"The House at Good Old Cleveland Street" - Analyzing  The "A Christmas Story" House as a Primary Source w/ Guide Ernie Scales

It may come as a surprise that 1983’s “A Christmas Story” was not a big hit upon its initial release, a trait that 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life shares with the now much beloved story of young Ralphie Parker’s quest to get a Red Ryder BB Gun delivered to him on Christmas Day.  A Christmas Story owes its loyal following and place in American Pop Culture to both the popularity of home video as well as cable tv, as it has been replayed countless times in countless households in those formats for decades.

The best testament to A Christmas Story’s place in the pantheon of holiday movies, more-so than the sequels and spin-offs, the merchandise or the consistent quoting of “You’ll shoot your eye out” or “Fragil-ay” , is the A Christmas Story house museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

Lead Tour Guide Ernie Scales joined the show recently to talk about how this museum stands as primary source of the early part of the 21st century.

To hear my household break down the latest installment of the Ralphie Parker saga, A Christmas Story Christmas, visit patreon.com/epspodcast and become a patron today!

(Cover art: A "One Story House" doll house courtesy of The Tie Dye Librarian)

Chris Van Allsburg’s The Polar Express has been a staple of the Christmas season since it was published in 1984, perhaps challenging The Night Before Christmas as standard bedtime read-alouds on Christmas Eve.  Its themes, images, awards and historical context all signal that this is an exceptional primary source of its time period and place—the early 80s in the United States.  I was beyond elated when an art professor dropped by my set up at Loaded Question brewery in Portsmouth, NH to talk about the Caldecott Award-winning book, The Polar Express.

I was delighted to be joined recently by the Rolando Pujol, to discuss and dissect two 20th century documents of American road culture , Howard Johnson’s and Holiday Inn.  And while I promote listening to the Everything is a Primary Source Podcast in any setting, I have to say that this episode is absolutely perfect listening for driving down the highway.  

The United States has always had a road culture; we are a society constantly on the move.  As such there has always been an inn-keeping industry.  In some ways road hospitality has gone unchanged since the days of colonial taverns offering beds, food and news to stagecoach passengers, as those same things continue to be sought when people look for lodging.  But the revolution in long-distance travel that was prompted by automobiles likewise made for alterations to what travelers could look for when weariness set in.

Howard Johnson’s is a product of the road and travel culture that came with the post-World War I period, marked with the creation of the US Highway system by the end of the 1920s. Holiday Inn came about due to a similar, albeit more robust, touring and vacationing society that came about after World War II, denoted by the enhancement to the highways, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.

Road Rash II was developed by Electronic Arts in 1992 for the Sega Genesis, the 16 bit video game platform that had itself been created to compete with home video game giant, Nintendo.  Both game and system were a product of commercial outlets trying to get the attention of the teenage demographic that Nintendo and other brands were falling behind with.  

Brian visited with me during my recent visit to Loaded Question Brewery in Portsmouth, NH to talk about how games like Road Rash II and many other titles for the Genesis helped elevate the status of Electronic Arts among video gamers.

Admittedly, Breaking Bad has little to do with the Christmas season, but considering how much fun I had making this episode, I felt compelled to release it before the mid-season break which will arrive towards the end of December.

House museums, themed restaurants, amusement park rides that simulate real earthquakes; the desire to reenact, interact and be directly involved with the past or things that are out of reach in the present, has been a consistent theme ever since there’s been  American popular culture.
 
 Ed Candelaria and Marq Smith, the creators and owners of The Breaking Bad Store ABQ in Albuquerque, New Mexico spent time speaking with me about their business, and how it is just as much of a reflection of the times as the TV programs it celebrates.

Breaking Bad is an outstanding document of the period it was on the air, 2008 to 2013.  The cable show’s themes, characters, and storytelling style are all reflective of the confusing and often tumultuous times. And the fact that Netflix included the series in its pioneering streaming platform while the show was still being made for AMC, thus saving it from being cancelled, is something that could only have happened when it did.  It’s also, in this podcaster’s opinion, the greatest TV drama ever made.

And I’m certainly not alone in that opinion.  The show and its spin-off prequel series Better Call Saul were both as successful as they were because of the connections millions viewers worldwide made with the shows.  That’s where Ed and Marq come in.  The Breaking Bad Store ABQ in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a  place that is perhaps misnamed as just a store.  It is more of a celebration of all things Walter White-related, with show props and photo opportunities that put visitors directly into the shows.  After all, isn’t this what people have always been, and always will be after, when they find deep meaning in something cultural?  It was a pleasure to speak with them for the EPS Podcast. 

Home Alone was a topic for season one of the EPS Podcast last year, but honestly, as my guest Shay remarks, one could devote several podcasts and college courses to the story and still have more to say.

Take a listen to what Shay and I discussed about the 1990 movie after she volunteered to talk about it at a recent podcast karaoke event held at Loaded Question brewing in Portsmouth, NH.

It’s December first, the holiday shopping season is well underway, and if it was December at anytime between the early 70s and the early 2000s you’d probably be at the mall right about now.  Afterall, malls were the centerpiece of commerce and social life for many suburban communities during that time period, and whether or not they are still standing, their existence acts as great reflections of time and place.

 I was so happy to have my friend and frequent podcast collaborator Kyle join me to talk about malls as primary sources, especially since together we frequented one in particular throughout the 1990s.

I try to connect my short and long episodes in some way each week, so seeing as how Thursday’s episode is all about shopping malls, I figured a source that comes from the early 2000s, the last hurrah for mall culture, made sense.

Skylor, my on-the-spot guest last month at Defiant Records and Craft Beer in Laconia, NH, dove into the business’s extensive stacks of vinyl and selected a record from turn-of-the-century rockers, Taking Back Sunday.  It’s fascinating to see an album of songs that were probably first listened to on CDs, (which were on their way out 20 years ago), as well as mp3s, (which were on their way in) on vinyl record, one of the original formats for recorded sound.

The holidays bring up at least a few opportunities to pull cookbooks off shelves in order to find the perfect recipe for an occasion.   These collections of cooking directions are often dog-eared and bulging from the newspaper and magazine clippings that act as addendums to the original text.  Pencil marks cross out parts of recipes that don’t work as well or offer substitutions based on what was in the pantry when the dish was last attempted. 
 
 Cookbooks are already outstanding primary sources of their time periods, but can become even better, more individualized documents when analyzed complete with these alterations.  And if anyone will wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment it is Erin E. Moulton.  Erin is a genealogist and researcher as well as an author and presenter. She joined me earlier this Fall to take a deeper look at the Out of Vermont Kitchens cookbook to see what it can tell us about the people and times that produced it.

I have a shelf surrounding my breakfast nook at home where various knickknacks and junk store finds are displayed, and items get regularly selected to go with me to my EPS Podcast Live! Exhibits.  One such artifact, a Stickney and Poor’s allspice container from the first half of the 20th century, caught the eye of Jeff from Loaded Question.  You may be amazed how such a random item sparks a conversation involving Calvin and Hobbes and Homestar Runner in less than ten minutes.

 You know what they say, one man’s expired, discarded allspice tin is another man’s primary source.