Finding Out That The House From National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Is In California Instead Of Chicago Just Ruined My Entire Holiday Season
So I was doing what any good Jesus-loving Catholic does during this time of year, which is stuff myself to the gills with Christmas cheer (Read: Christmas cookies and movies), which led to me watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for the 826,743,995th time. Despite all those viewings, I never wondered where the real house was actually, figuring it was just in a random Chicago suburb.
However, since the Barstool Chicago HQ has evolved from an insurance office's closet to a state of the art media company location with a basketball court, golf simulator, AND functioning WiFi, I thought maybe I could check out the famous house of a fictional family like any well-adjusted human the next time I visit the office, which I imagine will be for most streaming events in the near future.
So I went on my trusty Answer Machine, AKA to Google on my computer, to see where exactly the house was located. What I saw from the flawless source of Fancy Pants Homes broke my heart more than my brain.
As it turns out, Clark’s impressive light display isn’t the only magical component of the Griswold family house. While the story takes place in Chicago amid the snow and chill, the Griswold house is actually located in Los Angeles and is part of the Warner Brothers studio. Except for a few exterior shots taken in Colorado, the classic Christmas movie was shot almost entirely in sunny California.
Embracing the magic of movies, the set of the Griswold family house is located on the backlot of the Warner Brothers Ranch facility in Burbank. Formerly called the Columbia Ranch, the Warner Bros. Ranch where National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation was filmed is set at 411 North Hollywood Way in Burbank, California.
INSTANT REACTION:
Look, I get that movies are very often not shot in the places they are set, and oftentimes are filmed in Hollywood lots without idiots like me noticing because that's how movies work. I also get that a bunch of knuckleheads will reply to posts about this blog saying that exact thing without reading the blog first because that's how the internet works.
But it just feels wrong if not an outright hate crime against Sweet Baby Jesus that a Christmas movie set in Chicago was filmed anywhere else, let alone fancy ass California. What am I going to find out next? That my Ziti brother Eddie was actually born and raised San Diego, with his accent simply being the product of a few harsh winters eating delicious beefs? Don't talk to me about costs either. All I've heard about over the last year is how the cost of doing anything in Chicago is basically free since between the city and suburbs, there is unlimited space.
Like many people, I've had plenty of #HealthyDebates about where Christmas movies stand in comparison to one another, with Christmas Vacation being in the top tier with Home Alone. Hell, I even did an entire blog about if you would rather be a Griswold or a McCallister.
The Griswolds win this poll every single time partially because they aren't a family of dickheads with parents that lost their youngest kid TWICE. The only real perk to being a McCallister is that they were clearly rich as fuck and their house was the Silver Tuna, which is in Chicago and put on sale for a shitload of money every five years or so. I always had Home Alone as the better movie, even though finding out that the inside house scenes as well as a bunch of scenes were filmed in a gym thanks to the awesome Movies That Made Us Netflix series did break my heart.
Finding out that all those outside house scenes were shot with fake snow on what I imagine was a balmy 70 degree night seals the deal and may even bump Christmas Vacation down to Tier 2 on my Christmas movie list.
Okay, I hate ending blogs on a negative note, so here is a fun fact about the house I found on IMDB.
The house Wanda and Vision are in is the same house used for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The house next door was the Murtaugh house in Lethal Weapon. Both houses are on the Warner Bros Ranch, which is where the Bewitched house is also located.
Yes it is, Wanda. I'm much more at peace with the house from WandaVision made out of magic in New Jersey home actually being in California than the Griswolds family Christmas home I have been visiting on screen since I was a kid. I'm actually kinda shocked the WandaVision house wasn't in Georgia like so much of the MCU. Nonetheless, the house is yours is my head canon. Sorry Clark.
READER’S UPDATE:
I take it all back! I never wanted the Casa de Griswold to get demolished. I just wanted it shipped to a random Chicago suburbs so people could visit it while quoting the same 20 lines from a classic movie. Worst Christmas season ever! Or at least the worst outside of 2020 when everything sucked.