There will always be a special place in my heart for Jeremiah Chechik’s National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In my adult life, I have made it a Christmas eve tradition to rival any sappy joy-filled movie you may watch with your family. Whether I’m hundreds of miles from home or right next to close friends and family, this movie reminds me of the best Christmas years of my own life. Large family gatherings, plenty of food and yes, plenty of Auxillary Nuclear power-required mishaps. There is no Christmas like a Griswold Family Christmas. And to celebrate this love, our weekly Scenes We Love entry takes a look at one of Clark Griswold’s most iconic and explosive moments.

Why Watch? Because all week long we’ll be featuring short films featuring the gang from Community. Today’s features the children’s book narration of Chevy Chase. I desperately wanted to find an embeddable version of the immortal Walk…Don’t Walk from 1968, but alas, the internet has failed me. However, sometimes failure is success in disguise because I was able to find Chase playing the role of storyteller for an animated version of a children’s tale that’s really sweet. It’s a benign counterpoint to his character on Community as instead of being overtly racist and self-centric, he’s talking about how a father and mother decide to cheer up their son by turning him into a pizza. The animation style is what might happen if a comic strip came to life, and the story’s truly heartwarming. What Will It Cost? Just 6 minutes of your time. Check out Pete’s A Pizza for yourself:

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

Earlier this week we showed you the horrific short film made by the marketing folks at HomeAway featuring the Griswolds, Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo). It was a train-wreck. This was clear, even to someone like me, who is a bigger fan than most of the Vacation franchise. Apparently it wasn’t clear to New Line…

Ride along as The Griswolds hit the road again. This time they’re on their way to see Rusty at his vacation rental. They stop at a hotel and typical Griswold madness ensues. Okay, I’ll bite. My love for the National Lampoon’s Vacation series of films is well-documented. Why not give it a shot?

And it includes suicide! Hilarious!

Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase) just wants to have a good ole’ fashioned family Christmas at his place, but Karma (or some other unstoppable, twisted force) is working against him.

Sometimes I feel like I’m just getting back from Wally World. I’m tired, irritable, and there’s an unseasonably high urine count in my sandwiches.  But with the news that Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo are teaming up for a Superbowl commercial, I have to wonder if we should really be saving up for a real family vacation. Don’t get me wrong. I love Superbowl commercials because 1) they are a colossal let down and 2) I’m usually watching the Puppy Bowl instead (after the NFC championship, don’t we sort of already know who’s going to win the Superbowl?), but I would much rather see that dynamic duo hit the big screen again. I know I’m usually pretty negative toward the lack of creativity that this decade will be marred by, but if we’re in for a penny, why not be in for a pound? Let’s just sequelize everything. All of it. Some possible downsides to a National Lampoon’s Vacation sequel in the here and now: National Lampoon, like the magazine that spawned it, has become one of the least funny producers of The Funny around. With John Hughes gone, who could possibly write it? Year One Some urine-soaked food for thought. What do you think?

It’s hard to say when Chevy Chase was last funny on the silver screen. He’s had a few moments, mostly on the popular geek property Chuck, on the small tube, but he hasn’t really done much in the way of cinematic hilarity since well, the nineties.

And in the spirit of all things Christmas, this being Christmas Eve and all, I’ve decided that a clip from my personal favorite holiday comedy is more than appropriate.

There are many elements that go into our favorite Christmas movies. The least of which often being the quality of the actual film. In general, I’ve found that most people cling to Christmas movies to which they can relate, or that they’ve shared fondly in years past with friends and family.

Remember when Chevy Chase made great movies? I know, it’s been a while. You have to go back twenty-five to thirty years to Chase’s heyday as a comedy king.

Season 2 on DVD lives up to the release of season one in 2006.