Randy Quaid, The Boy of Summer

Randy Quaid has come a long way since his gig as Snafu the clown at Houston's AstroWorld. ''I wore a big hat, big shoes, and a hoop coat,'' Quaid remembers of a high school summer job. ''Kids would come and kick me in the nuts.''

This summer's activities have been a lot more pleasant. Quaid, a golfer with a six handicap, took some time off to work on his swing while his malleable mug has been dividing and multiplying on movie screens across the country. In Quick Change he plays Loomis, the basket-case pal of a bank-heisting Bill Murray. In Days of Thunderhe's Tim Daland, the slick-haired race-team owner. And when Texasville — Peter Bogdanovich's long-anticipated sequel to 1971's The Last Picture Show — opens in September, Quaid will reprise his very first movie role as Lester Marlow, the dork who escorted Cybill Shepherd to a nude swimming party.

Clearly, the guy's had a busy year. ''There was one week when I was making three pictures,'' Quaid, 39, says with a Texas languor that makes the implementation of such a schedule tough to envision. ''I was doing Cold Dog Soup (a cold dog that went straight to videotape) in the morning, reshoots of Martians Go Home in the afternoon, and then at the end of the week I went to Colorado for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.''

Now Quaid, in a Manhattan hotel suite that's serving as his home away from home, is relishing his own vacation. ''I may not do another movie for...months,'' he says. But, he mentions, he will be doing a TV series. He just signed on to star as the high school headmaster in ABC's as- yet-unscheduled half-hour comedy show, The Principal, featuring Jonathan Winters as Quaid's father. Reticent to take on the grind of a series, Quaid says he ultimately decided to join the new venture (produced by Carsey-Werner, the team responsible for both The Cosby Show and Roseanne) because ''Winters was one of my childhood heroes. I like the subject matter, and they offered me lots of money.'' As his Matsuda and Armani sportswear suggests, Quaid admits he likes ''to live well. I can't say I sacrifice all for my art.''