Christmas Story House Pick-Up

flynn54321

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Well this is an odd one - Ended up driving to Cleveland with my wife over the weekend to go see a show and hang out with friends of ours that play in a band called Family Force 5.

Well there just happens to be a cabinet that I needed to pick up in that area as well. Thanks to forum member Robomayhem the exchange was made - and where else would it happen but right dead in front of the house that they filmed the movie A Christmas Story in.

That's definitely an odd location for a video game exchange!!!
 

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Haha. Very cool. I'm looking forward to watching it again on Christmas. And Home Alone, Elf, etc. All those movies are on rotation every year. :)

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuudge..."
 
That is sweet, I can't wait to see the endless replaying of that movie for the holidays... lol

I'm surprised it isn't on yet with the Christmas season starting on Halloween this year. Next year the season will start on Labor Day. It's not even Thanksgiving and I'm already tired of the music. 2 radio stations already switched to Xmas music already here is St. Louis!
 
I'm surprised it isn't on yet with the Christmas season starting on Halloween this year. Next year the season will start on Labor Day. It's not even Thanksgiving and I'm already tired of the music. 2 radio stations already switched to Xmas music already here is St. Louis!

Pretty soon Christmas stuff will be out all year at this rate hahaha...
 
Good to meet you bro!

As it turned out, we didn't make it back to the Christmas Story house; darn teenagers! ..lol
 
haha - no run ins with dogs - but got to meet a few of the cast members (believe it or not) and got to hear a ton of behind the scenes stories... very very interesting. BTW all the snow seen in the movie was fake - ALL OF IT!

Here is a picture from the movie and how it appears now...
 

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Yeah they brought in a bunch of snow making machines from Boston Mills ski area! Very cool place, it is 20 minutes from my house! I make a drive over there a least once a year. A MUST see if you are in the area and are a fan of the movie!!
I love the fact that the little shed is still in the back yard!! The one that Black Bart and his posse are climbing on in Ralphie's dream about making Bart "pushing up daisies!!"
 
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I've been to Cleveland a few times and found out that the house was there right after I got home form my last trip. DOH! My favorite movie of all time too.

I was watching the ebay auction when that house was listed. The person who purchased it got it for something like $110,000. Not to bad.
 
Thanks for the pictures and the story! Nice to see what the house look's like today, I'm a fan of the movie and watch it every year with my kids it's a classic and my other favorite is Christmas vacation cool to see pictures of that house, I think the movie was shot around the Chicago area but not sure?
 
That house doesn't sit in the best part of town, $110,000 at the time was probably pushing the limits of what it was worth! IMO. The dude was smart though, he gutted it, and made the inside match as close as possible the "set" of the inside of the house from the movie. Most people don't realize that most of the inside scenes were shot on a Hollywood set. I can't remember what he spent on the remodel, but it was more than he paid for the house!! They did an AMAZING job, it looks nearly identical to the way it looked in the movie!
I would be curious as to how much of his original investment he has made back? He must be doing fairly well with it, there is a line a mile long to get in to see it as Christmas nears! He has bought several other properties and turned them into small museums with movie trivia and props and such. I have even seen lines in the middle of the summer to get in!!!
Oh and BTW as I recall a lot of Christmas vacation was shot somewhere in Colorado, not Chicago?!?!
 
Actually the house was purchased for 150 thousand. The owner invested 140 grand into the remodel. The actual set was not filmed in Hollywood - but rather in Canada. The house was only used because the scouts needed to find a house in the Cleveland area... the reason for this was because for the mall scenes - the only mall to respond to the movie makers requests to stay open from 6 at night until 6 am with 100 kids running around - was a mall in the downtown Cleveland area. Over 20 other malls didnt respond at all. So that's how that came to be.
There was a ton of other little stories like that... very intersting stuff
 
I think the bulk of Christmas Vacation was shot in Los Angeles. The whole neighborhood shown in the film is a street owned by one of the movie studios (Universal?). I think the Griswold house is actually the house next door to Danny Glovers in Lethal Weapon. I watched the director's commentary on the DVD years ago and remember him saying how bad he felt that you can't see anyone's breath when they talk in the outdoor scenes.
 
yeah that house (Christmas Vacation) is on the same lot that was used for shows like Bewitched, the partridge family, gidget etc in California
 
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