Chevy Chase and National Lampoon's Vacation

[Conf]

When I was a kid, I liked Chevy Chase for movies like 'Spies like us' or 'Fletch' (or so I remember). Not being american, I didn't know he was a star in the US, nor I knew about SNL or the Griswold movies, that appeared in italian theatres just for a few days some years later. He was just a funny face doing funny expressions. Anyway, last night I stumbled upon the first Vacation on tv and I couldn't stop asking myself what was so funny about Chevy Chase and why that movie is regarded as one of the funniest 80s comedies. It raised just a few smiles on my face, never a full laugh. Please explain to a poor european. Thank you.

[Venomx73]

Hello. For me, I just love this movie for it's nostalgia.



If you watched it in the early 80's like I did, I'm sure it would be in your top 50 nostalgia flicks list too.

Russ: "Hey you got Pacman?"
Dale: "No."
Russ: "Uh, you got Space Invaders?"
Dale: "Nope."
Russ: "You got Asteroids?"
Dale: "No but my Dad does. Can't even sit on the toilet some days!"

[Conf]

Actually, nostalgia can be a bum. When I watched movies like Re-Animator or Return of the Living Dead in recent times, having loved them as a kid, I was slightly disappointed, as I remembered them better than they were.
Back to Chevy Chase, not having seen any SNL sketches, was he famous for a particular gag or catchphrase or just for his "rubber face" ?
Oh, I just remembered that we had two kind-of-ripoff of 'Vacation' in Italy about italians goin' coast to coast in the US, both entertaining and funny (provided you're italian, of course). Bo Derek starred in one ('Sognando la California - California Dreamin').

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjfIVc93H78http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNSQnKW_lUY

[FatFreddysCat]

National Lampoon's Vacation is one of those movies where you just had to "be there" I guess. I loved it as a kid, but I'll admit that now, almost 30 years later, it has its moments but overall it hasn't aged particularly well.

I actually prefer the "Christmas Vacation" sequel over the original these days. Still catch that one at least once every Holiday season.

[Venomx73]

When I was a kid, I liked Chevy Chase for movies like 'Spies like us' or 'Fletch' (or so I remember). Not being american, I didn't know he was a star in the US, nor I knew about SNL or the Griswold movies, that appeared in italian theatres just for a few days some years later. He was just a funny face doing funny expressions. Anyway, last night I stumbled upon the first Vacation on tv and I couldn't stop asking myself what was so funny about Chevy Chase and why that movie is regarded as one of the funniest 80s comedies. It raised just a few smiles on my face, never a full laugh. Please explain to a poor european. Thank you.

Btw. Do you know about National Lampoon's European Vacation?
it's funny. but... Imo it misses something.
It's my least favorite... Christmas Vacation takes 2nd place.

[Conf]

Btw. Do you know about National Lampoon's European Vacation?
it's funny. but... Imo it misses something.
It's my least favorite... Christmas Vacation takes 2nd place.

yes, it came out as "Guarda un po' sti americani!" ("Look at those Americans!") but I have never seen them. I remember a review on a magazine that despised the movie for its abuse of stereotypes about europeans (french=dirty people, italians=latin lovers/mafia and so on).

[Venomx73]

LOL. Very good.

"Look at those Americans!" Yup. Thats 'National Lampoon's European Vacation' in a nutshell.

[The Burgomaster]

I guess it pokes fun at the average, middle-class American family.  So, maybe some of the humor doesn't translate well if you've never been part of such a family.   

[Conf]

I don't know if it's just that...I grew with every kind of sitcom (from Happy Days to Archibald to the Jeffersons to The Nanny...), so I guess I should know how life is like in a US family (of course in a fictionalized way). Some were very funny, some were not. Then again, maybe it's just me not "gettin'" Chevy (though I liked him in 'Spies like us'...he was perfect as the slacker spy).

[akiratubo]

Vacation is a movie that has not aged well.  It was very fresh when it came out and deserved to be such a hit.  However, by now so many other movies have ripped it off so many times that someone watching it for the first time today probably won't get anything out of it.

[Psycho Circus]

I've never found Chevy Chase funny. I really wanted to like the vacation films, but they just kind of washed over me. Not terrible, but I just didn't laugh.

[Hammock Rider]

I saw it in the theater when it first came out and it was hilarious. This was only a few years after SNL & Animal House pushed the envelope in some areas so that kind of irreverent humor was still pretty new. And it did a good job of exagerating the cross country trek that was a pretty common vacation style back then.

  Nowadays it gives me a double shot of nostalgia. It reminds me of both the vacations I took as a kid and the movie going summers of my youth.

[Rev. Powell]

I hated VACATION when it came out. I probably would like it better now as I'm much more tolerant as an older person. That said, Chevy Chase is not particularly funny, and looking back I'm not sure anyone can say why he was so popular in the 80s.

[FatFreddysCat]

Btw. Do you know about National Lampoon's European Vacation?
it's funny. but... Imo it misses something.
It's my least favorite... Christmas Vacation takes 2nd place.

I've seen all of the "Vacation" films (yes, even the godawful, grasping-at-straws "Vegas Vacation"). I found "European" particularly funny when I first saw it cuz I had just spent a month in Germany as an exchange student. But like the original, looking at it now it hasn't held up particularly well.

[JaseSF]

I actually do enjoy these old 80s Chevy Chase films but yeah in the Vacation films, he's a selfish jerk a lot of the time. What I find funny about the Vacation series is he's pretty much your stereotypical dumb American tourist amped up to slightly ridiculous extremes.