A Christmas Story

by Caseen Gaines

  The “Oh, fudge” scene was shot in Canada © MGM/UA Entertainment / Photofest

  Even without realizing his dream of building a Canadian museum, Tyler has found a venue to keep his love for the film alive and also spread some Christmas cheer. When Brian Jones made his way to purchase the costumes for his museum, he told the explorer that he needed someone to help distribute leg lamps and other film-related merchandise on that side of the border in Canada, because Jones believed potential international customers were deterred by high shipping costs.

  “He mentioned to me that they weren’t selling anything in Canada because of the shipping costs,” Tyler says. “He needed a distributor. At some point he approached Tedde Moore about it. She declined, although she was intrigued.”

  Within a few years, the business took off to the extent that Tyler could leave his boring desk job behind. Today, he drives around in a car with a vanity license plate that reads “LEGLAMP,” an homage to not only his favorite movie but also his new career.

  The Schwartzes’ journey culminated in Road Trip for Ralphie. The movie was produced on DVD and is available for purchase at the Christmas Story House in Cleveland, as well as on Tyler’s website for the Canadian distribution of merchandise inspired by the film. “We get emails about it all the time,” he says. “I’m very self-conscious about it. I know it’s not a professional documentary, but I think people get it. We’re just two fans who had a passion for the movie and set out to make a film for the fans.” Christmas Story fans don’t seem to be bothered by what Tyler describes as the amateur production values in Ralphie. Instead, they enjoy the unique experience of being able to enjoy their favorite holiday film in a new and creative way.

  For those in the Cleveland area, another new and creative way to experience their favorite film was on the horizon. Once again, it would be Brian Jones who was the catalyst for a most surreal experience for one of the film’s actors, as well as the fans lucky enough to interact with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This Little Piggy Came Home

  California: the state with Hollywood’s brightest stars, those looking to make it big in the entertainment industry . . . and Ian Petrella. After appearing in A Christmas Story as Randy Parker, Ralphie’s kid brother, Ian continued acting for a few years. Throughout the mid-1980s he made appearances on popular sitcoms like Diff’rent Strokes and Who’s the Boss, but by 1991, he was virtually retired from show business.

  By the spring of 2003, Ian was working hard at his latest steady gig, refilling the sugars and cream at a Starbucks, and not thinking too much about the holiday movie he had filmed when he was nine. He had noticed the growing popularity of A Christmas Story and the increased airings on television, but for the most part, the film was off his radar until a few weeks before the annual marathon.

  © Ian Petrella

  While he was straightening the milk containers at work, he happened to glance up and notice the person beside him. “There was this girl standing next to me, mixing her coffee, and there I was, in my little Starbucks apron,” he recalls. “I looked over. She was pretty cute, so I gave her a glance. That’s when I noticed her shirt.”

  He noticed that she was wearing a shirt with President George W. Bush on it, but instead of being dressed in a suit, the president was wearing Ralphie’s pink bunny outfit. Ian was surprised, but thought nothing of it. After all, this was ultra-liberal San Francisco, so the actor-turned-barista assumed the shirt was purchased on the street, or maybe at some anti-Bush rally.

  But then he looked closer. “I realized it wasn’t Bush,” Ian says. “It was Peter in a bunny suit and it said ‘Pink Nightmare’ on it! That was the first time that I saw any merchandise with A Christmas Story on it. Anything.”

  Perhaps a less passionate man would have introduced himself to the woman as the actor in the film. After all, it was safe to deduce that she was a fan and that meeting one of the actors from the movie, especially one as integral as a member of the Parker family, would have made a lasting impression on the customer. Instead, Petrella, who is far from lacking in passion, chose to make a different kind of lasting impression.

  “I literally grabbed this girl by the arm, spun her around, and said, ‘Where the fuck did you get that shirt,’” he explains. “Now, of course, she has no idea who I am. She didn’t know I was Randy in the film. She kind of flipped out on me. ‘I got it at Hot Topic, asshole,’ she said. ‘Leave me alone!’”

  When his shift ended and Ian returned home, he took to the internet to see if he could find the shirt on Hot Topic’s website. He hadn’t heard of any officially licensed merchandise and thought maybe the woman had been joking when she said she bought the shirt there. Finally, though, he found the shirt — and more. Lots more.

  “All this stuff was being sold,” he explains, still sounding surprised by it. “Action figures, leg lamps, everything. This was coming out of the twenty-year anniversary. Nothing was really happening with the film and now, all of a sudden, there’s a whole merchandising line.”

  Ian while filming A Christmas Story © Ian Petrella

  As Ian sat in front of his computer and looked at the merchandise featuring pictures of himself when he was nine years old, he couldn’t help but think about all of those fans who had made the movie a sleeper hit that had only grown in popularity with each passing Christmas season over the last twenty years — and his thoughts were of the worst possible outcome from this scenario.

  “Merchandising will kill this film’s cult status,” he thought. “All of this stuff will make the movie uncool.”

  He waited for the bottom to fall out from underneath what he perceived to be a misguided and self-serving cash grab by Warner Bros. but that day never came. A few years came and went, and by early 2010, the Californian had transitioned into a budding career in graphic design and production. The problem was, gigs were sparse and the rent on his apartment was high. He needed a breakout opportunity, which came in the form of a telephone call from Brian Jones, the owner of the Christmas Story House.

  Jones called just to shoot the breeze. The two had become friends after Ian and a number of the other actors from the film had participated in events to promote the Cleveland attraction, and a random telephone call to or from the entrepreneur became fairly commonplace over time.

  “What’s going on with you?” Jones’ question was more a formality than a genuine inquiry, but for Ian, it provided a chance to air some mild frustrations with the direction of his career. He told Jones he was looking for a new apartment and work. San Francisco wasn’t working out, and he was eager for a new experience.

  “If you’re looking for a job and a place to live,” Jones said, “why don’t you move into the Christmas Story House and give tours?”

  The suggestion was delivered and received as a joke, but after the phone call ended, the question rang in Ian’s ears. After giving it some thought, he called Jones back and said he was interested in giving it a shot.

  They decided that Ian would move into the house that summer, an idea that initially seemed like a suicide mission to the actor. Because the film is set during the holiday season, the actor thought attendance would be low during the warmer months. In fact, he didn’t even realize the house was open year-round prior to receiving the offer. But Jones assured him that Ian’s visit would be worth the nearly 2,500-mile journey to middle America.

  That June, the actor packed up his apartment, moved a bunch of things into storage, filled his suitcases, and set off for Cleveland. While the first two floors of the house are open to the public, there’s a loft on the third level with a suitable living space that is off-limits to visitors.

  Ian Petrella relaxes on the set between takes. © Ian Petrella

  The actor wasn’t the first person to sleep at the tourist attraction. In 2009, Billy Jeffrey, a former reality television show
contestant and Chippendales exotic dancer, made headlines for scoring a stay at the house after bidding $4,200 for the honor in an online charity auction. The following year, while Ian was staying at the house, Jerry Benya, another fan of the film, won a similar overnight stay on Christmas Eve for $3,200. However, as Randy’s real-life counterpart was already occupying the loft, Benya slept in Ralphie and Randy’s bedroom.

  The upper-level of the house could hardly be considered the lap of luxury. First and foremost, the home is a tourist attraction, not a hotel. The loft and house aren’t wired for internet access, which means anyone staying there would have to visit a nearby café or the library whenever they needed to check their email. When he arrived, Ian found a bed, television, DVD player, and some movies awaiting him. He perused through his few selections and hoped he’d find something worth watching on the eve of his homecoming.

  The first film on the stack was, of course, A Christmas Story. He had seen it too many times and certainly wasn’t enthusiastic about watching it again on the upper floor of the film’s Graceland. My Summer Story, the 1994 follow-up to the holiday film, was also there. Ian had seen it and, while he thought it was enjoyable enough, he wasn’t particularly in the mood. The third movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, was a film the actor liked, and he probably would have ended up watching it had he not looked at the DVD case on the bottom of the pile — Elf.

  © Brian Jones

  As the only film of the four that Ian hadn’t seen before, Elf won the draw. He changed his clothes, put on the movie, and got into bed. When the opening credits read “Produced by Peter Billingsley,” it was a surreal moment for Cleveland’s newest temporary resident. “Life is really fucking weird right now,” he said out loud to himself. “That’s all there is to it.”

  The next morning, the test run of tours began. Jones and his team had crafted an aggressive promotional campaign to announce that Ian would be staying at the house. “Randy Comes Home,” as they called it, was scheduled to begin in July, but it was decided that the actor should spend the last few weeks of June giving the occasional tour so he’d be up to speed by the next month.

  As the clock neared 10 a.m. and people started to line up outside, the actor was still uncertain as to what he was supposed to do. He hadn’t been given any guidelines or handbook; he was just advised to live in the house and interact with the visitors as he saw fit. However, even with this supposed freedom, Ian still knew that he had to figure out a way to properly integrate himself into the well-oiled machine that was the Christmas Story House. The regular guides were still in charge of directing the tour, so it would be redundant to do that. He decided to let the guides do their thing while he took a backseat during the first test run.

  As the group came in, the guides went into their brief spiel. Once again, Ian was acutely caught off guard. The employee gave a one-minute overview of how the film was made, spent a few more talking about how Jones acquired the house, and then finished it up with a little bit of biographical information about the lead actors. “Where are the interesting anecdotes,” Ian thought. “Where are the funny stories about the house’s history?”

  Although the interesting anecdotes were missing from the tour, there were several interesting stories to tell. According to Steve Siedlecki, the cura­tor of the house and museum, there was a misunderstanding back in 1982 when location scouts approached the tenant living in the home about filming there. “The guy thought they were cops and he ended up flushing about $5,000 worth of drugs down the toilet,” he says.

  The crew began their pitch to the resident and, after a very short while, the man realized his error. He agreed to stay in a hotel for two weeks so the crew could use his house for filming. At the time, there was an empty lot nearby that could be used for lights and other equipment, which made the house a perfect choice for the Christmas Tree Films team. Since he was displaced, the tenant with the drug habit was properly compensated — he received $5,000, which potentially made up for his lost narcotics.

  Ian Petrella poses with fans Shelley, Corbyn, Taelor, and Wyatt Cook © Shelley Cook

  After the guide completed his tour, Ian was introduced. Without knowing what to do, he walked up the yellow staircase with the tourists and showed them the rooms, giving brief stories about what it was like to film the scenes on the Toronto soundstage and how interesting it was to be back home. When he had finished giving his supplemental walk-through, an impromptu question and answer session broke out. Ian welcomed the opportunity to fill in the blanks for some of the film’s fans, and he spent the next fifteen minutes answering the questions thrown his way.

  With that, the Ian Petrella Q&A was born. After the guides gave their speech on subsequent tours, they would direct the visitors to find the actor upstairs, where he would be waiting and willing to answer questions for the duration of the session. “There were no guidelines,” he says. “Everyone just said, ‘Well, let’s see what happens.’ Whenever you enter a situation like that, that’s when it’s going to become the most interesting thing possible.”

  While the idea was inspired in the beginning, the novelty soon began to wear off a bit. Ian needed to come up with a way to keep his shtick fun for him and his audience. “People would ask the same questions over and over again, which comes with the territory,” he says. “It got to the point where I would take these questions and develop a comedy routine around them. I’d come up with answers to make everybody laugh.”

  The jokes were well received by the tourists, even when they were the butt of them. One encounter that sticks out for Ian is when a tour consisted only of a man, his wife, and their children. “The smaller the group, the more difficult your time there is going to be in terms of doing a Q&A,” he says. “It’s harder to engage people, so I had to think of something.”

  © Ian Petrella

  Ian asked if anybody had any questions. The father, who was standing against the wall in the living room, muttered, “I can’t get up,” in reference to the scene in the film when Randy is pushed into the snow and rolls around like a flipped turtle because of his obtrusive snow suit. However innocent the man’s intentions were, Ian saw an opening and chose to exploit it.

  “That sounds like a personal problem, sir.” The man burst out laughing immediately. Emboldened by the reaction, Ian continued. “Maybe you oughta talk to a doctor about that.”

  The man endured five or six other “limp-dick jokes,” as Ian likes to call them, laughing hysterically as they kept coming. When the session was over, the actor approached the man.

  “Hey, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  “No, no, it was fine.”

  “I’m glad it was all in fun,” Ian said. “It really made my day so far.”

  “No, you made my day. A Christmas Story is my favorite movie in the entire world and today’s my birthday!”

  As it turned out, his family had surprised him with a visit to the house to celebrate and, even though the jokes were racy, they all got a kick out of them. Ian asked the man for his name and gave him a bunch of signed pictures, free of charge, as a birthday present. The experience has lasted with Ian, and he hopes it’s lasted with the family as well. “That easily could have turned into a bad situation, with me making erectile dysfunction jokes in front of his family,” he says. “But it didn’t. It worked out and everyone really had fun.”

  But was there ever a concern that tourists, whether they were venturing to the house with their children or not, would be bothered by hearing Ian Petrella uncensored? For the actor, it was all a part of what made the experience distinctive for the visitors.

  “As far as I was concerned, I’m Ian Petrella and that’s all there is to it,” he says. “I have a certain personality and a certain type of humor. I have good days and I have bad days. I tell clean jokes and I tell dick jokes, and not everybody’s going to agree with that. It wasn’t un
til later on that I realized that the fans wanted to see something in particular and the [people who run the] house wanted to see something in particular. It created a bit of a conflict.”

  Part of the conflict occurred on Ian’s Facebook page. In April 2010, a few months before he moved into the house, the actor set up a “Randy Parker” Facebook profile so he could interact with his fans. The page quickly generated attention and earned him lots of digital followers. However, there were a few times when fans took to his page to complain about Ian not being at the house during a tour or about the actor being too rushed to give the personal attention the fan desired. While Ian Petrella was at the house, most fans wanted to see a grown-up version of Randy Parker, the affable tyke from their favorite holiday film.

  In addition to his Facebook page, Ian agreed to blog for the Christmas Story House website during his stay. Because all of the posts would have to be approved by Brian Jones, the actor made sure to keep his comments more polite than he might have been in person. Simply stated, you’d be hard-pressed to find any dick jokes on the blog.

  Much to the actor’s surprise, even some of the more tame jokes in his stand-up routine occasionally offended a visitor. One of Ian’s favorite stories to tell was about how MGM almost didn’t release the Christmas film because they were pouring their resources at the time into the Barbra Streisand movie Yentl, which was released on the same day as A Christmas Story in theaters.

  “The punchline to that story was, ‘Yes, Barbra Streisand was almost responsible for this movie not making it,’” he says. “The second punchline was, ‘Just when you thought you had found something Barbra Streisand had no influence over.’ Most people would laugh because if you’re a fan of A Christmas Story, you’re probably more conservative and don’t like her, but sometimes you’d have people turn around and walk out the door! People would seriously get offended.”