For ALLDAT (well, and everyone!)

I could have added this to the picture thread but I wanted to start a new topic. Alldat and I have something in common - we both love A Christmas Story. 

A few months ago my wife wanted to plan a road trip. Being from Florida my kids have not seen a lot of snow. My youngest had never seen ANY snow and my 13 year old saw some when she was about 5. 

So I told my wife "surprise us". She planned a trip and didn't tell us where we were going. Kind of cool to get in the van and just drive. She said she figured there would be snow at our first destination since it was in the mountains. There was no snow there at all, it was just cold. Our first stop was Mayberry!! Mt. Airy, NC! A very small mountain town where Andy Griffith was raised. There is a museum there but unfortunately they do not let you take pictures so this was all I ended up with:



A very cool museum with sets, props, costumes, etc. it actually takes maybe 20 minutes to look at everything but you could spend a couple of hours if you read all the letters and documents on the wall. We walked downtown and while a very cool old-timey town, it looks nothing like Mayberry (which of course was a shot on a studio lot in California). There is a Floyd's Barber Shop downtown and just about every store sells Mayberry merchandise. I picked up some of "Thelma-Lou's Peach Butter".

So we hit the road the next morning in search of snow. It wasn't looking good. My wife checked the forecast on the next destination and there was a 50 % chance of snow but the temp was 36. As we entered Ohio we started to see signs of snow which excited the kids. I made the suggestion that we stop off at a rest area and see if there was snow in the picnic area. There was! About 6 inches worth and while we were there it began to snow pretty good. 



So we finally arrive in Cleveland (by this time I figured out where we were going!). We went to the hotel but it was too early to check in. We decided to go ahead and drive to Ralphie's house!!



Here's the lamp in the window!



There were a lot of people on the tour. Here is a shot of the living room.



Look what is hidden behind the desk!



A tour guide gives a lot of trivia about the house and the movie. It was very interesting. She said when they were looking for locations they wanted a blue collar area and loved this house because there is a steel mill seen from the backyard. When Bob Clark tried to find the owner he could not track him down. He finally found him in a local bar and said they wanted to use his house for a movie. The guy said NO WAY. So Bob Clark offered him $30,000 for 90 days. The guy said "here's the keys!". When they got inside the house they loved it, however it was too small to fit all of the cameras so many of the scenes inside the house had to be shot on a sound stage in Canada. She did tell us that anytime you see a window the scene was shot in the house but anytime you couldn't see out of a door or window, it was shot on the sound stage. Some of the interior doesn't match up with the movie but it is incredibly close. Here is a pic of our guide giving us the details of the home:



Here I am with a major award!



My wife and kids with a major award!



More pics to follow, this message is getting huge.....

Calling Schwartz's Mom... My daughter was dumb-founded by the rotary phone.



Sitting on Ralphie's bed



In the kitchen!



Me under the sink!



My kids out back!



And from across the street



The museum has a lot of props and costumes and interesting trivia. A lot of the movie was shot in Canada for several reasons. One: More snow than Cleveland. Two: The woman who played Miss Shields was from Toronto and was 8 months pregnant and refused to travel to Ohio so they found a school close to her to film the school scenes. 

I have always wanted to go to this house and it was very cool, but very fast. They spend about 15 minutes talking and then you get about 15 minutes to tour the house. We were the last ones to leave. In fact before we left the next tour had started so we stayed quiet while in the kitchen.

Alldat, I intended to ask them if they saw your video but the tour guides seem to be in a hurry and well educated about the house but didn't seem like they would know what I was talking about if I told them to go on YouTube and look it up. 

Was cool seeing it with snow on the ground. If you ever go, parking on the street is free but the Bumpuses charge 5 bucks for parking so avoid them!

That is cool (pun intended). I bet that was a nice surprise road trip.

A non-YouTube video, trying out Vimeo.

Tour of living room

Tour of bedroom

Outside and backyard

I tried to check on Netflix to see if I can watch A Christmas Story.
No results.
But that's here.

Looks like a lot of fun!

I'm jealous.

Very cool indeed !!!

Aww, way cool!  What a great sounding trip.

rockerVu2 wrote:

I tried to check on Netflix to see if I can watch A Christmas Story.
No results.
But that's here.

We are finding out (at least at my house) that a lot of great movies are missing from Netflix. A Christmas Story is not on it.

Wow, what a cool trip!  I am officially jealous. 

Don't even get me started on Netflix. 
Worse selection ever ! We've had to rent movies on Amazon that you'd think would be common old movies available on Netflix. They don't have It's a Wonderful Life, any Dirty Harry movies, pretty much any movies I search for...they don't have. We only keep our subscription cuz of TV series- which is pretty much all they're good for. 
Sorry, back to the regularly scheduled thread. :-)

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Don't even get me started on Netflix. 
Worse selection ever ! We've had to rent movies on Amazon that you'd think would be common old movies available on Netflix. They don't have It's a Wonderful Life, any Dirty Harry movies, pretty much any movies I search for...they don't have. We only keep our subscription cuz of TV series- which is pretty much all they're good for. 
Sorry, back to the regularly scheduled thread. :-)

I'm of the opinion that the TV series selection on netflix (streaming) is pretty decent (even if it is perpetually one season late), but the movie selection is horrible....the vast majority of movies are poor B & C-grade flicks.  I have started half a dozen interesting sounding movies only to quit them 15 minutes later and never waste my time on them again.

Man, I'd love to visit that house!  I am definitely jealous!

This is the first year in a LONG time that I did not watch A Christmas Story.  I guess after working on the song and video that I felt like I had seen it.  LOL

I wish the museum would take notice of the song and use it.  I'd love to have people singing "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" after visiting.  First Dr. Demento Show; tomorrow, A Christmas Story house!!!  Mwahahahaha!!!!

Send the song to the museum.  They probably have an email and/or Facebook page.

alldatndensum wrote:

Man, I'd love to visit that house!  I am definitely jealous!

This is the first year in a LONG time that I did not watch A Christmas Story.  I guess after working on the song and video that I felt like I had seen it.  LOL

I wish the museum would take notice of the song and use it.  I'd love to have people singing "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" after visiting.  First Dr. Demento Show; tomorrow, A Christmas Story house!!!  Mwahahahaha!!!!

Sometime you should plan a road trip there. We just happened to pick the right time I guess because gas was cheap (mostly around $1.80). I think our hotel was $69 plus tax and our Garmin took us right to the house. Plus, it is much closer for you than it is for me to drive there. I think it is about an 8 hour drive from the Nashville area.

Some more trivia, the guy who owns the house bought it on e-bay. The house had been completely destroyed in the inside. The outside had been re-done. When he bought it it looked like this:



They said all the copper inside had been stolen and floors and walls had holes. He paid $150,000 for it but at that time houses in the area were selling for less than $30,000.  The inside was a complete mess and he remodeled the whole house and looked at movie stills to get it as close as possible. They said he spent over $240,000 of his own money on restoration alone. I am sure he has made his money back because admission is 10 bucks for adults (my youngest got in free and my older daughter paid the kid rate of $6). But it was worth every penny I would go again in a heartbeat. 



Front porch had to be completely rebuilt.



The room here on the left of the picture was closed off, we could not go in it. I did not see the parent's room where Ralph sticks the Red Ryder ad in Look Magazine.



They did an excellent job making it look just like the movie set but some things were different.

As luck would have it, my Flip! Video Camera was completely dead when we got there so I could not make the videos I wanted to make. I wanted to video the whole thing and then add some music so I was stuck using my cell phone video camera. Those turned out OK and I stuck them on Vimeo. 

Across the street is a store that sells all kinds of merchandise from Stocking Caps, goggles, bunny suits, leg lamps of all sizes, anything you could ever want. I only bought a bumper sticker while buying our tickets. I wanted to go back to the store when we were done but she said no because I would see something that I wanted. 

They also have the "old man's" car on display and the old firetruck from the flag pole scene (or a truck like it). They also have the chalk board on display with the A++++++++ written across it. 

It was one of the most enjoyable trips I have had in years and I would love to go back again some day (and probably will!).

MikeInFla, I might check out YouTube.
Sometimes it's hard to watch here all the movies you can watch in the US.
Special all the Christian movies. 
I don't give it up.

And the house.
Yep the house.
The house is awesome.

MikeInFla, what a wonderful gesture of you to share this with us.

Through The Dark Radio wrote:

Send the song to the museum.  They probably have an email and/or Facebook page.

I did.  I got no response whatsoever.

alldatndensum wrote:

Man, I'd love to visit that house!  I am definitely jealous!

This is the first year in a LONG time that I did not watch A Christmas Story.  I guess after working on the song and video that I felt like I had seen it.  LOL

I wish the museum would take notice of the song and use it.  I'd love to have people singing "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" after visiting.  First Dr. Demento Show; tomorrow, A Christmas Story house!!!  Mwahahahaha!!!!

Time to plan a geocaching trip.

alldatndensum wrote:

Through The Dark Radio wrote:

Send the song to the museum.  They probably have an email and/or Facebook page.

I did.  I got no response whatsoever.

Yeah, I e-mailed them too and got no response when I sent them the link.

Also, people at work have the same question for me: WHAT is in the shed?!?

Nothing, it is an empty shed. I should have included the inside of the shed in my video. For some reason people seem to ask me that question when they see the picture of my kids near the shed. 

Something else I noticed in the house -- No damper. I wanted to close the damper on the furnace but it isn't there. Yesterday I noticed the house next door to the immediate right of the house is gone.



The house on the right was torn down and is now part of the backyard. I didn't realize it until yesterday when I saw this picture but when we were there I was thinking something didn't look right and it was the house next door being gone. Several of the homes in the area have been completely restored. Before this was turned into a tourist attraction the houses were pretty run down.