A history on the ‘A Christmas Story’ 24-hour Christmas marathon

nypost.com:

seasonal classic “A Christmas Story” has its marathon on TNT and TBS. For 24 hours straight on Christmas Day, the networks will air and re-air and re-air “A Christmas Story.” The tradition has been around since 1997, a source from the network told The Post.

The source said that the annual tradition “showcases the power of nostalgia.” The 1983 movie, directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd’s 1966 book “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash,” follows Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley, now 52, who also appeared as one of the elves in another seasonal classic, “Elf”), a boy who wants a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle for Christmas — but everyone from his mom to a department store Santa Claus warns him, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Sure enough, he does have an eye-related mishap after getting the rifle for Christmas, but as an adult, he reflects that it was the best present he ever got.Other vignettes in the movie follow his dad, or “the Old Man,” played by Darren McGavin, who died in 2006 at age 83. “Ralphie is a relentless guy,” Billingsley told Entertainment Weekly last year.“Everyone’s telling him no, Santa’s kicking him in the face.

He’s just getting up, dusting off and moving on. He’s not going to stop trying to convince people to give him this BB gun. I love that quality,” the actor continued. “That’s a good quality in an adult and in a protagonist.

You want your protagonist to be relentless in pursuit of whatever his goal is. And he’s a dreamer. I always say he’s a dreamer and a nightmarer.