If you would have asked us a week ago, we might have said approximately 1 million things went wrong in National Lampoon's Vacation, starring Chevy Chase and his station wagon. Not true! We counted 37 major mishaps.
It's a movie where everything seems to go awry, which is either hilariously entertaining or exceptional frustrating, depending on what kind of movie-watcher you are.
And we were surprised by the inappropriate jokes related to race, animal brutality and the elderly -- jokes that would hopefully never fly in a movie of today.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
1. We begin at the car dealership, where the salesman brings Clark Griswold the wrong car. And (like you do?) he takes it anyway.
2. The suitcases fall off the car before they got out of the driveway.
3. Son Rusty Griswold has stinky feet.
4. They take a wrong turn and end up in a neighborhood where someone said the F word in relation to Clark's momma.
5. While getting directions, which cost $5, a bunch of black guys steal the family station wagon's hubcaps.
6. Ellen Griswold gets her head stuck behind the steering wheel because she was laying her head in Clark's lap while he was driving, like you do.
7. Clark falls asleep and drives what appears to be several miles. He doesn't hit the pedestrians, or the dog on a walk, or the dozens of shops, or the motel.
8. Rules to live by: Wine spills if you try to drink it on a vibrating bed. Kids come into your hotel room if you don't lock the door. Bartenders don't appreciate rude customers.
9. Case in point: A bartender fires a gun and Clark's daughter ends up temporarily deaf.
10. Aunt Edna breaks the news: The Griswold's are unexpectedly going to drive her to Phoenix!
11. The Griswolds learn the hard way: Poor people who live in the country will give your kids nudie magazines and marijuana.
12. The dog pees on the picnic basket, but no one realizes it until they're eating their pee-ninis. Their sandwiches. Get it?
13. A "wild animal" attacks Clark and Ellen in their tent. (It was Aunt Edna's dog.)
14. A policeman pulls over the family station wagon, then threatens police brutality. Why? Clark accidentally killed the dog, which is not funny. It is really not funny.
16. Saying, "I guess there's not much more that could happen to us" obviously means more is about to happen to them.
17. They're out of money. And Ellen lost her, um, diaphragm?!
18. The family crashes through a "road closure" sign in a fantastic display of cinematic genius. The car doesn't look so good after the crash.
19. Clark's badass glasses break.
20. Clark shares a beer with his teenage son. Like you do.
21. "I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time," Clark says as he leaves his family in the desert with their wrecked car.
22. Clark falls down from heat exhaustion and falls into a skeleton.
23. The men fixing the Griswold's car overcharge him and leave the family with a shitty, barely functioning station wagon that's expected to continue to make a cross-country trip.
24. Clark's out of money and apparently ATMs don't exist. But the hotel will cash his personal check, right? Of course not.
25. Aunt Edna dies. Naturally, everyone's first reaction is "eww."
26. Dead aunt gets put on top of station wagon. Her purse gets stashed up there, too. Then it rains.
27. Their cousin's house is locked and no one's home, so Clark offers a series of questionably religious remarks so they feel like it's OK to leave Aunt Edna's body outside, on the patio, in the rain. With an umbrella over her head.
28. The kids decide they don't want to go to Wally World, which was the whole point.
29. Clark loses his shit, yells at kids and wife, and thinks it'll be OK if he leaves the hotel room wearing fancy white loafers to talk with pretty women.
30. Christie Brinkley is not a good actress, which might be the most devastating "thing that went wrong" so far.
31. Clark says he's not married, nope. He's just wearing his brother's wedding ring. Like you do.
32. Clark hops into the water, socks on, to swim with sexy Christie Brinkley. It's so cold he screams out and all the hotel guests, his wife and kids included, wake up and see him swimming with a naked supermodel.
33. Clark's teenage daughter tries to smoke a joint in public. She's just acting out because she thinks her scumbag dad is going to have to get a divorce.
34. Wife Ellen apologizes to husband Clark after seeing him naked in the pool with a supermodel. Yes, she apologies to him.
35. Walley World, the place they've been trying to reach for what feels like years, is closed.
36. Clark pulls a gun on security guard Russ Lasky (John Candy). Then he points it at the other security guard, a black guy who he literally treats like a dog.
37. The SWAT Team comes after Clark and the family. They're faced with a serious dilemma: How do you keep your legs apart AND walk toward the closest wall to be handcuffed? It appears as though this is going to end poorly.
But this is the Griswolds we're talking about! Of course it doesn't end poorly. And scene.
