Working with a John Hughes script, Vacation is Harold Ramis' second directorial outing and also sees him work with Chevy Chase again after the success of Caddyshack. The film earned four times its budget in the USA alone and went on to spawn three sequels, although Ramis wasn't involved with the subsequent titles, which pretty much shows, given the largely diminishing quality. With a hilarious central performance by Chase and an even funnier cameo from Randy Quaid as the hapless Cousin Eddie, Vacation follows a family of four determined to road-trip across America to the world famous, Wally World - a thinly veiled tribute to Disneyland. As is the case with all cross-country films, the trip is filled with comedic disaster after comedic disaster - but this one does it better than the rest. We still love the Griswolds over thirty years later - which was almost enough to inspire an ill-conceived reboot of sorts starring Ed Helms in 2012 - though the same probably cannot be said for Chevy Chase.
