I saw Christmas Vacation in the theater as a kid. I've been a fan (obsessed) of the Griswalds since I first tried to sneak into European Vacation and got a glimpse of German boob as a young one.

A few weeks later I was able to convince my dad to rent Vacation on VHS. It's in my top 10 of fondest memories of my dad and I watching that and him saying "we shouldn't be watching this" and bursting out laughing. Its definitely one of the hardest laughs I've had. It may still rank as one of my favorite movies and I watch it at least twice a year. It's a family favorite in my house and my kids quote it regularly.

I eventually saw European Vacation and while we can debate the merits of each Rusty or Audrey, I'll go down as European Rusty as the best...AMH as a close second, then Embry and then the worst being the guy from Big Bang Theory. My spouse and I usually end up debating this issue every time we watch one of the movies.

Vacation was terrible but I'll watch in a pinch for some Cousin Eddie scenes. Plus Cousin Vickie was pretty hot.

Ranked: Vacation, Christmas, European and then Vegas.

But back to Christmas Vacation. I saw it in the theater and it was a tradition in our family to watch it at least twice a year. It truly is wonderful. Note: this is the "I'm better than you" part of the thread.

So, about 7-8 years ago I noticed a a lot more people talking about Christmas Vacation. Posting on FB. I don't really remember many people talking about this movie 15-20 years ago. It's almost like I woke up one day and everyone was acting like they'd been watching for decades.

So, a long way to ask: what movies do you feel that you were an early lover of that ended up being mainstreamed to death?

This is a fun topic and I didn't intend to sound caustic or sour. Lol

Social Media happened.

For the record I've been watching it yearly since the mid-90s

My answer to this OP is actually Avatar. I spent the entire year of 2009 hyping it up to my friends and my brother in particular, even before the marketing had begun for it, based solely on the fact that it was James Cameron, reading about the technology behind it, etc.

I vividly remember my brother telling me it was gonna flop and nobody cared about a random movie about another planet, and I told him he'd be eating those words soon enough.

Lol! I admit I've never seen it

He's the best Rusty imho.

It was the glorious summer of 1986. I was 12 years old and my best friend Trey (RIP) and I had gotten dropped off at the movies by his mom to watch Top Gun. And as great as that movie was, the thing we really noticed was this remarkable trailer before hand.



We were dying laughing and super excited at the same time. We agreed we'd go see it the minute it came out.

Which we did. On Friday, November 14, 1986 he spent the night at my house and my dad took us to see Big Trouble in Little China. We went again the next day. We rented it the minute it came out at Sound Warehouse in the pre-Blockbuster days.

We all have our favorite movies and shows and music and so on. My opinions skew dramatically from the norm in many places. But there is one definable truth as I see it. You either get how incredible BTILC is, or you don't.

Streaming and DVRs, too. I bet if you went to Blockbuster or Hastings in 2001 there was maybe one copy of Christmas Vacation on the shelf, but once you could easily record TBS' 8pm airing or see it on Netflix whenever, then movies like this became more accessible than ever.

I can remember seeing John Wick when a lot of people thought a movie with Keanu Reeves playing an unstoppable killing machine was dumb. I sang its praises to pretty much anyone that would listen. Now John Wick films are basically their own genre because there's nothing else quite like it. I'm happy to be on the right side of history and I just love those films collectively. Glad there's more coming.