note: this is another edition of Fanfic Sunday. Today’s story looks at a an unknown tale from the making of the Christmas Classic A Christmas Story.
I hate Ralphie. I mean, who does he think he is? And why do people think they need to coddle him so much? He’s such a dork. Man, I hate that kid.
Who am I you ask? I’m Robby Bumpus. Yeah, that’s right. Bumpus. I see you recognize the name. First of all, I don’t know why that film crew ever came to our neighborhood, but they loved Ralphie right away. Did you know he didn’t even want that stupid air rifle? He wanted a pink elephant. That sounds familiar, too, doesn’t it? You got it; the kid in that vulgar Billy Bob Thornton Christmas flick was a spot-on portrayal of what Ralphie was like. In that movie, they made all the crap up about the drunk santa, the slutty barmaid and the clueless grandma, but the kid, that was Ralphie to a tee. They could have picked any kid on the block to feature in our movie, and they picked Ralphie. Now you see why I’m so pissed.
During the whole shoot, I did my best to get at him and his stupid family. I sent Scut Farkus after him as much as I could. But then Scut pussed out on me after the director convinced Ralphie to beat the hell out of him. Ralphie never would have done it on his own, even after taking a snowball to the face. But they increased his pay by a thousand bucks, so he did it.
Most of the stuff Ralphie never did. Actually, a lot of the stories were mine. They interviewed a bunch of the kids on the street before the movie. I told them about the time I dropped all the lug nuts in the snow. My dad is the one who had the leg lamp, and he didn’t win it, he bought it at the local adult toy store. And my mom didn’t break by accident, she broke over my old man’s head. They stole the whole tongue to the frozen pole thing from me, too. I did that to Sonny Mathis. Flick and Swartz never did that. They would have been too scared.
Of course, there were two things they kept that were true. Ralphie loved Little Orphan Annie. It’s all that kid ever talked about. But the most important truth was that Ralphie’s old man hated our dogs, and I loved that he hated them. He kept calling them hounds like they were some horrific creatures. So, every night when he’d come home, I open the gate and let ’em out so they’d go mess with him. I couldn’t get enough of it. It was during the filming of the final scenes that I decided to really let ’em do some damage. The director wanted to make Ralphie look like the sad, sympathetic character. I hoped they would really shoot his eye out, but no, they went with just breaking his glasses and scratching his face a bit. Well, I couldn’t stand it so I had to do something.
If you look closely, it appears that after Ralphie’s mom takes him into the house to take care of his itty-bitty boo-boo, the door is left open a little bit. Well, it wouldn’t latch because I rigged it. I watched the momma’s boy and his momma head inside and his dumb, foul-mouthed dad (that was another thing that was true – but in reality it wasn’t a charismatic trait, it was revolting and really turned off most of the neighbors) eating on the turkey before it was even done. When Ralphie’s dad went back to the living room, I went to work. I opened the gates and led my dogs up to the back door, coaxing them in. It was no time before they had destroyed the turkey. And because this was the last day of filming and time and money were short, they had to keep it in the movie and rework the final scenes.
Yes, I felt proud of myself. That kid had fooled these Hollywood types and made my family look foolish. I couldn’t be more proud. I couldn’t stop laughing, either. Man, that director dude was mad. He chased me down the street and around the block. I made it back to my house before he could catch me. I mean, did that old geezer think he could catch a kid? Idiot.
Well, that’s a good point. People still love that movie. But I still put a Bumpus mark on it. That’s all I cared about. That, and getting back at Ralphie.
I really hate that kid.