There are few holiday movies as familiar as A Christmas Story. From the iconic image of the leg lamp to the chanting of “you’ll shoot your eye out,” so many moments in the 1983 family classic are imprinted in the minds of millions.
Even if it didn’t air 24 hours straight every Christmas Eve, we’d still be talking about frozen flagpoles and Red Ryder BB guns and Ralphie’s “pink nightmare” bunny pajamas during each holiday season. It’s as much a tradition as stringing lights on the tree.
But do you recall every bit of trivia when discussion of A Christmas Story comes up? Here’s a list of fun facts about the movie, from its origins to its legacy, to go with your annual viewing and to boost your holiday party conversations:
1. Narrator Jean Shepherd based the movie on his life
A Christmas Story was scripted by Jean Shepherd, his wife Leigh Brown and director Bob Clark based on Shepherd’s own stories. Shepherd began sharing his semi-autobiographical tales on the radio before adapting them in print in Playboy magazine.
Some of those short stories were later collected as the 1966 book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, which serves as the main source material for A Christmas Story. Other parts of the movie come from Shepherd stories compiled in the 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters.
Though Shepherd came of age about a decade before the setting of A Christmas Story, Ralphie Parker is a stand in for the author (Parker is Shepherd’s middle name), and he narrates the movie nostalgically from his perspective as Ralphie now all grown up.
2. A Christmas Story is sort of a remake
Jean Shepherd’s stories in print and on the radio weren’t the only forerunners for A Christmas Story. In 1976, PBS broadcast a TV movie titled The Phantom of the Open Hearth, which Shepherd also wrote and narrated based on his youth.
This movie, while it aired at Christmas, is not a holiday story. It mostly follows Ralphie (here, he’s just Ralph) as a teenager in the 1950s leading up to his junior prom. There are also some subplots involving his parents and little brother Randy.
That doesn’t make A Christmas Story a remake, but there is one major element that lines up with the later, better-known movie. In The Phantom of the Open Hearth, Ralph’s father wins a prize in the form of a ridiculous leg lamp that also eventually shatters.
3. The leg lamp is based on a soda advertisement
Speaking of that leg lamp, which has spawned merchandise for fans of A Christmas Story including tree ornaments and life-size replicas, the Old Man’s “major award” in the movie has its own origin story and is based on something real.
Shepherd wrote of the prize in a story titled “My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award That Heralded the Birth of Pop Art,” and while it’s unverified if there’s any truth to the anecdotal events, the author did confirm where he got the idea for the leg-shaped lamp.
The lamp, as written and then brought to life by production designer Reuben Freed, was inspired by old advertisements for Nehi soda, which featured a bottle of the drink along with a woman’s leg(s) ending just above the knee (knee-high, get it?).
4. Bob Clark is one of the most influential directors ever
A Christmas Story has been a huge influence on movies and television shows, inspiring other family holiday features, most notably Home Alone, as well as the popular drama series The Wonder Years. That’s not surprising considering Bob Clark’s track record.
Before tackling the family-friendly holiday genre, Clark took a very different approach with another feature set during the Yuletide season: Black Christmas. The 1974 horror movie helped pioneer the slasher genre, inspiring such landmarks as Halloween.
Meanwhile, Clark was wanting to make A Christmas Story for years but didn’t have the right clout to do so until he wrote and directed Porky’s. The 1981 teen sex comedy was a huge hit at the box office and subsequently ushered in a wave of similar movies.
5. Jack Nicholson almost played “The Old Man.”
Can you imagine anyone in the role of Ralphie’s father other than Darren McGavin? He’s one of the most recognizable fathers in cinema, whether in his appearance or his dialogue, including his gibberish cursing and poor vocabulary (“frah-GEE-leh!”)
Well, Jack Nicholson was originally offered the role of the character known simply as “The Old Man.” He was sent the script and was interested, but his asking price was too much for the studio, MGM. Apparently the actor’s fee would have doubled the budget.
So, Nicholson went on to co-star in Terms of Endearment instead, which was good for him since he won his second Oscar for that performance. And McGavin is perfect in the part as The Old Man — and he probably deserved an Oscar nomination himself.
6. The movie’s lead actor helped kick off the MCU
It’s also hard to picture anyone but Peter Billingsley in the part of Ralphie. He won the role as one of thousands of child actors who auditioned, including Wil Wheaton. The movie broke him out as a young star, though as an adult he transitioned to working behind the camera.
In the 1990s, Billingsley befriended Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau and co-produced Made, their creative follow-up to Swingers which was also Favreau’s feature directorial debut. He continued to collaborate with both actors and was an executive producer on the Favreau-helmed Iron Man, which in 2008 was the first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.
Billingsley has continued to act here and there and also had a role in Iron Man as William Ginter Riva, a scientist employed at Stark Industries. The actor-turned-producer recently reprised the role for Spider-Man: Far From Home.
7. Ralphie teamed up with Flash Gordon
A Christmas Story is filled with pop culture references from the 1930s and 1940s, but there was one more that fans of the movie have never seen. Clark and Billingsley shot a fantasy sequence in which Ralphie joins Flash Gordon to take on Ming the Merciless.
To keep the running time down, the sequence was cut from the final edit of the movie, though the actors cast as the iconic comic strip characters are named in the credits for playing their roles. Sadly, the footage is lost and will never show up as a DVD extra.
There is one photo of Ralphie and Flash out there, though, as well as script pages for that deleted scene and another. The second omitted fantasy sequence features the teacher Miss Shields visiting the Parker home and explaining that Ralphie is such an extraordinary student that he deserves a Red Ryder BB gun.
8. There are three sequels to A Christmas Story
Actually, others have played the characters of Ralphie and the Old Man, just in other movies. Five years after the success of A Christmas Story, Shepherd wrote and narrated the Disney Channel TV movie Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, which stars Jerry O’Connell as a 14-year-old Ralph looking to get a summer job.
In 1994, Clark himself directed a follow-up to A Christmas Story based on more of Shepherd’s tales of the Parkers. Titled It Runs in the Family (also known as My Summer Story), this one is also set during the summer and stars future Succession regular Kieran Culkin as Ralphie and Charles Grodin as his father.
Finally, in 2012, the direct-to-video feature directly titled A Christmas Story 2 follows a now-teenaged Ralphie (Braeden Lemasters) in his quest for his first car. Interestingly, Daniel Stern, who was the narrator on The Wonder Years and also one of the stars of Home Alone, plays the part of the Old Man this time around.
9. A Christmas Story was remade as a musical
Fans would likely riot if there was ever an actual movie remake of A Christmas Story, but there was a TV special that recreated the events of the movie and was broadcast live on Fox in 2017. A Christmas Story Live! starred Chris Diamantopoulos as the Old Man and Maya Rudolph as Ralphie’s mother.
The special wasn’t a redo of A Christmas Story out of the blue. A Christmas Story Live! was a production of Broadway’s A Christmas Story: The Musical, which premiered in an early form in Kansas City in 2009 then hit the New York stage three years later.
Following the musical’s first run in Kansas City, the show received new songs written by the duo known as Pasek & Paul. Those two would later go on to success in Hollywood with such movie musicals as La La Land and The Greatest Showman.
10. The Christmas Story home is now a tourist attraction
A Christmas Story has tons of diehard fans, at least one of whom has paid forward his love for the holiday classic for the benefit of others. In 2004, Brian Jones bought the Cleveland, Ohio, house used for exterior shots of the Parkers’ home and recreated the look of the home’s interiors to turn it into a full-on replica of what it looks like in the movie.
Jones also bought the house directly across the street from the Christmas Story home and converted that into a museum devoted to the movie, featuring props, memorabilia and souvenir merchandise while also serving as the base of operations for tours and overnight stays.
That’s right, you can spend the night in the Parkers’ home, and yes, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are among the available year-round dates available (though the holiday does require a two-night minimum). And now the house next door, which was the Bumpuses’ home in the movie, is open for fans to stay in, too.
