The Radio Shows of "A Christmas Story"

"Who's the little chatterbox? The one with pretty auburn locks?" Newspaper ad for the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program from the Evening Star [Washington, D. C.] November 11, 1936 

The holiday film classic "A Christmas Story" (1983) turns 35 this weekend. The popular comedy about little Ralphie's dream quest for a Red Ryder Carbine BB air rifle is a great reminder of a childhood when radio was the only electronic broadcast media in the home.

Three "Golden Age" radio programs popular with children are specifically referred to in the film: the western great The Lone Ranger, (the crossword puzzle clue); Red Ryder based on Fred Harmon's popular western comic strip (the theme music can be heard when Ralphie fantasizes about saving the day as the sheriff with his trusty rifle); and most clearly Ralphie's disappointment with the decoder prize from the Little Orphan Annie program.

A portion of "Betty and Buster Binks" an advertising comic page for Ovaltine, sponsor of the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program, from July 30, 1933. In the top left panel the kids talk about listening to "Annie" on the radio.

For years many people have wondered when exactly "A Christmas Story" takes place. Some sources say 1940, but based on old time radio history this is impossible.

In the scene where the father is trying to solve the crossword puzzle he reads aloud a clue about the name of the Lone Ranger's nephew's horse. The Lone Ranger's nephew Dan Reid never appeared on the program until December of 1942. Also the "Little Orphan Annie" radio program went off the air in April of 1942. So these were radio memories that could not have happened at the same Christmas time.

Merita Bakery was a regional sponsor of  "The Lone Ranger" radio series in the American southeast. This ad is from November 11, 1942, in the Wilmington Morning Star. 

Small tidbits like this can actually make "A Christmas Story" more fun and believable because it is the nature of human memory to not remember things perfectly. In a DVD commentary for the film director Bob Clark and author Jean Shepherd acknowledged that a specific date was not intended and it had an "amorphously late-'30s, early-'40s" setting.

Pointing out the accuracy of these dates is (to this author) just is a really fun excuse to talk about the radio shows that were a part of Ralphie's world.

The Christmas Story House. From Wikimedia Commons.