Since the last few weeks have been filled with ninja turtles, aliens, and vampires, we decided it was time for a vacation. So we crammed into our metallic pea family truckster, loaded a Lindsey Buckingham cassette into the tape deck, and hit the open road for a look back at National Lampoon's Vacation.

All three of us were introduced to the movie at a fairly young age, but it was the repeat viewings that cemented its reputation as one of the all-time great screwball comedies. Which is not to say there aren't certain elements that definitely play differently now than they did in 1983. Because there are. A whole lot of them. But the film still works on so many other levels and even manages to sneak in a pretty powerful message about nostalgia as well.

Topics include: the original short story by John Hughes that this is based on, the pros and cons of turning Clark into the main character instead of Rusty, that notorious stop in St. Louis, the one big problem with the dream girl subplot, the unparalleled talent of mid-80s Chevy Chase, why the kids were recast in the sequels, the original ending and what it says about our obsession with "the good old days", the unbelievably simple reason the movie still works in spite of its issues, and much much more!

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