That a 20% increase in his Christmas bonus makes him faint?
Let's say it was a generous $10,000.00 the previous year...is $12,000.00 enough to floor someone?
Compared to just being CHEATED of a bonus, yeah, I'd say so, but given this was 25 years ago I doubt bonuses came that big, which then leaves the question how much did the pool cost?
shareI'm thinking the pool he was daydreaming about would have cost at least $15,000. And he was hoping there would be enough left over to fly everyone back to dedicate the pool. So my guess is his bonus the previous year was $20,000 and the extra $4,000 really did floor him. :)
shareHis bonus was 20k in 1989? That's like half his salary.
"I can't help but notice that there are skulls all over everything. Are we the baddies?"
Here's a 1989 article stating the costs of an in-ground pool. $15,000 is right at the average. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/18/style/consumer-s-world-everybody-into-the-pool-but-carefully.html
shareI think it's always been alluded to that Clark is actually really wealthy, and despite his idiotic behavior, is an intelligent researcher/scientist. It's usually in food grade stuff, but he's always working with something that would definitely take some smarts, like the food varnishes and such.
shareThis is the only thing that bothered me about the movie. I wish I was as poor as Clark. His house was enormous and he was complaining about his rich boss when he himself was well off.
shareYeah, it's a little difficult to feel sorry for him simply because he can't afford to put in a pool. His house is beautiful and above average, and the electricity to run his Christmas lights alone must cost a pretty penny
so he's not exactly a hardship case. Also, I always found it a bit crass that he laments about not getting his bonus in front of Eddie, Catharine and their kids considering how THEY live.
That being said, I love the film and watch it multiple times every Christmas. It's one of the funniest movies and still holds up today.
This is a faithful saying...Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
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^This is something that stood at to me when I watched this movie back in 1989 as a kid. Clark was complaining about being POOR!!??? The guy lived a very well sized house that looks a bare minimum 3,000 square feet, but probably around 4,000 sq feet or more. Yet Clark carries on like he's some poor schmoe that's real down on his luck b/c he can't put in a pool in his backyard.
Sure the Griswold's may not be the upper wealthy elite, but they were clearly very well off upper middle class people by any standard. They lived in a house better then most of America. When I was a kid my family lived closer to Eddie then Clark, we weren't dirt poor like Eddie, but I felt more like Eddie's sad pathetic family then Clark's misguided but still cheerful and well off family. I can't imagine how insulting this movie has always been to families that really do live in mobile homes though and were actually dirt poor people.
Well, I'd say it's all a matter of perspective. I was stationed in a 3rd world country for 9 months, trust me, even if you were just slightly above Eddie you were still fabulously wealthy compared to the people in that country.
shareWhen the courier arrived, Clark stated that he didn't have enough in his account to cover the down payment... so I assumed that the bonus was meant to cover the down payment, not necessarily the whole pool itself. When my parents put in a pool in the 1980s, it was well over $20,000, so a down payment had to be at least a couple thousand. I'm going to guess he was expecting a ~$4,000 bonus or so, or roughly 10% of a $40,000 salary.
share^It's weird that in the 80s a $40,000 salary meant someone who could live upper middle class. Hell I remember this was somewhat the case even into the mid 90s. Today $40,000 is complete middle class, and almost even struggling to get by. But in the 1980s and most of the 90s, $40k a year was like about $65-70k a year today. $65-70k a year is obviously not elite rich, but it's just making the cut of upper middle class people, which the Griswolds always seemed like.
share75k today is not a lot of money. If the house and car is paid off, or even just the house than yes, there's a large chunk of money left over. But a mortgage, car payment, throw in a couple of kids and the constant need for something to be paid for (school, clothes, and general stuff), daycare, medical bills, utilities, repairs, food, entertainment, putting away something for retirement, and the list goes on... And there's not a lot left over.
I know if I wanted to put in a pool, there would have to be a really fat bonus coming in from somewhere. And even then I wouldn't be able to float (no pun intended) payments on it (not with the current obligations that we have).
^I didn't say it was a lot of money. But I believe around 70k or 75k to be just making the cut of what an upper middle class income would be. The bottom feeders of the upper middle class. This seems to be what the Griswolds are, they are an upper middle class incomed family, but not a high one. They are wealthy enough to look down on people like Eddie and Catherine, but envy the far more well off people like Clark's boss.
40k is complete middle class, and almost kinda barely getting by, depending on how large your family is and other expenses. Eddie and Catherine, when they had an income coming in, were probably still in some poverty and making around 15k or no more then 20k a year.
70k isn't even close to what upper middle class is today and 40k was not even close to upper middle class in 1989.
upper middle class is more like 150k+
(edit: in fact, apparently upper middle class is officially defined today as borderline upper middle class from 100k-150k and solid upper middle class as 150k-350k and rich over 350k; it depends where you live, 100-150k would not be in say much of CA, NJ, NY near NYC, near Boston, near Chicago and such but maybe could be in parts of the South and Middle America- keep in mind that in NC you can get a huge apartment with walk in closests, high ceiling, huge bathroom, landry room, deck, facing the woods, etc. etc. for like $900 a month while in NJ you'd get a rats nest of a dump along a busy highway and in LA that same apartment would be like $3000 a month)
I got a 6 inch bear with my name on it for Christmas. Been with the company 22 years
shareI think part of it depends on where you live. I am 33 and have 4 young children. My wife has always been a stay at home mother. We have two cars that are fully paid off and a mortgage on a 3800 sqft home about 25 miles north of Dallas Tx. Our family income is just a tad over 100k a year and while we are very comfortable I don't feel like we are just rolling in money and have never thought of myself as anything but middle class. My same 100k a year income in New York or San Diego would not go nearly as far. This movie is set in or around Chicago I assume and I believe the cost of living is higher that Dallas but less than New York. If in was a guessing man I believe Clark probably makes about 80k a year which would be like 140k to 160k a year now. A 15% bonus wouldn't be unheard of as mine is generally 10 to 15% before taxes. Of course this is just a movie and we all know tv and movies do not always accurately portray a realistic lifestyle. To be fair who would want to see a movie about a family on a tight Christmas budget with not much going on. All just my two cents.
shareI wish there were more movies about families with tight budgets. Human beings need to see stories in which people aren't spoiled rotten with excess.
Just my two cents.
>I wish there were more movies about families with tight budgets.
Movies changed. Today the wife would escort on the side and surprise her husband with her fancy clothes and car and make up some excuse about a rich uncle. Then she'd have an affair with some lesbian on heroin and get punched by some socialist at a Bernie Sanders protest. The culture changed since the '80s...
^^^^^
shareWow, you are Clark Griswold. Only 33 and pulling over 100k a year? That's pretty damn well off in my book. Granted I know people in their 20s that make 200k a year, but still, it's impressive. You live near Dallas, petroleum engineer I'm guessing? The oil industry makes a lot of people rich around the Dallas and Houston area from my experience.
I'm later 30s and nowhere near that figure, I make about 56k a year, not married and no children. If I married someone with my same income then our combined family income could clear 100k. If I had a wife that didn't work, I imagine myself having to cut back on a lot of things I'm used to, and I'd likely struggle with bills and Christmas presents. Since I'm a single guy with no kids, 56k a year allows me to live rather well for my standards and I enjoy myself. The Griswolds did come across as financially well off people to me. To be fair these things are based on our own perspectives. Someone else might think my salary is really nice, but to me I'm just another middle income goon in my company. I can't afford a pool in the backyard I know that.
A few come to mind now that I think about it. It's a wonderful life taught us that you can be rich in friends and family while being poor monetarily. Bob Crachet was pretty impoverished thanks to old Scrooge. In my personal favorite A Christmas story Ralphie's family doesn't seem to be rolling in cash. My comment above about no one wants to see a tight budget was just me thinking back to the first few christmas holidays I experienced as a married guy with a young daughter. It was mostly stressing over how to pay our normal monthly bills while finding a bit extra to provide a small Christmas. It was a special time to be certain but not sure how entertaining it would be. To each their own I guess.
shareThose are good examples of movies about more regular middle class or working class people around the holidays. They contrasted nicely to the more well off wealthy people like the Griswolds or that Home Alone family that lived in a freakin' mansion and were always taking nice vacations around the country or in Europe. But even in the movies and TV, although we're shown a bit more clearly how working class those families (especially George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life) are, they still live in larger then average homes. Bob Cratchet was indeed straight up improverished. Those examples do show that Christmas movies about more working class incomed people can do really well and a good story can be a good story.
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