Disney+'s first Marvel show, WandaVision, drew heavily from two major influences -- comic books and classic TV -- and created something original. The series had to tell a compelling story about Scarlet Witch and her synthezoid husband, as well as help bridge the gaps between the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phases 3 and 4, but half the fun for viewers was finding Easter eggs along the way.
WandaVision made overt references to everything from The Brady Bunch to minor characters in comics from the 1980s. However, there is one bit of Hollywood history that appears in the show and went undetected until recently, most likely because its presence was more logistical than metaphorical. Though WandaVision focused on hit TV series from the 1950s through the early 2000s, it could've just as easily referenced classic family films like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
In a more covert way, it did by using the famous Griswold house as the home that Wanda and Vision occupy during their time together in the Hex. The two-story suburban structure was perfect in more ways that one. Located in Burbank, California on the Warner Bros. backlot, Blondie street is a neighborhood seemingly stuck in time.
"You can't find a real street that feels like Blondie Street," director Matt Shakman said. "You need it to have that weird sense of fakeness." The anomaly Wanda created certainly was fake, but it also evolved at a much faster pace than real life, fast-forwarding through decades of pop culture within days.
Ironically, the same is true of the Blondie Street house and has been since the beginning. Most recently, WandaVision's production team used digital effects to change the appearance of the house so that it felt authentic to each era. For example, in the first episode, with the magic of CGI, the second floor was removed and a picket fence was added. The house does function as an interior set, but WandaVision filmed those scenes at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, which made swapping out period furniture and accessories more convenient.
The Blondie Street house had been a useful chameleon long before Wanda and Vision moved in, though. It was initially built for 1989's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, in which it was notoriously blanketed in Christmas Lights with cousin Eddie's dilapidated RV parked in the driveway. Since then, it's made appearances in movies like Hocus Pocus, Pleasantville and American Beauty. It's also been in TV shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and ER, not to mention Old Navy commercials. The Blondie Street house has become something of an entertainment industry Easter egg unto itself, and as is sure to be the case with Wanda, this isn't the last we'll see of it.
Written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes. New episodes air Fridays on Disney+.