The Christmas Story - the movie

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kraigwy

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I love that movie, reminds me of my childhood, Only I didn't live in town. We lived in the country. My Aunt lived down the hill a short ways.

The Red Rider:

One Christmas Eve I got my BB gun, I had it taken away from me Christmas Morning.

Living in the country there was unlimited targets. One I couldn't resist was my aunts chamber pot. We didn't have indoor plumbing so many woman kept a chamber pot under the bed for their nightly activities. In the morning they were emptied and hung on a fence post to dry.

Now a porcelain chamber pot makes too tempting of a target for a young'n with a brand new BB gun. Problem is, I didn't know that when BB's hit the pot, the porcelain chips, when it chips it leaks.

Auntie got her feet wet sometime during the night and I lost my BB gun the next (Christmas) morning.

As a side note my grandmother's chickens weren't too upset they took my BB gun away either.
 
I had a Red Ryder in my childhood too. It was soon replaced by my first.22 rifle, a Stevens Model 15 singleshot I still have.
A few years back, I did get the 'modern' Red Ryder - sure has changed..... plastic parts and even cheaper made - but it's still fun! And, I can shoot in my suburban backyard without freaking the neighbors. A lot cheaper than bricks of Colibri .22 ammo!
But..... don't shoot the squirrels with it. I popped a Bushytail, and he gave me the most scathing chewing out I've had since I cleaned the SeniorChief's crusty ooffee pot! Man, that little squirrel knew some cuss words I didn't..... :D
 
When they were filming that movie, Parts of it were filmed in Cleveland, Ohio.

I was working as a mechanic at Cleveland yellow cab co., the prop guys came to us for some taxi signs for their taxi cabs.

As I recall, they invited anyone at the garage to come down to be extras in the May co. scene, I didn't go because I didn't want to cut my long hair.

Just think, I could now be a movie star, with a real gun collection, instead of a truck mechanic owning a conglomeration of somewhat affordable guns with little time or money to go to the range.
 
I got a Red Ryder for Christmas circe first or second grade. Still have it. Still shoot it occassionally.

Gave my little cousin one last Christmas, too.
 
I got my Red Ryder BB gun on Christmas when I was about 6 years old.
A few other kids in the neighborhood had them too and we used to play "war".
Yeah, not smart. :rolleyes:

I'm amazed nobody got their eye shot out. :D
 
Yep, the Daisy Red Ryder. It turned many of us into “Firearm Aficionados” (read Gun Nuts). Every boy I grew up with had one. I wonder how many million have been sold? I would venture to say that most of us got ass whippings because of its misuse too.
 
my brother (6 yrs older than I) got his red ryder when I was 6 or so. I remember haveing the bright idea that it would not hurt if I got shot in the foot with it. Of course my brother didnt hesitate to shoot me in the foot when I told him to. It hurt alot more than I anticipated lol my dad was not in the best of mood once he found out what happened. when I got older me and my cousin would go into his basement and stand at each corner and would shoot at each other with no protective equipment. He had a pump but was limited to one pump, which he did not always do; somtimes he would pump it two, three times :mad:. We stopped doing that once I got hit in the mouth and I spit the bb out hahaha. I am just happy I never got caught doing alot of the things I used to do when I was young. I still never shot at animals though with it even though my cousin wasn't off limits lol
 
"A Christmas Story" is such a family favorite with us that years ago, before he succumbed to a hereditary disease that took him two November's ago, my stepfather, mother and I all chipped in to buy my older brother a genuine Leg Lamp. It was his pride and joy!

He returned the favor the following Christmas when my now ex-wife and younger brother went to visit him foe what we didn't know would be his last down in FL. After we'd all unwrapped the gifts, he leaned forward and said to me, "What's that over there, behind the breakfront?" It was indeed my very own Red Ryder BB gun, which I cherish and have used to indoctrinate new shooters in the backyard, to chase squirrels away from the bird feeder and to NOT shoot my eye out.

If anyone is driving thorough Cleveland, the house used in the movie has been restored and is now open as museum with an accompanying gift shop and prop display across the street.
 
Grew attached to the movie over the years, but I was 16 when it came out, I already owned a Crosman ten pump. Good movie and I like it now but then before cable, i think I turn on the more boring news or it's a Wonderful life. the longest movie in the World.

I never forgot the lamp though.
 
I read the book when I was in school and listened to the authors' ,Jean Shepard, radio program. When the movie came out it immediately became a required watch every year. It was similar to my struggle to convince my mother to allow a gun in the house.
My friends still challenge each other with trivia from the movie like,
What was the name of the Fire Company that saved Flick from the flagpole?
What was the licensed plate number from Ralphie's fathers' Oldsmobile?
What was the the name of Ralphie's hometown?
 
The Redneck boy's Red Ryder..

First off, the compass in ths stock was crap in the mid 70's so I suspect the 90's and 2000's compass even crappier...

But a little tidbit...
If you take one broken red ryder and tear it apart, you can cut the spring into 3 sections and build 3 "MAGNUM" red ryders... I went ahead and "acid core" soldered my 2 sections together...

Thing will kill a squirrel at 30 paces if the BB don't decide to "helicopter" (spiral flight)...

Stretching the spring is only going to get hot results for a few shots before re-compressed to original length...

Brent
 
Never got the Red Ryder...... I did get a .22 and a shotgun in consecutive years..........It's all been down hill since............:D:D
 
I never had a "Red Ryder", never heard of him actually until I was grown up, but I did have a Daisy BB gun. I got it for Christmas one year or the other, I forget which.

I lost it twice. Once I shot it in the house. "I didn't know it was loaded" didn't work any better then than it would now. Lost it for a week that time.

Then I stuck an empty cigarette pack in a stack of cinder blocks to use for a target one time. My kid sister was on the other side of the stack of blocks, but who knew that a BB would go through the empty smoke pack (Lucky Strikes I'm sure) and hit her in the back.

Like all little sisters, I suppose, it apparently didn't hurt until she got up, went inside, and found our mother. THEN she screamed like she was being skinned alive. Delayed reaction pain. It's a sister thing.

Lost the gun for a month that time.

Eventually that gun just plain wore out.
 
For all of you too young, and all of us with a case of “Old Timers”, here’s a blurb on Red Ryder.

Red Ryder was a popular long-running Western comic strip created by Stephen Slesinger and artist Fred Harman. Beginning Sunday, November 6, 1938, Red Ryder was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, expanding over the following decade to 750 newspapers, translations into ten languages and a readership in the United States of 14 million. The 26-year run of the strip came to an end in 1964.
 
When I was a kid, my first BB gun was of the red ryder variety; it had belonged to my uncle when he was a kid. After my grandfather died and we set about splitting up items at his house, I found out that my uncle was of a mind that it still belonged to him, despite my grandfather having given it to me!

I pondered making a fuss about that, but my uncle is old and sick and has no children. I guess I'll just have to wait a while to get it back. :)
 
But a little tidbit...
If you take one broken red ryder and tear it apart, you can cut the spring into 3 sections and build 3 "MAGNUM" red ryders... I went ahead and "acid core" soldered my 2 sections together...
Click to expand...

A true southern engineer.

Instead of that I just went out and got a Crosman 10 pump at 750fps .177
 
This thread reminds me of my first exposure to high-powered pump pellet rifles, and just how powerful they can be. In 1982, at age 14, I was at my cousin's house one day. He lives way out in the sticks, and the yard had at least a dozen or more chickens. In an unattended moment, I got hold of his Crosman pump air rifle. At the time, I was accustomed to my Daisy, which was not a Red Ryder but was similar in that you cocked it rather than pumped it. I now used my cousin's more powerful rifle to pop a chicken on his feathered butt. Upon impact, he jumped high into the air and took off running. At age 14, I thought this was the absolute height of hilarity, and proceeded to engage several other chickens thus. Shoot, chicken goes high vertical, takes off running, I laugh maniacally, repeat. Now, had I been using my own low-powered BB gun, the BBs would have merely stung the animals. I had no idea, however, that my cousin's pellet rifle was capable of doing far worse than "stinging" them. After a few minutes I tired of this and went inside my cousin's house. When I came back out a few minutes later, I was horrified to be greeted by the sight of numerous, prostrate chickens scattered about the yard, all dead, or in the process of dying. My cousin, being my age, thought it kind of amusing, but with his dad [my uncle] due home any minute, I suddenly recalled that I had someplace pressing to be, and fled the scene. To this day, whenever I visit there, upon seeing me, my uncle says "Hide the chickens, he's back!"
 
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