Some Christmas tales are timeless classics. Ebenezer Scrooge learns the which means of the vacation by the use of ghastly guests. The Grinch goes from Christmas thief to hero of Whoville. Buddy the Elf spreads Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to listen to. And Ralphie Parker yearns for an official Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.
Yes, the 1983 film A Christmas Story is a necessary entry within the Christmastime cinematic canon. It’s additionally a vacation custom, particularly as a result of TNT and TBS have proven the film in 24-hour marathons commonly on Christmas Eve for years — with tens of millions of TV viewers rooting for Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), youthful brother Randy (Ian Petrella), and oldsters Mrs. Parker (Melinda Dillon) and “Old Man” Parker (Darren McGavin).
But you is likely to be stunned to know that A Christmas Story wasn’t the primary time that Ralphie was seen onscreen, and it actually gained’t be the final: HBO Max is continuous the household saga with the November 17 film A Christmas Story Christmas, with the now-adult Billingsley returning to his childhood position.
As Christmas Story buffs may know by now, the 1983 film relies on the semi-autobiographical tales of radio persona Jean Shepherd, which he shared by way of broadcasts from Manhattan’s WOR radio station between 1955 and 1977.
Shepherd’s pal Donald Fagen wrote for Slate in 2015 that the tales fell into 4 classes: Depression-era tales primarily based on Shepherd’s childhood in Hammond, IN; tales from his service with the Signal Corps throughout World War II; anecdotes from his post-war profession in radio and TV; and at last, reflections on fashionable life.
And it was the primary class’s tales that may be most acquainted to Christmas Story followers, Fagen wrote. “These stories featured his manic father (‘the old man’); his mother (always standing over the sink in ‘a yellow rump-sprung chenille bathrobe with bits of dried egg on the lapel’); his kid brother, Randy, and assorted pals, bullies, beauties, and other neighborhood types,” the Steely Dan singer added.
(The web site Flick Lives, run by Shepherd historian Jim Clavin, catalogs the real-life inspirations for characters from A Christmas Story and different Shepherd tales. According to the web site, Flick was impressed by Shepherd’s greatest pal Jack Flickinger; Schwartz was an analog for the humorist’s pal Paul L. R. Schwarz; Shepherd did certainly have a trainer named Miss Shields.)
As Vanity Fair reported, Shepherd ultimately put his tales to paper after being urged to take action by Shel Silverstein, the kids’s poet and Playboy cartoonist, and Lois Nettleton, an actress who was Shepherd’s second spouse. As a consequence, almost two dozen of Shepherd’s tales ran in Playboy, and in 1966, the radio host launched his best-selling assortment of tales In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
Then got here A Christmas Story. Filmmaker Bob Clark bought the concept for the film in 1968, when he heard certainly one of Shepherd’s monologues on the radio, a narrative a few boy who places his tongue on a frozen steel pole on a dare. (Sound acquainted?)
That monologue held Clark rapt, a lot in order that he was 45 minutes late for a date as a result of he needed to listen to the top of the story. “I will do a movie of this man’s work,” Clark thought to himself, per Vanity Fair.
Trouble was, studios didn’t need to finance the movie Clark had in thoughts. It was solely after Clark directed the profitable 1981 intercourse comedy Porky’s that MGM took a wager on the director’s concept for a nostalgic Christmas film. Clark lastly had a inexperienced mild for A Christmas Story, greater than a decade after listening to Shepherd’s monologue on the radio. He wrote the script with Shepherd and Leigh Brown, Shepherd’s third spouse, and the remainder is vacation historical past.
A Christmas Story, nonetheless, is only one installment in what has change into to be referred to as the Parker Family Saga. Shepherd wrote and narrated two TV films that got here earlier than: 1976’s The Phantom of the Open Hearth and 1982’s The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, the latter of which had Matt Dillion taking part in Ralphie. Shepherd additionally wrote and narrated two TV films that got here after A Christmas Story: 1985’s The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski and 1988’s Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss, with Jerry O’Connell taking part in Ralphie within the latter.
And in 1994 got here a big-screen sequel to A Christmas Story, one other movie Clark directed and co-wrote with Shepherd and Brown: It Runs within the Family, later referred to as My Summer Story, that includes Kieran Culkin as Ralphie and Mary Steenburgen and Charles Grodin as his dad and mom.
A Christmas Story’s legacy additionally expanded with a stage musical adaptation, which ran on Broadway in 2012 and 2013, and the following 2017 Fox particular, A Christmas Story Live!, which featured the expertise of Maya Rudolph, Matthew Broderick, Jane Krakowski, and Andy Walken.
Now comes A Christmas Story Christmas — “and this time, Ralphie is all grown up and must deal with Christmas and all that comes with it… as a dad,” HBO Max teases. Billingsley as soon as once more portrays Ralphie, alongside different actors reprising their elements from the 1983 unique: Scott Schwartz as Flick, R.D. Robb as Schwartz, Ian Petrella as Randy, and Zack Ward as Scut Farkus.
And with A Christmas Story’s enduring enchantment, HBO Max will hardly must “triple-dog dare” followers to observe.
A Christmas Story Christmas, Movie Premiere, Thursday, November 17, HBO Max