Clark And Ellen's Big Comeback

That wonderful holiday season is upon us and I just can't help but use Clark Griswold's name as an adjective. Goofy, accident prone and lovable, Chevy Chase and National Lampoon created a holiday, Hollywood icon in the Christmas classic, "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".

This Christmas movie serves as my family's annual Thanksgiving night tradition. It kicks off our holiday and we can be found quoting movie lines throughout the season. It soon got me to thinking about why they never made a sequel. The movie's cast, released in 1989, reads like a who's who in Hollywood. Click here for complete cast info.

Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Julliet Lewis, Johnny Galecki make up the Griswold Family and Randy Quaid, Dianne Ladd, Doris Roberts, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Julia Louis-Drefyus round out this all star cast. A quick Google check reveals that they did make a sequel to the Christmas Vacation movie(which is in fact a sequel to the Vacation movie), but without Chase and D'Angelo this one fell flat. Centered around Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid), titled "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2:Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure", even the National Lampoon endorsement couldn't save this one.

Now would be the time for a real sequel. Don't you think?

Clark and Ellen, both aging but still hot for each other, and their grown kids and grandchildren converging on the Griswold family homestead for, as Clark puts it, "a fun, old fashioned, family Christmas". It would need to be comic gold, and the cast would have to be all the originals, but if done right, this one could spur holiday magic.

Chevy's not as young as he used to be, so we'll leave the physical comedy to the kids. Beverly's smoked one too many cigarettes and gotten harsh, but I bet she could still put on a mean Ellen Griswold. Julliette Lewis is one step away from a crack addict, perfect for her story line and Johnny Galecki has proved to have 9 Hollywood lives, now starring in one of TV's hottest sitcoms. Give Julia Louis-Dreyfus a bigger part, throw in Randy Quaid and some bathroom humor and sign me up! I'm not walking out on this one.

Like my favorite quote from the movie,

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse."

Cmon now, I couldn't have been the only one to think of this?