whole trip

553
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 2: is a big change from Hughes's original story, where everyone

554
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 2: is uniformly pumped about going to Disneyland.

555
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: Let's all take a deep dive into the recessness of

556
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: the The.

557
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 2: Character depths of one Clark Wilhelm Griswold. His middle name

558
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 2: is revealed on his passport during the closing credits of

559
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 2: National Lampoons European Vacation. Harold Remis describes the character thusly, Basically,

560
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: we figured this was the story of a dad who

561
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 2: gets two weeks off a year and overcompensates like a

562
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 2: madman to give his family what he didn't give them

563
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 2: for the rest.

564
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: Of the year.

565
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: For two weeks, he's going to be the world's greatest

566
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 2: dad with an energy verging on the desperate, desperate to

567
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 2: make up for his lack of involvement in his family,

568
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 2: desperate to reconnect, so desperate he loses his mind, and

569
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 2: yet the movie doesn't.

570
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: Valorize that desperation. No at all.

571
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 2: Chevy plays him like a slazy bachelor who's at once

572
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 2: trying to reconnect the passion he lost with his wife

573
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 2: and also making eyes at the hot blonde in a Ferrari.

574
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: His actions are directly contradictory to his intent of reconnecting

575
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: with his family, as kayleb Bright's and that aforementioned vanity

576
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 2: fair piece. The problem in Vacation isn't the simple act

577
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 2: of infidelity, but Clerk's immediate, non gradual willingness to commit it,

578
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: and how the script then treats the consequence of his actions. Basically,

579
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 2: he's a high functioning psychopath. He's driven exclusively by pride

580
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 2: and self interest. The man has no moral compass. Oh man,

581
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 2: here's a crazy thought experiment. What if Rusty grew up

582
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: to be Patrick Bateman?

583
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: Uh? I like that? Really?

584
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 2: We got to do our sequel show, our sequel pitch?

585
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah?

586
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: So actually no, because they're contemporaneous. So Patrick Bateman is

587
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 2: is Clark Wiswold's slightly oldered bastard child from his wayward youth.

588
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 2: When is American Psycho set early eighties, no mid eighties,

589
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 2: It's like the whole dor Sea Wall Street eighties Master

590
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 2: of the Universe Bonfire of the Vanities era. But some

591
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 2: would argue that this dynamic of pride and self interest

592
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 2: versus the quote unquote familiar obligation is what makes the

593
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: misfortunes of the trip all the more delicious. They happen

594
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 2: to the most deserving victim, the hubristic father, and it

595
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 2: gives viewers a certain sense of recognition. As Harold Ramis said,

596
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 2: Clark isn't a good husband or even a good person,

597
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 2: but he's enough like people really are that we see

598
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: ourselves in it. And now we transition from the flawed

599
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 2: conceptual character of Clark W. Griswold to the flawed irl

600
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 2: character of Chevy W.

601
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: Chase. Whi's Chevy Chase's middle name. That's a great question.

602
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: I think it's his real name is like Cornelius.

603
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, it is Cornelius Crane rules Cornelius Crane Chase.

604
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 2: Is he related he's like? Is he related to Stephen Crane?

605
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: Oh? No, I don't know about that, but I know

606
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: his family like own part of New York. They're super wasting.

607
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, Well there are not one, but three

608
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 2: separate articles offering a chronology of Chevy's dictitude, moral lackings,

609
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 2: titles like a Brief History of Chevy Chase being addicted

610
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 2: to people, Gowker, cracked, split Sider, Vulture. He is famously

611
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 2: one of the most disliked people in the entertainment industry.

612
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 2: Mean spirited, arrogant, short tempered, probably kind of racists as well.

613
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 2: I think Donald Glover said he said some racist on

614
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 2: the set of Community to him.

615
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: That being said, he was not that bad. On the

616
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: set of Vacation.

617
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 2: He apparently only had one tantrum, which grading on the

618
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 2: Chase curve is pretty good. The end of production, when

619
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 2: they were filming the scenes of a family packing to

620
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 2: leave for the trip. The shoot took place in Los Angeles,

621
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 2: which at the moment was in the midst of a

622
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 2: horrendous heat wave, and Harold Ramis made Chevy do take

623
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 2: after take of loading up the car with suitcases, and

624
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 2: the heat was making Chevy cranky. Remis offers an amazing

625
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 2: SoundBite he would flip out at everything, including lizards and animals.

626
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 2: Speciesist Harold Ramis lizards count as animals. Harold rip Um.

627
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,280
Speaker 2: Fed up at having to do one too many takes,

628
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 2: Chevy chucked a suitcase at Harold Remis, who was able

629
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: to catch it in mid air, having preciently sensed that

630
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: Chevy was about to lose it. Chevy later defended himself

631
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 2: in a making of documentary by insisting it was an

632
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 2: empty suitcase. Other directors in the Vacation franchise did not

633
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 2: get off so lucky. Future Clueless director Amy Heckerling hated

634
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 2: Chevy so much when she was directing European Vacation that

635
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 2: she later claimed she quote couldn't go on the set

636
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 2: unless I knew I had in my hand a physical

637
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,879
Speaker 2: ticket to New York, so that I could just go

638
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 2: at any time. I had to hold it in my

639
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 2: hand so I knew I had a way out. And

640
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: a fun fact for all of you vacation stands out there,

641
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 2: Amy Heckerling and Harold Ramis had an affair just before

642
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: or after Amy got married to the guy who wrote

643
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: Police Academy. They had a daughter together, and this woman

644
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 2: didn't know that Harold Ramis was her dad for like

645
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 2: twenty years.

646
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: She will forever be known as the Vacation Baby. Her

647
00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: parents are two people who directed to different installments of

648
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: the Vacation franchise. How cool is that? It's not bad?

649
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: I mean, your dad's Harold Ramis and your mom's Amy Heckerling.

650
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 2: That rules and for knowing would you trade that for

651
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 2: knowing who your dad was for twenty years? Well, the

652
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: person I thought was my experiment for all of our listeners.

653
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,280
Speaker 1: First I thought it was my dad, wrote Police Academy.

654
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: So I mean that's that's the hell. Yeah, that's trading up.

655
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: Yeah right.

656
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 2: I would immediately disown that guy if I found out

657
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:03,359
Speaker 2: my time was actually Harold Ramis.

658
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to that man.

659
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 2: Director Chris Columbus had an even rougher time when he

660
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 2: was enlisted to direct John Hughes's script for Christmas Vacation

661
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine. Columbus and Chevy Chase had a

662
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: disastrous dinner where, according to Columbus, Chevy treated me like dirt.

663
00:37:18,719 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: I stuck it out and even went as far as

664
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 2: to shoot the second unit. Then I had another meeting

665
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,800
Speaker 2: with Chevy and it was worse. Columbus asked to be

666
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 2: let go of the project, and then John Hughes felt

667
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 2: so bad about the whole thing that he offered Columbus

668
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 2: the chance to direct another holiday themed comedy he'd written,

669
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:42,839
Speaker 2: Home Alone, which speak of trade. Note I was gonna say,

670
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 2: if you're talking what's the term I wanted? Lost return ROI?

671
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 2: If you're talking to ROI. Having to deal with Chevy

672
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 2: Chase for a while and then getting to direct Home

673
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 2: Alone is pretty good. You can do a lot worse,

674
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,760
Speaker 2: pretty deep, pret cheap, pretty deep, pretty good.

675
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: And you want to know more about that adventure. We

676
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: get a whole episode on Home Alone, two hours, all

677
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: the cocon you can eat.

678
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 2: But that's enough about you, gross and weird. That's enough

679
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:15,720
Speaker 2: about Clark.

680
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: Let's talk about his lovely wife, Ellen, played by Beverly DiAngelo,

681
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: who initially didn't want the role. She'd been in Coal

682
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: Miner's Daughter and the movie adaptation of the Broadway show Hair,

683
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 1: and she was trying to jumpstart her career as a

684
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: quote end quote serious actress. She'd later say in and

685
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: Making Up documentary that vacation had all the things that

686
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: would impede this serious movie career. Dogs, kids and a

687
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: role as a mother, Her words, but her agent talked

688
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: her new auditioning, and the rest is history. Others up

689
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: for consideration for the role of Ellen Griswold were Kim Katrol,

690
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: who I would assume would have been really.

691
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 2: She was too hot, too hot, too young, and too hot,

692
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,839
Speaker 2: my beloved Kim control solely based on Big Trouble, Little China.

693
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 2: I don't care what you're saying. She's so hot in

694
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,320
Speaker 2: Big Trouble, Little China. She was way too hot to

695
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 2: play this this character at this time.

696
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 1: Well, and also Marie McCormick, better known as Marsha Brady,

697
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: was also considered. That's insane to me. She must have

698
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: been she throws of her coke addiction. The other one. No,

699
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: that was no, that was that one. Okay, So wait

700
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: a minute. So she was like fourteen in nineteen sixty nine,

701
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: so this is she would have been like twenty. She

702
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: would have been like her mid twenties. That can't. That

703
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: can't once again once again too. Although Beverly DiAngelo was

704
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: only fifteen years older than her daughter Audrey in the movie,

705
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: and seventeen years older than Anthony Michael Hall, who played Rusty,

706
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: so so who knows that's actually a relative.

707
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 2: That could be like a semi scandalous like like shotgun

708
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 2: marriage timeline, that's within the realm of possibility.

709
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: If like, no Marie McCormick, if she's in like if

710
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: she's like twenty seven and she's gone, I'm in Beverly Dean.

711
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah no that yeah, no, you're right.

712
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: But speaking of kids, the character of Rusty was especially

713
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: hard to cast. Harold Ramis went through dozens and dozens

714
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: of auditions to fill the part, but he found all

715
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: the boys to Hollywood two, in his words, bright and

716
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: too energetic, or my translation to annoying. Eh. Then they

717
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 1: went to New York City and auditioned some fifty more

718
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 1: boys until they came across Anthony Michael Hall, who they

719
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: deemed perfect all the way down to his braces, which

720
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: they insisted he keep for the movie. Anthony Michael Hall

721
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: and Dana Baron, who played Audrey, the two on screen siblings.

722
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:38,879
Speaker 1: They began bickering like brother and sister right away, and

723
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: if I know anything about tween psychology. This bickering was

724
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: perhaps intensified by Anthony Michael Hall's crush on Dana Baron.

725
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: He also had a crush on his on screen mom

726
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: Beverly D'Angelo, as we'll find out, thus highlighting two very

727
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: popular porn subgenres. I had to let you get that

728
00:40:55,360 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 1: line out, but who Savage, my friend, Thank you. Anthony

729
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: Michael Hall became a frequent collaborator of John Hughes, with

730
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: whom he'd make Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science.

731
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: He actually declined to make the sequel to Vacation, European

732
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: Vacation in nineteen eighty five because he was doing Weird

733
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: Science with Hughes, which was bad news for his on

734
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: screen sister, Dana Baron. Director Amy Heckerling, who was directing

735
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: European Vacation, decided it would be weird if they had

736
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: only one original sibling, so she decided to recast the

737
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: role of Audrey as well when Anthony Michael Hall couldn't

738
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: play Rusty Boomer. Although he's really really good in Weird

739
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: Science and European Vacation is I think my least favorite

740
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: entry in the Vacation canon. So all in all, he

741
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: did the cinema world of favor, although I have to

742
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: say I don't think he looks back on his teenage

743
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: movie career fondly now that he's in what was he

744
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 1: in The Mentalist? He was in some like big TV

745
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: show in the twenty tens, and he's like very sturdy

746
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: and musky. Now like he's I find him almost unrecognizable.

747
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 2: Well, he's in uh bringing it back to my boy

748
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 2: j C. It's John Carpenter, not Jesus Christ.

749
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 1: Uh.

750
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 2: He's in Halloween Kills, one of the worst of the

751
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 2: late era Halloween sequels, and they're.

752
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:28,280
Speaker 1: All pretty well. He's not like the other overly smug

753
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,439
Speaker 1: three named boy from the eighties Neil Patrick Harris. Oh

754
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: that's true where he looks back. Yeah, he seems to

755
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: live in that persona whereas Anthony Michael Hall very much

756
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: does not. I don't even know what are we doing?

757
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: Where are you? But the true star of Vacation isn't

758
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: a person.

759
00:42:52,480 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 2: The best is when I spin out these these segments

760
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 2: for you and you have no choice but to hail

761
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 2: Mary Pass, just to start back and just punting it

762
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 2: right into the end zone and see if someone will

763
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:05,359
Speaker 2: catch it.

764
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: Who is the true star of the film, Jordan, Well,

765
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,959
Speaker 1: you know it's actually not a person but a car.

766
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 2: New York City itself. Another character in America is a

767
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 2: character in this movie.

768
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: Actually, it's a movie about going to look for America

769
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: and not finding it anywhere.

770
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 2: It's a movie about family. Actually it is. That joke

771
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 2: doesn't work. Yours was better.

772
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

773
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 1: back with more too much information in just a moment.

774
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,440
Speaker 1: But the true star of this movie isn't a person

775
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: but a car. We're talking about the hideous station wagon

776
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: with a very stately title the Queen Wagon Family Truckster.

777
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: The Queen Wagon Family Truckster. As the car salesman played

778
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: by SCTV maan say Eugene Levy says, if you think

779
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: I hate it, now, wait till you drive it.

780
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 2: He's so I always forget that he's in this dude,

781
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 2: I love this car man, one of my one am my,

782
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I sure do.

783
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: Yeah.

784
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 2: I my first car before it was deemed to be

785
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: have a rusted out, undrivable frame, was supposed to be

786
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 2: a friend of the family gifted us a car that

787
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: was shockingly like this one. I don't remember the actual model,

788
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 2: but it had that faux wood grain paneling. It was

789
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 2: a station wagon. I was so excited to drive it,

790
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 2: and then we got it to the then inspection and

791
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 2: they were like, oh, this thing is not street legal,

792
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 2: like it will actually fall apart if you continue to

793
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 2: drive it. Yeah, I know. I was God, I was

794
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:51,439
Speaker 2: going to smoke so much weed in that car.

795
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 1: Didn't have like the back like the trunk back door

796
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: that opens like a door, and had the two.

797
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 2: Sure did I always did. It was like sixteen feet long.

798
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,280
Speaker 2: It was practically a hearse. I wish I could remember

799
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 2: what the actual model was. Oh yeah, I love the Yeah,

800
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 2: great car, great, great movie car in the ranks of

801
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 2: movie cars.

802
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 1: Well, it could have been a nineteen seventy nine Ford Ltd.

803
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: Country Squire station wagon, because that's what they use as

804
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: the basis for the Queen Wagon family truckster. But it

805
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: was upgraded for extra tackiness. You had more faux wood paneling,

806
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: had a boxier design, You had the double front grills

807
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: and double headlights, and of course the metallic pee paint job,

808
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: not to mention the green wall tires and the garbage

809
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: bag airpag. It is truly something special, dude. It very

810
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 1: well might have been a Country Squire. I'm sure it

811
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 1: probably was. That's like the classic station wagon from that

812
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: that's like the wood paneled yeah man. Upon seeing the

813
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: finished product, Harold Ramis apparently voiced serious concerns that the

814
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,760
Speaker 1: car was just too ugly to put in a movie.

815
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: A lot of reports say that this car was made

816
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: for the production by the legendary Hollywood automaker George Barris,

817
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,319
Speaker 1: who is also responsible for the Batmobile, Jed Clampett's car

818
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 1: and the Beverly Hillbillies, and various cars for the Munsters.

819
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: But I've seen reports from online nerds, including one guy

820
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 1: who built his own Queen Wagon Family truckster, which is insane.

821
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: They say that this is not the case, so in

822
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 1: a very literal sense, your mileage may vary. Ha. There

823
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:31,560
Speaker 1: were reportedly five There were reportedly five separate Queen Wagon

824
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: Family Trucksters used during the production of this movie, each

825
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: swapped out to reflect the various states of damage the

826
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:41,240
Speaker 1: car suffers throughout the trip. Much have said damage occurs

827
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: when Clark inadvertently drives it off a road into Monument Valley,

828
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: a scene which features one of my favorite exchanges in

829
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,399
Speaker 1: the entire movie. Wow, Dad, you just jumped this thing

830
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: like fifty yards. Well that's nothing to be proud of,

831
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: Russ And then under his breath clearly very proud fifty

832
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: yards so there, and that was pretty much the attitude

833
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: taken by the car's stunt driver, Dick Zyker, nicknamed Crazy

834
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 1: Dick Zycher for reasons that will soon become apparent. He

835
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 1: made a bet with the other crew members that he

836
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: could jump the trucks for more than fifty feet in

837
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: the desert scene, and everyone went and drew lines in

838
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: the dirt making their best guess where this car would lands,

839
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: like a long jump basically, and Dick Zyker, he's apparently

840
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: gunning for a world record. He passed all of these marks.

841
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: As Crazy Dick would say, when we did this film,

842
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: it was the early days of this stuff. All I

843
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: had was a helmet, elbow pads, and a Saint Christopher's medal.

844
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: And bear in mind they were filming this in the

845
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: middle of the desert, so if anything went wrong, they

846
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,799
Speaker 1: were so screwed. And I guess they were so far

847
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:53,479
Speaker 1: removed from locals that a nearby Navajo tribe started milling

848
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:57,240
Speaker 1: around the catering truck and accrding to Ziker, a medicine

849
00:47:57,239 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 1: man from the tribe blessed the car himself and blessed

850
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 1: the stunt as a whole before he set off, and

851
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: perhaps that is why Dick Pzsicher was able to launch

852
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: the truckster an astonishing distance. Reportedly one hundred and seventy

853
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 1: three feet is the number I keep seeing sighted.

854
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: That's insane, dude, that's evil, I know for inecond Yeah,

855
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 2: I know what's a better what's a better car stunt?

856
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: This or the French Connection chase scene? Oh? Good question,

857
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: good question. I well, okay, wait, third option, although I

858
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: guess that's not strictly a car. Back to the Bullet

859
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: free with the train. Oh, bullet.

860
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: That was a miniature, Dude, that was like a it

861
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 2: was a large miniature, but it was a it was yeah, no,

862
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,720
Speaker 2: I need someone in that car possibly dying.

863
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: Okay, French Connection chase, I'll tell you what has like

864
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: a deceptively amazing car chase, which I would not have expected.

865
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: The original Freaky Friday has an insane car chase at

866
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: the and with the one with Jeddie Foster and John Aston.

867
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's like really intense. Okay, well look it

868
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: up on YouTube. It's nuts. I wonder if it was

869
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:11,280
Speaker 1: Bill Hickman.

870
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:16,839
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the guy who did the one in French

871
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 2: French Connection.

872
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, The thing all about the French connection was, didn't

873
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 1: they actually like sideswipe a car?

874
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 2: That did not tell anyone. We're just like, get Fredkins

875
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 2: in the back with a camera, let's do this.

876
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: They went back and like paid for it though, right,

877
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I thought I did. Did you see about

878
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: French connection on Twitter? This today? They went Disney has

879
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: changed it on streaming? What how changed it?

880
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: How cut out a slur? He says, never trust an

881
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 2: N word coming into the station. Oh God, Hickman was

882
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 2: bullet and French connection.

883
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 1: That's crazy, Holy Bill Lakemane.

884
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty three, Hickman and fellow stuntman Alex Sharp

885
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:00,480
Speaker 2: witnessed a bank robber, Carl Flett, speed buy them on

886
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:04,239
Speaker 2: Ventura near the Laurel Canyon off ramp. After Hickman saw

887
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 2: the suspect shoot police officer Alfonso Bag in the chest,

888
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: he used his stunt driving skills to chase the suspect

889
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 2: down on Laurel Canyon Road until long one could catch up.

890
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 2: The car chase eventually ended up in a North Hollywood

891
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 2: parking lot, where the suspect was shot and killed. That's god,

892
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 2: what man, Hollywood, old Hollywood dude, that's Wild. His stunt

893
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,879
Speaker 2: driver was like, I'm gonna just engage this guy who

894
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 2: I just saw shoot a cop.

895
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna engage you in a high speed chase on

896
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:44,840
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon, which are like little, Oh he's dead.

897
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 2: Great bill it to SAG, like, send my send my percentage,

898
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:57,280
Speaker 2: my bounty hunting percentage to SAG. Amazing, what an incredible

899
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 2: different era man All Black.

900
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty eight Dodge Charger in bullet.

901
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 2: People have been asking me, we bought this new car,

902
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 2: what about a used car?

903
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: We got a fucking.

904
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 2: On to Clarity, a hybrid Puget, and I've been bitching

905
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 2: to be boy. I got a reasonable adult twenty twenty

906
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 2: three car. But if I was one of those rich,

907
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 2: fucking idiots, my god, I would get a late sixties charger.

908
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 1: The hell are you talking about? Oh? The jump for

909
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:37,240
Speaker 1: this movie The Truckster's Legacy. Yes, the Truckster's Legacy lives

910
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: on in two very unexpected ways. One, in the beginning

911
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: of the movie, there's a shot of Clark Riswold and

912
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: this family setting off on their adventure, and it's an

913
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 1: aerial shot where you see the station wagon on the

914
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 1: freeway in Chicago taking an exit ramp. The producers of

915
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,840
Speaker 1: the Fox TV show Married with Children reused this footage

916
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: and the intro of their show a few years later.

917
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: WHI Yeah, I think is weird. But the greatest influence

918
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,240
Speaker 1: of the Family Truckster is that it killed the station Wagon.

919
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: At least that's what automotive writer Pete Bigelow says in

920
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:13,279
Speaker 1: a twenty thirteen article for AOL's since defunct Autoblog. He

921
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 1: pausits that vacation helped put the nail in the station

922
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 1: Wagon's coffin, though he was quick to point out other factors,

923
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: like the fact that the very year the film was released,

924
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three, Christler rolled out what's widely recognized

925
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: as the first mini van, which became the spiritual successor

926
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 1: to the station Wagon. He writes, in all its heinous glory,

927
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: the p soup green Wagon Queen Family Truckster was a

928
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: caricature of everything America hated about its station wagons, its

929
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:44,320
Speaker 1: wood paneling, its broad, expansive frame, and its boxy headlights.

930
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: Its status as the frumpy domestic Haller and Griswold embodied

931
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: the aloof American dad. Put the two caricatures together, and

932
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: national Lampoon's vacation made the station Wagon in the eyes

933
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 1: of consumers, a toxic product in one three minute scene.

934
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,280
Speaker 1: Ever since, the station Wagon has endured a sad, slow

935
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: decline and no one shed a tear. But apparently Alex Heigel.

936
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 1: Those are all the things you love about the station Wagon.

937
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, poignant American masculinity, ostentatious consumption, wood paneling, everything I

938
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 2: love about the seventies. What was the Chrysler minivan? I

939
00:53:21,200 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 2: don't know, wind Star. No, that's forward because we had

940
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 2: a Ford wind Star, Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager.

941
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 1: Wow. Oh I remember that many. Yeah, everyone's seen that many.

942
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 2: I mean it looks like Actually the nineteen eighty four

943
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 2: Renault Espase is considered the first true minivan.

944
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:46,359
Speaker 1: Oh. That's truly hideous. It's like an even uglier Privia.

945
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:51,919
Speaker 1: Oh wow, if you were a loved one, I don't

946
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 1: have anything. God, I just loved minivans, man, I got

947
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: high on so many minivans. That of thing, did you, like, know.

948
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 2: Like a slightly like a like a guy you're of

949
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 2: you who had a minivan? Y'all just cruise around in it.

950
00:54:03,600 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: Chris even oh Is Fleming, Oh, I love that a

951
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 1: lot of us had minivans. Actually, I had a grampy car.

952
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: I had my grandfather's old zambille we had. I had

953
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,040
Speaker 1: a station wagon. I didn't have a minivan.

954
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:20,719
Speaker 2: But in the film, the Griswolds drove from suburban Chicago, Evanston.

955
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 2: Is it ever listed where they're actually from?

956
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:23,520
Speaker 1: Is it?

957
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 2: John Hughes, remember, I know it's I know it's suburban Chicago.

958
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 2: It's got to be everything. John Hughes has to be Evanston.

959
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 2: Uh to the fictional Wally World in southern California. John Hughes'

960
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 2: original script sent the family through the southeast, but Harold

961
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 2: Ramis correctly decided this wasn't especially scenic, so he re

962
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 2: routed them through the southwest. Most filmmakers would have done

963
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 2: the shoot on back lots and well chosen local locations,

964
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:49,720
Speaker 2: but Ramis and company went on a grueling trip similar

965
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 2: to the one undertaken by the central family in the

966
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 2: film to get the necessary footage. In July of nineteen

967
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,720
Speaker 2: eighty two, they embarked on an epic thousand mile journey

968
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:03,399
Speaker 2: with one hundred people crammed into a three hundred foot

969
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 2: caravan of vehicles, not unlike a circus, moving six times

970
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 2: in seven weeks and shooting at fifteen locations across four states.

971
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 2: Nowadays they would see gi all of that. Aside from

972
00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 2: the Illinois and California locations.

973
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:20,040
Speaker 1: They shot at the.

974
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 2: Grand Candid in Arizona, where the Grizzolds pause briefly to sightsee,

975
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 2: and Saint Louis, Missouri, where the family truckster passes the

976
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 2: famous Gateway arch, as well as Colorado and Monument Valley, Utah,

977
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 2: which has to be one of the most filmed locations

978
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 2: in US history. Some of these locations were extremely remote,

979
00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 2: as evidenced by the Navajo tribesmen who would wander up

980
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 2: to the craft service table and their temperatures that would

981
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 2: sometimes reach upwards of one hundred and twenty degrees. But

982
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 2: to the producer's credit, they tried to make it as

983
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 2: fun as possible for the cast, especially the children. For example,

984
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 2: they held a little carnival in the hotel parking for

985
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 2: the kids on the fourth of July. The journey had

986
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 2: the opposite effect that it did on the Griswolds and

987
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:08,320
Speaker 2: made it into a real life family vacation, ultimately bringing

988
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 2: the cast and crew closer together. As actress Beverly. DiAngelo

989
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 2: later said, we were isolated in the middle of nowhere.

990
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 2: It sparked the great friendship I have with Chevy to

991
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 2: this day. He calls me his second wife. Harold Ramis

992
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:24,759
Speaker 2: had his work cut out for him shooting on these locations.

993
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 2: He later espoused the theory that shooting is the only

994
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 2: time you're making the film worse, which all aspiring filmmakers

995
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 2: should do well to keep in mind. He'd explain that

996
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,200
Speaker 2: when you're writing, you're constantly fine tuning the bones of

997
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 2: the film, making it the best screenplay in structure that

998
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 2: you can, and when you're editing, you're taking all of

999
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:46,000
Speaker 2: the footage that you've shot and sculpting it into a

1000
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,880
Speaker 2: coherent and entertaining film. But actually shooting the film often

1001
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 2: reveals that the script is not as funny as you

1002
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 2: thought it was, and nothing will go as planned. For example,

1003
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 2: there is a scene in the film where the Griswolds

1004
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:00,720
Speaker 2: are rescued in the desert by someone right a camel,

1005
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:04,239
Speaker 2: but the camel obtained by production refused to walk on

1006
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:06,480
Speaker 2: the hot scene and the scene was scrapped.

1007
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:08,080
Speaker 1: No way to plan for that.

1008
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:12,400
Speaker 2: Ramis would later say, every shooting day is a big challenge,

1009
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:14,960
Speaker 2: but we were feeling like we were accomplishing something good

1010
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 2: every day. In addition to keeping the caravan of one

1011
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 2: hundred plus cast and crew linked in the pre cell

1012
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,240
Speaker 2: phone email era, Raymis had to figure out how to

1013
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 2: shoot actors driving moving cars rather than just green screening it.

1014
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 1: It almost like a parade float. They had Chevy driving

1015
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: the car and then they built this like walkway along

1016
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 1: all the edges of it, like three to sixty degrees

1017
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 1: of the car, so they could film like in the

1018
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 1: window as he's so he's actually driving the thing. I

1019
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 1: don't think very fast, and then he has like kind

1020
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: of walkways on all sides of the car with people

1021
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: filming inside the windows to get them driving with all

1022
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: the backgrounds and air conditioners. Oh yes, huge air conditioners

1023
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 1: were installed in the car to keep things cool for

1024
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:58,440
Speaker 1: the actors because again this was like, you know, you're

1025
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 1: shooting in Monument Valley July, it's gonna be, like we said,

1026
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 1: upwards of one hundred and ten one hundred and twenty decrees.

1027
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 2: And those temperatures were especially challenging on actress Imogen Coca,

1028
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 2: who played Aunt Edna. For those of you who don't

1029
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:18,000
Speaker 2: know your in nineteen fifties comedy history, which I assume

1030
00:58:18,080 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 2: is most of you get up on it, Virgins. Coca

1031
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 2: was a comedy legend, starring alongside Sid Caesar in the

1032
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:33,920
Speaker 2: pioneering fifties sketch comedy Your Show of Shows, Jordan.

1033
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, We've talked about this show a lot on here

1034
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 1: because it's writing room was a real murderer's row of

1035
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:42,960
Speaker 1: mid century comedy talent. You've got mel Brooks, Woody Allen,

1036
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 1: a couple play right, Neil Simon, Carl Reiner. They all

1037
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 1: wrote for this show.

1038
00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 2: And much like Beverly DiAngelo, Coca had to be talked

1039
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 2: into auditioning for the role. First of all, she was

1040
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 2: worried she couldn't.

1041
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: Be mean enough.

1042
00:58:55,720 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 2: Chevy Chase has described her as one of the sweetest

1043
00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 2: ladies in the world, which is rach coming from him.

1044
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 2: And also she was worried about all the driving, since

1045
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 2: she was terrified of car travel. About a decade before

1046
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:11,960
Speaker 2: the Vacation production began, she and her husband suffered a

1047
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 2: bad car accident, resulting in a list of injuries for

1048
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 2: her that included a fractured ankle, broken cheekbone, and a

1049
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 2: cutleg and a piece of the car's review mirror went

1050
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 2: through her eye.

1051
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:25,080
Speaker 1: Jesus.

1052
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:28,919
Speaker 2: Her agent assumed and or insisted that the movie would

1053
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:31,720
Speaker 2: be shot on the studio backlot, so she tried out

1054
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 2: for the role, and this agent was, of course wrong.

1055
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 2: So Coca had to ride hundreds of miles with the

1056
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,680
Speaker 2: rest of the cast in the backseat of the family truckster,

1057
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:45,600
Speaker 2: with her tiny, withered hand on the ceiling to brace

1058
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: herself as they drove. When they drove over the mountains

1059
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 2: and the high elevations and the shoot, she would hide

1060
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 2: on the floor of the car, putting it mildly.

1061
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:59,240
Speaker 1: She was stressed. I me got all the things to

1062
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 1: be afraid of in this production. Driving in a movie

1063
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 1: about a road trip. That's not a good match.

1064
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 2: This may have contributed to her suffering a stroke when

1065
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 2: production began shooting in Colorado. Harold Ramis said they filled

1066
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 2: a scene that morning and by afternoon she couldn't remember

1067
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 2: anything they did. Same sounds like me taping this podcast.

1068
01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 2: After getting out of the hospital, she and her husband

1069
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 2: stayed up all night to relearn the dialogue, and they

1070
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 2: redid the scene the next day. Shamp I know, talking

1071
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:35,840
Speaker 2: about professionals to that era, they would just just crank

1072
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 2: you through it, like, well, well, we're filming. The checks

1073
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 2: already deposited, I'm filming this scene. Stroke or not, this

1074
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:46,000
Speaker 2: is marginally better than the faith that befells the character

1075
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 2: of Aunt Edna, who dies on the journey and is

1076
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 2: subsequently strapped to the roof of the car by Clark

1077
01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 2: and then left on the front porch of a relative's home.

1078
01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 2: It is one of the film's darkest moments, but it

1079
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:02,560
Speaker 2: was very nearly much worse. It was originally scripted that

1080
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 2: after on Edna was tied to the roof of the car,

1081
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 2: there was a shot of her fingers moving, implying that

1082
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:14,520
Speaker 2: she was still alive, and the ratings board had other ideas.

1083
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 2: It considered it cruel and so cruel cruel these the

1084
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 2: woke leftists.

1085
01:01:28,520 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: At the ratings I want you to know that.

1086
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: The real America would strap on an elderly dead aunt

1087
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:40,480
Speaker 2: to the roof alive or not. Uh, They cut it

1088
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:42,000
Speaker 2: and she was left alive.

1089
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: And speaking of cruel depictions of death, we have to

1090
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:57,040
Speaker 1: talk about too, Chipper, we have to talk about Aunt

1091
01:01:57,120 --> 01:02:00,960
Speaker 1: Edna's dog, Dinky. As you may recall, Dinky doesn't make

1092
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 1: it through the trip either. Clark inadvertently leaves him tied

1093
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 1: to the car bumper, accidentally dragging him to his death.

1094
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:10,680
Speaker 1: He only learns of this after being pulled over by

1095
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: a traffic cop who spots a leash tied to the

1096
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:16,960
Speaker 1: car's bumper and assumes the worst Chevy chase recalled in

1097
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:19,440
Speaker 1: the original script, they had a red stripe on the

1098
01:02:19,520 --> 01:02:24,160
Speaker 1: highway trailing behind the station wagon, and reportedly raym Is

1099
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 1: considered attaching an animal pelt in his words, to the leash,

1100
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:31,000
Speaker 1: but he quickly realized that both of those things were

1101
01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: way over the line. On a similar note, it really

1102
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 1: is amazing that there's a movie with a dead grandma

1103
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:39,280
Speaker 1: and a dead dog that everyone hails as a classic.

1104
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 1: That's like the two taboos.

1105
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:44,680
Speaker 2: A dead child that would have properly pushed it over

1106
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:47,400
Speaker 2: the line, but it's amazing that this one has been canonized.

1107
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 1: The seam of the dog is really pretty tasteless, but

1108
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:55,120
Speaker 1: it did result in some good karma. According to Harold Ramis,

1109
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 1: while the production was shooting in Colorado, one of the

1110
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 1: crew members saw a station wagon pulling al of a

1111
01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: holiday in parking lot with a dog tied to the bumper.

1112
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:08,720
Speaker 1: It was definitely a confirmed sighting. He said, thankfully someone

1113
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 1: on the production flagged the car down and saved the dog. Plus,

1114
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 1: I would say this scene raised awareness about this phenomenon.

1115
01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:20,080
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone was likely to forget that their

1116
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:22,240
Speaker 1: pet was tied to the back of the car bumper

1117
01:03:22,280 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 1: after seeing this movie. Hopefully they wouldn't have before they've

1118
01:03:25,800 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 1: seen this movie, but certainly not after. So I just

1119
01:03:29,520 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: think that this movie saved a lot of pets over

1120
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: the years, which is good. And also the dog who

1121
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: played Dinky was later adopted by Chevy himself after the

1122
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: production wrapped, which I think is sweet. The highway patrolman

1123
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 1: who pulls Clark over and gets weepy with him was

1124
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:50,280
Speaker 1: played by actor James Keach, who later produced Walk the Line,

1125
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:55,080
Speaker 1: the Johnny Cash biopic, and the Oscar nominated documentary Glenn

1126
01:03:55,120 --> 01:03:59,080
Speaker 1: Campbell I'll be Me and he and Chevy improv the

1127
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: whole scene, which is immediately apparent because the pair are

1128
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:06,840
Speaker 1: visibly cracking up and trying to hold back tears of laughter,

1129
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: which they kind of unsuccessfully try to pass off as

1130
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: tears of sadness in the scene. Poor little fella probably

1131
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:17,720
Speaker 1: kept up with you over the first few miles.

1132
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:23,840
Speaker 2: That's rough, Like, I don't know how, but it's hysterical.

1133
01:04:24,400 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's what I'm saying, Like, I don't know

1134
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 2: how they got that fight.

1135
01:04:29,240 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: Scene knowing that they are that wouldn't pass muster these days.

1136
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: There's a lot of little, great improvised moments in this movie.

1137
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: I mean, say what you will about Chevy Chase as

1138
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:45,800
Speaker 1: a human being, his gift for physical comedy is really unmatched.

1139
01:04:46,200 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: One of my favorite bits is a little moment that

1140
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:50,720
Speaker 1: a lot of people miss. It takes place early in

1141
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:53,240
Speaker 1: the movie when Clark is helping Ellen do the dishes

1142
01:04:53,280 --> 01:04:56,760
Speaker 1: at their house and she passes him dirty dishes that

1143
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: he never actually washes. He just wipes them with a

1144
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 1: rag and then puts them in the captains, which just

1145
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:05,520
Speaker 1: says so much about his character. You're never done dishes

1146
01:05:05,560 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 1: like that. That implies that I've cooked for myself. Clark

1147
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:14,960
Speaker 1: and Ellen sing during the trip, which wasn't part of

1148
01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:18,480
Speaker 1: the original screenplay. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo just sang

1149
01:05:18,560 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: on the set to pass the time, and they decided

1150
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:22,520
Speaker 1: that it would be cute to add that into some

1151
01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: of their car scenes. And his physical business in this

1152
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:28,240
Speaker 1: movie is so good. He can't resist, like fumbling with

1153
01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:31,800
Speaker 1: the car antenna or taking other minor pratfalls, and even

1154
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 1: though he pauses to look at the Grand Canyon for

1155
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 1: two seconds before moving on, is hilarious. And one time

1156
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 1: he got a little too enthusiastic while trying to find

1157
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 1: the gas cap for the family truckster at the gas station,

1158
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: he accidentally threw the license plate like a boomerang and

1159
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: the plate flew behind him and nearly hit the actress

1160
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:53,800
Speaker 1: parked at the adjacent pump, resulting in a genuine look

1161
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:56,800
Speaker 1: of concern on Chevy Chase's face if you watch that scene,

1162
01:05:56,920 --> 01:05:59,680
Speaker 1: like he actually is frighten for a moment. And the

1163
01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:02,200
Speaker 1: rest of the cast were also encouraged to improvise, which

1164
01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:05,800
Speaker 1: created a very collaborative, playful atmosphere on the set and

1165
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 1: this led to some great bits of business like cousin

1166
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 1: Vicki played by Jan Krakowski using her arm to stir

1167
01:06:11,720 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 1: the kool aid and Aunt Edna taking a bite of

1168
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,440
Speaker 1: the p soaked sandwich that was also something that imaging

1169
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 1: Coka came up with on the spot, and Russ putting

1170
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:23,040
Speaker 1: his feet up on Clark's headrest, and it was also

1171
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 1: a great bit from Randy Quaid as cousin Eddie that

1172
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: takes place when the Griswolds get to his house. He

1173
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 1: offers Clark the end of his beer and reaches for

1174
01:06:30,760 --> 01:06:36,280
Speaker 1: a new one for himself, which is great. Arguably, the

1175
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 1: scenes where Clark appears the most buffoonish are the ones

1176
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 1: he shares with the iconic blonde in the Ferrari, played

1177
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:46,800
Speaker 1: by proto supermodel Christy Brinkley, making her film debut. While

1178
01:06:46,840 --> 01:06:49,200
Speaker 1: she only appeared in a handful of scenes, she traveled

1179
01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:51,160
Speaker 1: with the cast and crew for much of the shoot,

1180
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:55,480
Speaker 1: which I'm sure was fun for them and fun for

1181
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: her too. She spent much of her downtime on location,

1182
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 1: whitewater rafting, and horse writing. She said that her scenes

1183
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: kept getting delayed, but I have a sneaking suspicion that

1184
01:07:05,240 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 1: the crew just wanted an excuse that she would just

1185
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: hang around longer. But I don't know. It's my pet theory.

1186
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: Was she with Billy Joel at this time? That's a

1187
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:16,280
Speaker 1: great question. You think I would know that, and I don't.

1188
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 1: I would think you would. It's probably around this time.

1189
01:07:19,600 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 1: My Billy Joel fetish is uh. She's a third porn

1190
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:26,200
Speaker 1: sub genre that they didn't get into in this movie.

1191
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah they were, well they they met in Saint Bart's

1192
01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 2: in early eighty three.

1193
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 1: Okay, so this shot in July eighty two, so no bummer.

1194
01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:41,960
Speaker 1: I know somehow that it would have been. It's funnier

1195
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: knowing that Billy Joel was like maybe keeping up with

1196
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 1: the shoot, like tailing the shoot in its afraid that

1197
01:07:49,280 --> 01:07:50,520
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase was gonna.

1198
01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:52,600
Speaker 2: Say, it's funnier if you've been reading in the trades.

1199
01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:55,280
Speaker 2: He was like, he's like opening variety, like being like

1200
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,919
Speaker 2: Christy Brinkley shooting a national lampoon comedy.

1201
01:07:59,600 --> 01:08:04,440
Speaker 1: With Chevy Chase. I'm better than Chevy Chase, right better?

1202
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:08,280
Speaker 1: All right? Where she vacationing next to your Saint Bart's.

1203
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:12,680
Speaker 1: All right, calls his travel agent. But Christy Brinkley a

1204
01:08:12,720 --> 01:08:15,560
Speaker 1: very talented woman. She drove the Ferrari herself, which is

1205
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: pretty impressive considering it's basically a street legal racing car,

1206
01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:22,120
Speaker 1: and someone had to give her driving lessons because Ferraris

1207
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:25,720
Speaker 1: have an extra gear and to downshift or break you

1208
01:08:25,760 --> 01:08:28,080
Speaker 1: have to do what's called heel toe shifting, which is

1209
01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 1: a whole thing that race drivers do. No one cares,

1210
01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:34,080
Speaker 1: but it's hard in early versions of the scripts, the

1211
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 1: character was supposed to wink or make eyes at Rusty

1212
01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:40,479
Speaker 1: the Kid. Now, though I've seen different explanations as to

1213
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 1: whether it was Christy Brinkley like a woman driving the

1214
01:08:43,439 --> 01:08:46,360
Speaker 1: car like a grown woman, or a younger passenger closer

1215
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:49,400
Speaker 1: to Rusty's age. Either way, I sort of like this better.

1216
01:08:49,520 --> 01:08:51,720
Speaker 1: But once Chevy Chase signed on on the point of

1217
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:55,240
Speaker 1: view of the story switched to him, obviously he got

1218
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:58,559
Speaker 1: the girl because he's Chevy Chase and we're all not.

1219
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:04,559
Speaker 1: The sadly nameless woman in the Ferrari appears multiple times

1220
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:06,960
Speaker 1: throughout the movie, both on the road and also at

1221
01:09:06,960 --> 01:09:11,200
Speaker 1: the picnic stop, where Chevy performs his improvised slash obscene

1222
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:14,960
Speaker 1: sandwich dance for her. It's pretty it's tough to watch.

1223
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:16,679
Speaker 1: It's so cringey. I mean, I know that's the point.

1224
01:09:16,760 --> 01:09:20,720
Speaker 1: But also, when the Griswolds first enter the saloon in

1225
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:23,600
Speaker 1: Dodge City, you can see Christy Brinkley featured in a

1226
01:09:23,640 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 1: copper tone sunscreen advertisement on the front desk, And I

1227
01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:29,519
Speaker 1: can't tell if this is just a happy coincidence or

1228
01:09:29,560 --> 01:09:33,800
Speaker 1: an intentional in universe easter egg. Like she's clearly some

1229
01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: famous model that exists in their world. Her big moment

1230
01:09:38,360 --> 01:09:41,040
Speaker 1: with Clark comes at the motel in Phoenix, as she

1231
01:09:41,120 --> 01:09:44,800
Speaker 1: approaches him at dinner and he immediately denies having a

1232
01:09:44,840 --> 01:09:47,479
Speaker 1: wife and kids and claims to own both the motel

1233
01:09:47,520 --> 01:09:51,320
Speaker 1: that they're currently in and an airline. Then she leads

1234
01:09:51,400 --> 01:09:53,479
Speaker 1: him to the pool and convinces him to skinny dip

1235
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:56,519
Speaker 1: with her, and fans of comedy know this where this

1236
01:09:56,600 --> 01:09:59,519
Speaker 1: is going. He is, of course caught by his wife, Ellen,

1237
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:02,200
Speaker 1: his ChIL and the rest of the guests at the motel.

1238
01:10:02,960 --> 01:10:06,880
Speaker 1: In classic mid century motel fashion, the pools located at

1239
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,400
Speaker 1: the center of the courtyard, thus providing a good view

1240
01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:13,280
Speaker 1: of Clark's humiliation for everyone. This was sadly not a

1241
01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:16,200
Speaker 1: fun scene to shoot for Christy. From the very start,

1242
01:10:16,280 --> 01:10:18,920
Speaker 1: everyone was trying to get her to actually strip naked.

1243
01:10:19,600 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 1: She recalled Harold Ramis mounting a strenuous intellectual argument, Christy,

1244
01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 1: the nudity is very important, really, it's an integral part

1245
01:10:27,080 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 1: of the character, to which she replied, yeah, right. And

1246
01:10:30,600 --> 01:10:32,800
Speaker 1: as she said in the making of documentary, she had

1247
01:10:32,840 --> 01:10:36,600
Speaker 1: a quote pretty good thing going based on people imagining

1248
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 1: what was under her swimsuit and didn't want to ruin that,

1249
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: so she opted for a flesh colored body stocking instead. However,

1250
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:46,800
Speaker 1: Harold Ramis remembers the day when the costume department called

1251
01:10:46,840 --> 01:10:49,120
Speaker 1: him and said, we have Christy down here. We need

1252
01:10:49,160 --> 01:10:51,599
Speaker 1: you to approve her underwear. Would you mind coming down

1253
01:10:51,640 --> 01:10:56,959
Speaker 1: and watching her try on lingerie a day, he always remembered.

1254
01:10:57,920 --> 01:11:00,599
Speaker 1: But the shoot itself wasn't very fun for her because

1255
01:11:00,600 --> 01:11:03,439
Speaker 1: she was so nervous. This is her feature film debut.

1256
01:11:04,200 --> 01:11:06,559
Speaker 1: After the first take in the pool, she went outside

1257
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:10,599
Speaker 1: and burst into tears. Ramos told her that it was perfect,

1258
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:13,360
Speaker 1: but she insisted she could do it better. So Harold

1259
01:11:13,439 --> 01:11:16,280
Speaker 1: Ramis walked back onto the set and announced, all right, everyone,

1260
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:19,200
Speaker 1: Christy says she can do it better. Let's do it again,

1261
01:11:19,840 --> 01:11:22,439
Speaker 1: at which point she heard the entire cast and crew

1262
01:11:22,560 --> 01:11:26,120
Speaker 1: grown not helpful. I think it was the second take

1263
01:11:26,160 --> 01:11:29,479
Speaker 1: that winds up in the final cut. There was also

1264
01:11:29,479 --> 01:11:31,880
Speaker 1: supposed to be a scene immediately after this pool scene

1265
01:11:31,920 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 1: where Rusty gets seduced by a prostitute, but it was

1266
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 1: cut from the movie. Christy Brinkley would later revisit her

1267
01:11:38,920 --> 01:11:42,840
Speaker 1: role in nineteen ninety seven's Vegas Vacation movie, which, let's

1268
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:45,000
Speaker 1: face it, needed all the help it could get. But

1269
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:48,599
Speaker 1: she was also very nearly in nineteen eighty nine's Christmas Vacation,

1270
01:11:49,240 --> 01:11:52,639
Speaker 1: but unfortunately, her dad talked her out of it, fearing

1271
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:56,439
Speaker 1: that she'd get typecast in quote that kind of angenu role.

1272
01:11:57,640 --> 01:12:00,400
Speaker 1: According to Christy Brinkley, her dad told her you have

1273
01:12:00,439 --> 01:12:02,559
Speaker 1: so much more depth. I don't think you should do it,

1274
01:12:03,160 --> 01:12:05,519
Speaker 1: and she didn't, and that remains one of her very

1275
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:09,160
Speaker 1: few career regrets. She later told us Weekly, of course

1276
01:12:09,200 --> 01:12:11,080
Speaker 1: I should have done it, because it's so much fun

1277
01:12:11,120 --> 01:12:13,639
Speaker 1: to hang around with comedians. I mean, I love nothing

1278
01:12:13,680 --> 01:12:16,120
Speaker 1: more than to make people laugh. I'm sure that Chevy

1279
01:12:16,160 --> 01:12:17,839
Speaker 1: and I would have seen each other at the Christmas

1280
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:20,160
Speaker 1: tree stand or putting the Christmas tree in the roof

1281
01:12:20,200 --> 01:12:22,240
Speaker 1: of by Ferrari or something. It would have been great.

1282
01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 1: But she was also not asked to be in European Vacation.

1283
01:12:25,800 --> 01:12:27,880
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever even seen European Vacation

1284
01:12:27,960 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: all the way through.

1285
01:12:28,640 --> 01:12:31,599
Speaker 2: I know that, Oh it's funny, it's got an amazing bit. Yeah,

1286
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:34,360
Speaker 2: it's got an amazing bit. Where they're at that really

1287
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:37,720
Speaker 2: sums up the French to me. Where they they're at

1288
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:40,679
Speaker 2: a they're at like a French thing and the French

1289
01:12:40,720 --> 01:12:42,880
Speaker 2: waiter is talking to him in French.

1290
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:46,160
Speaker 1: And he's like, I'll tell you what I'll do.

1291
01:12:47,200 --> 01:12:49,479
Speaker 2: He's speaking French and the subtitles or showing what he's

1292
01:12:49,479 --> 01:12:50,960
Speaker 2: actually saying to them, and he's like, I'll tell you

1293
01:12:51,040 --> 01:12:53,679
Speaker 2: what I'll do. I'll go to the chef and I'll

1294
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:55,640
Speaker 2: have him get some dog food and put it on

1295
01:12:55,640 --> 01:12:59,160
Speaker 2: a really nice plate for you, and then instead of champagne,

1296
01:12:59,280 --> 01:13:01,400
Speaker 2: I'll get some black are from the dishwashing sink and

1297
01:13:01,400 --> 01:13:02,520
Speaker 2: I'll bring it to you.

1298
01:13:02,520 --> 01:13:04,000
Speaker 1: You won't know the difference.

1299
01:13:04,400 --> 01:13:07,400
Speaker 2: And they're just like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1300
01:13:07,439 --> 01:13:10,160
Speaker 2: oh wow. And the whole thing about them getting trapped

1301
01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:12,840
Speaker 2: in one of the British like one of the London roundabouts.

1302
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:17,960
Speaker 1: Hey kids, Big Ben Parliament, big bet again. Yeah.

1303
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:22,360
Speaker 2: So yeah, Europeans good. I've even seen Vegas where he's uh,

1304
01:13:22,479 --> 01:13:26,760
Speaker 2: I like Vegas. His alias is mister Papa Georgio.

1305
01:13:26,560 --> 01:13:30,880
Speaker 1: Nick Papa Georgio. Yeah yeah, from you Arizona. That is

1306
01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:32,840
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah, I mean yeah. The bit about

1307
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:36,519
Speaker 1: Rusty in Vegas vacation, getting a fake ida and gambling

1308
01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:40,320
Speaker 1: and then just repeatedly winning and winning four cars, is

1309
01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:43,519
Speaker 1: that that's great. That's a really good bit. I do

1310
01:13:43,640 --> 01:13:48,160
Speaker 1: love that well. Speaking of Christy Brinkley and the Ferrari,

1311
01:13:48,320 --> 01:13:50,040
Speaker 1: this is a good time as any to talk about

1312
01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:53,559
Speaker 1: the music in Vacation, including the Ferrari women's musical theme

1313
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:57,599
Speaker 1: whenever Clark catches sight of her in his rearview mirror. Now,

1314
01:13:57,760 --> 01:14:00,920
Speaker 1: I Mandela affected this theme in the head as the

1315
01:14:01,000 --> 01:14:05,519
Speaker 1: Lindsey Buckingham Vacation theme song Holiday Road, which, in my defense,

1316
01:14:05,600 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 1: is what plays when Christy Brinkley appears in the Vegas

1317
01:14:08,360 --> 01:14:12,880
Speaker 1: Vacation movie years later. But apparently this isn't the case.

1318
01:14:12,960 --> 01:14:15,880
Speaker 1: This isn't what plays in the original Vacation movie when

1319
01:14:15,880 --> 01:14:19,120
Speaker 1: she appears. The truth is actually even weirder in the

1320
01:14:19,120 --> 01:14:22,799
Speaker 1: theatrical release. In the early home video version of Vacation,

1321
01:14:23,000 --> 01:14:25,599
Speaker 1: the song that plays when Christy Brinkley appears is I'm

1322
01:14:25,640 --> 01:14:29,200
Speaker 1: So Excited about the Pointer Sisters, But on future releases

1323
01:14:29,360 --> 01:14:32,479
Speaker 1: the song is swapped out for a song by June Pointer,

1324
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:36,400
Speaker 1: one of the Pointer sisters, called little Boy Sweet. I

1325
01:14:36,400 --> 01:14:38,160
Speaker 1: don't know why this is that. I've never been able

1326
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: to find a satisfactory explanation. I'm imagining it's some kind

1327
01:14:41,120 --> 01:14:45,040
Speaker 1: of licensing issue, but does I'm So Excited really cost

1328
01:14:45,200 --> 01:14:45,679
Speaker 1: that much?

1329
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:48,360
Speaker 2: I mean, the top goour result for the Little Boy

1330
01:14:48,479 --> 01:14:51,800
Speaker 2: Sweet is the YouTube clip for this film, and then

1331
01:14:51,960 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 2: second to that, it's a SoundCloud link for the vinyl

1332
01:14:57,960 --> 01:14:59,760
Speaker 2: restoration rip.

1333
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:01,080
Speaker 1: Of the song.

1334
01:15:01,520 --> 01:15:07,200
Speaker 2: So for those of you who are online terminally online,

1335
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:10,640
Speaker 2: that should give you an indication of the popularity of

1336
01:15:10,640 --> 01:15:11,160
Speaker 2: that song.

1337
01:15:11,479 --> 01:15:13,720
Speaker 1: It's a good song. It's just weird that, like I mean,

1338
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:16,320
Speaker 1: I'm So Excited was so perfect and I don't know

1339
01:15:16,360 --> 01:15:19,840
Speaker 1: why they changed it. But anyhow, while we're over here,

1340
01:15:19,880 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 1: we got to talk about the theme song of the

1341
01:15:21,479 --> 01:15:26,360
Speaker 1: movie Holiday Road. Oh song I Love So Dearly. Even

1342
01:15:26,360 --> 01:15:29,120
Speaker 1: though it sounds like something that the Brian Wilson obsessed

1343
01:15:29,200 --> 01:15:31,879
Speaker 1: Lindsey Buckingham just crapped out one day at a cocaine

1344
01:15:31,920 --> 01:15:36,719
Speaker 1: induced fugue state while testing out his new home studio equipment, which,

1345
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:39,840
Speaker 1: to be real, is basically what happened. This was nineteen

1346
01:15:39,880 --> 01:15:42,799
Speaker 1: eighty three, an era when every comedy needed a catchy

1347
01:15:42,880 --> 01:15:45,680
Speaker 1: theme tune from a bland white dude separated from his

1348
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:50,479
Speaker 1: more interesting seventies musical outlet. See Kenny Loggins doing the

1349
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:54,280
Speaker 1: Gopher dance song I'm Alright in Caddyshack, that song he goes,

1350
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:57,479
Speaker 1: that song goes, Yes, it does. Kenny Loggins doing the

1351
01:15:57,479 --> 01:16:01,479
Speaker 1: theme for Footloose, Kenny Loggins doing danger Zone for Top Gun.

1352
01:16:02,479 --> 01:16:04,839
Speaker 1: Surely there must be other people who aren't Kenny Loggins.

1353
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:08,559
Speaker 1: Did John Oates do any comedy theme songs in the eighties?

1354
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:12,760
Speaker 2: Loggins as my undying loyalty though, Man, yeah, I mean,

1355
01:16:13,320 --> 01:16:15,960
Speaker 2: you know, giving me the best, the single best sound

1356
01:16:15,960 --> 01:16:17,720
Speaker 2: bite any celebrity has ever given me.

1357
01:16:17,920 --> 01:16:19,479
Speaker 1: Oh, remind me what that is. I forget.

1358
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:21,960
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of hope for the species

1359
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:25,960
Speaker 2: when talking about climate change.

1360
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:28,840
Speaker 1: That's right, you snuck a danger zone reference into the

1361
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:31,559
Speaker 1: headline of that article you wrote. Was that for people?

1362
01:16:32,080 --> 01:16:37,400
Speaker 1: Or I feel a lot of guilt about Kenny Loggins

1363
01:16:37,760 --> 01:16:41,240
Speaker 1: because I it was the first time I ever did

1364
01:16:41,320 --> 01:16:44,599
Speaker 1: like a like an event where I was supposed to

1365
01:16:44,600 --> 01:16:47,240
Speaker 1: like talk to one person, but then they like when

1366
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:50,000
Speaker 1: you got there, they just offered you time with another person.

1367
01:16:50,360 --> 01:16:52,599
Speaker 1: And I was too polite to say no, I don't

1368
01:16:52,760 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: really want to talk to Kenny Loggins. That's not why

1369
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:57,040
Speaker 1: I'm here, and I have no questions for him. So

1370
01:16:57,120 --> 01:16:59,519
Speaker 1: I had no questions for him. I just tried to riff,

1371
01:16:59,560 --> 01:17:02,240
Speaker 1: which I as evidenced by all the episodes of this

1372
01:17:02,320 --> 01:17:05,320
Speaker 1: show that I meticulously script I'm not very good at.

1373
01:17:06,360 --> 01:17:10,560
Speaker 1: So that was like, so was it all right? Nobody

1374
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:16,679
Speaker 1: worries about you. How's Jim Asina doing these days? So yeah,

1375
01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:18,599
Speaker 1: I talked to him for like twenty minutes about God

1376
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:20,600
Speaker 1: does One and I never wrote anything about it, and

1377
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:22,160
Speaker 1: I feel bad about it to this day.

1378
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 2: I think you're okay not having made any Yeah made

1379
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:29,000
Speaker 2: hitty Hey from Loggins.

1380
01:17:32,320 --> 01:17:36,880
Speaker 1: This song boggles my mind. Dude. It's literally just Lindsey. Yeah.

1381
01:17:36,920 --> 01:17:39,679
Speaker 1: He plays every single instrument and sings every part, which

1382
01:17:39,720 --> 01:17:41,519
Speaker 1: is nuts. I mean well, I mean the funny part

1383
01:17:41,600 --> 01:17:45,240
Speaker 1: is Harold Raimis wanted Fleet with Mac. They just released

1384
01:17:45,280 --> 01:17:50,080
Speaker 1: Mirage in nineteen eighty two. Band relations were really at

1385
01:17:50,400 --> 01:17:53,400
Speaker 1: their I say, there's so many lows in terms of

1386
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:56,240
Speaker 1: band relation for Fleetwood Mac, but this was certainly one

1387
01:17:56,240 --> 01:17:58,599
Speaker 1: of the lowest lows. They wouldn't record a new album

1388
01:17:58,600 --> 01:18:01,360
Speaker 1: together for five years. Getting them all together in a

1389
01:18:01,439 --> 01:18:03,719
Speaker 1: room was just not gonna happen. So they went with Lindsay,

1390
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:08,200
Speaker 1: who was initially very reluctant. He believed that soundtrack work

1391
01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:12,280
Speaker 1: quote wasn't part of his discipline, but ultimately he honored

1392
01:18:12,280 --> 01:18:14,920
Speaker 1: the request and recorded Holiday Road, as you said, playing

1393
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:18,799
Speaker 1: all the instruments himself, without actually seeing the movie first.

1394
01:18:18,840 --> 01:18:21,040
Speaker 1: He didn't even I don't know if it wasn't available

1395
01:18:21,320 --> 01:18:23,800
Speaker 1: or if he just deemed it beneath him to not

1396
01:18:23,920 --> 01:18:25,800
Speaker 1: feel like watching the movie that he was spreading the

1397
01:18:25,800 --> 01:18:28,120
Speaker 1: theme song for. It's just so funny to me because.

1398
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:31,880
Speaker 2: He he went with the choice of using the dog

1399
01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:36,240
Speaker 2: barks for the on the Fairlight CMI, which is famously

1400
01:18:36,280 --> 01:18:40,720
Speaker 2: the synthesizer that Kate Bush used, Oh yeah, and also

1401
01:18:40,840 --> 01:18:45,599
Speaker 2: included her synthesized dog barks on Hounds of Love.

1402
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:51,880
Speaker 1: You know, Oh my god, you're right, oh on Hounds

1403
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:52,280
Speaker 1: of Love.

1404
01:18:52,880 --> 01:18:55,000
Speaker 2: And it's just so damn funny to me that those

1405
01:18:55,040 --> 01:18:59,200
Speaker 2: two people used synthesized fair Light dog barks on two

1406
01:19:00,120 --> 01:19:04,000
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties pop hits from around the same time, but

1407
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:06,240
Speaker 2: only one of them was tied to a movie in

1408
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:07,519
Speaker 2: which the dog dies.

1409
01:19:08,479 --> 01:19:11,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had no idea that there was a scene

1410
01:19:11,360 --> 01:19:13,920
Speaker 1: where a dog is accidentally dragged to its death with

1411
01:19:14,160 --> 01:19:16,400
Speaker 1: one plumper of a car, which is what I like

1412
01:19:16,439 --> 01:19:19,599
Speaker 1: to call, to borrow a phrase from Bob Ross, a

1413
01:19:19,640 --> 01:19:26,080
Speaker 1: happy accident Oh yeah. I mean he had that blue

1414
01:19:26,080 --> 01:19:27,880
Speaker 1: hair of Ramis's mind when he heard the song and

1415
01:19:28,040 --> 01:19:30,000
Speaker 1: was like, Linday didn't even watch the movie. But it

1416
01:19:30,479 --> 01:19:33,919
Speaker 1: ends with dog barkings. This is great. Some internet sleuths

1417
01:19:33,920 --> 01:19:36,200
Speaker 1: have a pet theory. See what I did there that

1418
01:19:36,280 --> 01:19:38,080
Speaker 1: the dog heard at the end of the song is

1419
01:19:38,120 --> 01:19:40,760
Speaker 1: the same one on the cover of nineteen seventy nine's

1420
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:45,200
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac album Tusk, which belonged to producer Ken Kelly.

1421
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:49,439
Speaker 2: It's better than the theory that it was Mick Fleetwood's dick,

1422
01:19:49,760 --> 01:19:51,800
Speaker 2: which is what the song Tusk is actually about.

1423
01:19:52,360 --> 01:19:56,320
Speaker 1: God, I love the song Tusk Love. That is a

1424
01:19:56,360 --> 01:19:58,479
Speaker 1: great song and the video for that where they're playing

1425
01:19:58,560 --> 01:20:00,839
Speaker 1: with the usc Trojans.

1426
01:20:00,240 --> 01:20:05,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, Buddy super super and the live one when he's

1427
01:20:05,320 --> 01:20:09,360
Speaker 2: in his top hat Era, Yeah, super coked farmer, farmer

1428
01:20:09,439 --> 01:20:12,160
Speaker 2: hat Era, super coked out of his gourd.

1429
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:14,400
Speaker 1: That is one of the most toy songs.

1430
01:20:15,280 --> 01:20:19,120
Speaker 2: It's insane, It's like it's grinding teeth. The soundtrack.

1431
01:20:20,520 --> 01:20:23,760
Speaker 1: Is that Kobe Khaleaid's dad, Yes, Yes, ah.

1432
01:20:24,320 --> 01:20:25,960
Speaker 2: Nepotism, How did You Well?

1433
01:20:26,439 --> 01:20:28,439
Speaker 1: Or? One of the first episodes we ever taped was

1434
01:20:28,439 --> 01:20:33,560
Speaker 1: fleet with Max Rumors and identified and you were like,

1435
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 1: I have no idea who that is, but somehow, in

1436
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:38,000
Speaker 1: the space of the last eighteen months you've learned.

1437
01:20:38,960 --> 01:20:44,920
Speaker 2: It's because I'm I'm learning Jordan. Every piece of nepotism

1438
01:20:44,960 --> 01:20:50,080
Speaker 2: baby info gets filed into my database and internalized.

1439
01:20:49,920 --> 01:20:51,559
Speaker 1: For when the revolution comes.

1440
01:20:53,320 --> 01:20:57,400
Speaker 2: No, it's just wild to me that h Lindsay's understanding

1441
01:20:57,439 --> 01:20:59,800
Speaker 2: of the movie was that it should be somewhat up

1442
01:21:00,800 --> 01:21:03,439
Speaker 2: and a little bit funny, and so he was like,

1443
01:21:03,520 --> 01:21:05,000
Speaker 2: I'll put a dog bark in.

1444
01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:07,320
Speaker 1: And then.

1445
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:14,599
Speaker 2: Featuring a notable dog death, just the perfect curb your

1446
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:21,760
Speaker 2: enthusiasm theme song drop moment for Lindsey. Sadly not a hit,

1447
01:21:21,800 --> 01:21:23,600
Speaker 2: though sadly not as much of a hit as I

1448
01:21:23,680 --> 01:21:24,280
Speaker 2: would have thought.

1449
01:21:24,120 --> 01:21:25,439
Speaker 1: It would have been. I know it only got to

1450
01:21:25,520 --> 01:21:28,600
Speaker 1: number eighty two on Billboard, which may have contributed to

1451
01:21:28,640 --> 01:21:31,800
Speaker 1: Lindsay's decision to say no to Harold Ramis when he

1452
01:21:31,880 --> 01:21:34,720
Speaker 1: came knocking again a few years later looking for a

1453
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:35,720
Speaker 1: title theme.

1454
01:21:35,479 --> 01:21:41,200
Speaker 2: To Ghostbusters Incredible? Can you imagine the song Ghostbusters sung

1455
01:21:41,240 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 2: by Lindsey Buckingham ghost Stop.

1456
01:21:43,720 --> 01:21:45,480
Speaker 1: Scout, scout scous.

1457
01:21:46,680 --> 01:21:51,360
Speaker 2: Busters like just coked out of his gorge, screaming fingerpicked

1458
01:21:51,400 --> 01:21:53,679
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar super high in the mix.

1459
01:21:57,240 --> 01:21:58,200
Speaker 1: Well I missed that.

1460
01:21:58,680 --> 01:22:02,840
Speaker 2: What a missed opportunity, as he later explained, Nah, you

1461
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:06,440
Speaker 2: know I did this really well once the soundtrack Vacation.

1462
01:22:06,960 --> 01:22:08,920
Speaker 1: It's not something I want to get into as a

1463
01:22:08,960 --> 01:22:10,960
Speaker 1: repetitive part of my identity.

1464
01:22:12,640 --> 01:22:18,360
Speaker 2: Incredible reverse engineering backwards Monday morning quarterbacking. You know, I

1465
01:22:18,400 --> 01:22:21,360
Speaker 2: didn't want to do the theme song to Ghostbusters, a

1466
01:22:21,439 --> 01:22:25,479
Speaker 2: theme song recognized in every corner of the world, because

1467
01:22:25,520 --> 01:22:27,439
Speaker 2: I really knocked it out of the park with my

1468
01:22:27,560 --> 01:22:28,680
Speaker 2: theme for Vacation.

1469
01:22:29,479 --> 01:22:31,120
Speaker 1: Have you heard the dogs at the end?

1470
01:22:34,880 --> 01:22:37,360
Speaker 2: As you meditate on that, We'll be right back with

1471
01:22:37,400 --> 01:22:51,920
Speaker 2: more too much information after these messages. All right, Well,

1472
01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:54,600
Speaker 2: I'm gonna use your segue here, even though it has

1473
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:56,840
Speaker 2: absolutely no bearing on what we were just talking about.

1474
01:22:57,040 --> 01:23:00,840
Speaker 2: On the topic of objectifying women. Now we have to

1475
01:23:00,880 --> 01:23:03,439
Speaker 2: talk about how Anthony Michael Hall was a horny purve

1476
01:23:04,800 --> 01:23:07,160
Speaker 2: during the filming of the scene where his on screen

1477
01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:10,000
Speaker 2: mom was taking a shower. In a two thousand and

1478
01:23:10,080 --> 01:23:12,480
Speaker 2: nine oral history of the film for Maxim, he described

1479
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:16,280
Speaker 2: trying to be a discreet presence on the scene when

1480
01:23:16,360 --> 01:23:19,360
Speaker 2: Peverly DeAngelo was in the shower, only to get forcibly

1481
01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:28,840
Speaker 2: ejected by the producer phrasing, only to get squeezed squeezed

1482
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:31,000
Speaker 2: off the set, Only to get squeezed out of the

1483
01:23:31,080 --> 01:23:36,240
Speaker 2: set by National Lampoon producer and head Honjo Mattie Simmons,

1484
01:23:36,280 --> 01:23:39,320
Speaker 2: who later recounted, I grabbed him by the shoulder and said,

1485
01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:42,639
Speaker 2: get the hell out of here, Get the hell out

1486
01:23:42,640 --> 01:23:43,880
Speaker 2: of here, jerking off to.

1487
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:45,920
Speaker 1: Your on screen mom.

1488
01:23:46,280 --> 01:23:48,839
Speaker 2: Simmons was angry the young star would try to violate

1489
01:23:48,920 --> 01:23:51,880
Speaker 2: the privacy of a fellow cast member filming, and years

1490
01:23:51,960 --> 01:23:55,000
Speaker 2: later Hall didn't deny the allegation, saying I was totally

1491
01:23:55,000 --> 01:23:57,880
Speaker 2: trying to sneak a peek. Was I conflicted that she.

1492
01:23:57,920 --> 01:24:01,040
Speaker 1: Was playing my mom? You know what? At times I

1493
01:24:01,200 --> 01:24:06,280
Speaker 1: was fade out to the more you know star.

1494
01:24:08,960 --> 01:24:12,200
Speaker 2: He would add in the making of documentary, I had

1495
01:24:12,320 --> 01:24:15,800
Speaker 2: kind of a Freudian thing for her. Mattie Simmons would

1496
01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:18,920
Speaker 2: later recall that the room where Beverly D'Angelo changed was

1497
01:24:19,080 --> 01:24:22,320
Speaker 2: so far from the set, requiring that she walk a

1498
01:24:22,360 --> 01:24:25,080
Speaker 2: bit of a distance in nothing but a towel, which

1499
01:24:25,120 --> 01:24:27,760
Speaker 2: made him feel bad, but she laughed it off, saying, Oh,

1500
01:24:27,800 --> 01:24:31,160
Speaker 2: I'd done four hundred naked performances in hair for me

1501
01:24:31,280 --> 01:24:35,760
Speaker 2: walking across the set was nothing. There were several deleted

1502
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:40,080
Speaker 2: scenes speaking of risque content that were shot but cut

1503
01:24:40,080 --> 01:24:42,360
Speaker 2: from a final version of the film. One had the

1504
01:24:42,800 --> 01:24:46,800
Speaker 2: camp comfort manager played by Brian Doyle Murray, dress up

1505
01:24:46,840 --> 01:24:50,200
Speaker 2: in a moose constume and sneak into Clark and Ellen's

1506
01:24:50,200 --> 01:24:54,800
Speaker 2: tent to scare them, explaining the quote unquote wildlife fun

1507
01:24:55,000 --> 01:24:57,680
Speaker 2: the manager mentions as they check in. That scene was

1508
01:24:57,720 --> 01:25:00,080
Speaker 2: cut because it made the sequence run too long, and

1509
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:02,439
Speaker 2: so it was rewritten to have Dinky sneak into the

1510
01:25:02,439 --> 01:25:06,200
Speaker 2: tent instead. The second scene was one featuring two Native Americans,

1511
01:25:06,280 --> 01:25:08,880
Speaker 2: the same ones who see Clark wandering aimlessly through the

1512
01:25:08,920 --> 01:25:11,720
Speaker 2: desert and say what an ass as well as a

1513
01:25:11,760 --> 01:25:14,080
Speaker 2: camel rider who finds Ellen and the rest of the

1514
01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:17,519
Speaker 2: family and rescues them. That scene was cut because, as

1515
01:25:17,560 --> 01:25:20,480
Speaker 2: we mentioned earlier, the camel had been raised in Burbank

1516
01:25:20,640 --> 01:25:24,519
Speaker 2: and had only ever walked on pavement and not hot sand,

1517
01:25:24,880 --> 01:25:28,799
Speaker 2: and was therefore unable to do so. A poignant metaphor

1518
01:25:29,200 --> 01:25:32,439
Speaker 2: for Hollywood if I've ever heard one. Remnants of both

1519
01:25:32,479 --> 01:25:37,160
Speaker 2: cut scenes appear as photos during the ending credits photo montage,

1520
01:25:37,320 --> 01:25:39,280
Speaker 2: and there was another deleted scene that took place. After

1521
01:25:39,320 --> 01:25:41,840
Speaker 2: the redneck mechanics relieve Clark of all of his money,

1522
01:25:42,360 --> 01:25:44,360
Speaker 2: he mentions that they're going to run out of gas,

1523
01:25:44,400 --> 01:25:47,719
Speaker 2: and in this deleted scene that is exactly what happens. Clark,

1524
01:25:47,840 --> 01:25:49,599
Speaker 2: Ellen and the kids are forced to push the car

1525
01:25:49,720 --> 01:25:52,400
Speaker 2: with Edna still inside of it, to the nearest gas station.

1526
01:25:53,080 --> 01:25:55,200
Speaker 2: The attendant fills the car up with gas, and then

1527
01:25:55,200 --> 01:25:57,840
Speaker 2: Clark drives away very fast without paying for it because

1528
01:25:57,880 --> 01:26:02,000
Speaker 2: he has no money. Is also where Clark got those sandwiches,

1529
01:26:02,360 --> 01:26:04,760
Speaker 2: because later he tells Russ to get out the sandwiches

1530
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:06,120
Speaker 2: he got at the gas station.

1531
01:26:07,000 --> 01:26:09,640
Speaker 1: That's my favorite line of this entire movie. Russ, can

1532
01:26:09,680 --> 01:26:11,679
Speaker 1: you have me one of those sandwiches from the gas station.

1533
01:26:12,160 --> 01:26:13,960
Speaker 1: I'm so hungry I can eat a sandwich from a

1534
01:26:13,960 --> 01:26:14,519
Speaker 1: gas station.

1535
01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:17,679
Speaker 2: Speaking of seeds that were cut, there's one that Harold

1536
01:26:17,760 --> 01:26:19,720
Speaker 2: Ramis wishes he'd cut, and that is the part where

1537
01:26:19,720 --> 01:26:22,880
Speaker 2: the Griswolds drive their station wagon through a rough neighborhood

1538
01:26:22,880 --> 01:26:23,719
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis.

1539
01:26:24,960 --> 01:26:27,639
Speaker 1: We can't close their eyes to the plight of the city. Kids,

1540
01:26:27,640 --> 01:26:32,000
Speaker 1: youre noticing all this plight. Gunshots sound okay, roll them up.

1541
01:26:32,880 --> 01:26:35,760
Speaker 2: It's a very actually like prec commentary on like white

1542
01:26:35,880 --> 01:26:39,000
Speaker 2: liberalism to being Yeah, well, we have to bear witness

1543
01:26:39,040 --> 01:26:41,519
Speaker 2: to this, but the second it gets too close, we

1544
01:26:41,600 --> 01:26:43,920
Speaker 2: install a ring and start calling the cops.

1545
01:26:44,120 --> 01:26:48,880
Speaker 1: Well, that was supposed to be the underlying intent of

1546
01:26:48,920 --> 01:26:52,280
Speaker 1: this scene, but it ended up just being insulting to

1547
01:26:52,360 --> 01:26:53,200
Speaker 1: everybody in it.

1548
01:26:53,600 --> 01:26:56,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously it comes across as an incredibly offensive today,

1549
01:26:56,439 --> 01:26:58,880
Speaker 2: and Ramis said on his commentary track that he was

1550
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:00,719
Speaker 2: embarrassed by it. At the time time of the taping,

1551
01:27:01,120 --> 01:27:04,439
Speaker 2: he called it the most politically incorrect sequence I've ever shot,

1552
01:27:04,920 --> 01:27:08,639
Speaker 2: adding that it dehumanizes everyone involved. And before he died

1553
01:27:08,680 --> 01:27:11,240
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, he said if he would reshoot the

1554
01:27:11,240 --> 01:27:14,040
Speaker 2: movie in the twenty tens, he would lose that scene.

1555
01:27:14,120 --> 01:27:16,120
Speaker 2: Didn't They reshoot this movie in the twenty tens, and

1556
01:27:16,160 --> 01:27:18,519
Speaker 2: everyone collectively decided that we were going to ignore it.

1557
01:27:18,600 --> 01:27:22,479
Speaker 1: They did a reboot of it with Ed Helms as

1558
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:25,400
Speaker 1: Rusty as like a grown up Rusty. We'll talk for

1559
01:27:25,520 --> 01:27:27,439
Speaker 1: about that at the end. Yeah, it didn't really well.

1560
01:27:27,479 --> 01:27:29,920
Speaker 1: I don't think National Lampoo had anything to do with it,

1561
01:27:30,080 --> 01:27:33,560
Speaker 1: and it Yeah, it wasn't good. I just want to

1562
01:27:33,560 --> 01:27:37,160
Speaker 1: add the scene in question, Clark stops for directions in

1563
01:27:37,200 --> 01:27:39,760
Speaker 1: this neighborhood and he gets relieved of his hubcaps.

1564
01:27:41,240 --> 01:27:47,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, not exactly the most advanced Yeah, and racial relations,

1565
01:27:47,479 --> 01:27:49,680
Speaker 2: adding insult to injury. There was a sign that was

1566
01:27:49,680 --> 01:27:52,120
Speaker 2: added to the set that read East Saint Louis, which

1567
01:27:52,240 --> 01:27:55,679
Speaker 2: was not the area that was actually supposed to be featured.

1568
01:27:55,720 --> 01:28:00,400
Speaker 2: So it was, you know, just casting further aspersions on

1569
01:28:00,560 --> 01:28:03,479
Speaker 2: East Saint Louis. But there's a funny story about the

1570
01:28:03,560 --> 01:28:10,320
Speaker 2: actor who plays the pimp in that scene who suggests, asks,

1571
01:28:11,280 --> 01:28:17,360
Speaker 2: recommends Clark to quote your mama. That actor Chris Jackson,

1572
01:28:17,640 --> 01:28:20,960
Speaker 2: got into the audition for this role by calling the

1573
01:28:21,040 --> 01:28:24,120
Speaker 2: production company and saying, Chevy Chase told me to call

1574
01:28:25,600 --> 01:28:27,880
Speaker 2: get when that worked. When the person on the other

1575
01:28:27,960 --> 01:28:30,760
Speaker 2: line said that Chase was in New York, Jackson made

1576
01:28:30,840 --> 01:28:33,200
Speaker 2: up a story about how Chase passed the message through

1577
01:28:33,280 --> 01:28:37,320
Speaker 2: mutual friends Richard Pryor and John Belushi. Then he said

1578
01:28:37,680 --> 01:28:41,719
Speaker 2: they told me about this ghetto scene without actually knowing

1579
01:28:41,760 --> 01:28:44,640
Speaker 2: that that was the role he was auditioning for, and

1580
01:28:44,640 --> 01:28:46,719
Speaker 2: that was enough to get him into the audition room.

1581
01:28:47,360 --> 01:28:51,880
Speaker 2: Incredible display of hutzpah. Yes, speaking of bit characters and

1582
01:28:52,040 --> 01:28:55,240
Speaker 2: insensitive depictions of the human condition. Now we have to

1583
01:28:55,320 --> 01:28:57,840
Speaker 2: talk about cousin Eddie, the rest of his clan not

1584
01:28:57,960 --> 01:29:01,920
Speaker 2: my favorite character in this movie. Considered casting Robin Williams

1585
01:29:02,320 --> 01:29:05,080
Speaker 2: and Kenneth Mahers in the role before going with Randy Quait,

1586
01:29:05,280 --> 01:29:10,160
Speaker 2: offering a masterclass in redneck stereotypes. He based cousin Eddie's

1587
01:29:10,200 --> 01:29:13,320
Speaker 2: trademark tongue click on a guy he knew in high

1588
01:29:13,360 --> 01:29:16,799
Speaker 2: school in Texas and marked every spot in the script

1589
01:29:16,800 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 2: where he wanted to incorporate the sound. His daughter, Vicky

1590
01:29:20,200 --> 01:29:23,320
Speaker 2: was played by future thirty rock star Jane Krakowski, the

1591
01:29:23,360 --> 01:29:25,880
Speaker 2: one who talks to Audrey about French kissing and adds

1592
01:29:26,280 --> 01:29:29,800
Speaker 2: daddy says, I'm the best at it. Their other daughter,

1593
01:29:29,920 --> 01:29:33,200
Speaker 2: who's born with no tongue and who quote whistles like

1594
01:29:33,240 --> 01:29:36,000
Speaker 2: a bird and eats like a horse, which is my favorite.

1595
01:29:36,040 --> 01:29:40,599
Speaker 2: Flannery O'Connor short story was played by Harold Raymis's real

1596
01:29:40,640 --> 01:29:44,280
Speaker 2: life daughter Violet. That's not the only immediate family cameo

1597
01:29:44,400 --> 01:29:47,240
Speaker 2: in the movie. Beverly d'angelo's husband at the time, Don

1598
01:29:47,280 --> 01:29:52,000
Speaker 2: Lorenzo Salviati. You can't convince me that guy wasn't convinced

1599
01:29:52,000 --> 01:29:58,320
Speaker 2: for racketeering and cigarettes smuggling and white planes. He makes

1600
01:29:58,360 --> 01:30:00,439
Speaker 2: a quick cameo as the piano player at the hotel

1601
01:30:00,439 --> 01:30:03,280
Speaker 2: where the skinny dipping scene takes place. The boy, though,

1602
01:30:03,280 --> 01:30:07,080
Speaker 2: who played cousin Dale John P. Navin Junior, has an

1603
01:30:07,240 --> 01:30:10,719
Speaker 2: arguably greater pop culture legacy. He is the very first

1604
01:30:11,080 --> 01:30:14,439
Speaker 2: voice ever heard on one of my favorite TV shows

1605
01:30:14,479 --> 01:30:19,599
Speaker 2: of all time, Cheers Baby. He appears in the nineteen

1606
01:30:19,680 --> 01:30:23,920
Speaker 2: eighty two Cheers Pilot as an underage patron posing as

1607
01:30:23,960 --> 01:30:28,040
Speaker 2: a Vietnam veteran with a fake ID, trying to get

1608
01:30:28,080 --> 01:30:30,080
Speaker 2: a drink from Sam Malone.

1609
01:30:30,439 --> 01:30:32,920
Speaker 1: And He's like, he looks like he's like ten. That's

1610
01:30:32,960 --> 01:30:35,320
Speaker 1: like the joke. It's pretty funny. I put that fact

1611
01:30:35,360 --> 01:30:37,439
Speaker 1: in there for you. I know you love Cheers. Thank You?

1612
01:30:38,400 --> 01:30:42,439
Speaker 1: Is that the joke? Jordan? That is the joke? Ted?

1613
01:30:42,479 --> 01:30:43,400
Speaker 1: That is the joke Ted.

1614
01:30:44,920 --> 01:30:48,120
Speaker 2: Finally, at long last in the film, the Griswolds arrive

1615
01:30:48,200 --> 01:30:51,680
Speaker 2: at their own personal El Dorado Wally World, only to

1616
01:30:51,680 --> 01:30:55,400
Speaker 2: have an anthropomorphic moose voiced by director hald Raimis informed

1617
01:30:55,439 --> 01:30:58,160
Speaker 2: them that it is closed for two weeks for repairs,

1618
01:30:58,840 --> 01:31:00,719
Speaker 2: and that was one of the reasons that the location

1619
01:31:00,920 --> 01:31:04,719
Speaker 2: was filmed because Disneyland never closes except for I think

1620
01:31:05,320 --> 01:31:06,200
Speaker 2: Christmas Day.

1621
01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:08,120
Speaker 1: Oh maybe that's.

1622
01:31:07,960 --> 01:31:12,719
Speaker 2: Like the literal only holiday that this staff get prior

1623
01:31:12,760 --> 01:31:16,200
Speaker 2: to the pandemic. Of course, for the production, this was

1624
01:31:16,240 --> 01:31:19,880
Speaker 2: the end of the journey. They shot around la for

1625
01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:23,240
Speaker 2: the last two weeks of filming. The Wally World parking

1626
01:31:23,240 --> 01:31:26,320
Speaker 2: lot scene was shot at the Santa Anita Racetrack in

1627
01:31:26,520 --> 01:31:32,759
Speaker 2: Arcadia at California, and the slightly over exaggerated quasi mystical

1628
01:31:32,840 --> 01:31:35,080
Speaker 2: park scene in the background was created through the use

1629
01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:38,639
Speaker 2: of a matte painting in keeping with the theme of production.

1630
01:31:38,880 --> 01:31:41,799
Speaker 2: It was oppressively hot the day that they shot Rusty

1631
01:31:41,800 --> 01:31:45,000
Speaker 2: and Clark racing through the parking lot to the Chariots

1632
01:31:45,040 --> 01:31:47,479
Speaker 2: of Fire theme, which is touch I've always lot. I

1633
01:31:47,520 --> 01:31:49,800
Speaker 2: think I heard it in this film before I heard

1634
01:31:49,840 --> 01:31:50,679
Speaker 2: it in Chariots of Fire.

1635
01:31:50,680 --> 01:31:52,280
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah, me too.

1636
01:31:52,880 --> 01:31:55,360
Speaker 2: Harold Bramus claims that the temperature in California that day

1637
01:31:55,439 --> 01:31:58,720
Speaker 2: was one hundred and five degrees and the pavement at

1638
01:31:58,760 --> 01:32:02,479
Speaker 2: the Santa Anita Race was a scorching one hundred and

1639
01:32:02,600 --> 01:32:08,639
Speaker 2: thirty degrees. Anthony Michael Hall foolishly tried to race Chevy Chase,

1640
01:32:08,680 --> 01:32:13,640
Speaker 2: who is six feet plus to the gates and for

1641
01:32:13,720 --> 01:32:18,840
Speaker 2: his efforts, he received heat stroke and hospitalization.

1642
01:32:19,479 --> 01:32:22,280
Speaker 1: There is a long loss never seen ending to vacation,

1643
01:32:22,439 --> 01:32:24,880
Speaker 1: which is far darker than the one we know in Love.

1644
01:32:25,600 --> 01:32:27,599
Speaker 1: This one is more in line with John Hughes's original

1645
01:32:27,600 --> 01:32:31,160
Speaker 1: short story. For the original ending, Clark is so enraged

1646
01:32:31,200 --> 01:32:33,800
Speaker 1: that Wally World is closed that he buys a BB

1647
01:32:33,960 --> 01:32:38,200
Speaker 1: gun and storms Wallyworld founder Roy Wally's Beverly Hills home

1648
01:32:38,680 --> 01:32:41,000
Speaker 1: thanks to a map of the stars that he buys.

1649
01:32:41,880 --> 01:32:44,519
Speaker 1: After finding Roy Wally on the back patio having a

1650
01:32:44,560 --> 01:32:47,439
Speaker 1: meeting with some of his associates, Clark waves his BB

1651
01:32:47,520 --> 01:32:49,880
Speaker 1: gun around and forces them to sing and dance to

1652
01:32:49,960 --> 01:32:53,200
Speaker 1: Marty Moose songs in a desperate attempt to entertain his

1653
01:32:53,240 --> 01:32:57,200
Speaker 1: family and get his dimes worth of joy. Roy Wally,

1654
01:32:57,240 --> 01:32:59,559
Speaker 1: of course, is an obvious nod to Walt Disney. He's

1655
01:32:59,600 --> 01:33:03,679
Speaker 1: got Walt It' mustache and is probably named after Walt's brother, Roy,

1656
01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:07,240
Speaker 1: who took over the Disney empire following Walt's premature death

1657
01:33:07,479 --> 01:33:10,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six. Roy Wally was played by longtime

1658
01:33:10,680 --> 01:33:14,720
Speaker 1: Preston Sturge's leading man Eddie Bracken, a legendary comedian of

1659
01:33:14,760 --> 01:33:18,160
Speaker 1: the forties and fifties, who is probably best familiar to

1660
01:33:18,240 --> 01:33:20,840
Speaker 1: me thanks to his role in another John Hughes Penns

1661
01:33:20,880 --> 01:33:24,240
Speaker 1: comedy Home Alone two Lost in New York, where he

1662
01:33:24,280 --> 01:33:27,719
Speaker 1: plays the role of Mister Duncan, owner of Duncan's Toy Chest.

1663
01:33:28,240 --> 01:33:31,519
Speaker 1: But back to vacation, the police arrived to take Clark away,

1664
01:33:31,680 --> 01:33:34,160
Speaker 1: but then, according to one version of the ending, at

1665
01:33:34,240 --> 01:33:37,920
Speaker 1: least the blonde in the Ferrari arrives to save the day.

1666
01:33:39,120 --> 01:33:42,240
Speaker 1: She is Roy Wally's daughter, and she talks him out

1667
01:33:42,280 --> 01:33:45,080
Speaker 1: of pressing charges and they have a heart to heart

1668
01:33:45,120 --> 01:33:48,880
Speaker 1: with Roy Wally and everything ends great, and the final

1669
01:33:48,920 --> 01:33:52,600
Speaker 1: scene features the Grids Walts on an airplane presumably the

1670
01:33:52,600 --> 01:33:55,759
Speaker 1: family truckster has finally died once and for all, wearing

1671
01:33:55,840 --> 01:33:58,240
Speaker 1: Marty Moose hats and talking about how they need to

1672
01:33:58,280 --> 01:34:01,360
Speaker 1: add the Wallys to their Christmas card list. Then the

1673
01:34:01,400 --> 01:34:03,880
Speaker 1: flight attendant announces on the PA that the flight is

1674
01:34:03,880 --> 01:34:09,080
Speaker 1: headed NonStop to Atlanta and not the Griswolds home of Chicago.

1675
01:34:09,439 --> 01:34:12,040
Speaker 1: Clark realizes they're on the wrong plane and starts to

1676
01:34:12,080 --> 01:34:14,800
Speaker 1: have a very loud meltdown. Then it cuts to the

1677
01:34:14,880 --> 01:34:17,320
Speaker 1: runway and you hear the sound of pilot's radio in

1678
01:34:17,360 --> 01:34:20,679
Speaker 1: ground control for backup security due to a cabin disruption.

1679
01:34:21,880 --> 01:34:23,960
Speaker 1: Kind of funny, right, I mean, especially the call back

1680
01:34:24,000 --> 01:34:26,559
Speaker 1: to the woman in the Ferrari is pretty clever. But

1681
01:34:26,760 --> 01:34:30,520
Speaker 1: as good as this ending seems on paper, test audiences

1682
01:34:30,600 --> 01:34:35,240
Speaker 1: hated it. Harold Ramis recalled the audience howling throughout the

1683
01:34:35,280 --> 01:34:38,240
Speaker 1: first test screenings, only to sit stone faced for the

1684
01:34:38,280 --> 01:34:41,599
Speaker 1: final twenty minutes, and his theory was that the audience

1685
01:34:41,640 --> 01:34:44,360
Speaker 1: had invested so much in getting to Wally World that

1686
01:34:44,400 --> 01:34:47,880
Speaker 1: they were really disappointed and slightly betrayed that it didn't happen.

1687
01:34:48,479 --> 01:34:50,360
Speaker 1: So we had to rethink the whole end of the movie,

1688
01:34:50,400 --> 01:34:53,599
Speaker 1: he said, And they roped in John Hughes and caged

1689
01:34:53,640 --> 01:34:57,160
Speaker 1: half a million dollars from the studio for reshoots. And

1690
01:34:57,240 --> 01:34:59,559
Speaker 1: this original ending has never been released to the public,

1691
01:34:59,600 --> 01:35:02,120
Speaker 1: although Chevy Chase claims that he still has a VHS

1692
01:35:02,160 --> 01:35:06,360
Speaker 1: with the original cut at home. But interestingly, Vacation's original

1693
01:35:06,479 --> 01:35:10,639
Speaker 1: ending was repurposed for Christmas Vacation, where cousin Eddie Randy

1694
01:35:10,680 --> 01:35:14,160
Speaker 1: Quaid kidnaps Clark's boss and drags him to the Griswold home,

1695
01:35:14,360 --> 01:35:17,680
Speaker 1: so it reads some of that the new ending for

1696
01:35:17,800 --> 01:35:21,360
Speaker 1: Vacation was shot many months after the production had initially wrapped.

1697
01:35:21,680 --> 01:35:24,880
Speaker 1: I've seen somewhere between four and eight months, and a

1698
01:35:24,960 --> 01:35:27,479
Speaker 1: might a problem with this was that Anthony Michael Hall

1699
01:35:27,560 --> 01:35:30,519
Speaker 1: went through a serious growth spurt and grew three inches

1700
01:35:30,640 --> 01:35:33,240
Speaker 1: during this time. He'll notice that for the first part

1701
01:35:33,280 --> 01:35:35,439
Speaker 1: of the movie he's shorter than his on screen mother,

1702
01:35:35,760 --> 01:35:38,480
Speaker 1: but then during scenes shot in Wally World, he towers

1703
01:35:38,520 --> 01:35:41,640
Speaker 1: over her. Reportedly, this was part of the reason why

1704
01:35:41,760 --> 01:35:44,080
Speaker 1: Rusty became the older sibling in the movie, although he

1705
01:35:44,120 --> 01:35:49,040
Speaker 1: was initially written as the younger sibling and Audrey was older. Predictably, Chevy,

1706
01:35:49,400 --> 01:35:53,000
Speaker 1: who is known for zeroing in on people's sensitivities, teased

1707
01:35:53,040 --> 01:35:57,280
Speaker 1: Anthony Michael Hall about this all mercilessly. Puberty kicked in hard.

1708
01:35:57,320 --> 01:36:00,559
Speaker 1: Haul recalled, Chevy didn't make it a smooth transition for me.

1709
01:36:00,960 --> 01:36:04,080
Speaker 1: He immediately joked about a huge pimple I had.

1710
01:36:04,400 --> 01:36:07,240
Speaker 2: This is the guy who told Bill Murray, Uh. Famously,

1711
01:36:07,680 --> 01:36:10,200
Speaker 2: acne scarred Bill Murray, your face looks like something that

1712
01:36:10,240 --> 01:36:13,400
Speaker 2: Apollo thirteen should land on or something like that, right,

1713
01:36:13,439 --> 01:36:14,280
Speaker 2: and Bill.

1714
01:36:14,240 --> 01:36:19,280
Speaker 1: John walked on, yeah, yeah, yes, uh. He also gave

1715
01:36:19,400 --> 01:36:22,360
Speaker 1: Anthony milcahol a signed photo at the end of the production,

1716
01:36:22,479 --> 01:36:27,280
Speaker 1: reading Michael, if you're going blind, you're doing it right. Charming,

1717
01:36:29,920 --> 01:36:34,120
Speaker 1: but on some more pleasant topics, John Candy loves John Candy.

1718
01:36:34,800 --> 01:36:36,880
Speaker 1: When it came down to do the reshoots for Vacation,

1719
01:36:37,080 --> 01:36:40,880
Speaker 1: Harold Ramis asked his old SCTV buddy John Candy to

1720
01:36:40,960 --> 01:36:44,040
Speaker 1: play a hapless security guard who is based on a

1721
01:36:44,080 --> 01:36:47,320
Speaker 1: bully type character that John Candy had played on SETV

1722
01:36:47,600 --> 01:36:53,360
Speaker 1: called Paul Fist in your face. Uh, this seems crazy,

1723
01:36:53,600 --> 01:36:56,719
Speaker 1: but it was confirmed. In the making of documentary for Vacation,

1724
01:36:57,520 --> 01:37:02,320
Speaker 1: John Candy's agent asked for after Evil Voice one million

1725
01:37:02,400 --> 01:37:05,919
Speaker 1: dollars for what was just half a notch above a cameo.

1726
01:37:07,120 --> 01:37:10,680
Speaker 1: The production only had half a million dollars for reshoots,

1727
01:37:10,920 --> 01:37:13,240
Speaker 1: so producer Maddy Simmons had to go and ask for

1728
01:37:13,280 --> 01:37:16,920
Speaker 1: another million dollars for John Candy. I didn't even realize

1729
01:37:16,920 --> 01:37:18,880
Speaker 1: he was that big of a deal at this time,

1730
01:37:18,920 --> 01:37:21,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three. I didn't think he was. This

1731
01:37:22,080 --> 01:37:25,120
Speaker 1: was pre Uncle Buck, pre planes, trains and automobiles, pre

1732
01:37:25,240 --> 01:37:29,160
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, But yes, he was. Hilariously, A

1733
01:37:29,200 --> 01:37:32,080
Speaker 1: Wally World water park opened in Ontario a few years

1734
01:37:32,080 --> 01:37:35,160
Speaker 1: after Vacation was released. And the owners wanted to hire

1735
01:37:35,240 --> 01:37:37,479
Speaker 1: John Candy to come to the opening. He's you know,

1736
01:37:37,840 --> 01:37:40,320
Speaker 1: not only was he in he's the cardy guard for

1737
01:37:40,600 --> 01:37:44,160
Speaker 1: Wallyworld on the big screen, but he was also from Ontario,

1738
01:37:44,200 --> 01:37:47,479
Speaker 1: I believe. But they could not afford his appearance fee,

1739
01:37:48,160 --> 01:37:50,639
Speaker 1: which given that he got a million bucks in nineteen

1740
01:37:50,680 --> 01:37:53,400
Speaker 1: eighty three, which is like, it's gotta be like three

1741
01:37:53,479 --> 01:37:57,320
Speaker 1: four million dollars now, right with inflation for like eight

1742
01:37:57,400 --> 01:38:03,439
Speaker 1: minutes of screen time. Write up his nose. Oh yeah.

1743
01:38:04,200 --> 01:38:06,679
Speaker 1: Fans of the movie know that Clark holds the security

1744
01:38:06,720 --> 01:38:09,639
Speaker 1: guard hostage and forces him to ride the roller coasters

1745
01:38:09,680 --> 01:38:13,240
Speaker 1: as he finally delivers on his promise of a fun

1746
01:38:13,320 --> 01:38:16,400
Speaker 1: day at wally World for his family. And you'll notice

1747
01:38:16,400 --> 01:38:19,200
Speaker 1: that everyone looks a little green when they're riding these coasters.

1748
01:38:19,760 --> 01:38:21,679
Speaker 1: That's because they had to ride them something like seven

1749
01:38:21,760 --> 01:38:24,479
Speaker 1: or eight times and everyone wanted to vomit by the

1750
01:38:24,600 --> 01:38:27,160
Speaker 1: end of it. Anthony Michael Hall has said that the

1751
01:38:27,160 --> 01:38:30,280
Speaker 1: scenes where Russy looks terrified are one hundred percent real

1752
01:38:30,360 --> 01:38:34,160
Speaker 1: and there's no acting going on. Dana Baron, who played Audrey,

1753
01:38:34,280 --> 01:38:37,280
Speaker 1: was hit especially hard. She needed to take motion sickness

1754
01:38:37,280 --> 01:38:40,839
Speaker 1: medication and lie down on a bench between takes. Beverly

1755
01:38:40,920 --> 01:38:43,800
Speaker 1: D'Angelo reportedly barely went on it at all and just

1756
01:38:43,800 --> 01:38:48,320
Speaker 1: made her stunt double do it. But ultimately it was

1757
01:38:48,360 --> 01:38:51,320
Speaker 1: all worth it because this was the final brushstroke on

1758
01:38:51,400 --> 01:38:55,960
Speaker 1: a comedic masterpiece. National Lampoon's Vacation was released on July

1759
01:38:56,080 --> 01:39:00,400
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen eighty three, forty years ago, viewing at

1760
01:39:00,479 --> 01:39:03,000
Speaker 1: number one at the box office and beating out Return

1761
01:39:03,080 --> 01:39:06,439
Speaker 1: of the Jedi and one of the Jaws sequels. I

1762
01:39:06,439 --> 01:39:08,800
Speaker 1: forget which one, both of which had been out for

1763
01:39:08,840 --> 01:39:11,839
Speaker 1: some time at that point. It's worth adding Harold Ramis

1764
01:39:11,880 --> 01:39:14,800
Speaker 1: was on Martha's vineyard finishing the writing of Ghostbusters when

1765
01:39:14,840 --> 01:39:17,200
Speaker 1: the studio called to say they had a good weekend.

1766
01:39:18,040 --> 01:39:22,160
Speaker 1: Vacation was the year's third highest grossing comedy, earning sixty

1767
01:39:22,160 --> 01:39:26,200
Speaker 1: one point four million. Only trading Places and Mister Mom

1768
01:39:26,360 --> 01:39:29,080
Speaker 1: performed better. Mister Mom was also written by John Hughes,

1769
01:39:29,920 --> 01:39:33,160
Speaker 1: and Vacation certainly lived up through his epic poster by

1770
01:39:33,280 --> 01:39:37,799
Speaker 1: legendary artist Boris Fallejo, who delivered a hyperrealistic oil painting

1771
01:39:37,920 --> 01:39:42,440
Speaker 1: parodying similar ones he'd done for Conan the Barbarian and Star.

1772
01:39:42,280 --> 01:39:45,680
Speaker 2: Wars Empire strikes Back. He did Barborella. That was his

1773
01:39:46,040 --> 01:39:50,519
Speaker 2: first that was his first Yeare movie, first commission. And

1774
01:39:50,600 --> 01:39:53,040
Speaker 2: what's even crazier to me is that I love this.

1775
01:39:53,320 --> 01:39:55,880
Speaker 2: This is my favorite Arab movie poster. Drew Strusan, who

1776
01:39:55,880 --> 01:39:58,720
Speaker 2: did all the Raiders Lost Ark and they belong in

1777
01:39:58,760 --> 01:39:59,320
Speaker 2: this milieu.

1778
01:39:59,640 --> 01:40:02,120
Speaker 1: This for me, you know.

1779
01:40:02,200 --> 01:40:04,840
Speaker 2: But Vallejo did stuff for Larry Cohen. It was an

1780
01:40:04,880 --> 01:40:09,600
Speaker 2: exploitation here. He did this tremendous art of Ed Harris

1781
01:40:09,840 --> 01:40:13,200
Speaker 2: in Knight's Armor on a motorcycle for George A. Romero's

1782
01:40:13,360 --> 01:40:20,880
Speaker 2: Night Riders. But Valleo actually married another poster artist, uh,

1783
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:23,920
Speaker 2: fantasy artist named Julie Bell. They married in nineteen ninety

1784
01:40:24,000 --> 01:40:32,080
Speaker 2: four and they are co authors and artists in fantasy erotica. Uh.

1785
01:40:32,840 --> 01:40:38,640
Speaker 2: And they actually co postered the Aquitine Hunger Forest movie,

1786
01:40:39,040 --> 01:40:43,160
Speaker 2: the first one, which is a you know, an homage

1787
01:40:43,200 --> 01:40:47,000
Speaker 2: to the style of of poster that Vallejo you know,

1788
01:40:47,160 --> 01:40:50,240
Speaker 2: pioneered in the in the in the eighties. But yeah,

1789
01:40:50,560 --> 01:40:53,240
Speaker 2: love his art. Well worth looking up all of his stuff.

1790
01:40:53,320 --> 01:40:53,479
Speaker 1: You know.

1791
01:40:53,560 --> 01:40:57,519
Speaker 2: He did beat Death Stalker. Uh, he did c the

1792
01:40:57,560 --> 01:41:01,080
Speaker 2: Winged Serpent. I mean all of these beautiful lush oil

1793
01:41:01,160 --> 01:41:04,880
Speaker 2: paintings from the eighties Charles Bronson movie called The White

1794
01:41:04,920 --> 01:41:10,320
Speaker 2: Buffalo just a bygone era, and he also did European Vacation.

1795
01:41:11,160 --> 01:41:14,559
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, they're very it's worth saying, very uh,

1796
01:41:14,640 --> 01:41:16,400
Speaker 1: very sexual paintings.

1797
01:41:16,520 --> 01:41:20,360
Speaker 2: Oh extremely yeah, very very much, extremely ironically charged.

1798
01:41:21,240 --> 01:41:24,559
Speaker 1: Clark is depicted as a shirtless warrior, waving a tennis

1799
01:41:24,640 --> 01:41:27,679
Speaker 1: racket for some reason instead of a sword, and gripping

1800
01:41:27,680 --> 01:41:31,480
Speaker 1: his luggage while his huddled family cling to him for strength.

1801
01:41:32,200 --> 01:41:34,479
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's perfect. This is how Clark

1802
01:41:34,560 --> 01:41:38,519
Speaker 1: sees himself as he endures his quest for fun. Per

1803
01:41:38,600 --> 01:41:43,080
Speaker 1: his website, they are accepting corporate and private commissions. So

1804
01:41:44,240 --> 01:41:48,240
Speaker 1: I just want to say, oh my god, for your birthday, dude.

1805
01:41:48,240 --> 01:41:56,880
Speaker 2: They're so horny. They're so horny and so weird. I'm

1806
01:41:56,880 --> 01:41:59,280
Speaker 2: gonna put this one in the chat. It's gonna make

1807
01:41:59,360 --> 01:42:02,439
Speaker 2: you so unco comfortable. You're so uncomfortable with this stuff.

1808
01:42:02,439 --> 01:42:05,480
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm gonna start saying these to you unsolicited.

1809
01:42:05,720 --> 01:42:08,559
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I mean you know what it is. It

1810
01:42:08,600 --> 01:42:12,280
Speaker 1: looks like, oh wow, that Saturday Night Live commercial with

1811
01:42:12,400 --> 01:42:16,360
Speaker 1: the twin toilets so naked.

1812
01:42:16,960 --> 01:42:21,360
Speaker 2: Their website is boris Julie dot com. So, if you

1813
01:42:21,400 --> 01:42:23,800
Speaker 2: were a loved one wants to get one or both

1814
01:42:23,880 --> 01:42:29,559
Speaker 2: members of the TMI creative a Boris Vallejo oil painting,

1815
01:42:29,600 --> 01:42:34,360
Speaker 2: go to www dot Boris Julie dot com.

1816
01:42:34,479 --> 01:42:37,200
Speaker 1: Julie's like in her twenties and Boris is like.

1817
01:42:37,240 --> 01:42:39,639
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm sure it's weird. Don't read more into it, Jordan,

1818
01:42:40,479 --> 01:42:43,479
Speaker 2: everyone knows that Vacation had several sequels, nineteen eighty five's

1819
01:42:43,479 --> 01:42:47,400
Speaker 2: European Vacation, nineteen eighty nine's Christmas Vacation, and nineteen ninety

1820
01:42:47,439 --> 01:42:50,639
Speaker 2: seven's Vegas Vacation. I didn't realize I was ninety seven,

1821
01:42:50,720 --> 01:42:53,640
Speaker 2: Holy same year I was seeing Independence Day, they were

1822
01:42:53,640 --> 01:42:55,200
Speaker 2: making another Vacation movie.

1823
01:42:55,439 --> 01:42:55,960
Speaker 1: That's wild.

1824
01:42:56,200 --> 01:42:59,400
Speaker 2: Plus the twenty fifteen reboot, which starred Ed Helms and

1825
01:42:59,520 --> 01:43:01,799
Speaker 2: was not handled by National Letpoon.

1826
01:43:02,520 --> 01:43:05,920
Speaker 1: So not can it consider it? Yeah? Exactly no.

1827
01:43:06,840 --> 01:43:09,719
Speaker 2: But it does feature a reunion of the core Freaks

1828
01:43:09,720 --> 01:43:14,400
Speaker 2: and Geeks trio. Uh, we'll just keep skipping over that.

1829
01:43:14,720 --> 01:43:18,640
Speaker 2: John Hughes was so uninvolved in European Vacation, however, that

1830
01:43:18,720 --> 01:43:20,639
Speaker 2: he had no idea it was on its way until

1831
01:43:20,640 --> 01:43:24,200
Speaker 2: he saw a commercial for it on TV. Oh incredible,

1832
01:43:24,560 --> 01:43:28,519
Speaker 2: Since it had incorporated unused elements from his previous Vacation script.

1833
01:43:28,720 --> 01:43:31,920
Speaker 2: He petitioned the Writer's Guild of America to award him

1834
01:43:31,960 --> 01:43:36,639
Speaker 2: a writing credit. Despite this arbitration, he would come back

1835
01:43:36,640 --> 01:43:39,720
Speaker 2: for Christmas Vacation, which is a much better movie. And

1836
01:43:39,760 --> 01:43:43,240
Speaker 2: then there's Vegas Vacation, which was a contractual avlcation movie

1837
01:43:43,280 --> 01:43:46,680
Speaker 2: for Chevy Chase. To keep him from getting sued, he

1838
01:43:46,720 --> 01:43:49,880
Speaker 2: owed Warner Brothers another movie from a three picture deal,

1839
01:43:50,400 --> 01:43:57,240
Speaker 2: and continually rejected every script until he was finally said

1840
01:43:57,280 --> 01:44:03,559
Speaker 2: yes to a third vacation fourth vacation movie, Sunrise Sunset.

1841
01:44:04,840 --> 01:44:10,559
Speaker 2: But European Vacation featured Monty Python's Eric Idyl, which sparked

1842
01:44:10,600 --> 01:44:13,880
Speaker 2: a brief writing collaboration between Idle and Chase on a

1843
01:44:13,920 --> 01:44:18,320
Speaker 2: script for Australian Vacation, apparently plenty of shark gags, but

1844
01:44:18,360 --> 01:44:21,679
Speaker 2: it ultimately didn't pan out, possibly because the eighties had

1845
01:44:21,680 --> 01:44:31,520
Speaker 2: seen a surfeit of Australian panic movies with with crocodile

1846
01:44:31,600 --> 01:44:37,160
Speaker 2: Dundee yes and the commercial dominance of a CDC. There

1847
01:44:37,200 --> 01:44:39,639
Speaker 2: was also a script written where Clark and Ellen get

1848
01:44:39,680 --> 01:44:42,360
Speaker 2: divorced and then need to take a cross country road

1849
01:44:42,400 --> 01:44:43,759
Speaker 2: trip to get to Audrey's wedding.

1850
01:44:44,360 --> 01:44:47,360
Speaker 1: Isn't the plot of that fucking odd couple sequel?

1851
01:44:47,560 --> 01:44:50,000
Speaker 2: Oh no, I was gonna say Destination Wedding that just

1852
01:44:50,040 --> 01:44:53,200
Speaker 2: came out this year with George Clooney and Julie Roberts,

1853
01:44:53,240 --> 01:44:55,160
Speaker 2: their divorced couple who has to go to their daughter's

1854
01:44:55,160 --> 01:44:56,400
Speaker 2: destination wedding.

1855
01:44:56,840 --> 01:44:59,519
Speaker 1: In this quote from Beverly D'Angelo. I cut it out,

1856
01:44:59,560 --> 01:45:01,639
Speaker 1: She reafed, friends, like, wait a minute, that's a George

1857
01:45:01,640 --> 01:45:04,400
Speaker 1: Cloney movie too. I wonder if I and I cut

1858
01:45:04,400 --> 01:45:06,439
Speaker 1: that part out of the quote. But yeah, maybe that

1859
01:45:06,680 --> 01:45:10,240
Speaker 1: the idea either got recycled or somebody got somebody got

1860
01:45:10,240 --> 01:45:15,760
Speaker 1: grabby a bitch ah.

1861
01:45:16,600 --> 01:45:18,960
Speaker 2: She said, here's the thing about beverly' angelo. In an

1862
01:45:18,960 --> 01:45:20,960
Speaker 2: interview about the unproduced script, she said, here's the thing

1863
01:45:20,960 --> 01:45:24,360
Speaker 2: about demographics. I think they didn't want old people in

1864
01:45:24,439 --> 01:45:29,000
Speaker 2: it or something. There was, however, a fourteen minute short

1865
01:45:29,000 --> 01:45:31,120
Speaker 2: film released in twenty ten as part of a promotional

1866
01:45:31,160 --> 01:45:36,840
Speaker 2: campaign for travel rental site called Hotel Hell Vacation. That

1867
01:45:36,840 --> 01:45:40,240
Speaker 2: that's not a typo. No, that's that's that's just a

1868
01:45:40,240 --> 01:45:43,559
Speaker 2: bad title. It's like the signs of the Lamb's House

1869
01:45:43,640 --> 01:45:47,880
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, yep, and which Clark and Ellen get away

1870
01:45:47,920 --> 01:45:50,960
Speaker 2: for a second honeymoon is a giant, half assed ad.

1871
01:45:51,000 --> 01:45:55,360
Speaker 2: And uh, that's it. That's it, folks, That's all she wrote.

1872
01:45:55,439 --> 01:45:57,280
Speaker 2: There was also a two thousand and three made for

1873
01:45:57,320 --> 01:46:02,160
Speaker 2: TV movie called National Lampoon's Christmas Faking two, centering around

1874
01:46:02,280 --> 01:46:06,679
Speaker 2: Randy Quaid's uncle Eddie and Miriam Flynn as his wife

1875
01:46:06,760 --> 01:46:09,720
Speaker 2: Katherine as they celebrate Christmas on an island in the

1876
01:46:09,760 --> 01:46:13,439
Speaker 2: South Pacific. Somehow they got the original Audrey Dana Barron

1877
01:46:13,640 --> 01:46:17,759
Speaker 2: back on board for this, and most recently, a television

1878
01:46:17,800 --> 01:46:21,639
Speaker 2: series titled The Griswolds entered development at HBO.

1879
01:46:21,800 --> 01:46:22,160
Speaker 1: Max.

1880
01:46:22,240 --> 01:46:24,400
Speaker 2: Oh, we can't say that anymore now, it's just Max

1881
01:46:24,600 --> 01:46:30,200
Speaker 2: since they got bought by Discovery, Warner AT and T, Haliburton,

1882
01:46:31,200 --> 01:46:37,160
Speaker 2: CIA dot Gov, Amazon, River and conglomerate nightmare we all

1883
01:46:37,200 --> 01:46:41,839
Speaker 2: live in these days, ah, starring National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

1884
01:46:42,040 --> 01:46:49,439
Speaker 2: star Johnny Galecki of The Big Bane, Fiery Roseanne and

1885
01:46:49,640 --> 01:46:55,120
Speaker 2: Roseanne and I know what you did last summer, all right?

1886
01:46:55,840 --> 01:47:00,160
Speaker 2: As executive producer. Who knows what's up with that? Who

1887
01:47:00,720 --> 01:47:03,479
Speaker 2: doesn't matter? None of this matters, Jordan, What the hell

1888
01:47:03,520 --> 01:47:04,679
Speaker 2: happened in National Lampoon.

1889
01:47:05,200 --> 01:47:09,880
Speaker 1: It's funny you should ask Kigel. I mentioned earlier that

1890
01:47:09,960 --> 01:47:13,120
Speaker 1: National Lampoon was not involved in the Ed Helms helmed

1891
01:47:13,160 --> 01:47:19,000
Speaker 1: Ooh like That It's Midnight My Time. I still got it,

1892
01:47:19,840 --> 01:47:23,320
Speaker 1: the Ed Helms helmed reboot of the franchise in twenty fifteen.

1893
01:47:24,040 --> 01:47:26,880
Speaker 1: They also removed their name from Vegas Vacation in nineteen

1894
01:47:26,960 --> 01:47:29,320
Speaker 1: ninety seven due to a falling out with the original

1895
01:47:29,400 --> 01:47:34,320
Speaker 1: Vacation producer and former Lampoon co owner Maddy Simmons. Frankly,

1896
01:47:34,680 --> 01:47:37,880
Speaker 1: by the late nineties, the prefix National Lampoon was something

1897
01:47:37,920 --> 01:47:41,160
Speaker 1: of a liability, since their movies by this point kind

1898
01:47:41,160 --> 01:47:44,519
Speaker 1: of sucked. This leads us to a bigger question what

1899
01:47:44,720 --> 01:47:48,160
Speaker 1: happened to the National Lampoon. By the nineties they were

1900
01:47:48,200 --> 01:47:51,479
Speaker 1: hemorrhaging money and the magazine was shuddered in nineteen ninety eight,

1901
01:47:52,240 --> 01:47:55,800
Speaker 1: and really the last truly quality hit movie that National

1902
01:47:55,880 --> 01:48:00,800
Speaker 1: Lampoon had was Christmas Vacation in nineteen eighty nine. Beyond that,

1903
01:48:00,960 --> 01:48:05,400
Speaker 1: basically sound like entries in a porn franchise. National Lampoon's

1904
01:48:05,439 --> 01:48:11,840
Speaker 1: Senior Trip, National Lampoon's Jake's Booty Call, National Lampoons replicate

1905
01:48:12,160 --> 01:48:16,080
Speaker 1: something about multiple people named Kate, although there's a Men

1906
01:48:16,120 --> 01:48:19,280
Speaker 1: in Black parody called men and White, which sounds medium

1907
01:48:19,400 --> 01:48:21,880
Speaker 1: pony at least thanks to the title men and White

1908
01:48:21,880 --> 01:48:24,320
Speaker 1: like men and White coats? Is it set in the South?

1909
01:48:26,320 --> 01:48:28,599
Speaker 1: I was thinking more like doctors in a psych word.

1910
01:48:28,680 --> 01:48:32,439
Speaker 1: But oh sure, yeah sure, but you know what, I

1911
01:48:32,439 --> 01:48:34,920
Speaker 1: didn't actually watch it, so you guys should cut that

1912
01:48:34,960 --> 01:48:38,920
Speaker 1: part anyway? Who did? Then? In two thousand and two,

1913
01:48:39,040 --> 01:48:42,439
Speaker 1: the gross out college comedy Van Wilder took in forty

1914
01:48:42,520 --> 01:48:46,280
Speaker 1: million dollars at the box office, which led National Lampoon

1915
01:48:46,360 --> 01:48:50,599
Speaker 1: to pursue friddy comedies ever after. Who could forget National

1916
01:48:50,720 --> 01:48:55,600
Speaker 1: Lampoons Barely Legal, National Lampoons presents Cattle Call, which is

1917
01:48:55,640 --> 01:49:02,680
Speaker 1: about porn, not livestock. National Lampoon's Gold diff National Lampoon's

1918
01:49:02,760 --> 01:49:06,200
Speaker 1: Dorm Days, National Lampoons at Differs.

1919
01:49:06,320 --> 01:49:09,200
Speaker 2: I thought you were a sundowning there and you mispronounced something.

1920
01:49:09,280 --> 01:49:13,960
Speaker 2: It's called gold differs or dilfers, like dad, I'd like

1921
01:49:14,000 --> 01:49:19,559
Speaker 2: to or like it's got to be gold diggers, right, Yeah,

1922
01:49:19,600 --> 01:49:21,680
Speaker 2: it is gold diggers, Okay, I was I was sundowning

1923
01:49:21,720 --> 01:49:22,560
Speaker 2: earlier about this?

1924
01:49:24,840 --> 01:49:29,280
Speaker 1: Uh. National Lampoon Electric Apricot Quest for Fresteral. They made

1925
01:49:29,360 --> 01:49:31,840
Speaker 1: that starring uh Less Claypool.

1926
01:49:32,880 --> 01:49:36,680
Speaker 2: Oh my man, yeah, one of my somehow that a

1927
01:49:36,800 --> 01:49:39,360
Speaker 2: DVD copy that ended up my college house and we

1928
01:49:39,479 --> 01:49:42,880
Speaker 2: watched that as a notable for the feature of Less

1929
01:49:42,880 --> 01:49:47,640
Speaker 2: Claypool playing drums and waxing, uh philosophical about a band

1930
01:49:47,920 --> 01:49:50,720
Speaker 2: that he that his characters in and saying, well, you know,

1931
01:49:50,800 --> 01:49:52,960
Speaker 2: they say you've got forever to make your first album,

1932
01:49:53,439 --> 01:49:55,240
Speaker 2: but it's like you've they say you've also got like

1933
01:49:55,320 --> 01:49:58,240
Speaker 2: forever to make your first sandwich. Then you you have

1934
01:49:59,400 --> 01:50:03,200
Speaker 2: that fun to make your second sandwiches. Yeah, it's not

1935
01:50:03,360 --> 01:50:05,240
Speaker 2: very good, but it does have Less Claypool in it,

1936
01:50:05,320 --> 01:50:09,400
Speaker 2: playing drums, not bass, the instrument to which he is

1937
01:50:10,040 --> 01:50:13,000
Speaker 2: most associated. Where Were You Sorry?

1938
01:50:13,000 --> 01:50:16,160
Speaker 1: It's also National Lampoon, Beach Party, at the Threshold of

1939
01:50:16,200 --> 01:50:22,680
Speaker 1: Hell and the rest. Following their twenty fifteen retrospective documentary

1940
01:50:22,760 --> 01:50:26,880
Speaker 1: National Lampoon, Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant and Dead, they have not

1941
01:50:27,000 --> 01:50:30,599
Speaker 1: been active in the film or TV industry, which might

1942
01:50:30,640 --> 01:50:33,960
Speaker 1: be the best. But a sadder fate lay in store

1943
01:50:34,000 --> 01:50:37,559
Speaker 1: for Randy Quaid. In September twenty ten, he and his

1944
01:50:37,600 --> 01:50:41,479
Speaker 1: wife Evy were charged with burglary after they spent five

1945
01:50:41,600 --> 01:50:45,120
Speaker 1: days occupying the guest house in a vacant home they

1946
01:50:45,160 --> 01:50:48,559
Speaker 1: once owned in Santa Barbara. They claimed that the home

1947
01:50:48,680 --> 01:50:51,760
Speaker 1: was wrongfully transferred to a third party by use of

1948
01:50:51,760 --> 01:50:56,280
Speaker 1: a forged signature. After that, they fled to Canada, where

1949
01:50:56,280 --> 01:50:59,720
Speaker 1: his wife held citizenship, but were arrested on suspicion of

1950
01:51:00,080 --> 01:51:05,599
Speaker 1: gration violations of Vancouver. Before being released. US prosecutors declimb

1951
01:51:05,640 --> 01:51:09,360
Speaker 1: the press charges for their felony illegal squatting charge, and

1952
01:51:09,439 --> 01:51:12,320
Speaker 1: for a time they lived in hiding fearful of a

1953
01:51:12,360 --> 01:51:13,280
Speaker 1: gang of quote.

1954
01:51:13,479 --> 01:51:18,759
Speaker 2: Star Whackers truly one of my favorite back celebrity quotes

1955
01:51:18,800 --> 01:51:21,920
Speaker 2: of all time, and he doubled and tripled down on it.

1956
01:51:22,320 --> 01:51:25,160
Speaker 2: Not a single person in this man's orbit said Randy,

1957
01:51:25,880 --> 01:51:29,519
Speaker 2: really think about that phrase, think about the implications of

1958
01:51:29,680 --> 01:51:30,720
Speaker 2: star whackers.

1959
01:51:32,439 --> 01:51:36,559
Speaker 1: He didn't. He claimed that people were trying to whack

1960
01:51:36,640 --> 01:51:44,520
Speaker 1: him off, trying trying to assassinate him. A couple of

1961
01:51:44,600 --> 01:51:49,439
Speaker 1: God knows him, star whackers. Yeah, it's like. This is

1962
01:51:49,439 --> 01:51:52,360
Speaker 1: also the subject of an unreleased documentary that he produced

1963
01:51:52,400 --> 01:51:56,160
Speaker 1: and starred in, which is to date his one of

1964
01:51:56,200 --> 01:51:59,320
Speaker 1: his last major film projects. He was in a indie

1965
01:51:59,320 --> 01:52:02,960
Speaker 1: movie like six years ago, and in the midst of

1966
01:52:02,960 --> 01:52:07,000
Speaker 1: all this so began a series of legal and immigration problems. So,

1967
01:52:07,120 --> 01:52:09,880
Speaker 1: in a move mirroring a scene in Vacation, he called

1968
01:52:09,960 --> 01:52:13,880
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase for financial help. How much you need, Eddie

1969
01:52:14,160 --> 01:52:16,000
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand dollars.

1970
01:52:17,160 --> 01:52:17,479
Speaker 2: Chase.

1971
01:52:19,360 --> 01:52:22,240
Speaker 1: Chase said he declined to contribute to Randy Quaid's legal

1972
01:52:22,280 --> 01:52:25,479
Speaker 1: defunds funds. He said, there are funny people, and God knows,

1973
01:52:25,560 --> 01:52:27,800
Speaker 1: Randy's one of them. I don't know what happens, but

1974
01:52:27,920 --> 01:52:32,160
Speaker 1: I pray for him. And Chevy also semi jokingly, semi

1975
01:52:32,200 --> 01:52:34,800
Speaker 1: seriously mentioned in interviews that he's come up with a

1976
01:52:34,880 --> 01:52:39,040
Speaker 1: Vacation spinoff. He calls Clark and Ellen save Randy instead

1977
01:52:39,040 --> 01:52:41,880
Speaker 1: of cousin Eddie. It's just Randy now, and they go

1978
01:52:42,000 --> 01:52:47,720
Speaker 1: rescue him from the star Whackers. But you know, I'll say,

1979
01:52:47,760 --> 01:52:51,000
Speaker 1: the fact that Randy Quaid reached out to Chevy, who's

1980
01:52:51,080 --> 01:52:53,400
Speaker 1: you know, not exactly known as the cuddliest man in

1981
01:52:53,400 --> 01:52:57,760
Speaker 1: Hollywood speaks volumes about the close bond between the castifaication.

1982
01:52:58,560 --> 01:53:01,759
Speaker 1: Dana Baron says that the OG Vacation crews still get together,

1983
01:53:01,840 --> 01:53:04,160
Speaker 1: and she said it's the best rapport of actors I've

1984
01:53:04,200 --> 01:53:07,639
Speaker 1: ever seen. They recently gathered together for a pool party,

1985
01:53:07,720 --> 01:53:09,880
Speaker 1: she said. Beverly and her twins hung out with my

1986
01:53:10,040 --> 01:53:13,360
Speaker 1: kids and swam and Chevy has literally every year for

1987
01:53:13,439 --> 01:53:17,280
Speaker 1: over thirty years, sent me a Christmas card with his wife, Michael.

1988
01:53:17,320 --> 01:53:20,080
Speaker 1: I'm guessing Anthony. Michael Hall and I text all the

1989
01:53:20,120 --> 01:53:24,400
Speaker 1: time and email. Hall guest starred in two episodes of Community,

1990
01:53:24,479 --> 01:53:30,080
Speaker 1: which starred Chevy for a time before he was victoriously

1991
01:53:30,760 --> 01:53:34,559
Speaker 1: ousted from the production. But Chevy apparently he does this

1992
01:53:34,680 --> 01:53:37,320
Speaker 1: thing when he sees old friends where he pretends he

1993
01:53:37,360 --> 01:53:40,040
Speaker 1: doesn't recognize them and then demands a cup of coffee

1994
01:53:40,040 --> 01:53:43,880
Speaker 1: from them as if they're just an intern. Hilarious, which

1995
01:53:43,960 --> 01:53:47,320
Speaker 1: Anthony milcahol says he finds hilarious. He said, I felt

1996
01:53:47,320 --> 01:53:50,920
Speaker 1: like Rusty all over again. That's Chevy's sense of humor,

1997
01:53:51,880 --> 01:53:54,920
Speaker 1: And you know what, I feel like a disrespectful Chevy

1998
01:53:55,000 --> 01:53:57,880
Speaker 1: Chase non joke. It's a perfect place to leave this.

1999
01:53:58,560 --> 01:54:01,719
Speaker 2: We've all had so much fun. We're gonna need plastic

2000
01:54:01,760 --> 01:54:08,760
Speaker 2: surgers who move up Damn smiles whistling zippity doo dah

2001
01:54:09,680 --> 01:54:13,400
Speaker 2: out of our ask folks, thank you for listening.

2002
01:54:13,520 --> 01:54:16,639
Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Heigel and

2003
01:54:16,760 --> 01:54:22,160
Speaker 1: you're not. And I'm Jordan Bruntalg. We'll catch you next time.

2004
01:54:22,320 --> 01:54:30,720
Speaker 1: Don't touch too much Information was a production of iHeartRadio.

2005
01:54:31,000 --> 01:54:34,240
Speaker 2: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalg.

2006
01:54:34,400 --> 01:54:37,880
Speaker 2: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show

2007
01:54:38,000 --> 01:54:41,840
Speaker 2: was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Bruntalg and Alex Heigel.

2008
01:54:41,640 --> 01:54:44,839
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Punk Orchestra.

2009
01:54:45,200 --> 01:54:47,200
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

2010
01:54:47,280 --> 01:54:50,240
Speaker 1: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

2011
01:54:50,280 --> 01:54:53,560
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

2012
01:54:53,560 --> 01:55:03,560
Speaker 1: favorite shows. Back Back, Bat and Fresh