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Ed McCray

Dec 21, 2024 • 28 tweets • 13 min read • Read on X

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One of the most beloved Christmas films ever made is 1983's A Christmas Story but upon its initial release it was a bomb. It only played for three weeks & was out of theaters by Christmas. Like It's a Wonderful Life, it was a film Americans had to discover & it quickly became the most popular Christmas film of modern times. Here's some rarities about it.

Based on the works of humorist Jean Shepherd three of the original stories that comprise the bulk of the film originally appeared in Playboy Magazine.What many people miss is that all of Shepherd's stories are parables & often contain Biblical references he observed in real life.

Shepherd often told his stories on radio & college lecture tours. He wrote books & made comedy LP's. All of his stories are inspired by his youth but he often embellished & fudged the details in the service of spinning a entertaining story.

Here's a playlist featuring many of Jean Shepherd's Christmas radio shows where you can hear how he refined some of the stories that are in the final film. There's also a few Christmas stories NOT in A Christmas Story.

One of Shepherd's radio appearances was heard by Bob Clark who was on his way to a date.He kept circling the block for almost an hour eager to hear how the story ended.He picked up an irate date & vowed to one day make a movie based on Shepherd's stories.

Before A Christmas Story was made, Shepherd has adapted a few of his stories for PBS. These contain the many of the same characters later featured in A Christmas Story. In 1976 came Phantom of the Open Hearth

Followed by The Great American Fourth of July & other Disasters in 1982. Because of the recent embrace of A Christmas Story, many may be unaware on who Jean Shepherd was or that he has a vast body of work most are unfamiliar with

A Christmas Story was made based on the popularity of Shepherd's work & director Bob Clark's success as a film maker having recently made the raunchy Porky's film. Like his PBS productions & radio shows Shepherd narrates his work.The time, place, & location are kept ambiguous to keep the film's setting a timeless 1930's/40's era.

The film references several pop culture brands & characters from this era but one you didn't get to see was Flash Gordon.A large portion of the film's budget went into filming this sequence but it was cut from the final film. Here are the pages of the scene from the original script.

Here's the original film score for this sequence with some surviving photographs from it. The actors who portrayed Ming the Merciless & Flash Gordon still receive a screen credit in the final film.

While we're on the subject of deleted scenes, another involved one of Ralphie's fantasies where Miss Shields visits the home demanding his parents give him a Red Ryder BB Gun.

One final major deleted scene involved a dream sequence on Christmas eve where Ralphie rescues Santa Claus from Black Bart & his gang on Christmas Eve. Here's the script page with a few photos.

All of these scenes existed on a VHS tape that was given to the Canadian school used as the school in the film. It was kept in the school safe & no one was allowed to view it.When the school closed down the tape vanished. The film's crew have said all the raw film footage went to the MGM vaults & while attempts haven't yet located them, we can hope one day these deleted scenes are found.

BTW, you can read Jean Shepherd's entire Christmas Story Script here. There's several narration trims made the the film featured in the script.

dailyscript.com/scripts/AChris…

As most people know, the main thread of the film is Ralphie's quest for a Red Ryder BB Gun.He beseeches every adult figure in his life but his dad.The Old Man is portrayed as a comedic character but in the end it's he who gives Ralphie the gun & you never expect it. It also proves that he always knew what was going on in his home as head of the household. Look at how masterfully Darren McGavin portrays him in this scene.

The reason some later embraced this film was because it was viewed as poking tradition in the eye.When A Christmas Story was adapted into a musical in the early 2000's the song for this sequence was changed then dropped by many of this same crowd for woke reasons thus ruining the story & missing the point. Compare the first verse.

The Dept store scenes were filmed in the real life Higbee's Dept Store in Cleveland.A character you don't see in the film is that store's resident Christmas character Mr Jingeling portrayed by Earl Keyes.I keep hoping a photo surfaces of him with Ralphie.

Although A Christmas Story didn't do well in its initial theatrical run, it was a hit with most critics & film makers. Such films as Home Alone & Christmas Vacation credit A Christmas Story on how they approached doing their own stories.

It wasn't until the VHS rental movement that A Christmas Story found its audience. By the late 80's, thanks to these revenues, more was done with Jean Shepherd's work as follow ups featuring the same characters.

In 1985 PBS adapted another Shepherd work with The Star Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski.

In 1988 The Disney Channel produced Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss.

In 1994 Bob Clark made his own sequel to A Christmas Story. It was released under several alternate titles but is known today as My Summer Story. A lot of the storylines in it were explored in previous PBS productions & once again, this film didn't do well.

In the late 90's Ted Turner's cable networks TNT & TBS began airing the film for 24 hours straight Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. Many attribute this as to how the film reached the status it now holds & it's a tradition right to this day. It mirrors how It's a Wonderful Life was rediscovered except that film was aired on many networks 24/7 from Thanksgiving through New Years.

Tons of merchandise followed, a Broadway show and this direct to video sequel that has nothing to do with the works of Jean Shepherd.

In 2022 a sequel was made involving much of the original cast retaining respect for both Jean Shepherd's work & the original film.The film also is about the respect of Ralphie for the Old Man.The film was designed so it changes the context of the original film & you can watch them in a loop feeding into each other.

Peter Billingsley, who was a big child actor at the time the original film was produced, grew up to be a producer of films.Among them is Ironman & Elf. You may remember his cameo in the film.He's become an advocate & protector of the original film & Jean Shepherd's legacy.

For two years he co-hosted a seasonal podcast on Christmas films that you can here below:

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-c…

I didn't post too many scenes in this thread because by now everyone knows this film but they may not know Jean Shepherd, the man who created & narrated this beloved film.That's why I've focused on him & his body of work hoping it may be rediscovered by people who enjoy A Christmas Story.

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More from @Real_Ed_McCray

Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Aug 3

This is thread #25 of the Walt Disney's Uncle Remus newspaper comic strip. This thread collects the second half of the strips from July-Dec 1957. Anyone claiming the film was a failure & that these characters are obscure is lying to you. The only other Walt Disney characters with a regular newspaper comic strip like this were Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck. These were just as beloved Walt Disney characters & warmly embraced by many black Americans who saw them as Walt Disney celebrating their cultural heritage. In the days before VHS & streaming this is how most Americans were familiar with these characters thus proving their immense popularity.

After James Baskett died Walt had scrapped his plans of doing a series of Uncle Remus films. Out of respect, Walt retired the character from the strip except the for introduction. The strips also became self contained morals rather than a serial across several weeks. The continuation of this weekly comic strip proved how beloved these characters had become. The strip would run nearly 30 years but we're not supposed to know it ever existed. None of this is ever cited in smears against the film or its characters.

Song of the South was still a beloved Walt Disney film having had its first reissue the previous year. The year these comic strips were printed saw the release of such Walt Disney films as Old Yeller, Johnny Tremain, and the True Life Adventure fantasy film Perri. Walt's TV series Zorro also debuted on ABC enjoying a two year run.

It's worth noting that the only one of his films that Walt featured in both of his Christmas special pilots AND the pilot to his regular series was Song of the South. Even though he'd retired the character from the comics after James Baskett passed away, all three times he included segments featuring his friend James Baskett as the beloved Uncle Remus. Song of the South was always one of Walt's favorite and most personal films. The original stories were so fundamental to Walt that he also quoted Uncle Remus as frequently if not more so than America's founders and the Bible. It's a film that he celebrated and was proud of until the day he died. These purged comic strips are part of that legacy.

Read 10 tweets

Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Aug 2

This thread is about Walt Disney's friend & kindred spirit, forgotten fantasy filmmaker George Pal & his most lavish film The Wonderful World of the Brother's Grimm.

Every Christian & conservative should also read this thread because so many in those camps (even many of those with large platforms) see no value in storytelling. The history in this thread is about that & why it's important to American culture. It's a story that involves Martian War Machines, living instruments, a magical circus, a time machine, and more!

Both Walt and his pal George had similar values, worldviews, and were on similar creative trajectories. Both started in animated short subjects & moved into live action fantasy films. When Walt started making miniatures as a hobby & later created audioanimatronics he consulted with George on his experience breathing the illusion of life into three dimensions. When Pal became a US citizen it was Walt Disney & Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz (all 3 seen below) who sponsored him. The Pals were eternally grateful to both men.

George Pal was born in Europe & became an animation filmmaker there. He created the Oscar award winning Puppetoon stop motion process which used carved wooden replacement parts to animate the puppets. He was eventually forced to flee Holland for America before the nazis invaded.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Jun 29

This is an epilogue to the Anita Bryant/Rainbow Jihad Disney threads. I'm going to tell you a little story about this man (Howard Ashman) who some consider to be the most pivotal figure in making animation what it became. He also left behind something that's very relevant to the woke times we find ourselves in. He was gay but he wasn't woke.

Even id you don't know who Howard Ashman was, you've certainly seen the 3 films he had a hand in at Disney...

Here's a few clips about how Howard became involved with The Little Mermaid. There's also a few vintage clips of them in this montage. You can see he has no "secret gay agenda." He was trying to restore Disney to what it had been when Walt was alive. In the 2nd & 3rd clip you can see how Howard was instrumental in shaping the story & characters of The Little Mermaid. In the final clip Roy Disney Jr gives Howard the highest praise.

Read 15 tweets

Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

May 25

This thread is about how to nominate the purged 1946 film Walt Disney's Song of the South to the National Film Registry. The deadline is Aug 15. The form is in the next comment. You need reasons why it should be on the Registry & this thread will give you several.

This is the form. You must include the release year. Song of the South was released in 1946.
research.net/r/national-fim…

Actor James Baskett is the first black actor to receive an Academy Award.This was an eternal Oscar and there was a HUGE fight for him to receive it.He was also the first black actor signed to a 7 year contract & the first actor Walt Disney ever signed.This needs to be celebrated.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Mar 17

This epic thread is about Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill & The Little People. An obscure film today, it was a major project for Walt & is the bridge between Song of the South to Mary Poppins. It's one of the greatest fantasy films ever made & the techniques developed/perfected for it were later used in LOTR and Elf.

The film is suggested by the books Darby O'Gill & the Good People and The Ashes of Old Wishes & Other Darby O'Gill Stories by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. The stories originally appeared serialized in magazines that Walt had been exposed to as a boy. As an adult he was determined to make a film.

You can read the original public domain books here:
archive.org/details/darbyo…

Read 59 tweets

Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Feb 16

This thread is about James Baskett's often overlooked Oscar winning performance in Song of the South. We always focus on the animated sequences with the live action story usually ignored. The story is about a little boy while his parents are separated. See how they set up Uncle Remus in the dialogue here long before he's introduced. BTW Aunt Tempie is portrayed by Hattie McDaniel who is the first black person to ever receive an Oscar.

What's important in this scene is the boy's sense of betrayal when the father leaves. That plays a role later. We're never told what's in his newspaper that offends people but at this time Atlanta had been burned to the ground by General Sherman. It was in ruins even during reconstruction. His paper may have been advocating for the free black people because Joel Chandler Harris who wrote down the Uncle Remus was a newspaper man who did just that. This was commonly known in 1946. Also pay attention to the grandmother. More on her role later.

This is where we first meet Uncle Remus. The boy is running away to Atlanta to be with his dad. Remus uses reverse psychology to get the boy to return to his mom. This demonstrates what Walt Disney said about deeds rather than words. He even said lecturing a child isn't as effective as shepherding them. Remus shepherds the boy into making the right choice & he learns for himself. Remus' stories are used in this manner too. Remus also recognizes that he's the father figure in this boy's life & embraces his role. In 1946 it had never been seen in a film where a black man was the father figure to a white boy. Race never even comes up. It's just a neighbor mentoring a fatherless neighbor boy.