History Film / PlanesTrainsAndAutomobiles

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Neal's uptight and definitely something of a dick, but a lot of his tantrums can be put down to stress at his circumstances and the fact that Del, let's face it, is not the easiest of travelling companions. He's certainly genuinely devoted to his family.

* ActorAllusion: In the airport terminal, Del is reading a book called "The Canadian Mounted". John Candy is (or was, before he died) Canadian.

* TheCameo: Three from other John Hughes movies; KevinBacon competes with Neal for a car, and then [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff Ben Stein]] announces that all flights have been cancelled … and smiles. Finally, [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff Edie McClurg]] has to endure the F-bomb rant.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In Kansas, Neal lists this catalogue of Del's sins against his sanity: spilling beer all over the bed, smoking and messing up the bathroom (all in the hotel), not paying for his share of the stay, and talking nonstop on the plane from UsefulNotes/{{New York|City}}.

* NoSympathy: Outside of Del, no one really shows Neal much sympathy at all.

This film featured JohnCandy and SteveMartin in one of the best comedy performances of [[TheEighties the 1980s]]. The film was directed by Creator/JohnHughes, best known for teen angst films until that time.

* SanitySlippage: Neal goes through a little bit. Summed up when he briefly phones his wife.

---> Del: "I don't think I've ever seen a guy picked up by his testicles before …"

* CaliforniaDoubling: Averted. The film was shot on location in New York, Wichita, Sandbox/StLouis and Chicago.

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: The sole reason for Neal's rant. Hughes deliberately wanted the movie to be rated "R", because he felt that if it was rated lower, people would think he was just cranking out another teen angst film.

* GroinAttack: Del, in St. Louis: "I don't think I've ever seen a guy picked up by his testicles before …"

* IfIWantedXIWouldY

* TalkingToTheDead: Del with [[spoiler: his former wife Marie]], after whose death eight years prior he lost everything but a spotty job selling shower curtain rings.

*** Finding the next flight or the nearest hotel? There's an app for that, like Kayak.com's.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In Kansas, Neal lists this catalogue of Del's sins against his sanity: spilling beer all over the bed, smoking and messing up the bathroom (all in the hotel), not paying for his share of the stay, and talking nonstop on the plane from UsefulNotes/{{New York|City}}.[[note]][[DontExplainTheJoke In case you can't work this out, he progresses from criticizing the man's hygiene and indigence to a merely personally annoying habit]]—though as Neal rightly points out, damn near ''anyone'' would be pretty ticked off by such a MotorMouth.[[/note]]

*** Overall, having a smart phone/wireless laptop would have actually changed very little; all the apps in the world wouldn't have stopped the massive SNAFU the blizzard caused, the mad rush to book hotels, or much of any of the other events. Even the rental car thing would have pretty much happened as depicted; just TRY reaching a human being that could dispatch a shuttle from a rental car company's 1-800 number. Or an airline phone number. Etc.

* GroinAttack: "I don't think I've ever seen a guy picked up by his testicles before …"

* [[CarMeetsHouse Car Meets Hotel]]: They back their burned out car into the motel room wall, then quickly flee.

** [[PrecisionFStrike Laser-Guided Precision F-Nuke]]: In the same scene, even, from the single most unlikely source you'd ever expected it from.

* HanlonsRazor: Del.

* SomeonesTouchingMyButt: "Those aren't pillows!''

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} TheWindyCity]]

Uptight advertising executive Neal Page just wants to get home to [[TheWindyCity Chicago]] for UsefulNotes/ThanksgivingDay. Unfortunately, every mode of transportation somehow fails him and he is stuck with Del Griffith, a traveling shower curtain ring salesman who won't shut up. Through delayed planes, broken down trains and burned-out automobiles Neal and Del go from being at each other's throats to friends.

->"''The other great comic set piece in the movie is responsible for its R rating; nothing else in the movie would qualify for other than PG-13. This is Neal's verbal symphony for the f-word, performed by the desperate man after a rental-car bus strands him three miles from the terminal without a car. He has to walk back through the snow and mud, crossing runways, falling down embankments, until he finally faces a chirpy rental agent (Edie [=McClurg=]) who is chatting on the phone about the need for tiny marshmallows in the ambrosia. When she sweetly asks Neal if he is disturbed, he unleashes a speech in which the adjectival form of the f-word supplies the prelude to every noun, including itself, and is additionally used as punctuation. When he finishes, the clerk has a two-word answer that supplies one of the great moments in movie dialogue.''"

* ActorAllusion: In the airport terminal, Del is reading a book called "Canadian Mounted". John Candy is Canadian.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In Kansas, Neal lists this catalogue of Del's sins against his sanity: spilling beer all over the bed, smoking and messing up the bathroom (all in the hotel), not paying for his share of the stay, and talking nonstop on the plane from [[NewYorkCity New York]].

* BedMateReveal: "Why did you kiss my ear?"

* BrickJoke: Three of them -- two with short air times, and one that had been hanging for about an hour -- come together to great effect: [[spoiler: A hotel clerk swaps their credit cards, Neal puts his wallet in a rental car's glove compartment asking Del to remind him to remove it, and Del flicks a cigarette out the window only for it to bounce back in unnoticed. Del reveals he had the credit card and returned it to Neal's wallet -- just as the car catches fire incinerating the wallet.]]
** During the movie, scenes of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner being prepared are shown. [[spoiler:During TheStinger, you see the CEO of the company that Del was giving the ad spiel to at the beginning of the movie, ''still'' hasn't decided on which campaign to use, with the dinner on the conference table near him. And, he was played by William Windom, Kevin Bacon's father-in-law from ''ShesHavingABaby''.]]
* CaliforniaDoubling: Averted. The film was shot on location in New York, Wichita, UsefulNotes/StLouis and Chicago.
* TheCameo: Three from other John Hughes movies; KevinBacon competes with Neal for a car, and then [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff Ben Stein]] announces that all flights have been cancelled … and smiles. Finally, [[Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff Edie McClurg]] has to endure the F bomb rant

** [[PrecisionFStrike Laser Guided Precision F Nuke]]: In the same scene, even, from the single most unlikely source you'd ever expected it from.

** Same with ''Dutch,'' another movie about a pair of dissimilar people from different class backgrounds struggling to get home to Chicago for [[ThanskgivingEpisode Thanksgiving]] … And ''also'' written by John Hughes.

* PsychoStrings: "Hey, Neal, take my socks out of the sink if you're going to brush your teeth."

*** … but it ''would'' have made some of the troubles associated with those situations resolve much more quickly -- for example: [[spoiler: on finding that the car he rented didn't exist, Neal could have called the rental company for a pick up]].

*** Overall, having a smartphone / wireless laptop would have actually changed very little; all the apps in the world wouldn't have stopped the massive SNAFU the blizzard caused, the mad rush to book hotels, or much of any of the other events. Even the rental car thing would have pretty much happened as depicted; just TRY reaching a human being that could dispatch a shuttle from a rental car company's 1-800 number. Or an airline phone number. Etc.

* ThereIsOnlyOneBed

* TheWindyCity

The film is probably best known for the sole scene responsible for its R rating; in which Neal, after being abandoned in a rental car parking lot where the car he rented isn't there, is forced to walk three miles back to the airport, whereupon he goes on a [[ClusterFBomb tirade]] against the rental agent. But it is not so much said tirade, as [[CrowningMomentOfFunny the rental agent's response to it]]. RogerEbert probably puts it best:

* ItGotWorse: After Neal misses his cab at the start everything goes downhill.
** [[SerialEscalation And THAT]] [[FinaglesLaw MEANS EVERYTHING.]]

* ThanksgivingDayStory: The main premise of the story is Neal trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday.

* TheStinger