Once you get beyond the opening Pig in the Poke sequence – and that’s only worth watching because of the Blessed John Astin – there’s not much to be had here. There are funny moments but they’re usually associated with the sort of humour that Talbot Rothwell would have dismissed as puerile. It also manages to throw up every stereotype of every nation involved including America, but the scenes in Britain are the funniest (even if the bit where they reverse into Stonehenge and topple it domino style was something we were sure had been confined to the comedy dustbin forty years ago). Chevy ‘generalissimo’ Chase leads the clan and the special guests (beware any film that bills anyone as a ‘special guest’) include Mel Smith and Eric Idle.

First – and, meaningless statement ahoy, best! – of Chevy Chase’s one-joke family road trips. That said, there’s still little to recommend it to non-Anthony Michael Hall fans except Lindsay Buckingham’s cute theme song, Holiday Road.

Let’s put our sneaking affection for Chevy Chase aside for a moment and admit it – National Lampoon is rubbish, isn’t it? Here’s a trio of tepid overlong spoof sketches of Dallas and other hackneyed targets. God knows what the magazine was like. Richard ‘Madigan’ Widmark, Candy ‘Mary Lou’ Clark, Robert ‘Greatest American Hero’ Culp, Christopher ‘Jim’ Lloyd, Rhea ‘Carla’ Perlman, Dick ‘Bucket of Blood’ Miller, Julie ‘Marge’ Kavner, Robby Benson and Harry ‘Deep Throat’ Reems all call in, on their way either to or from better things (except maybe those last two).