The 1978 surprise success of Animal House with it's $120M box office (equivalent to an astonishing $408M in 2013 dollars) was National Lampoon's first foray into major motion pictures and set the stage for a slew of movies from the comedy multi-media company. The first two post-Animal House projects were 1981's National Lampoon's Movie Madness and 1982's National Lampoon's Class Reunion; the former was a mere blip at the box office while the latter, featuring John Hughes' first produced script, disappointed with a take of only $10M.
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| original illustration that accompanied the story |
Hughes' next film project was based on an article he had written for National Lampoon magazine, "Vacation 58", which began with the line:
"If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!"
John Hughes worked on this, his very first script, by copying the format from another script he acquired. Unbeknownst to him, Warner Brothers had purchased the film rights to his story upon publication in 1979. His publisher Matty Simmons (the film's producer) generously offered to let Hughes adapt his own story into a screenplay and after several drafts (and years), it went into production with star Chevy Chase and director Harold Ramis doing a final rewrite. (Ramis had also been a screenwriter on Animal House). All references to Disneyland were replaced with like-sounding names.
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| famed fantasy artist Boris Vallejo illustrated the film's movie poster |
National Lampoon's Vacation was released on July, 29, 1983, which was the first of three consecutive weeks it topped the box office. HERC did not see that R-rated movie that particular weekend however as he opted for Private School with Phoebe [Mmm!] Cates instead. He did catch Vacation the following weekend however and while the movie went on to land just outside the year's Top 10 in terms of box office gross, it really took off after it was released on home video and began airing on cable, eventually spawning dozens of sequels. And by "dozens", HERC means
The 30th Anniversary Edition blu-ray of the film was released in May 2013 and includes an all-new, exclusive ninety minute documentary. It is a must-see for any fan of the film and a fine way to introduce future generations to the Griswolds and their journey to Wally World.
An official soundtrack album was released and has never been offcially issued on shiny metallic disc although there are millions thousands hundreds a few bootleg copies floating around with quasi-offical sounding titles like Passport Cancelled Edition or 20th Anniversry Extended Edition. There are just 10 tracks on the soundtrack album and start to finish, depending on how fast you're able to flip it over, it runs under 30 minutes. The tracklist:
- "Holiday Road" - Lindsey Buckingham
- "Mister Blue" - The Fleetwoods
- "Blitzkrieg Bop" - Ramones
- "Deep River Blues" - Ralph Burns
- "Summer Hearts" - Nicolette Larson
- "Little Boy Sweet" - June Pointer
- "The Trip (Theme From Vacation)" - Ralph Burns
- "He's So Dull" - Vanity 6
- "Christie's Song" - Ralph Burns
- "Dancin' Across The USA" - Lindsey Buckingham
Although the album failed to chart, "Holiday Road", one of Lindsey Buckingham's two original contributions to the soundtrack, managed to travel all the way up to 82 on the Hot 100 in an all too brief five week chart run in August and September 1983. Ralph Burns provided the film's score and three of his tracks are on the album. One song heard in the movie but not featured on the soundtrack album is "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters. The album is unfortunately not available on Spotify nor Songza. A fairly faithful live version of "Holiday Road" has been released by Buckingham so HERC will leave you with that.
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