Christmas Vacation 2 / The Death of National Lampoon

January 17, 2025

I just discovered this three-year-old video, which is something of a post-mortem of the National Lampoon brand, and it’s pretty good. It looks at the history of National Lampoon‘s foray into movies, pegging Christmas Vacation 2 (2003) as the best example to illustrate what went wrong.

I’ve never seen this movie—or any of the “National Lampoon” movies beyond European Vacation (1985)—so it was like looking under a rock I’ve been avoiding for decades. And, well, it’s kind of disgusting. But this guy’s analysis is sound.

I will add one thing he doesn’t mention. Henry Beard, NatLamp‘s first managing editor, was against doing movies. Ironically, it was his departure in 1975 (along with co-founders Doug Kenney and Rob Hoffman), taking a $7-million buy-out clause, that left the magazine strapped for cash, which in turn led them to start making movies in order to make money to keep the magazine afloat.

This YouTube video tells the sad story of how that ultimately worked out.

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