Where Are They Now: A Christmas Story Edition

Hard to believe now, but A Christmas Story was not a huge hit when it came out in 1983. Roger Ebert called it "cloying" and, while a modest hit, there was nothing to suggest that it would one day become a tradition that TBS aired it 24 hours in a row on Christmas Day. Even I didn't get around to seeing it until it hit theaters in a re-release the next year, 1984. My wife tells me that I was laughing so much in my signature high-pitched giggle that two people actually walked down the aisle to see who was doing all the laughing. Another thing that is hard to believe is that the kid actors who populated A Christmas Story didn't all go on to longer careers. I mean Flick, Schwartz and the gang should at least have had a career as long as the Home Alone or Sixth Sense kids. So just what exactly did happen to the Christmas Story kids?

Peter Billingsley-Ralphie

The actor playing the kid who wanted nothing but an official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle went on to appear in a few more movies and a handful of TV shows until he reached the point where he just really wasn't all that cute anymore. His most recent appearances were in Elf and The Break-Up (he's quite good friends with actor Vince Vaughn). He was also an executive producer of The Break-Up. In fact, producing is what Billingsley does most nowadays, having worked behind the scenes on Zathura and Iron Man as well.

Scott Schwartz-Flick

Like the lost Winslow daughter from Family Matters, the kid whose tongue got stuck to a frozen flag pole wound up in the porn industry. There's a joke there, of course, but I'm far too much of a gentlemen to give in. Schwartz claims to have left the adult film biz behind, but the news of where he wound up is even more distressing: working with Pauly Shore.

R.D. Robb-Schwartz