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If you like movies about empty-headed dips and their resentful families, then National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies certainly have you covered. Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, is an exemplar -- perhaps the Ur-example -- of a clueless dad obsessed with fulfilling the typical American suburban dream despite a general lack of wit or competence. Clark claims to be an expert in everything, assuring his family that everything will be fine, and yet he displays no acumen or skill, and his family repeatedly witnesses him fail. We sympathize with Clark, however, as many of his failings are the result of bad luck; Clark isn't very good at traversing the daily onus of trivial nonsense, but the world seems cosmically hellbent on punishing him for his incompetence. 

The "Vacation" movies began their life as a short story called "Vacation '58," written by John Hughes and first published in the celebrated "National Lampoon...

The National Lampoon’s Vacation movie series is an iconic comedy franchise that began with John Hughes‘ short story “Vacation ’58”. Written by John Hughes, these full of entertainment films are all about the misadventures of the Griswold family.

The first five films were all distributed by Warner Bros., while they also sponsored one more installment. The movie has inspired various advertising campaigns featuring some of the original cast members in recent years!

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The Clark Griswold family is a hilarious and entertaining group of people who always seem to be in the wrong place at just about every turn.

It’s great fun watching them try their best for laughs and out of sheer amazement that they can get into these crazy situations day after endless days!

The success of Vacation movies spawned a short-lived TV series, and there...

Matty Simmons, a founder of the Diners Club credit card and Weight Watchers magazine who found his highest profile success after co-founding National Lampoon magazine and producing film offshoots including Animal House and the Vacation franchise, died Wednesday in Los Angeles following a brief, non-coronavirus-related illness. He was 93.

Simmons death was announced by his daughter Kate Simmons.

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“Yesterday I lost my hero,” Kate Simmons wrote on Instagram. “My dad had gone from the sharpest, healthiest 93 year old most people have encountered to abruptly having every imaginable issue except corona.”

An author of nine books including the 2012 memoir Fat, Drunk, and Stupid: The Making of Animal House (St. Martins Press), Simmons made...

Joseph Baxter Dec 12, 2019

HBO Max bringing back the Vacation film franchise’s Griswold family in a spinoff series produced by Johnny Galecki.

The Griswolds are taking the holiday road to HBO Max!

The Vacation film franchise – after five theatrically-released films and a TV movie – is set to make its serial television debut for the premium cable channel’s 2020-launching platform, HBO Max, with a single-camera comedy spinoff titled The Griswolds. Interestingly, one of the driving forces behind this small screen venture is a former member of its eponymous family, Big Bang Theory star Johnny Galecki, who’s executive-producing.

Galecki will join the project’s primary driving force, Tim Hobert, who’s writing the script and executive-producing, with Galecki onboard via his Alcide Bava shingle, which will also be represented in executive-producer capacity by head Holly Brown as well as producer Cory Wood. The Griswolds will manifest as part of Galecki...

Pack your bags and cue up “Holiday Road,” because The Griswolds are returning to a TV near you.

A television series based on the National Lampoon’s Vacation films is in the works at HBO Max, Variety reports. The potential single-camera comedy would follow members of the titular clan after they return home from their vacation, and focus on their lives in the suburbs of modern-day Chicago.

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With the announcement of a possible sequel to It’s a Wonderful Life, the Internet is abuzz with everyone and anyone’s opinion. But the 1946 Jimmy Stewart-starring film isn’t the first holiday classic to get the sequel treatment. Some are just as spirited as their predecessors; others are the cinematic equivalent to getting coal in your stocking.

We break down seven sequels to holiday favorites to see how they fare before It’s a Wonderful Lie: The Rest of the Story joins their ranks.

A Christmas Story 2 (2012)

The Original: A Christmas Story (1983)

The Sequel: Set five years after the original,...

How do you reboot the concept of a reboot? With a director who values originality, leadership, a strong team, and the power of rabid fans to say whatever the hell they want (as long as they're saying something). Sound like any successful entrepreneurs you know?

By the time a film series gets to its fifth installment, the last throes of a franchise usually fall somewhere in between disappointment (Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones), or blatantly shameful money grabs (National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure). But now there’s the curious case of X-Men: First Class.

The X-Men franchise, though still profitable, hasn’t creatively evolved since the second film, X2, which was released almost a decade ago. Critics have largely panned subsequent strains of the mutant flicks, including Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). First Class is...

Warner Bros. is passing the torch of its "National Lampoon's Vacation" franchise to subsidiary New Line Cinema, which is appropriate since the series itself is making a similar generational transition. According to The Hollywood Reporter, following four installments focused on Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and family during different vacations -- plus one spin-off involving a holiday taken by the motley clan of Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) -- the franchise has been inherited by Clark's son Rusty, who now has a family of his own.

Rusty Griswold has been played by four different actors throughout the series' run. Anthony Michael Hall was the first to play the son, appropriate since the original film was scripted and based on a short story by the late John Hughes, who went on to turn the kid into a star with roles in "Sixteen Candles," "Weird Science" and "The Breakfast Club."

Hughes also wrote the first two sequels,...

It's a long standing tradition in Hollywood of course to play it safe rather than risk making something completely original. Sequels? Remakes? Movies based on old TV shows or even toys? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Many is the time we've all rolled our eyes at the notion of a favorite film being needlessly sequelized but the very bottom of the sequel barrel is the straight-to-dvd kind.

Over at Moviefone Kevin Polowy has assembled a list of 15 Ludicrous Straight-to-dvd Sequels That Actually Exist. Some aren't all that surprising. The kids' video market seems to have lots of these so Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure and Dr. Doolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (actually the fifth in the series) don't completely blindside me. On the other hand, did the world really need National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure with Randy Quaid boosted to headliner? The biggest...