Chevy Chase likes to punch down so much that he’ll even take jabs at a kid.
The cast of the 1983 movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation” gathered for a reunion at Fan Expo Chicago earlier this month, and Anthony Michael Hall had a fun little story about how Chase’s hostility wasn’t just aimed at an animatronic moose by the end of filming.
In the beloved John Hughes comedy, Chase plays family patriarch Clark Griswold, who’s utterly obsessed with two things: driving his family cross-country to a fictional theme park called Wally World and toying with the idea of cheating on his wife (Beverly D’Angelo) with a blond bombshell (model Christie Brinkley) he keeps bumping into throughout their road trip. Hall and Dana Barron played Clark’s kids, Rusty and Audrey, respectively.
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Hall, who was 14 years old during filming, prefaced his story at the expo by explaining that more than half a year after shooting wrapped, the cast had to come back and reshoot the ending because the original one tested poorly with audiences, per Entertainment Weekly.
“Puberty kicked in for me,” Hall recalled, per EW. “I was a foot taller and like a different kid.”
Hall then added dryly, “Guess who pointed the sh*t out right away and made me feel really good about it on set?”
Considering that Chase is known for his mean-spirited sense of humor and has a reputation for being difficult, it didn’t take the audience long to figure out that the culprit was the same jerk who got fired from the NBC sitcom “Community” after several clashes with the cast and crew.
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And because Chase is so casually cruel, Hall needed to jog his memory a bit with a specific example of how the “Saturday Night Live” alum mocked him as a kid for going through puberty.
“I just remember the autograph you wrote me when we wrapped,” Hall said. “He goes, ‘To Anthony, you’re a regular Robby Benson.’”
At the time, Benson was considered a 1970s heartthrob, and Chase’s remark was clearly sarcastic.
But Chase wasn’t quite done ridiculing the young Hall. The “Caddyshack” star also implied in the autograph that he hoped Hall would never be able to see how bad he looked at the time.
“And then it was also, ‘If you’re going blind, you’re doing it right,’” Hall ended.
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Barron also remembered how brutal Chase was to Hall at the time, and mentioned another aspect of Hall’s changing body that Chase felt the need to insult.
“By the way, you forgot the pimples,” Barron reminded Hall a bit later in their conversation. “Remember, Chevy mentioned all the pimples on your face.”
Although Chase picked on Hall, the young actor clearly made a good impression on the film’s writer and director, Hughes. Hughes later cast Hall in some of his biggest movies, including “Weird Science,” “Sixteen Candles” and “The Breakfast Club.” The trio of teen-targeted movies made Hall a bona fide member of the 1980s “Brat Pack” — and the fact that he briefly dated his co-star and fellow Brat Packer Molly Ringwald only solidified his status.
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Despite Chase’s behavior toward Hall in his youth, the “Dead Zone” star doesn’t seem to hold any hard feelings.
“This is why I love being your son for 40 years,” Hall told Chase during the reunion over the weekend. “I love you.”
