GRISWOLDS-GIVING: National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)
The Griswolds win a trip and stumble into a better movie.
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CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of fatphobia, sexual harassment, sexual harassment of underage teenagers, sexism, misogyny.
This week’s Griswold adventure is a true cable classic, and honestly, it’s earned that title. Amy Heckerling, a director we just cannot escape on this show, manages to punch up the funny and puts Clark and Ellen on equal footing. Which is good, because Beverly D’Angelo is kind of awesome. It’d just be nice if they could make the kids interesting at all, and not the absolute worst. There’s a good, healthy ick factor here, but as far as dumb 80’s comedies go, we’ve seen worse. We talk about National Lampoon’s European Vacation this week on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!
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Excerpt used from “Holiday Road,” written and performed by Lindsey Buckingham. Copyright 1983 Now Sounds Music (BMI). Phonographic copyright 1983 Warner Bros. Records.
Clips from the film National Lampoon’s European Vacation are copyright 1985 Warner Bros. All rights reserved.
Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.
