The National Lampoon’s Vacation series is one of the most popular family franchises of all time, but it suffers from an important continuity error involving the actors, ages, and appearances of the Griswold children. The Vacation film series follows the Griswold family of Clark and Ellen and their two children Rusty and Audrey. Over a series of four original films, the Vacation movies depict the Griswolds’ misadventures surrounding vacations and holidays as Clark strenuously attempts to make the most out of every experience.
The first film, Vacation (1983), follows the Griswolds’ bizarre experiences as Clark attempts to take his family on a cross-country road trip in their station wagon to Walley World (the Vacation universe’s version of Disneyland). The success of the first film was followed by European Vacation in 1985, Christmas Vacation in 1989, and Vegas Vacation in 1997. The films feature several recurring gags such as Walley World, the girl in the red Ferrari, Cousin Eddie’s strange family, and the everchanging Griswold children.
While each film stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as Clark and Ellen Griswold, Rusty and Audrey are played by different actors in each adaptation. The original Vacation movie stars Anthony Michael Hall as Rusty and Dana Barron as Audrey. Dana Barron revealed in an interview that when a sequel was announced after the first film’s success, Anthony Michael Hall declined to return as Rusty so he could star in John Hughes’ Weird Science instead. Instead of only finding a new actor for Rusty, Amy Heckerling decided to recast both children. Following Vacation, Rusty was played by Jason Lively, Johnny Galecki, and Ethan Embry, while Audrey was played by Dana Hill, Juliette Lewis, and Marisol Nichols.
Four years later in Christmas Vacation, Audrey is visibly older than Rusty; she appears to be 17 while he seems younger than before at only about 14 years old. This time their appearances are completely different: Audrey is tall with curly blond hair and a new attitude, while Rusty is short with dark brown hair and tanned skin. Another eight years later, the kids are still in their late-teens with drastically different actors. Audrey is now clearly Hispanic, though Clark and Ellen have no Hispanic ancestry, and Rusty appears more like an older version of Lively’s iteration.
The Griswold children’s ages and appearances were even included as a gag in Vegas Vacation when Clark tells his children he “hardly recognizes them anymore” before freezing on their faces. Though they raise questions about the Vacation franchise’s continuity issues, the Griswold children are actually quite irrelevant to the stories: it’s really about Clark’s struggles as a family man and father to teenagers. Chase told TIME that recasting the Griswold kids was a joke about Clark being such a family man, but not really knowing his own children, so he continually creates elaborate events to reconnect with them. The National Lampoon’s Vacation series focus on Clark before the rest, so it isn’t surprising that changing the kids was a way to poke at his faults in fatherhood.
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