Plot: Chicago resident Clark Wilhelm Griswold Jr., his wife Ellen Griswold, his son Russell "Rusty" Griswold, and his daughter Audrey Griswold have prepared to go on vacation to Wally World, a Disney-like amusement park located in Los Angeles. Clark has planned this trip right down to every last single solitary detail, but on the way to Los Angeles, things get complicated. First, they get lost in East St. Louis, Illinois, where Clark asks a belligerent pimp for directions as the pimp's henchmen are secretly stealing the car's hubcaps, then they stop in Dodge City, Kansas to see what the old west was like. After this, they head to Coolidge, Kansas to spend a night with Ellen's cousin Catherine and Catherine's sloppy husband Eddie, and they pick up Ellen's annoying Aunt Edna and her vicious dog Dinky from Eddie and Catherine's house so they can take Edna and Dinky to Phoenix, Arizona, where Edna's son Normy lives. During the visit at Eddie's, Eddie's son Dale shows Rusty some porno magazines, and Eddie's daughter Vicki shows Audrey a shoebox full of pot. After leaving Eddie and Catherine's house, the Griswolds head to a picnic area, where they discover that Dinky has urinated on the picnic basket. Later, when the Griswolds get to South Fork, Colorado, they spend a night at a Kamp Komfort, a campsite that has smelly tents. When they leave on the next day, they accidentally drag Dinky to his death behind the car. When they reach a desert region of Arizona, the Griswolds narrowly skirt death after crashing through a roadblock sign and messing up the car, and after Clark treks through the desert to find a gas station, the car is repaired by a pair of greedy mechanics who want all of Clark's money for doing the repairs, which are very shoddy. When the Griswolds run out of money, Clark is forced to swipe some money from a hotel where he tried to get a check cashed, this being while Ellen, Rusty, and Audrey look at the Grand Canyon just outside the hotel. After the Griswolds leave this hotel, Edna dies in the car. That night, the Griswolds head into Phoenix, Arizona, and leave Edna's body at Normy's house. After a makeshift funeral service, they leave Normy's house. Clark starts going crazy because things haven't gone right on this vacation, and the way Clark scheduled it, they should have already been at Wally World. Will they ever get to Wally World, and will they get to enjoy it?
Alternative Plot: Accompanied by their children (Dana Barron, Anthony Michael Hall), Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), are driving from Illinois to a California amusement park. As Clark increasingly fixates on a beautiful woman driving a sports car, the Griswolds deal with car problems and the death of a family member. They reach Los Angeles, but, when Clark worries that the trip is being derailed again, he acts impulsively to get his family to the park.
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