Summary

  • The Vacation film series has a continuity error with the actors, ages, and appearances of the Griswold children.
  • Each film in the series features different actors playing Rusty and Audrey.
  • The ages and appearances of Rusty and Audrey also change throughout the series with no clear continuity.

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. While the Griswold family is at the center of each movie, the actors are not always the same.

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. While each film stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as Clark and Ellen Griswold, their children, Rusty and Audrey, are played by different actors in each adaptation.

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Why Do The Griswold Children Change

Anthony Michael Hall's Rising Career Brought About The Recasting

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, European Vacation's director 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.

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The Griswold Kids' Ages Also Change

The Vacation Movies Didn't Focus On Any Continuity With The Kids

Audrey smiling in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Not only do the Griswold kids change actors, but their ages and appearances also oscillate between films. The kids age on a floating timeline, though they always remain teenagers and the films seem to take place in the year that they’re released. In Vacation, Rusty and Audrey are in their early or mid-teens, with no clear indication as to which sibling is older. Rusty begins with blond hair and a tall, skinny physique while Audrey is short with long brown hair and tan skin. In European Vacation two years later, the kids are clearly in their mid-teens with Rusty explicitly stating he is 15 years old. Audrey doesn’t appear too much older or look drastically different, but Rusty now has light-brown hair and no freckles.

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.

Vegas Vacation Pokes Fun At The Griswold Kids Confusion

Chevy Chase Also Shared His Take On The Inconsistency

The Griswold family in Vegas Vacation

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.

Chevy Chase also shared his take on the Griswold children's age question while also suggesting it was he who came up with the concept: (via TIME)

That was my idea. I always wanted to make the joke, "Geez, I hardly ever get the chance to see the kids anymore. I hardly know who they are. We should go on a vacation." That was funny to me: the idea that Clark was such a great family man, but still didn't even recognize his own children.

The National Lampoon's Vacation series was certainly a dysfunctional family misadventure, but the idea that the recasting of the Griswold kids was a glimpse at Clark's faults as a father tends to show the movies in a different light.