The House in Disney’s ‘Ernest Saves Christmas’ Couldn’t Be Saved
Ernest P. Worrell didn’t have the common sense of a functional human being, but he had a heart that endeared him to audiences everywhere. The Ernest movies saw the title character save Christmas from greedy corporations, fight child-eating trolls and go camping. Ernest lived in a frame vernacular house which was featured prominently in Ernest Saves Christmas. The house might be a pop culture treasure, but the costly repair fees made it difficult to save it.
Who is Ernest P. Worrell
Ernest was America’s favorite klutz. The character often wore a trademark baseball cap and a denim vest, making it impossible not to recognize him. According to Entertainment Weekly, the character was born in 1980 and created by Caden & Cherry, an advertising agency in Nashville. At the time, the ad agency boss R. Cherry III was looking for a way to bring in traffic for a rundown amusement park that was impossible to show in ads.
So, Cherry decided a rubber-faced make-believe visitor would be the best person to recommend the place to audiences. The company found its Ernest in comedian Jim Varney. The ad was hugely successful and resulted in the demand for the character soaring.
The character appeared in several commercials selling everything from trucks to ice cream and sodas. The scenes and script were always the same; a wide-angle shot of the main character talking to his unseen neighbor, Vern, about the product they are selling. The shot sets the audience up to be Vern.
Ernest got so popular that Disney decided to take their bite out of the apple in 1987 with the first of nine movies, Ernest Goes to Camp. Ernest Saves Christmas came the following year, and Ernest Goes to Jail was released two years later. The last film in the franchise was Ernest in the Army.
The house in ‘Ernest Saves Christmas’ was demolished
Ernest Saves Christmas follows the title character as he helps a forgetful old Santa find his successor before Christmas is ruined. The movie was a moderate success, earning $28.2 million at the box office.
The movie was filmed at the Disney-MGM Studios, while Ernest’s house was located on Thornton Park Drive in Orlando, Florida. In 2022, the house was demolished, with the report claiming that the structure had degraded dramatically over the years.
The home’s owner, Robert Nunziata, planned to restore it but abandoned the project due to the high repair costs. According to Bungalower, the full restoration process would have cost Nunziata $500,000.
The outlet reports that Nunziata had applied for a demolition permit from the city of Orlando, but his applications kept getting denied. According to him, the city reasoned that the home had a significant cultural significance and wanted to preserve it, but the costs to keep it standing outweighed demolishing it.
The Historic Preservation Board eventually consented and agreed to knock the aged house down, and a two-story single-family home apartment took its place. According to The Community Paper, the new structure consists of 2,381 square feet of living space and 513 square feet for the garage apartment.
Ernest’s portrayer died from lung cancer
Before his turn as Ernest, Jim Varney had appeared in Johnny Cash and Friends, Fernwood 2 Night, and Alice. His role in the Ernest movies helped him garner critical acclaim, and even though the kids’ series Hey Vern, It’s Ernest! flopped, Varney’s performance earned him a Daytime Emmy Award.
Varney also worked on Toy Story 2, Roseanne, and Hercules. However, Varney was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 due to extensive chain smoking. His health declined throughout 1999, and although he underwent chemotherapy, it ultimately failed, and he died in 2000 at the age of 50.
