'Christmas Story' turns 20

LOS ANGELES -- The phrase "You'll shoot your eye out!" has become as synonymous with the Christmas season as Scrooge's "Bah, humbug!" and Santa's "Ho, ho, ho!"

For 20 years, this warning has defined the holidays for doe-eyed 9- year-old Ralphie Parker in the movie "A Christmas Story," as his mother, his teacher -- and even Kris Kringle -- reject his plea for one particular Christmas present.

That would be, in his words, an official Red Ryder carbine- action, 200-shot, range-model air rifle with a compass in the stock "and this thing that tells time."

"It catches the truth," said director Bob Clark, who spent 14 years trying to make the film. "It's about the American sense that there is something great in our destiny, and Ralphie's is to get that BB gun with a compass in the stock."

Over the years, the modest little movie has grown into a Yuletide perennial and is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with a new DVD, featuring reminiscences from the now grown-up star Peter Billingsley.

Meanwhile, this year marks the sixth annual marathon broadcast of the movie on TNT (which runs through 4 p.m. today). TNT started its 12 around-the-clock showings as a stunt in 1988, but popular demand turned it into a tradition. An estimated 38.4 million tuned in at some point to watch it last year.

"Probably about 10 years ago, when it started getting mentioned in the same breath as 'It's a Wonderful Life' -- and people weren't disagreeing with that -- that's when I realized, 'Wow, this thing might be around for a really long while,"' Billingsley, now 32, told the Associated Press.

But how did "A Christmas Story" begin? What made it a seasonal phenomenon? The truth is: "A Christmas Story" didn't start out as a Christmas story.

The series of vignettes in the film -- war with the yellow-eyed school bully, The Old Man's gloating over a garish "leg lamp" in a fishnet stocking; the triple-dog dare of sticking your tongue to a frozen flagpole -- were short stories from radio storyteller Jean Shepherd's 1966 collection "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash."

Among them was the tale about Ralphie wanting a BB gun for Christmas, which became the centerpiece of the movie.

While driving to a girlfriend's house in 1968, director Clark said he became enthralled with one of Shepherd's radio narrations. For the next 14 years, Clark tried to persuade a studio to finance a film based on the stories of Shepherd, who died in 1999 at 78. But nobody in Hollywood was interested. Clark made a series of horror B-films in the 1970s. His rowdy 1981 sex comedy "Porky's," which cost only $4 million to make, collected a whopping $105 million. Suddenly the writer-director had some industry clout.

"They didn't want to do the movie. Nobody did," he said. "But they said, 'Let the idiot do the movie. Give him some money so he'll get up and do another "Porky's."' That's the only reason 'A Christmas Story' got made."

The film opened in 1983 the week before Thanksgiving, and collected about $2 million from 600 theaters -- solid business for the time. That take doubled on Thanksgiving weekend and the movie was getting strong word-of-mouth support.

But MGM hadn't counted on much success -- and didn't schedule any more screens for the lead-up to Dec. 25.

"I thought, 'Well, in the weeks before Christmas we're going to clean up,"' Clark said. "But I got a call from the head of distribution, who said: 'I've got a surprise for you."'

And the movie disappeared from theaters.

Ultimately, it collected about $19 million at the box office. Good, but not great.

The advent of home video and ubiquitous showings on TV earned "A Christmas Story" a place as a holiday tradition alongside "Miracle on 34th Street" and "White Christmas."

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