Movies - TV
Fans May Have Finally Solved A National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation Mystery
By BJ COLANGELO
“National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation” follows the mishaps of the Griswold family as they attempt to have a perfect Christmas, but everything goes horribly and hilariously wrong.
Chevy Chase portrays the father, Clark Griswold, who anticipates a big holiday bonus from his boss and wants to use the money to surprise his family with a backyard pool.
Unfortunately, the bonus isn’t what Clark had imagined at all, and it’s a huge blow to his swimming pool plans. Reddit user Atlhart estimated the amount of Clark’s bonus.
The Reddit user had conducted research and discovered that a standard below-ground fiberglass pool installation in 1989 would have set the Griswolds back at least $20,000.
Clark also had expressed his desire to fly people out to Chicago to try out the pool, “If there's enough left over I'm flying you all here,” which could mean an additional $4,000.
He was probably expecting a bonus of $24,000, which relates to roughly 20–25% of the annual salary in the late 1980s for a chemical engineer — the job Clark had held for years.
As Atlhart explained, “I'd put Clark at Senior Manager or Director level. I'd wager he was making $75k-$80k in 1989 [...], so his bonus was probably about 25 percent.”