National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation vs. A Christmas Story FITE

• adding the phrase "...dog-kissing, snake-licking..." to a mock-angry rant. (From Chevy Chases angry tirade toward the end of "Christmas Vacation".)
  
• "only I didn't say fudge." (from "A Christmas Story")
  

Disclaimer: Granted, these two gags have been done to death, but they still get a cheap laugh. YMMV.

A Christmas Story makes me laugh every year. The damn father in that kills me. "Ahhh fra-gil-ay, must be italian."

"It's...uhm...STARING at me!"

"OHhhh! *CHOP*"

C+
You'll shoot your eye out

You can buy the lamp online, too. It's a Major Award!

Christmas Vacation wins because of the Scathing Social Commentary, which *always* wins over Heartwarming Family Fun.

A Christmas Story has that! As you say yourself, the need for Major Awards! The war between the sexes! Gender roles! (ie the pink bunny suit)

Home Alone II, however...

yes, but he also directed Black Christmas. surely that was Margot Kidder's finest hour! to say nothing of Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, and John Saxon. and last but not least, the wonderful performance of Second City Television's greatest genius, Andrea Martin!!

and annouschka, you are wrong about the first vacation movie. it's not as good as you remember. even if you are watching it right now.

My family, as well, holds both movies very dear around the holidays. The TBS Christmas Story marathon is always on the whole day (thankfully, it replaced the Yule Log several years ago). We all have our favorite parts. Mine, for some reason, is when the dad says "What a great lamp!" - makes me crack up every time. I don't believe there has been a movie since that portrays kids as they really are, rather than portraying them as the 'miniature wisecracking adults' we've unfortunately become accustomed to. When Flick cries 'uncle' and whines like a little bitch after gettintg his tongue stuck on the pole (watch his hands, helplessly flailing around - very real), it's exactly how a little kid would act.

Christmas Vacation is more of a 'cult' film in the Fidelity house, in that a few members of the family merely endure it, rolling their eyes at the menfolk pissing themselves over the Griswald Supersled, the nostalgic-time-alone-with-film-projector-ending-in-slapstick-mayhem, or Aunt Bethany in general ("I like riding in cars!"). But it's an indisputable classic as well.

I tried reading the Jean Shepard book A Christmas Story was based on a few years ago, and, in a spoiled rotten, post-Sedaris way, found it incredibly dull and not very funny.

I'd say The Muppet's Christmas Carol ranks higher than Christmas Vacation as far as favourite Xmas movies go. But Christmas Story is the best.

Christmas Story by a nose. Aunt Bethany kills, but the Santa slide scene is genuinely terrifying. Great use of the fish-eye lens.

Saw this bit last night. In fact, I don't ever think I've seen the actual film all the way through in one sitting. Still, `tis a classic.

I remember enjoying Christmas Vacation (i.e. the last respectable piece of work by Chevy Chase?), but only saw it once.

A Christmas Story is infinitely better.
"I LIke the Wizard of Oz"
"Leave me alone, kid. I'm thinking."

...that film is nearly perfect.

more

ovaltine

"It's, uh, STARING at me!"

even though gremlins has phoebe cates it is still a distant third in a three man race.

"shitter was full"

someone should change the wikipedia entry that keeps saying the bully's name is Scott. It's bugging me.

it's SMILING at me!

The Ref is better than both of these films put together.

A Christmas Story is great, granted, but it makes me feel awkward and a bit sad.
― Sarah McLusky (coco), Friday, November 7, 2003 11:15 AM (5 years ago)

This pretty well encapsulates why Christmas Story endures (and is the better movie). Funny and all, but overwhelming in its melancholic nostalgia. The last scene with the mom and dad bathed in Christmas tree light and watching snow plays completely different at the tail end of Christmas Day than it does Christmas Eve.

My father wove a tapestry of obscenities that as far as we know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan.

Die:

http://gawker.com/5940985/the-official-sequel-to-a-christmas-story-will-make-you-want-to-shoot-your-eye-out

Eh. It's only the fourth or so sequel to A Christmas Story (at least two of which contained actual Jean Shepherd narration and everything). None of which have done much business or entered the public consciousness in any meaningful way.

My boss says "It's the gift that keeps on givin', Clarke" any chance he gets

watching daniel stern do the furnace bit really hurt

Pointless poll suggestion: best Old Man (Darren McGavin, Charles Grodin, James Broderick, James B. Sikking, George Coe, Daniel Stern).

Follow-up pointless poll suggestion: best Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, Kieran Culkin, Matt Dillon, Jerry O'Connell, David Elliot(?), Peter Kowanko (?), Braeden Lemasters).

I just love riding in cars!

Gotta love D'Angelo's Power Girl-inspired Christmas outfit.

Hello everybody!

http://www.x-entertainment.com/pics3/c22.jpg

I watched Christmas Story without the sound on yesterday morning, and my favorite thing is the way Ralphie keeps staring up at the leg lamp and absentmindedly running his hand up and down the leg

Also the way the Mom covers his eyes when she first catches him doing it

Eddie: Yeah, I got the daughter in the clinic, getting cured off the Wild Turkey. And, the older boy, bless his soul, is preparing for his career.
Clark: College?
Eddie: Carnival.
Clark: You got to be proud.
Eddie: Oh, yeah. Yeah, last season he was a pixie-dust spreader on the Tilt-O-Whirl. He thinks that maybe next year, He'll be guessing people's weight or barking for the Yak woman. You ever see her?
Clark: No.
Eddie: She's got these big horns growing right out above her ears. Yeah, she's ugly as sin, but a sweet gal. And, a hell of a good cook.

Eddie has all of the best lines in that film. The one I laughed at yet again this year, in response to Clark telling the children that a pilot reported seeing Santa's sleigh on the way into Chicago: "You serious, Clark?"

Still awesome.

"You serious, Clark?" a standard line on some college football forums, especially when some first-time poster chirps up about some coaching changes he's heard from his "sources on the inside."

That's a high-quality item, Clark.

And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?
I don't know Margo.

https://twitter.com/TheRandyQuaid/status/547979672194019328

Eddie breaking the toy in that scene makes me laugh.

Racism at the end of a Christmas Story kind of ruins it.

Christmas Vacation is more funny anyhow.

My mom got obsessed with A Christmas Story in like 1985 and we watched it every thanksgiving night for at least ten years, then with the constant marathon I can't even imagine how many times I've seen this. The old man is great and very much like my grandfather.

SONS OF BITCHES...BUMPUSES is super classic but my wife and I will frequently use YOU USED UP ALL THE GLUE ON PURPOSE when expressing anger at each other.

you call this a paragraph?! margins, margins, margins! F! ugh, a life's work down the drain... a semicolon, you dolt! a period. F! oh, i shall weep if i have to read one. more. F! "ralphie parker." hrm. ...oh. oh! the theme i've been waiting for all my life! listen to this sentence: "a red ryder bb gun, with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time." oh, poetry! sheer poetry! ralphie! an A PLUS! oh, ralphie! congratulations, my ralphie! A PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS

Ralphie's dream sequences are the best
PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS

that look on his face after he gives the teacher the fruit basket and he's just standing there smiling is so lol

^^^ hair plastered?

a semicolon, you dolt! a period

my life tbh

I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe because I have never heard of "A Christmas Story."

If you'd turned on TBS yesterday you'd have watched it 24 hours straigiht.

I saw ACS when I was like 8 or 9 and found it extremely unpleasant for whatever reason. Have never revisited it since.

a bit like Xmas.

OH MY GOD:

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/untold-story-of-national-lampoons-christmas-vacation-20141222?page=4

Johnny Galecki (Rusty Griswold): At the time, I was in Chicago auditioning for industrial films and regional theater, and I was happy doing that. I didn't dare to dream to be in a big studio film. But I put myself on tape and sent it in. They flew me out to Los Angeles; it was one of the first times I was ever here. I read with Chevy and Jeremiah — and that alone would have been enough for me. I could have been given my walking papers and sent home on the next flight and it still would have been a dream come true. Chevy told me right there in the room that I had gotten the role.

Lewis: I don't know the politics at the time, but maybe they had to rush to find the kids, or something.

Chechik: Galecki was just an odd kid. He was very young and so dry. He made me laugh because he has this wack of a sense of humor and that's what made me really want him. He wasn't a Hollywood kid who was going for laughs, but he had a nervousness to him that in many ways shows beautifully now as an adult. His comic gifts are absolutely incredible.

Ladd: This movie is kind of a turning point in my life. I went there with a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination under my belt, but Hollywood was very hard on women. When I did Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, I thought it'd change everything for women – a lot of us did. But it didn't, and I was spending a lot of time in Florida. People would yell at me, "What are you doing running away from Hollywood?" I came back to Hollywood and the first thing I got was for Christmas Vacation. Meanwhile, here I am going to audition to play Chevy's momma, and I'm one year older than him! That's if he was born in 1943, because IMDb lies about everything. They never get it right

Chase: I loved working with Randy on all of the Vacation movies. I never even got a hint there was anything going on emotionally or physiologically with him. He just gets right into it. When we're in the grocery store and he gets that huge 100 pound bag of dog food and slams it down. I don't think anybody wrote that. That was just Randy reaching out and grabbing it.

Flynn: There's one scene that didn't make it to the film and I so wish it had. It's a scene where Randy and I are in the infamous motor home and you get to see what our lives are like inside. That was a riot, but at the time it had to be cut.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/untold-story-of-national-lampoons-christmas-vacation-20141222#ixzz3N2zYR4ZD
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I watched A Christmas Story for the first time ever with my class last week. My mom used to name it as her favourite Christmas movie. Loved the brother in the snowsuit, the mall Santa, the famous dare scene, and some other things. I could have done without the narration.

"Wonder Years" influenced by it.

Minor, but I noticed a logistical problem where old-Ralphie continued to narrate events after he'd fled the scene (the part where his friend gets bullied out on the yard).

D'Angelo: Did you catch when the police came in and there's a freeze frame where my hand was (on Chevy's crotch)? I did that spur of the moment and told Chevy, just to see if anyone on set noticed. But we did a couple takes and no one mentioned it.

Yes, Ms. D'Angelo, having turned 16 the month before this movie was released, I did happen to catch that take.

EVERYBODY caught that, Bev.

I could have done without the narration.

It's Jean Shepherd!

Didn't know that...Doesn't change my mind, though; I honestly felt it would have been a better film without it.

I'm with you regarding voice-over in 99 percent of movies, especially anything directed by Woody Allen, but this movie's an exception (and there was too much of it in "The Wonder Years").

would be a lesser film w/o narration no question

yeah, otm. this is one of the very few movies i can think of where the narration is absolutely essential. the tone of the movie would be completely different without it.

It's not really fair to say "better film" without it; it would have to be a different film, as the narration fills in a lot of the story. But I just found the narration too folksy.

One thing that was eye-opening for my students was seeing Peter Billingsley as an adult--turns out most of them had seen him in Elf.

http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2011/09/09/44459961-SS_Child_Star_Successes_Billingsly_Peter.jpg

Seriously--completely subjective reaction. I realize how beloved the film is.

i have never seen christmas vacation

:o

also i didn't see 16 candles until i was 22

I never really learned how to love.

never seen either of these

(no, not ACS in its entirety; i did listen to Jean Shepherd on the radio some)

RedLetterMedia did an episode on Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure -- apparently it is a truly terrible movie.

http://youtu.be/3plH6M1LadY

Isn't "Christmas Vacation 2" like calling a movie "Return of the Jedi 2" or "Rocky III 2: Clubber's Revenge"?

No one's mentioned Melinda Dillon's kooky, original perf as the mom in ACS: an odd mix of authority and a child trapped in an adult's body. I like the bit where she and the kids are shouting "Jingle Bells" in the car and caps it with a loud fart noise and a delighted laugh.

i love her!

never seen any of the Vacations, was made to watch ACS last year for the first time bcz America

and bcz filmed in clevo, i'll bet

Guy whose house is at the end of my neighborhood's off-ramp always features one of those leg lamps front-and-centeri in his picture window during Christmas. How I hate him so.

For the theme song, Prince was a Warner artist and he produced it. He's the one who brought in Darlene Love.

Is Darlene Love so synonymous with Christmas that even the director of the film can't remember that it was Mavis Staples who did the theme?

and bcz filmed in clevo, i'll bet

― mookieproof, Saturday, December 27, 2014 8:05 PM (Yesterday)

I'm saving Major League for next xmas.

have never watched either bcz I prefer Preston fucking Sturges

(I have of course seen ACS scenes all out of order across the years bcz my sister always has it on)

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0ErVFsJs8cIH59fO/giphy.gif

Vacation

Is Rusty still in the Navy?

butchered on uk tv right now, so my Facebook feed tells me

overwhelming in its melancholic nostalgia. The last scene with the mom and dad bathed in Christmas tree light and watching snow plays completely different at the tail end of Christmas Day than it does Christmas Eve.

Still believe this, tbh. The end of Christmas and the start of three to four months of winter is always a killer.

the 50 days til the start of baseball spring training, really

I've never seen Preston Sturges because I prefer Charles fuckin Dickens

hello everybody!

Happy POLLidays! (Happy POLLidays!) It's the ILX Holiday Movies Poll Results Thread

christmas story sequel is dreadfully cornball with little of the OG's charm

there's even a scene that's actually a watered down version of a Christmas Vacation scene

Watched the preview and I will be passing

I just love riding in cars!

GRACE

Don't drop me down, Clark!

Something sort of perverse that any single frame of film would center on Chevy Chase, given the galley of assassins making up the entire rest of the cast

The bless-ing!

No one in the movie pulls focus harder than Doris Roberts. She has maybe 4 lines of actual dialogue and somehow gets maybe three dozen laughs.

I’ve seen it too many times, but some small moments still get me. When Clark sticks his head out of the attic window and you see the lunatic application of Christmas lights. And “If I had a rubber hose I would beat you…”

Randy Quaid’s “You serious, Clark?” after he tells the kids about Santa is still probably my all time though.

otm!

It's a goddamn stupid line, but last night I lost it when Randy Quaid said, "Better take a rain check on that, Art, he's got a lip fungus that ain't been identified."

The bless-ing!

― Paul Ponzi

Whenever someone in the family says they can't hear, we whip out this line.

i don’t KNOW, margo

that’s my most quoted line

My carpet! *sobs*

EDDIE

It's a crying shame the older kids couldn't make it. Yeah, I got the daughter in the clinic, getting cured off the Wild Turkey. And the older boy, bless his soul, is preparing for his career.

CLARk

College?

EDDIE

Carnival.

CLARK

You gotta be proud.

EDDIE

Yeah, last season he was a pixie-dust spreader on the Tilt-O-Whirl. He thinks maybe next year he'll be guessing people's weight or barking for the Yak Woman. You ever see her?

CLARK

No.

EDDIE

She's got these big horns growing right out above her ears. Yeah, she's ugly as sin, but a sweet gal. And a hell of a good cook.