There are just some things you don’t give a kid to chew on, like anything sharp, anything they can easily swallow, and definitely not a cheek full of Red Man. Quite a few people still watch the holiday classic A Christmas Story which featured a young Peter Billingsley as Ralphie, the kid that was obsessed with getting a Red Ryder air rifle for Christmas and went to great pains to try and convince his parents to get him one. Just imagine feeling as crushed as Ralphie did every time someone rebuffed him with “You’ll shoot your eye out”. Now think about what it feels like to be a kid and hear Santa Claus say such a thing before he toe taps you down a big red slide into a pile of cotton. How’s that for traumatizing? It’s probably more traumatizing than being given a bit of Red Man to chew on for authenticity since this is what Peter had to say about it via MovieWeb:
“Well, they totally screwed up… The scene says he’s dressed as a sheriff. So I put the costume on. And the script says he’s chewing tobacco. Sure enough, the prop man, who’s responsible for the chewing tobacco, comes up to me with a pouch that says Red Man on it. I don’t know the difference, I said, ‘What do I do with this?’ He says, ‘Here, jam it down in here. Don’t swallow, just spit.’ So, I do it, we get ready to go, and about 15 minutes in, the world starts tilting. I start sweating. My stomach starts hurting, and I start throwing up. [Director] Bob [Clark’s] like, ‘Cut cut. What the hell is going on?’ There was the prop man, ‘Oh, I gave him Red Man, you know.’ Bob says, ‘What are you doing? He’s 12-years old!'”
As I said, there are just some things that you don’t give kids, and a cheek full of tobacco is one of them since the majority of kids don’t chew on this stuff when they’re younger since for one, it’s not good for them, and two, it’s bound to make them pretty sick the first time around, especially considering that Red Man was pretty rough compared to a lot of stuff that’s on the market. One can only imagine that the prop man was given a thorough butt-chewing for this mistake since it took away a good forty minutes of filming time and risked the health of one of the primary stars of the movie as well. But thankfully Peter recovered after this and went on to finish shooting. The movie itself is something that a lot of people have probably watched numerous times, but until now it’s likely that not a lot of people have given thought to the initial fantasy sequence that sees Ralphie dressed as a sheriff out to get Black Bart. The stream of brown that he spits in the movie actually comes from raisins as they gave off roughly the same color that was needed, and likely didn’t make Peter throw up as he did with the hard stuff.
This movie is one of those that is kind of a hallmark of Christmas since much like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation it’s one that families feel the need to watch no matter how many times they’ve seen it. The movie features several classic lines, but obviously the one that people remember the most is the warning about the air rifle that gets chanted at one point during Ralphie’s twisted vision of his mother and his teacher colluding against him to keep his dreams of owning an air rifle from ever coming true. But one line, in particular, that was one of my personal favorites was the moment when Schwartz forgot playground etiquette and busted out “I TRIPLE DOG dare ya!” Obviously, he skipped a step and knew it, but the goad worked since Ralphie and Schwartz’s friend Flick actually stuck his tongue to the pole and suffered for it. The trick of this is something you might not want to hear, but it was interesting all the same since of course his tongue wasn’t really frozen to the pole, but the effect was made possible by drilling a hole on the other side of the pole and then using an air pump to give the effect that his tongue was in fact stuck. Hey, you had the chance to stop reading if you didn’t want to know.
A Christmas story is still a favorite of many viewers since it’s one of the movies that we grew up with and happen to love to this day since it never gets old. From the old man cursing at the furnace and displaying his infamous leg lamp to Ralphie finally getting his beloved air rifle, this is still one of the best Christmas movies ever.
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