Chevy Chase And Todd Graves Kick Off Holidays During Lighting Ceremony In Chicago

“Alright, folks. I want you to listen carefully…” said legendary actor and comic Chevy Chase Tuesday in the northern suburbs of Chicago, addressing a massive throng of fans. “Everything I say is funny!”

Chase was on hand reprising his role as Clark Griswold during a restaurant lighting ceremony and commercial shoot at the Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers location in Morton Grove, Illinois.

Released in 1989, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is the third installment in the Vacation film series, following Vacation in 1983 and European Vacation in 1985.

Vacation was directed by Chicago native Harold Ramis while John Hughes, who grew up in the suburb of Northbrook, had a hand in writing the first three films. In each, the Griswolds call the Chicago suburbs home, making Morton Grove the perfect location for Tuesday’s events.

“I’ve been a fan of Christmas Vacation since I was a kid. And then all Chevy Chase movies. I mean, I grew up with them,” said Raising Cane’s founder and philanthropist Todd Graves. “So it’s amazing for me that, throughout the course of building this business, I actually get to go with one of my childhood idols, this legendary comedian, and actually do a campaign with him,” he said. “We’ve got restaurants in 34 states. I said, ‘We’ve got to do it in Chicago.’ People were like, ‘Well, you might have bad weather…’ I was like, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’re gonna do Chicago because this is Chicago’s movie.’ And Chevy agreed and he came.”

While windy, Tuesday actually wound up an unseasonably warm afternoon throughout the Chicagoland area, with temperatures soaring near 60 degrees. A hot chocolate truck was on hand as were carollers, a drum corp and a huge turnout of Chase fans.

Clad in ugly Christmas sweaters and “GRISWOLD 00” Chicago Blackhawks jerseys while chanting quotes from the movie, attendees waved massive cutouts of the actor’s face, Chase’s smiling visage soaring above the capacity crowd as local television crews captured the afternoon’s events for airing on the evening news.

Tuesday’s lighting ceremony and Chicago arrival were actually the culmination of a series of online videos that can be viewed via Graves and Raising Cane’s social media accounts.

“We did a bit with the car driving across the country. On Instagram or Twitter, you can see it. So we made it a road trip. And Chevy was all for it. I just got to prompt him with things and he was hilarious,” Graves explained. “We started off, we’re all excited and we’re on this trip. And then he was being like Clark Griswold. He was handing me lights to fix. There was a squirrel in the car and we run off the road while going across the country. But then we get tired of each other on an 800 mile road trip and wind up here in Chicago.”

Graves founded Raising Cane’s in 1996 in Louisiana, his business plan famously receiving a failing grade upon submission in a college course. The co-founder worked at an oil refinery and as a salmon fisherman, combining his savings with an SBA loan to start a chain which today numbers 600 locations.

The fast food juggernaut was initially named after Graves’ dog, a yellow Labrador named Raising Cane. Each holiday season, the restaurants raise money for pet welfare groups via the sale of its Plush Puppies. This year, the pups tout a Christmas Vacation theme, benefiting four Chicago area groups as well as organizations across the country with one, Pup Culture, particularly close to the Chase family.

“It was a thrill too because he was excited about the charitable component. I said, ‘Are you OK if we do a Clark Griswold-themed Plush Puppy? We sell these every year and donate all of it to pet welfare…’ He said, ‘How much do you think we’ll raise?’ We hope for $400,000. He said, ‘Absolutely.’”

Fans cheered and waved as Chase and Graves drove away from the restaurant Tuesday evening in a graffitied, green wood-paneled station wagon, famously dubbed “The Family Truckster” in the Vacation films and complete with a Walley World bumper sticker.

Spinning the dysfunctional family holiday tale that it does, Christmas Vacation, released earlier this month on 4K Ultra HD, stands today as one of the most continually resonant seasonal offerings of the last 40 years, now a marketing machine responsible for annual sales of branded merchandise like moose mugs and more.

Ultimately, the film has a happy ending, inspiring both Graves and Chase to give back as the holiday season marches along, a gift that, not unlike the jelly of the month club, keeps on giving.

“It’s important to give back at all times of the year but I think this holiday time is when you start to really reflect on how grateful you are for things and how nice it is,” said Graves. “It brings out the best in people. People treat each other better and it makes you think how fortunate you are as you give back. So, at this time of year, being able to do something with this legend, together, to give back in a significant way, it’s really important to do it. And I think it inspires people to do more and help more and just help each other.”