Peter Billingsley was the first to audition to play Ralphie in A Christmas Story,
but the director Bob Clark didn’t want to use him at first
because he thought Peter was
too well-known for being on the hit TV show
Real People.
But Clark looked over Peter’s audition tape again and realized he was Ralphie and decided
to put him in the movie.
Many of the kid actors were actually much older in real life than their character’s ages.
For example, Peter Billingsley was playing a nine-year-old when really he was 13.
Most of the snow you see in the movie was manufactured with detergent, or snow making
machines used for ski resorts.
Jack Nicholson was the first person considered to play “the old man”, and he even liked
the script and was very interested to play the part, but he was too expensive to hire
so they went with Darren McGavin instead.
[Dog barks and snarling noises] "Go on, have a chew fellas on me!"
All of the exterior shots were filmed in Cleveland and the inside of the house was filmed in
Toronto, so the segment of Ralphie shooting the crooks outside was a combination of two
different locations and were shot months apart.
"Well, I "double dog" dare ya!"
For the frozen tongue gag, there was a small hole in the pipe where air was being sucked
through hard enough to make the tongue stick.
In case you were wondering, Scut Farkus’ eyes aren’t actually yellow, but was just
an exaggeration for dramatic story telling.
[yelling]
Little Randy’s real mom was on the set to help him laugh during takes by making fart noises.
[chuckling]
The guy standing next to “the old man” is a cameo appearance of the director Bob Clark.
To help Peter feel blind, they put tiny pin pricks all over his black lenses to obscure
his vision, which worked quite well because according to Billingsley he was always walking
into furniture while wearing them.
The jump cut from “pot” to pot wasn’t intentional but happened to be a subtle joke
about the mom’s cooking, and the director didn’t realize it until after the movie
was finished.
The writer, Jean Shepherd only had the famous line “You’ll shoot your eye out!” one
time in the script.
But Bob Clark liked it so much that he used it repeatedly throughout the movie.
"You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"
[Loud laughter]
For this shot, it took Peter a couple times to walk perfectly into the frame, and as a
result whoever was throwing snowballs at him became pretty good at it.
So good at it that they hit him too hard on this take, so his tears for this shot were real.
For the parade, they used Disney character costumes before getting permission to use
their appearance, but to their surprise when they showed the footage to Disney, the executives
thought it was great and were glad to have their characters involved in the movie.
Unlike the Disney characters though, they could use Wizard of Oz characters without
needing permission because A Christmas Story was an MGM film at the time.
The bearded man in this shot is the writer Jean Shepherd along with his wife on the right,
and in case you didn’t know he was also was the movie’s narrator.
They weren’t allowed to close down the mall to film the Santa scene, and they had to film
this scene in just two days during the late hours of the night.
This kid was cast to play this small role because he was just as weird in real life
as he was in the movie.
"I like Santa."
So weird in fact that Peter’s reactions to his comments are very real because of how
uncomfortable he felt being around him.
"I like the Wizard of Oz."
"ya...."
Little Ian Petrella who played Randy was really scared of the slide they built for the mall scene,
and the director didn’t have him rehearse going down the slide so that his
reaction for the first take would be real.
The iconic segment of Ralphie on the slide had to be re-shot later on because of the
trouble they had making the close ups look right and they also needed to get a better
take of Peter saying his incomprehensible line.
[incoherent request for a Red Ryder BB gun ]
To cover the trees in snow, they calculated how much weight the trees could hold without
damaging them, and then sprayed them down with water to let it all freeze overnight
to create this shot of a white Christmas morning.
They did a take of Randy throwing the zeppelin into the tree and knocking it over but they
decided to leave it out to avoid complicating the scene.
Like Ralphie in the story, Peter Billingsley was very embarrassed to wear the bunny suit
in front of everyone on set, so he didn’t have to do a lot of acting here, and another
fun fact is that he still has the suit to this day.
"He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny."
[giggling]
The shots of the dogs eating the turkey were unscripted, so it’s pretty cool to know
that the part when the dog picks up the turkey and walks out the door was all unplanned.
They talked over the caroling gag with these actors to make sure the joke about their accent
wouldn’t be insensitive.
[Singing] "Deck the halls with bells of holly..."
But they were totally onboard because they thought it was such a funny gag.
And if you look closely at the store manager you’ll see that he had to keep hiding his
face because he couldn’t stop laughing.
[singing] "Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse-open sleigh!"
[interrupting] No, no, no! Stop!
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[chopping noise and screaming]