Plot
Clark Griswold (Chase), wanting to spend more time with wife Ellen (D'Angelo) and children Rusty and Audrey (Hall and Barron), decides to lead the family on a cross-country expedition from Chicago to the Los Angeles amusement park "Walley World", billed as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park". Although Ellen wants to fly, Clark insists on driving, so he can bond with his family. In preparation, he has ordered a new sports wagon for the trip, but when the dealer pulls a bait-and-switch, insisting the sports wagon won't be ready for 6 weeks, Clark is forced to take a failing behemoth Wagon Queen Family Truckster.
As the family travels, they have several mishaps, such as being tagged by vandals while in East St. Louis, while Clark is tempted several times by an attractive young woman (Brinkley) driving a flashy red Ferrari 308 GTS. They stop in Coolidge, Kansas to visit Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her husband Eddie (Quaid), but this creates more tension among the Griswolds. Catherine and Eddie foist crotchety old Aunt Edna (Coca) and her dog Dinky on the Griswolds, asking them to drop her off at her son Normy's home in Phoenix. After stopping at a campground in South Fork, Colorado for the night, Clark forgets to untie Dinky from the car's bumper before leaving, killing the dog.
While Ellen and Clark argue, they become stranded in the desert, and Clark eventually finds a mechanic that scams him out of the rest of his cash to fix the car. Frustrated, they stop at the Grand Canyon; when Clark cannot convince a hotel clerk to take a check, he takes cash from the hotel's cash register but leaves behind the check. Leaving the Canyon, they find that Aunt Edna died in her sleep. When they reach Normy's home, they discover he is out of town, and leave Edna's rigor mortised body in the backyard.
Despite all the events and the begging of Ellen and the kids, Clark is more determined to get to Walley World. They finally arrive the next day to find the park closed for repairs. Clark, slipping into madness realizing that all his efforts have been for nothing, buys a realistic-looking BB gun pistol and demands a park security guard Russ Lasky (John Candy) to take them through the park at gunpoint; Ellen and kids follow him, attempting to placate their father. Eventually the SWAT team arrives along with park owner Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken). Roy understands Clark's impassioned epitome of the American Vacation, bringing back memories of his own childhood years ago. Roy does not file charges against the Griswolds, and lets the family enjoy the park as his guests. The credits show various photographs of the Griswolds enjoying the rest of the vacation, including returning to Chicago via plane.
Read more about this topic: National Lampoon's Vacation
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““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
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The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)