To celebrate our newest escape room, A Christmas Story Escape, we’d like to highlight some of our favorite trivia facts about the essential eighties Christmas movie. Let us know if you have any favorite facts too!
Filming the Flagpole Scene
Do you know how the A Christmas Story team filmed the scene where Flick sticks his tongue to the flagpole? Apparently, the A Christmas Story team had a difficult time replicating hard winter weather, so they found an innovative way to stick Flick’s tongue to that pole. A hidden suction tube ran through the flagpole, and sucked the actor’s tongue into the hole! This fact is typically on any special feature-laden edition of A Christmas Story. Be sure to watch the footage if you can!
Professional Profanity
Like any good movie, A Christmas Story includes many sequences of swearin’ and cussin’. As we know, though, the movie used an interesting filter to keep any actual profanities out of the family friendly film. For the scenes with “The Old Man,” actor Darren McGavin ad-libbed every instance of sailor-speak! But did you also know that he found it nearly impossible to string real words with ad-libbed obscenities? That’s why his character speaks in complete gibberish as he strings his profanities along!
Clear-Cut Curses
The cuss words don’t stop there, though! In the scene where Ralphie beats up the bully Scut Farkus, Ralphie takes after his old man and starts spewing out all the colorful words he picked up from him. Actor Peter Billingsley took a very different approach than Darren McGavin, however. All of Ralphie’s lines during the scene were precisely scripted! Can you imagine memorizing a solid forty seconds of gibberish?
The Red Ryder Combiner
There is a great deal of debate as to when the film “actually” takes place. Most people will push 1939, and others somewhere in the forties. But don’t forget that the film was made to be a mix of the two! One clear example of this is in the famous Red Ryder BB gun. The Red Ryder BB gun was an actual air gun released in 1940, but the model was very bare-boned. The compass in the stock and “the thing that tells time” (a sundial) were never included in the Red Ryder model, but were on a model from 1934, known as the “Buck Jones Special.” The gun used in the movie was specially built, and they even flipped the compass and sundial to the opposite side of the stock so Peter Billingsley could hold it left-handed.
Mom – The Real Sitting Duck
What connects A Christmas Story to other 80s classics like The Shining, The Exorcist, and Alien? Why, a natural terrified response from one of the actors, of course! For the Chinese restaurant scene towards the end of the film, actress Melinda Dillon had no idea that the duck brought to their table would still have the head. Her copy of the script also neglected to tell her that the waiter would be chopping its head off, too! Cruel or not, her reaction to the duck is definitely one of the best moments of the film.
A Christmas Story is a film with a gigantic following, and there are many more interesting facts and trivia about the movie hidden among special features and commentaries. What are your favorite moments? Let us know in the comments and before you take on our A Christmas Story escape room!
…psst… thanks for scrolling to the bottom. Here’s a fun video if you want to learn how to cook a peking duck, just like in the movie! (I just really like that scene, ok?)
Came with some friends & their niece for her birthday & can say we had a fantastic time!! It was our first escape room & we did the Egyptian tomb. Jake was our guide & he was so awesome. We probably stressed Jake out cause of how dramatic we were being but he made it a fun experience & was super helpful. Will definitely be coming back to try the other rooms!!!
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RM
4/08/2024
Came with some friends & their niece for her birthday & can say we had a fantastic time!! It was our first escape room & we did the Egyptian tomb. Jake was our guide & he was so awesome. We probably stressed Jake out cause of how dramatic we were being but he made it a fun experience & was super helpful. Will definitely be coming back to try the other rooms!!!
Frankie M.
4/02/2024
My kid and I were in town killing time before an airplane ride. We did the vampire room and It was difficult and we didn't finish by only one puzzle. When they showed us the next puzzle - we would of never gotten it
The staff was friendly , helpful and patient. Would recommend to anyone in Denver.
I should add we were a walk in and they were extremely accommodating
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Frankie M.
4/02/2024
My kid and I were in town killing time before an airplane ride. We did the vampire room and It was difficult and we didn't finish by only one puzzle. When they showed us the next puzzle - we would of never gotten it
The staff was friendly , helpful and patient. Would recommend to anyone in Denver.
I should add we were a walk in and they were extremely accommodating
Dannelle S.
4/01/2024
Owen was great! He explained everything to us, very nice too. The entire experience was great, we loved the room and will definitely be back!
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Dannelle S.
4/01/2024
Owen was great! He explained everything to us, very nice too. The entire experience was great, we loved the room and will definitely be back!
Kevin B.
3/30/2024
A great family experience. Stephanie was a great game master for us!! Highly recommend this location for anyone looking for an escape room!
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Kevin B.
3/30/2024
A great family experience. Stephanie was a great game master for us!! Highly recommend this location for anyone looking for an escape room!
Jennifer B.
3/26/2024
What a great time.... We did one of the hardest rooms, We won with 5 minutes to spare.... I recommend going with a group,
We will definitely be returning to play again.
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Jennifer B.
3/26/2024
What a great time.... We did one of the hardest rooms, We won with 5 minutes to spare.... I recommend going with a group,
We will definitely be returning to play again.
avishek b.
3/25/2024
Organized a team building event at EscapeWorks. We all had a ton of fun and the staff was friendly and helpful. The props were well maintained and the puzzles were moderately difficult. We did the pirate themed escape room and we did successfully escape from the pirate ship with the loot 😄
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avishek b.
3/25/2024
Organized a team building event at EscapeWorks. We all had a ton of fun and the staff was friendly and helpful. The props were well maintained and the puzzles were moderately difficult. We did the pirate themed escape room and we did successfully escape from the pirate ship with the loot 😄
Megan D.
3/16/2024
Just took our 12 year old for his birthday-this was one of the best escape rooms we’ve done, lots of cool tech in the casino heist! And our game master Jake J. was awesome!
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Megan D.
3/16/2024
Just took our 12 year old for his birthday-this was one of the best escape rooms we’ve done, lots of cool tech in the casino heist! And our game master Jake J. was awesome!
Rob H.
3/14/2024
Such a fun time. Our gamemaster, Owen, set us up for success and let us know the overall ground rules of the room and kept us moving when we were obviously stuck on a step. The props were all well done and perfect for the theme.
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Rob H.
3/14/2024
Such a fun time. Our gamemaster, Owen, set us up for success and let us know the overall ground rules of the room and kept us moving when we were obviously stuck on a step. The props were all well done and perfect for the theme.
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