Speaker 1: Seasons.
Speaker 2: Greetings Shirley fans.
Speaker 3: This is Jeff Johnson from a film by podcast and
nothing jingles my bells better than the Shiley you Can't
Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 2: Happy holidays, folks, wherever you may be.
Speaker 1: Here comes Sana Claus. Here comes Sana Claus.
Speaker 2: Right down, Sana Claus.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley you Can't
Be Serious podcasts. You are about to join the jolliest
buns of acatoles this side of the North Fall.
Speaker 4: Okay, Jason, roll over, let them scratch your belly?
Speaker 2: Is that a shotgun in your pocket? You just have
you to see?
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: A big matchup between.
Speaker 3: Mister Bill Murray and mister Chevy Chase, who have been
at odds since the mid seventies.
Speaker 2: They got in a fistfight backstage is Saturday Night Live.
I watched a video on this. They've become friendly since then.
Speaker 1: I'm calling bs.
Speaker 2: 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 the lurch on Saturday Night Live. He's absolutely yeah,
being mister movie star.
Speaker 1: He thought he was going to be a star and
he is.
Speaker 2: He was, Oh yeah, he went off and made foul
play with Goldie Han and he's out there just mooching
Goldie Han 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 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: 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. Oh okay,
and 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 never 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 de bear. It's Okay.
Speaker 2: Then John Belushi actually had to wedge between them. This
is five minutes before You Go Live from New York
and Saturday Night.
Speaker 1: That is awesome.
Speaker 2: And then of course they did Caddy Shack and they've
become friendly since then.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, I just got to mention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked in our last episode about casting there,
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 John hn 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 times.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: He plays the saxophone.
Speaker 3: He's got that wicked saxophone that you hear in all
the Lethal Weapon movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the.
Speaker 3: 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 Woes nothing but star Wos.
Speaker 2: Paul Schaeffer is the same person that Ronnie Spector called
cutel like Woody Ellen. Remember that no, I don't Yes
from our Dirty Dancing Soundtrack episode.
Speaker 3: We'll be sure and go check that out Dancing versus
Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 2: Yes, Paul Shaffer is like, thank you, 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.
Speaker 1: Package under their tree.
Speaker 3: Yes, but what they should be doing is trimming their tree,
trimming their backage.
Speaker 1: Yes. 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 2: 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 manscaped 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 2: 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 1: Yeah, it's better than milk and cookies. Wack it, wack it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the opening of these two movies. Okay,
did you see these.
Speaker 1: 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, did.
Speaker 1: 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, 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 has crept to the
top of that trilogy list for me. Okay, interesting, it's
just the rewatching, right, I mean, you know everybody knows
it's a wonderful life because Frank Capra let the rights
go too early, so it got to be on TV
and it would show.
Speaker 1: Up every year.
Speaker 3: Every year you'd see it, right, and with Christmas Vacation
is 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.
I absolutely love it. I watch it every single year
and I think it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: 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. I think we went on a double
date and I think, if my memory is right, we
saw Tango and Cash on Friday night and Christmas Vacation
on Saturday night and it was a great weekend. 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.
Speaker 1: Mean fifty five.
Speaker 3: By the way, Yes, hello, back to the future.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit okay.
Speaker 2: I got you budget on Scrooge with thirty two million,
and it made one hundred million dollars worldwide.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. So Christmas Vacation budget twenty eight
million worldwide, seventy four million dollars.
Speaker 1: It didn't do as well.
Speaker 2: 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 mad for me, or I didn't
like it as well. Hey, guess what, I was in
the majority on that one. I just you know, I'm willing.
Speaker 1: To admit to it.
Speaker 3: That was just something that I think kind of everybody
thought this wasn't that great.
Speaker 1: It's just something about the passage of time.
Speaker 2: By the way, I've talked about this before, I'd love
nineteen eighty nine. I think the movies 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 1: Last Crusade.
Speaker 2: Nope, good guess though. Back to the Future two was
released on Thanksgiving of nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: I couldn't compete with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, read Letter Day in History.
Speaker 2: 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 maximum in the face with the door.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: Was like, oh, I recognize. I was like, wow, was
it out? Yep.
Speaker 3: 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, SEC decorators.
Speaker 2: 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 1: 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. Oh wow, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I wish he would have said that he didn't have
time to bleed, but yeah.
Speaker 3: So on that 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.
Speaker 5: Nah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that truck is the same truck that's in
Overboard with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.
Speaker 2: Dude, that is awesome. You're blow in my mind here. Thanks,
that's fantastic. Yeah, all right, before we get into tidbits,
I want to talk about the songs for just a second.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we have composers or something.
Speaker 3: Okay, So do you know who the composer was four scrooged.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes I do.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say you should because we've talked about
him before. We talked about him in our Dark Night
episode versus Batman.
Speaker 1: Batman.
Speaker 3: It is mister Danny Elfman himself, mister Simpson's mister anything
Tim Burton that you.
Speaker 1: Want to hear.
Speaker 3: By the way, I'm really enjoying the New Wednesday series.
I think it's fantastic. Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: I have no, 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, of course, but it's barely noticeable.
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 1: I got an album of his right over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, 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 it's a secular song.
He actually caught flak for doing it, like for not
making religious song. I don't really know what the deal
was with that one, but huge hit from that time period.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this was an original song from nineteen sixty nine,
sung by Jackie D. Shannon.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so I went and.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit, you know, just kind of older sounding. Yeah,
but definitely anti. Lynx and al Green gave it this
boost of energy and it became a top ten hit
in nineteen eighty nine. Okay, yeah, now then I'm fixing
bow your socks off.
Speaker 1: You're ready for excited? Okay?
Speaker 2: So the top ten for January fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine,
when this song peaked at number nine, I'm gona drop
this on you? Ready for this? Number ten The Way
that You Love 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 Lys 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
eight this is the one.
Speaker 1: Where they earned the exclamation point exactly.
Speaker 2: Number seven is Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, Huge, number
six in Your Room by the Bengals. Yeah, Number five,
Armagednett by a def Leppard. Number four Don't Rush Me
by Taylor Dane. Number three Every Rose has its thorn
like poison.
Speaker 3: What I would argue is the epitome of the rock ballad.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. We're gonna cover that album next season. Number
two two Hearts by Phil Collins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Phil Collins, you couldn't escape him in the eighties.
Speaker 2: And number one My Prerogative by Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1: Oh the huge.
Speaker 2: That's a great top tip.
Speaker 1: Wasn't he a new edition? He was there?
Speaker 2: You go, Dave right.
Speaker 1: It feels like he married somebody famous too.
Speaker 2: But anyway, okay, now listen, I gotta throw this at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This song has been covered by a bunch of people.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: 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 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Can we listen to that.
Speaker 5: You're just played Another Day goes By and the Child
and cry line your heart.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the seventies was a weird time.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 3: You had Spock and Captain Kirk coming out with albums.
Man here and William Shatner singing Lucy in the Sky
with diamonds is something specialsh 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.
Speaker 1: He was chosen for this movie.
Speaker 3: It's Christmas movie, 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 2: 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,
it's 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 barrel,
you know, you get those weird sound effects.
Speaker 1: It's like the cartoon. It's like Chuck Jones and.
Speaker 2: It is the cartoon sound effects and stuff like that. Yeah,
to me, that's where it kind of loses me. Yeah, yeah,
so interesting.
Speaker 1: We didn't mention this.
Speaker 3: I have no idea where to throw it in, so
I'm just going to throw it in now, go for it.
The beginning is scrooged. Whenever I sit down and I'm
watching this again, 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 1: 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. Remember all this, Well,
this 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.
Speaker 1: From the night the Reindeer died.
Speaker 3: 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 2: Yeah, the soundtrack for Christmas Vacation didn't come out un
till twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Okay, you mean like on an album, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You can buy everything had to be bootlegg 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 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: 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,
I was just like, it's so christmas y.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This was sung by Mavis Staples.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: 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. No, 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 1: Did we mention that this you said it was by
Mavis Staples.
Speaker 2: Yes, tell me about her.
Speaker 3: She had. She was with a group called the Staples Singers. Yeah,
and they had a couple of hits. One was called
I'll Take.
Speaker 2: You There, I'll take you There, and the other.
Speaker 3: One was Let's do It Again, Let's do again, Let's
do it again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. She was real big in R and B.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Speaking of R and B, another great song from this movie,
Ray Charles that spirit of Christmas.
Speaker 1: Christmas is the time of being with the ones we.
Speaker 2: Love 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, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: So you've got Clark getting trapped upstairs and he gets
fined the old Christmas gift by the way, nineteen eighty three,
the year that the Original Vacation came out, traffic 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 nostalgia.
And then all of a sudden, she yanks the.
Speaker 1: Attic door open and he comes tom Tum tumbling down.
It's absolutely hysterical.
Speaker 2: 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 turbine and like pink gloves and
all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's hysterical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: We've also got me is the thing? See that is.
Speaker 3: Sung by Being Crosby and the Andrews Sisters Being Crosby
throw back to our Stranger Things episodes. She just got
finished with. Yeah, fantastic white Christmas on that one. But
this one is the Hawaiian Christmas. If you will, I
told you my grandparents had this album. Oh yeah, we
listened to it at Christmas time. It's funny because Rusty
multiple times is like.
Speaker 1: I knew we should have gone to Go White. That
was where he wanted to be. There you go right.
Speaker 3: 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 2: Yes, that's true. We also have Beverly DiAngelo and Chevy
Chase singing Deck the Halls, Oh come all you faithful,
and we wish you merry Christmas. Take it Russ Duck
the holes when he's singing and oh come all you faithful,
and that oh come let us. Uh yeah, that's so funny.
Speaker 1: I think you mean eat my dust and burn.
Speaker 2: Red liver lips hey 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 in Scrooge, he steals the lady's cab. He comes
up behind her, says ma'am, I think you dropped 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 cabin.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh please please She.
Speaker 2: Swizz gives her the biggest finger and she immediately flips
and she's like, you is 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 mister Perry Como.
Speaker 1: Wonderful.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that does it for the soundtrack. Now, there's
a couple of interesting kind of comparisons that.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: The yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they both have a kind of a weird
story behind him.
Speaker 3: 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, dirk eating inbread, over stuffed, ignorant, bloodsucking,
dog kissing, brainlessless, hopeless, heartless, fat ass, bug eyed, stiff legs,
body lipped, wormheaded.
Speaker 1: Sack of monkey.
Speaker 2: He is hallelujah, Holy, where's the time on her?
Speaker 1: Now? That I had to read right?
Speaker 3: And you're thinking, wow, chevy Chase, to hold that in
your brain or to even come up with it off
the top of your right, right right and magic right.
Speaker 1: 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 at
wrapped around their necks are the signs with four flushing
and monkeys and four flushing there signs 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 2: He delivers it masterfully.
Speaker 1: Yes, he does a great job with it. And the
end with.
Speaker 3: The where's the title and all, it's so funny.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: We talked about how Bruce Willis drops the yipika mother
effort in Die Hard like it's a friggin nuclear bomb.
Chevy Chase is the exact same thing. The Hallelujah Holy
where's the tile in all?
Speaker 6: Yeah, any of you are looking for any blast minute
gift ideas, right, I have one, like Frank Shirley, my boss,
right here tonight. I want them bought from his holiday
slumber over there a melody lane with all the other
rich people. And I want to book right here with
a big ribbon on his head, and I want to
look him straight in the eye. I don't want to
tell him what a cheap lying, no good, rotten for flushing,
low life, snake licking, dirt eating and bread over stuff, ignorant,
blood fucking dog kissing, brainlessless, hopeless, heartless, fat ass, bug
eyed stiff leg It's funny.
Speaker 2: We're ever headed sack.
Speaker 6: Of monkey sh he is, I know, Yah, where's the
title all?
Speaker 2: 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 2: We're gonna have the greatest, greatest Christmas ever.
Speaker 1: Since being Cries danced with Danny Kay dance with Danny
e Kay.
Speaker 3: Yes, so he's he's lost it at that point, completely
lost it, yes, well, and he 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'donahue
said that the end 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 5: Right?
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: So they had a terrible time trying to write this thing.
And then when it comes time to 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.
Speaker 1: You can see the ramble. I mean, there's no question
that there's a ramble there.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it fits the.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 1: All 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 2: Yeah, yeah, Donner says, this is that's 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 extrogen tank,
Sure sounds great.
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this time, this Marius.
Speaker 3: In time, I thought it was even funnier than I've
ever thought it was before. But that last scene for me,
I 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 2: 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 know, just the ladies right Okay, no, the real ladies.
That would have been a lot of fun. But I
think it's Gold and Bobcat gold Wait 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.
Speaker 1: I love it. You bought it.
Speaker 2: I'm a sucker for it.
Speaker 1: You bought it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, well good, I gotta tell you. Today, at
the office, like literally at my office, the guys were
talking Christmas bonuses and we're they're just talking. They're going
back and forth, and I'm like tw.
Speaker 1: Pow Powell.
Speaker 3: And by the end they were they were walking through
the whole office going.
Speaker 1: Towel vcr tow.
Speaker 2: That's fun. Your brother, your only brother, cow last year,
I got a shark herd Okay, I got a few tidbits. Well,
we cover pretty much everything. Yeah, so just a couple
of tibbits from Scrooge, so flip the Scrooge.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Carol Caine, when she first shows up as the ghost
of Christmas Present, 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. Yeah, that blew right over my head.
Speaker 3: The interesting thing 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 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.
Speaker 1: I don't really understand that.
Speaker 3: Carol Caine's a different kind of animal, I guess, but
that was my other tibit.
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry that she No, it's okay.
Speaker 2: 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 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 part, 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, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The old man from Paper Chase. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the guy who's narrating the actual Christmas story TV show.
Speaker 1: We made it the old fashioned earned it. That's that guy.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, put America's favorite old fart on TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: 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. 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 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And they're like no, sorry, keep going Scrooge right right
by Humbug, which Bill Murray does work in, which is
perfectly dropped. But Donner 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 3: It's brilliant. You gotta love Richard Donner. God rest his soul.
That was awesome.
Speaker 2: 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 1: Yeah, in her eighties eighty one.
Speaker 2: 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 the Christmas Vacation on a smaller budget, on
ten million dollars less.
Speaker 1: 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, like I just missed out. 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 2: So de believes in the Christmas miracles.
Speaker 1: It's all a part of the big plan.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2: 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 never
seen yeah right, ye, and so they had me. I
watched it and then I did a podcast with him,
and of course, I mean I loved it. I was
under the spell.
Speaker 1: It was amazing.
Speaker 2: But the broken nule on the staircase and 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was funny, yeah, but it's also symbolic for
what happens, and it's one of.
Speaker 1: Fact to Frank Capra.
Speaker 3: Speaking of Frank Capra, this movie was very Frank Capra esque.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: They're trying to not only get this ridiculous comedic stuff
going on, but they're trying to get that Frank Capra feel.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking this as I'm watching it. 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 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: Now you might tell everybody who Fink Capra is.
Speaker 1: Frank Capra is the guy who directed its Wonderful Life Okay.
Speaker 7: Fantastic, Yeah, okay, we just needed a new cough I
mean tree 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 that.
Speaker 8: Moment, the Battle of Algiers ahead. If you notice, you
may I noticed, Yeah, I noticed where Ellen's hand is.
Ellen's hand is on Clark's balls.
Speaker 1: Yep, she's she's holding this croutch.
Speaker 2: You're 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 2: It was so funny.
Speaker 1: Then it beautifully.
Speaker 3: As the boss is introducing his wife, she takes her
hand to shake her hand and then.
Speaker 8: Put brilliant gold, brilliant love it.
Speaker 2: Okay, that does it for tidbits for me. Okay, so
just a couple of quotes I wanted to talk about
from both movies.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Talked about the how you can barely see them nipples
r Yes, ad libbed, he's really looker and then you
are an hallucination brought on by alcohol Russian vodka poisoned
by Chernobyl. Yes, kind of a current event at the time, righte,
my 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 1: Yes, funny line of the movie.
Speaker 2: It's the funniest line of the movie. And I didn't
know what that meant until later on in life.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So And just for people who don't know, Richard Pryor
set himself on fire with a crack pipe.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just no simpler way to put it.
Speaker 2: He was doing drugs and had alcohol and it caught
fire and it nearly killed him, nearly killed it.
Speaker 3: Nearly drugs nearly killed him, and not the fun way right,
that's right in.
Speaker 1: The painful way.
Speaker 2: 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
g D paving whatever? He does that like five times
and it just busts me up. What's your playful?
Speaker 6: God damn?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So there's one other thing, when the homeless people come
to him and they're and they're like, oh, mister Burt,
could you please do something like that? Was completely ad live,
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 Gooni's mom. She was
there last performances. But she's there with these guys.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: Make any sense.
Speaker 3: It never made any sense to me because Bill Murray
looks nothing like Richard Burton, but somehow he goes into
this perfect Richard Burton.
Speaker 2: Please just throw a couple of lines from him, clean.
Speaker 6: Or leave me alone, use me for me, believe, please
do it for Eva. I am coming at me.
Speaker 5: Hold oh no, you go.
Speaker 1: You know my whole night hold him.
Speaker 4: I swear by day, I full swam.
Speaker 2: It's part not beat it.
Speaker 1: Before I creak yours.
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 god,
they had seen the Saturday Night Live bit. He didn't
know it was coming, but he melted right in.
Speaker 2: With them and they gave him something to drink and
he's like no and then he he he pours it
and it just pours on the floor. He's thank you.
So funny. Yeah, okay, let's put back to Christmas Vacation.
Talk about some of our favorite coaches from that movie,
which we drop all the time. Absolutely anytime 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 lexico now right, everybody just says.
Speaker 1: It absolutely a funny line.
Speaker 2: And you and I talked about how why is the
carpet all at Todd.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Margo, Lily, they literally have that on
streets and why is the road all I see?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Margo.
Speaker 2: One line that always cracks me up is when cousin
Eddie said, every time Catherine revved up the mircowave I
pissed my pants. I 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 2: Plate in his head and my part just ain't gonna
look good.
Speaker 3: Right, And then Clark shoots down the hill on this
sled and goes skimming along and it's crazy for a bit. Yeah,
not super funny, Okay, just kind of okay funny. And
at the very end, cousin Eddie goes bingo. Yeah, and
it's not funny at all. It's completely meaningless. Do you
have any explanation for that?
Speaker 6: 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 Louise Dreyfus comes into the r V
and confronts Beverly di'angelo and missus Key, and I could
like that would have been a great scene to have
in it. I don't understand why that sledding scene is
there at all. As my dad's favorite scene.
Speaker 2: 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 cartooning and h maybe raise the PG thirteen level
up just to touch. We'll talk about our final judgment
here in a minute.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, yep, we're 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.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's it?
Speaker 1: Hey, Griswold, where do you think you're gonna put a tree.
Speaker 2: That big Ben over and I'll show you.
Speaker 4: You got a lot of nerve talking to me like that,
grizz I'm talking to you. Best line in all 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 9: I don't know, man, the cousin Eddie line.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that? You couldn't hear a dump truck
driving through a nitro?
Speaker 2: 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 offscreen
was like yeah, and then you look in there and
everything's smoking. Look what you've done on my twe super funny.
Speaker 3: So and then there's also, of course the cat and
Bethany wraps her cat up.
Speaker 1: So the catch with that, right, Yeah?
Speaker 3: And what a beautiful ad lib moment where Beverly DiAngelo
puts her finger in the goo. In the other package
and Randy Quaid licks it off. Classic moment, but the
cat is chewing on the cords and then Clark plugs
the cords in and you hear and there's nothing but
a cat shaped burn mark underneath the chair.
Speaker 5: 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.
Oh 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.
Speaker 1: Retching deacons, poor guy in European Vacation.
Speaker 3: 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 2: A dog jumps off the Eiffel Tower. Oh yes, thank you,
he doesn't die, but close yeah, left you drank a
half a quarter of pens oil, but he lifted his
leg the next morning. Okay, so are we ready for
final judgment?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. You go, me go first, You
go first.
Speaker 2: 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 boil oiling,
you know, when Santa catches on fire at the very
end and the rocket's red 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 1: Okay, yeah, this is really hard for me.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 3: When I very first saw both of the movies, easy Choice,
it was scrooged, Okay, because it's a 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 this whimming pool and the boss and
the bonus, I mean, paper paper thin. But what's happened
over thirty three years. I quit watching Scrooged, but I
kept watching Christmas Vacation. Okay, over and over it became
funnier and funnier, and I think that it's just one
of those movies.
Speaker 1: Number One, it wins on the.
Speaker 2: Rewatchability scale, definitely.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I will say this, when I went back to Scrooged,
holy cow, it was just as it was better than
it was that I.
Speaker 1: Saw it the first time.
Speaker 3: It was better, Like I like it better now than
back when I saw it. When I liked it better
than Christmas Vacation. Me do totally brilliant movie. I will
start watching it again every single year. But you and
I are in 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 2: Perfect Okay, Wow, so we're in agreement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that happens sometimes.
Speaker 2: 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? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Guys?
Speaker 3: Be sure and go check out our friends at the
Thirty Somethings podcast. They check out movies that are thirty
years old.
Speaker 1: We love them. We've done a show with them on the.
Speaker 3: Star Wars Holiday Special, which is a fantastic holiday listen.
Speaker 1: 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 we can
end this.
Speaker 1: I pledge allegiance to the.
Speaker 3: Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic.
Speaker 2: For which it just stands One nation under.
Speaker 3: God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all play ball.
Speaker 1: I mixed my metaphors there, but.
Speaker 2: That's a 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. It's a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And easier to do within your family.
Speaker 2: What's your playful? God damn every now