The Great Outdoors is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Howard Deutch, written and produced by John Hughes, and starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy with supporting roles by Stephanie Faracy, Annette Bening (in her film debut), Chris Young, Lucy Deakins, and Robert Prosky.

[2] Chicagoans Chet Ripley, his wife Connie, and their sons Buck and Ben arrive at their rented lakefront cabin in Pechoggin, Wisconsin, for a summer vacation.

To Chet's dismay, Connie's sister Kate, her investment broker husband Roman Craig, and their twin daughters Mara and Cara arrive uninvited.

Meanwhile, Buck romances a local girl named Cammie but fails to keep a date with her after Chet is challenged by Roman to eat a 96-ounce steak.

Roman returns to the cabin and confesses that he is bankrupt from failed investments and was planning to use the money in the hopes to financially recover.

In the post-credits scene, the raccoon family (who rummaged through the trash cans throughout the film) talk in their language about what happened to "Jody" and state that she is "bald on both ends now".

[5] In the original John Hughes script, Roman's redemption came through a daring rescue of his twin girls who had caught a giant fish that towed them around the lake in a small rowboat.

[11] "Imagine that it's raining cats and dogs and you're locked in a north woods cabin for weeks with the people you like least, and you'll pretty much have a feel for what it's like to sit through this movie," said Hal Hinson of The Washington Post.

[13][1] In April 2017, Universal Pictures announced that a reboot of the film starring Kevin Hart and produced by Michael De Luca was in development.

[14] In a November 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aykroyd said that he was working on a sequel with Deutch titled The Great Outlaws that would "bring back Roman as a Ponzi scheme guy who victimizes a federal agent."