Don't fast forward this one: Ralphie's Old Man and The Wizard of Oz

After watching movies and programs based on the writings of satirist Jean Shepherd and posting my thoughts on each one here on this blog, I wanted to include my thoughts on the latest movie based on Shepherd's work - "A Christmas Story Christmas."

I reviewed this next "official sequel" to the 1983 comedy, "A Christmas Story" for the Junction City Union newspaper last year. It's about Ralphie losing his father just before Christmas. So, it's fitting to add my thoughts about a particular scene in "A Christmas Story" that I never paid attention to until I watched it with my kids last week. Then it hit me. 

After Ralphie and his kid brother Randy go to visit Santa at the mall, and one of Santa's elves push Ralphie down a slide, the shot switches to actors dressed as characters from "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) parading down the mall past Santa's set-up. Ralphie's "Old Man." as he's referred to, skips along with these characters singing "We're off the see the Wizard." He concludes his rendition with, "I'll see you in Oz, folks!" 

It's a brief scene, but it's memorable.

Ralphie's dad doesn't seem like the kind of dad who would care about seeing a children's movie like "The Wizard of Oz." During the post-World War II time period "A Christmas Story" seems to take place in, from what I've been told, parents often dropped their kids off at movie theaters while they ran errands and such. The kids would stick around the theaters until their parents were ready to pick them up. 

Darren McGavin in "A Christmas Story."

So, the kids would watch their kid movies and the parents would run around town to do whatever they needed to do. Kids could easily catch two movies, along with a bunch of cartoons and whatever else they played in theaters back in the 1940s during afternoon matinees. 

The Old Man isn't really the singing type. In an earlier scene when the Parker family are driving back home from the tree lot after picking out their Christmas tree, everyone in the car is singing "Jingle Bells"... except the Old Man. 

While Mrs. Parker and the kids are singing their lungs out, Mr. Parker looks like he just wants everyone to hurry up and finish so he can get back to a quiet car ride.

So, maybe the Old Man not only caught "The Wizard of Oz," but he actually enjoyed it. After all, there he is signing and parading with the characters out in public, arm in arm with Mrs. Parker. He's certainly embracing this small moment. And he's not in front of his kids. He and Mrs. Parker are heading over to collect them from visiting Santa. 

Maybe the Old Man has a difficult time connecting with his boys on their level. Rather, he wants to come across in their eyes as tough, hard working, and as the leading family patriarch he is, setting aside the things of his childhood. 

This makes the ending of "A Christmas Story" all that more thoughtful. That is, the one person who gives Ralphie his BB gun, after all the other adults in his life shoot him down (no pun intended) and tell him "you'll shoot your eye out" is the adult he never asked - his dad. 

This one brief Oz scene shows that Ralphie's dad does have an inner child which does come out to shine once in a while, even if just for a few seconds. He knows how to connect with his young boys!