In 1983, a comedy film took moviegoers on the ultimate summer road trip.
The film, National Lampoon’s Vacation, was a box office smash following its release on July 29, 1983. More than 50 years later, fans still regard it as the perfect summer comedy film.
Starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall, with a Christie Brinkleycameo (credited as The Girl in the Ferrari) thrown in for good measure, Vacation follows the Chicago-based Griswold family on a cross-country trip to an amusement park. There are plenty of setbacks along the way, but the biggest comes at the end. (Let’s just say Marty Moose gets a punch in the nose by Chase’s character, patriarch Clark Griswold).
Chase once said he never had more fun making a movie.
“I play a dad, and I'm doing my darndest to keep that family happy on that trip and to have as much fun as I can,” he said in a 1983 interview. "[It’s] certainly the most fun I've had making a movie. We shot [in] very beautiful locations all through Utah and Arizona and Colorado and parts of Jersey City and I'd say it was the most fun I've ever had.”
He also noted that there was “a sizable amount of improvisation” in the comedy film penned by John Hughes.
At the time of its release, aNew York Times review praised Vacation with, “How far does the four-square, straight-arrow Clark W. Griswold family travel in National Lampoon's Vacation? Far enough for some fast, funny satire, and not so far out that the humor turns sloppy. …The result is a confident humor and throwaway style that helps sustain the laughs - of which there are quite a few.”
Fast forward to 2026, and Marie Claire ranked Vacation as one of the best summer movies of all time, noting that a rewatch is in order every year.
“Is it even officially summer if you haven’t yet busted out National Lampoon’s Vacation?” the outlet asked. “Chronicling the misadventures of the Griswold family as they pack up their station wagon for a cross-country trip to the elusive Walley World of patriarch Clark’s childhood, this is pure calamity over 2,000 miles.”
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National Lampoon’s Vacation grossed over $60 million at the box office, per Box Office Mojo, and was successful enough to warrant multiple sequels. In 1985, European Vacation was released, followed by Christmas Vacation(1989), Vegas Vacation (1997), Christmas Vacation 2 (2003), and Vacation (2015).
Chase, now 82, has always had a soft spot for the Vacation movies. In 2019, he told The Los Angeles Daily News he especially loved doing physical comedy in the films for the movie franchise.
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