Film: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2 – Uncle Eddie’s Island Adventure
Director: Nick Macris
Starring: Randy Quaid, Ed Asner
Written by: Matty Simmons
This Christmas, let us honor the holiday season by celebrating National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2, one of its most cherished stories of all time. Wait, I got that wrong – people HATE this film. Many roads can bring a person to the unbridled hatred of this film: sequel abuse, the absence of Chevy Chase, its TV movie production value, a plot ripped almost directly from Gilligan’s Island, or the awkward transition of supporting characters from Christmas Vacation 1 into leads carrying an entire film. One thing is certain, though; no matter how one comes to hate this titan of Bizarro cinema, hatred is almost inevitable.
But I refuse. No matter how much the rest of the film may stink, there is one man who strides boldly forth and turns every scene into a masterpiece – master thespian (and recent outlaw conspiracy theorist) Randy Quaid. As he brings Clark Griswold’s Cousin Eddie into the limelight, The Great Quaid pulls out all the stops in his quest to, well, cash a paycheck. But also to be a comedic genius!
In Christmas Vacation 2, The Great Quaid is a man unafraid to spend an entire movie scampering about a deserted island clad in uncomfortably tight, uncomfortably white shorts. He’s not afraid to come out second best to a nuclear-enhanced monkey; he knows he’s better than that damn ape. He’s man enough to be both Skipper and Gilligan, and he can bring nature to its rightful place beneath his bootheel even while stumbling over that same bootheel. Hot faux-Hawaiian babes stand no chance against his masculine wiles, but The Great Quaid chooses to keeps his torrential manliness in check and remains faithful to his movie family, magnanimously allowing his son and uncle to perv out over the babe instead. He can build a mansion fit for royalty out of some bamboo, palm leaves, and a boar’s carcass. And best of all, Cousin Eddie goes through this entire movie without ever soiling his pristine white shorts.
If this film is any indication of his brilliance, I think that The Great Quaid’s recent foray into paranoid insanity is all part of a master plan. History may one day praise this beady-eyed and disheveled vagabond as the Socrates of our time. Quaid bless us, everyone!
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Y Marks the Spot 
Bizarro Masterpiece Theatre: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ……
Here at World Spinner we are debating the same thing……