“A new Vacation movie is scheduled to be released — or allowed to escape — on July 29. To judge by the obvious, pitiful, frenetic, stupid raunchiness of its trailer, it belongs to the genre known as ‘post-humoristic.’ The movie declares itself to be a remake of National Lampoon’s Vacation, the 1983 classic of obvious, pitiful, frenetic, stupid innocence. But the words ‘National Lampoon’ are never mentioned in the trailer. National Lampoon now seems damned to the point that its name isn’t even worthy of being attached to a summer cineplex dump-fill featuring the Hangover wimp dentist as leading man and a Chevy Chase cameo.” — from a 7.23 Hollywood Reporter piece by former author, satirist, Republican Party reptile and former National Lampoon editor P.J. O’Rourke.

Hit–home finale: “What was so much fun about the original National Lampoon’s Vacation was its maniacal expression of the love-and-hate relationship between weird hip sensibilities (John Hughes) and even weirder normal middle-class values (Clark Griswold).

“That kind of fun can’t be had in the 21st century, where there are no normal middle-class values, all the Clark Griswolds are alienated, sarcastic and cynical, and every suburban schlub is a font of nihilism’s dark, ironic genius.

“Once, there was ‘If You Don’t Buy This Magazine We’ll Kill This Dog’ — the January 1973 cover line by actor, comedian and erstwhile National Lampoon contributing editor Ed Bluestone. Now, it’s a totally different world. It’s ‘If You Don’t Buy a Ticket to This Crappy Movie, We’ll Go Watch Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation in the Theater Next Door.'”