AKA: Part 2: My thoughts on Home Away’s Hotel Hell Vacation Super Bowl XLIV spot

After last week’s ‘news’ that Home Away was going to be reuniting Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as the famed heads of the National Lampoon Vacation series for a Super Bowl ad campaign, I took a look at the Home Away website and deemed it necessary to announce that the campaign was going to fail.

Hit the jump to see the full 15 minute short film: Hotel Hell Vacation.

And there you have it! The culmination of a most lackluster viral Super Bowl ad campaign. Are you kidding me? This is what Home Away spent $3 million dollars advertising during one 30 second spot last night?

They would have gotten a ton more traffic let alone interested viewers if the creative team had put more money into fleshing this concept out and splitting it into several five minute videos. Image how long the internet would be talking about these clips if they had released five, seven, or even ten five minute clips, one every week, under a Hotel Hell Vacation film series banner? The $3 million dollars would have given the creative team a lot more room to play with the possibilities around the concept.

And it did have potential. Clark and Ellen Griswold having a brutal experience at a hotel or series of hotels trying to have a romantic night alone could’ve been a great bit. Instead, we get the above. Whoever wrote the script clearly missed the mark.

All that said, watching this short film bolstered in me one thing: the need to see more of the Griswold family on the big screen. If ever there was a time to do it, it would be now. Chevy Chase is essentially playing a variation of Clark Griswold on NBC’s Community and he’ll be appearing in this spring’s Hot Tub Time Machine as well. If there is one thing that I can credit the Hotel Hell Vacation writers with is the fact that they nailed the un-ending Griswold family optimism that shines whenever everything around them is going to hell. The scene where Clark and Ellen are grilling an egg on the iron was perfect.

Any future National Lampoon Vacation film would have tons of material to pull from. I would love to see the tables turned and have Clark Griswold as the senior citizen that everyone else has to deal with and make fun of, all the while he makes fun of everyone else and thinks he’s still the hip and cool dad.

Leave your comments below! Do you want to see another Griswold family vacation hit the big screen?

You can also find me on Twitter and Google Wave at billrusnak@googlewave.com.

Alternatively you can email me at widescreen[dot]wonderland[at]gmail[dot]com.

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