"Thinking that the old days were good is a terrible sickness. Everything was just as bad then as it is now."

- Jean Shepherd         

We've all shared the same life lessons as Ralphie Parker. We've all wanted something for Christmas that our moms thought was too dangerous. We've all had that disastrous first date or a family vacation that's gone horribly wrong. (I was more of the living embodiment of Randy Parker, Ralph's little brother. I, too, was mummified in a snowsuit and threw up every half mile whenever my family went anywhere.)

Through the reminiscent musings of writer Jean Shepherd, gathered in books and translated to several TV shows and at least two feature films, we've taken nostalgic looks back at childhood, and life lessons learned while growing up, that sometimes hit just a little too close to home. That's why they're so funny. They're timeless and the characters so identifiable. It's not really how we remember things but how we'd like to remember things. Shepherd is right. The good old days weren't so great. One just has a tendency to look back with rose colored glasses.

After a stint in the Army Signal Corps, Shepherd landed a talk radio gig on WOR-AM in New York. The stories he told from his childhood over the air eventually wound up in articles for Playboy magazine. (That I, along with millions of others, really don't read for the articles. Wait. Did I say that right?) These were eventually collected and published.  

Shepherd's books are purely anecdotal as he looks back at life through his alter-ego, Ralphie Parker, and takes a poignant and sometime satirical look at growing up in America.

He has four books out in this vein, and I've tackled three of them. In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash looks back at his childhood and will have you laughing out loud in spots. Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters is just as funny as he looks at adolescence, the first date and the horrors of family vacations. A Fistful of Fig Newtons isn't quite as funny and almost seems bitter in spots as Ralphie grows up, joins the army and enters the rat race.

Each book reflects on a decade. The '40s, '50s and '60s. A Ferrari in the Bedroom is the fourth book, that I can't seem to track down, and tackles the '70s.

Three mediums soon became four as Shepherd took his family of kooks to television for several American Playhouse episodes for the Public Broadcasting System. Shepherd wrote the screenplays and took the role of narrator for The Phantom of the Open Hearth that focuses on Ralph's (David Elliot) high school years. This was followed by The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters where Ralphie (Matt Dillon) has a disastrous blind date, runs afoul of some rogue fireworks and features the first screen appearance of the infamous leg lamp won by the old man (James Broderick).

With radio, print and TV conquered, a feature film was the next obvious step.

Director Bob Clark, mostly known for making horror films (the moody but lethargic Black Christmas and the totally wonky Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things), had just hit it big with the teen sex comedy Porky's. His next project was a collaboration with Shepherd. The results, of course, was A Christmas Story; a film that has overtaken It's A Wonderful Life as the staple of holiday viewing. (Although TNT's annual 24-hour marathon is very close to ruining this film for me. Oh, who am I kidding.)

The story of Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) and his quest to get a Red Ryder BB gun has become the stuff of pop folklore, but the film is so much more. It's a magical look back -- via those rose colored spectacles mentioned earlier -- at a simpler time. (Yet it easily could be translated to any time period. Just replace the Red Ryder BB gun with a rocket firing Boba Fett and there ya go.) I still laugh when the Old Man (Darrin McGavin) wins the tacky lamp and treats it like an Academy Award; the diligent Mom (Melinda Dillon) who appears to be a little flaky but is the rock on which the family is built; and Randy (Ian Petrella) who almost steals the show with his peculiar eating habits.

It's hard to believe but when the film was released in '83 it barely made a ripple. It took almost a decade of word of mouth praise as more people discovered, circulated and championed this film before it rightfully become a full blown holiday phenomenon that doesn't show any signs of stopping.

So after the initial disappointment of that film, it was back to PBS for Shepherd with The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnocki (that I haven't seen) and Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss. A teenage Ralphie (Jerry O'Connell) gets a job and finds out earning money is a lot harder than it looks. Mom (Dorothy Lyman) leads a tireless search to find their lost dog, Fuzzhead, while The Old Man (James B. Sikking) crankily gathers his herd for their annual, and always disastrous, trip to the titled campsite.

The films is kind of slow until the actual vacation trip starts. Then it gets hilarious with the over packed car that won't run right, a Mom who has to stop at every roadside stand to browse the junk and the little brother who gets car sick every half mile. It's a Disney movie so the humor isn't quite as biting as the original, but it's funny enough. The cast is okay -- and Sikking actually holds his own against McGavin as the Old Man.

After A Christmas Story found it's legs, there was a demand for a sequel. So Clark and Shepherd returned for My Summer Story -- also known as It Runs in the Family. This time Ralphie (Kieran Culkin) searches for the perfect fighting top to take out the local bully. The Old Man (Charles Grodin) goes to war with the Bumpises, their hillbilly neighbors, over an outhouse. In the movie's funniest segment, Mom (Mary Steenburgen) runs afoul with the local theater owner over a free promotional dinner set. A shipping mix-up constantly brings nothing but gravy boats which eventually causes a riot.

But no matter how hard the film tries, it can't quite recapture the rustic air of the original. It's also nowhere near as funny. I blame the cast. Grodin's interpretation of the Old Man is terrible and the less said about Kieran Caulkin the better. (How many friggin' Caulkins are there anyhow?)

Alas that's about it for the Parker clan. Shepherd passed away in '99 but his old stories are still there to be retold and relived again -- if you can track them down. Unfortunately, out of all those American Playhouse episodes, I believe only Ollie Hopnoodle got a general release on VHS through Disney, the others aren't available. AND I DON'T HAVE COPIES OF THEM! NO REQUESTS FOR COPIES PLEASE! I only saw a few of them when they originally aired and when the Disney channel reran a few of them in the '90s.

All these movies and books touch the right nostalgia buttons for me and I hope they will for you, too. Granted our own history or families aren't quite as eccentric as Shepherd's characters -- we just tend to like to remember them that way.