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1. Jack Nicholson was originally offered the role of the father in the movie, which eventually went to Darren McGavin.

2. The story's author, Jean Shepherd, has a cameo in the film as an irritable department store customer who tells Ralphie to head to the back of the line.
3. Even though the house, 3159 West 11th St., appears in the film, almost all the interiors were shot elsewhere on a soundstage.
4. Shepherd's Christmas stories originally appeared in Playboy magazines in 1965 and 1967.
5. Two years before directing a A Christmas Story, Bob Clark had a hit with Porky's. (On a sad note, Clark and his son Ariel were killed in a car accident in California in 2007.)
6. Brian Jones bought the A Christmas Story house for $150,000 in 2004 and spent $250,000 to fix it up.
7. In 1983, the movie made a respectable $19 million at the box office.
8. The annual A Christmas Story marathon on TBS attracts 40 million viewers.
9. The school where Flick gets his tongue stuck to a flagpole was filmed in Ontario, Canada.
10. More than 70,000 people have been through the house in Tremont. They have come from all 50 states and more than a dozen other countries.
11. Director Clark has a cameo as clueless neighbor Swede.
12. West 11th Street is also known as Cleveland Street in honor of the movie.
13. All the elves in the movie were Cleveland locals.
14. The filmmakers determined that the exact Red Ryder BB gun that Shepherd describes -- Ralphie's dream gift -- didn't exist. A model was created for the movie.
15. The A Christmas Story sequel, My Summer Story (released at the box office as "It Runs in the Family"), was also shot at the house on West 11th Street in 1994. It features an almost entirely different cast, including Charles Grodin as the Old Man, Mary Steenburgen as Ralphie's mother and Kieran Culkin as Ralphie.
16. The A Christmas Story House and its neighboring museum and gift shop employ 12 people seasonally.
17. Two marriage proposals were made in the house, and one couple was married there wearing 1941 period clothing in 2007.
18. An eBay auction awards the winning bidder the opportunity to spend a night in the house on Christmas Eve. Bidding is ongoing.
19. A 1938 Oldsmobile touring sedan that was seen in the parade scene in the movie sits in the garage behind the gift shop.
20. Is that really snow on the ground in the movie? No. It's firefighting foam. Actors and crew slipped and slid around on the stuff during filming.
21. After the scene in which Ralphie drops his f-bombs, his mom washes out his mouth with soap. Lifebuoy soap to be exact. And yes, they sell the soap imported from England in the gift shop.
22. After the movie was shot, the house became a rental, and many different people lived there until it was bought and restored by Brian Jones.
23. According to staff at the A Christmas Story House, before the shooting of the movie, the house's basement was home to many an illegal cockfight.
24. Author Shepherd is the movie's narrator.
25. Jim Moralevitz, who played the role of the delivery man who brings the leg lamp crate to the house, was a local extra who still lives on the street.

4/8 - Finals in four leagues!