Apple II Bits

This holiday season, I revived a long-dormant tradition of watching one of my favorite Christmas movies: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. There are at least six movies in this franchise, but I’ve seen only Christmas and Las Vegas, with Christmas being my favorite by far.

Even though I haven’t seen the original film in the series, that being 1983’s Vacation, I’m aware that it featured a computer contemporary to that era: the Apple II. Clark Griswold used the household computer to plot the family’s trip to Wally World, establishing a route only slightly less harrowing than the Oregon Trail:

No classic computer was featured so prominently in the succeeding Vacation films — but, despite having seen Christmas Vacation dozens of times, it was nonetheless hiding an Easter egg I’d never discovered.

One of the highlights of the film comes near the end, when Clark Griswold finally loses his cool and flips out, unleashing a torrent of epithets at his boss:

But, hey — what’s that in the background?

Enhance!

Why, it appears that, by 1989, the Griswold family had upgraded to an Apple Macintosh Plus! Having not been a Mac owner before 1997, I didn’t recognize this model, but the reliable website Starring the Computer had the details. This must be the computer that many of my friends reference as their "first Apple II — you know, the one built into the monitor." (sigh)

I would’ve preferred to see that Clark had upgraded to an Apple IIGS… but still, knowing that he at least stuck with the Apple brand makes me appreciate one of my favorite films just a little bit more.

(Thanks to NMRJess‘s eagle eyes for spotting this!)