What a wonderful day to be alive. On Dec. 17, FOX took it upon themselves to air an awesome live rendition of the Christmas movie classic, A Christmas Story. Obviously, viewers tuned in all over the world to watch if Ralphie Parker was finally going to shoot his eye out. There are few things I love more than a good musical remake, and tweets about A Christmas Story Live! show the production evoked nostalgia and merriment like whoa. To be honest, that's a real triumph for any movie reboot, but especially a live show. (Please don't make me bring up Carrie Underwood's The Sound Of Music. We're all still healing.)
TBH, it sort of looks like FOX is low-key making musicals their "thing." If you guys remember, back in 2016 they brought the lightning with Grease: Live! which starred my main girl Julianne Hough as Sandy, and a newcomer named Aaron Tveit who played Danny Zuko. It was (in so many words) way better than The Sound Of Music Live. Plus, FOX knows what it's doing when it comes to getting the right people involved. In fact, composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul stepped in to create A Christmas Story Live's music, which is a smart move when you look at their previous work on projects like the movie triumph La La Land and hit Broadway show, Dear Evan Hansen.
Plus, FOX stacked their cast. Comedic genius Maya Rudolph stepped in to play Ralphie's mom, and Jane Krakowski made an awesome Miss Shields. You might have also recognized Ken Jeong from movies like The Hangover who stepped in to play a tree salesman and restaurant owner, and of course, Matthew Broderick was on the mic doing all the voiceover work as Adult Ralphie. Like in the original, Broderick narrates the entire plot and delivered us some serious 1983 vibes.
But right off the bat, some people were kind of unhappy.
Nostalgia goes both ways — while some people were thrilled, there were a lot of people who didn't know it was a musical. And they were not happy.
While it was easy to get distracted by our favorite comedic heroes, the awesome costumes, and familiar story, eyes were also paying close attention to newcomer Andy Walken. Walken played Ralphie almost as well as Peter Billingsley did 35 years ago. In fact, he was chosen for the coveted role during a nationwide casting search, beating out who KNOWS how many hundreds of other kids to wear those glasses.
And pretty much everyone thought Walken was killing it.
Walken is a very chill 11-years-old, and we suspect he has a long and happy career ahead of him.
Not everyone was as enthused at Matthew Broderick as older/narrator Ralphie, though.
As you guys know, the story revolves around little Ralphie Parker and his Christmas wish for a Red Ryder, Carbine Action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Of course, Ralphie's world is filled out with hilarious and dynamic characters who are as relatable as they are entertaining. Fans were anxious and nervous about the live show, as there's so much to love about the original film. Plus, how could we trust it wasn't going to suck when we knew there was going to be songs added???
Luckily, this has been done once before. In 2012, a Broadway show called A Christmas Story: The Musical was created and praised to the tune of three Tony nominations. In it, fans first heard new song classics like "The Parker Family Singalong," "Red Ryder Carbine Action BB Gun," and "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out." In fact, FOX's show was a live taped version of this production, which obviously pulled from the original scripted movie itself.
More than anything, fans enjoyed an old-fashioned night, saddled up in front of their televisions (or laptops, or streaming devices) to watch a boy get his tongue stuck to a pole and a leg lamp glow in a window. Thanks for the memories, FOX! And well done, everyone!
More to come.
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