If Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever! We were going to Disneyland. It was a dream come true. The rides! The thrills! The Mouseketeers! I was so excited that I spent the whole month of May feeling like I had to go to the bathroom. When school finally let out on a Tuesday, I sprinted home as fast as I could, even though we weren’t leaving until Friday.
Dad picked up our brand-new 1958 Plymouth Sport Suburban Six station wagon on Thursday morning. The speedometer had only six and three-tenths miles on it. Dad said that it would be a pleasure to travel for six days in a car that smelled as good as our new Plymouth. It was nice to see Dad excited about our trip. For months Mom had to act moody and beg to get him to drive out to California. “What good will it do the kids to see their country from an airplane seat?” she wanted to know. Finally, Dad gave in and said we would get a station wagon and drive the 2,448 miles from 74 Rivard Boulevard, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to 1313 Harbor Boulevard, Anaheim, California.
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12 comments:
Thanks for the tip, Jordan!
Yeah, you're welcome! I was a faithful National Lampoon reader in those days so I was familiar with the story and with other Hughes stories. They're all good, and they all have a sick nastiness that got bleached away from his style when he started writing movies.
The man was very talented; Breakfast Club is another unsung masterpiece in my opinion; a nearly perfectly told story, with a literary sophistication that's unusual for that kind of movie. Think about the characterizations and about what a vivid picture of life at Shermer High you get in your head, even though you never see any of it and it's all conveyed by the dialogue.
I'm going to sound incredibly naive here but Breakfast Club was a short story too? Does he have a lot? I need to read this stuff post haste!
No, BC wasn't a short story, but the "Shermer High" locale shows up in a lot of Hughes writing.
You don't sound "incredibly naive." These are obscure matters! I was probably the only person in the theater watching Vacation who knew it was based on a short story and had read that story. I was going, "'Wally World'? That sucks!"
I just printed out the story and I can't wait to read it!
In "Vacation," the grandmother and the dog are perfect examples of the kind of "sick nastiness" that Hughes specialized in while writing for the Lampoon.
Cripes! Just read it. Chevy Chase got off easy.
I love when people say "cripes"!
good story! almost makes me want to watch the movie again.
John Hughes was a great writer. I was always happy when the National Lampoon contents page showed there was a Hughes story in there.
Great story, now I understand how much the film was sugar-coated from the original. Jeez, they never got to enjoy the theme park and Chevy certainly did get off easy.
Oh and Jordan, BC is one of my all time favorite movies. It also spans the generation gap since my kids love it as well. A timeless classic.
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