I watch A Christmas Story a minimum of four times every Christmastime because it’s one of two Yuletide movies that I treasure (the other being National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) and because I had the good fortune to know Jean Shepherd, the man who wrote the December 1965 Playboy story (Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid) and then endured seventeen years of trying to turn it into a movie about Ralphie Parker wanting a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. All that struggling resulted in the 1983 film directed by Bob Clark (Porky’s, Death by Decree) and starring Peter Billingsley as Ralphie with Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin as his parents. Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark wrote the screenplay.
Shepherd set the movie in mythical Hohman, Indiana, in about 1940. Get it? Home In Indiana? Now do you get it? Shepherd grew up in Hammond, Indiana, and the movie, filmed in Cleveland, uses characters from several of his more famous books--In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss (1969), and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1968). His stories won four Playboy magazine humor awards. He also wrote the Playboy Interview with the Beatles. As a magazine writer he was a major leaguer; as a humorist his status verges on the legendary.
I encountered Shepherd’s writing in Playboy in the 1960s—a story about a man cleaning out a long-forgotten toy box. Jean Shepherd’s writing made me laugh out loud. It didn’t matter that I thought he was a woman because of his first name’s spelling.
Not only did I get Shepherd’s sex wrong despite having only two to choose from in those days, I had no idea of his prolific talents. An example: he had an overnight-slot radio show on WOR-AM in Manhattan, a 50,000-watt station serving the upper eastern seaboard. The show lasted for twenty-two years before leaving the air in 1977. The show was a cult operation if ever one existed. Shepherd had almost no guests which meant talking to his audience solo for hours five nights a week. Steve Allen recommended him as his replacement on the Tonight Show.
Shepherd is credited with inspiring the Peter Finch rant from the movie Network. (He once asked listeners to place their radios on the windowsill and turn up the volumes for the edification of the neighbors.) He also hoaxed the New York Times into placing on its hallowed Best Seller List a book that didn’t exist.
Shepherd called his listeners “night people,” a term that ultimately found its way into the Dictionary of American Slang. Night people, if you’re wondering, are non-conformists. Day people are the other kind. Shepherd has been called the inventor of talk radio and is a member of the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame.
I met Jean Shepherd in 1973 when I went to New York to work at Car and Driver magazine. I soon learned the basic Jean Shepherd story because he was then a columnist for the magazine. I learned more on the day he called me at the office to talk about something I’d written. We spent a half hour on the phone after which I understood why so many considered him a mesmerizing storyteller.
Our friendship grew but I won’t describe it as close. Back in my business days in the editorial and publishing worlds, we divided our acquaintances into those who dialed you up personally and those who didn’t. Our friendship reached the former of those two divisions. You did not need to prepare for lunch or dinner; Shep did the bulk of the talking--not surprising given his resume, but more important you loved it. Any person with a minuscule appreciation for performing would have paid admission to a Shepherd dinner.
Shep defined the difference between comedy and humor--“Comedy is setting up a line, humor involves your whole life.” He was a strong influence on Jerry Seinfield who has said, “Shep taught me about storytelling.”
When you watch A Christmas Story this year, look for the bearded man in a black overcoat and a homburg who calls out Ralphie for line jumping. That’s Shep, and the woman next to him is Leigh, his wife. They’re both gone to be with Mark Twain now, but I can tell you they were proud of A Christmas Story.
Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho!
William Jeanes lives in Dinsmoor.
