A Christmas Story Star Peter Billingsley Wishes This Space Fantasy Scene Was Never Cut From The Movie
"A Christmas Story" spends a lot of time in Ralphie Parker's (Peter Billingsley) imaginative young mind as he narrates his thoughts and feelings from the (then) present day. He absorbs what's going on around him in his middle-class neighborhood as he and his neighbors prepare for Christmas during the 1940s. Consequently, his mind does wander. Constantly told he's going to shoot his own eye out if he manages to secure the Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle he longs for, he nonetheless asks for it at every possible opportunity. He ends up petitioning everyone from a cruel department store Santa Claus (Jeff Gillen) to his parents (Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin) for the weapon.
Through neighborhood brawls, encounters with bullies, employed use of four-letter words, and disastrous Christmas dinners, Ralphie holds tight until he finally lays his hands on the rifle of his dreams...only to accidentally break his own glasses after stepping on them in the snow after firing the gun for the first time.
But, as with many films, there were some chapters of Ralphie's story that fans never got to witness. With a sequel looming on the horizon, fans might be curious to know more about this fantasy sequence — which took place in outer space — that was deleted from the film.
Ralphie's space fantasy was cut for time
During a 2021 interview with The Last Talk Show, Peter Billingsley recalled a scene that was deleted from "A Christmas Story" and features Ralphie imagining a titanic struggle between Flash Gordon and his arch enemy Ming the Merciless. Who should ride to the rescue but Ralphie himself? "I showed up in a silver bikini, like little shorts and a shirt and space hat with my Red Ryder," Billingsley said. Ralphie promptly dispatches Ming with the gun and saves both Flash and the day, thus proving the worth of the rifle he so wants to receive as a present to humanity at large.
The scene was apparently excised due to the fact that the film had too many fantasy sequences and was removed after test screenings. Billingsley admits that back when the film was shot, there wasn't quite as much of a focus on safeguarding footage for future generations. That means that the film's deleted footage likely doesn't exist. In the extended version of the movie you see every year on TBS, only two credits for the actors who played Ming and Flash — Collin Fox and Paul Hubbard, respectively — exist to prove that the scene was shot.
Billingsley hinted during a 2017 appearance on Good Morning America that some remnants of the scene exist out in the world. "I think there's one still [photo] out there in a set of silver shorts, which isn't too flattering," he admitted.
And it turns out he's right. Fans of the movie can see the stills from the scene and read a script excerpt featuring its dialogue at fan sites such as A Christmas Story House and Infinite Hollywood. Ralphie's outfit isn't quite as skimpy as Billingsley described, but it's certainly outlandish.