Be sure to drink your Ovaltine -- it's finally time for A Christmas Story Live! I triple dog dare you to watch.
The classic (since 1983) tale of a boy and his quest for an "official Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle" has made the transition from film to Broadway to a live TV musical special that airs at 6 p.m. today on Fox.
Many know author Jean Shepherd's tale by heart and have seen the film numerous times, but tonight's event should prove entertaining nonetheless.
On July's TV critics' summer press tour in Los Angeles, executive producer Marc Platt (Grease: Live, La La Land, Wicked) said, "What makes our show unique is that we are creating a live version of the musical, bringing a new dimension to the story.
"For years our Christmas movies were sentimental, sort of cozy and warm. Then here came this movie that wasn't that. It was subversive and funny and sort of recognizable from all the family experiences each of us have. We could relate to it.
"In taking it from the stage to live television, we're going to first and foremost deliver the humor and the comedy of the movie as it was represented onstage. We will wink with the audience, but you will not feel like you're watching a stage production."
Platt called the show, "a really fun, feel-good Christmas family event."
Fox found its 9-year-old Ralphie Parker (a role immortalized by Peter Billingsley), after a nationwide digital casting call. The honor went to 11-year-old Andy Walken from Seattle. Viewers may have seen the relative newcomer in the Lifetime movie Escaping Dad in May. As with most Lifetime movies, his mom was a "woman in peril" running with her kids from her psycho husband.
Andy has a different challenge tonight. He'll have to say "Oh, fudge," and convince us that fudge wasn't really what he said. It'll be dramatic, but Andy shares the stage with some top-notch talent.
Tony-winner Matthew Broderick (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) will star in the key role of the adult Ralphie/narrator, which was voiced by Shepherd in the film. Broderick will be on stage as an unseen observer.
Playing an expanded role as Ralphie's mother is Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live). In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rudolph commented on the musical's familiar scenes.
"All the stuff you remember from the movie that's really important and iconic is there," she said. "It's a really beautiful version of it -- sort of like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.
"It's beautiful because the element of being a parent is there, too, in the story. As parents, we experience Christmas from a completely different perspective. I definitely felt like it was the more adult version of Christmas when I saw the original movie."
Chris Diamantopoulos (Episodes) plays Ralphie's father, who wins a mysterious "major award" that horrifies his wife, even though he says, "It's glorious!"
Jane Krakowski (30 Rock) will play Ralphie's teacher, Miss Shields, and Ana Gasteyer (Saturday Night Live) will play Mrs. Schwartz, the mother of one of Ralphie's friends.
The cast also includes Ken Jeong (Dr. Ken) as a Christmas tree salesman and a restaurant owner; David Alan Grier (In Living Color) as Santa Claus ("You'll shoot your eye out, kid."); and the Simon Cowell-fabricated cookie-cutter teen heartthrob boy band PrettyMuch as carolers.
Yeah, I never heard of them, either, but I'm not a 12-year-old girl.
Never fear, for the masochists who want to get their tongues frozen to a flagpole and overdose on A Christmas Story, the annual TBS 24-hour marathon of the movie begins at 6 p.m. Christmas Eve and airs continuously time after time after time through Christmas Day.
• They're alive! The hills are, that is. They're alive with the sound of music and that's what you have as an alternative to the live Fox musical above. (Well, there's always football. Dallas takes on Oakland at 7:20 p.m. on NBC.)
ABC will air the annual encore of 1965's The Sound of Music at 6 p.m. today. Once again we can watch Julie Andrews frolic and romp as novice Maria (later Maria von Trapp) and the von Trapps sing their way out of the clutches of evil Nazi lackeys. We're eyeballin' you, Rolfe. You Aryan snitch.
Sing along with the title song and classics "Edelweiss," "My Favorite Things," "Climb Every Mountain," "Do-Re-Mi," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," and "The Lonely Goatherd."
Trivia: The Von Trapp kids were (in order) Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl.
• Lights out. Find out who wins The Great Christmas Light Fight at 7 p.m. Monday on ABC.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 12/17/2017