National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

On this episode, Caitlin and Jamie *lampoon* the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have
women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast
start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Jamie, a drum roll please? Okay, here we are at
the Bechdel Cast episode of Wait, the lights are not
the lights are not? Shoot? Oh no, I guess I
don't understand electricity.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
My name is Caitlin Dante, and this is our show
where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point for
a larger discussion about representation and stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Ain't that the freaking truth? And here we are at
the end of the holiday season. I'll say it, we're
scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of holiday
classics at this point. I think next year we're gonna
have to really figure out something something.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, I feel like every year we kind of come
up on this, but I thought of a whole new
list of things that we haven't covered. We haven't done
the Last Holiday with Queen Latifah. Oh true.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
True.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
The thing is that there's a bunch of like eighties
and nineties movies that you might not be like as
familiar with, but they were like pretty big, like cultural
moments of like Scrooged.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
I feel like we've almost done Scrooged, like for eight
years in a row. Yeah, listeners, if there is a
holiday movie that we haven't covered, I would absolutely love
to know, because Netflix is just not churning out the
slop like they used to.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
They're just not and it's a damn shame.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I hate to see that.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
We did a poll recently for matrons to kind of
vote on what other holiday movie we would do this month,
and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation one, which is why we're
doing that today. But then there's also movies like Ghosts
of Girlfriends Past that is a I think vague Christmas

(02:11):
Carol adaptation something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I confuse it with my super ex Girlfriends, so I
actually don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, I have seen Ghost of Girlfriends Past and retained
very little of it, but that is a Christmas time movie.
Then you've got Black Christmas. There's the original from the seventies,
as well as the remake. There's in Bruges, which is
a Christmas time we forget.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
That that is technically yes.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
And then we've also got The Long Kiss good Night,
which not enough people voted for, but it's a fun
action romp starring Geena Davis forgetting like she like doesn't
remember that she used to be a spy, like an assassin.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
See this sounds good, it's awesome. I have not seen
but yeah, I was like you had me at Gena
Davis like say no more exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
And Samuel L. Jackson is in it, like hello, say.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
No more again?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like this rocks. So there's more. There's more movies to cover. Well,
there's no shortage.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
There's more, but you know what I mean. Sometimes it's
just like what, Okay, what we're saying is this is
the Bechdel cast. Yeah, you know, I would say, don't
worry too much about the Bechdel test when it comes
to this movie. Oh, it doesn't technically pass in a
few passing moments. However, spiritually you know it doesn't. And
that's the episode. But if in case you're wondering. The

(03:30):
Bechdel test is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
Alison Bechdel often called the Bechdel Wallace Test because it
was in fact co created with Alison Bechdel and her
friend Liz Wallace. It was originally created as a joke,
one off joke, in Bechdel's iconic comic collection Dikes To

(03:50):
Watch Out For. It was originally centered specifically on why
there was no representation of queer women, but it was
later sort of straightify for the mainstream. And the version
of the test that we use requires that two characters
of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other

(04:12):
about something other than a man for more than two
lines of dialogue. And today we are covering a movie
that it's so interesting. I feel like it sort of
straddles worlds we've covered before, but I don't think we've
ever This is the first thing we've covered in the
National Lampoon EU, right, the nl EU, because there's like

(04:34):
twelve of these movies that range like forty years, which
I kind of did not remember.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Right, because there's a bunch of movies specifically in this
like vacation series where the Griswold family goes on some
kind of vacation and then you've got like National Lampoons,
Animal House.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
They were making these things as late as twenty fifteen.
Oh my god, yeah, I've got I've got some nl
EU lore to share. It's not particularly interesting, but it
just is like it's historically they were making these movies
for nearly forty years. But I think these are sort
of outside of Animal House. The vacation movies appear to

(05:14):
be the more famous ones, but we're covering of course,
it's that time of the year, Christmas vacation. Yeah, even
though I feel like vacation is a bit of a stretch.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
They're at home, it's a staycation.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
It's a staycation, and it's a movie.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
And we watched it.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
But caven, what's your history with this?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
So I have seen this before, probably one time as
a young person, and remembered very little. I remembered vague
moments of like they get stuck under the log truck.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
That was kind of thrilling. I have to say, the
log truck. It was like movies from the eighties and nineties.
I was like, damn, they were just destroying cars. It's
kind of fun. They really did do that a lot. Yeah,
this is also a stunt that happens in the first
Fest and the Furious movie where they're like little Hondas

(06:08):
drive under a big rig. Wow, brave of you to say,
and very true.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I mean, I call it like I see it. I
remember that. It's not even that I like had that memory.
But as soon as I was watching this movie, I
was like, oh, that is familiar to me. I have
seen this before. Other moments, like when he staples his
sleeve to the roof, I was like, oh, yeah, that
is familiar. But there was a moment that I thought
was in this movie that I very distinctly remembered, which

(06:38):
was there's a scene where they're driving in the car
and an elderly relative is with them in the back seat,
and then the kids realize that she's dead and they're
like kind of flopping her body back and forth. So
that does not take.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Place in this It was like, excuse me, well.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
I thought this was in this movie, but this is
another National Lampoon Vacation movie that I was confusing it with.
I think that one that I'm referring to, I think
it's just called National Lampoon's Vacation. Okay, listeners, If I'm
incorrect about this, let me know, but I had this memory.
I was like, Oh, I can't wait for the part
where the dead relative is in the back of the car,

(07:17):
and then it never happened in Christmas Vacation, so I
was like, oh, guess it's a different movie. So wow, Gaslighting.
But yeah, I basically remembered nothing about this movie. I'm
not a big National lampoon head, not a big chevy
Chase head. He's my least favorite character from Community. I
was about to.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Say, my entry point for chevy Chase was community, and therefore.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I'm you're so young.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I'm very youthful. But I just I feel like people
whose entry point for chevy Chasse was community have been
socially conditioned to hate him, and it seems like kind
of rightfully.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
So yeah, he doesn't seem like a I mean, I
don't know how he is as a person. I don't
know his politics or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I don't know what his politics are. I just know
that he's like a famously a monster to his coworkers.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh okay, well then fuck him.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, I believe he is a freakin lib He goes
blue no matter who. So it's not his politics. I
have quite as much issue with as much as just like, yeah,
I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering correctly, I'm gonna check
this really quick. But he like had beef with every
single person on the set of Community, which is why
he wasn't on the show the whole time.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, I think they kill him off. I want to
say at some point, yes.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
Oh so okay, sorry this is unpleasant, but so chevy
Chase was fired from Community after he said a racial
slur on set. So he is a confirmed bad person.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Okay, well yeah, fuck him straight to hell.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Donald Glover has spoken about I'm pulling from a Variety
article from last year, from twenty twenty three. Yeah, that
chevy Chase was removed from the show for literally the
safety and like comfort of the cast. Didn't remember the
extent to which he's a wants, but he is.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
He sucks. So yeah, this movie wasn't really going to
appeal to me, and so when I rewatched it to
prep for this episode, I was like, Yep, this movie
is not for me. Maybe if I had more of
a nostalgic attachment to it or something. And I get
that a lot of people do, and you'll just have
to be ready for us to dunk on it. But

(09:22):
that's our job. There you go, Jamie. What's your history
with the movie.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I haven't seen this damn thing. I remember the second
wave of national lampoon movies. I remember, you know, hearing
titles like Van Wilder. You know, Circulary that is a
national lampoon thing, right, It's like it made it all
the way to young Ryan Reynolds. Here is some more
recent titles, more recent, I mean last twenty or so years,

(09:48):
Van Wilder, Van Wilder, The Rise of Taj, which is
a cal Pen character. I guess, okay, let's see what else.
And then yeah, for some reason, there was another one
in twenty fifteen, which stars Ed Helms as a grown
up Russ, which is interesting because Russ is played by.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Johnny GLUCKI, who is a working actor.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Like a MULTIHI millionaire. It's Leonard for crying out loud,
So I don't know why Leonard did. I mean, honestly,
it would be interesting if Johnny Glucky's like, here's where
I draw the line, and not the Big Bang theory
whatever these movies were coming out for. And then there
was another Randy Quaid one in two thousand and three
Christmas Vacation two cousin Eddie's Island Adventure.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Who wants that?

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I don't think anyone, because I certainly have never heard
of it. At least I heard of Van Wilder. I
think that was successful. Anyways, this is a whole eu. Yeah. No,
but I had not seen any of these movies. They
were not shown in my household. We just like weren't
a big like John Hughes's Household.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
No.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, Chevy Chase is a piece of shit, Randy Quaid,
don't even get me started. However, I do think that
this is like an interesting piece of kind of like
moment in time cultural stuff. This movie feels so eighties
in its presentation of like an upper middle class that

(11:14):
no longer exists. Yeah, it's interesting. I'm excited to talk
about that sort of aspect of it. Yeah, and it's
a very John Hughes. It is weird that, like, once
I read that this was based on a story that
John Hughes had written about the late fifties, it made
much more sense to me because I don't think that
this world even existed in the eighties. This is like

(11:35):
post World War two middle class sort of politics. It's weird.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I couldn't even place it. I was like, maybe that's
just what Chicago suburbs were like back then, growing up
in a very small rural town. I'm just like, I
don't know what suburbs are like. I would never go
to one. Is this what it is? I have no idea,
so I don't even I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
I'm unclear on that as well, like because this is
like a class that neither of us were ever a
part of, and I know that there's so much movie
fed versions of it. Also, I mean, we had a
more detailed version of this conversation in our Matreon Ferris
Bueller episode. But John Hughes also kind of like a

(12:19):
right wing kind of guy. This movie does feel conservative coded,
I would say yes. Anyways, there were a few things
that got me. I liked that Julia Louis Dreyfuss is
in this movie, for example, I like kind of the
like it's very low hanging fruit, but the kind of
like wasp criticism like bits with that couple is kind

(12:41):
of funny. My mom introduced me to a term over
the summer that like my brother and I kept laughing
because we thought she was like she was unwell, have
you heard of the phrase dinks No, oh my god.
So I also hadn't, and my brother and I were laughing,
were like, Mom, what's wrong with you? Dink is I

(13:02):
guess like coated with this sort of yuppy culture of
the ragged era. It's an acronym that stands for double
income no kids dnk oh.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
I've heard that full expression, but I haven't heard it
abbreviated as dink.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Well, of course, because it sounds ridiculous. But yeah, my
mom was like, oh, those dinks. I was like, what
do you say? So that's what's going on with Julia
Louis Dreyfus.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
She's a dance yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
As is her right. Anyways, this movie was like, I
don't know, it felt longer than it was. I will say,
if you grew up with this movie, I understand why
it might feel like a warm blanket in the same
way that like a Christmas Story isn't my favorite, but
I get why people like it. It's a series of
like you can leave the room for twenty minutes and

(13:47):
comeback and be able to understand what's going on. Every scene.
Chevy Chase is either like oie or I'm horny and
that's the whole movie. That's like, you know, if you're
drunk on eggnog, then live, laugh, love. I thought it
was interesting. Angela Battlamente did this score for this.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh I'm not familiar.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
He most famously worked with David Lynch. He did like
the whole theme for Twin Peaks. He's like a very
oh yeah, like blue velvet like. He did very iconic
scores and then he also did the xylophone when Chevy
Chase gets bunked on the head.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
All right, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
This movie was like, maybe it won't make for a
great episode because I struggle to conjure a strong feeling
about this movie. I didn't like it. I get what
others do, and I probably won't watch it ever again.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah. I was hanging out with our mutual friend Brian
last night and we were like what movie should we watch?
And I was like, well, I have to watch National
Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for work and he's like no, thanks,
So instead we were like, okay, well, what's another maybe
like Christmasy movie or what should we watch instead? And

(15:01):
Gremlins came up, not as something we really wanted to watch,
but We're like, oh, that's another Christmas movie, And then
we both realized we had never seen Gremlins two, and
then we watched that.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
We should have covered that.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
It is my new favorite movie I love, and I've
already been a longtime fan of the Key and Peel
Gremlins two sketch.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I mean, it's a classic, even if you don't know
what they're talking about, which I don't.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Which I never did, but it was still so funny.
And now that I have seen Gremlins two and it's
like further contextualized, I love it even more. I love
the sketch even more. But now I also love the
movie Gremlins too. It rocks so hard. I don't care
what anyone says. It's awesome. It should have swept the
Oscars that year. It's the best movie I've ever seen anyway,

(15:43):
So let's cover it a different time. Okay, So, yeah,
we're not a fan of this movie. Shall we take
a break and then come back for the recap?

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, let's do it all right, and we're freaking back.
I guess we should have said really quickly. So this movie, yeah,
movie written by John Hughes, directed by a guy named

(16:13):
Jeremiah s Checchik, who I gotta say, not much to
say about him, not much is known, hopefully he's a
nice guy. And it's connected to obviously National Lampoon Magazine,
which I have more on in the contact section, but

(16:34):
that's where we're coming into.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes, and as you hinted at, it's a movie with
just not exactly sketches, but it's just like little moments,
little vignettes of like the things that the family is
getting up to, except it's mostly just what Clark Griswold
is getting up to.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
And what he's getting up to is aUI or Boner Corny.
Those are his two settings, aUI and Boner huh. And
we love that he's the last family man, as is
a line of dialogue.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Sure, okay, So we open on an animated sequence featuring
Santa Claus Ever heard of him? He is visiting the
home of the Griswold family on Christmas Eve and then
chaos ensues.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I kind of miss this is something I miss? Is
the animated intro?

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Oh sure, yeah, whatever happened to them anyway? Then we
meet the Griswold family who are in the car on
their way to get a Christmas tree. The dad is
Clark played by Chevy Chase. The mom is Ellen played
by Beverly DiAngelo. They have a teen daughter named Audrey

(17:45):
played by Juliet Lewis, and a like I don't know,
twelve ish year old son, Russ, played by a young
Johnny Glecky. As we mentioned, there's this whole thing with
like a pickup truck that's like driving like an asshole,
and then a huge logging truck that Clark gets stuck
under in their car. A lot of high jinks, a

(18:07):
lot of road high jinks, and then they end up
in the wilderness where they take an enormous tree that
looks like it's like three stories tall from the forest
and then they put it up in their living room somehow. Sure,
so there's that. Then Ellen tells Clark that her parents

(18:30):
are coming to visit for the holidays. Clark's parents are
also planning to come, and these two sides of the
family don't really get along, so Ellen wonders if they
should change their plans and do something else, but Clark
is like, no, it's my dream to have a big
family gathering for Christmas.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
But don't worry, he won't be doing very much.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
To make it happen, he will be stapling lights on
the roof.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yes, he does the lights, but he'll do it one
very complixent This actually does feel kind of I'm painting
with a broadbrush hair. But this is kind of like
father coded behavior to me to do one incredibly complicated
thing that no one asked for or wants, while the
mother is tasked with all of the childcare and doing
the things that people both want and need, such as.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Eating food yeah yeah, correct.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
And wrapping gifts and you know, all of the things
that are required versus the thing.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
That nobody wantss at all. Yeah. Yeah, That is the
whole narrative of this movie. Okay, so then we see
Clark at work. He is counting on his holiday bonus
because he wants to install a pool and he's already
put down a seventy five hundred dollars deposit on the

(19:44):
like installation of a swimming pool, but his asshole boss
played by Brian Doyle Murray has not sent out the
holiday bonus checks yet, so Clark is kind of panicking.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
It must really suck being the simil looking sibling of
a famous person, because they do just look like Brian
Doyle Murray to me just looks like uncanny Valley Bill Murray.
I wonder if like he and I mean is he.
I feel like he's probably dead, right, he was old
in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I don't know if he's still living.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Let's see. Oh no, he's alive. He's alive. He's alive
and he's seventy nine years old. He should meet up
with like Haley Duff and like Elle Fanning, and they
said all like sort of have a kekey about this
because it has to be like a very disorienting experience. See.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
I think Elle Fanning is now the more I don't
know if she's the more famous, but she's getting.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Like more work. That's true. Okay, well then maybe Elle
Elle's out Haley Duff is it. I'm trying to think
of a third example of this phenomenon.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
There's Kevin Dylon, who is an Entourage and he's the
brother of Matt Dlon. Matt Dylan. I was like, what's
the more famous one's name? Can't remember?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Wow, good for Kevin Dylan for having the Caitlin Toronte recall.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
It's just because I've seen all those seasons.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Of Entourage, same with what's the other Oh, there's.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
The Wahlberg's the Donnie Wahlberg.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Donnie is invited to the last famous sibling party. This
all sounds like a bad robot check and sketch I
would have written, like five years ago. You know, that's
a free idea for whoever whatever hack comedy writers listening
to this free idea there you don't have that.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, anyway, So there's the whole thing with his boss
and Clark hasn't received the bonus yet, and then he
goes to a department store for some Christmas shopping, except
what he does instead is just ogle at the hot
saleswoman and he's like, uh woo ga hubba hubba.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
And of course the hot sales lady, I don't think
we get a name, no, And of course she's behaving
completely apathetical to the way that a human woman who's
being actively sexually harassed would. She's like, lift her skirt
up in the middle. This is all very connected to obviously,
just like garden variety misogyny, but also national lampoon, specifically

(22:09):
a pin in that.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Okay, yes, that's okay. So then all of the grandparents
show up at the Griswold home, and it's chaos. Clark
starts decorating for Christmas. He's stapling twenty five thousand lights
onto his house. It looks like shit, if I'm being honest.

(22:31):
And then with this decorating process, there's all kinds of
high jinks with the ladder and the stapler, and then
when he turns the lights on, they don't work, and
so Clark is so disappointed.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
And then there's also this running gag with the neighbors,
and that's the Julia Louis Dreyfus character. And what a
dank guy is The danks, right, They are very like
pretentious and they think Clark is a loser. And there's
this part where while Clark is decorating, a large shard

(23:04):
of ice goes flying out of his gutter and then
smashes through the neighbor's window and destroys their stereo.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Wait, sorry, yeah, I just I didn't. I was not
familiar with this character. Actor who plays the other Dink,
the non Julia Lawie drives dank. He's a member of
the Last Famous Sibling Club. He's Christopher Guest's brother, whoa
look at that, look at that.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
And that just reminds us that we haven't covered a
Christopher Guest movie on the podcast, which.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Makes oh my god, yes, which is wild because I
think he like might be my favorite comedy director of
all time.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Why the hell haven't we done best in show waiting
for Guffman spinal Tap?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
So look, I mean that's a Matrean theme waiting to happen.
Oh yeah, that's I love that man. Anyways, Yes, so
he's he's joining my Royal Society of lest famous Siblings.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
I can't wait for the first meeting.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's gonna be a bummer.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, okay, So then I think it's the next day.
Clark goes into the attic to hide some gifts, but
then Ellen's mom closes the attic door, not realizing that
he's in there, so he's trapped there while the family
leaves and goes Christmas shopping, And so he passes the
time watching old reels of family Christmases, which I.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Guess is a reference to the source material, which is
a short story about Christmas nineteen fifty nine. So that's
a fun Easter rag for boring people.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
I'm sorry. Yeah, So he watches that and he's feeling
very sentimental because this guy freaking loves Christmas. Then the
decorative Christmas lights thing comes back, where there's this whole
thing where the lights still won't turn on, but then
someone finds a light switch and then they do turn on,

(24:58):
but there's all this confusion because no, no one really
knows the source of what's making the lights turn on. Also,
these bright lights going on and off are making the
mean dinky neighbors pratfall all over their house.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
These dinks, these freaking dinks. I have nothing to say
about the dinks, I don't think. I just think that
you're like, oh, they're like, yeah, they're low hanging eighties
comedy fruit. And I guess they are kind of making
fun of married couples with no kids, but I feel
like they're more making fun of the class.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Like the snobbiness them not having kids, I think is
commentary on like what selfish adults they are for not,
you know, pro creating and having a nuclear family the
way that you're supposed to in America kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I agree, But I also think it's like they're coded
as so like snobby, wealthy that I feel like it
almost like I don't know, for me, at least, it
like kind of leveled out in terms of like it's
ultimately saying not very much.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Right, Well, this movie has an interesting approach to class
where the movie does not like rich people, which we
see with the Neighbors and with the Boss, but the
movie also hates poor people, and it deems the middle
class is the only acceptable socioeconomic class.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
To be in, which is very jarring watching in a
modern context because I think to most people, the Griswolds,
they are like living what is now considered to be
a wealthy lifestyle. Their homeowners they have a ton that
they have room to host like ten people at their house.
You're like, they're living in what would be a multi
million dollar house.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Now they're about to have a swimming pool maybe like
there is he already put down the down payment, he.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Had the money for the down payment. Where I fit
now in you know, like we're not living in flush
times and so, you know, I'm sure this was unrealistic
for the time as well, but it's like, you know,
thirty almost thirty years on, like or more than thirty
years on, all the more unrealistic because you're like, well,
what second, you guys are rich, but they're sort of yeah,
presented as these middle class heroes in a way that

(27:05):
I'm sure was more realistic at the time, but I'm
not totally assold that it would have been totally realistic
in nineteen eighty nine to be like, I'm just a
normal guy, and meanwhile, you have like a three floorhouse
that you own. Come on, come on, But yes, the
hatred of the poor is brutal.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
You will talk more about it. Yeah, I just did
an inflation calculation for seventy five hundred dollars, which is
what he did for the down payment on the swimming pool.
So adjusted for inflation, seventy five hundred dollars in eighty
nine is almost twenty thousand dollars in twenty twenty four money.

(27:45):
So he just had twenty thousand lying around dollars.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, but he's a working class hero, like you know.
And the thing that's frustrating is like, yes, this should
be a lifestyle that is accessible with the far more
people than it is, like you know, and even the
whole like I felt myself being mad at tiv Chase,
which it was so bisguy was like he wants this
bonus for this pool, and you're like, fuck you man,

(28:09):
Like it's hard not But then you're also like, well,
everyone deserves a holiday bonus. I feel like we're also
like modern times pilled with like, I don't know, like
I just feel inherently resentful looking at people from the
past having more than we will ever have in our lives.
But that's just modernity, baby.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
That's late stage capitalism.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, I mean, I hope everyone I've never gotten a
holiday bons my damn life. I think Grant got a
thirty five dollars best Buy gift certificate last year. Oh
my god. Wow, night on the town. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
You can buy one DVD with that? Are DVD is
still a thing? Or kidding? What blu ray? All right? Anyway,
so there's the whole Christmas lights thing again. Then cousin
Eddie played by Randy Quaid and his family show up
in their RV and everyone's like, oh wow, what a

(29:12):
nice surprise. Sure you can stay here, there's plenty of room.
And again, what's happening here is that this movie hates
poor people and thinks they are a joke. Yes, Then
the family goes sledding at night. Okay, yeah, right, what

(29:33):
sledding at night?

Speaker 1 (29:34):
I've been sledding at night. It's not really patrarian. Yes,
I've been slutting at night.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
It seems very dangerous.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Well, we were doing it at I did at my
cousins with my cousins, but it was like at like
a designated area, Like it wasn't just like, yeah, that
would have been scary, but there was like I don't
know where this would have been, but there was like
a designated area for late night sliding where they had
like big floodlights and stuff, so you couldn't just like
soar into the abyss or whatever.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Okay, there's doesn't seem to be lights at wherever they
are or not significant ones. So and then Clark greases
up his sled because he works for some It reminded
me of Eddie Murphy's job in Daddy Don's Care.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
I wrote that down too, where I was like, why
so many cereal jobs?

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah? Men, these like comedy dads had like a food
processing breakfast cereal job.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
He's making like corn flake lube or something like. It
was really weird. And he makes six figures at this
breakfast job. Wow. Okay, okay, thank you Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Anyway, so he greases up his sled with some weird
food product, and then he goes really really fast down
the hill and crashes, and that's just another one of
the little comedy bit that happens in the movie. Then Clark,
despite him not receiving his Christmas bonus, still he fantasizes

(31:03):
about the swimming pool that he's planning to buy. And
this fantasy includes the hot saleswoman from the store from
earlier taking off her swimsuit and diving into the pool.
And he's horny, horny, horny, so exhausting.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I have to say, I was getting really scared. I
was getting fearful watching that scene that he was going
because his niece disturbs him, and I thought there was
gonna be some like horrible bonder do same because he
turns around because I was like, am I perverse for
having this anxiety? But I thought he's gonna be like covering,
Like I didn't think that they were gonna show, you know,

(31:41):
but like I thought he's gonna be like cut, which
would have been really gross. They don't. He's flaccid as
he's having this sexual fancy and so whatever like that.
That's what I would prefer I guess I would prefer
to it if not happened at all. But again, that's
a very National lampooon. I feel like that is almost
a weird like wink and knot to like what National

(32:01):
Lampoon was famous for, which was misogynist jokes. Yeah right, yeah,
so she's just a nameless almost naked but not naked
enough to make it so that kids couldn't see the movie.
National Lampoon model essentially.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Also reminded me there's a similar swimming pool fantasy sequence
in Is It Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Yes, I don't think that's Is that a fantasy though,
because I think that that.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Was just like there's a part where and Phoebe Kate's, Yeah,
Phoebe Kate's, And then I think it's Judge Reinholder. I
forget which character is having the fantasy, but he's fantasizing
about her like being really sexy and like doing like
very like male gaze choreography. But then it cuts to
what she's actually doing, which is like choking on the
pool water or something.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah. Oh right, yes, you see, like the the two
different versions of it. God, if I was Phoebe Kate's
I would have gotten the fuck out of Hollywood too.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Like Phoebe Kase who is one of the stars of
Gremlins too, my kid.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, I didn't well, I just didn't think she would
come back. Look at that. Wow, I love I love
that expanded family. I like Kevin Klein, I like her,
and I love their NEPO daughter. I think I probably
brought this up when we covered Gremlins, but their neto
daughter was one of my favorite indie musicians in college.

(33:28):
Frankie Cosmos.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Okay, wait, is Phoebe Kate's married to Kevin Klein.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, she has been since the eighties. What.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
So hopefully that means they like each other. It's a
long time angers, but cross you know many such cases. Anyways, Yes,
I was reminded of that scene as well. It was
like if Phoebe Kate's didn't even have a character to
snap back to, that's what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Yeah. Yes, So he's having the day dream, which is
interrupted by cousin Eddie's young daughter named Ruby Sue, who
tells Clark that she is skeptical that Santa exists because
she didn't get any presents last year. And we know
this is probably because her parents are poor and they

(34:14):
couldn't afford to buy gifts, so Clark is determined to
prove to her that Santa does exist aka, presumably he
and Ellen will give gifts to cousin Eddie's two kids,
and a big moment is made of this, and yet
it never pays off. We never see those kids getting gifts. Nope,

(34:36):
we don't see Clark shopping for the gifts. Nothing.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
We're just told I feel like again, like this, Vivie
tells us that Clark is a good guy a lot
and never really shows us.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
There's no evidence on screen.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
No.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, So cousin Eddie meanwhile is dumping his sewage from
his RV into the storm drain and that's going to
pay off. Weird, just unfunny way, but that's happening day.
Then some more relatives show up. This is Aunt Bethany
and Uncle Lewis, and there's a lot of jokes to

(35:13):
the effect of old people are so.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Clueless, and I'm laughing.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
And that's those characters.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
I'm laughing already, yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, yeah. And now it's Christmas Eve and everyone sits
down for a big family dinner, but it's a disaster.
The turkey is disgusting. Aunt Bethany's cat and the Christmas
tree get burnt to a crisp because oh yeah, this
movie thinks that animal abuse is hilarious as well.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
And even more to the point, I mean, because we
were just talking about this in our eight Crazy Nights episode.
Like then, old people are ridiculous, which is really frustrating
given the like prestige of.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
The actors they have.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Cassidy's roles, I did a little digging there. Like Aunt
Bethany is played by actress named May Questelle. This is
her last film appearance. She's the original voice of Betty
Boop in Olive Oil. She's a bit of a legend.
Doris Roberts, who most people will know from Everybody Loves Raymond,
isn't it. Diane Ladd, who's literally in Chinatown. She has

(36:16):
like won a shitload of awards, like famous prestige actor,
like just all of these famous actors, and then they're like, okay,
so here's the assignment. You're old, and you're annoying, and
you're just like no respect, no respect, particularly because like
Diane Ladd is like in her early fifties when this

(36:37):
movie comes out, and they're already treating her like she's
a thousand years old.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Does she play one of the grandparents?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
She plays chevy Chase's mother. Oh okay, while being let's see,
while being less than ten years older eight years older
than chevy Chase playing his mother. I just like the
hatred for women knows no bounds anyways.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah, okay. So all this chaos ensues at the family dinner,
and then things seem like they're going to turn around
when Clark finally receives what he thinks is his holiday
bonus check, but instead it's like a Jelly of the
Month club. So he throws a fit because now he
can't afford the swimming pool, and he says that all

(37:22):
he wants for Christmas is for someone to bring him
his boss so he can punch him or something. I
don't know. I was like tuning out during this long
tirade he's going on.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Cousin Eddie is like, I'm poor, so I can't detect nuance.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
So seriously, so he leaves and goes to kidnap the boss. Meanwhile, Clark,
who is still acting berserk, goes outside and cuts down
a new tree from the yard of their dinky neighbors.
But oh no, there's a squirrel in the tree and

(37:58):
it's running around the house and terrorizing the family.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
There's a snake in my boot, more like there's a
squirrel in my tree exactly. I think this squirrel part
kind of woke me back up a little bit. I
do like a good Rodent chase, uh huh. And then
they lost me again. But for a second, I was like, oh,
squirrel fun.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
That reminded me of the scene in Monty Python The
Holy Grail where that like killer Bunny is just sort
of like flying horizontally across space.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Like furious Rodent. I'm laughing. I'm laughing.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's funny.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
It's good.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I like Rodent movies, Rattatui, Ratchatowing.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
I guess what I'm saying is I like Rattatui and Rattatowing.
Those are movies that I like. And so the squirrel
worked for me.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
There is a great wait. I feel like we've talked
about you continue I need I'm thinking about Rodents for
a second.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Okay, we should do Rodent tober Well.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Okay, because I was looking for I know, I bring
him up all the time. But Mike's Mike, one of
my favorite YouTubers. Who made an iconic video called the
Animated Rodent Agenda of two thousand and six and two
thousand and seven because there was flushed away over the Hedge,
Alvin and the Chipmunks and Ratatui back to back to
back to back, all Rodent centric movies that all did

(39:13):
well in the space of two years.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Wild and why is that? It makes you think?

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Anyways, Rodent tober is well within our reach. Does anyone
want that?

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Thoughts too bad? We're doing it anyway.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Okay, we're doing it. Cut print done anyway.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Okay. So there's the squirrel and Clark eventually gets the
squirrel out of the house, but everyone is just like
freaked out, mostly by Clark's behavior and the various tie
raids he's gone on. Yeah, so they try to leave,
but Clark demands that they all stay, and then cousin
Eddie shows back up with Clark's boss, who Eddie has

(39:54):
kidnapped as per Clark's wish earlier, and Clark calls out
his boss for withholding bonus checks and being a greedy prick,
and his boss is like, oh, damn, you're right. I
guess capitalism is bad, and he like has this weird
redemption and then a bunch of cops show up because

(40:16):
of this abduction, but the boss is like, no, no, no,
it's fine, everything's fine. I learned my lesson.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Classic rich guy, classic rich guy.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah yeah, rich people are always regretting exploiting the labor
famously of people in the classes below them.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
And then he tells his wife, who shows up, who
I was, Like, I recognize her from something. And what
I recognize her from is she was on a Star
Truk show and she's own Star Trek tng in a
small part a few times.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Very nice. Yeah, Okay, So then they go outside because
they spot a shooting star and Clark is like, it's
the Christmas Star, except it's actually something to do with
the gas that was created by the raw sewage that
cousin Eddie dumped down the storm drain and then there's
a big explosion and the family's like, ha ha ha,

(41:10):
what a wacky Christmas.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Now this is like the second sewage plot point in
a holiday movie we've covered this week on the show
beauh Yeah. Crazy Nights also has a big sewage Like, guys, come.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
On, let's not have shit.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
I mean, poo poo joke. Can be funny, but neither
of these are.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
No.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
But thankfully that's the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
That is the end. So let's take a quick break
and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, we're back. I think I kind of said everything
I already had to about National Lampoon magazine, but I
did just want to touch on, like if you're not
familiar with now Lampoon or why it's called these. It
was a humor humor magazine that existed from nineteen seventy
to nineteen ninety eight. It was very popular. I think

(42:11):
it like kind of peaked in the late seventies into
the eighties when these movies were coming out. I remember
that my dad had a copy of it. I think
one of the funny I mean, but all of the
you know, have you ever seen that if you don't
buy this magazine, will kill this dog cover of National Lampoo.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
I do think it is quite funny. My dad used
to have a copy of the Yeah it is you know,
it's edge lord shit. You know, it's late twentieth century
edge lordism, and it is a dog with a gun
to its head. It's photoshopped. If you don't buy this
magazine will kill this dog and I'm laughing. However, most
of the things in National Lampoon, I would not be laughing.

(42:50):
I think it's whatever an extremely mixed bag. But there
were some like famous comedy writers that did more surreal, funny,
actually funny stuff that was in there, but there was
plenty of stuff that wasn't. It was pretty notorious for
having a lot of casual racism, and it was all
but branded as being like overtly misogynist, where many of

(43:14):
the covers are like there's like popless women on the covers.
The jokes are often exploitative and fucked up. So that's
the legacy of the magazine, and so that's very much
obviously the playbook that the NLU is pulling from, And
I would guess that this movie is probably on the

(43:35):
lower end of that as opposed to I mean, I
haven't seen Animal House. I'm sure we'll have to get
around to it someday, someday, but I think that like
these are sort of like less leaning into that, and
it's still pretty bad. So I just wanted to say.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
That, Yeah, Yeah, my guess is that they wanted to
appeal to a wider demographic and so they had to
make it like more family friendly.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Yeah no, I think this is just like their family
the family branding of a very dirty magazine. And then
they are like, or you know, if you.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Just want a night out with the books, you can
go see you.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Know what, Animal House or Van Wilder whatever the fuck?
Yeah right, but yeah, this one is like a little
more tame, but it's still there's still plenty, plenty plenty
to talk about. Where would you like to start, kay them?

Speaker 2 (44:26):
I mean, I would just say that the opening sequence
of this movie pretty well sets the tone for all
the things we're going to see throughout the movie, because
it's a father who is dragging his family into this
bad idea that he has. Like you said, it's like

(44:46):
he's doing the thing that no one wants and no
one asked for. But he's like, well, I'm the man
of the family, so everyone needs to listen to me,
and I'm in control, and what I say goes. So
he's taking his family to go into the wilderness to
dig up an enormous, comically large Christmas tree. On the way,
he gets into a like road rage dick measuring contest

(45:11):
with people who are like very poverty coded, and it's
another like, look at these poor people, aren't they horrible?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
They're out to get him? Yeah, yeah, it is very
like you're saying a masculine dick measuring contest. I mean,
most of the setups here and I know this is
very intentionally done, is like, look at how ridiculous Clark is.
Mm hmm, like look how misguided. Like the thing that's
tricky is like I don't think we're supposed to think
he's right much of the time, but we are supposed
to always like him and write what would make this

(45:40):
whole situation so much easier to swallow? And it wouldn't
resolve every problem with the movie certainly, But if like
it was a married couple doing this, like if it
was a clueless married couple as opposed to it's just
like so clear that Beverly DiAngelo, who again is way
too talented to be in these movies, like, is never

(46:03):
going to get a laugh line. She's going to be
the straight person in every single scene. She's going to
be heavily gender coded. Like it sucks because you get
I think it's honestly probably just because Julia Louis Drivius
is cast in that role, but like that's the only
straight couple where you really see the woman in the
couple get precedence in terms of getting the jokes and

(46:26):
getting the laughlines, because the movie is just like it's
Beverly D'Angelo is just a like reflection board to prioritize
Clark's feelings. You know, whatever Clark wants, she has to
rise to the occasion to do, even to the point
that like at the end it really bummed me out
and felt very again telling of like how conservative a

(46:52):
household this is that when you know, first of all,
we're not really it's not indicated that Ellen works. It
seems like she's a day at home mom, which certainly
happened in the eighties, but does feel more late fifties
than late eighties. But that like when she finds out
that Clark has put down the equivalent of twenty thousand

(47:12):
dollars today on something without talking to her, right, like
she has no reaction to that, and like it's just
like goes to show how clearly unequal this like household
is where it's like, oh my god, like my mom
would have just, i don't.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Know, blew a gasket, Like yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, she would have run over him with the car,
like if one parent. But I feel like it's implied like, well,
he's the breadwinner, so he gets to make all financial decisions,
and you know, like work in the home, it has
no value, and you know, homemakers just have to get
in line. You know, just all these very like traditional
conservative values that these movies sort of embody.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
Right, So she has no reaction to learning that her
husband just spent an enormous sum of money without consulting her.
She does have other reactions throughout the movie, but it's
always just like Clark, Oh, come on, stop that, stop it.
And yeah, like her whole character is just like, oh my,

(48:16):
that's my husband. He's annoying and I hate him, but
I love him, but he's always doing something and I'm
always nagging him.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Right, I mean it's like and thankfully she's not like
hyper like she's certainly not even in the top fifty
percentile of naggiest mother characters. True scene, she is, like,
she's a very likable character. It's just that we don't
get anything for her. She doesn't really get to be funny.
She does, like you're saying, like push against Clark very lightly.

(48:45):
Every once in a while, but he always overrides her
where She's like, I don't know, do we really want
to have like our entire family stay here? And he's
like yes, and then does nothing to contribute. It's also
heavily implied that, like it's okay that Clark is having
these horny fantasies about the woman who plays in the
store clerk. I guess her name is Mary, and she's

(49:09):
played by a model named Nicolette Scorsese, but not related
to Wow, not of those scarseces Because I was gonna
say that would be a wild I.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Was gonna say, is she the less famous sibling? And
then she could join the club your club if she
was the less famous sibling of Martin.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
No, have you seen Caitlyn Martin Scorsese's like TikTok collaborations
with his gen Z daughter. No, Oh my god, Martin
Scarcese has like a twenty five year old daughter named Francesca,
and she has like I'll send them to you, this
like series of very funny, very sweet tiktoks of her
just like talking to her dad about like she had

(49:47):
him like live comment on her doing a like makeup
get Ready with Me video and he's like trying to
keep up. He's like, okay, frand Tusks putting on some
rouge and like he's trying to narrate it, and it's
so Yeah, Francesca Scorsese is my my NEPO baby of choice.
She's very funny.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's great. I love the And I don't think we've
brought this up on the podcast before, but there's that
clip that's been circulating around the internet. Ever heard of
it of al Pacino doing an interview and his phone
has a Shrek case on it.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Jendsey's daughter too, Yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
The interviewers like, why do you have Shrek on your phone?
And like al Pacino tells this like very weirdly constructed
story about how his daughter like took his phone, put
a Shrek case on his phone and then gave it back.
And then the interviewers like, oh, so that's why you
shrek it or something like that. He uses Shrek as
a verb. It's incredible.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
He al Pacino is cracking up too. He's like he
loves it. He noticed who would be Okay, I watched it,
who would be expecting Shrek? Who that's mine? He's so
protective of his Shrek Phone case. Who would be extracting?

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Who would be extracting?

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Oh that's mine. We have to show that at the
Shrek Tannex shows.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Another reason to come to our shows. Listeners.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Oh my god, she came back and she had this
on it. She said it's Shrek Dad. I said, Shrek.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Okay, babe, I'll hold on to it. That's all story
I got.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
It must be so weird having a very old dad.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
But anyways, good for them for supporting their gen Z
daughters and their various pranks. Anyways, Nicolet Scorsese, I just
wanted to like shout her out because I feel.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Like she's just done no justice in this for sure.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Anyways, we were talking about we were talking about Ellen's
yes before we got distracted by the Shrek Phone case.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
It's a part of a longer conversation about just the
way that Clark interacts with women in general, because I
kind of just made a list of all the women
he interacts with and what that looks like hit me.
And with Ellen, his wife, it's her you know, quote
unquote nagging, Although to be fair, the movie doesn't super

(52:17):
frame it that way. It is more just that she
is calling him out for his ridiculous behavior. But it
also means like, yeah, she's not having any fun. None
of the comedy is anything that she generates. Yeah, and
she doesn't get to be you know, quirky or eccentric
the way that Clark.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Is, which sucks because I feel like it would you know, again,
it would still be a boring movie, but it would
resolve a lot of the more obvious misogyny of this
movie if she was simply allowed to participate instead of
being relegated to reacting. Right.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
For sure. Then you have his daughter, Audrey Juliette Lewis,
who I don't think Clark ever interacts with one on one.
There are several scenes where he interacts with his son.
He's having rusty you know, help him with something or
just like talking to him about something, But Clark and
Audrey never have like a one on one scene.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Again, it's this very conservative thing where I think we
see Audrey helping her mom cook. We see they have
a brief interaction in the kitchen, and then Russ is
outside helping his dad. It's again that like very rigid
gender family unit.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Staff for sure. Yeah, Now with Clark and his mom,
I think he also does not ever interact with her.
There are a few scenes where Clark will have like
a pretty significant emotional moment with his dad, especially there's
one toward the end where Clark's dad comes in to say, like, yeah,

(53:48):
the holidays are hard, but you're handling this terribly, so
get your head on straight. Son.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Fathers and sons. Fathers and sons.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
For sure. But Clark and his mom don't say a
word to each other, or if they do, it's not
memorable enough that you'd notice.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Which is it's fucking Diane lad And yeah, I think
the most we get from her is like there's three
different women who come again, it's just like the very
gendered reactions. Right when when Clark, you know, the house
doesn't light up the way he wanted it to, I
think it's Ellen Audrey and his mom all comfort him

(54:27):
and are like it's okay, dad, it's all good. I
think Russ sort of does. But the like older men
are like Clark, you suck, You're alert, like there's just
no one is stepping outside of stock gender roles according
to their age and relationship to him, and yeah, yeah,
it's just so it's irritating, but it's also just so boring.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
It's so boring.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
There's no interesting choices made in the.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Entire movie, not a single one. Yeah. Similarly, he interacts
with cousin Eddie a lot, but he bears acknowledges Eddie's
wife Catherine.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
She has to have like two lines of dialogue like, yeah,
it's ridiculous. And the thing is they still go out
of their way because she's not a woman, she's a
poor woman, so they still go out of the way
to be like, to be clear, she's gross, she's gross,
and we don't like her, but also you will not
hear her speaking. I think, like, honestly, the character, the
poor character that gets the most characterization is his niece

(55:26):
Ruby Sue. So yeah, she has the longest i think
interaction with him that a woman has in the whole movie.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Possibly, yeah, because there's that long scene where she's like,
she's questioning the existence of Santa Claus because he didn't
bring her any gifts aka, her family can't afford to
buy them Christmas gifts, and it's implied that Clark will
be like, oh gosh, how tragic. I'll get her gifts.

(55:55):
I'll prove to her that the magic of Christmas is real.
But then again, as we mentioned, this is never paid
off on. It's just a loose end. And it's like, well,
then why spend that like five minute scene setting all
of that up if you're not gonna pay it off
John Hughes.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I know, like because the to that like that actor
Ellen Hamilton Latson, she's adorable, and she also gets a
couple of jokes in too, where she's like swearing and
shouldn't be swearing, which I do think is like poverty
coded of like these kids are like lash key kids,
they're not well behaved.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Well. The other grammar too, like she's speaking in quote
unquote improper English, and it's right implied that like, oh yeah,
poor people don't know how to use proper grammar.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
It's interesting. I feel like the only women that are
or women or girls that are allowed to have any
laugh lines because she does deliver it in a funny way.
The child actor the only two women that have laugh lines.
It's either because of their class status or their age,
where like bethany clear example of just ageous tropes top

(57:03):
to bottom right with Ruby Sue classest tropes about the
lower class, and then Julia.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Louis Dink whoa Dinks.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Is like another like upper class coated like that's what's
generating the comedy. Like none of them are just funny
because you can be. It's all like connected to some
other aspect of their personhood that it comes from. Totally,
it's just again boring.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Boring, right, So his interactions with Aunt Bethany, for example,
are him basically just like berating her for ageis reasons,
and she's characterized in a way that is extremely ageis
where she's oh so confused. Oh no, she wrapped up
her cat and a jello mold as if they're Christmas gifts.

(57:54):
Oh she says the Pledge of Allegiance instead of saying
grace at dinner. So just all these things and then
her husban and similarly is like played for ageist jokes
where he like doesn't know that he's on fire.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Or like he doesn't know how fire works. A classic
ageis trope of forgetting how fire works.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
He doesn't notice that his tupe fell off, that kind
of stuff. So yeah, but yeah, back to the point
of how Clark interacts with women. It seems especially egregious
with Aunt Bethany, where he's just like, oh, look at
this old broad so annoying and.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Also very national lampoon coned. I think that with both
of the elder fathers, there's when they're cutting through, like
where is everyone staying in the bed, both of the
fathers are like one is like looking at like a
teen magazine, implied to be horny. The other is looking
at the ceiling at like a scantily clad poster of

(58:49):
a woman in Russ's room, implied to be horny. So like,
even though quiet moments with them, they're like the same
way that Chevy Chase's character is like I'm horny behind
my wife's back, and like a horny woman that is
like real does not appear in the entire movie. Because
even with that moment with Mary the sales clerk, yes,

(59:13):
at the beginning, she is sort of uncomfortable with him,
but then as the scene goes on, it almost feels
like the movie buys into Clark's delusional read of the scene,
and by the end, she's like pulling her skirt up
and she's like, look, there's no lines on my brepa
B And You're like, well, so it just doesn't matter,
Like and I know we've talked about this with John
Hughes before, but it's like under duress. He has written

(59:37):
women semi competently, but there's just entire movies, years decades
where he just is like I don't feel like it.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Not this time.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Also to the to marry the sales clerk, he tells
her first that his wife is dead, and then he's like,
oh no, she's alive, but we're divorced and she's long gone.
Just the idea that like this lazy Joe man has
a wife who's a ball in chain keeping him from
being able to flirt with and kiss on hot younger women.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Right, which is like I know the trope this is referencing,
but like it's just not doing anything. Meanwhile, his wife
isn't even allowed to be interesting for forty five seconds,
like it's just it's it's a bummer again, you get
like with it, just to go back to Audrey for
a second, you get like a suggestion of a character
from her, like where you get yeah, where she's like,

(01:00:39):
I don't know, it's again a stock character, but she's
like a moody, like eighties teen girl that like screw
my family. Like okay, that's a starting point. But it's
also a finishing point for this and it also kind
of goes away after a while because she goes away
after a while because I guess we just don't care
about her, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
And then the final person my list was his mother
in law, Ellen's mom, and it's said that Ellen's parents
don't like Clark. Clark doesn't really like them if he
does have any interactions with his mother in law, who
I forgot to look up who she's played by. Also,
I was having a hard time. It took me, like

(01:01:21):
by the end of the second watch to be like, Oh,
this is who his parents are versus this is who
Ellen's parents are, because I could not really tell who
is who because they're so like kind of just just
like a blob of grandparents. To me, I was just like, yeah,
do any of them have any distinguishing qualities besides one
of them having like orange hair. Oh, Doris Roberts plays

(01:01:45):
his mother in law.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Right, who's so iconic, And yeah, she was also fading
into the background for me, which you're like, that's certainly
not her fault, Like she's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Yeah, she just wasn't given anything in the script yet.
So yeah, if he does have an interaction with her.
It's again brief and unmemorable, and I don't really know,
but they do have a pretty like antagonistic relationship because
in laws are so horrible. Another boring cliche choice.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
I will say not to like give the movie any
unnecessary credit, but there is there is a little bit
of a button on the like Santa Israel thing, because
Ruby su does think that the little like the shooting
star is. He's like, that's the Christmas Star. So I
think that there is a little bit of a button
on that. Not enough, I no, no, I just there

(01:02:38):
was an attempt. But again it was like going back
to the discussion of class. I mean cousin ed right,
that's his name, Eddie, Eddie whatever. It's implied that they
are poor through a fault of their own, which I
think is a very very common trope with these kinds

(01:02:58):
of characters. Yeah, they're present essentially like Hillbilly's the mother
has no sense of autonomy or character. We get a
little bit of information from cousin Eddie where it's implied
that he made some bad decisions that led to their
living in an RV as opposed to poverty is a
systemic issue they're implied to not smell good, They're implied

(01:03:22):
to like somehow not have an awareness of social cues.
They're implied to be entitled to be like freeloading off
of others. And even in that scene at Walmart with Clark,
Clark is clearly presented to be the better person, and
it's also implied that cousin Eddie was expecting him to
do this and is going to take advantage of him

(01:03:42):
for sure, when he suggests like, well, could I maybe
get the kids some gifts? And Cousin Eddie's like, oh yeah,
I guess, I guess I have the whole list right here,
and also I want this, and my wife was says,
so it's just like presenting, you know, poor people as
freeloaders who are poor as a result of their own carelessness.

(01:04:02):
And it's just like some of the most pernicious UH
tropes around poverty that exist, and they're all in this movie,
and that they're violent as well, with cousin Eddie kidnapping
the boss.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
They're delusional because there's a moment where Ellen and Clark
are talking about cousin Eddie being out of work and
she says something like, oh yeah, it's been seven years
since he's had a job. It's because he's holding out
for a management position, presumably one he wouldn't be able
to get. But he's like so delusional to be holding

(01:04:36):
out for that for so.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Long, and again to like just heap misogyity on top
of that. It's not implied that they had even considered
that she would possibly work, because this movie weirdly takes
place in the late fifties. And yeah, I mean it's
just like the way that they're costumed, the way that
they talk, the way that they have is all just

(01:04:59):
like so heavy laid in with the recognizable stereotypes. They're
also like I think that there is like ableism encoded
within the ageism of the grandparent character. Yeah, but there's
also ableism towards the poor characters too, where there's like
this one off joke about how Ruby Sue used to
be cross eyed but then she had an accident, now

(01:05:21):
she's not, and just like lazy, shitty nonsense. It's just
this is like some of the most like lazy bottom
of the barrel, clearly written by a white guy who's
never experienced.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Poverty, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
I just I don't know, I like it less and less.
I mean I didn't even like it. I was just like,
I'm completely neutral, and now I'm just like the sucks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
The more you interrogate it, the more you realize it's bad.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
And again, as we said, the movie has criticisms of
rich people, but the Boss has this weird redemption arc
at the end where he magically realizes that capitalism is
bad and he shouldn't have withheld the bonus checks from
what seems like an already pretty cushy salary.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
For Clark, right, which I get. It's like I don't
want to like be like, oh, he doesn't like I
don't know. I guess the question of like who deserves
what is like always that's not an easy question to answer, Like, yes,
they should have given out Christmas bonuses to their entire
but like you're saying, like there is a clear cutoff
for where justice should be served in terms of like

(01:06:34):
redistributing money. Certainly we wouldn't want that for cousin Eddie
or his family.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
M mmm no, And the rich capitalist boss is like, oh, fooey,
I was wrong about withholding that, and I'm nice now
because again, rich capitalists always see the error of their
ways JK, JK.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
I mean it's a very neat solution. But yeah, I
mean it's just it's ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And you're like, okay,
so the lesson we learned is nothing, and now they
have an expensive in ground pool and this is the
last movie from this like particular family unit. Oh so

(01:07:18):
this is effectively where their story ends. Is they get
a pool?

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Wow? Good for them. There are other National Lampoon vacation movies.
It's just focusing on a different family after this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
I guess, yes, this is the last, or at least
my understanding is that this is the last one that
Oh no, wait, there is no that's not true. There's
one in there's Vegas. Yeah, vacause like ten years after that. Yeah,
and okay, so no, there's there's there's one more there.
Don't worry. It doesn't end at pool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
I don't really have that much else to say about
this movie. Do you have anything else?

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
I really don't either. I would say, like, this is,
if anything, a movie to like fall asleep to at
your aunt's house. I guess, but I don't know. It
is just like I think, very dated and uh, for
my money at least profoundly boring.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Yeah, I'm already yawning about it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
And it's just a waste of so many talented actors
of this day and spotlights. I think the two worst
people in the movie personally Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid.
And you're like, we're just shoving all of these very
talented women out of the way to make way for
like two famously horrible men and live laugh love. This

(01:08:39):
movie does paradoxically pass the back to Little test a
couple of times. Yeah, but spiritually it doesn't. Like how
many nipples do you even like one one?

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
I wouldn't even give it that I really truly. It's
weird because it's not the most hateful movie we've seen
and not the most problematic, but it is still doing
a lot of very problematic things, and I don't really
have anything nice to say about it. I did like
the scene where the cute fluffy cat is released from

(01:09:13):
the box, not before it's violently shaken around by Chevy Chase,
who knows there's a cat inside and still shakes the
box several times.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
That was a little bad, Like I don't mind a
cartoonish death in that way, but the box shaking bothered
me more than the cat launching through the floor. I
did think that was a little bit funny, but I
also thought the National Lampoon, if you don't buy this magazine,
will kill this dog with a little funny too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
I guess they don't mind killing animals, because, yeah, the
cat burns to a crisp, it gets electrocuted and then
fries and burns up.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Sad. So I'll get the movie zo point five nipples
for I don't even know what, because what little we
get from the women in the movie, I don't know.
I enjoy watching them on screen. That's the best I
can say for it. And I like the cat, so
half a nipple to all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
In the giving Christmas spirit, I'm gonna give it one
nipple because we do get some at least some physical
comedy from Julia Luis Dreyfuss. I love oh and it's
just nice to know that she went on to actually
get to play real roles. I'll give it one nipple,

(01:10:34):
and I'm gonna give it to miss Julia. And with that, folks,
that's a year. That's a year of the buzzle cast.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Yeah, yes it is. You can follow us on Instagram
and join our Matreon at patreon dot com Slash Bechdel Cast,
and we want to tell you about the upcoming live
shows we have in La San Francisco and Portland. In

(01:11:04):
kind of the back half of January, we're doing a
fun LA show where we're just celebrating the Bechtel Cast
and we have all these special guests and it's a
variety show, lots of fun little segments and stand up
sets and everything. And then we're doing Shrek Tannic in
San Francisco for a Titanic show and in Portland for

(01:11:25):
a Shrek show. So all the dates and details and
tickets are on our link tree link Tree Slash Bechtel Cast,
and the shows for LA and Portland are being live streamed,
so even if you don't live in any of those places,
you can still access the live streams.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
We're so excited. We love our annual tours and I'm
excited to do Shrek Tanic. And in the meantime, if
you want to join our community where we've teased Slash
figured out in the space of this episode that we're
going to be doing a Christopher guest month and a
rat and Road in Tober you can go over to

(01:12:04):
our Patreon aka Matreon, where you can, you know, for
five dollars a month, or I believe a little less
if you pledge for a year. If you want to
get in on that, you can get two additional episodes
with just Caitlin and myself every month around a theme
of ours or sometimes you're choosing very fun community and

(01:12:24):
as always it is like the fastest and best way
to contribute to the show and keep the show going.
You can also if you want to get some seasonal merch,
head over to our store at teapublic dot com slash
The Bechdel Cast and with that, let's just never talk
about National Lampoon again.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Fine, Bye me, Bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is
a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus,
produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Moe Laborde. Our theme
song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski.

(01:13:06):
Our logo in Merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and
a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about
the podcast, please visit Linktree, Slash Bechtelcast