Random Thursday

Okay this is going to be a long one! I wanted to have something Christmasy for the upcoming holiday this weekend and I started googling my favorite Christmas movie, A Christmas Story! I've probably mentioned it a few times over the years on the blog! I started watching it as a kid and it was basically one of those movies I "grew up on"! And every year I look forward to watching it for 24 hours on TBS or TNT! It was moving periodically some years ago and I always forget which one it's on! Pretty sure it's TBS! 

But anyway, in my search I came across this fun article, 29 Facts You Might Know About A Christmas Story by Keely Flaherty! Let's check it out! I'll try to summarize/shorten the facts for you, but you can read the article in full here!

1. Jack Nicholson was originally meant to be the role of the dad, but the film couldn't afford him.
2. Peter Billingsley was the first actor to audition for Ralphie, but director, Bob Clark, couldn't just hire the first kid, so after thousands of other auditions he finally hired Peter.
3. Apparently Wil Wheaton was one of those kids auditioning for Ralphie.
4. Clark and Billingsley remained close after filming and Billingsley says that Clark was "the most significant mentor in [his] life".

5. A Christmas Story was based on the book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd (1966).
6. The book started out as a series of short stories...in Playboy!

7. Shepherd is the narrator of the story and makes a cameo appearance very briefly when Ralphie and Andy get in line to see Santa.
8. Shepherd was on the set during filming but was eventually asked to leave because he kept telling actors how to play their scenes.
9. Ralphie apparently had more fantasy daydreams, one that included Flash Gordon, but they were eventually cut.

10. Billingsley is actually saying the f-word in this iconic scene!
11. The Lifebuoy soap Ralphie gets in his mouth is actually a wax mold.
12. In Ralphie's first fantasy where he uses his Red Ryder to save his family, he's chewing REAL tobacco. Billingsley recalls that he was getting "really dizzy, sweating, [his] lips started burning".
13. When A Christmas Story first opened it only made 19.3 million dollars.
14. Jon Favreau had Billingsley sign a real Red Ryder when they were working together on another movie.
15. Billingsley was a producer for the first Iron Man movie!
16. In 2004, Brian Jones, a San Diego entrepreneur, bought the house from A Christmas Story for $150,000 on eBay!

17. Jones then went on to renovate the house to look exactly like the set for the mere sum of $240,000.
18. You can visit the house in Cleveland for $10 and check out the accompanying museum and gift shop!
19. You can now bid on eBay to spend Christmas Eve or Day in the house. The package includes $800 in gifts, a bunny suit, and of course the Major Award! All the proceeds go to charity.
20. In the scene where Flick sticks his tongue to the flagpole and gets it stuck, there was actually a suction tube in the pole to make it look stuck.
21. Mythbusters proved that you can actually get your tongue stuck to a flagpole!
22. At the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond, Indiana--this is Jean Shepherd's hometown--there is a statue made of bronze of Flick with his tongue stuck to a pole!
23. Scott Schwartz who played Flick, later appeared in adult films using the name Scotty Schwartz!
24. There were two sequels to A Christmas Story, Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, which was also written by Jean Shepherd, and My Summer Story.

25. Three iconic leg lamps were made for filming...all three were broken during filming!
26. Billingsley owns the dreadful pink nightmare bunny suit and the BB gun. The glasses that he wears when he breaks them were actually his!

27. Remember that kid Ralphie meets while waiting for Santa? The one with the goggles? That is not an actor! He was a real kid that was in the department store that Clark decided to use in this scene!
28. There's a documentary called Road Trip for Ralphie that documents two mega fans who travel to all the films' filming locations in Cleveland and Canada!
29. In the final scene where the family goes out to the Chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner, the actors weren't told that the waiters would sing to them, so their reactions were very real!



Hope you all have a GREAT holiday (or just day) on Sunday! And remember the A Christmas Story marathon usually starts at 7pm (CST) most likely on TBS! ;)