A Christmas Story

The next "A Christmas Story" Convention will be November 26 & 27, 2010. Most events will take place at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.

The actors who played the following characters from the famed movie will be present:

Randy
Flick
Scut Farkus
Grover Dill
Miss Shields
And the evil elves

Convention events include a showing of "Shooting Your Eye Out" (documentary about the making of the movie and the phenomenon it has become),cocktail reception with A Christmas Story actors, tours of A Christmas Story House and Museum, a BB gun range in the back yard, character look-a-like contest, screenings of the movie, Winterfest fireworks and parade and much more.

Sounds like fun!

A Christmas Story House

Via IMDB.com

• The Old Man - Mr. Parker . . . Darren McGavin


• Mrs. Parker . . . Melinda Dillon


• Ralphie Parker . . . Peter Billingsley


• Randy Parker . . . Ian Petrella


• Flick . . . Scott Schwartz


• Schwartz . . . R.D. Robb


• Miss Shields . . . Tedde Moore


• Grover Dill . . . Yano Anaya


• Scut Farkus . . . Zack Ward


• Santa Claus . . . Jeff Gillen


• Narrator/Adult Ralphie, Man in Line for Santa, Voice of Santa . . . Jean Shepherd


• Swede (asks the Old Man how he got the Leg Lamp) . . . Bob Clark

• Did you know that Jack Nicholson considered the role of the "Old Man"? According to director Bob Clark , he was interested in the movie after reading the script, but the low-budget film would not have been able to afford his talents. Close your eyes and try and imagine how that would have played out in scenes from the movie. I think Darren McGavin was the perfect choice.


• When the low-budget movie 'A Christmas Story' came out in theaters in 1983 it was not a huge financial success. It became a success as the years went by and it was shown on tv. Now there is a 24 hour marathon of it every Christmas.


• The screenplay for A Christmas Story was created from five autobiographical humor essays from Jean Shepherd. The essays appear in "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters". The essays that the screenplay was derived from were also published in a short book simply called "A Christmas Story".


• In the essay, "Grover Dill and the Tasmanian Devil" it is Grover Dill not Scut Farkas who is the big bad bully.


• The snow in the movie had to be created by the production staff using giant snow machines like you see at ski resorts.


• A Christmas Story was filmed in Cleveland just after Christmas. The city left up their Christmas decorations a bit longer for the filming of the movie.


• The house used as Ralphie's home in the movie was only used for exterior shots. The interior shots were filmed on a soundstage in Toronto.


• To make it look like Flick's tongue was stuck to the flagpole a pipe with a vacuum sucking air through a tiny hole (where his tongue was) sucked the tongue to the pole making it appear to be frozen to the pole.

Brian Jones purchased the house from the exterior shots in A Christmas Story off of eBay in February of 2005. His dream was to renovate the home to make it look as it did in the movie and open it up as a museum.

Brian paid $150,000 for the house and spent another $200,000 to make it look like it did in the movie.

On November 25, 2006 Brian's dream became a reality when A Christmas Story House officially opened up for visitors and fans of the popular Christmas film. The interior of the home had to be renovated just as the outside did in order to make it look like a home from the 1940s (the period that A Christmas Story takes place in).

Even though the interior scenes for the movie were shot on a stage in Toronto, Brian wanted to recreate the house from the movie from top to bottom. There are dozens of photos at AChristmasStoryHouse.com that show this dramatic transformation of a home with modern vinyl siding to a wood clad home with a 1940s interior.

The house is open Thursday - Saturday from 10am to 5pm and on Sundays from 12pm to 5pm. They are open on Wednesdays from October 1 - January 15. Admission is $7 for adults and includes access to the A Christmas Story House and the museum across the street.

Tours of the A Christmas Story House are given every half hour beginning at 10:30am. You can call and ask about group tours and discounts.

Jean Shepherd's writing style was often compared with Mark Twain, but it was his screenplay for A Christmas Story that he is most remembered for. He started out in radio at the age of 16 doing sportscasts on a weekly basis for the local radio station in his hometown of Hammond, Indiana.

Shepherd published several books of his stories with the most popular being "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters".

Jean Shepherd passed away at the age of 78 on October 16, 1999.

A little trivia tidbit that I picked up while perusing his obituary online was that he had hoped to title "A Christmas Story" as "Satan's Revenge."