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  •  The Stories That Inspired The Movie Were First Published As Essays In ‘Playboy’ on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#1) The Stories That Inspired The Movie Were First Published As Essays In ‘Playboy’

    Writer Jean Shepherd, who also narrated the film, was already a prolific writer before he wrote A Christmas Story. He had columns in The Village Voice, Mad Magazine, and even Playboy. The stories that inspired Shepherd to write the film came straight from some of the essays published in the adult entertainment magazine, which were later collected into a bookIn God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash. Scott Schwartz, who played Flick, recalled Shepherd and the movie's origins fondly in an interview with NPR:

    He improvised a great many of his stories on the air, on WOR [New York City], but he also was published in Playboy magazine... One of the many delicious ironies about this movie is the fact that the stories on which it was based were first published in Playboy.

  • Director Bob Clark And Narrator/Writer Shepherd Have Cameos In The Film on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#2) Director Bob Clark And Narrator/Writer Shepherd Have Cameos In The Film

    Director Bob Clark makes a brief but memorable cameo in A Christmas Story. After the Old Man has set up all the Christmas lights and is admiring his work (along with his fancy new leg lamp), his neighbor comes out to admire the view. Swede, AKA Clark, is a bit of a doofus, but a lovable one. 

    Writer/narrator Shepherd makes a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance as well. When Ralphie is impatiently making his way through the store to meet Santa, Shepherd yells at him for cutting the line.

  •  Flick’s Tongue Wasn’t Really Stuck To A Flagpole on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#3) Flick’s Tongue Wasn’t Really Stuck To A Flagpole

    One of the many beloved scenes in A Christmas Story is when Flick (Scott Schwartz) agrees to lick a freezing cold pole on a dare. Naturally, his tongue becomes stuck to the pole, and his struggle to pull it looks nothing short of painful. Schwartz revealed the trick behind making the scene, as he wasn't actually sticking his tongue to a cold piece of metal; it was a suction trick:

    It was a plastic pole. It wasn't real. And they put a little hole in it about the size of your pinky nail, and there was a suction tube with a motor that was in the snow [covered up] so you couldn't hear it, and just like a vacuum cleaner, if you put your hand on the vacuum cleaner, it's just phhhht, and you get stuck... It took us about 11½ hours to shoot that.

    And unfortunately, they had to do it more than once:

    And if that wasn't bad enough, we actually had to shoot it twice. The first time we did it, the film came out dark. They developed it dark, and they nicely came to me and said, "Listen, we have good news and bad news. The good news is you're going to be with us a few more days. The bad news is we've got to go out there and do it all over again."

  • Screenwriter/Narrator Shepherd Hated The Idea That His Stories Were ‘Nostalgic’ on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#4) Screenwriter/Narrator Shepherd Hated The Idea That His Stories Were ‘Nostalgic’

    Many fans of the film love it for its seemingly nostalgic look at American life at the turn of the consumerist boom in the late 1930s and 1940s. Writer Shepherd, however, doesn't enjoy this outlook on his story. In fact, he relates nostalgia to a "sickness." The New York Post quoted the late writer as saying:

    I think nostalgia is one of the great sicknesses of America. What my work says is: If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen it then. You’ll notice that nothing works out for the kid. He gets hit with the [BB], the furnace blows up, the dogs go wild, and the family winds up having to go to a Chinese restaurant for Christmas.

  • Director Clark Also Directed ‘Porky’s,’ Which Made MGM Think He Could Create A Hit Film on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#5) Director Clark Also Directed ‘Porky’s,’ Which Made MGM Think He Could Create A Hit Film

    Clark's raunchy teen comedy Porky's came out in 1982 in the US to much fanfare. Even though the subject material between the risqué comedy and A Christmas Story is vastly different, it was Clark's success with Porky's that made MGM confident he could handle A Christmas Story. Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie, talked about why it was so hard to get off the ground without Porky's success to Vanity Fair:

    I think it took so long to get made because the movie, by modern-day standards, is about nothing. It’s a family a couple of weeks before Christmas, and the kid wants a BB gun. That’s not exactly a pitch in which you’d say, "Let me get the president of the studio on the phone!"

  • The Role Of Ralphie’s Dad Was Supposed To Go To Jack Nicholson, But Creators Worried He Would Want Too Much Money on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#6) The Role Of Ralphie’s Dad Was Supposed To Go To Jack Nicholson, But Creators Worried He Would Want Too Much Money

    "I love [Jack], but thank God he didn’t [end up with the part] because Darren is the Old Man," said director Clark. Clark pushed really hard to have Darren McGavin as Ralphie's dad, even though Nicholson was reportedly interested in the role.

    Still, the studio was nervous that Nicholson would ask for too high of a rate, and since Clark was pushing so hard for McGavin, they stuck with him.

  • A Flash Gordon Dream Sequence Was Cut From The Film on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#7) A Flash Gordon Dream Sequence Was Cut From The Film

    Part of A Christmas Story's charm is getting to see Ralphie's innocuous fantasies, like how he envisioned his teacher giving him the best grade in the class for his theme on the Red Ryder. There were several other dream and fantasy scenes that were written or shot but didn't make the final cut.

    One of these scenes, a dream in which Ralphie saves Flash Gordon from the evil Ming, ended up on the cutting room floor due to time restrictions; the studio wanted to keep the film at 90 minutes so it could play every two hours in theaters. 

  • Billingsley Was The First To Try Out For Ralphie, But The Director Auditioned 8,000 More Actors on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#8) Billingsley Was The First To Try Out For Ralphie, But The Director Auditioned 8,000 More Actors

    According to Vanity Fair, Billingsley was the first child to audition for the role of Ralphie. Prior to the film, Billingsley was already a sought-after child commercial actor. Director Clark enjoyed Bilingsley's audition, but he felt that immediately casting him was too obvious of a choice. Billingsley's mother, Gail, said that "they [auditioned actors] in California, and in a couple of other countries" before Clark finally admitted that he wanted Billingsley for the part. 

    "He walked in, and he had us from the beginning," Clark told Gail.

  • Even Though Much Of The Filming Took Place During Winter In Cleveland And Canada, It Was So Warm That Most Of The Snow Was Artificial on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#9) Even Though Much Of The Filming Took Place During Winter In Cleveland And Canada, It Was So Warm That Most Of The Snow Was Artificial

    Director Clark and his production crew settled on Toronto and Cleveland, OH, as shooting locations. Even though it was cold outside in both locations, there wasn't any snow. In order to give A Christmas Story an authentic, winter wonderland look, Clark and producer René Dupont had to get creative.

    They brought in snow from ski resorts hundreds of miles away. When it started to get a little too warm for the real snow, the production team relied on potato flakes, white vinyl, and firefighter foam to create the film's blustery look. 

  • As An Adult, The Actor Who Played Ralphie’s Brother Randy Lived In The ‘Christmas Story’ House And Gave Tours on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#10) As An Adult, The Actor Who Played Ralphie’s Brother Randy Lived In The ‘Christmas Story’ House And Gave Tours

    Brian Jones, a superfan of the film, purchased the real Bumpus House back in 2004. In 2010, Ian Petrella, who played Ralphie's younger brother Randy in the film, stayed in the house during the summer of 2010. During this time, he helped give tours of the house to fans and visitors.

    "I am really looking forward to meeting and interacting with the fans,” Petrella said at the time. “I hope that by being there I can make their trip to the house more memorable and special, even if that means crawling back under the kitchen sink to help them relive the movie.”

  • Shel Silverstein Encouraged Shepherd To Compile His Stories Into A Book on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#11) Shel Silverstein Encouraged Shepherd To Compile His Stories Into A Book

    Author Shel Silverstein urged writer Shepherd to turn his radio programs into books. Allegedly, Shepherd wasn't all that interested in writing down his stories, and as the legends go, Silverstein recorded some of Shepherd's programs and edited them together.

    The result was In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, and the rest is history. 

  • Billingsley Still Has The Pink Bunny Suit on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#12) Billingsley Still Has The Pink Bunny Suit

    Ralphie wasn't a fan of the pink bunny suit, but actor Billingsley's mom was. In 2011, the actor spoke to the Chicago Sun Times and revealed that his mother is the reason he still has the pink bunny suit:

    I was a kid so I didn't really think about keeping any of the stuff. But my mom did keep some things for me with the thought that it would be fun to have when I was an adult. So thanks to her I have the bunny suit, the [Red Ryder], a slate board, and the cowboy outfit. They're all on display in a special Christmas window at Macy's.

  • Two Unsuccessful Sequels Were Made on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#13) Two Unsuccessful Sequels Were Made

    A Christmas Story wasn't a mega-success right off the bat, but its late-found popularity had MGM ready to make sequels. My Summer Story (1994) was another collaboration between director Clark and writer Shepherd, but it did not feature the original cast, save for teacher Miss Shields (Tedde Moore). Kieran Culkin took on the role of Ralphie, and the movie follows the summertime antics of him and his friends. It wasn't as popular as the first installment, and even Shepherd admitted that the film was "a real turkey."

    In 1988, a direct-to-TV movie called Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss, which followed 14-year-old Ralphie as he tries to get his first summer job, came out. It was equally unsuccessful. In 2012, another straight-to-TV sequel, A Christmas Story 2, came out, but neither Clark nor Shepherd were involved.

  • Wil Wheaton And Sean Astin Auditioned For The Role Of Ralphie on Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Making Of ‘A Christmas Story’

    (#14) Wil Wheaton And Sean Astin Auditioned For The Role Of Ralphie

    With over 8,000 kids from around the world auditioning to be Ralphie, at least a few of them were bound to be other well-known actors.

    At the time, child actors Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton both auditioned for the role of Ralphie Parker with no luck

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About This Tool

A Christmas Story is a family comedy film directed by Bob Clark, released in 1993. The film emphatically shows the boy's perseverance and adult's absurd behavior, thereby obtaining mild humor and pungent irony. The movie based on some stories in Jean Shepherd's 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. A Christmas Story regarded as a seasonal classic movie, there are countless people who watch it at Christmas every year.

Are you curious about the behind stories? This page has 14 entries, there is a collection of behind scenes stories of A Christmas Story, you could find more information and welcome to share it with your friends.  

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