Episode 11: National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)

Pack your bags, grab your beret, and prepare for comedic jet lag as Mike White (The Projection Booth), Mark Begley (Wake Up Heavy), and Chris Stachiw (The Kulturecast) take a rollicking tour through National Lampoon’s European Vacation! The Griswolds/Griswalds are crossing the pond, leaving chaos, hilarity, and questionable driving in their wake. From Stonehenge collisions to Bavarian misadventures, our hosts discuss Chevy Chase’s slapstick, the challenges of sequels, and why this vacation still hits a lot of wrong note. Make sure you’ve got your passports handy and your "Big Ben, Parliament!" jokes ready!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Weird Way. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing Chevy

(00:46):
Chase Cast. I'm your host, Chris Dashi, and I'm joined
by my two good friends all the way from the
Holiday Road. He's one of the hosts of Cambridge and
with Shawn, and he's the host of Wake Up Heavy,
Your Friend of Mine, Mark with a Kay Begley God.
I miss Jack who doesn't also joining us all the
way from the Projection booth, Your friend and Mine Clark Griswold,
otherwise known as Mike White.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Jack Jack Jack, I.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Don't like her fat. Yeah, that was bizarre. If you've
clicked on this episode of the show and you know
what you're getting yourselves into, we're talking about the second
film in the National Lampoons Vacation series. This film is
aptly titled National Lampoons European Vacation because they go to Africa. No,
it's because they go to Europe and they travel around
Europe because hey, the Griswold family won a contest where

(01:33):
Audrey got molested on live television. Film is directed by
Amy hecker Lean, based on a script by Robert Kline
based on the characters created by John Hughes. It once
again stars Chimmy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill, and Jason
Lively round out the audrey and rusty of it all.
And yes, the Griswolds are on a European vacation due

(01:55):
to them winning pig in a poke point, goin, Goin,
will be pigs. Mike, I'm gonna kick it to you first,
what did you think of National Lampoon's European Vacation? And
was this your first time being subjected to this film?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
This was actually my second time. The first time I
saw this film was at the Fort George Drive in
in Southgate, Michigan. I saw it with my folks. I
had never seen the original Vacation, but I was going
to see the sequel. I think they had seen the original,
and I thought it was really stupid, and I only

(02:26):
really remembered the roundabout scene. And then I watched it
this time, still really only remembered the roundabout theme and
thought it was even more stupid than the first time
I watched it all those years ago, because now I'd
have the first Vacation film to compare it against, And wow,
what a letdown? How about you? Mark?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I don't even need to tell mine because it's almost
the exact same story.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
You saw this movie with my parents. What are you doing?
I came to visit.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
I was a little bit older than you. Probably don't
remember me sitting in the back seat.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
They called him Daddy. They called him Daddy Mark though
it was really weird.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Now I saw it well, I didn't see it in
the drive, and I did see this in the theater.
And I also don't think I had seen the first
film except maybe bits and pieces on TV. I don't
think i'd ever rented it at that point. I know
I hadn't seen it in the theater when it came
out originally, And just like you, I thought, this really sucks.

(03:23):
It's totally lame. I knew enough of the first one
to know that the kids were different, and I kind
of liked that as a running gag. I know that
in this case it was more because they couldn't get
Anthony Michael hallback, so they decided to not have either
original child actor back, and I appreciate that they keep
that going in further installments. But the only joke I

(03:47):
remembered is the one that I quoted at the beginning. God,
I miss Jack with the Knockwurst at the family's house,
and that was it. And like we mentioned, or like
I mentioned you before we started recording, I know that
I have only seen this movie once because I think
I would have remembered all of the nudity if I

(04:08):
had rented it, because I probably would have kept renting
it if I had realized that there was way more
nudity than I was expecting for a PG thirteen film.
Because sixteen year old Mark liked boobies as did seventeen
year old as Boom.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
You do not like boobies now as.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Did seventeen year old eighteen year old Mark. Nineteen year
old Mark, I mean, he's gonna keep going, just keep going.
So yeah, that was I was kind of shocked by
that actually, and thought, how did they get away with
the PG thirteen even in nineteen eighty five. I know
that PG movies prior to this exist with a boob shot,

(04:46):
maybe one or two. We've seen that in Under the
Rainbow Airplane in this series, yes, in an airplane, but
there were like ten topless women in that dance scene.
And then Gertrude I don't know what her name was,
the girl that Resting meets in Germany opens her top
and I think they probably cut Beverly DiAngelo's out in

(05:09):
this one to acquire that PG. Thirteen, But I could
be wrong. Maybe she didn't actually expose herself this time.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
It's interesting because I remember the big hoopla about before
there was PG thirteen. You know, Temple Doom and Gremlins
was eighty four, So if this was PG thirteen, this
is one of the early PG thirteen teen movies. So yeah,
maybe they hadn't really worked it out as far as
what that line between R and PG was, and they

(05:38):
were able to have all these bare breasts in this
film because they still just don't.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Know yet, right. I mean, there's there's an F word.
It's not spoken, but there's an F word on screen
in this film, you know, along with the other minor.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, I think she says, oh, fuck your vote at
one point.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Oh did she say that? Okay?

Speaker 3 (05:55):
I see when I was watching it today, there was
a point where she's walked they split up in Rome
and she's walking away and she said forget your something,
And I'm like, oh, they probably bleeped that or you know,
changed that in post. That was probably a second fuck.
But I guess I missed the first actual spoken fuck.
So yeah, they got away with quite a bit for

(06:16):
a PG. Thirteen And like you say, it was early,
early on.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Chris, did jew also attend to drive in and see
this with my folks?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yes? I was about to say, actually I did. I
actually built a time machine and went back in time,
and I sat in your trunk. You remember how you
heard that weird noise in the back. That was me
in the trunk of your car.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
I just remember when we got out of the car
there was a metal hook hanging from the passengers door.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Wait a second, this is what now? And then he
was hanging from the car from above by a trees,
fingernails touching the top. There's an escaped convict on the
loose in your area. Speaking of escaped convicts, God, Chevy Chase,
Am I right? What in the holy hell? Man?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Look No, My history with this movie is similar to
y'all's actually in kind of an ironic way. This was
the first vacation movie I saw, even before Christmas, even
before the oft maligned but unfairly maligned Vegas Vacation starring
way Newton, which I can't wait for us to get to,
especially if y'all are enjoying this movie as much as

(07:19):
he did. Boy, we're not that far afield yet, but
we're going to get there. I think this movie's perfectly fine.
I think it's pretty much just a poorly written retread
of the first movie in a lot of ways. I
think that there are some strange things about this movie.
I remember a lot of the soundtrack of this movie

(07:40):
more than I remember some things like cesplen Pumoi by
Plastic bertrand that they play for thirty seconds in the movie.
I don't know, it's a weird movie because this is
the sequel to the last movie, and they're doing things
like recasting the kids, and again like acknowledging it but
sort of not acknowledging it, and again like but I

(08:00):
don't know, I like it. I think that for me
it probably has more nostalgic value than I think it
has for either one of y'all. Clearly, I've seen this
movie so many times that there are whole scenes that
I could probably quote, you know, the pyramidal tracks, that
whole thing. I mean, the whole beginning of the movie.
I think is again like it's just a weird movie,

(08:20):
and there are some weird things in the movie that
feel like I don't know, like this again, Like, this
movie comes out in eighty five, but it almost feels
like in a lot of ways like it was made
in the late seventies with some of the sensibilities and
especially like the stereotypes of Europe that they're like so
willingly wanting to go to, which is like it's eighty five.
It's not sixty five, for fuck's sake. But I mean, again,

(08:42):
you know, it is kind of painted pretty broadly, But
I think it's fun. I don't think you're going to
go into this expecting to get a movie as good
as the last one. But I think in terms of
it being the first sequel and technically you know, the
only well, I guess the only one that's not a
well I guess the other one's a holiday one. So
this I don't know, Like again, like it's weird because

(09:03):
European Vacation it just kind of is here, Like it
feels like Vegas Vacation in a lot of ways. Like
nobody that I know has any strong feelings towards any
of the vacation movies other than Christmas Vacation. Really, like
we can I think all level with one another here.
Like Christmas Vacation is the one that I think is
like has gotten the most play since it came out
because it's a holiday movie, which gives it a little

(09:24):
bit more cachet. I think this movie's fine. It's just
it's kind of lacking because it's just they're going to
Europe instead of Wally World. Okay, Christmas Vication is at
least novel. It's kind of unique there the people are
coming to their house, They're not going anywhere, Like, it's
more about the interactions between the family as a whole,
as opposed to like, well, Clark's gonna do the Clark thing.

(09:45):
Beverly D'Angelo is just kind of gonna be there and
look pretty and go Clark over and over again.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Sparky.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, it's I think it's fine. I think probably by
the end of this episode, I think it will will
out that I enjoyed it more than y'all. But I
think initially it's fine. But even I can admit that
it's a bit of a it's a bit of a mess.
It's a bit of a retread, and it's also tonally
strange and at times. But I mean, I enjoy it
for what it is, and it's a Chevy Chase movie,

(10:12):
so how bad? Can it really be? Pretty bad? I
will say this, Yeah, that job, it's of me being facetious, obviously.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
I'll say this. I actually enjoyed it way more than
I expected. I was not looking forward to this, and
I mentioned last time, maybe before we hit record, that.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
It was on.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
It came on AMC or something, and.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
My, oh, you mentioned it in the episode.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
I think, okay, And I was like, I don't want
to sit through this twice this close together, and I
watched I think if.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I want to sit through at once.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
I watched it up to about Germany. It was just
on and I was doing other stuff, and uh, but
I wasn't looking forward to it because the only thing
I really remember is that first viewing at the theater
and thinking, I, really this was really stupid and I
barely laughed, and not that I'd laughed all that much,

(11:07):
but it did not bother me as much as I thought,
and I enjoyed way more of it than I After
I Think France, I was like, oh, okay, this isn't
that bad. But somebody mentioned the thing about Audrey and
not wanting to be fat for Jack. I took, you know,
that whole through line I didn't remember at all, And

(11:27):
I'm like, oh, this is so eighties and so off
putting that she is worried about what she's eating the
whole time, and that's her only bit in this other
than the missing Jack.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
And I'm like, ah, this is so I'm kind of
gets so old. Just every time she says Jack, it
just drives me of a fucking wall. Just this whole
movie doesn't feel like it knows what it wants to be.
And I have to admit the script, which runs one
hundred and thirty seven pages. Now, there are a lot

(11:58):
of pages that say page deleted. I didn't go through
and count those. But even if it's one hundred and
twenty pages, that's a two hour comedy. And nobody needs
a two hour comedy in nineteen eighty five, much less
twenty twenty four or twenty five. They just missed the
mark on these jokes, though, Like, I don't know if
it was we have to rewrite late in the game,

(12:20):
or if it was all of the tension and basically
open hostility of Chevy Chase towards director Amy Heckerling. I'm
not blaming Amy Heckerling for anything on this movie. But
I will say that the final result of this film
just looks like it was so poorly directed and just
doesn't know how to structure anything. I don't think that's

(12:42):
Amy Heckerling, though, because I loved Johnny Dangerously. I really
like Fast Times. I mean, she gets into the Lilocus
talking movies, but then she comes back with Clueless, so
it's like, all right, she knows how to direct a movie.
She knows how to direct a comedy. But some of
the jokes in here, I mean all the way to
the one of the very first jokes of Clark after

(13:03):
they've won the prize on Pig and a Poke, which
originally was in the script, it was Audrey remembering they
ask about some chemical and she remembers what it is
and wins the game because it's in mit all and
she just looked at the package. But in here, you know,
it's Beverly the Angelo winning it by accident by saying Clark,

(13:26):
as in Lewis and Clark. But here's here's Clark reading
the here's all the great things about this vacation. He's
pouring some lighter fluid on the charcoal, and then he
keeps reading Beverly. The Angelo pours some lighter fluid on
the charcoal, and then he pours more on it, and
then they like this fire and it flames up like

(13:48):
a foot and a half. In the script, every single
person in the family puts fluid on this, and it's
almost like that Homer Simpson joke of the mushroom cloud
going up this huge explosion. Here, it's so little. It's
just absolutely tiny when it goes off. And then you
get the quote unquote punchline of Clark having stood on

(14:11):
his face, and I'm like, yeah, that flame was super tiny, sir.
You would not have soot on your face. And if
you do, go wilder and cover his eyebrows so it
looks like they burn them off, do something like that.
But it's just none of these jokes land for me.
And the script has all of the buttons, because none

(14:34):
of these scenes have buttons on them. They just end.
And the other thing that for me is flawed about
this film is in vacation. And I don't know about
any of these other vacation films because I haven't watched
them other than the remake Slash sequel. They're trying to
get to a place, and there's a reason and they're
trying to get there. But here they get to Europe.

(14:54):
They never have any problems going from country to country.
They just have little adventures inside the country. And those
little adventures usually involve a slapsticky thing or a misunderstick Yeah, misunderstanding,
of course, and then we end with an international intrigue thing.
And I was just like, what the fuck is since?

(15:15):
So I am definitely the monkey in the wrench. I'm
when it comes to this movie, because I think that
this is just shit. I think it stinks.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Robert Kline, who wrote a script for a movie we
watched earlier this year, Mister White, The Man with the
One Red Shoe. Yes, you mentioned the intrigue at the
end of this movie. It goes Man with One Red
Shoe for like fifteen minutes and guess what, I yeah,
dis like it here even more now having seen that
movie earlier this year, which I was not a huge

(15:47):
fan of, I believe Father Malone was probably the one
who I think you and him enjoyed it more than
I did. I know I did not enjoy it as
much as I think I did. Not like that movie
either Okay, that's I couldn't remember.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
He's also the one that readapted Preston Sturges for Unfaithfully
Yours We Walk like a Man's, yes, walk like a
man another infamous comedy. Yeah, not really instilling a lot
of faith in me as far as his abilities. But
I don't know if it was him and Hughes or
if it was just him writing this one.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Well, and to quote Matthew Lillard, You're no John Hughes.
You know you're not, and you know that's he You're not.
And that's the problem when it's being compared to a
John Hughes script, What can you fucking do? Like, I
don't know, You're You're at a disadvantage already. It's a
sissifan task of your own creation to be the guy
to go, yeah, I'm gonna pick up the ball that

(16:38):
John Hughes was carrying, like, oh no, better knock it
out of the park because the Original Vacation, he sure
it did. Even if that movie is not again the
Christmas movie the way Christmas Vacation is, the Original Vacation
is still a lot more of a pop culture iconic
film than this one is. If anybody even remembers this movie,
like that's the thing. There's not even one I would say,

(17:01):
there's not even one segment from this movie that is
is has or would have escaped the gravity of the film,
you know what I mean, and kind of escaped the
the orbit of the film and gotten out into the
world and become a thing, like a lot of the
stuff from Christmas Vacation has or the Wally World stuff
has from the original movie. What is there from this
movie that anybody remembers them backing into Stonehenge, big Ben Parliament.

(17:23):
That's it, right, Like that's it, and it's and even
that's like funny, but to what ends? And they have
some reoccurring gags like with Eric Idol as well, But
I don't know, like there's not one segment in this
movie where I go, oh yeah, like that's the segment.
That's the scene the you know, the Christmas light scene
from Christmas Vacation or the meley Kaliki mocka scene from
Christmas Vacation. This movie has funny scenes that I like,

(17:46):
but I can one hundred percent concede and will concede
that they're not great compared to what came before and
after this movie in terms of importance to pop culture
and in terms of comedy with chevy Chase. I mean,
I'm not sure that this movie really ever lives up
to his ability to be a comedian, because this is
eighty five. I mean, this is kind of peak chevy Chase.

(18:08):
This movie, in a lot of ways wastes his talents.
I mean, hey, we get pratfalls though. He sits in
that mattress on the bed and wow, he falls into
the bed. Oh, let's jump into the fountain. I mean
there's plenty of that. I mean, hey, you know, but
to what end and how much of it is really
funny and how much of it is just the shtick
that we've seen him do a million times.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well, none of it's going to end up on a
clip show, you know, when he dies, They're not going
to pull clips from this movie, you know, I'll pull
it from Vacation or in its vacation. Yeah that people
would be like, what's this? What?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
What movie is this?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
It'll be the either the speech from Vacation or the
speech from Christmas Vacation, which ada, I having never seen
that movie, know about that, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
You've never seen Christmas Vacation. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
No.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
I literally quoted it when I was out today with
my friends because we saw Christmas trees at Dollar Tree
and I go over and I'll show you where to
stick it. I wasn't talking to you. I mean, there
are some remo lines for that movie. But it's weird
to me. You've never seen it, given it it's a
Christmas movie?

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Oh do I watch Christmas movie?

Speaker 1 (19:10):
No? But I mean like it's a Chrystal like I
don't like. I guess. I guess more to the I mean,
don't you like? I guess like I don't know, Like,
don't you watch Christmas movies? I thought we kind of
like all do It's more what I I mean.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
I just watch whatever's on Hallmarks.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
Oh my, that's sad. Thirty Days of Santa Love.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I really like when there's that stuck up woman and
she moves from the big city to the small town
keeping showing has problems with that guy who's got a
little bit of a beard and kind of.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Around the edges yet on the ice fighter. Maybe is
he a volunteer firefighter with a heart of gold? I
don't know. But he's got a daughter, yes, not a son,
a daughter and a very like probably between the age
of like seven to twelve, not too precocious, but precocious enough. Yes, yeah,
And they have a dream and they have a dream
of opening up a cookie shop together. And and so

(20:00):
it's about the three of them opening up a cookie
shop together. And it's called Loves Baked Cookies. Christmas Cookies.
Sounds like a weed branch.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Cheddy Chase is in one of those, by the way,
really w Yeah it came out what last year, the
year before.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
It's like relatively recent too, on top of everything else.
Oh yeah, glissit no, not glisten in the Merry mission,
it's oh god, what is it?

Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's yeah, it has Christmas in the title.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
I believe Christmas Cookies.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Christmas in Vermont is what it's called. Really, Yes, from
twenty sixteen, so actually from eight years ago, which is
pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
How many movies are there that are called a Christmas
in Vermont?

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Plenty apparently, I love but only one has Chevy Chase.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
It's true, true, But how many actors from Harry Potter
are in this movie? We have Robbie Coltrane, Eric Idyls
of Harry Potter. Yeah, Eric idyle is doesn't Eric idle. No,
I guess that's right, that's yeah, it's John Cleese, not Kyle.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
I think Mel Stewart was dead before the Harry Potter
movie started. But yeah, I loved seeing all of the.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Derek Derek deadman he plays. I believe the guy who
owns the Leaky Cauldron, Messy Potter, my word like that.
I believe that is him, is me.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
The the albino and Princess Bride. Is that the same guy?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
That's Mel Stewart.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, Oh that's Mel Stuart. Yeah, the guy who's in
charge of the hotel. Yeah, yeah, hotel. Yeah. And then
yeah we have William William Zabka as well, because the
real with the random cameos in this movie. That and
John asked in being a fucking creep, which I guess
is that's supposed to be Richard Dawson, right, Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Though I love Paul Bartell showing up in that snooty family.
I think that's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
The Frogers, yes, yeah, that was another eighties like oh wow, yeah, okay,
nineteen eighty five. We're gonna get real pervy with the
with the show host here.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
But the movie has like a really weird I think
like interplay back and forth with the sexuality, because we
have like a sixteen year old making out with the
man at the beginning of the movie, and then then
in the next scene we have the whole back and
forth with William Zabka in front of her family, which
is so strange. And then we have again scenes where
she's making comments about the size of his dick to

(22:19):
her family. And again then we have you know, Clark
and Ellen, you know, filming a movie together and then
it gets stolen, and then she blames Clark for all
of it, which is again like what an eighties ism
of the movie on top of everything else, because like
this could have been a cloud. Wow, how does the
cloud work? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Nobody knows how the cloud works. We have to get
rid of that sex tape in the movie called sex tape.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
It's well, I don't know. The sexuality of the movie
is strange because then we have you know, French culture
topless women. So I know, the movie's all over the
place and man on top of everything else. Dana Hill
as Audrey Griswold, Mike, here's your chance, go right ahead.
I've been wondering and waiting to hear what your deal
is with Dana Hill as Audrey since you mentioned that

(23:07):
there was a possible issue with her as with her
so I am beyond curious.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
My issue is just that she was in some TV
movies back in the seventies and eighties, including one of
the most disturbing films I ever saw in my life,
which was called I Believe Fallen Angel, where Richard Masser,
the guy that played Clark in the thing, he is
this real creep and he basically ends up taking dirty

(23:36):
pictures of her as she's like this young young teenager,
even though she's not a young teenager. Of course, she
was one of these people that looked younger than she was.
But that was real fucking creepy. And I just remember
that video box cover from my days working at Blockbuster,
and just how skeazy that movie makes you feel.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Well, I thought there was. I mean, I thought you
were going to say that scene where she's eating the
food is probably I mean, oh.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Well, no, no, that scene is awful.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I don't know, it's awful because she's literally not able
to do what she needs to do because she died
of a diabetic coma. Like Jesus Christ, so like giving
Scott Hall alcohol being like, go pretend to be drunk
on live air, Like, pretend to be fat and eat
and we're gonna make fun of your character for being
fat the whole movie, Like that couldn't have been That
could not have been good. There's no way that could

(24:26):
have been good for her as an actress.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Well, and it's just weird the whole Like everybody seems
to be having good dreams except for her. Yeah. Just
I feel like she's the butt of the joke so
much in this movie and she just gets so fucking
annoying every single scene. Oh Jack, Jack Jack, I'm like,
did she have anything else, anything other characteristic other than

(24:51):
I'm afraid of getting fat because I miss my boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Because William Zabka won't work me y if I'm not skinned.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Right And apparently has a very big sausage.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Yes apparently.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Hey, we're talking about Billy's appt hears.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, Oh yeah, well he for sure does.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
He was the He wasn't the karate kid for nothing
or one of a kid who did karate another film
I've never seen no interest in.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
See Okay, he's a great jerk in that he's an
amazing he's a jerk in this.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
He's a jerk in all the movies.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, he played a jerk really well because just one
of the guys, just one of the guys. He is
fantastic in that as a jerk.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
As a jerk, I don't think he's a jerk in
April Fool's Days that I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
I might.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
I might be thinking of somebody else. But I did
like the little touch of her immediately having all the
pictures of him up in the London hotel, the first
shot of herne, I'm like, where are all those pictures
come from?

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Just a shrine to him.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, I'm not. I am not a fan of the
kids in this.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Film at all.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
I think they are the worst versions of the kids
for I'm not. I haven't seen Vegas Vacation at all yet.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
I can't speak to that.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
But if they're weird, but they're not weird like this,
I I don't like either of them.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
I don't like Rusty in this. I don't like her
in this. I don't care. I slap those stupid painter
hats off of his head. Man, I just was like,
you're obnoxious and that that. Yeah, just the whole thing
of like not being able to watch TV. Oh my god,
you're in fucking foreign country, man, go you know, deal

(26:33):
with it.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
You know the worst thing about foreign travel, Well, there's
so many things about foreign travel that are awful and
that could easily be made fun of. One of those
things is how they get from England to France, Like,
are they obviously the chunnel isn't built yet. Are they
flying over? Are they taking a ferry over? Like there's

(26:55):
some great opportunity for some seasickness. There's missing flights. But
they have no problem at all getting from one country
to another. They don't really have much problem with the
language other than the occasional well, I mean, the French
stuff is okay, and the French stuff I think is
the only thing that really works for me is when
the French waiters making fun of Clark so much. The

(27:19):
stuff with the passports doesn't really work for me. I
think that would have been better had that been moved
to an airport scene and then making fun of the passports.
But because oh man, the audio commentary for this is
insufferable too. By the way, this is only Chevy on
the audio commentary. You get nobody else's pov so with
the movie starts and it's all the passports, He's just like, yeah,

(27:42):
this is my idea, and I wanted my name first
in case this movie was a hit. And I was
just like, oh man, you are just so fucking full
of yourself. But we see the passports and the opening credits,
and they're not the same passports as we see later
in the movie. So it's a stupid, little nitpicky thing.
But it's just something where I'm just like, well, maybe
you should have shown those same passports. Fuck face.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Well there's a lot of missed opportunities in this and
you and I were talking about, you know, some of
that prior to recording. But the the sex tape should
have played it after it got stolen in France. It
should have just kept popping up. People should have been
recognizing her, proving guys looking at her all the time.

(28:25):
You know, where do you what? Do I recognize that face?
It's just at that very end in Rome before they
split up, that's the only time we see it.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Each country could have a different title in the title
the plays upon the Woman in the Shower exactly, even
if it was just the same title. But it was
in the different languages, so then you know, whatever it
is in French, whatever it is in German, like, yeah,
it would have been really nice. And then if they
eventually go back to England at the end, or even

(28:52):
when they go back to America. By the way, that
whole end scene in the airplane not in the script,
not in the script at all, and not funny, and
not funny either, especially because it's just the retread of
the Stonehenge joke. It's like, Okay, And that's the thing too,
It's like, why don't you just have them wrecking Europe
every single time they go to someplace else, they wreck

(29:16):
something something. They fuck up the Trevy Fountain, they fuck
up the Eiffel Tower, they fuck up I don't know,
the Bramburg Gates, just brandon Burg. Sorry, something that would
show them like even in there, if they're in Germany,
they have some Berlin Wall jokes or something come on,
like a guy tunneling out from the Berlin Wall and

(29:37):
they accidentally get him caught by the authorities and you
hear gunshot off screen. That would have been way funnier
than what we're seeing in here. Like there's even there's
a whole sequence in England. That's in the script that
isn't in the movie where they actually go sightseeing. They
go to Madame Tussau's there's an old guy who faints
and his wife is going to get help, and they

(30:00):
come in and there's an exhibit of a guillotine. So
Clark is like, oh, this old dummy fell down here,
let me help out with that. He lifts the guy
up and puts him on the guillotine so like the
blade is coming. And then when the woman comes back,
they leave, and the woman comes back in, they pick
up the guy and as soon as they do, the
blade falls and almost chops off his head. That's some

(30:21):
good stuff, And I'm like, okay, yeah, again, like play
with the location. But instead it's just like, yeah, look,
kid's big Ben Parliament. Okay. And then suddenly we're at
Stonehenge because we're leaving for France the next day. And
again no problems with money exchange, like you know, any
of that kind of stuff where it's such a huge pain.

(30:41):
Like these days it's a lot easier. But in nineteen
eighty five, man, you were fucked going to a different country.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Well, I just got to pull my cinema sins card
here and say, you do not get to pull your
car right up to Stonehenge. There's a completely separate party.
You don't even get to walk up that close to it,
even back then in nineteen eighty five. I was there
in nineteen ninety and it is a good Now the
rope around it is a good twenty yards away from it,

(31:10):
and I just you know, that scene bothers me mainly
because of that. And again I just don't find it
that funny that, oh they back into it and it
all falls down, thousands of eons of history destroyed by
the Griswolds.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Hilarious. They almost destroyed the Statue of Liberty. Well at
least it didn't have him flying in between the twin towers.
I mean, I don't know how much Worster could have been.
I'm glad that Jeannette Charles was given work in this film,
just like when we talked about Naked Gun last year,
the world's most famous queen, Elizabeth the second.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
In person it is, Yeah, she hasn't Yeah, like I
didn't go.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I'm way better than the Charles and Diana, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
And they made Charles look way better than he actually
does in real life, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
That's all that lady did. And I don't know how
many credits she has on IMDb, but it was a
ton that I went through and it was Queen or
Queen Elizabeth.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
We're all but is that better than Moon unit Zappa
just also being in this movie randomly at the end,
that was very odd.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
But like every girl that Rusty runs into knows how
to speak English, I.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Guess, well, and they're all into him because he's apparently
probably got a big hog or he's charismatic or something,
because I can't figure out why anyone would be into
him because she's just a weird look good. Well I
didn't say that, but he has he has a strange personality, yes,
And I don't understand, like he's just horny all the time. Okay,

(32:38):
that's that's not much of a characterization. That's just like
a stereotype. And Anthony Michael Hall, like that's the thing
to think about what Anthony Michael Hall was doing, Like
it was kind of the same thing. But we get
some of those moments where he's drinking the beer with
Clark and you know he you know, Clark's like, hey,
take a sip, and he just chugs the whole goddamn thing.
It's a great scene like that. That one is better

(33:01):
than all of what Jason Lively is given to do
in this movie. And I don't think it's I mean,
we've already alluded to the fact that it's not. I
don't think it's any actor's fault. I mean, look, chevy Chase,
I mean, you know the commentary, like you mentioned, Mike
is like, oh my god, dude, we get it. You're fine, But.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
He is a gift given to us by God.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, who also happens to be chevy Chase. It's I
don't know, like Rusty as a character in this movie
just he has no charisma the way Anthony Michael Hall
just has it in general. On on he's a natural.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, yeah, he's Yeah, I mentioned it on that episode.
It's like, yeah, this is one of those kids where
you just get it immediately, Like he knows what to
do in a scene, he knows how to play a scene.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
At this point, he's as big of a star as
Chevy Chase's kids.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
He's starring in Weird Science, Like, yeah, the same.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Time, that's why he's not in this movie, Like it's
because he has out shown this stuff. You know, he's
going on to be in other John Hughes things, not
in lesser John Hughes continuous like continued projects. Yeah, it's
you know, for as much as I do enjoy this movie,
Audrey and uh And and Rusty are like you mentioned Mark,

(34:11):
they're they're the worst. Ethan Embry is Rusty in Vegas
Vacation and it's very different. He's very it's kind of
this horny thing similarly here, but he's a lot more
likable because it's Ethan Embry, And like, Ethan Embry's just
I feel like one of those actors every time I
see him in something. He's just kind of I think,
always shows up and always does a good job. Not

(34:33):
saying Jason Lively isn't, but he's just characterized so stereotypically
with zero comedy other than he's horny. He's horny. He's horny.
He's horny, get it, He's horny. It's like wow, And
he doesn't want to be there. That's that's those are
his tune. Isn't that just the same fucking character that
Audrey is. Then she's horny and she doesn't want to
be there. Yeah, pretty much. She wants to be Billy's abka.

(34:56):
That's it the end. That's your characterization for two of
the four main characters in this movie.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Great, and she's worried about her weight, right, that's your
third characteristic, which, to be fair, they really only do
that once, Like they really only hammered that home once.
I mean there's a couple more lines about her not
wanting to eat, but in terms of it being like
a thing that the movie really speaks to, it really
only does the one scene and it you know, that's

(35:22):
about it, right, Like it doesn't have her like tempted
or overdoing it.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
We have the ones in where she's like, well, I'm
gonna eat now because Billy's abkin and I aren't together anymore,
and then that's like okay, well as be funny, right,
which is still sad, right, It's and again knowing the
real life story of Dana Hill doesn't make it much
better because, Mike, you were sharing with me, she couldn't
swallow the food in the scene where they were feeding

(35:46):
her all that food because she was like deathly diabetic
and died from being in a diabetic coma like Jesus Christ.
It's it's again like not to be like a wokester
triggered or whatever. But it's just that's ikey is the
word I would use. It's just it's not good. Kind
of makes me feel icky to watch a woman who is, yeah,
you know, ultimately, you know, probably within the next decade

(36:08):
after this movie comes out, passes away from a diabetic coma.
But look, let's laugh at her because she's fat, like
not even she's not even that fat like fuck you movie,
like fuck you. She's like, she's not some sort of
grotesquer ye like and that's not even how that works anyways.
But in the world of media, if you're overweight, it's
like you're either funny or funny, or people poke jokes

(36:30):
at you because you're fat, or you poke jokes at
yourself and you're tempted by food and you're always eating,
like and this character is all of those things, but
deeply unfunny, deeply unfunny, almost to the point where it's like, uh,
Courtney Cox and Friends. I've never seen friends, but I
know about that in Friends, and I know how poorly
that's a in retrospect, and this is the same thing.
It's just like, why, man, this is pretty in poor

(36:53):
taste even then, well, she.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Has no jokes. Nobody has jokes in the jokes that
they do have are soon ham fisted. Would you like
that coconut in the can? No, here's fine, And like
take the pause that I put in here, maybe times
by free it just blops. And I know Chevy's like,
I like that joke, just like how it do that joke?

(37:15):
He is, but like nothing even when it comes to
like the telephone bill at the in in England, the
telephone bill is two hundred and fifty three dollars. Now
I understand that this is nineteen eighty five, but why
not go a little crazy and have it be like
twelve hundred dollars, like something really big, something really outrageous.

(37:37):
Maybe make that more of a problem other than everything else,
all their money, Yeah, yeah, exactly, And everything is taken
care of off screen with this where it's like, oh,
Audrey Danny, sorry, he really didn't mean to call Jack that.
Yes I did, you know, But we don't get any
of the other stuff. We don't get his we don't
get the whole thing of like this is all of

(37:58):
my money. This is every single travelers check that I have.
I now need to pay for this, and then that
suddenly becomes an issue for the family because there's no issues.
There's nothing like constantly nagging them. And like that's the
thing with the first vacation is we're stripping them away
each thing, like the car is going to break down
and this is going to happen, and this is going

(38:19):
to happen. We don't get the build up of stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
There's no tension, and which can drive me crazy, that
kind of tension, like I've mentioned it on numerous shows,
the comedy of errors sort of drives me crazy.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
But I was probably training the bathroom well.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
That yeah, and even just you know, everything that can
go wrong will go wrong and it can get old
and make me anxious in a movie. But I was
missing it here, like nothing like you've mentioned that travel
between countries, the issue with money or exchange rates, there's
no problems, there's no obstacles for them to get over

(39:00):
or it's all just we're going to go to this
place in England. We're going to wreck our car. A
bunch of times in a row hit eric Idol, which
becomes a running gag.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Did you know they drive on the left hand side
of the street. Did you know that did you know? Like?
Did you but? Did you know that? But did you
know that I have roundabouts? Did you know? Did you know?

Speaker 3 (39:17):
And it's just like and those aren't even problems because
the you know, the British are so plath.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
I lived in England for four months. I didn't think
it to be that way. But you know, in France,
what's the problem. In France, they lose.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Their their video recorder.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Yeah, big woop, they lose their video recorder. They run
into that other couple who are making out all the time.
They're supposed to be funny.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
I'm can't clarious. I don't understand what they're at. They
go to the now if they had watched their video,
their video and gotten all horned up, you.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Know that funny?

Speaker 3 (39:59):
That's that lady at that other table, right, they go
to we watch.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
They go to the Eiffel Tower. They first they go
to that restaurant. They go to the Eiffel Tower. They
Rusty gets laughed at. That's the big moment.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
You know, you're talking the dog jumps off the Eiffel Tower.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
You're talking about the Eipple Tower thing. Yeah, exactly. The
dog's fine. He falls into in water and he's fine,
even though it's like a two hundred foot drop. But
like the moment of when Clark is like, oh you
don't like this, Rusty, you know here, let me get
rid of it. Like that moment is the scene that
you guys were talking about with Anthony Michael Hall, like
the beer sharing scene. It's way too early in the

(40:35):
film and there's nothing to it, and there's no like
we are now at a different level of our relationship,
Like Rusty and Clark are different after that talk that
they have in the first vacation. This is just you know, oh,
we're having a man and man talk, but it's not
really going to make any short of difference because you're
still going to be the same prick in the next scene.
And so am I.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
Pretty much Yeah, it doesn't him taking off his hat,
doesn't get him late, you know, get in a three
way with these two girls. So it's big whoop.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
So I'm going to ask this. I'm gonna assume neither
one of you have seen euro Trip.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Oh I have?

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Okay, this is like, yeah, I'd never made the comparison
in my head until watching this now, and I'm not
sure i'd really seen this. I'd seen this recently, but
I hadn't sat and like paid paid attention to it.
I think I'd watched it maybe the last year or two,
but I just watched it in sequence with everything else
that it was probably just on in the background, so

(41:28):
I didn't sit and really give this movie the fair
shake that I'm giving it this time. This movie is
so much worse than euro Trip, and euro Trip is
a movie that I can completely understand people do not
want to watch end or would not like because it's
a very specific kind of mid two thousand's raunchy teen comedy.
But my god, it makes like that. This film makes

(41:50):
that film look like a fucking Picasso a mona Lisa,
like a perfect film worthy of the AFI Top ten,
because this movie has no jokes, even to the length
of like a Scotty Doesn't Know, which in that movie
does show up multiple times throughout the film. They're in
you know, they're in Eastern Europe at one point in
a nightclub and you hear like a nightclub version of

(42:12):
Scotty Doesn't Know, and the characters pointed out they sing
it several times throughout the movie. There's actually stakes in
that film because of a misunderstanding between the main character
and his what is it, his foreign exchange pen pal
who he thinks is a guy, but it's actually like
a hot blonde German woman named Mika, and he thought
his name was her name was Mike, and so like

(42:33):
there's already a little bit of baked in stakes because
she's gonna go away and he's gonna miss his opportunity
to be with her. There's nothing like that here, And
that movie's made in you know, early two thousand's doesn't
have Chevy Chase in it. I mean it has Michelle
Trachtenberg I think at the time is like the biggest name,
and Matt Damon is in it for a minute, and
the main character in the movie that actor went to

(42:54):
my high school randomly. But other than that, it doesn't
have Beverly DiAngelo and Chevy Chase's names attached to it,
and it sure doesn't have a John Hughes with the writing.
And yet it is a light Year is Better film,
even in terms of just like the base level of
comedy that you're getting from some of the lesser scenes
in the movie.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
I agree with you completely. Yeah, I really enjoyed euro
Trip when I watched it, and I was really reminded
of euro Trip while I was watching this and just going,
I'd rather be watching that right now, because I just
I didn't find anyone a character that I wanted to
stick around with, anybody that I wanted to follow, and

(43:33):
then I didn't even care about them enough to be
happy when bad things happened to them.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, and that is the whole aspect of the National
Lampoon's Vacation series that I appreciate, which is like, they're
kind of shitty people who are having shitty things happen
to them, and that's funny. And the New Vacation when
we get to it, which will be you know, in
the far flung future, it really leans into that and
it's like, we're gonna put these motherfuckers through the ring.

(44:00):
And that's one of the best aspects of that movie
is how far it go to make these like shitty
people go through shitty situations, which is funny. It's you know,
in a lot of ways, what National Lampoon is doing
now or in nineteen eighty five is what is what
three writers or you know, It's always Sunny would end
up doing. You know, those the three actors Rob mckinnalley

(44:20):
and I remember Charlie Day and forget the other gentlemen.
But the three main actors from that show would take
the idea of they're terrible people having terrible things happen
to them or doing terrible things, and that's funny. And
that's what these European vacation movies or vacation movies are
all about. You're not really supposed to root for the
Griswold family because if you knew these people, you'd be like, oh,

(44:41):
these fucking people are in suffer because they're like so
fucking pretentious and up their own asses and like, but
that's the point. Like at one point at the end
of the movie Clark, Clark goes, well, the America is
happy to have the Grizwolds back. No, we are not. No,
like you guys are a metace. But that's the that
is the point of of the joke. But they are
like genuinely terrible people, which the joke of the movie

(45:04):
is terrible things happening to terrible people is funny. This
movie doesn't even do that, Like what they're almost killed
in Germany, And that's probably the closest that we get
to like an actual scene with steaks or any sort
of like, oh, they're in real danger, Like there's real
danger in Christ's vacation. They're underneath a log truck in
the first ten minutes of the movie. Like there's scenes

(45:26):
with some actual like stakes. This movie's like, no, not really,
just lots of misunderstandings and speaking other languages because we're
in Europe.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Well, Ellen does get kidnapped at.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
The end of the film. Yeah, fort time minutes.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, for like the two seconds speaking of Germany. I
think this is and Mike and I talk to again
briefly about this before we hit record. Another huge missed
opportunity is with the whole setup of that trip there
is to oh yeah, go visit his family, and the
way they play it out in the movie, where it's

(45:58):
again mistake and identity, the wrong house instead of six
they go to sixteen. But there's there's absolutely zero point
to it.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Well, in Germany they don't speak English. Well, yeah, but no,
there's no mishappens. They don't speak English in Germany.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Dinner, they eat dinner with the family, go to bed,
and then leave the next morning. There are no I
don't want to say consequences, but there's there's no again,
no tension there, nothing goes wrong while they're there.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
The police sulown them, like taking them away, like why
are we being arrested? What did we do? Like anything? Anything?

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Any So, my my thought after the movie ended was
why didn't they make that like the cousin Eddie see
but in German? There you go, you know, my cousin.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Edvard Griswold or whatever.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
You know, and have it be this bizarre German family
with all this weird food and all this other crazy
you know stuff, or at least, like Mike mentions, how
the script goes.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
There's no button on the scene that we see in
the movie, but in the script it's you know, we
see them leave, and then we get the captions where
it's who the hell were they and then the woman
saying fuck if I know, and then you know, cut
to further down the street and elderly couple walks by.
Woman in German. I wonder when our relatives from Chicago

(47:22):
will arrive Man never, I hope. I mean, even if
they had just like panned around or you know, like
even just to show the one six rather than the
six right off the bat, like that should have been
if they didn't do the other couple the actual relatives.
They should have held onto that one six joke until

(47:43):
after they leave, and then we see they're at the
wrong house and then we get the whoot those people
that would have been nice, but instead they were the
joke by showing us the numbers wrong right that?

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Or have his family, even if it's not a cousin
Eddie esk family, have his family preparing a meal and
doing all this, you know, almost like a cross cut
thing where we see them getting ready for the griswalls exactly.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
That was my jake when I was watching it, I
was like, now the camera needs to pan over from
them over across the street where we see the other
family and yeah, they're like nervous and anxious and they're
so excited to see the griswalls, you know.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
But pictures of them up in the wall or whatever.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yeah, well, yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
I wonder how Big Russy's gotten. Oh, I can't wait
to see him.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Man, something they should pay us. Oh wait, no, it's.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
It's a nothing burger. It did. I'm like, what's the
joke here? They leave and then they old couple says
those two lines. I'm like that's not that's not funny.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Well he was, but he was marked. He was brushing
his teeth in the bedpan.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Oh right, yeah, that was funny.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
And scene which that was funnier than anything.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Is look deads spit out. Yeah, I love a good
spit take, says Chevy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
God, it was his idea.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
I'm sure all the good ideas his idea.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
No. Yeah, well, you know they say success has many
fathers and failure is an orphan. Chevy Chase has no
failures in his film career. He's not respondible for any
of them.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
It's all just him having sex with himself. Oh yeah,
he just went and fucked himself.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah. So, speaking of chevy Chase, chevy Chase is in
that new Saturday Night Live biopic movie and you guys
would be shocked to learn maybe, and I'm not kidding.
And if you guys don't believe me and not saying you,
but your audience listeners, go and check out the episode
that I did with Father Malone as they crossover with
his show Midnight viewing on Saturday Night. The film from

(49:46):
twenty twenty four. Chevy Chase somehow looks looks better than
any world He should in that movie, he does not
look nearly as pretentious and like a prick as he really,
I think is in terms of what we've heard the movie.
He tones it down more than I think anybody else,
which is shocking. Really, they're given the opportunity to do

(50:07):
the thing and finally be like and look, we can
finally out chevy Chase in the movies. Like we're not
really interested in that. It's like, wow, yeah, guy who
plays chevy Chase is pretty good though, does the mannerisms
well enough. But seeing him here and and then listening
to that commentary, it's like, yep, that's the guy, Like,
that's that's the guy who was you know, convinced that

(50:27):
these movies were. I mean again, the first one was
a success. This is not that this movie was or
wasn't a success. Made a lot of money. They made
two more movies off of this movie. So it's not
that we're wrong. It's just this movie has not aged
well if it was great to begin with, I mean,
it's just it feels lazy right and like, and not
only does it feel lazy in terms of like it
retreading its own script, but then we have really lazy

(50:50):
stereotypes and really lazy, misunderstanding situations that aren't even specific
to the places we don't get. We go to Germany
in nineteen eighty five, and there's not a single Nazis,
not even once in a comedic film made by Americans.
There's not a mention of Nazis.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Come on, they go to Rome and they buy the
most ridiculous clothes in the world, and they walk out
onto the street. You would think everyone would turn around
and just start laughing at the right Americans. Where was that? Instead,
they walk around in these outfits and they're even I
think they're still wearing some of these outfits on the plane.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
That's so they are wearing the outfits. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
I was like, this is ridiculous, man, And like, okay,
I like Eric Idol, and I like recurring gags, you know,
the old rules of three rule of three that I
always bring up. But this is just too much. It's
just too much, and there's just nothing to him because
it's just oh no, I'm fine, ah, and then he
walks off like there's nothing, you know, give me something.

(51:52):
And I heard at one point that was supposed to
be Rowing Atkinson. Can you imagine if he was playing
that a little Beanish. It would have been so much.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Better a little Beanish.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yeah, just because he could do those prep falls. He could,
you know, just like like some of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
But it was a pretty good Rowin Atkins in my
own thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
I mean again, if you're gonna go and get someone
in nineteen eighty five, I mean, I wonder how many
names down the list eric Idol was Today, Try John
Cleese and.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Well that's the weird I think sus in the uh
In the commentary track again, Chevy's talking about how, oh,
here's Eric Idol. He and I we wrote a lot
of scripts together, and I'm like, wow, I had no
idea that you had any sort of connection to Eric Idol.
I think that's probably how he ended up in the movie.
But now I'm like wow, My new quest is to

(52:44):
find out what Chevy Chase and Eric Idol wrote together.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Well, according to IMDb's trivia, they took a crack at
another vacation film, Australian Vacation, and aside from a few
shark related gags, neither could come up with much and
the project was abandoned.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
Imagine how racist that'd be against aborigines.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Thank you they like Chevy Chase calling people abbos over
and over again. Man, wouldn't that be fun? That's what
I see.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Rick Mayol, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing his last
name Orrectlely was considered for the Eric Idol part and
John Cleeese and Rick Mayl wasn't well known enough in
the States to get it.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
So to have a guy get hit by a car
a bunch of times, it needed to be Eric idle
Wow moved No, I guess fucking bizarre qualifiers. Man, they're strange.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Because other than the Monty Python line he tosses out,
you know, it's it doesn't play to any of really
any of his characters from that, so it's just it's
just a continuation of the polite British person.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
The other thing that the script head that this movie
is missing is Clark having a crisis of faith. You know,
so much of this is well, this is the country
of Griswold, and I'm the president, and then and he's
slowly losing power to the point that they have a
revolution when they're in Rome, and he starts going out
and going to all of the places like the Trevy

(54:11):
Fountain and other places Coliseum, I think on his own
and you even see him, you know, Partha I. I
think he's at the Partha I always shooting a selfie
with his camera. And I'm like, okay, well, where's the
rest of it? Because in the script, he is like
he doesn't know what to do without his family. He's
going to all of these places, and pretty soon he

(54:31):
starts speaking to himself in like narrating these places as
if his kids and wife were there, and I'm like, okay,
this is interesting, but it feels like Clark is having
a moment. Clark is realizing like he is nothing without
his family and he needs to get them back. But
instead it's we're going to concentrate on this ka Kameimi kidnapping.

(54:53):
And then he's just suddenly going to be driving and
be like, oh, I'm almost running into you. What a coincidence.
It's like, just what a wet fart of an ending too?
At least Eric Idle pops back up, Oh yeah in
the most unexpected way. Yeah, and that's the scene where
the movie ends. In the script, all that's page one
thirty seven is Audrey, now can we go home? Music

(55:17):
comes up and we cut to Clark and Ellen they
kiss as the music swells and we pull back to
see the whole square and Rome fade out. Major new
song just like there is in the movie itself, mat
shit and with credits and.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Yeah, instead we get the weird playing scene the.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Grizz Walter look targeting about it.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
I'm not even talking. I'm not even talking about them
hitting the statue of liberty that's serving. And the taking
away of the food, I'm like, what, yeah, what.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
That they don't get to eat?

Speaker 2 (55:50):
One thing that's really neat. If you watch Eric Idol's
hair in this fountain scene, it goes really dry really quick.
Just cut from him to Clark back to him. His
hair is completely dry. Sure, yeah, I mean I'm not
gonna cinema sins this thing. But yeah, yeah, the taking

(56:11):
back of the food, all that stuff was so weird too. Yeah,
none of this really worked. It kind of reminded me
of the Vacation remake slash sequel. I mean, we'll get there,
like you said, Chris, in a few years, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Yeah, so strange. Well, and I mean, look, I think
by the time we're done with these Vacation movies, which
has kind of become its own micro thing within this
because we're covering all of them, I think that this
one has the highest likelihood of being our least favorite,
because I think even in Vegas Vacation, it's like a
fun little microcosm of the nineties Vegas, which is a

(56:47):
very weird time in Las Vegas. The please come with
your family to Las Vegas and visit, which is like,
now they're like fuck that. Not only fuck that, but like,
no fucking universe would you bring your family here? Like,
don't do that. I mean, I mean they're adding like
theme parks and stuff to Universal Studios is adding like
a permanent theme park fixture to Las Vegas. So it's

(57:09):
not all for you know, kids or for adults, and
not for kids or for families. But I mean, the
nineties in Vegas was a weird time when they were
actively trying to get people and more importantly, families to
come to Vegas, and the movie's kind of a weird
microcosm of that. This is just like they don't even
lean into the eighties of Europe. They just I don't know.

(57:30):
They it's so disappointing that they do very little with
the premise here because they do so much in the
continental United States. They could have just done another movie
in the United States and gone the other direction. Oh realistically,
that could have been the other movie, like yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Instead we're going to go to Europe and do nothing
with it. All right, Well cool, I'm glad everybody got
paid at least.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
And you were talking about how Chevy was at the height.
I mean we a few well probably quite a few
months ago, we're talking about how big nineteen eighty was
for him with Oh Heavenly Dog, Heady Shack seems like
old times even maybe one he's making Under the Rainbow
and modern problems. But nineteen eighty five was fletch European Vacation,

(58:12):
small Little Role and Follow That Bird and Spies Like Us,
three major films all starring Chevy Chase in one year.
I mean, you were what spoiled for choice when it
came to Chevy Chase movies in nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
A duo film, a vehicle film, and an ensemble film.
Three different like flavors too, Because the next time we
come back to do an episode of this show, we'll
be talking about Spies Like Us, which is the buddy
comedy film we've already talked about Fletch, So I mean,
we've gotten the vehicle film. I think probably, I think
of the three films, though I don't remember Spies like

(58:47):
Us very well, Fletch is probably going to win out
as the three of the three films that are released
in eighty five, Fletch is the best of the three
by all the fucking margin. I'm assuming it's definitely the best.
This one's probably better than Spies like Us, given the
way you guys are reacting to Spies like Us.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I don't know. I know there's one at least one
gag and Spies like Us that I like a lot.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Seen it once, just like this movie. Saw it once
in the theater, and the movie after this three Amigos,
all three of these I saw in the theater, and
that was it.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
I don't think I saw Spies like Us in the theater,
but I definitely saw three Amigos in the theater.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
There you go. I mean, you know, Chevy, We've got
three flavors of Chevy Chase. And the next one that
we move on to is dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase,
which you know, nineteen nineteen seventies. SNL called and they
want they're you know, leading men back. Anything else we
want to talk about with European vacation.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
God, I miss Chrack.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Oh. On that note, on the next episode of the
Chasing Chevy podcast, we will be taking a look at
nineteen eighty five's Spy Like Us, The Spy Like Us
Spies Like Us, which is Chevy Chase's final film released
that year. Three movies. That's a lot. Until then? Where
can people find you the things that you work on?

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Mark Begley, you can find my other shows wikipeby and
Cambridge Mi sean over on Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
By you, Mike White, same thing, Weirdingwaymedia dot Com for
all your Mic Waite.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Needs Weirdingwaymedia dot Com as well for me. Wow, We're
just to say it three times and then Father Malone
shows up. How does that work?

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Thanks? So yeah, maybe Ripley shows up?

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Then yeah, yeah, the cute dog shows up. Yeah yes,
but yeah, Weirdingway medias we can go to find this
show and all the other shows that I work on.
And yeah, Patreon dot com, slash Projection Booth or culture
Cast ten dollars or hire on either one of our
patreons gets you access to rank and on Bond, which
if you're into James Bond movies, that's where you can
go for that. If you're not, you know, five dollars

(01:00:44):
is helpful as well. Thank you so much for heading
over to iTunes to like, rate, and review the show.
That would be immensely helpful if you haven't done it already,
and you should. And yeah, join us next month when
we're talking about nineteen eighty five Spies like us