The Rise & Fall of NATIONAL LAMPOON Movies

[TMC]

In the 70s and 80s, National Lampoon transformed from a revolutionary magazine into a major force in film comedy, delivering all-time classic movies like Animal House (1978) and Vacation (1983). But by the 1990s, its influence had seriously waned, and in the 2000s — despite, or perhaps partly because of, occasional successes like Van Wilder (2002) — National Lampoon spiraled from a comedy powerhouse into a tragic punchline.

How did National Lampoon go from creating era-defining comedies to becoming one of Hollywood’s saddest stories? And, despite all the chaos that unfolded both in front of and behind the cameras, does its movie legacy still hold up today?

The Rise and Fall of National Lampoon Movies dives into five decades of history, unpacking the hits, the misses, even more misses, and the story of a truly unique player in film history.

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:45 A quick history of National Lampoon’s early years
• 06:06 Late 1970s culture rewind
• 06:54 Animal House - the surprise smash hit
• 14:01 Vacation - Chevy Chase’s finest hour?
• 18:09 European Vacation (1985)
• 22:22 Christmas Vacation (1989)
• 24:19 The disastrous Chevy Chase Show
• 25:04 Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and the company’s new strategy
• 30:17 Lampoon’s troubles mount up
• 31:13 Senior Trip (1995) and late 90s failures
• 34:40 The false dawn of Van Wilder
• 39:36 The 10 worst Nation Lampoon films of the 2000s and beyond
• 53:19 Legal troubles and the end of the line?
• 57:33 What is the legacy of the National Lampoon in Hollywood?
• 01:03:20 Thanks from Culture Slice and the next videos!

[Dude111]

Its sad..It started so good and became crap

[Hawkee]

When the National Lampoon movies made their debut many people were curious to see if these new series of comedies would be a success or be failures. And beginning with National Lampoon's Animal House little did we know that this would start a franchise of different comedies and with Animal House becoming a surprise hit people knew that this new series was destined to be full of comedy classics. But even though Animal House was a hit National Lampoon needed to build a franchise of comedies that would be huge hits and in 1983 they decided to do just that with the debut of National Lampoon's Vacation and with Chevy Chase as the wisecracking Clark Griswold National Lampoon's Vacation was a monster hit and soon gave National Lampoon their wish of a movie franchise thus marked the start of the Vacation movies. Based on the success of National Lampoon's Vacation they repeated the same thing with National Lampoon's European Vacation and it too was a smash debuting in 1985. Soon after many people were buying the two Vacation movies because of it's comedic antics and loads of laughs that fans wanted more adventures of the Griswolds. With fans waiting till 1989 for the third Vacation movie called National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and what a long wait because Christmas Vacation is a classic holiday movie and you can see why when you watch it every year and it too was a winner. After the success of the Vacation trilogy National Lampoon decided to focus on adding more comedies but after making crime comedies they decided to go back to focusing on it's Vacation franchise by making the fourth and weakest of the Vacation movies National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation and when Vegas Vacation debuted in theaters it was weak and the film's only saving grace was an appearence by Wayne Newton but it was a comeback for the Vacation franchise in the 90's but that's when the National Lampoon movies went downhill. And when they started to attract the mature teen crowd and college-age crowd National Lampoon started focusing on teen oriented movies rather than comedies. And they did that with 1995's National Lampoon's Senior Trip and just by watching it you can see that they wanted to make a teen oriented movie but this movie is weak itself but the only saving grace of this movie was where this was the movie that launched Jeremy Renner into superstardom and even Cheech Marin can't save this film from being weak and that proved that the end was near for National Lampoon movies. The one thing I cannot figure out is how they created a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2 and had Cousin Eddie be the star? I found this sequel weak and why it was made I'll never know? I guess they wanted to add more Christmas Vacation movies to the series but it never happened. But I think National Lampoon should make a new Vacation movie titled National Lampoon's Hawaiian Vacation with Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as grandparents and have new actors play the teenage grandkids of Clark and Ellen Griswold as their parents surprise them with a trip to Hawaii to visit their grandparents and that would be a smart hit in theaters if it was to be made indeed

[biffbronson]

I need your help.

In National Lampoon's European Vacation, 1985, there's an actress'
appearance who I believe is Veronica Cartwright. She was in her
mid-30s at that time.

Please have a look at these screenshots, and let me know if you too
think this is lovely Veronica in an uncredited appearance
(Paris segment of the vacation, non-speaking role):

[Dude111]

Ya looks like her.......

I didnt really like that movie.......

[Hawkee]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Ya looks like her.......

I didnt really like that movie.......

Is that the movie where Clark Griswold wins the European vacation on a game show? I can't figure out why National Lampoon's European Vacation became a hit and how it scored big in theaters. They should've had the sequel set in Hawaii instead. I guess that they were impressed with National Lampoon's Vacation and went on to create European Vacation. The other funny scene is when the Griswolds check into their hotel in London they stay in a really tiny room and Rusty and Audrey can't find anything on TV in their own room because all the TV shows is a channel on how cheese is made

[Dude111]

Yes and I think your right,Hawaii would be a better place to do it!