What's Yer Fav Xmas Movie?

[stopbush]

Poll question: What's Yer Fav Xmas Movie?

I listed the most-obvious choices.

Vote below:

[pres2032]

1. "oh fuuuuuuuuuddgggeee....

only i didn't say fudge, it was the mother of all curse words! f---!

[Ediacara]

2. YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!

[flygal]

3. "It's a major award!"

[stopbush]

4. Did you know you can buy The Leg Lamp?

Here: http://theleglamp.com/content.htm

[Zomby Woof]

8. yep

There are several sources, actually. The one we use as a prop in our production of "A Christmas Story" is from another company. I get to fondle one several nights a week (I play The Old Man).

[stopbush]

11. Cool. I'd love to send one to some friends, but the $250

price tag is out of my reach for something so frivilous. What are the other sites?

[Zomby Woof]

13. It wasn't a site

It was from a mail-order catalogue. Can't remember the name... sold all kinds of merchandise.

We were able to get it for half-price for the play, because it IS an expensive major award. :-)

[pres2032]

6. the warm glow of electric sex gleaming in the window

[elperromagico]

5. "Be sure... to drink... your... Ovaltine?"

"Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!"

[stopbush]

7. What's the mom's first name?

I know that they're the Parkers, and I believe Swede calls the dad "Dick" when they're viewing the leg lamp from the street, but I don't think the Melissa Dillion character's first name is ever mentioned in the movie.

Anyone know?

[Zomby Woof]

9. she is simply "Mother"

That's it. No first name is ever given in the script or any notes.

[elperromagico]

12. imdb.com just lists her as "Mrs. Parker"

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Looks like you need to do a poll asking

"What's your favorite Christmas movie after 'A Christmas Story'?"

It's been at the top of my list ever since I saw it when it came out in 1984. My parents were still living then and I told them about it.

Trivia: My dad, born in 1917, grew up in Cleveland. When he was a boy, the son of the director of the Cleveland Symphony actually did lose an eye in a BB gun accident, so parents in Cleveland would say "No, you'll put your eye out" to requests for BB guns. Unfair, of course, since I knew a kid who put his eye out with a stick. . . Anyway, the movie is set in Indiana in that time period, close enough for carryover from the Cleveland incident, I'd think.

[stopbush]

15. They did shoot the downtown scenes in Cleveland,

but the rest was shot up in Canada and some soundstage work was done as well.

There's a decent commentary from the director on the 2-DVD version that was released last year.

[Zomby Woof]

18. the address in the story

Is in Hohman, Indiana, on Cleveland Street, as a tribute. :-)

[DemBones DemBones]

28. Yes! I noted the Cleveland Street address and

asked my dad about the downtown department store (where Ralphie sees the Red Ryder air rifle for the first time, and later visits Santa.) Doesn't the store have the same name as one in Cleveland?

[stopbush]

19. I was born in Ashtabula, Ohio (55 miles east of Cleveland) in '54,

so that story really rings true to my roots. Even the rundown rust belt look of the location shots feel like old home week. Our nighbor had the frame of a 3-wheeled race car in his side yard, rusting away with each rainy/snowy season. We had the short cuts home from school through the backyards, the two-story, square school house. My grandparents even had a coal furnace...the coal would load in from a chute directly into their basement from the alley that ran behind their house.

Yep, that movie really strikes a chord with me...

[DemBones DemBones]

33. My dad really got into hearing about the movie and told me a great story

about bullies when he was a boy. His father got rich in the twenties with his own business in Cleveland (lost all his money when FDR closed the banks in '32) but my dad and the other rich kids in the nieghborhood would play football in a park with poor kids, some of whom were bullies.

My dad thought the bullies would kill him when his dad gave him a football uniform, complete with leather helmet and shoulder pads, expecting him to wear it to go play with the other boys. Nobody else had such a thing but he couldn't disappoint his father by not wearing it and being appropriately grateful. Can't you just see the poor little kid in the brand new uniform, dragging his feet as he goes off to play?

The other kids crowded around and made snide comments about his get-up, and then the head bully appeared, and sneered. Then he demanded, "What's your name, kid?" My dad gave his last name, we'll say it was "Smith." The bully, who was several years older, said, "Smith, huh? Wait a minute, do your parents belong to the country club? Is your mother Margaret Smith?" My dad, thinking he was really, really dead, admitted that his parents did belong to the country club and that his mother was Margaret Smith.

The bully was excited, "Guys, you ought to see this kid's mother hit a goddamn golf ball -- she hits it as far as any of the men! You never saw anything like this woman on a golf course! I caddy for Margaret Smith all the time."

The boys then proceeded to play football as usual and nothing more was said about my grandfather's inappropriate gift of a fancy football uniform, all because my grandmother was a great golfer!


Having been very close to my golfing grandmother, I truly love this story, and I'd never have heard it if not for "A Christmas Story." :-) I've never been to Cleveland but my parents went back for a visit in the late seventies and my dad took photos of the house he grew up in and the park where he played football. He even ate elderberries from a tree that was there when he was a boy.

[tomreedtoon]

14. Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol!

Good music, Jim Backus's greatest voice performance, and who needs anything more?

[stopbush]

16. Music by Jule Styne. It doesn't get much better than that

for a cartoon.

[Ediacara]

17. Fruh-GEE-lay... must be Italian

[Ediacara]

20. He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!

[grasswire]

22. you beat me

That's my favorite line. I actually use it a lot in real life when appropriate.

[stopbush]

21. BTW - my wife and kids have already watched the thing 3 times on

DVD and last night on TV. I have yet to see it straight through this season as I've been busy at work. Now that the orchestra finished their Xmas concerts, I'll have some time to catch up on my viewing.

Further BTW - we always watch Miracle on 34th Street, A Xmas Story & IAWL on Thanksgiving, in that order. But after that, A Xmas Story seems to get tossed in the DVD player at least once or twice a week until Xmas. And last Xmas, my wife had TBS on the 24-hr ACS marathon for most of the day. What is it about that movie that it never gets old even when you know every line by heart?

Hey, Zomby - is the stage play a verbatim translation of the movie script or not?

[grasswire]

23. "Deck the halls with boughs of Ho-rrey"

Fa ra ra ra ra...ra ra ra ra.

[stopbush]

25. Ha! I took my kids to the orchestra's Xmas concert today where

they had a singalong. When it came to "Deck the Halls," they both automatically defaulted to the Bo(w)Ling version of the words. Priceless.

[grasswire]

24. and.......

...let's take a moment to honor the memory of Jean Shepard, the author of "A Christmas Story" and the incomparable narrator in the movie.

He was an extraordinary humorist. If you get a chance, read some of his other books. "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories" is pretty cool, too.

[elperromagico]

26. He's also the fellow in the department store

who tells Ralphie, "The line begins here. It ends there."

[stopbush]

27. Took out the dupe. Bob Clark appears as "Swede" in the movie.

[terrya]

29. "The Ref"

It's a movie that's funny as hell.

T

[peekaloo]

35. Caroline, why don't you eat something?

Lloyd, why don't you EAT ME!

Doesn't matter how many times I see this film the dinner table scene still cracks me up.

Slipper socks....MEDIUM.

[Magrittes Pipe]

30. The Nightmare Before Christmas

[Flammable Materials]

31. "I Stand Alone" by Gaspar Noe.

Only a film this extremely effed-up could have a truly believable redemption message. And only someone who can feel sympathy for the "unredeemable" soul in this film could truly fathom real unconditional forgiveness.

Don't just add this to your Netflix queue, though. THIS IS A DISTURBING, NIHILISTIC (99% at least) FILM.

[Flammable Materials]

32. Of course, if we're talking a film that actually HAS an Xmas theme:

"Bad Santa".

[NashVegas]

34. Bad Santa ReWLs

big time. screw the sentimental crap.

[mulsh]

36. Bad Santa

just saw it this week end. what a warm, life affirming family oriented movie.
I found the scenes with santa and the bottle of stoli expecially endearing.

on a more serious note A Christmass Story is something I have actually watched with my young nieces and nephews, repeatedly. something I will never do with Bad Santa.