Sure, you know every scene and every line from A Christmas Story, the 1983 classic burned into our collective memory by endless holiday re-runs.
But do you know the back story of A Christmas Story?
Caseen Gaines, author of A Christmas Story, Behind the Scenes of a Holiday Classic, dished some fascinating factoids at the Morristown & Township Library on Thursday.
According to Caseen — an actor and 9th grade English teacher in Hackensack whose other books include an homage to Pee-wee’s Playhouse — more people watch A Christmas Story than the Super Bowl over the course of a year.
Also…
- The child stars of ACS now earn a whopping $400 in residuals each year from re-runs.
- The movie was filmed in Cleveland and in St. Catharines, Ontario.
- The Canadian child extras in the classroom scenes were paid $1 apiece. (Canadian or U.S. remains a mystery.)
- The Cleveland house where parts of ACS were filmed became a museum, and Ian Petrella, who played Ralphie’s kid brother Randy, lived upstairs for awhile and gave tours.
- Tedde Moore, the actress who played Miss Shields, the teacher, was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time, and wore a “fat suit” to hide the fact.
- Not one, but two sequels were made. Enough said.
- The late Jean Shepherd, whose book inspired the story, was lukewarm at best about the screen adaptation… maybe because he got booted off the set.
- Flick’s tongue really was stuck to the flagpole…but not with ice. (No spoilers, in case you want to buy or borrow the book.)
- Bully Scut Farkus grew up to be Zack Ward, an actor from Toronto whose credits include Hawaii Five-O and CSI: Miami.
- Peter Billingsley, who starred as Ralphie, produced a Broadway version of A Christmas Story and became an executive producer of Iron Man and The Break-Up.
- Director Bob Clark earned his chance to make the low-budget holiday movie after scoring a hit with Porky’s.
There is more — much more — but we will leave the mining to you. Next up for Caseen Gaines: A book exploring Back to the Future.
