‘A Christmas Story’ movie and star coming to Patchogue Theatre

You’ve probably seen “A Christmas Story” on TV. Who hasn’t, since TBS and TNT air it for 24 hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?

You remember some of the classic scenes: Santa telling Raphie, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” when Ralphie asks for a Red Ryder air rifle. Or Flick getting his tongue stuck on a frozen pole following a triple-dog-dare. Or the Old Man winning “a major award” that arrives in a crate marked “Fragile,” which he reads as “FRA-JEE-LEE.”

Well, here’s your chance to see this holiday classic on the big screen and hear stories about the making of the movie from Ralphie himself—actor Peter Billingsley—when “A Christmas Story” comes to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m.

Billingsley, who played the movie’s young protagonist Ralphie Parker, started acting in New York at age 3. Billingsley already had a slew of acting credits to his name—commercials, TV shows and films—by the time he was cast in the film.

But nobody, including Billingsley, who turned 12 during filming, thought the movie would be a hit, and certainly not popular, more than 40 years later.

“It was a movie probably nobody wanted to make,” Billingsley said.

It took director and co-screenwriter Bob Clark (who directed the hit 1981 teen comedy “Porky’s”) and co-screenwriter Jean Shepherd (who also narrates the film) 12 years to find a studio willing to make the movie.

Given the film’s miniscule $4 million budget, the atmosphere on set was “take your lunch pail to work,” Billingsley recalled.

Forget Hollywood.

Most of the movie was shot on a soundstage outside Toronto. The cast and crew also spent three months filming exterior scenes at a house in Cleveland (it’s since been turned into a museum that fans can tour). But the winter was so surprisingly lacking in snow they had to use mashed potato flakes and firefighter foam to simulate the real thing.

“We didn’t have a massive snow budget,” Billingsley joked.

The plot of the movie and Billingsley’s character are drawn from short stories written by Shepherd, who grew up in an industrial town in northern Indiana in the 1930s. The movie follows Ralphie as he navigates the pitfalls of childhood—dealing with schoolyard bullies and his runny-nose little brother Randy, trying to pay attention in Miss Shield’s class at Warren G. Harding School, and trying to persuade his parents to buy him the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two Hundred Shot Range Model air rifle he wants for Christmas.

“A Christmas Story,” which starred Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s dad and Melinda Dillon as Ralphie’s mom, didn’t make much of a splash when it was released in 1983.

Cable TV was in its infancy and streaming had yet to be invented, so a movie didn’t have much life after its theatrical run ended.

But “A Christmas Story” developed a cult following among fans who saw themselves in Ralphie and his family.

“It feels like the dynamics in a lot of people’s families, dealing with the simple stuff,” Billingsley said. “All they’re trying to do is cook a turkey and buy a Christmas tree.” 

Billingsley said it was the fans of the movie who gave it a second life through passing around VHS tapes of the movie.

Billingsley went on to have a successful career as an actor and eventually decided to make a sequel, 2022’s “A Christmas Story Christmas,” in which a grown-up Ralphie returns to his hometown. Billingsley stars in the film and is one of its producers, along with actor Vince Vaughn.

Doing the research for the sequel got Billingsley thinking of taking the original movie on the road, so longtime fans could see it on the big screen.

The movie’s fans “want to communicate how much the movie means to them,” Billingsley said. “It’s a unique relationship. They want to share the stories of watching the movie as a family.”

So put on your pink bunny costume, warm up some Ovaltine, and get to the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts on Dec. 3 for “An Evening with Peter Billingsley and A Christmas Story.”