There’s no question that “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is a holiday season classic!
With streaming and an array of cable channels, where can you find this classic?
It’ll air on TNT, TBS and AMC this season, including a 24-hour marathon starting at 6 a.m. Nov. 27 on TNT! Find out more air times at ChristmasTVSchedule.com.
Plus, you can stream the movie on HBO Max and Amazon Prime.
5 facts about ‘Christmas Vacation’
- “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is based on a short story — Christmas ’59” written by John Hughes. The story was published in 1980 for National Lampoon in December 1980. When Clark is pulling out a box of old movies from the attic, take note of the one paying homage to the story, labeled “Christmas ’59.”
- “Christmas Vacation” has ties to “It’s A Wonderful Life.” The grandson — Frank Capra III — of the original Christmas classic’s director — Frank Capra — was an assistant director on “Christmas Vacation.”
- “Christmas Vacation” director Jeremiah Chechik had never seen a “Vacation” series movie before directing “Christmas Vacation.” “I hadn’t seen the first two [Vacation movies], and so I wasn’t really influenced by anything other than the fact that it was a big—at the time—their big Christmas movie, and comedy,” he said in an interview.
- The movie’s budget was kinda big — $27 million. For comparison, “Ghostbusters” had a budget of $30 million. And “Christmas Vacation” has no special effects like “Ghostbusters” did. But, the movie made it back and then some — grossing $70 million!
- “Christmas Vacation” is the only “Vacation” series movie to get a sequel — “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure.” If you never heard of it, don’t worry. It was made for TV and holds a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's Christmas 365 