The 1983 classic holiday movie A Christmas Story, has been with us for 35 years. If you have lived under a rock for the last 35 years, the movie is based on the Jean Shepherd story In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash which chronicles Ralphies quest for a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun Here are some little known facts about the holiday classic movie.
The 24-hour marathon began as a stunt. Thanks to Ted Turner holiday revelers can see Ralphie a.k.a. Peter Billingsley, as many times as they want on TBS. The 24-hour Christmas Day marathon of A Christmas Story is probably dreaded by as many people s those who enjoy it. TNT rolled out the first marathon in 1988 as a stunt and it became a recurring holiday tradition in 1997.
Ralphie really wants a Red Ryder BB Gun. Ralphie says he wants the a Red Ryder BB Gun 28 times throughout the course of the movie. Mental Floss calculates that’s about once every three minutes and 20 seconds.
You can still buy a Red Ryder BB Gun. The real Red Ryder BB Gun was first made in 1938 and was named after a popular newspaper comic strip. You can still buy Red Ryder BB Gun for the low price of $29.98. The original wasn’t quite the same as the one in the movie. The “official Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time” did not have Ralphie’s compass in the stock, or “this thing which tells time” that both the Jean Shepherd story and the movie call for.
Daisy introduced the Red Ryder BB gun, named after the comic strip cowboy Red Ryder., and it sold for $2.95. It did not have a compass or a sundial. That was the Buck Jones model, named for a popular Western movie star of the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. Special versions of the “official Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time” had to be made just for A Christmas Story.
The Daisy BB gun started in Michigan. The Plymouth Windmill Company of Plymouth Michigan began giving away BB guns as a gift for buying a windmill. Declining sales of windmills forced the business to convert to making only BB guns. In 1895 the company changed its name to Daisy Manufacturing Company, Inc. When World War II began, Daisy stopped making the air guns for several years. Production resumed in 1946 and a few years later the company was selling more than 1 million BB guns annually. Daisy relocated from Michigan to Arkansas in 1958.
Flick’s tongue wasn’t actually frozen to that flagpole. If you triple dog dare your best friend to stick his tongue stuck on a piece of cold metal it will stick. Mythbusters proved it was possible to get your tongue truly stuck on a piece of cold metal. But Flick’s tongue wasn’t actually stuck on the icy pole. The producers used a hidden suction tube to safely create the illusion.
Frageelee—it must be Italian. The author of the book saw an advertisement for Nehi orange soda featuring a woman’s leg and used it as an inspiration for creating the “major award.” The producers had three leg lamps created for the movie. All three copies of the leg lamp that the Old Man loves so much were broken during filming.
Just a kid. The boy in the goggles who’s waiting next to Ralphie to see Santa is not an actor. He was a real kid in the department store, and director Bob Clark decided to put him in the scene because he looked odd.
“I fought it all the way down the line … It was based on a story called ‘Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid’ and I could accept that was too long for a marquee. My original title was ‘Santa’s Revenge.’
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Happy Viewing and Merry Christmas
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.