Countdown to Christmas -- Day 5

Holiday Television Specials

Here is a schedule of Christmas and other holiday television specials.  My favorites as a child were The Grinch and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.  I also loved The Little Drummer Boy.  Even as a child, it made me cry.

I did not see A Christmas Story until I was an adult, but it quickly became a favorite that I have watched at least once each Christmas season for the past 13 years.  It has to be one of the funniest movies ever made.  It revolves around the main character, Ralphie, and his quest to own a Red Ryder dual carbide-action range rifle with a compass in the stock.  Everytime he tells anyone about his dream Christmas gift he is told he will shoot his eye out.  My favorite scene from the movie is when Ralphie gets in trouble for repeating his father's swear words, but when his mom asks where he heard the words he tells her it was from one of his friends.  Anyone who has seen the film knows what comes next and it is hilarious.  It is also a scene that might not make it into a movie in today's PC world.  The leg lamp is also classic.  Hilarious entertainment through and through.  The movie has become a classic and is now run over and over again on at least one cable channel in a 24 hour marathon each year.  If you have never seen it, catch it on television or just go ahead and buy the DVD, like I did.  It is one you will want to own.

Update:  Check out Pat Curley's very interesting comments about the origins of A Christmas Story.

Comments

[Brainster]

The guy who wrote the original story that was the basis for the movie was Jean Shepard. He appears in the movie as the man in the department store who tells Ralphie and Randy that "The line starts back there."

He had his own radio show in New York for many years, on Wednesday and Saturday nights. I grew up listening to him telling the stories about his boyhood (many of which are featured in A Christmas Story). Some of those stories can be downloaded free at flicklives.com.

He also did a series of stories called Jean Shepard's America in the early 1970s, and at least three made for TV movies, two of which were very good--Phantom of the Open Hearth and The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Kosnowski (neither appropriate for kids)--and one of which stank--Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss.

Shep also wrote a couple good books--In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, both of which contain short stories, including I am sure Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid (the original name of A Christmas Story).

He was also way, way liberal, although that only rarely seeped into his work; most notably when he described taking a bus down to Washington, D.C. to hear MLK give the "I Have a Dream" speech.

An incredibly funny man, I highly recommend his other work.

[Tempus]

carbine-action, not carbide