Funny / National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

• The animated intro to the movie, featuring poor Saint Nick himself as he struggles to deliver presents to the Griswold family home—and sustaining several injuries along the way. Evidently the Griswolds' bad luck is contagious.
  • Seeing that he hasn't yet delivered to the Griswolds, Santa has the reindeer pull up next to their roof and steps out... onto what turns out to be over a foot of snow sticking over the roof edge, sending him plummeting to the ground. He replaces a lump of coal that was dislodged from a snowman by his fall, only for the snowman to topple over forwards, the head rolling down the hill after him (and getting larger).
  • So Santa has to climb up the outside of the Griswolds' chimney, but misfortune awaits him at every step. First, he accidentally sticks his hand in a broken Christmas bulb (cue X-Ray Sparks), then he demolishes the top several feet of brickwork trying to pull his sack of gifts into the flue (a lone brick falls onto his head), and finally, he accidentally kicks the gas switch as he steps out of the fireplace, burning off the end of his hat.
  • As he sets the presents under the tree, Santa looks at an ornament of a toy soldier with a cannon - a working cannon, which shoots him in the face. The noise is enough to wake up the Griswolds, and a light comes on upstairs; Santa quickly radios his reindeer and jumps off the living room sofa toward an open skylight... which he misses by several feet, crashing through the roof instead before sliding, zipline-style, down a string of lights (breaking every single bulb along the way) and hooking onto one of the runners of his sleigh as he and his reindeer flee back to the North Pole.
• Clark and Ellen singing at the beginning, while Rusty and Audrey are less than enthusiastic.
  Clark: Take it, Russ! (Russ stays silent while Clark and Ellen bob their heads in rhythm to the unsung phrase)
  Clark and Ellen: ...fa la la la la, la la la la!
• After a confrontation between Clark and another driver, he chooses the wrong moment to attempt to overtake the other driver, and ends up...
  Ellen: Clark! We're stuck under a truck!
  Clark: Do you honestly think that I don't know that?!
  Ellen: Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. And forgive my husband. He knows not what he does.
  Clark: AMEN!
• Clark finally finds what he declares the perfect Christmas tree: an impeccably formed Norway pine. Two problems: first, it's about twenty feet tall, and second...
  Rusty: Dad, did you bring a saw?
  (loud timpani cue, then it cuts to the Griswolds driving home with the tree HUGELY uprooted on top of the car with "Oh Come All ye Faithful" playing in a "wah wah wah waaaaah" style)
• We are introduced to Clark's uptight yuppie neighbors, Todd and Margo Chester, in this exchange with Clark over the Christmas tree.
  Todd: (smugly) Hey Griswold! Where you gonna put a tree that big?
  Clark: Bend over and I'll show you!
  Todd: You have some real nerve talking to me like that, Griswold...
  Clark: (nodding to Margo) I wasn't talking to you!
• Clark jumping off the Freudian Slippery Slope after meeting Mary, the sexy lingerie salesclerk (and her low-cut blouse and high-cut panties).
  "I was just smelling...smiling! I was just blouse...browsing!"
  "It wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if the stores were any less hooter than...hotter than they are!"
  "It's a bit nipply out...I mean nippy out! HA, HA, HA! What did I say, nipple?"
  "There are plenty of shopping days until adultery...adulthood. Which is to say, Christmas. As in, Yule. Yule Log. Not a log, I don't have a log, I mean, you know...If I had a log. Not in the sense that you think I said I did..."
  • Clark absentmindedly picking up a pair of panties to blot the sweat off his brow. And then awkwardly trying to stuff them into his coat pocket.
  • "Can I take something out for you?" Cue Clark laughing like a hyena.
  • "Tis the season to be Mary!" "Well, that's my name!" "No shit!"
  • Also:
    Mary: These are cut really high in the hip. Look, I'm wearing something similar. See, you can't see the line.
    Clark: (absent-mindedly) Can't see the line, can you Russ?
    Rusty: Nope.
    (Clark stares at Rusty in shock after realising his son's there)
  • Right before that, when Rusty spots Clark...chatting with Mary, he just shakes his head and grins, as if to say, "Yep, there he goes again."
• Clark gets passive-aggressive while spreading the holiday cheer at his office.
  Clark: (as Frank Shirley and his suit posse pass by) Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Chris—kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hanukkah.
• While Clark is putting up the lights, he accidentally rips off a piece of gutter and sends a solid, spear-shaped block of ice flying through the Chesters' window and into their stereo. By the time the Chesters discover the damage, the ice has long since melted.
  Margo: And why is the carpet all wet, TODD?
  Todd: I don't KNOW, Margo.
• After Clark's first failed attempt at lighting the house, we get a shot of the grandparents in the kids' respective beds. Clark Senior is genuinely enjoying himself reading Audrey's Sassy magazine with a flashlight while Art is enjoying the swimsuit model poster Russ has up on the ceiling.
• Clark getting smacked with the attic ladder. Then, while he's stumbling around in the attic, he steps on three loose boards one after the other, causing them to rise up and smack him in the face every time.
• Clark watching old movies of past Christmas while trapped in the attic, while sitting right on the attic door, which his wife opens and dumps him right into the floor below right on top of her with a hilarious Offscreen Crash... right as Ray Charles pauses to laugh during the song.
• The Christmas Lights are funny and Awesome at the same time. From the fact that they cause power outages every time Clark turns them on to the point that their power meter hits lightspeed and the local nuclear plant has to spool up another turbine just to keep up, to the fact that they blind the neighbors next door and send them crashing into things, and of course the fact that a nearby nuclear power plant has to increase output just to keep up.
  • Along with Clark utterly losing his shit, spewing Angrish and trashing his lawn decorations when he can't get them to light back up.
  • When Clark's lights fail the first time, Francis's derisive laugh is cut short by an alcohol-induced belch.
• When Cousin Eddie first arrives, he touches one of the decorations scattered around the house, and everything on it immediately shatters off.
• Clark's reaction to Eddie's unannounced arrival.
  Clark: If I woke up tomorrow morning with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now.
• While out shopping, Clark puts a few items in his cart, only to have them crushed by the multiple huge bags of dog food Eddie piles on top. The fact that neither of them notice it at all is just awesome.
• The sledding scene, where Clark's non-caloric, silicon-based kitchen lubricant gives his sled (literal) rocket speed. "Later, dudes."
  • "Oh, SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!"
  • (after Clark crashes) "Tch... Bingo!"
• Eddie, standing outside in a bathrobe, empties his RV's chemical toilet into the Griswolds' storm drain, unaware that it isn't connected to the sewer system.
  • Clark reacts with his usual deadpan sarcasm:
    Clark: Have you checked our shitters, honey?
  • Todd Chester gives Eddie a Death Glare that bounces right off of him:
    Eddie: Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!
  • And later, it all comes back around for a hysterical climax...
    Lewis: That ain't the friggin' Christmas star, Griz, that's the light from the sewage treatment plant.
    Clark: Sewer gas? (sees Lewis throw his lit match after lighting a cigar) DON'T DROP THAT!!!
    (BOOM)
• When Eddie is talking to Clark about the RV, he ends by dropping an unfortunate bit of news:
  Eddie: Don't you go falling in love with it now, because we're taking it with us when we leave here next month.
  Clark: (gags on his eggnog)
• Clark offering to refill Cousin Eddie's eggnog.
  Clark: Can I get you some more eggnog Eddie? Something to eat? Drive you off in the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?
  Eddie: [oblivious to Clark's hostility] Naw, I'm doin' just fine, Clark.
• During the eggnog scene, Eddie is wearing a black dickey (collar and false shirtfront) under a white sweater, revealing the tacky garment hilariously.
• Cantankerous Uncle Lewis tries to get his deaf, senile wife, Aunt Bethany, to say grace before Christmas Eve dinner as only he - and she - can.
  Clark: Since this is Aunt Bethany's 80th Christmas, I think she should lead us in the saying of grace.
  Bethany: [to Lewis] What, dear?
  Nora: Grace!
  Bethany: Grace? She passed away 30 years ago.
  Lewis: They want you to say grace. [Bethany looks confused] THE BLESS-ING!
  [everyone bows their heads in prayer, until...]
  Bethany: I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, [Eddie stands up and puts his hand on his heart] one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
  Eddie: [proudly] Amen!
• Almost any line spoken by Aunt Bethany.
  • "Is Rusty still in the Navy?"
  • When the lights finally come on, brighter than an entire set of airport runway lights:
    Bethany: Is your house on fire, Clark?
    Clark: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.
  • This exchange between her and Uncle Lewis after the squirrel gets into the house:
    Bethany: What's that sound? You hear it? It's a funny squeaky sound!
    Lewis: You couldn't hear a dumptruck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.
• The entire scene where the family eats Catherine's turkey. It's so dry that Clark's mom dunks pieces of it in her drink, and Clark himself tries to chew it and gargle at the same time.
• When the family is eating dinner, Clark tastes something strange and rinses out his mouth after eating Aunt Bethany's Jell-O mold. Then he asks her if the cat eats Jell-O after seeing she'd put cat food in the dessert.
• The family hear awful noises coming from under the table during Christmas Eve dinner. Eddie is unconcerned.^note Bonus points: That's exactly what a puking Rottweiler sounds like.
  Eddie: Oh, he's just yakking on a bone. (sound of Snots barfing under the table) He's got it up.
• Aunt Bethany's cat drags the lights off the tree and starts chewing on the cord. Then Clark plugs in the lights... ZAP! Instant fried pussycat!
  Eddie: If that thing had nine lives he just spent 'em all.
• Clark announces his plans to put in a swimming pool with his Christmas bonus.
  Eddie: I can't swim Clark.
  (beat)
  Clark: I know Eddie.
• When Clark gets a subscription to a "jelly of the month" club instead of a cash bonus (Eddie jovially describes it as "the gift that keeps on giving"), he doesn't take it well.
  • First, he goes on an epic rant:
    Clark: Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?
  • Then he goes Chainsaw-Crazy afterward. When Russ tries to talk him down, Clark revs his chainsaw up and Russ backs down, saying, "Good talk, Dad." Clark then uses the chainsaw to cut down a nearby Christmas tree, which breaks his uptight neighbors' window.
• Unfortunately, the new tree has a resident. "SQUIIIIIIIIIRREEEEEEELLL!"
  Clark: Where's Eddie? He usually eats these goddamn things!
  Catherine: Oh, not recently, Clark. He read that squirrels were high in cholesterol.
  Clark: (Beat) Thank you, Catherine.
• With the family Christmas going down the toilet, the extended family are packing up to leave.
  • Clark is having none of it, declaring they're going to have THE HAP HAP HAPPIEST CHRISTMAS!!!
    Clark: 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! Eye Twitch
    Art: You're goofy.
    Clark: Don't piss me off Art.
  • Then when Ellen suggests it might be best to call it quits before things get worse:
    Clark: (smiling broadly) "Worse? How could things possibly get any worse? Take a look around you, Ellen; we're at the threshold of Hell!"
  • Cue Eddie arriving with a kidnapped Mr. Shirley with a giant ribbon tied around him.
• How Clark Sr. dealt with the holidays:
  Clark Sr.: I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels.
• The police chief's reaction to learning Mr. Shirley had cut out Christmas bonuses. Even better given a second ago he was there to save Mr. Shirley from being kidnapped!
  Police Chief: That's pretty low, Mister! If I had a rubber hose I would beat you with-
  Shirley: I CHANGED MY MIND!
• A small one that you may miss: when the police breach the Griswold house and while the family put their hands up, Ellen, who is next to Clark, puts her hand on his "head". When Frank introduces Helen to the Griswolds, Ellen takes her hand off of Clark's crotch, shakes Helen's hand and welcomes her to their home before placing her hand back on his crotch.
  Ellen: Welcome to our home...what's left of it.

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