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Jean Shepherd was a great story teller & overnight radio host. His book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash which a lot of A Christmas Story is based on is actually a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories that Shepherd wrote over the years for Playboy during the '60s. There are also parts from his book "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories" and a few parts from one of his other books in the movie. It's been a while since I've read all his books, but I remember them all being good reads. You know he played a cameo role in the movie as the angry gentleman who tells Ralphie “The line ends here! It begins there!” when they go to see santa in the dept. store. And his pals Flick and Schwartz were guys actually in Shepherd's Hammond IN. school even though he denied they were real they are in the actual school yearbook. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Shepherd did indeed play the tuba, but he was an intensely private guy and he blurred the lines at what parts of stories and characters were real and those that were fictional and he would even go back and forth over the years as to what was real or made up.

Owch!!! my eye!