A Surprise Cameo in MAD’s “A Christmas Story” Parody!

Well, a surprise to me anyway… and I drew the damn thing!

The Chicago Tribune website ran a story this week from the Post-Tribune of North Indiana, about about MAD‘s doing a spoof of “A Christmas Story” in issue #5, ostensibly for the film’s 35th anniversary (although that was just a coincidence I think, MAD just wanted to do a classic Christmas film for the holiday issue). Jean Shepherd, on whose writings the film was based, was originally from nearby Hammond, Indiana. I learned something interesting from the article.

The above panel was from a scene in the film inside the department store, where Ralphie’s parents leave the boys in line for Santa to go do some shopping. The guy on the left saying the “soup kitchen” line was just listed in the script as a “Shopper”. Rather than do generic characters I prefer, whenever possible, to draw people who were actually in the film or TV show, even if they are just extras or background people. So for that line I drew this man who in that scene was the man in line for Santa and tells Ralphie the line starts way in the back. According to the article, that man was Jean Shepherd in a cameo!

So, I guess I drew a caricature of Jean Shepherd in the parody without even knowing it. It was pure dumb luck. Had I known that was Shepherd, I would have made a point of working him in there. I did it anyway!