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Amy Heckerling directed this installment and I remain mystified how the talented helmer of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless signed off on something so cheap and sleazy. The material in the first film had its raunchy moments, but there was a good-natured shine to the proceedings. It laughed with the vulgarities, not at them. Hughes is given story and co-screenplay credit here and I can only wonder that the complete change in tone from the first film is a result of Robert (Weekend at Bernie's) Klane's contributions. The film opened better than the first Vacation with just over $12 million and came close to matching the original' gross.

European Vacation is mean-spirited and disappointing, though it has a handful of comic highlights, but Caddyshack II stands as one of the few movies I have ever experienced first-hand that qualifies as a black hole of comedy. Jokes may be struggling to get out but they wind up sucked back into the nothingness. I viewed it for free on Netflix and I wish there was a way I could get my money back. It came and went in about three weeks time in the summer of 1988, grossing barely a quarter of what Caddyshack did. The one-liner at the start of the column, courtesy of Chase, is as good as it gets.

Like European Vacation, Caddyshack II represents a bizarre trend among 1980s comedy franchises where a raunchy R-rated first chapter was followed by subsequent installments at a PG-13 and/or PG level, making them more kid and family friendly, I suppose. This seems to fly in the face of conventional box office wisdom (why tinker with a proven formula?) and indeed the follow-ups would go on to gross successively less. I am thinking of the Police Academy and Revenge of the Nerds series most obviously.

Caddyshack II was co-written by Ramis and directed by Allan Arkush, a man with some experience in the realm of cult slapstick comedies (Rock N Roll High School, Get Crazy). To say that it represents a downfall from the anarchic, anything-goes, comic rhythms of the original is an understatement. What results, quite shockingly, is a film that feels like a raunchy comedy rewritten and re-edited to get every joke down to the level of a tame nightclub routine. If not for Ramis' involvement, I would swear that Caddyshack II was a grade Z direct-to-video 1980s slobs vs. snobs tale that got the Caddyshack name slapped on it in order to finagle a theatrical release.

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