Zoey Lyttle is a Society & Culture Writer-Reporter at PEOPLE. She covers influencers and viral, trending content across society and culture verticals and has been working at PEOPLE since July 2022.
Ralphie Parker nearly shot his eye out more than 40 years ago.
On Nov. 18, 1983, Peter Billingsley captivated audiences in Bob Clark's A Christmas Story as a 9-year-old boy living in 1940s Cleveland whose sole Christmas wish was for a Red Ryder Range 200 shot BB gun.
While the movie didn't experience immediate success when it first came out, it's become an iconic holiday staple, with TBS and TNT airing it for 24 hours straight annually on Christmas Day. In 2012, the Library of Congress even recognized its cultural significance by selecting it for preservation in the National Film Registry. (For the 2024 Christmas season, one Florida man even took his love for the movie to extreme heights by creating a life-size replica of the leg lamp seen in the movie.)
"There's not only a fan base for [A Christmas Story], but it's borderline sacred for a lot of people," Billingsley told PEOPLE in 2022 ahead of its sequel, A Christmas Story Christmas, which he co-produced for Max and reunited with most of the original cast to reprise the role of Ralphie.
Discussing the sequel's plot with PEOPLE, Billingsley shared, "[Adult] Ralphie's not really where he wants to be in his life, but he's still a dreamer, so he still has these fantasies of what his life could be, where it could go. And then he's called home with some real responsibilities and burdens."
Put on your pink bunny pajamas and read ahead to see what the Christmas Story cast has been up to!
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