Adaptation Displacement: Shepherd left behind a vast body of other work about his childhood, but only diehard fans are even aware of it, or of his long career as a radio personality.
Bob Clark was also the director of the original Black Christmas.
The top battling subplot in one of the sequels is oddly reminiscent of Beyblade.
Hype Aversion/Hype Backlash: Many an article has criticized the movie as being "overrated" due to its enduring popularity among fans and TBS's marathon running of it every Christmas.
It Gets Better: First ten minutes are forgettable and pretty slow, with long gaps in the narration and very long shots of toys and kids pressing their noses against windows.
Memetic Mutation: "You'll shoot your eye out!", "FRAH-GEE-LEY", etc.
The scary department store Santa going into slow motion, with the music in the background slowing down to match.
Aided and abetted by the 1st Person POV fisheye camera shots as Ralphie goes up to see him. We see a distorted and fast view of a very bitter Santa (with lurid red nose) and two mean elves! HO... HO... HO.....
Moment of Awesome: Ralphie beating the crap out of his tormentor Scut Farkus.
Special Effect Failure: When the Old Man gets home exclaiming that he had won the contest, he slams one of the Bumpass hound's tails in the door. The "tail" is pretty obviously a piece of fabric folded over once, and sliding around the door seam as if it could be pulled through just fine.
Values Dissonance: Christmas dinner at the Chinese restaurant... let's just say this scene hasn't exactly aged well.
Also, the kid getting the toy gun he wanted so badly and his dad seeing no harm in it. Conversely, the mother's constant worry that it's a bad idea counts as Values Resonance.
YMMV • 
Radar • 
Quotes • (
Funny • 
Heartwarming • 
Awesome) • 
Fridge • 
Characters • 
Fanfic Recs • 
Nightmare Fuel • 
Shout Out • 
Plot • 
Tear Jerker • 
Headscratchers • 
Trivia • WMG • 
Recap • 
Ho Yay • 
Image Links • 
Memes • 
Haiku • Laconic • 
Source • Setting