National Lampoon’s Vacation Stars Discuss Original Ending

The ending found in the final cut of the 1983 comedy classic National Lampoon’s Vacation was not what was originally intended. The original film was directed by the late Harold Ramis and spawned three sequels. It concerned the Griswold family going on one of the worst vacations in the history of filmdom to Walley World. Anthony Michael Hall and Dana Barron, who played the Griswold children in the first movie, talked all about that with Entertainment Weekly.

The way the movie ends now is with the family finally making it to Wally World after a series of misadventures, only to find the park closed. So family patriarch Clark (Chevy Chase) buys a BB gun and forces a security guard played by John Candy to open up the park for them. What Clark was originally going to do was break into the home of park owner Roy Walley and force him and his associates to entertain the Griswold family at gunpoint. Barron said:

“Obviously, Clark has his BB gun, which always has the price tag on it still with the string. And then the cops come in and the big ending is that he was going to arrest us, but then Chevy’s like, ‘Well, you know what happened? We just drove across the country.’ And Roy’s like, ‘I know what that’s like with the smelly family and all.’ So he’s like, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Go to Walley World.’ But we never see us in Walley World — only Roy Walley, right at the end there.”

That’s not all. The family was then going to be seen going on an airplane that was supposed to be taking them back home to Chicago. Only for the plane to announce that they weren’t going to Chicago, meaning that they were once again going in the wrong direction. Causing Clark to once again freak out.

RELATED: Vacation TV Spin-Off The Griswolds Is Coming to HBO Max

Other Things About The Ending

There’s also an additional rumor that the girl in the red Ferrari (Christie Brinkley), who Clark spends the whole movie lusting after despite being married to Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), was going to be revealed to be Roy’s daughter. According to both Hall and Barron, however, that’s not true and is just a rumor.

“A fan maybe five years ago said, ‘Hey, I heard this is true.’ I went, ‘Are you kidding?’ But that is a great explanation as to why she’s in this very expensive Ferrari at her age traveling to where we’re traveling and ending up in that direction. So that makes sense to me that she would be Roy Walley’s daughter, but definitely not. That’s just a very clever rumor.”

A consequence of changing the ending was then having to go back and shoot a new one. Except, and you might be able to spot this when you watch the movie, that was after puberty had kicked in for Hall, which Chase was the first to point out and made him “feel goofy about it.” Barron also went from 80 pounds to 96 due to craft services, so both of them looked different. They also think that Vacation shows how the test audience process can work. Hall said:

“It is a testament to test screenings. Because we shot that ending, and although it was funny, they were so wise to listen to the audience. The test cards came back and they were like, “We want to see them get to Walley World. What the hell’s the point?” And then we shot what became the final ending with John Candy where we get to the park, and everybody was satisfied. The studio was satisfied, and obviously audiences were. And it began what became this franchise.”