It’s a major award! The trailer for A Christmas Story Christmas — HBO Max’s sequel to the beloved 1983 holiday film — has arrived.
Die-hard fans, eager for leg lamp repeats and BB gun callbacks, will first be excited by how many familiar faces are in the two-minute teaser, which follows an adult Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, reprising his most iconic role) bringing his own family back to Cleveland Street to celebrate the holidays like only his Old Man could.
Ralphie’s curmudgeonly but lovable father — a man who could weave “a tapestry of obscenity that, as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan,” as Jean Shepherd narrates in the original film — seems to have passed away. (Darren McGavin, who portrayed Mr. Parker in A Christmas Story, died in 2006 at age 83.) As Ralphie and his friends Schwartz and Flick (both played by their original actors, RD Robb and Scott Schwartz, respectively) pay tribute to the late patriarch at Flick’s Tavern, the blue-eyed protagonist starts to wonder how he’s going to step into his dad’s shoes and create as magical of a holiday as his father did for him. “I suggest you start drinking’ and don’t stop ’til New Year’s,” Flick — who famously stuck his tongue to a frozen flagpole in the 1983 film — advises.
Chock-full of references to the beloved original (which is based on late raconteur Jean Shepherd’s In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash), the trailer also features fan-favorite characters like Ralphie’s little brother, Randy (a role reprised by the now-grown Ian Petrella) and local bully Scutt Farkus, who is now a police officer (and played by original actor Zack Ward). Mrs. Parker, Ralphie’s mom, is also back for another Parker family Christmas, though this time she is portrayed by Julie Hagerty instead of Melinda Dillon.
While the setting is the same — and fans get a glimpse of Higbee’s, the department store where Ralphie famously asked Santa Claus for an “official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time,” as well as the Parker family home — the first full look at the film also introduces several new characters: Ralphie’s wife, Sandy (Erinn Hayes), his young daughter Julie (Julianna Layne) and son Mark (River Drosche) as well as the owner of those famous Bumpus hounds, neighbor Delbert Bumpus himself (Davis Murphy).
A Christmas Story Christmas premieres November 17 on HBO Max.
After the death of his dad, Ralphie (Billingsley) comes back to his home on Cleveland Street to pay tribute to the holidays of his youth, promising his mom (Haggerty) he’ll “make this a wonderful Christmas.” Now an adult, Ralphie has his own family — his wife, Sandy (Hayes), and two children (Layne and Drosche) — but still makes time for iconic hijinks with his hometown friends, Schwartz and Flick (Robb and Schwartz, respectively), brother Randy (Petrella) and maybe even a run-in with his childhood bully, Scut Farkus (Ward).
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Fans will delight in recognizing all the actors from the original 1983 movie who appear in A Christmas Story Christmas. Billingsley, Petrella, Robb, Schwartz and Ward **WILL all return as their respective characters. Mrs. Parker, Ralphie’s mom, is the only main character in the trailer who isn’t portrayed by the original actor as Hagerty took over the role for Dillon.
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A Christmas Story Christmas premieres November 17 on HBO Max.
Yana Blajeva/Warner Bros
If the trailer is any indication, A Christmas Story Christmas will be filled with callbacks to the original Shepherd classic. In addition to all of the actors who reprised their roles for the highly anticipated sequel, viewers will see fun reference after fun reference: Flick gets his long awaited revenge when he gets to “Triple Dog Dare” Schwartz, Ralphie takes over his dad’s role of putting up the Christmas tree, the kids visit Santa at Higbee’s department store and much more. Billingsley even gets back into Ralphie’s mischievous side, perfectly reenacting the scene where he breaks the fourth wall by looking at the camera and giggling.
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