Harold Ramis

When a single mom and her two kids arrive in a small town, they begin to discover their connection to the original Ghostbusters and the secret legacy their grandfather left behind.

Thirty years after the original franchise, Ghostbusters returns with four badass women - Erin, Abby, Jillian and Patty - who band together to protect New York City from ghosts.

At mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve in Wichita, Kansas, mob lawyer Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) and crooked businessman and pornographer Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) steal over $2 million from their mob boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid). While it appears, there will be an easy getaway for the pair, they learn the roads out of town are too icy to drive on. Vic takes the cash for safe-keeping, and they split up and try their best to evade being captured by Guerrard and his men, who have discovered their scheme. Charlie visits Sweet Cage, a local strip-club, owned by Renata Crest (Connie Nielsen), a woman whom Charlie has long lusted for. She is upset because a new law will prevent strip clubs from operating after the first of the year. In response to Charlie's persistent efforts, she tasks him with bring her an existing compromising picture, taken of a local crusading politician, so that she can use it to blackmail him to keep her club in business. She hints that she might respond favorably to Charlie's sexual desire if he helps her with this. Before he leaves the club, Charlie sees someone looking for him. He hides in the bathroom, where "As Wichita Falls, So Falls Wichita Falls" is written on the walls. He manages to evade the hulking man because Sidney the bartender lies and tells him that Charlie already left. Once the man leaves, a panicked Charlie calls Vic to warn him, but Vic dismisses his concerns. Charlie drives to another strip club owned by Guerrard and removes the photo from the backroom safe. Before he gets there, his car skids on ice and he is stopped by Officer Tyler, who asks Charlie to remember him to his boss, Guerrard. Charlie promises to do so, but then can't remember the man's name a minute later. At the second club, he is unexpectedly nice to a stripper, and the bartender there takes note of that. While Charlie is in the back stealing the photograph, the menacing man shows up again, once again demanding to know if Charlie has been there. Once again, the bartender lies for Charlie and he's again able to evade capture. Once he leaves, a now very panicked Charlie rushes out with his phone open to call Vic again but slips on the ice and breaks his phone. Charlie drives to a restaurant to meet with Vic in person instead, and Vic assures him things will be okay. While they're talking, Vic gets a phone call from someone and tells Charlie it's his overweight wife asking when he'll be home. Vic leaves, but before Charlie can go, the bar manager asks Charlie to take care of Pete (Oliver Platt), Charlie's old and now very drunk friend. Pete is married to Charlie's beautiful ex-wife Sarabeth. Charlie takes Pete to the home of Pete's current and Charlie's ex-in-laws where his children and Sarabeth are having dinner with her parents. It's clear that Pete doesn't want to go in and is unhappy with his new marriage to Charlie's ex-wife. While still outside the house, he drunkenly confesses to Charlie that he and Sarabeth were constantly "f**king everywhere" while she was still married to Charlie. Pete asks Charlie if that makes him angry, and Charlies replies, "Actually, it makes me curious. Makes me wonder who she's f**king now." Once inside, Pete acts out, cursing and saying terrible things about both his wife and his in-laws. Charlie attempts to talk to his children but is met with open hostility from his older son for not being more involved in their lives. Finally, Sarabeth's mother tells him to leave, and take Pete with him. So, Pete and Charlie go back to the restaurant they'd left earlier, and ask the bartender for one more drink. She agrees to give them each one for free if they will drink it and then leave. Charlie calls the Sweet Cage looking for Renata while Pete makes drunken sexual comments to the bartender, despite the fact that her boyfriend is waiting there for her close. The boyfriend eventually throws him out of the restaurant and then kicks him in the scrotum. Pete vomits in Charlie's car, Officer Tyler shows up again, and Charlie drives Pete home (which was previously Charlie's house), where Pete passes out. Charlie "borrows" Sarabeth's new Mercedes (which was a gift from Pete) from the garage since Pete threw up all over Charlie's car. Charlie goes back to Sweet Cage to find Sidney the bartender beating up a guitar player. Renata has returned, so he gives her the photo. Based on Charlie's kindness to the stripper at the other club and his refusal to demand anything in return for the valuable photo, Renata deduces that Charlie is hiding something. He hints at the existence of money, and she suggests they go off together. Before they can do that, however, she tells him that Vic had called her earlier to say Charlie had been right about mob enforcer Roy Gelles (Mike Starr) looking for the two of them, and that Charlie needs to go meet with Vic at The Velvet Touch while she closes her bar. Charlie goes to The Velvet Touch and finds a severed human thumb in the back room. He drives to a bridge to be sick, and is once again spotted by Officer Tyler, whose name he still can't remember. He heads to Vic's house and sees a gun go off through the window. He breaks into the other car in Vic's driveway and finds ID belonging to Roy, so he assumes that Roy just killed Vic. He calls Renata to tell her so, and she encourages him to take Roy out and get the money from him so they can run off together. She encourages him to make this his "defining moment" to be "something more." Charlie goes into Vic's house, finds Vic's wife newly dead and is then startled by Vic himself. Vic tells him that Roy shot his wife, but that he managed to lock Roy up in a trunk. After an argument about which car would hold the two bodies best, the two of them stuff the trunk with Roy inside it into the back seat of Sarabeth's Mercedes, and the corpse of Vic's wives into the trunk, then head for a local lake. On the way, Roy continues talking to the two of them, telling Charlie Vic killed his own wife, and that he's going to kill Charlie too. Vic berates Charlie for "being nice" on Christmas Eve, saying it's a dead giveaway that he's planning to leave town, then gets annoyed with Roy's talking and shoots into the trunk, which becomes quiet. Charlie and Vic get the trunk down onto a dock at the lake, but it's shot open from the inside and Roy gets out, shooting Vic in the process. Vic shoots Roy dead, but then falls into the frozen lake. Vic begs for help, but Charlie realized that Roy was right, and Vic was planning to kill him once they got the bodies into the lake, and then take the money for himself. He dumps Vic's wife's body on Vic, telling him, "I don't want you to die alone," and leaves Vic to die, still pleading to be saved. But then Charlie discovers the carry-on bag in the car does not have the money in it, and that he doesn't know where the money actually is (and with Vic dead, has no way of figuring that out), so he gets drunk. He calls Renata and tells her what has happened, but she asks him to come to her despite not having the money. When Charlie hangs up the phone, it is revealed that someone is pointing a gun at her. First Charlie heads back to his old house and delivers some very cheap Christmas gifts to his children, leaving them under the tree. Pete is still passed out there and begs Charlie to take Pete with him when he leaves town. Returning to Sweet Cage, Charlie discovers Bill Guerrard's car in the parking lot. He goes inside just a moment when Guerrard is in the bathroom, to discover that Renata is tied to a chair. She has just enough time to tell him where a shotgun is hidden before Guerrard emerges from the bathroom, not seeing that Charlie has arrived. Charlie manages to fetch the double-barreled shotgun from behind the bar, and Guerrard discusses the situation with Renata, surmising it was really her who designed the plan, as Vic was too dumb and Charlie too cowardly to pull it off, without her encouragement. Charlie returns and points the gun at Guerrard, but Guerrard just taunts him. At Renata's urging, Charlie fires the gun, but it is loaded with bird-shot and only superficially wounds him. As Charlie starts to cut Renata loose, Charlie is stabbed in the foot by a recovered Guerrard. Officer Tyler, making his rounds, hears the gunshot and arrives but Guerrard shoots him dead. Renata frees herself and stabs Guerrard in the chest. A struggle ensues, and Charlie manages to kill Guerrard with a second shot to the back of the head at point blank range. Charlie mends his wound, while Renata cleans Guerrard's blood off of herself, and suddenly sees Vic's carry-on bag containing the money in her open closet. Flashing back, he realizes Renata is the one Vic was having dinner with earlier, and that he and Renata were planning to go off together after Vic had killed him. Renata emerges from the bathroom acting as if she is going to seduce Charlie. As they embrace, Charlie shoots Renata with Guerrad's gun just before she can kill him with a concealed razor she brought out of the bathroom. On Christmas morning, a sad Charlie drives out of town with the money. He finds Sidney with his kids on the side of the road in a camper-motor home, on their way to Six Flags. They are stalled because the camper has run out of gas. Charlie lets Sidney siphon some gas from his tank and Sidney tells him that Charlie's the nicest guy he knows. Charlie says he's "awfully sorry to hear that." They wish each other well, but as Sidney's motor won't immediately start. Before he drives off, Charlie pulls a red Sharpie from his pocket and begins to write "As Wichita Falls, So Falls Wichita Falls" on the back of the camper. Based on the handwriting and the ink color, it's implied that he was the one writing this phrase all over town the entire time. Not seeing Charlie back there, Sidney accidentally backs into him, knocking him to the ground. Charlie picks himself up and gets back in the Mercedes, where Pete is revealed to have been lying in the back seat the entire time. He has at last awoken from his stupor and wants to know where he is. Charlie tells him he's in Heaven. They wish each other "Merry Christmas" and drive off to a new and different future.

Doug Kinney (Michael Keaton) is a Los Angeles construction worker whose job is constantly getting in the way of his family. Doug's employee Vic (Eugene Levy) is a moron and keeps making mistakes that costs big money to Doug and piles on the pressure for him. Ted Gray (John De Lancie) is Doug's employer and makes him work extra hrs, weekends and nights to pay for Vic's mistakes. Doug's wife Laura is also upset that due to Doug's hectic work schedule, she cant go back and pick her career back at selling real estate. On one job to build a new wing of a scientific facility, Doug meets up with Dr. Leeds (Harris Yulin), a friendly scientist who has developed a successful method for cloning humans. Doug is introduced to Dr. Leeds' clone as proof. Dr. Leeds is sympathetic to Doug's troubles, so he allows Doug to clone himself so that the clone can take over for Doug at work, while the original Doug tries to spend quality time with his family. The clone, called "Two" (although he calls himself "Lance"), has all of Doug's memories and knowledge, but his personality is an exaggeration of Doug's masculine side. Meanwhile Lance gets to work and is super efficient. He fires Vic. Doug is stuck with all the house chores as Laura picks her real estate career. But Doug is soon deep into house work and taking care of the kids and cant spend time at golf, like he really wants to.. Doug goes to great lengths to keep his clone a secret. While Doug and his wife Laura (Andie MacDowell) are at a restaurant for dinner, Doug finds that Two is on his own date (due to not being allowed to be with Laura) (its a girl from the office, whom he tells that Laura is sleeping with another guy and he has been staying in the guesthouse for over a month). Doug begins to worry about his clone being revealed. Despite the complications of having a clone, Lance is extremely busy at work so Doug decides to have another made to help out at home. "Three", who calls himself "Rico", is an exaggeration of Doug's feminine side. He has an extremely sensitive and thoughtful personality and loves to cook and take care of the house, much to Lance's chagrin. Lance has a buddy in Rico, and they both bring girls to the house, which Doug again prohibits. Lance and Rico attempt to make another clone, "Four", who is later named Lenny. Unfortunately, since he is a clone-of-a-clone, his intelligence is considerably lower than that of his predecessors, and he refers to Doug as "Steve". (The analogy used refers to how a copy of a copy may not be as 'sharp' as the original). This causes an annoyed Doug to decree that no more clones be created. RIco tells Laura to go ahead and buy non-refundable tickets to Orlando Disney World for Christmas and Doug is pissed when he finds out. Laura tells Doug that she cant deal with his "mood swings" anymore. Doug decides to take some time off and goes on a sailing trip. He doesn't want Laura to know, so he has his clones step in for him and take his place while he's away. However, he specifically instructs them that Laura is off limits. While he is gone, each of the clones, in turn, run into Laura and, despite their best efforts to follow instructions, she persists and eventually has sex with all three of them thinking they are Doug. The next day, Lance has a cold and is unable to go to work, so he sends Rico. During an inspection on site, Rico's lack of knowledge about the current construction site annoys and upset the inspector, which leads to Doug losing his job. As time passes, Doug's wife becomes increasingly upset with her husband's erratic behavior and how Doug has no memories of discussions Laura unwittingly had with another clone. Thinking Doug is ignoring her, she reveals her feelings to Lenny, mentioning how Doug has never kept his promise to fix up the house. When she asks him what he wants, an inattentive Lenny replies, "I want pizza". Upset, she takes the children and moves back to her parents' home. When Doug returns, he learns that Laura and the kids have left. He also learns from the clones' confessions that he has lost his job and each one of them has had sex with Laura. While Doug tries to determine how to get Laura back, Lenny tells him about what Laura told Lenny about how he never fixed the house. With the help of the clones, Doug remodels the house and wins back the love of his wife. Doug also tells Laura he is planning to start his own construction business. Realizing Doug can take care of himself now, the three clones move away. As they are driving away and stopped at a stoplight, Laura sees the three clones in the car next to her. Believing that she is hallucinating, Laura tells her children that you can tell you really love someone when everyone you see reminds you of them. The clones write to Doug that they have set up a successful pizzeria called "Three Guys from Nowhere" in Miami, Florida and are masquerading as triplets. Lance becomes the businessman of the shop and serves customers, enjoying this opportunity to meet many women. Rico is the head chef and is "cooking up a storm and having a ball", and Lenny is the delivery boy as well as taking a second job as a paperboy. Unfortunately, Lenny confuses the two and is seen delivering pizzas by throwing the box onto the lawn as he rides his bike by.

Stuart Smalley has a program on public access cable. To make money, Stuart waits tables, but his new healthy lifestyle interferes with his ability to simply do his job. Smiling all the time, he tries to give unwanted advice. The viewer learns he is a waiter while he is goofing off talking about life with his pretty and successful friend Julia. Not a romantic friend, but a very nice person who does a lot to help Stuart throughout the movie. She always has time for her friend, even with her big shot job, and she knows so many people who can help him out of his jams. Stuart is mistreated by his boss, who banishes him to late night and upsets his fans, though the boss won't reveal this fact. Others do that later. But Stuart has a more immediate concern: his beloved aunt has died and he must go home to attend the funeral and help mediate the battles between family members. For one thing, a cousin demands to use the family plot where the aunt would have been buried, showing up at the cemetery with cops after being ignored earlier. Later, it is determined that the aunt's house was built partly on a grumpy old man's land. And the grumpy old man wants a lot of money for it. And thanks to Stuart's bumbling, now he wants even more money. So Stuart may have to lie in court. He's too good a person to do that, or is he? Stuart's show is loved. And a cable network wants to make 20 episodes. It will take four hours to film them all. How Stuart got to this point involves some illegal actions and the firing of a receptionist who appears in his most memorable episode. Another crisis: Stuart's dad has always had a serious drinking problem. It's time to finally do something about it.

A nasty, self-centered (but hilarious) weatherman is forced to relive one strange day over and over again, until he gets it right.

When a crass new-money tycoon's membership application is turned down at a snooty country club, he retaliates by buying the club and turning it into a tacky amusement park. Jack Hartounian, a self-made man is trying to get into Bushwood County Club because his daughter is being asked by her snooty friends. Jack applies, but a couple things ruin his application: one being that he's extremely boorish and the other is that he is building low-cost housing in an affluent neighborhood. Jack then turns to Ty Webb, who owns the majority share of the club; Jack buys Ty's shares, takes over the club, and makes some changes which the members don't like. That's when the club members attack Jack by stopping his housing project. Eventually they decide to settle it on the golf course, but the club president decides to take contingencies. —rcs0411@yahoo.com After the reckless wager in Caddyshack (1980), Kate Hartounian, and her unrefined real-estate developer father, Jack, apply to join the elitist Bushwood Country Club, only to find themselves kicked out. As a result, much to the horror of the club's haughty president, Chandler Young, and his equally snotty wife, Cynthia, the self-made millionaire realises that the only way to join the exclusive golf club is by buying it. Now, as if that weren't enough, Jack intends to turn the once-prestigious Bushwood into the gaudiest miniature-golf park in America. Will a climactic face-off settle their differences once and for all? —Nick Riganas Kate Hartounian is a young girl with a snotty rich friend who wants Kate and her father, Jack, to become members at a high-class golf club. Everything is going fine until the current members meet Jack. His application to join is rejected. In retaliation, Jack buys the rights to the club and turns it into an amusement park-type golf club. In order to settle things once and for all, the two sides face off in a golf match. —Anonymous

The life of super-yuppie J.C. is thrown into turmoil when she inherits a baby from a distant relative. J.C. Wiatt is a successful New York business woman known around town as the "tiger lady." She gets news of an inheritance from a relative from another country and off the bat she suspects it's money. Well it's not money, it's a baby girl. At first she doesn't accept until the lady that gives the baby to her has to catch her flight. J.C. is now stuck with an annoying baby girl. Her boyfriend doesn't like the idea of a baby living with them and he leaves her. J.C. has enough of it and takes her to meet a family ready to adopt her. She leaves but hears the baby cry while walking away and has to go back. The baby is too attached to her now and won't let her go. Later, her baby gets into mischief which causes her to get fired. Now, she sets her eyes on an old two story cottage in Vermont to get out of the New York life. When she arrives, the house needs more help than originally thought. She gets bored one snowy day and decides to make apple sauce. Her baby loves it and she decides to sell it. Pretty soon everyone wants some of the baby apple sauce. J.C. hits it big and falls in love with a local veterinarian. Was this fate or destiny?

Officer Frank Dooley (John Candy), a 10-year veteran of the LAPD, is framed for the theft of a television set by two corrupt detectives, Sgt. Rizzo (Don Stroud) and Mel Nedler (who Dooley had actually caught robbing an appliance store). He is dismissed from the force, but escapes criminal punishment at his day in court. The next court case features hapless and nervous defense attorney named Norman Kane (Eugene Levy) attempting to defend a Charles Manson-type white supremacist cult leader named Lawrence Lupik (Glenn Withrow), who threatens to kill him should Kane fail to keep him out of prison. A fearful Kane reveals his ineptitude and the death threat to the judge (Stacy Keach, Sr.), who tells Kane that he will give Lupik "A sentence so long he won't even remember his own name, let alone yours" so long as Kane agrees to find another line of work with a "lot less responsibility". Dooley and Kane meet for the first time when they both apply for work at Guard Dog Security, a low-rent firm run by the gruff "Captain" Clarence O'Connell (Kenneth McMillan) and part of a security guard's union requiring heavy $15 a week contributions that is represented by Clyde Klepper (Jonathan Banks) and Tony Lazarus (Brion James). Becoming licensed armed security guards after a single afternoon of training, Dooley and Kane are made partners by Guard Dog supervisor Maggie Cavanaugh (Meg Ryan) and assigned to night duty at the Carlex Pharmaceutical Company's warehouse. During their first night, after being loudly ordered to take a lunch break by senior guard Bruno (Tom Lister, Jr.), Kane happens upon an armed robbery of the warehouse and quickly calls over the radio to Frank for help, but they prove no match for the thieves (the robbers are Klepper and Lazarus in ski masks) who used machine guns. Kane unwittingly escapes into the "Annex" where Bruno had told them to stay away from as it was guarded by the K9 Patrol (Rottweiler's and Doberman's). In there he is chased by the dogs until Frank shows up and fights them off with unusual tactics, including biting one and punching another. The next day, the pair are berated and fined $100 each by O'Connell for their screw up in not nabbing or identifying the thieves despite their contention that they had machine guns and were wearing ski masks. This leaves them suspicious of the company as they hadn't done anything to warrant the hefty fine (almost a week's pay). When Maggie asks about the meeting afterwards, both men vent their anger about O'Connell (Dooley calls him a jerk while Kane calls him a "Sub-human, moronic, poop head"), only to be informed by Maggie that O'Connell is actually her father. Dooley and Kane then attend a meeting of the union, where after getting turned down in their plea to have the fine revoked and it being revealed that Klepper and Lazarus work for Carlino, Kane pointedly questions union president Michael Carlino (Robert Loggia) about how the union dues each member is required to pay are spent (roughly $4 million per year). After Kane rejects an evasive answer from Union treasurer Lou Brackman (James Tolkan), an enraged Carlino threatens to break Kane's legs should he ever attend another union meeting and then abruptly adjourns the meeting. Over the next few days, Dooley and Kane find themselves assigned to work at a landfill and a toxic waste dump, causing both to come to the conclusion that the assignments are the result of Kane speaking out at the union meeting. At the toxic waste dump, Dooley and Kane listen to a similar story by two burned-out guards about a robbery incident over three weeks ago when they were on warehouse duty and forced to take their lunch break by Bruno which resulted in the warehouse getting robbed while they were away. Convinced something illegal is afoot, the pair track down Bruno at his gym and interrogate him. With the threat of heavy weights crashing down on his head, Bruno confesses that it was O'Connell who had phoned him that night and instructed him to order Dooley and Kane to go to lunch and be away from the warehouse at exactly midnight, but maintains that he doesn't know anything about the robbery. After letting Bruno go, the bumbling duo make a quick escape from the gym while an angry Bruno chases after them on foot. The pair then visit an old friend of Dooley's, a retired thief named Cappy (Tony Burton), who is fishing with other men at a small pier, to get information on Carlino. Upon learning of Carlino's corruption (which cost Kane a weeks pay in bribes for information as Cappy wouldn't take money from Dooley), they bring their suspicions to Maggie, but she rejects them as having no evidence to back them up. An evening or two later, Dooley and Kane meet two loose women at a local bar where they dress up in blue tuxedos and use the women as their escorts to crash a formal dinner party thrown by Carlino in hopes of gathering some evidence. While hiding out in an overheated steam room and eavesdropping on a meeting between Carlino and Brackman in the backyard, they learn of Carlino's use of the union's pension fund to finance dealings with a Colombian drug cartel and his plans to have the money robbed from an armored car, with insurance covering the loss. Fearing an investigation by the insurance company in which he will be the fall guy for turning the funds into cash, Brackman urges Carlino not to go through with the robbery. In response, Carlino instructs Klepper and Lazarus to take Brackman away and dispose of him. Dooley and Kane attempt to save Brackman, but are too late to prevent his murder and instead find themselves framed for his death. At the party, Maggie asks O'Connell about what is happening, he refuses to give her any answer and tells her to stay out of his business. A long chase beings as Dooley and Kane are chased by Carlino's henchmen from the Hollywood Hills and through downtown L.A., and evade them, only to run into the police which their car goes off the road. After hiding out in a porno bookstore and peep show, Dooley and Kane evade the bad cops, Rizzo and Nedler, looking for them by somehow dressing up as outlandish gay couple (Dooley being a 'Divine' lookalike and Kane as a leather-man), the two spend the rest of the night evading the police. In the morning, the cross-dressing duo meet at MacArthur Park with the receptive and amused Maggie where they reveal Carlino's intentions and make plans to prevent the armored car robbery. Kane and Maggie take over driving the truck, while Dooley plans to meet them ahead of the would-be robbers. On the 6th Street Bridge, Dooley has problems with his motorcycle and is forced to hitch a ride with "Cowboy" (Steve Railsback), a wild trucker who eagerly disobeys traffic laws and uses his truck to ram his way through a traffic jam (while hauling VERY flammable rocket fuel). Meanwhile, Kane and Maggie avoid assaults from multiple cars attempting to hold them up. With the Cowboy's help, Dooley is able to arrive in time to save the armored car from a guided missile strike and foil a final attack from Klepper and Lazarus with his illegal .50 caliber handgun (Dooley tells The Cowboy that they only used the gun to hunt Buffalo "up close", and that its only legal in two states, but California wasn't one of them). O'Connell, a willing partner of Carlino's, no longer willing to abide the scheme after Carlino threatened to hurt Maggie if he didn't co-operate with the robbery, arrives having captured Carlino and his associates, the two detectives (Rizzo and Nedler) who originally framed Dooley and had him thrown off the police force. The criminals are arrested and the Police Chief (Bruce Kirby) invites Dooley back to the police force as a plain clothed detective... along with a reluctant Kane who wants to go back to the relative safety of being a lawyer.

A retired Chicago firefighter partners with a reggae singer to turn a seedy Caribbean nightclub into a resort for affluent tourists. Injured while risking his life to save an angry German shepherd, Chicago Firefighter Jack Moniker retires and moves to a small Caribbean island named St. Nicholas. There, he is befriended by Ernest Reed, the owner of a run-down resort. Greedy developers are scheming to wrest Reed's coveted beachfront property from him for non-payment of taxes. Jack comes to Ernest's rescue, and together they renovate and reopen the resort catering to affluent Americans. The film follows the zany exploits of the proprietors, guests and various colorful island denizens, as they break in the new "Club Paradise".

Thorton Melon (Rodney Dangerfield) is a successful and wealthy businessman who owns a nationwide chain of clothing stores for overweight people. Melon himself came from humble beginnings where his father pushed him to succeed in school; however Melon himself, despite his sharp business skills, never attended college. At a meeting of his top staff, he accepts a few new investment ventures and suggests modifying a few more when his son, Jason (Keith Gordon), calls him. Jason is a student at a prestigious school, Grand Lakes University. His father asks him how he's doing with his studies, if he's enjoying being in a fraternity and if he's doing well as part of the diving team. Jason tells him all is fine, but is actually lying to his father; he isn't in a frat, and he's only the towel boy for the diving team. Melon's snooty, mean, spendthrift 2nd wife, Vanessa (Adrienne Barbeau), holds a dinner party for her rich friends at their luxurious house. Thorton mentions that nearly all the people who attend are only there for free food and drink and want to schmooze her for donations. While he raids the fridge for a beer, he catches Vanessa in a tryst with another man, Giorgio (Robert Picardo). Thorton has known about the affair for some time, and when Vanessa demands a divorce, he presents her with papers and shows her several Polaroids of her having sex with Giorgio. After the party, while he practices diving in his pool, Thorton talks to his personal aide and bodyguard, Lou (Burt Young), about how he's let Vanessa weaken his relationship with Jason. He decides he's going to make a surprise visit to Grand Lakes to see his son. When they arrive, Thorton goes to the wrong Greek house - it's a sorority house - and finds out that Jason isn't in a frat or on the diving team. Jason tells him that he's unhappy at the university because he hasn't made very many friends and the frats & diving team don't want him as a member. Thorton tells him that he needs to stay in college so he can be successful in life. He also tells Jason that he'll join him for a semester at the university, enrolling as a freshman. Thorton has no record of his academic achievement to qualify as a student, so he persuades the school's academic dean, Dean Martin (Ned Beatty), by donating money to construct a new building that will house the Thorton Melon School of Business. The school's dean of the business department, Philip Barbay (Paxton Whitehead), is appalled that Thorton is able to bribe his way into Grand Lakes. Thorton counters by saying that he has real-world business experience that trumps Barbay's academic credentials. Thorton and Jason register for classes and both take Barbay's business course. In the first class, Thorton counters nearly every point Barbay makes about his lesson plan for the semester where they will learn about theory by building a fictional company that will make and sell a product. Later, Thorton and Jason attend a literature class taught by Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman), whom Thorton embarrassingly falls for immediately. Though she's seeing Barbay, she seems to enjoy Thorton's freewheeling personality and dates him as well. When Thorton forgets that he's supposed to meet Jason for a study session, Jason instead meets with a young woman who he's smitten with, Valerie (Terry Farrell), and they bond, despite Valerie's attachment to a snobby student, Chas (William Zabka). Meanwhile, Thorton, while partying at a local bar, comes to the aid of Jason's roommate, Derek (Robert Downey Jr.), a politically radical troublemaker who'd earlier disrupted a pep rally for the football team. The team's captain threatens to beat Derek when Thorton has Lou intervene, prompting a huge brawl. Thorton later comments that the football team isn't nearly as tough as his high school team was. Thorton also connects with the school's diving coach (M. Emmet Walsh); the man knew Thorton when he was an entertainment diver on a pier in Atlantic City. The coach tells him that Jason tried out for the team but didn't do well. Thorton has Jason execute a difficult dive for the coach on the spot. Thorton soon finds that he likes the fun aspects of college; hanging out in bars, throwing parties, schmoozing with female coeds, but he doesn't like the academic work involved. He brings in his senior staff and hires people from scientific corporations to do his classwork for him. Jason is angered when his father presents him with an astronomy paper that Jason wants to do himself. Jason becomes further disillusioned with his father when, after he makes the diving team, that his father might have persuaded the coach to let him join. One night during a wild party thrown by Thorton in the dorm room he had luxuriously renovated, Thorton is caught in the hot tub by Diane with several young women. His relationship with her is further hurt when she reads the paper he'd turned in on Kurt Vonnegut, saying that he couldn't possibly have written it himself and that the person who wrote it for him didn't know anything about Vonnegut. (Thorton had called in Vonnegut (Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) himself (who appears in a cameo) for assistance.) Barbay soon goes to Dean Martin with charges leveled against Thorton of academic fraud. Thorton lies and insists the work he did was his own, but Barbay trumps his claim by suggesting that Thorton's final exams be given to him in oral format so he can't cheat. Thorton begins to pack, wanting to leave. Jason convinces him to stay and that he and his roommate, Derek, and Lou will all help him cram for his finals. When Thorton's big day arrives, he's exhausted. Barbay starts the proceedings, giving Thorton a grueling single question composed of 27 sections. Thorton persists and answers all the parts correctly. When he wants to give up, Diane asks him to recite Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night". Thorton gets a boost and finishes his exams. The Grand Lakes diving team has a match the same day. Jason does very well, earning high points while Thorton watches and waits for his exam results. When the team begins to fall behind their rivals, the diving coach calls Thorton poolside to execute his famous Triple Lindy dive from his Atlantic City days. Thorton is reluctant, but Lou talks him into it. Thorton executes the dive, involving bouncing on several diving boards on 3 different levels of the platform, and the team wins the match. Diane finds him after, telling him he earned all D's in his classes and one A from her. Thorton is allowed to give a humorous address to the graduating class. He tells them to stay in college and become successful, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is a food processing salesman living in Chicago, Illinois who wants to spend more time with wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and his teen children Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron). So, he decides to lead the family on a cross-country expedition from Chicago to the Los Angeles amusement park, "Walley World", billed as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park". In the opening scene, Clark and Rusty drive to a local car dealer lot where he decides to purchase a new sports wagon for the cross-country drive. But the conniving salesman Ed (Eugene Levy), tells him that the car he ordered never arrived and scams Clark into taking in its place a more gas-guzzling, technically failing, behemoth station wagon called the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Clark refuses to be conned, but after his old station wagon, a 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, is "accidentally" crushed by a compacter machine, Clark is left with no choice but to take the Family Truckster. At home, although Ellen tells Clark that she wants to fly to California for their two-week vacation, he insists on driving, so he can bond with his family. The next day, the family packs into their new car for the long drive to California, only to have all their luggage strapped to the top of the station wagon fall off after they back out of the garage... a bad omen of things to come. During the first day's drive, Clark and Ellen try to ease the boredom by singing old folk songs including the so-called Wally World National Anthem. Rusty and Audrey take their escape by listening to their radio Walkman's of their favorite rock group The Ramones. While stopping for gas, Clark cannot find the gas tank opening, and accidentally tears off the station wagon's license plate searching for it. Later that same day, the family arrives in St. Louis, Missouri, but after crossing the Mississippi River into the city, they get lost and end up in a rough ghetto area where some local street hoodlums steal their hubcaps and spray paint graffiti on one side of their car while giving them sham directions back to the local expressway. While driving late at night on the interstate west of St. Louis, all of the family falls asleep... including Clark driving in which their car exits the road and roars through a residential neighborhood, tearing up several yards, before stopping for the night at a local motel. Clark has planned a romantic evening at the motel with Ellen with wine and quarters for the vibrating mattress, but the mattress is loud and starts bouncing wildly. Clark pulls blankets onto the floor and they crawl under the covers, ready for sex. The kids rush in from the connecting room to investigate the noise. Rusty unplugs the bed before the kids go back to their room. On the second day of the vacation (Day 2), the family arrives in Dodge City, Kansas without further incident where Clark falls victim to another tourist trap when he insults the local bartender at a Western-themed tavern, and gets shot with a round of blanks. Back on the road, Clark is tempted by a hot young woman (Christie Brinkley) driving a flashy red 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS, with a California license place that reads LUV ME. That afternoon, the Griswolds arrive at a farm outside of Coolidge, Kansas to visit Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her eccentric husband Eddie Johnston (Randy Quaid), and their five kids, plus one on the way, creating more tension among the Griswolds. Catherine and Eddie foist crotchety old Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her vicious dog, Dinky, on the Griswolds, asking them to drop her off at her son Normy's home in Phoenix, Arizona. Eddie also asks for a loan of $500 to help him out with numerous debits he owns the local bank and many bill collectors. The kids have better experiences with Eddie and Catherine's eldest kids. Cousin Vicki (Jane Krakowski) shows Audrey her secret pot stash, while Cousin Dale (John Navin) shows Rusty his secret porn magazine collection. The next day (Day 3), the Griswolds along with Aunt Edna and Dinky drive off. During a picnic stop in Colorado, Clark has another encounter with the young woman in the red Ferrari whom is parked and dancing to pop music. The Griswolds stop for the night in a run-down, dirty campground in South Fork, Colorado where they survive another tourist trap for the night as well as deal with Edna's vicious dog. The next day (Day 4), the Griswolds and Aunt Edna pack up and leave the campground for Arizona. But while packing the car, Clark forgets to untie the nasty Dinky from the car's rear bumper before leaving. Clark does not realize his error until he is pulled over by a local motorcycle cop (James Keach) to angrily inform him of his mistake that has led to the apparent death of the dog. Nevertheless, the policeman, overcome by his own memory of his childhood dog, allows Clark to proceed on his way. During the drive, Clark again sees the young woman driving the red Ferrari while everyone else is asleep. Tempted to keep speed with her, Clark accelerates & almost has an accident. Subsequently, one of the suitcases falls off the car, which contains all of Ellen's credit cards. The next day (Day 5), the family gets lost on a back road somewhere between Utah and Arizona where while Clark and Ellen argue, they accidentally drive off the road, missing a large roadblock and get into an accident, damaging the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and stranding them near Monument Valley. Clark hikes off into the desert and spends many hours wondering aimlessly in the hot and arid desert until he finds a gas station... only to find the family there after they were rescued by some local Indians whom had a camel to tow their car to the very station. After making some half-hearted repairs, the lead redneck mechanic (Mickey Jones), who also happens to be the local sheriff, intimidates/scams Clark out of all the money he has on him (over $500 for the repairs). But they manage to get to the Grand Canyon Village to check in for the night. The next day (Day 6), the frustrated Clark realizes that in reporting Ellen's lost credit cards to their hometown bank, the bank had frozen Clark's credit cards by accident and Clark cannot convince the stuffy hotel manager (James Staley) to take a $1,000 personal check to pay for their rooms for the night. With the hotel manager distracted for a few minutes when he has to answer a ringing telephone, Clark steals all the cash in the hotel's cash register, leaves behind the $1,000 check, and flees the hotel like a Wild West bank robber, grabs the family away from the scenic sight of the Grand Canyon, and speeds away. Continuing through Arizona, they find that Aunt Edna passed away in her sleep. With little options, they decide to drive to Phoenix anyway and deliver her to her son Normy's house (with the dead Aunt Edna tied to the roof of their car). When they reach Normy's home that evening in a raging thunderstorm, they discover he is out of town, and leave Edna's rigor mortised body on a lawn chair in the backyard, over Ellen's objections. Clark concedes to Ellen's request they say a prayer for the dear departed Edna. Despite all the events and the begging of Ellen and the kids, Clark is more determined than ever to get to Walley World. They check into a motel for the night where after another argument with Ellen, Clark hangs out at the motel's bar where he has a face-to-face-encounter with the beautiful young woman from the red Ferrari and they make small talk about things. The woman beckons Clark to go skinny dipping with her in the motel's swimming pool, but upon diving in, Clark screams over his reaction to the cold pool water... thus waking up the entire motel, including Ellen, Rusty, and Audrey. When the woman takes her leave, Clark goes back to apologize to Ellen who demands that Clark repay the favor by taking him back to the pool to skinny dip with her. The next day (Day 7), the family finally arrives in Los Angeles, California and arrives at Wally World... only to find that the park is closed for the next two weeks for repairs. Clark, slipping into madness seeing all the week's struggles had been for nothing, buys a realistic-looking BB gun from a local sporting goods store, returns to Wally World, and demands to a overweight and geekish park security guard named Russ Lasky (John Candy) to take them through the park; Ellen and kids follow him, attempting to placate their father. Eventually an LAPD SWAT team arrives along with park owner Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken) and they arrest the whole family. Clark manages to talk to Roy who surprisingly understands Clark's impassioned epitome of the American Vacation, describing his own memory of a less-than-enjoyable cross-country trip he took with his own family to Florida. Roy does not file charges against the Griswolds, and lets the family enjoy the park as his guests, along with the police and SWAT team who are seen riding on the park's top roller coaster attraction in the final shot of the movie. The end credits show various still photographs of the Griswolds enjoying the rest of the vacation at all the various stops they made over the course of the movie, including a final frame of them returning to Chicago via plane... having abandoned their gas-guzzling car in California.

When John Winger loses his job, apartment and girlfriend all in a day, he decides to join the army. He and his friend Russell figure they can help save the world...and meet girls!

Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe) is an underacheving 17-year-old guy who works as a caddy at the upscale Bushwood Country Club in Beverly Hills to earn enough money to go to college. Danny often caddies for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), a suave and talented golfer and the son of one of Bushwood's co-founders. Danny decides to gain favor with Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), the country club's stodgy co-founder and director of the caddy scholarship program, by caddying for him. Meanwhile, Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), one of the dim-witted greenskeepers, is entrusted with combating a potentially disastrous gopher infestation. Throughout the film, he tries a variety of methods to kill the gopher (e.g. shooting, drowning) without success. Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), a brash and obnoxious nouveau riche real estate developer, begins appearing at the club. Smails is heckled by Czervik as he tees off, causing his shot to go badly wrong. Smails throws a putter away in frustration and accidentally injures a member of the club. Danny takes responsibility for the incident, as a ploy to gain Smails' trust. Smails encourages him to apply for the caddy scholarship. At Bushwood's annual Fourth of July banquet, Danny and his girlfriend Maggie (Sarah Holcomb) work as servers. Czervik continues to irritate Smails and the club members, while Danny becomes attracted to Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), Smails' promiscuous niece. Danny wins the Caddy Day golf tournament and the scholarship, earning him praise from Smails and an invitation to attend the christening ceremony for his boat. The boat is sunk at the event after a collision with Czervik's larger boat. On returning, Smails discovers Lacey and Danny having a tryst at his house. Expecting to be fired or to have the scholarship revoked, Danny is surprised when Smails only demands that he keeps the incident secret. Unable to bear the continued presence of the crude-mannered Czervik, Smails confronts him and announces that Czervik will never be granted membership. Czervik counters by announcing that he would never consider being a member: he insults the place and is merely there to evaluate buying Bushwood and developing the land into condominiums. After a brief scuffle and exchange of insults, Ty Webb suggests they discuss a resolution over drinks. After Smails demands satisfaction, Czervik proposes a team golf match with Smails and his regular golfing partner Dr. Beeper (Dan Resin) against Czervik and Webb. Against club rules, they also agree to a $20,000 wager, quickly doubled to $40,000, on the outcome of the match. That evening, Webb practices for the game against Smails and meets Carl, where the two share a bottle of wine and a joint. The golf match is held the following day. Word spreads of the stakes involved and a crowd builds. During the game, Smails and Beeper take the lead, while Czervik, to his dismay, is "playing the worst game of his life". He reacts to Smails' taunts by impulsively redoubling the wager to $80,000 per team. When his own ricocheting ball strikes him, Czervik feigns injury in hopes of having the contest declared a draw. Lou, the course official who is acting as an umpire, tells Czervik his team will forfeit unless they find a substitute. When Webb chooses Danny, Smails threatens to revoke his scholarship, but Czervik promises Danny that he will make it "worth his while" if he wins. Danny eventually decides he would rather humiliate the selfish, conceited Smails than take the scholarship. By the time they reach the final hole, the score is tied. At the climax of the game, with Danny about to attempt a difficult putt to win, Czervik again redoubles the wager to $160,000 per team. Danny's putt leaves the ball hanging over the edge of the hole. At that moment, Carl, in his latest attempt to kill the gopher, detonates a series of plastic explosives that he has rigged around the golf course. The explosion shakes the ground and causes the ball to drop into the hole, handing Danny, Webb, and Czervik the victory. Smails refuses to pay, so Czervik beckons two hulking men, named Moose and Roco, to "help the judge find his checkbook." As Smails is chased around the course, Czervik leads another wild party attended by all of the onlookers at the match, shouting, "Hey everybody! We're all gonna get laid!" In the final scene, the gopher emerges, unharmed, and dances amid the smoldering ruins of the golf course.

In 1962, college freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) seek to join a fraternity at Faber College. They visit the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House's invitational party, but are not welcomed there. They then try next door at Delta Tau Chi House, the campus' most raucous and undisciplined fraternity, where Kent's brother was once a member, making Kent a "legacy." There they find the slovenly John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) urinating outside the fraternity house and a wild party already underway inside. The Deltas "need the dues" so they permit Larry and Kent to pledge. They receive the fraternity names "Pinto" (Larry) and "Flounder" (Kent). Vernon Wormer (John Vernon), dean of Faber College, wants to expel Delta from campus due to repeated conduct violations and low academic standing. Since they are already on probation, he puts the Deltas on something he calls "double secret probation" and orders the clean-cut, smug Omega president Greg Marmalard (James Daughton) to find a way to get rid of the Deltas permanently. Flounder is bullied by Omega member and ROTC cadet commander Doug Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf), so Bluto and Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day (Bruce McGill) persuade Flounder to sneak Neidermeyer's horse into Dean Wormer's office late at night. They give him a gun and tell him to shoot it. Unbeknownst to Flounder, the gun is loaded with blanks. Unable to bring himself to kill the horse, he fires into the air but the noise frightens the horse so much that it dies of a heart attack. In the cafeteria the next day, smooth-talking Eric "Otter" Stratton (Tim Matheson) tries to convince the stuck-up Mandy Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller), with whom he'd had a one-time tryst, to abandon her boyfriend, the uninteresting Marmalard, and date him instead. Bluto provokes Marmalard with his impression of a popping zit by stuffing his mouth with a scoop of mashed potatoes and propelling it at Marmalard and table mates, Chip Diller (Kevin Bacon) and Barbara "Babs" Jansen (Martha Smith). Bluto starts a food fight that engulfs the cafeteria. Bluto and D-Day steal the answers to an upcoming psychology test, but it turns out the Omegas switch the discarded exam mimeograph stencil and the Deltas get every answer wrong. Their grade-point averages drop so low that Wormer needs only one more incident to revoke their charter and kick them out permanently. To cheer themselves up, the Deltas organize a toga party. They go shopping at the local market, using Pinto's thick cardigan sweater to hide loads of food they don't want to pay for. During the party Otis Day and the Knights perform "Shout". The dean's alcoholic, lecherous wife, Marion (Verna Bloom), attends the party at Otter's invitation and has sex with him. Pinto hooks up with Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), a girl he met at the supermarket, and makes out with her only to learn she is the mayor's 13-year-old daughter. He later takes her home in a shopping cart, abandoning her at the front door. Due to the party, Wormer organizes a kangaroo court with the Omegas and revokes Delta's charter and all their belongings are confiscated from their house. To take their minds off their troubles, Otter, Donald "Boon" Schoenstein (Peter Riegert), Flounder and Pinto go on a road trip in a car Flounder borrowed from his brother. Otter picks up some girls from Emily Dickinson College by pretending to be the fiancé of Fawn Liebowitz, a girl who recently died on campus. They stop at a roadhouse because Otis Day and the Knights are performing there, not realizing that it caters to an exclusively black clientele. The hulking patrons intimidate the guys and they flee, damaging Flounder's brother's car and leaving their frightened dates behind. Boon breaks up with his girlfriend Katy (Karen Allen) after discovering her sexual relationship with a professor (Donald Sutherland). Marmalard is told that his girlfriend is having an affair with Otter, so he and other Omegas lure him to a motel and beat him up. The Deltas' midterm grades are so poor that an ecstatic Wormer expels them all. He even notifies their draft boards of their eligibility. In the process, before Bluto attempts to speak to the dean, Wormer orders Flounder to speak, saying "Well? Out with it!", whereupon Flounder vomits on the dean. It seems time for the Deltas to give up, but Bluto, supported by the injured Otter, rouses them with an impassioned, historically inaccurate speech ("Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!") and they decide to take revenge on Wormer and the Omegas. Stork shoves the drum major out from his position at the head of the marching band and leads them down a one-way alley, trapping them. Hoover attaches one end of a chain to a telephone pole and the back of one of the floats, tearing it apart. Several other Deltas use a makeshift mortar to launch flares onto the street. When Neidermeyer and his ROTC unit chase after the Deltas, Flounder tosses a large jar of marbles in their path, spilling them all to the pavement. Flounder produces a large soda sprayer for Neidermeyer but he's forced to retreat when Neidermeyer loads his marching rifle with a live round, shooting out the soda bottle. Chip Diller, who gradually becomes hysterical, tries to calm the fleeing crowd and is trampled. To top it all off, the Deltas have converted Flounder's brother's Lincoln into a parade float with the words "EAT ME" sculpted on the sides. They cut the flowered portion away to reveal the work they did to make the car demonic -- the "DEATHMOBILE" -- complete with a turret and train whistle, and ram it into the spectator's bleachers, upsetting the Dean, his wife, the mayor and their guests. Hoover approaches the Dean and asks for one more chance. Finally, the futures of many of the main characters are revealed. The last shot of the film is of Bluto driving away in a white convertible with his soon-to-be wife, Mandy Pepperidge.