Scripps' own 'A Christmas Story' superfan took us inside the Cleveland home where the movie was filmed to give us a few bits of trivia about his favorite film.
Cleveland's Mike Brookbank, anchor of The Now on WEWS Channel 5, sports a leg lamp on his desk and owns a pink bunny suit of his very own, so he was the perfect person to take us on a behind-the-scenes tour. Here are six things you may not have known about the Christmas classic.
- Only a fraction of the movie was filmed at the Cleveland W. 11th Street home now visited by 60,000 people a year. Scenes filmed at the Cleveland house have the drapes open in the living room - but on the sound stage they used for other living room scenes, the drapes are closed.
- The carpenter who made the crate that the famous leg lamp was delivered in neglected to measure the doorway. Watch closely during that scene, and you'll notice the "T" on "THIS SIDE UP" disappears—because the crew had to trim the box to get it inside the Cleveland home.
- Three copies of the "old man's statue" were used in the movie—and none survived filming.
- Actor Peter Billingsly still owns the original pink bunny suit.
- Scott Schwartz, who played Flick, was a prankster on set, so when his character got his tongue stuck to a telephone pole, director Bob Clark took the opportunity for payback and called a lunch break. That arm-flapping is real.
- Melinda Dillon, who plays the mom, shone in one of the movie's funniest scenes: the Chinese dinner. And that's because her surprise at seeing a duck with a head served was real. She was intentionally given the wrong script for that scene.
