Speaker 1: Happy holidays, folks, wherever you may be. Here comes Sana Claus.
Speaker 2: Here comes Sana Claus.
Speaker 1: Right down, Sana Claus.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You can't
be serious Podcasts.
Speaker 2: You were about to.
Speaker 3: Join the jolliest bunch of apatolls this side of the
North fall. Okay, Jason roll over, let them scratch a belly?
Speaker 1: Is that a shotgun in your pocket? You just have
you to say?
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: We are back today with part two of our comparison
of the movie Scrooge from nineteen eighty eight and Christmas
Vacation from nineteen eighty nine. A big matchup between mister
Bill Murray and mister Chevy Chase, who have been at
odds since the mid seventies.
Speaker 1: They got in a fistfight backstage and Saturday Night Live
I watched a video on this. They've become friendly since then.
Speaker 2: I'm calling bs.
Speaker 1: According to Chevy Chase, they've gone golfing together. That's water
under the bridge. But Bill Murray replaced Chevy Chase. Chevy
was gone out making you know, he left all those
guys in a lurch on Saturday Night Live's yeah, being
mister movie star, he.
Speaker 2: Thought he was going to be a star, and he is.
Speaker 1: He was, Oh yeah, he went off and made foul
play with Goldiehan and he's out there mooching Goldiehn while
everybody's back there working at Saturday Night Live. Anyway, he
came back to guest host Saturday Night Live in nineteen
seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, it turns out John Belushi was a little bit
jealous of his success, and so found out later that
John Belushi had been kind of stoking the fire about
Bill Murray about Chevy Chase being a freaking jerk.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and.
Speaker 1: So when he came back, they had some words. Anyway,
Chevy Chase went to the dressing room right before the
show goes on live TV and told Bill Murray said,
don't ever talk to me like that again if you
don't knock your head off, And Bill Murray got up
and charged him, and it was on like donkey Kong.
Speaker 3: I'm from Chicago, jerk, we are the Bears, Okay.
Speaker 1: Then John Belushi actually had to wedge between them. This
is five minutes before you go live from New York
and Saturday Night That is awesome. And then of course
they did Caddy Shack and they've become friendly since then.
Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, I just got to mention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked in our last episode about casting, and
there's and we talked about cameos. But there's just a
couple of cameos, not really acting cameos, but cameos that
I wanted to throw out there, and it's music cameos.
As they're walking through the street and talking in scrooged,
Bill Murray is talking to Johnsohn Murray. They're brothers, right,
And they go past these street musicians right. Well, the
first one you see is Miles Davis, I mean icon,
like maybe the most famous jazz musician of all time.
Speaker 2: He's playing with a few other guys.
Speaker 3: One of those is David Sanborn, who does all of
the music for the Lethal Weapons. He plays the saxophone.
He's got that wicked saxophone that you hear in all
the Lethal Weapon movies.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: And then the third guy that's there is mister Paul
Late Show Schaeffer playing the piano, who, of course he's
gonna be there because he was the guy who would
also play piano on Saturday Night Live when Bill Murray
would do his lounge singer act star wo nothing but
star wos.
Speaker 1: Paul Shaffer is the same person that Ronnie Spectra called
cute light Woody Ellen remember that No, I don't. Yes,
from our Dirty Dancing Soundtrack episode.
Speaker 2: We'll be sure and go check that out for Dancing
versus Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 1: Yes, Paul Shaffer is like, thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jason.
Speaker 1: It is Christmas time.
Speaker 3: It is Christmas time, and there are some folks out
there looking for the perfect package under their tree. Yes,
but what they should be doing is trimming their tree,
trimming their baggage.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 2: Well, guys, here's the deal.
Speaker 3: If you've got a present, it looks a lot bigger
when your tree is properly trimmed.
Speaker 1: Hey, missus, Klaus will appreciate you keeping your tree trimmed.
Speaker 3: Yes, So this holiday season, be sure and get yourself
or your loved one a man skin aped product. It
cleans you up, it makes you smell good, It is
totally worth it, and it is the perfect holiday package
to get.
Speaker 1: That's right. All you gotta do is go to manscape
dot com and put in the code serious twenty to
get twenty percent off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's better than milk and cookies.
Speaker 1: Whack it wack it. Let's talk about the opening of
these two movies. Okay, did you see these in the theater?
Speaker 3: I can say with some firmness that I saw Scrooged
in the theater. I remember seeing that one in the theater. Okay,
Christmas Vacation, I think I saw in the theater. I
will tell you this. When I first saw Scrooged, loved it. Yes,
when I first saw Christmas Vacation.
Speaker 2: Did not like it. Really, I did not like it.
Speaker 3: For the longest time, I would be like, it's number
three out of those first three, right, I mean number one,
Original Vacation, right, number two European number three Christmas. But
then years and years have passed since then. It's been
over three decades now and Christmas Vacation is crept to
the top of the trilogy list for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, it's just the rewatching, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, everybody knows it's a wonderful life.
Because Frank Caper let the rights go too early, so
it got to be on TV and it would show
up every year. Every year you'd see it, right, and
with Christmas Vacation was kind of the same thing. NBC
would get the rights to broadcast Christmas Vacation in December
every year, and so it was just something it was
a go to and by now it's, like I said,
it's part of the lexicon. We quote it, we love it,
and it's become near and dear to everyone's hearts and
me too.
Speaker 2: I absolutely love it. I watch it every single year
and I think it's great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I did not see Scrooged in the theater, and
I didn't see that until two, three or four years later,
maybe five years later. I didn't see that until much
much later. Christmas Vacation, I know. I saw that with
Patreon member Chris Bauer.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: I think we went on a double date and I think,
if my memory's right, we saw a Tango and Cash
on Friday night and Christmas Vacation on Saturday night, and
it was a great week. Scrooge was released November twenty third,
nineteen eighty eight, which is notable because when Bill Murray
looks at his watch when they go back in time,
it does mean.
Speaker 3: Fifty five by the way, yes, hello back to the future.
Speaker 1: No ninetif so when he looks it says November twenty third.
It's kind of weird because it's supposed to take place
on Christmas Eve. Okay, it says November twenty third, Well,
that was the date that the movie was being released.
It's a little bit okay. I got your budget on
Scrooge with thirty two million, and it made one hundred
million dollars worldwide.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's a big hit. Yeah, it's pretty good, okay, but
it's not regarded in the same way that Christmas Vacation is.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, it's about the test of time and
the rebroadcast over and over again.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. So Christmas Vacation budget twenty eight
million worldwide, seventy four million dollars.
Speaker 2: It didn't do as well.
Speaker 1: It did not do as well.
Speaker 3: So people are basically in my same camp. Like for
all of you who at the point that I said
this was kind of math for me or I didn't
like it as well, Hey, guess what I was in
the majority on that one.
Speaker 2: I just you know, I'm willing to admit to it.
Speaker 3: That was which just something that I think kind of
everybody thought this wasn't that great. It's just something about
the passage of time.
Speaker 1: By the way I've talked about this before. I'd love
nineteen eighty nine. I think the movie's released in nineteen
eighty nine stack up pretty well with everything, but maybe
nineteen eighty four. Christmas Vacation came in at number two
in the box office for two weeks before it reached
the number one spot. Any idea what the number one
movie was? This is December of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: Last Crusade.
Speaker 1: Nope, good guess though. Back to the Future two was
released on Thanksgiving of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: I couldn't compete with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, read Letter Day in History.
Speaker 1: I told you that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: By the way, just real quick, as long as we're
talking those dates, the next date that you see after
that nineteen fifty five is nineteen sixty eight. Yes, And
he's walking down the sidewalk and Karen Allen comes out
of the store and its Maxim in the face.
Speaker 2: With the door. You remember that part, yeah, I do. Well.
Speaker 3: If you look in the store very prominently, you can
see a velvet underground album. It's the white one with
the banana on it. It's the Andy Warhol album, which
actually you could peel the banana on that album. The
only reason I know it is because we were talking
about album covers a couple of weeks ago with our
friends and I was like, oh, I recognize. I was like, wow,
is it out Yep. Velvet Underground album came out in
sixty seven. This was nineteen sixty eight. It was absolutely
the perfect album to stick up on the wall. Well done,
Secon decorators.
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice. By the way, I wanted to bring this
up to you. I forgot to mention this to you. Yeah,
when Lee Majors comes and the Night the Reindeer Died
takes over and shoots bad guys and protects Santa and
the elves in the north Pole. That gun that he uses, yeah,
is the same gun that Jesse Ventroi uses in Predator.
Speaker 2: Wow. Nice.
Speaker 3: It's obviously a throwback to that that whole concept of
the big action hero guys that were going on in
the in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. Okay.
Speaker 1: I wish he would have said that he didn't have
time to bleed, but yeah.
Speaker 3: So on the note for just one more Kurt Russell connection,
if you will. In Christmas Vacation, at the very first
scene the Hillbillies in the truck that's tailgating. H Yeah, yeah,
that truck is the same truck that's in Overboard with
Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.
Speaker 1: Dude, that is awesome.
Speaker 2: You're blow in my mind here.
Speaker 1: Thanks, that's fantastic. Yeah, all right, before we get into tidbits,
I want to talk about the songs for just a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, we have composers or something. Okay, So do
you know who the composer was? Four scrooged.
Speaker 1: Actually, yes I do.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say you should because we've talked about
him before.
Speaker 3: We talked about him in our Dark Knight episode versus Batman.
Speaker 2: Batman.
Speaker 3: It is mister Danny Elfman himself, mister Simpson's mister anything
Tim Burton that you want to hear. By the way,
I'm really enjoying the New Wednesday series. I think it's fantastic.
Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: I have none?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's great. I love it.
Speaker 3: Okay, anyway, he is the composer in this one, and
I was totally shocked to see that he was our guy.
Danny Elfman has a very distinct sound and I don't
hear it. I don't hear it in this He even
said he was kind of disappointed with the music in
this one. He did find a sound that he ended
up using a bunch and other stuff, but this isn't
really his style. It's kind of just more generically Christmas.
It's well placed, it's good. He's got the creepy tones down,
as Danny Elfman would.
Speaker 1: Of course, but it's barely noticeable.
Speaker 3: It's barely it's barely noticeable, as Danny Elfman right now.
For the soundtrack, they had an original piece of music
come out with Annie Lennox and Al Green. Mister al Green,
who had been big in the seventies.
Speaker 2: I got an album of his right over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, but he had stopped singing and become
a preacher. Oh yeah, Okay, he was a preacher at
this point that this movie comes out. But this is
I mean, it's a happy Christmas song, but it's a
secular song. He actually caught flak for doing it, like
for not making a religious song. I don't really know
what the deal was with that one. But huge hit
from that time period.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this was an original song from nineteen sixty
nine sung by Jackie D. Shannon.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so I went and.
Speaker 1: Listened to hers it's it's great, you know, but you
know it's kind of folksy. It sounds like the lady
with the guitar and airplane, you know. It's a little bit,
you know, just kind of older sounding, but definitely anti.
Lynx and al Green gave it this boost of energy
and it it became a top ten hit in nineteen
eighty nine. Okay, yeah, now then I'm fixing blow your
socks off.
Speaker 2: You're ready for excited? Okay?
Speaker 1: So the top ten for January fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine,
when this song peaked at number nine, I'm gonna drop
this on you.
Speaker 2: Ready for this?
Speaker 1: Number ten The Way That You Loved Me by Karen White.
I love Karen White, but just put her this side
for a second, okay, okay. Number nine is put a
Little Love in Your Heart by Annie Lynx and Algreen. Okay,
Number eight I Remember Holding You by the Boys Club.
We talked about them in our Jets episode. It's the
Minneapolis Wham and number.
Speaker 3: Eight this is the one where they earned the exclamation
point exactly.
Speaker 1: Number seven is Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson. Number six
in Your Room by the Bengals.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Number five Armagednet by Def Leppard, Oh my gosh. Number
four Don't Rush Me by Taylor Dane. Number three every
Rose has its thorn like poison.
Speaker 2: What I would argue is the epitome of the rock ballad.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. We're gonna cover that album next season. Number
two Two Hearts by Phil Collins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Phil Collins, you couldn't escape him in the eighties.
Speaker 1: And number one My Prerogative by Bobby Brown.
Speaker 2: Oh the huge that's.
Speaker 1: A great top tip.
Speaker 2: Wasn't he a new edition? He was there?
Speaker 1: You go, Dave right.
Speaker 2: It feels like he married somebody famous too.
Speaker 1: But anyway, okay, now listen, I gotta throw this at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This song has been covered by a bunch of people. Okay.
It's been covered by the Isley Brothers, It's been covered
by the Circle Jerks. It's certainly been sung by Bill Murray.
We know that, Dolly Parton and get this Leonard Nimoy
on his nineteen seventy four album Outer Space Inner Mind
covers put a Little Love in Your Heart Leonard Nimoy.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Can we listen to that?
Speaker 3: You're just playing?
Speaker 4: Another day goes by and still the children and cry.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. The seventies was a weird time.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: You had Spock and Captain Kirk coming out with albums.
Man here and William Shatner singing Lucy and this Skuy
with diamonds is something specials Okay, So let's jump over
to Christmas Vacation. So in this one, we've got a
composer that probably most people haven't heard of. His name
is Angelo Battlamenti. Okay, not super well known. Yeah, big
four David Lynch movies. He was the composer for Muholland Falls,
Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, all of those David Lynch which
are all very kind of eerie, creepy music, which is
specifically why he was chosen for this movie.
Speaker 2: It's Christmas movie.
Speaker 3: But they wanted to have him be able to add
those kind of little dark comedy touches, and I think
he does a great job with this one.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you, the score for Christmas Vacation
is the one thing that brings this movie down in
my opinion. Oh okay, I feel like it's too goofy,
is too over the top. When Clark's hanging the Christmas
lights and he stables his shirt to the house. It's
like carnival music. There are times when this movie kind
of goes over the top and you get the barone,
you know, you get those weird sound effects.
Speaker 2: It's like the cartoon. It's like Chuck Jones.
Speaker 1: And it is the cartoon sound effects and stuff like that. Yeah,
to me, that's where it kind of loses. Yeah, yeah,
so interesting.
Speaker 2: We didn't mention this.
Speaker 3: I have no idea where to throw it in, so
I'm just gonna throw it in now, go for it.
The beginning is scrooged whenever I sit down and I'm
watching this again for the first time this time, Yeah,
do you know what I thought of that? It has
never occurred to me before. Starts off the same way
that the movie that is our namesake starts off.
Speaker 2: Airplane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's above the clouds. It's like your cruise and
above the clouds and an airplane. You hear the Jaws
theme and the airplane fin goes by.
Speaker 2: You remember all this, Well, this.
Speaker 3: One it starts off and it's in the clouds, and
then it descends through the clouds and we arrive at
the North Pole and that's when you get the scene
from the night the Reindeer died, but I thought this
has got to be a nod to airplane. Go watch
the beginning of Scrooged again and tell me if I'm wrong. Okay,
So there are a ton of great songs on this
soundtrack as well. Yes, one of them is the Christmas
Vacation's song that starts the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the soundtrack for Christmas Vacation didn't come out till
twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: Okay, you mean like on an album, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could buy everything had to be bootleg Like
if you had a copy of any of these songs,
it was bootlegged or napster or whatever. You couldn't buy
the CD or the album.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So the song Christmas Vacation, which to me has all
sort of those Christmas nostalgic vibes to it.
Speaker 3: I thought it was a Mariah Carey song. I told
you it was just like It's so Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: This was sung by Mavis Staples. Yeah, released as a
single December first, nineteen eighty nine. It doesn't chart. Here's
the thing. This song was added to the last second.
That's why none of the words of the song go
with the animation. Okay, they threw it in at the
last second. You know, you look around, you're like, man,
we don't have a holiday road, we don't have anything
to kind of make it more modern. Poppy top forty
feeling right. So they whipped this one up real quick,
dropped it in over the animated shorts.
Speaker 3: Did we mention that this you said it was by
Mavis Staples, Yes, tell me about her. She was with
a group called the Staples Singers. Yeah, and they had
a couple of hits. One was called I'll Take You.
Speaker 1: There, I'll take you There, and the other.
Speaker 2: One was Let's do it Again, Let's do it again,
Let's do it again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She was real big in R and B.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaking of R and B.
Speaker 3: Another great song from this movie, Ray Charles that Spirit
of Christmas.
Speaker 4: Most is the time movie.
Speaker 2: With the ones We love.
Speaker 1: Ray Child.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so perfect, and it's again it's one of
those things that John Hughes does so well where he
makes you like buy in with your heart and then
he rips the carpet out from under you and you
fall on your face.
Speaker 2: And it's hysterical.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: So you've got Clark getting trapped upstairs and he gets
fined to the old Christmas gift, by the way, nineteen
eighty three, the year that the original Vacation came out
perfect right, And then he starts watching the old movies.
It shows some of our actors in the movies as
younger people, and Ray Charles is playing and it's so
sweet and nostalgic, and then all of a sudden, she
yanks the attic door open and he.
Speaker 2: Comes Tom Tum tumbling down. It's absolutely hysterical.
Speaker 1: That part is really funny. One of the things I
like about that part is upstairs and he's cold and
he finds like a bin of old clothing and he
puts on like a turban and like pan gloves and
all this stuff.
Speaker 2: It's hysterical. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3: We've also got Me is the thing see that is
sung by Being Crosby and the Andrews Sisters Being Crosby
throw back to our Stranger Things episodes you just got
finished with. Yeah, fantastic White Christmas on that one. But
this one is the Hawaiian Christmas If you will.
Speaker 1: I told you my grandparents had this album.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we.
Speaker 1: Listened to it at Christmas time.
Speaker 3: It's funny because Rusty multiple times is like I knew
we should have gone to go White.
Speaker 2: That was where he wanted to be.
Speaker 3: There you go right, and then as I mentioned before,
you've got here comes Santa Claus by mister gene Autry,
third cousin to Randy Quaid uh huh, and Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer by Johnny Marks. And then you have
the star spangled banner written by mister Francis Scott.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's true. We also have Beverly D'Angelo and chevy
Chase singing Deck the halls, Oh come all you faithful,
and we wish you merry Christmas. Take it.
Speaker 2: Russ duck the holes with.
Speaker 1: When he's singing and oh come all you faithful, and
that oh come let us. Uh yeah, that's so funny.
Speaker 2: I think you mean eat my dust and burn.
Speaker 1: R Red Liver lips.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 1: By the way, Yeah, one connection. Chevy Chase gives the
flying Bird to the Hillbillies in the pickup truck Bill
Murray in one of the funniest scenes and Scrooge, he
steals a lady's cab. He comes up behind her says ma'am,
I think you drop something, and she's like, what, turns
around He jumps in her cab steals her cab. When
he shuts the door, she's like, hey, you're still in
my cab.
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh please please she so Swizz.
Speaker 1: Gives her the biggest finger.
Speaker 2: And she immediately flips and she's.
Speaker 1: Like you it's so funny. I love that scene.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Christmas Vacation, you've also got Silent Night and
the Twelve Days of Christmas performed by Miss Perry Koma.
Speaker 2: Wonderful.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that does it for the soundtrack. Now, there's
a couple of interesting kind of comparisons that.
Speaker 2: We can do on this movie.
Speaker 3: But one of the key parts of both of these
movies is a rant at the end of the yeah
for sure. Yeah, and they both have a kind of
a weird story behind him, right, Okay, So in I'm
gonna have to read this because I can't. I mean,
I can't keep it in my head. Oh ready, Yeah, Okay,
here goes And I want to look him straight in
the eye. I want to tell him what a cheap, lying,
no good, rotten, four flushing, low life, snake licking dirt,
eating inbread, over stuffed, ignorant, bloodsucking dog kissing, brainlessless, hopeless, heartless,
fat ass, bug eyed, stiff legs, body lipped, wormheaded, sack
of monkey.
Speaker 1: He is Hallelujah, Holy, where's the title of him?
Speaker 3: Now that I had to read right, and you're thinking, wow,
chevy Chase, to hold that all in your brain or
to even come up with it off the top of
your eade, right and magic?
Speaker 2: Right, Well, here's what happened.
Speaker 3: The cast members all had signs around their neck. You know,
they're all standing in the living room watching him go
on this rant. Well, when we see their backs are
wrapped around their necks, are the signs with four flushing.
Speaker 1: And monkeys and four flushing signs.
Speaker 3: Up on the walls behind him, So you'll see his
eyes dart around. He's picking up those little cues. He
delivers it masterfully.
Speaker 1: He delivers it masterfully.
Speaker 2: Yes, he does a great job with it. And the
end with.
Speaker 1: The where's the title and all? It's so funny.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: We talked about how Bruce Willis drops the ypika mother
effort in Die Hard like it's a friggin nuclear bomb, right,
chevy Chase is the exact same thing. The Hallelujah, Holy,
where's the tile?
Speaker 2: In all?
Speaker 4: Yeah, any of you are looking for any last minute
gift ideas for me, I have one.
Speaker 2: I like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight.
Speaker 4: I want him bought from his happy holiday slumber over
there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people.
Speaker 2: And I want to bought right here with a big.
Speaker 4: Ribbon on his head, and I want to look them
straight in the eye. I don't want to tell him
what a cheap line, no good rotten for flushing, low
life snake locking, dirt eating and bread over stuffed, ignorant,
blood sucking, dog kissing, brainlessless, hopeless, heartless.
Speaker 5: Fat ass, bug eyed stiff leg. It's funny that we're
headed sack of monkey. He is he Loyalli, where's the
title all?
Speaker 1: At that point, he is a deflated balloon, like it
all bubbled up Mount Vesuvius erupted. Where's the talent?
Speaker 3: Well, he's kind of the golden retriever most of the time, right,
He's always the guy who's like, just he's living the dream.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the greatest greatest Christmas ever.
Speaker 3: Since Bing Crosby danced with Danny Kay, dance with Danny
evn Kay.
Speaker 1: Yes, so he's he's lost it.
Speaker 2: At that point, completely lost it.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, and he's the upbeat who loses it and
completely falls on the flip side of that. We have
scrooged right right now. Mitch Glazer and o'dona hugh said
that the scene was the hardest scene for them to write.
The idea was, why can't every day be like Christmas
Day when people are nice to each other?
Speaker 2: Right, right?
Speaker 3: And I mean if you're thinking, you think about the
guy who was righting Saturday Night Live and X rated
Cartoons probably writing a happy, you know.
Speaker 1: Cheery little hard Yeah, it's a little hard, right, So
they had a terrible time trying to write this thing.
Speaker 2: And then when it comes time to.
Speaker 3: Shoot that scene, Frank Cross has finally left sanity and
everybody's right and he's been a little edgy if the
whole movie, and finally but then it's like this big
moment where instead of being the grouch, he turns into
the guy with hope, the guy who's preaching the dream
right right. Well, that scene, Bill Murray decided I'm not
following the script at all, he and so he wouldn't
hit his marks. He randomly made up words and ideas
and you can see the ramble I mean, there's no
question that there's a ramble there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it fits the moment, right, it fits Frank
Cross just having had this revelatory moment. It's like Scrooge
at the end of a Christmas Carol where suddenly, Hey,
the lights have come on and I'm doing all this
crazy stuff, giving away my money, promoting my partner, all.
Speaker 2: This other stuff.
Speaker 3: Right, But he does all of that and the rest
of the audience completely buys in, Like I would find
it hard to buy in, I gotta say, but the
rest of the actors on the set completely buy in.
And by the end, when he's done, the place erupts
in applause. The only guy who's not applauding is a Donahue,
and he says, what was this Jim Jones hour And Donner,
who is also bought in at this point, is so
irritated that he punches him in the arm so bad
that he like it hurts for the next three weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Donner says, this is perfect. This is exactly
what we need. It's a masterful ending. Yeah, what do
you think you with it?
Speaker 3: It's like I said, if I was one of the
actors at the end of this thing, I'd be like,
I don't know. At the time. First time I saw it,
I had completely bought in. You know, sure, exploding oxygen tank,
Sure sounds great, I'm in.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This time, this Mauricent time, I thought it was even
funnier than I've ever thought it was before.
Speaker 2: But that last scene, for me, I.
Speaker 3: Was just like, Hm, I can tell that he's totally
improvising everything that he's doing here, and I don't know
that it hits as well as I thought it did
back then.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think it's gold. I think it's gold. His
flip happens a little bit quick for me. Yeah, it's
not quite as quick, but similar to the flip that
Anakin makes in the episode three, all of a sudden
he's good and then he's bad. Right, right, Well, he
goes from cynical, grumpy Frank Cross to explodes into joy
and that's the whole point of the movie. I get it,
and it's great. I really wish I could have experienced
it in the theater right left side now, okay, right,
so I know, just the ladies, right, Okay, No, the
real ladies. That would have been a lot of fun. Yeah,
but I think it's Gold and Bobcat Goldthwaite holding the
people hostage with the shotgun in the control room, the
Solid Gold Dancers, the kissing under the mistletoe, Karen Allen
peeking around the corner. It's gold. I love it.
Speaker 2: You bought it.
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for it.
Speaker 2: You bought it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, well good.
Speaker 3: I got to tell you today at the office, like
literally at my office, the guys were talking Christmas bonuses,
and we're They're just talking.
Speaker 2: They're going back and forth, and I'm like, two, how howell.
Speaker 3: And by the end they were they were walking through
the whole office going tow.
Speaker 1: Vcrwe that's fun.
Speaker 2: Your brother, your only brother, cow.
Speaker 1: Last year, I got a shower, Curt. Okay, I got
a few tidbits just when we cover pretty much everything. Yeah,
so just a couple of tidbits from Scrooge, so flip
the Scrooge. Carol Caine, when she first shows up as
the Ghost of Christmas pres she makes the comment she says,
I'm a little muddled. Yeah, that's directly from the Wizard
of Oz. The good Witch. She shows up and says
I'm a little muddled.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That blew right over my head.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing.
Speaker 3: We talked about how Bill Murray said, I want you
to go ahead and hit me as hard as you can, right,
you know, fight club, give it to me, And she
actually tore his lip. She was she was broken up
about this, Like she would have crying fits that would
go on for an hour or so because she was
so upset about the violence. I don't really understand that.
Carol Kane's a different kind of animal, I guess, but.
Speaker 1: That was my other tibot.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry that she No, it's okay.
Speaker 1: She would have these manic episodes where she would cry
about the violence. Yeah, it was freaking funny as crap. Oh,
so she stole the show, she did, And the fact
that she tore his lip. They had to give him
like three or four days off because she wrote the
crap out of his lip. And when you watch him
in the movie, he's kind of like, you know, oh man,
her whole apart. I just think his gold. I wanted
to bring up the audience participation, but you already did.
And then the fact that John Housman, the narrator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the old man from Paper Chase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the guy who's narrating the actual Christmas story
TV show.
Speaker 2: We made it the old fashioned earned it.
Speaker 1: That's that guy. Yes, yeah, put America's favorite old fart
on TV. Yeah, he died before he could watch the movie. Oh,
he passed away before they could reach the movie. By
the way, I don't know if we covered this or not,
but I want to mention this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They started filming in December of nineteen eighty seven for
this movie. So December of eighty seven to April of
eighty eight, Donner went to the studio and said, hey, guys,
I know it's a Christmas movie, but can we give
everybody Christmas off right, like Christmas Day?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And they're like, no, sorry, keep going Scrooge right right
by humbug, which Bill Murray does work in, which is
perfectly Oh dropped. The Hunter worked out this deal where
he fired everybody for one day. I love it, and
the studio is like wait what. Yeah, He's like, sorry,
I fired everybody, and then he re hired them on
December the twenty sixth.
Speaker 2: It's brilliant. You gotta love Richard donnerd God rest his soul.
That was awesome.
Speaker 1: What a stud Okay, Christmas vacation hit me? Okay, I
think we mentioned this but Uncle Lewis, the actor who
played him, was aged sixty two when they filmed this. Yes,
Aunt Bethany.
Speaker 2: Yeah in her eighties eighty one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then we talked about it, you know, Chris
Columbus said, I can't do this. I really want to
do this movie. I cannot work with this guy. Chevy
Chase is not going to work. And so John Hughes said, hey,
slide over to Home Alone. Home Alone did six times
the business that Christmas Vacation did on a smaller budget,
on ten million dollars less.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The thing to remember about that is there will be
moments in your life that you're like, I've just lost
the Golden Ring.
Speaker 2: I just missed out.
Speaker 3: Everything is ruined, and then less than a year later,
it's like, oh my goodness, I've totally gotten something so
much better that has entirely changed my life.
Speaker 1: So D believes in the Christmas.
Speaker 2: Miracles all a part of the big plan.
Speaker 1: Okay, two other tidbits on Christmas Vacation. One that I
have never got fully until last Christmas. Okay, oh gosh, okay,
all right, now you know about this, and most everybody
in our audience knew about this, except for me. And
the reason why it is because I had never watched
It's a Wonderful Life until last Christmas. Oh right, Yeah,
So we did a podcast with the thirty something guys
where they had me on. They wanted me Jason's seen right,
and so they had me. I watched it and then
I did a podcast with them, and of course, I mean,
I loved it. I was under the spell. It was amazing.
But the broken nule on the staircase in Christmas Vacation,
when chevy Chase loses his mind, it wobbles, He's like
fired up the chainsaw. What takes it right off is
like fix the knoll. Yeah, and it was funny, yeah,
but it's also symbolic for what happens in It's wonder.
Speaker 2: Back to Frank Capra.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Frank Capra, this movie was very Frank Capra esque, Right.
They're trying to not only get this ridiculous comedic stuff
going on, but they're trying to get that Frank Capra feel.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking this as I'm watching it.
Speaker 3: I hear even the people on the commentary saying, I
think that Frank Capra even comes up at some point,
And then they keep talking through the credits and all
of a sudden, I'm like, holy crap, Frank Capra, the
third was the second assistant director on this movie.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Now you might tell everybody who Frank Capra is.
Speaker 2: Frank Capra is the guy who directed its Wonderful Life.
Speaker 1: Okay, fantastic, Yeah, okay, we.
Speaker 2: Just needed a new coffin, I mean tree.
Speaker 1: At the end when the Chicago p D breaks into
the house, busts in, flies in the windows, and the
Grizzwolds are under attack at.
Speaker 2: That moment, the Battle of Algiers.
Speaker 1: If you notice, you may I noticed, Yeah, I noticed
where Ellen's hand is. Ellen's hand is on Clark's balls.
Speaker 2: Yep, she's She's holding this scroutch.
Speaker 1: You watching it, and he's like, she's got his hands up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, her hand is on his balls. She said they did,
I mean, they did that take over and over again.
She said she only did it on one take, but
that was the take that they kept.
Speaker 1: It was so funny.
Speaker 3: Then beautifully, as the boss is introducing his wife, she
takes her hand to shake her hand and then puts, yes, gold,
brilliant it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that does it for tidbits for me, okay, So,
just a couple of quotes I wanted to talk about
from both movies. Okay, all right, Yeah, we talked about
the how you can barely see them nipples? Yes, ad lived,
he's really looker. And then you are a hallucination brought
on by alcohol Russian vodka poisoned by Chernobyl. Yes, kind
of a current event at the time, right, a semi
current event, but really where he walks up to the
waiter and douses him with water and says, I'm so
sorry I thought you were a Richard Pryor.
Speaker 2: Yes, fine line of the movie.
Speaker 1: It's the funniest line of the movie. And I didn't
know what that meant until later on in life.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So, And just for people who don't know, Richard Pryor
set himself on fire with a crack pipe.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's just no simpler way to put it.
Speaker 1: He lives doing drugs and had alcohol and it caught
fire and it nearly killed him, nearly killed it.
Speaker 2: Nearly drugs nearly killed him.
Speaker 1: And not the fun way, right, that's right, in the
painful way. Yes, let me tell you a line that
cracks me up every time. Okay, okay, And as a father.
You can appreciate this, right, Yes, when you're trying to
do something, talk to someone, you're at church, you're at
the house, you're doing something, and there's this weird noise
going on that will not stop. Will you please stop
with the d D having whenever he does that, like
five times and it just busts me up. Would your
play hold on?
Speaker 5: God damning now?
Speaker 3: Okay, So there's one other thing, when the homeless people
come to him and they're and they're like, oh, mister Burton,
could you please do something like that was completely ad lived,
like he did not know that they were going to
start doing that. And by the way, we totally missed
throw Mama from the Train, the Goonies Mom, she was
there last performances. But she's there with these guys.
Speaker 1: Her husband is the other homeless guy.
Speaker 3: Oh really, okay, that's great, that's great. So they're in
there and they're they they're acting like they think he's
Richard Burton, right, which doesn't make any sense. It never
made any sense to me because Bill Murray looks nothing
like Richard Burton, but somehow he goes into this perfect
Richard burden.
Speaker 1: Please just throw a couple of lines from him, please.
Speaker 5: Before the same, leave me alone, give me, imagine for me, leave.
Speaker 1: Me, please do it for Eva.
Speaker 4: I am coming out me hold you.
Speaker 5: Oh no, you go. You know my whole night hold
I swear by day, I full swear it's not.
Speaker 2: Beat it before I creak.
Speaker 3: It was a Saturday Night Live bit that he did.
I had no idea until we started to look at this.
I was like, oh, well, there you go. Like my god,
they had seen the Saturday Night Live bit. He didn't
know it was coming, but he melted right in.
Speaker 1: With them and they gave him something to drink and
he's like no, and then he pours it and it
just pours on the floor. He's like, thank you. So funny. Yeah, okay,
let's flip back to Christmas Vacation. Talk about some of
our favorite coaches from that movie, which we drop all
the time. Absolutely, anytimes I'm in a room and it's cold. Yeah,
everybody I'm around who's basically our age says, it's a
bit nippley in here, right, It's part of the did
I say Neville, It's part of the lexicon now right.
Everybody just says.
Speaker 2: It absolutely a funny line.
Speaker 1: And you and I talked about how why is the
carpet all at Todd?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Margo.
Speaker 3: They literally have that on streets. Why is the road
all icee? I don't know, Margo.
Speaker 1: One line that always cracks me up is when cousin
Eddie said, every time Catherine reved up the microwave, I
pissed my pants and forgot how I was for half
an hour.
Speaker 3: Okay, can we talk about that scene for just a second.
So that's the scene where they're sledding right right, and
he's talking about the.
Speaker 1: Plate in his head and my part is ain't gonna
look good?
Speaker 3: Right, and then Clark shoots down the hill on the
sled and goes skimming along.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's crazy for a bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not super funny, okay, just kind of funny. And
at the very end, cousin Eddie goes bingo. Yeah, and
it's not funny at all. It's completely meaningless.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you have any explanation for that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, No, I don't know why that scene's in the movie. Like,
I literally, I'm like, because they had a scene where
like Julia Luis Dreyfus comes into the RV and confronts
Beverly DiAngelo and missis scanny and I could drum like
that would have been a great scene to have in it.
I don't understand why that sledding scene is there at all.
Speaker 1: As my dad's favorite scene. Get out of two loves
that scene, and to me, it's I'm with you. It's
over the top. Like he he gets on this, you know,
he puts that stuff that's supposed to make it super
slick and it shoots off like a rocket. I'm like,
it's a little bit. It's cartoon it's cartooning. I wish
they could tone down the cartooniness and uh maybe raise
the PG thirteen level up just to touch well. We'll
talk about our final judgment here in a minute.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, yeah, we were talking about quotes right now. Yes,
and we cannot reach the end. I'm gonna let you
keep going, but we cannot reach the end without the
greatest quote of the movie. Okay, what's hey, Griswold, where
do you think you're gonna put a tree that big
ben over?
Speaker 1: And I'll show you. You got a lot of nerve
talking to me like that. I'm talking to you.
Speaker 2: Best line in all.
Speaker 3: Of the vacation movies in all of the Saturday Night
Live movies. I mean, that is not only hysterical, it is,
if not the most quoted line of all time, definitely
the most quoted Christmas line of all time.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, the cousin Eddie line.
Speaker 2: Do you hear that?
Speaker 1: You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitro?
What's that noise? One of the scenes I wanted to
mention to you that I think is just hilarious is
the tree when it catches. The tree catches on fire.
Uncle Lewis catches on fire. Yeah, and it's subtle comedy, right,
So he's in there and you hear this like off
screen was like yeah, and then you look in there
and everything's smoking. Look what you've done on my twee.
Speaker 2: Super funny.
Speaker 3: So and then there's also, of course the cat and
Bethany wraps her cat up and.
Speaker 1: Catch with that right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what a beautiful ad lib moment where Beverly
D'Angelo puts her finger in the goo in the other
package and Randy Quaid licks it off.
Speaker 2: Classic moment.
Speaker 3: But the cat is chewing on the cords and then
Clark plugs the cords in and you hear it and
there's nothing but a cat shaped burn mark underneath the chair.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: That thing had nine lives, she just spent them all.
Speaker 3: So the producers are like, we cannot put that in
the movie, and the director was begging them. He's like,
you cannot, you cannot take this out of I think
when they got done with their screening, it was the
audience's number one pick as the funniest scene in the movie. Okay,
it's a whatever for me, but I think at that time,
actually having an animal die. And here's another stream of
events on the National Lampoons movies, National Lampoon Animal House
horse dies, the National Lampoon Vacation, the dog, the crying
police officer, the wretch Deacons in European Vacation. I think,
like a dog jumps off of a building or something.
I mean, it's it's a theme throughout all the National
Lampoon movies.
Speaker 1: A dog jumps off the Eiffel Tower. Oh, yes, thank you,
he doesn't die. But yeah, before we left, you drank
half a quarter of pens oil when he lifted his
leg the next morning. Okay, so are we ready for
final judgment to do it?
Speaker 2: You go me go first? You go first.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when we came up with this, I was
way more familiar with Christmas Vacation than I was Scrooge.
I think I had seen Scrooge like twice, and once
as a teenager and once maybe as a twenty something,
so it had been a long time. So when I
watched it again as an older man, I identified a
lot more with the Bill Murray character. He's career driven,
he's got these issues, he's got anger, he's got regret,
he's got guilt, but he's powered through all this because
that's what he's supposed to do. And he's sarcastic and
he's jaded, and then the joy comes through. Okay, So
I absolutely loved Scrooged. Christmas Vacation has been a family
Christmas holiday tradition for me forever. I know every line
in the movie like I know it backwards and forwards.
There are some things that are too cartoony for me.
We talked about how when he forgets the saw to
pull out the Christmas tree, then you get that boy oling.
You know, when Santa catches on fire at the very end,
and the rocket's read glare and it's flying around. So
there are parts that are too cartoony, too buffoony for me,
but this is still undeniable. Christmas Vacation Scrooge was better
and kind of rose in the ranks for me. Christmas
Vacation held steady. But for me, it's Christmas Vacation all
day long.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, this is really hard for me. Okay.
Speaker 3: When I very first saw both of the movies, easy choice,
it was Scrooged, Okay, because it's better movie. Bill Murray
is funnier, it's better directed, better effects, doesn't have the
cartoony nonsense. I mean, you've got some supernatural stuff going on,
but it's the understanding that this is crazy. I mean,
it's like unbelievable, what's happening to this guy? And that's
a part of the movie, Whereas with Christmas Vacation, it
was kind of just a bunch of dumb, sticky Saturday
Night live bit kind of things and this very thin
story about the swimming pool and the boss and the bonus,
I mean, paper, paper thin.
Speaker 2: But what's happened over thirty.
Speaker 3: Three years I quit watching Scrooged, but I kept watching
Christmas Vacation. Okay, over and over it became funnier and funnier,
and I think.
Speaker 2: That it's just one of those movies.
Speaker 3: Number one, it wins on the rewatchability scale, definitely.
Speaker 2: It just does.
Speaker 3: You don't have to think, you don't have to do anything,
You just get to sit there and just have a
great time with this ridiculous movie, which is why I
think is probably more popular than Scrooge does now. I
will say this, when I went back to Scrooged, Holy cow,
it was just as it was better than it was
that I saw it the first time. It was better,
Like I like it better now than back when I
saw it. When I liked it better than Christmas Vacation.
They do totally brilliant movie. I will start watching it
again every single year. But you and I are on
the same page on this one, all right, Christmas Vacation
it just wins out. It's not as good of a movie,
but it's just means more to me.
Speaker 1: Perfect. Okay, wow, so we're in agreement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens sometimes.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, it does happen not very often. We would
love to hear from you, guys, what do you think
Christmas Vacation? Scrooged is this Chevy Chase at his best
is this Bill Murray at his best.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 3: Guys, Be sure and go check out our friends at
the Thirty Somethings podcast. They check out movies that are
thirty years old. We love them. We've done a show
with them on the Star Wars Holiday Special, which is
a fantastic holiday listen.
Speaker 2: If you want to go do that.
Speaker 3: Also, go check out our friends at a Film Buy.
We just did a bit for them where we ranked
our favorite movies of nineteen eighty six. They have a
whole series on those movies from nineteen eighty six that
is an absolute joy to listen to. Be sure and
check them out as well. Guys, we love you. Merry Christmas.
Thank you for sticking with us through one more season again.
And I think there's only one way that.
Speaker 2: We can end this. I pledge allegiance to.
Speaker 3: The flag of the United States of America and to
the Republic, for.
Speaker 1: Which it stands, one nation under.
Speaker 3: God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all Playball.
Speaker 2: I mixed my metaphors there, but that's a.
Speaker 1: That's a good yeah, okay. D So that wraps it
up for Christmas vacation and Scrooge for us. If you
enjoy our holiday episodes. We've done Christmas Vacation Now in Scrooge.
Last season, we did Home Alone and a Christmas Story.
The year before that, we did Diehard and Lethal Weapon.
We've also done the Star Wars Holiday special, so that's
seven Christmas episodes that you can listen to.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun and easier to deal within
your family.
Speaker 5: Would your playfauld on, God damn covering now