Stude toy truck in 'The Christmas Story'

[Gary1953]

Just finished watching the movie 'The Christmas Story' on TBS for the 80th time. Towards the end of the movie when Ralphie and his brother Randy come down to the Christmas tree there is a red Marx Studebaker dump truck to the left of the tree. At one point Randy takes it and rolls it forward. If you misssed the movie tonight don't worry you have 23 more chances to see it over the next 24 hours.


Gary Sanders
Nixa, MO
President Toy Studebaker Collectors Club. Have an interest in Toy Studebakers? Contact me for details.

[studeclunker]

Twenty-three more chances(LOL)[?] I love it! Being that I have that movie on DVD I'll just have to look that scene up. That scene you've described comes to mind. It's just after his mother drops the bowling ball into Dad's lap and he talks like Mickey Mouse, right?


Home of the famous Mr. Ed!
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Studebaker!
Ron Smith
Where the heck is Lewiston, CA?

[Gary1953]

I believe this is before the parents come down stairs.


Gary Sanders
Nixa, MO
President Toy Studebaker Collectors Club. Have an interest in Toy Studebakers? Contact me for details.

[studeclunker]

You're right! It's when they run up to the tree and he's running around on his knees grabbing everything and saying, "Ooooh, that's mine!" about everything. I remember seeing him playing with the truck, just never made the connection.[)][:I] Good call!


Home of the famous Mr. Ed!
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Studebaker!
Ron Smith
Where the heck is Lewiston, CA?

[Dwain G.]

After all these years I too finally noticed the toy truck just yesterday. Must be the new Vizio HD[^]

[img][img]
Dwain G.

[toyman]

Only one problem. I believe the movie (made in 1983) was to portray the early fourties in time. The Marx truck, dated as a 1954 was produced by Marx in the mid fifties. Another one of those movie 'glitches'. Still a neat movie though.

toyman

[george o]

YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, KID!

[63t-cab]

I always assumed it was to have been right after the war,46,47???? can'nt remember what body style the cop car is that shows up at the (tungue stuck on the pole)situation.

" I TRIPLE DOG DARE YA "

Joseph R. Zeiger

[Gary1953]

I always thought the movie took place in the late 40's. So an R series truck would fit in.


Gary Sanders
Nixa, MO
President Toy Studebaker Collectors Club. Have an interest in Toy Studebakers? Contact me for details.

[Dwain G.]

I remembered the TV Guides as calling it 1938, which would make for a lot of inaccuracies. All I could find while seaching was '1940s' until I scrolled down far enough on Wiki. Now most Wiki entries should be taken with a grain of salt, but this one may have the best answer..............
____________________________________________

Dating the story
This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (December 2008)

Based on some of the key references to popular culture in the film, the story is most likely associated with the year 1940 for the following reasons; The license plates on the cars are silver (white) on a black field. These are the colors of Indiana licenses for the year 1940. There is no mention of the 2nd World War, which, if the story is set after 1941, could not have been avoided as a part of a child's Christmas experience. The Wizard of Oz came out in 1939 and would have made its presence felt in city and town parades for the years immediately after its debut, not just 1939. Each year, Ovaltine brought out a different model for this decoder ring. The little Orphan Annie secret decoder model used in the movie is the 1940 model.[21]

A World War II time frame is not necessarily indicated by the presence of 2 shoppers (the only 2 in military uniform during the entire movie) peering into the display window, which contained a pre-war toy tank. Eying what was going on in Europe at the time, Roosevelt instated a draft in 1940, many of these draftees were being released the next year only to be called up again after Pearl Harbor. Many Americans were also beginning to volunteer for the services prior to the actual war. Also, the color guard of the Christmas parade is not military, which it would have been during the war years, due to the numbers of men that would have been in uniform and a civic sense of patriotism.

Despite the many props and other indications of a 1940 setting, there is one particular item which might confuse the viewer to think of as anachronisitic. Scut Farkus (and Mr. Parker in a fantasy sequence) wear coonskin caps, a piece of apparel more evocative, in modern minds, of the 1950s when Walt Disney Studios brought out "Davey Crockett". However, the stories of Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone and frontier coonskin caps as items of haberdashery were always well known among Americans. The 'coonskin caps' both characters wear are not the distinctive Walt Disney caps of the 50s, but are REAL coonskin caps. The commercial popularity of the Disney caps for children in the 50s does not give license for post 1950 viewers to see the coonskin caps in the movie as 'anachronistic mistakes' by the prop masters.

That Ralphie's father is reading color newspaper comics on Christmas morning does not necessarily indicate that Christmas fell on a Sunday (which would date the year as 1938) During those years and the decades after, it was not uncommon for large city newspapers to print a full color comic section for the Christmas day edition as well as the Sunday edition. In those years, newspaper comics were a major social and publishing phenomenon, not like today. In that case, A special Christmas color comics section would have been an extravagant use of colored inks and would indicate a wartime economy was not yet in force; another indication of a pre-war setting. Randy's receiving a Zeppelin for Christmas, far from dating the Christmas to 1936 (the Hindenburg disaster), only indicates his mom, like so many thrifty moms bought a dated toy (on sale, most likely) for the youngest sibling predicated on the reason, "They wouldn't know the difference." An earlier citing here that Ralphie's father is wearing an RAF cap, is completely false. He wears a fur hunter's cap.

The Red Ryder BB gun was available during this period and for many years afterward, but never in the exact configuration mentioned in the film.[22]

3 Recordings of Bing Crosby with the Andrews sisters in the background are also used, but are too indistinct to determine w

[JBOYLE]

For what it's worth, the Internet Movie Car Database lists the dads car as a 1937 Olds...so 39 or 40 would be about right since the dad isn't a guy to buy a new car.

Here's the link to the film's cars on that site.

http://www.imcdb.org/movie_85334-A-Christmas-Story.html

You'll note the producers got it right, with only two vehicles (the Chevy firetruck at the flagpole and a snow covered 48 Chevy parked outside the school) being postwar models,

63 Avanti R1 2788
1914 Stutz Bearcat
(George Barris replica)

Washington State

[jimmijim8]

Nice read guys. Thanks. I did notice that truck was a different era toy stude. jimmijim

[Gary1953]

We may as well beat this to death so... For those of you that can't get enough of the 'A Christmas Story' movie check out this site:

http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/

Gary Sanders
Nixa, MO
President Toy Studebaker Collectors Club. Have an interest in Toy Studebakers? Contact me for details.

[Bordeaux Daytona]

One of my favorite movies!
My sister is a big Jean Shepherd fan and went to see it when it came out.
A Studebaker friend of mine pointed out the Studebaker toy truck because he has one.
I've read that it's supposed to be the late forties too. I've thought that his brother Randy's zeppelin toy is out of date.

I once read a story in Toy Shop magazine, I'm sure I have it around somewhere.
It was by a person that rented his toy collection out to the movie studio that did "A Christmas Story".
He went to get the toys back and they had thrown out all the boxes that he had with the toys and he was only able to save one mangled box. The boxes were worth more than the toys!
He was able to get some money back through insurance and from the studio.

There's a sequel that didn't get much attention called "My Summer Story". It's about Fighting Toy Tops.

PBS did some other good films like the Phantom of the Hearth, The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters, and the Jean Shepherd's America series.

Jean Shepherd - The Great American Fourth of July - PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGfuDoXXWxQ

Jean Shepherd Phantom of the Open Hearth Pt. 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvZkOVUJLBE

The Lake County Vistors Center in Hammond, Indiana (where Jean Shepherd grew up and many of his story's took place. Hohman=Hammond) has a display until Jan 11 with the "a Christmas Story" store displays from Macy's. I'm going to check it out soon.


A Christmas Story Comes Home

http://www.southshorecva.com/christmas/

Bureau brings 'A Christmas Story' home

http://nwi.com/articles/2008/11/11/news/top_news/docda89de1b5ce5e773862574fd0081d5b4.txt