<\/p>\n
Chevy Chase had a little help from his co-stars during filming for the 1989 movie Christmas Vacation. The actor recently revealed that he couldn\u2019t remember his lines in the classic holiday film during a scene in which his character, Clark Griswold, had a major meltdown over his disappointing Christmas bonus.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Chicago Fan Expo in August 2025, Chase, 81, admitted that his cast mates had to wear placards around their necks, displaying his lines during his character\u2019s iconic rant<\/a> about his “cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, d—less, hopeless, heartless, fat-a–, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey s—\u201d of a boss.<\/p>\n “I had to cover all of those words,” Chase said at the fan event, per<\/a> Entertainment Weekly<\/a>. “Every one of them had a sign in front of ’em,\u201d \u00a0he added of his co-stars, which included Beverly D\u2019Angelo and Randy Quaid.<\/p>\n Chase, who actually wrote the dialogue for the classic scene, added, \u201cThey all had my lines in front of ’em. So, I just went from dirty word that I wrote to dirty word that I wrote, and this went on like that for a while. But it wasn’t actually that dirty, come to think of it. I had to come up with a lot of strange stuff, instead of, like, ‘You f—in’ this or that.'”<\/p>\n In the famous scene, Clark Griswold was stunned to open his Christmas bonus envelope to find that instead of the hefty check he was expecting, he was gifted a membership in the jelly of the month club. Clark’s ensuing tirade in front of his extended family is one of the funniest scenes in the movie.<\/p>\n In a 2015 interview with The Dinner Party Download<\/a>, D\u2019Angelo explained that the scene was camera blocked in a way that allowed each of the cast members to wear a rope around their neck with a cue card attached to it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rant was divided into sections so that he could go all the way through from the beginning to end without a chance of forgetting his lines or flipping his lines,\u201d she said,\u201d They were all right there. So we didn’t have the lines in order exactly, and if you watch it, you can see him. His eyes go from character to character as he’s going on in the speech because we’ve got the lines there.”<\/p>\n D\u2019Angelo also defended Chase, noting that the move had nothing to do with his acting ability.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hear those stories about how Marlon Brando would wear an earpiece, or he’d have like his lines stuck on the ceiling, or in a bowling ball, or something like that,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I want to make it clear that the fact that we were wearing cue cards was not about any actor’s incompetence. It had to do with our knowledge that the way to have Chevy sail was to have it there at his fingertips in case he needed it.”<\/p>\n Christmas Vacation was directed by Jeremiah Chechik, but it was originally supposed to be helmed by future Home Alone director Chris Columbus. But Chase did not sail through his initial meetings with Columbus.<\/p>\n In a 2024 interview with Vanity Fair<\/a>, Columbus recalled two \u201cbizarre\u201d meetings he had with Chase that prompted him to quit the project. \u201cI was signed on \u2026 and\u00a0then\u00a0I met Chevy Chase,\u201d Columbus told the outlet. \u201cEven given my situation at the time, where I desperately needed to make a film, I realized I couldn\u2019t work with the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n Columbus claimed that Chase didn\u2019t seem to know who he was and \u201cdidn\u2019t say anything\u201d for the first half hour of their meeting before allegedly finally asking him, \u201c’Wait a second. You\u2019re the director?\u2019\u2026 Oh, I thought you were a drummer.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n Their second meeting for dinner went just as poorly. \u201cWe spent two hours together, and I left the dinner and I thought, \u2018There\u2019s no way I can make a movie with this guy,\u2019\u201d Columbus told Vanity Fair. \u201cFirst of all, he\u2019s not engaged [in the conversation]. He\u2019s treating me like s\u2014t. I don\u2019t need this. I\u2019d rather not work again. I\u2019d rather write.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: Longtime \u2018SNL\u2019 Cast Member Seemingly Confirms Return for Season 51<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Sep 1, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chevy Chase had a little help from his co-stars during filming for the 1989 movie Christmas Vacation. The actor recently revealed that he couldn\u2019t remember his lines in the classic holiday film during a scene in which his character, Clark Griswold, had a major meltdown over his disappointing Christmas bonus. Speaking at the Chicago Fan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1998651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[346888,346890,362655,345979,362654],"class_list":["post-1998650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-beverly-dangelo","tag-chevy-chase","tag-christmas-bonus","tag-christmas-vacation","tag-clark-griswold"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Chevy-Chase-Reveals-Secret-About-Famous-Scene-From-\u2018National-Lampoons.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1998650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1998651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1998650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1998650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1998650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chevy Chase\u2019s \u2018Vacation\u2019 Wife\u00a0 Explained How the Scene Worked<\/h2>\n
One Hollywood Director Took a Pass on \u2018Christmas Vacation\u2019 After Meeting Chevy Chase<\/h2>\n