National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1989
Rotten Tomatoes score: 63%

In psychological development, there are certain critical periods, during which a growing organism is uniquely suited to acquire particular skills. I think the same must be true for taste in certain movies. If you saw The Goonies when you were eight years old, you love it; if, like me, you missed it, you will never understand its appeal. I'm sure most people cannot comprehend how much I enjoy the Mighty Ducks trilogy, not to mention the Ernest canon. (Or maybe that last one is just me.)

When it comes to the National Lampoon Vacation series, I must have missed the boat. I didn't see any of these movies until I caught this one in German translation (where it's called Schöne Bescherung) at the age of 18. I finally saw the original Vacation about three years ago, along with its European sequel.

I thought the original, with Anthony Michael Hall playing Chevy Chase's son Russ, was pretty amusing, while European Vacation is an international atrocity that should have been banned by the Geneva Accords. This Christmas version came next, followed by Vegas Vacation in 1997, which is rightfully forgotten except for its introduction of the comedy pseudonym "Nick Papagiorgio." Apparently the trainwreck is still a-rolling, as new films have been released quite recently, all without Chevy Chase.

But today we're here to talk about Christmas Vacation. I watched this again a few weeks ago, so I have at least a vague recollection as to what happens in it.

The first two Vacations were about road trips, but in this one the Griswold family stays put while the vacation comes to them. My general view on gimmick sequels is that, once you've made two very high-concept movies in a series, it's very risky to make additional sequels that drop that concept. (That's why Die Hard 3 is such a disappointing sequel.) So once you've got two "Family of Morons on Vacation" movies in the can, it's going to be a rough adjustment making a "Family of Morons at Home" movie. And so it is, but the movie keeps its stride by cranking the moronicity dial way up to 11. There is nothing whatsoever to like about any member of the Griswold family, but it can be mildly amusing to watch them fail at the most basic tasks in life.

In the opening sequence, we see Chevy Chase nearly kill his entire family through gross incompetence behind the wheel. Later we see every adult member of his family struggle to figure out how to turn on a light switch. Someone locks Chevy in the attic, and in a McCallisteresque fit of obliviousness, the family leaves him there for hours. In a jewelry store, Chevy musters every ounce of effort to avoid staring at (and commenting on) a young floorwalker's chest, and spectacularly fails to utter a single sentence without an embarrassing slip.

How can these people be so stupid? How do they manage to feed themselves? How do they manage to dress themselves?

Actually, seeing Chevy Chase at work is one of the really funny parts of the movie, and it's a nice change from the earlier installments. His boss (Brian Doyle-Murray), a curmudgeonly Scrooge, is a funny character I wish we could have seen a lot more of. Chevy is expecting a big bonus this year because he's invented a "non-nutritive cereal varnish," which I found hilarious.

The rest of the movie is just a meandering story about the huge number of people in the Griswold house for Christmas. Beverly D'Angelo returns as Chevy Chase's inexplicably patient wife, a live-action Marge Simpson who should really just abandon ship. The two Griswold children, Russ and Audrey, have never been played by the same actors in any two Vacation movies—Russ is forgettable here, but Juliette Lewis as Audrey is relatably annoyed by the sheer volume of human bodies in her house. Randy Quaid is back as the insufferable Cousin Eddie. Aside from these, there are several hundred other family members who either didn't have any lines, or else I just didn't care enough to remember them. Oh, somewhere in there is a horrific scene where a cat disintegrates.

The whole holiday falls apart when Chevy learns that he isn't getting his Christmas bonus. Then, in a Hillbilly ex Machina ending, Cousin Eddie abducts the penny-pinching boss and brings him to the Griswold house. Suddenly, the boss has a complete change of heart and gives Clark an even bigger bonus than he was expecting.

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I feel I've been unusually harsh on this movie, and that probably isn't fair. Like I said, the stuff about Clark's job is great, and the rest is just so-so. Only a few scenes are actively off-putting. I would be willing to watch it again.

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1. Being around family is important at Christmas.
This is true even if no one in your family has any redeeming qualities.

2. If you want to install an outdoor swimming pool, you should spend money that you have.
I forgot to mention the part where Clark spends money he doesn't have on a pool. It wasn't worth mentioning.

3. "Non-nutritive cereal varnish" is funny.
This is a lesson for people who make Christmas comedies and are looking for suggestions about funny words and phrases. It's hilarious.

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr., 1974
Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 84%

After Rudolph and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Rankin-Bass must have realized they were onto something. But what other legendary Christmas tales were left to be told? None, so they just made one up.

Shirley Booth (Mrs. Claus) tells us the tale of that fateful year when Santa Claus decided to quit his job. When Santa (Mickey Rooney returning to the role) is feeling under the weather one December, he calls the world's most misanthropic doctor, who assures him that the whole world is beyond saving and there's no need for Christmas anymore. Santa admits that he has been feeling the same way, so he decides to stay in bed for the foreseeable future.

Mrs. Claus thinks the old man is giving up too easily. First, she muses in song that she could take over Santa's job. For some reason she rejects this eminently sensible option, and instead she sends two elves, Jingle Bells and his brother Jangle, to scour the world for some trace of Christmas spirit. When the elves arrive in Southtown, Santa's fears seem confirmed. A local constable cites them for violating draconian laws prohibiting reindeer and elf costumes, and the kids in town don't care that Santa isn't coming. (The kids have read in the newspaper that Santa has called it quits, but they say they don't believe in Santa. What kind of world is this where newspapers are printing press releases from the North Pole, but the children somehow don't believe that Santa Claus exists?)

Worried for the elves' safety, Santa has hauled himself out of bed and followed them to Southtown. Disguising himself as "Mr. Klaus" (they'll never figure that out), he meets a young agclaustic named Ignatius Thistlewhite. Invited into the Thistlewhite home, Santa sneezes in the most disgusting way possible, surely infecting the entire family with an exotic North Pole illness. Then he sings about believing in Santa Claus. Mr. Klaus reveals his secret identity by flying off on a reindeer to rescue the elves and the baby reindeer they rode in on.

The reindeer is at the pound, disguised as a dog. The professionals at the pound fail to realize that this hoofed creature is not a dog, so the elves and Ignatius have to persuade the mayor of Southtown to intervene. He agrees to help, but only if the elves can conjure up a snowy day in Dixie. Unbeknown to them, Santa has already sprung their reindeer friend and rushed back to the Pole. Before Santa can make it home, Mrs. Claus jets off to Southtown to collect the elves (and Ignatius, for some reason) to pay a visit to an old friend.

Mr. Snow Miser, the frosty giant who controls winter weather, is the only one who can bring snow to Southtown. After a jaunty ragtime tune about himself, Snow Miser explains that he'd be all too glad to make it snow down south, but he's certain that his brother Mr. Heat Miser would turn it to rain. Heat Miser hates his brother (though not enough to think of a different theme song), and the two can't be made to agree. If Mrs. Claus wants it to snow in Southtown, she'll have to get Mother Nature involved. Mother Nature tells her miserly sons to play nice, and they agree to horse-trade a snowstorm in the south for one spring day at the North Pole.

The snow inspires the world's children to guilt Santa into reinstating Christmas, so they send him gifts and letters and sing "Blue Christmas." Their trick works, and Santa resumes his duties.

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TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS:

1. It never snows in the South except by supernatural intervention.
If you think it does, you're just remembering wrong.

2. If you only work one night out of the year, you can't really afford to take a sick day.
But if you're going to be sneezing all over the world, maybe it's not such a bad idea.

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Ron Underwood, 2006
Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 54%

There is also a live-action version of this movie, and it is an abomination.

As much fun as it sounds like to see the great John Goodman as Jolly Old St. Nick, I implore you to stay away from this monstrosity. There is not a single sympathetic, likable, pleasant, or interesting character in the entire movie. The closest you get are Jingle and Jangle, played here by Eddie Griffin and Ethan Suplee, but even they can't bring any cheer to your TV screen. Chris Kattan is in this movie. Chris Kattan is in this movie. Stay away, in the name of all that is holy.

If you must indulge your curiosity, please confine it to this production of the Heat Miser and Snow Miser song. It features Michael McKean as Mr. Snow Miser and Harvey Fierstein as Mr. Heat Miser. But I caution you, this is something that, once seen, cannot be unseen. You've been warned.

I don't know what masochists in the audience have been giving this a positive rating. They are probably very sick people.

Richie Rich's Christmas Wish

John Murlowski, 1998
Rotten Tomatoes audience rating: 33%

This was direct-to-video, so the best I can get is an audience score from Rotten Tomatoes. Self-selected audience reviews are usually more generous than critics, so if even the viewers didn't like it, that doesn't bode well.

This is of course based on the long-running Richie Rich comics. It is purportedly a sequel to the 1994 film Richie Rich, but there is zero continuity and no returning cast members. That was a grossly underrated movie, and we'll have to get to it at some point. But for now, let's deal with the Christmas version.

In the first act, Richie learns that Professor Keenbean (Eugene Levy doing an unnecessary English accent, but still wearing his trademark horn-rimmed glasses) has just invented magic. His "wishing machine" can make anyone's wish come true, but only on Christmas Eve. But while he's still getting the kinks worked out, Richie will have to contend with his insufferable cousin Reggie van Dough (not to be confused with Laurence van Dough, the evil CFO played by John Larroquette in the first movie).

Reggie is the bad kind of rich person—he enjoys abusing his power over others, he openly detests poor people, and he resents Richie for ever doing anything nice for anyone. So when Richie participates in a charity event, delivering presents to orphans on a self-powered sleigh, Reggie sabotages the sleigh and destroys all the presents, leaving Richie holding the bag. Richie knows that Reggie is responsible, but rather than make even a passing effort to clear his name, he immediately resorts to wishing himself out of existence with Keenbean's machine.

So there you have it. This has been building up to a Wonderful Life story. Richie now finds himself in a world where he has never been born and Reggie owns his home, his family, his family's business, and the entire town. (Apparently Reggie sued his parents to escape their custody, then sued Mr. and Mrs. Rich for the right to become a despot. It's harsh, but that's our legal system.) Even Richie's closest friends no longer recognize him.

But wait. If Richie has never been born, how does he exist? He's not a ghost. Everyone can see him; they just don't recognize him. If he wished himself out of existence, shouldn't he just cease to exist? You know what? Forget it.

In order to wish the world back to normal, Richie must escape from Reggie's secret police and contact his friends from his previous life. He meets his trusted valet Cadbury (who is now a rock musician) and Professor Keenbean. Keenbean tells him that he and the local kids will have to break into a museum to steal the world's largest wishbone from a dinosaur statue to make the wishing machine work again. Unfortunately, the police show up, lock up the gang, and deliver the wishing machine to Reggie.

Reggie uses the machine to wish for the power of flight, and if you've ever seen Superman IV, it's not quite as bad as that. Luckily, the Rich family dog pulls the plug on the machine before Reggie can wish for world domination. Richie and the gang bust out of the joint just in time to race back to Rich Manor at the eleventh hour.

In a pulse-pounding scene, Keenbean spends five minutes attempting to connect an alligator clamp to a bundle of wires, and the clock begins to toll midnight as Richie prepares to make his wish. The gang all cheer him on as he apparently struggles to formulate an appropriate wish. Finally he overcomes this seemingly insurmountable obstacle and wishes to "be Richie Rich again for the next Christmas, the next Christmas, and every Christmas for the rest of my life!" I'm not sure if he is going to continue to exist for the other 364 days of every year, but I guess that's a start.

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For a straight-to-video movie, this is about what you'd expect. Say what you will about the original Richie Rich movie; at least it felt like they put some effort into it. Martin Mull is clearly phoning it in as Richie's dad, and the kid from Seventh Heaven is no replacement for Macauly Culkin from the first movie. On the plus side, cinema's Richard Riehle gives a winning performance as a cop. (He has people skills! He's good at dealing with people! Why can't you idiots understand that?) Also, one of the kids is Michelle Trachtenberg, who if I'm not mistaken has gone on to do other things.

Take it for what it is, and you shouldn't be disappointed.

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TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS:

1. It's wrong for children not to exist.
If they don't exist, their parents can't possibly spend sufficient time with them, and if we've learned anything at all, it's that parents should spend time with their children.

2. Infinitely powerful inventions have some potential to create mischief.
Let that be a lesson to you scientists out there who think you can invent a wishing machine and expect nothing to go wrong.

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Arlene Sanford, 1998
Rotten Tomatoes score: 21%

Do you remember the year 1998? Take a moment to think back. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google; the Second Congo War began in August; Chavez was elected and Clinton was impeached. But the most powerful person in the world in 1998 was, without a doubt, Jonathan Taylor Weiss.

Weiss, better known by his stage name Jonathan Taylor Thomas ("JTT"), experienced a meteoric rise to prominence as the breakout heartthrob cast member of Home Improvement. At the time, he commanded a veritable army of fans, mostly 12-year-old girls, and he enjoyed the staunch support of the Fourth Estate through that Grey Lady of journalism Tiger Beat. (Or was it Teen Beat? Whichever.)

But unlike his co-star Tim Allen, who had also rocketed to short-lived superstardom in the 90s, the great JTW was not to be a Holiday icon. No, I'll Be Home for Christmas is no The Santa Clause. It's not even The Escape Clause (we'll get to that one). Indeed, this entry would have been relegated to a mere footnote in film history had Netflix not seen fit to remind me of it last month.

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We meet JTW at Palisades College, a fictional institution in a fictional version of Los Angeles in which Christmas occurs during late spring. JTW's high school sweetheart and current girlfriend Allie (Jessica Biel) is going home for Christmas, and she urges him to do the same. But our dear rolling stone will have none of it—he'd rather while away his holidays lounging on the beach at Cabo or scamming the vain, heartless Eddie and his frat boy pals out of their tuition money. Besides, his widowed dad is remarried, and JTW doesn't care for his stepmother.

(All right, I'm going to stop calling him JTW. The character's name is Jake.)

The only thing that is able to change Jake's mind is his dad's promise to give him his beloved classic Porsche as a special Christmas gift, but only if the boy makes it to Christmas Eve dinner at 6:00 sharp. No discussion is had of Jake's travel arrangements, and the rest of the movie makes it clear that Dad neither knows nor cares how Jake is transporting himself. One might have imagined that someone would offer him a ride home from the airport, but no. Everybody plans to sit quietly until 6 pm on December 24, waiting to see if Jake will arrive.

Unfortunately for Jake, the frat boys are none too pleased with the aforesaid scam, so they lock Jake's dweeby partner in crime in his locker and ditch Jake in the desert, unconscious (presumably from a savage off-screen beating), wearing a Santa suit, surrounded by buzzards. But if you think this act of attempted murder will slow down our frosted-haired hero, you've got another think coming.

Instead, Jake spends the next hour enduring an astoundingly contrived gantlet of indignities before he arrives back home. He bums a ride from some old ladies on their way to a Tom Jones concert. He rides shotgun with a two-bit crook and has to fast-talk his way out of an arrest by delivering the thief's loot to a children's hospital. (The hospital will be delighted when it discovers the origin of these gifts.) For absolutely no reason, the cop who nearly busted him then asks Jake to help him reconcile with his estranged wife. Jake does this in exchange for a bus ticket to New York.

Unfortunately, Jake then discovers that Allie and Eddie are road-tripping to New York on the same route, so he diverts the bus to thwart what he suspects is an act of cuckoldry. Of course, Allie in fact has no interest in Eddie and only accepted his carpool offer out of desperation, so she gives Jake a dressing-down and takes his place on the bus. (Apparently the drivers for this busing company have the authority to eject ne'er-do-wells and give their seats to decent people.)

At this point, we realize that Jake has evidently been riding on a supersonic bus, because he has made it from Southern California to Wisconsin in a day and a half. All he has to do is win a conveniently-timed 5k race against conveniently out-of-shape competitors, and he'll receive the $1000 he needs to travel to the Madison airport, book a flight, clear security, board the flight, fly to JFK, exit the airport, call a cab, drive 25 miles to Larchmont, and join his family for dinner, in one afternoon.

But instead, he has a totally unmotivated change of heart and gives the money away to charity. He still accomplishes the rest of the plan, though, but he has to ride in a dog crate in the cargo hold of a commuter plane. (This is after a pointless sequence where his sister buys him a ticket, but he can't pick it up because he's lost his ID.) So in the end, he reaches home, but conspicuously turns down the Porsche, so we know he's learned a Valuable Lesson, even though nothing that has occurred could plausibly have taught him such a lesson.

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After reading a few reviews of this movie, I feel guilty writing this one, like I'm picking on a little kid in school. But what else can I say?

Several critics compared the movie unfavorably to Pleasantville and said it was anachronistically sappy. I guess I can see that, but the 15 intervening years have also allowed me to see that this thing reeks of the late 90s. Just look at JTW's hair, or for that matter, skip to the 30-minute mark and listen to Jessica Biel sing along to "Doctor Jones." Fish don't know they're wet, so I guess critics in 1998 didn't realize they were watching an unholy time capsule of a movie.

But I'm done ragging on the movie. It wasn't so bad, really. I honestly would recommend it, but only if you have a high tolerance for corny family movies and the year 1998.

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TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS:

1. It's wrong for college students not to spend time with their families.
Plus ça change.

2. You'll never get that "Doctor Jones" song out of your head.
Good thing it's such a festive holiday tune. Thank God they didn't pick "Cotton Eye Joe."

Prancer

John D. Hancock, 1989
Rotten Tomatoes score: 69%

This strange children's Christmas adventure stars Rebecca Harrell as young Jessica, a child who discovers a magic reindeer. It also stars Sam Elliot as himself.

Jessica is a sweet, pious young child in a rural locality. Her mother has been killed by a plot device, and her father John (Sam Elliot) is a struggling farmer. Unable to make ends meet, John is planning to give temporary custody of Jessica to his late wife's sister. Also along for the ride is Cloris Leachman as a bitter old shrew who hates children and wants to be left alone. Wouldn't it be incredible if she turns out to have a heart of gold, and she ultimately becomes a friend to young Jessica? It would blow my mind if that happened.

Jessica is a devout believer in Santa, because she considers belief in Santa to be a necessary corollary of belief in heaven (where her late mother is). Her best friend is a skeptic, but Jessica is steadfast in her Santa-based religious convictions. Their schoolteacher tells them some Bible story that I have never heard about how animals get superpowers when the full moon coincides with Christmas Eve, or something like that.

On her walk home from school, Jessica witnesses a wooden reindeer (reindeer # 3, Prancer) fall from a Christmas display and cause a minor traffic accident. Later that night, she encounters a real live reindeer in the woods, and inexplicably concludes that it is the same one. Prancer is injured, and John rather hastily concludes that it is doomed, and he'd better put it out of its misery. Jessica protests, but Prancer manages to escape.

The fun really begins when Jessica brings Prancer into her father's shed to care for him. She guilts a curmudgeonly veterinarian (Abe Vigoda[!]) into caring for the reindeer, and resolves to earn enough money to buy it some provender. She offers to do housework for Cloris Leachman, who pays her fifteen dollars, exactly the quoted price for a bag of oats. At the same time, Cloris's cold heart warms to the presence of this child whose legal guardians know nothing of her location.

Jessica also details her exploits in a secret letter she gives to a mall Santa, demanding that he transmit it to the real Santa. Instead, he delivers it to the editor of the local paper, who publishes an editorial in a very self-conscious reference to "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus" (which is referenced a number of times in the movie).

Some children, having read the editorial, sneak into the shed to visit Prancer. Jessica is still unaware of the editorial, so she blames her agnostic best friend. Then Jessica threatens to murder the other children with a sickle, so they run away. By this point, the cat is out of the bag, and once John learns about the reindeer, he falls right back on his original plan to shoot it. A local butcher steps in and offers to pay top buck for it, and John agrees. Fearful that the butcher will kill and eat Prancer, Jessica insists on freeing him to go back to the North Pole.

Jessica's rescue attempt results in her suffering a fatal head injury. Actually, she survives, but she is very depressed while she recuperates. John attempts to cheer her up by telling her that the family has no money and will probably lose the farm, but that if he loses Jessica, he will lose his will to live. Remarkably, Jessica does not find this uplifting. However, she takes greater comfort in learning that all the neighbors have come to visit and to return Prancer to the family.

John tells Jessica that she will not have to move to her aunt's house, and together they take Prancer up to a place called Antler Ridge so Santa can retrieve him. At this point, you might expect the movie to end in a sort of ambiguous way, with Jessica perceiving some kind of sign that she interprets as evidence of Santa's existence, with the audience left to make up its own mind. But no, we very clearly see Santa come and rescue Prancer, and there is no doubt that it's really him. So there you go, Santa exists.

This is the most depressing Christmas movie I can recall. The ending is supposed to be uplifting, but this family is still doomed to financial ruin. But hey, Santa!

Anyway, I didn't particularly care for this movie, so I'm tempted to call it Overrated. But you know, if Sam Elliot can believe in Santa Claus, it can't be all bad.

And now, the True Meaning of Christmas:

1. You should never shoot a reindeer.
Would it have died if he shot it? Can Santa's reindeer die? It did somehow get injured, so I guess it's a mortal being. Would Sam Elliot have had to become the new Prancer?

2. Kindly old neighbors have hearts of gold.
At least for one or two scenes they do.

3. Animals acquire the gift of flight when there is a full moon on Christmas Eve.
Look it up!