That said, there are plenty of memorably funny scenes in this movie. I particularly liked the scene where a security guard (played by John Candy) at Wally World gets taken on a high-speed roller coaster, but then small things amuse me. This site, for example, is one of them. When it all gets too much for Clark Griswold, he also punches a life-size model of Wally in the face. The face, I tell you! This movie succeeded because it helped capture the sheer horror of family vacations; the endless drive across empty, miserable land headed towards a destination that was never going to live up to expectations. The main difference being that in real life, family vacations don't often involve aunts dropping dead or irate fathers screaming "I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy shit!". Come to think of it, they'd be a lot more fun if they did. On the scale of vacations, this movie would come quite high up - a half-way round-the-world trip perhaps. Don't worry, I can't be bothered to rate each movie in the series like a vacation, so let's just continue, shall we? Yes. Take a deep breath, because the franchise is about to get a whole lot worse. Praise Marty Moose!

National Lampoon's European Vacation. Somebody destroy every copy of this movie now. If you haven't gathered by now, my trusted, long-term readers (that'll be no one then), your favorite writer Gringo is British. I'm not normally the sort of pompous ass who complains when they see a movie that has a jarring stereotype character in it, especially where upper-class English idiots are concerned. The reason I dislike this movie's use of the standard handful of British stereotypes is because they're just so damn unfunny. If you're going to re-use jokes about people that have been told time and again, at least try and update them and keep the humour going. Don't just wheel out a pompous woman, a clumsy, over-apologetic, rather dense middle-class man (complete with cap), an eccentric biddy who wants to get her leg over and a fat slob of an East End of London resident. It's just lazy writing. I know that's hugely ironic coming from this site and its output, but believe me (I tell lies! Run!) when I say the stereotypes used in this movie just make it stink even more.

It's not just Britain that gets this treatment. If this movie is to be believed, all French men are sarcastic, arrogant bastards who like making smutty comments about women's breasts. If that wasn't enough, seemingly all German men in the world (ever!) like to dress up in lederhosen and slap each other about, drinking beer out of over-sized glasses. And the final treat? Learning that every single Italian man is a sex-obsessed lowlife who would rather steal a car, kidnap a woman and commit all sorts of nefarious activities than be believable. This movie is a very poor follow-up to the original Vacation and is deserved of several beatings with a shovel. For it's Europe-wide film shoot, it's a very cheap, gray production that is more intent on living up to stereotypes and playing them for supposedly comic laughs than having the scriptwriters sit down and come up with some decent jokes. Chevy Chase is as relatively likeable as he tends to be in the role of Clark Griswold, but there just seems to be a lot less effort invested in the family's trip round Europe than on home turf. Thankfully, the franchise would be left dormant for a year or two before returning with what may be the best installment, in which an old man's toupee sets on fire and there's an explosion of poop. Now if that's not comedy, I don't know what is. No, really, I don't.