[Nihil Obstat]

They did make a movie about that and some of his other stories. It was on PBS in the early 80's. Matt Dillon played the young Jean Shepherd. Great show.

"The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084022/

[Richard Kimball]

Thanks for the info. Shepherd was never able to get a big budget movie made. Even "A Christmas Story" was very low-budget. The "Wizard of Oz" theme was obviously because they found some Wizard of Oz costumes. The Santa Clause elves were wearing jester costumes, and when Ralphie imagined his mother and teacher laughing at him, saying "you'll shoot your eye out!" the teacher was wearing the Wizard of Oz witch costume and his mother was wearing one of the jester costumes. The movies worked, though. Brilliantly.

McGavin was the only actor that ever made the father likeable. I think that was because he changed the character, making him more blustery and taking out the drinking. The father in the book was funny, but in the other movies, he came off as the kind of guy you see getting busted on cops.