The Actor Who Played A Christmas Story's Whiny Brother Randy Was Genuinely Terrified Of The Santa Claus Slide
It's hard to predict what little kids will be afraid of. Even when something is tailor-made for them, it could just as easily be perceived as Freddy Krueger coming to get haut their dreams. For instance, my cousin took her very first steps running away from Goofy at Walt Disney World. For me, it was walking (or more accurately, being dragged kicking and screaming through) through the incredibly detailed queue for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye" at Disneyland in the mid-1990s. But for "A Christmas Story" co-star Ian Petrella, it was the Santa slide at Higbee's Department Store that terrorized the young actor while shooting the classic holiday film.
Petrella, who plays Ralphie's little brother Randy Parker in the original film and its sequel "A Christmas Story Christmas" on HBO Max, reunited with his onscreen brother Peter Billingsley, along with R.D. Robb (Schwartz) and Scott Schwartz (Flick), to discuss their iconic Christmas staple for the new podcast series "A Cinematic Christmas Journey." Created by Vince Vaughn and co-hosted by Billingsley and screenwriter Nick Schenk, the limited series takes a look at why audiences love holiday movies while talking to the people involved in making them. During their deep dive into some of the most memorable scenes in the movie, Billingsley brought up the slide and the "traumatizing" memories for the performer behind the character. But we use quotation marks here because, as kids tend to do, the child actor got over this fear pretty quickly.
'Uh oh, get him out of here'
While highlighting director Bob Clark and his eclectic resume, Billingsley shared that the filmmaker also had an affinity for revealing things to the actors or having them do things for the first time on camera, hoping to get a natural reaction from the performers. This was the case when the cooked duck was brought out to the Parker family as they sat down for a Christmas Day meal in the Chinese restaurant where the waiter chopped off the duck's head. Melinda Dillon's scream was a genuine reaction and Clark was happy to catch it on film.
Similarly, as soon as he discovered that young Petrella wasn't too fond of the slide that would propel the kids away from their encounter with jolly old Saint Nick, Clark wanted to catch the feeling of terror and discomfort to present it in the movie. The actor recalled on the podcast:
"I did not like the slide. I was 8. He thought that I would have fun, obviously, but then once he saw that I was terrified of it, that's when he decided, 'We're gonna go with that.' When I'm coming down the slide, and I'm screaming and crying, that's him going, 'Send him down.' [...] I didn't really like rollercoasters as a kid, and I think that's what it was. Because that thing was so steep, you'd get that feeling in your gut, and that's what I didn't like."
In typical kid fashion, Petrella got used to the slide after the crew let him play on it a bit more. Eventually, he overcame his fear and was ready to do another take. However, when the child actor went to Clark to let him know that he wasn't afraid anymore and was ready to do it again, the director declined, since he got the reaction that he wanted on the first try.