Well, I just watched my Vacation: 20th Anniversary with the commentary on, and was surprised to hear the director say that they had filmed an entire alternate ending to the film.

Then, Chevy Chase says, "Yes, I've got that final cut of the alternate ending--the one used for test audiences--at home on video tape."

So I can't help but wonder, why in the world wouldn't this be included on this 20th anniversary DVD? To talk about it and not include it is just too sad.

Still, I'm happy to finally get the movie in OAR...guess I'll have to wait for the 25th Anniversary cut on HD-DVD for that extra material...

At the risk of going OT, what was the alternate ending?

The original ending was that they never ended up having fun at Wally World. Instead they went to Roy Wally's house and took him hostage. They really didn't describe it in detail, but they said it was a much darker ending and the test audiences went deadly silent (no laughs) and were very upset that they had spent 2 hours waiting to get to Wally World and then didn't get a payoff. They called all the actors back to shoot a new ending, which is what we now see. The cast points out that Rusty had grown like 2" and Audrey had gained about 15lbs which you can notice in the Wally World scenes.

Yep, basically, the movie is the same up to the point where Clark goes into the sporting goods store to get the b-b-gun. Every scene after that is the "post-test-audience" material.

Sounds like they just reused their old idea and traded Clark with Eddie and Roy Wally with Mr. Shirley in "Christmas Vacation."

EXACTLY!



BTW, the deleted scene isn't "missing" because we were never promised it in the first place. No false advertising.

That is cool info to know about the other endings. I am a big fan of the Vacation series.

I never knew about that other ending? Hard for me to imagine the mvoie that way. I guess we can all give thanks to the test audience for providing us with the terrific Wally World sequence and a nice appearance of an 'almost' trim John Candy.

they should ahve used the ending in the original story this was based on in a mid 70's issue of National Lampoon. The father goes to Walt Disney's house and shoots him. About the only part of the original story they kept for the movie was the dead grnadmother on the top of the car. Otehr than that they pretty much homgenized a very un PC and hilarious story.