12 Festive Facts About ‘A Christmas Story’

Which Oscar-winning star wanted to play Ralphie Parker’s dad? Which actor went on to have a seedy career in the adult film industry? Can you really get your tongue stuck to a metal pole? On the 35th anniversary of A Christmas Story’s debut, here are a few tidbits about the holiday classic to tide you over until TBS and TNT’s 24-hour Christmas marathon.

Jack Nicholson was interested in playing Ralphie’s dad.

Though Jack Nicholson was reportedly offered the role of The Old Man Parker, and interested, casting—and paying—him would have meant doubling the budget. But director Bob Clark, who didn’t know Nicholson was interested, said Darren McGavin was the perfect choice for the role.

It owes a debt to Porky’s.

What does Porky’s—a raunchy 1980s teen sex comedy—have to do with a wholesome film like A Christmas Story? Bob Clark directed both: Porky’s in 1982 and A Christmas Story in 1983. If Porky’s hadn’t given him the professional and financial success he needed, he wouldn’t have been able to bring A Christmas Story to the big screen.

Ralphie says he wants a Red Ryder BB gun a lot.

For anyone keeping count, Ralphie says he wants the Red Ryder BB gun 28 times throughout the course of the movie. That’s approximately once every three minutes and 20 seconds.

These days, Peter Billingsley spends his time mainly behind the camera.

Peter Billingsley, a.k.a. Ralphie, has been good friends with Vince Vaughn since they both appeared in a CBS Schoolbreak Special together in the early 1990s. He doesn’t do much acting these days, though he has popped up in cameos (including one in Elf, another holiday classic) and reprised the role of Ralphie in 2022’s A Christmas Story Christmas. But Billingsley prefers to spend his time behind the camera as a director and producer. He has done a lot of work with Vaughn and Jon Favreau, including serving as an executive producer on Iron Man (in which he also made a cameo).

Yes, you can get your tongue stuck on a piece of cold metal.

Mythbusters tested whether it was possible to get your tongue truly stuck on a piece of cold metal. Guess what? It is. So don’t triple dog dare your best friend to try it.

One of the young actors moved on to a career in adult films.

Scott Schwartz, who played Flick (the kid who stuck his tongue to the frozen flagpole), spent several years working in the adult film industry. In 2000, he turned his attention back to mainstream films. Like Billingsley, he reprised his role in A Christmas Story Christmas.

Ralphie’s house is now a museum.

Next time you’re in Cleveland, you can visit the original house from the movie. It was sold on eBay in 2004 for $150,000. Collector Brian Jones bought the house and restored it to its movie glory and stocked it up with some of the original props from the film, including Randy’s snowsuit.

The idea for the film came to Bob Clark while he was driving to pick up a date.

Director Bob Clark got the idea for the movie when he was driving to pick up a date. He heard Jean Shepherd on the radio doing a reading of his short story collection, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, which included some bits that eventually ended up in A Christmas Story. Clark said he drove around the block for an hour until the program ended (which his date was not too happy about).

It partly inspired The Wonder Years.

The Wonder Years was inspired in part by A Christmas Story. In fact, toward the very end of the series, Peter Billingsley even played one of Kevin Arnold’s roommates.

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 comic strip cowboy. The original wasn’t quite the same as the one in the movie; it lacked the compass and sundial that both the Jean Shepherd story and the movie call for. Special versions had to be made just for A Christmas Story.

The leg lamp can also be yours.

None of the original leg lamps exist—all three were broken as A Christmas Story was being filmed—but various replicas exist. People buy life-sized replicas and little ornament leg lamps to hang from their Christmas trees. Some places have event constructed giant monuments of the “major award.”

There are several A Christmas Story sequels.

A Christmas Storyled to two little-talked-about sequels. The first one was a 1988 made-for-TV movie, Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss. Jerry O’Connell played 14-year-old Ralphie, who is excited about his first job—as a furniture mover. Of course, it ends up being awful, and it might make him miss the annual family vacation at Mr. Hopnoodle’s lakeside cabins.

My Summer Story, a.k.a. It Runs in the Family, debuted on the big screen in 1994. Kieran Culkin plays Ralphie, Mary Steenburgen is his mom, and Charles Grodin is his dad. And in 2012, the direct-to-video sequel A Christmas Story 2picked up five years after the original movie left off, with Ralphie attempting to get his parents to buy him a car.

The latest A Christmas Story sequel came out in 2022, in which Ralphie and his wife and children head back to Indiana to spend the holidays with his mother after the death of The Old Man Parker.

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A version of this story originally ran in 2008; it has been updated for 2024.

This article was originally published on mentalfloss.com as 12 Festive Facts About ‘A Christmas Story’.