The popular Christmas movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is full of quotable lines and memorable moments. And some of them weren’t in the script of filmmaker John Hughes.
Clark Griswold’s mother greets him with a knock-knock-joke greeting
Chevy Chase’s favorite line from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is unexpected
Chaos breaks out when the parents of Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and Ellen Griswold (Beverly D’Angelo) arrive at their home. There are a number of greetings, one of which is Clark’s mother, Nora, who makes a unique knock-knock joke with her son.
Diane Ladd, the actress who played Chase’s mother in the film, revealed in a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone that she made up the knock-knock joke herself. It’s something she did during her audition, and one version of it made it into the final cut of “Christmas Vacation”.
“I walked right over to Chevy and grabbed his face, opened his mouth and played a game: ‘Knock, knock, who is there?’ It was improvised and something like that ended up in the film, ”said Ladd.
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Cousin Eddie says ‘bingo’ on the sleigh ride scene
Although Christmas Vacation is set in Chicago, Illinois, the film was shot in California on the Warner Bros. premises and in Breckenridge, Colorado. While filming the Colorado sled scene, Randy Quaid improvised one of Cousin Eddie’s brief but memorable lines.
In the same Rolling Stone interview, Ellen Latzen, the actress who played cousin Eddie and cousin Catherine’s (Miriam Flynn) daughter Ruby Sue, shared a line Quaid improvised.
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She remembered him saying “bingo” after Clark drove down the hill at warp speed and landed in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
“I remember when Randy Quaid’s line ‘Bingo’ was completely improvised at the end of the scene,” she said. “[Regisseur] Jeremiah Chechik said: ‘That was amazing, say that again!’ ”
The scene also features several other famous quotes from cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation, including comments about his hair and the metal plate in his head.
Ellen Griswold puts her hand on Clark Griswold’s crotch
While pondering Christmas Vacation with some of her co-stars for Rolling Stone, D’Angelo pointed out a small detail in one of the movie’s final scenes. When the police show up at the Griswolds’ house and tell everyone to stop, Ellen puts her hand on Clark’s crotch. The movement wasn’t in the script, it was D’Angelo’s idea.
“Did you see the police come in and there was a still picture of my hand (on Chevy’s crotch)? I did that on the spur of the moment and told Chevy just to see if anyone on set noticed, ”she said. “But we did a couple of takes and nobody mentioned it.”
In the same scene, D’Angelo’s character Frank Shirley (Brian Doyle Murray) shakes hands with wife Helen (Natalia Nogulich) before putting her hand back.
Christmas Vacation is not yet available on Netflix at time of publication. But don’t worry. Fans of the Griswold family can watch them celebrate Christmas by watching “Christmas Vacation” on TV.
The cast of “The Holiday” met while filming the final scene of the film
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