National Lampoons Vacation-30th Anniversary (Warner Bros., 2013, Blu-ray).

National Lampoon's Vacation was directed by Harold Ramis and written by John Hughes. The film follows Clark and Ellen Griswold as they take their two children, Rusty and Audrey, on a cross-country trip from their home in Chicago, to the California theme park Walley World. Planned out by Clark, the trip begins to go awry after the family gets lost in St. Louis. From there, they make it to Coolidge, Kansas, where they spend the night at the home of Ellen's cousin Catherine and husband Eddie. There they are forced to take Ellen's Aunt Edna and her dog to Phoenix, Arizona. Along the way to there, Clark accidentally drags the dog from the back of the car and Edna dies during a long day of driving. Dropping her body off at cousin Normy's house in Phoenix, they eventually make it to Walley World only to find that it is closed, causing Clark to take matters into his own hands.

The film was a box-office hit, earning more than $60 million in the U.S. alone with an estimated budget of $15 million, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics.

As a result of its success, five sequels have been produced: European Vacation (1985), Christmas Vacation (1989), Vegas Vacation (1997), Christmas Vacation 2 (2003) and Vacation (2015). In 2000, readers of Total Film voted it the 46th greatest comedy film of all time.