"A Christmas Story: LIVE!" What happened?

I honestly have never seen the movie so I can't make any comparison in that area.

That being said, I got really bored throughout the show and basically forced myself to watch it. It felt lackluster and didn't wow me.

I loved Jane Krakowski's performance. I watched for her and was thoroughly impressed!

Overall, it was fine. I wouldn't watch it again though, IMO.

The only standout of the entire telecast was Krakowski’s fantastic “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” musical dance number. So much so, I still watch it on occasion:

https://youtu.be/plnzNgtvvJo

BrodyFosse123 said: "The only standout of the entire telecast was Krakowski’s fantastic “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out” musical dance number. So much so, I still watch it on occasion:

https://youtu.be/plnzNgtvvJo"



You mean the one "inspired" by this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrsyp0FBBnI

Just offering up a speculation here rather than any kind of authoritative answer, as I can only speak to my kneejerk reaction from watching a few of the song video clips. Maybe others also tuned briefly into and out of the broadcast because they felt the same way. My sense from those clips was that the production was too 'Broadway' for its own good. That might have been what chernjam meant above as well.

I enjoyed the original film and the musical's cast recording, but didn't find that the live musical clips I saw matched the characters I knew from the film very well. I had heard that 'You'll Shoot Your Eye Out' (not included on the cast recording) was a great number, but in the film Ralphie imagines his teacher as a wicked witch when she uses that line to dismiss his school writing assignment. A carbon copy of the film's moment isn't essential, but I can't see Ralphie imagining his teacher as a sexy tapdancer at that moment. It felt as though they prioritised getting some 'Broadway' glitz into the number, over being true to Ralphie's character. Similarly, the song 'A Major Award' is fun on the cast album, but in my head!production I'd imagined the neighbours dancing around with increasing gusto to celebrate the father's award, in accordance with the character's modest dreams. But again, who cares about the character when you can add another flashy 'Broadway' scene-and-costume change instead. Maybe I'm too tied to the original conception of the characters, but surely people who enjoyed the original film were a key part of the target audience for the musical.

I think in terms of viewership that can be blamed on the lack of any "A-list" must watch talent attached. I love Jane, Ana, and Maya, but none of them are true stars, but are instead working character actors.

Jane who arguably was the shows biggest star's biggest role for mainstream audiences was Elaine on Ally McBeal that ended in 2002. Yes, her roles on 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt are both critically lauded, but neither is show is a water-cooler top 10 sitcom The Office, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family. If anything 30 Rock can be marked as the beginning of the end of the cultural relevancy of the Emmy Awards. Neither Ana nor Maya have been able to do find much success outside of SNL. Yes they have continued to work steadily, but neither is a household name like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler or Will Ferrell.

Matthew Broderick the productions biggest draw hasn't had mainstream relevancy since the early 2000s when the Producers premiered. Now a days to most of the American public sees him as a "Where Are they Now" for Ferris Beuller or Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker.

Add to that unlike the NBC Christmas Musicals there national media campaign build up, that starts with the Thanksgiving Day Parade and then has several nationally broadcast Today show performances.

Then finally A Christmas Story has always been a cult hit, and not a mainstream success. Let alone the musical adaptation had only premiered 5 years prior, and yes had toured the country, but played on Broadway for less then 3 months. Its was never a ziegiest musical like Wicked, Phantom, Les Mis, Rent, Grease, The Book or Mormon, Or Hamilton, a long running bridge and tunnel musical like Hairspray, Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages, Mamma Mia, or Avenue Q, nor a classic that has been done to death in regional and high school theaters like Into the Woods, Suessical, Ragtime, La Cage, Evita, The Wiz, or Peter Pan.

Overall, Fox, grossly overestimated the audience value of every piece of the production from the cast to the A Christmas Story itself. As such they didn't think they needed to put as much effort into the marketing and the production didn't find an audience.



In terms of the production itself, as others have said it felt under rehearsed. You could tell that everyone kept dropping lines or didn't know which camera to look at. This wasn't in the oh "Its live, anything can happen" good way. It was more along the lines of "There's something off, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is?" So it wasn't laughably bad alla Peter Pan, which is a lot better then just Ok. This was very apparent because the A Christmas Story relies heavily on sight gags, and eye rolls....and the timing on these was just off. One that stood out to me Randy's eating like a pig. This also seemed prevalent in the dance numbers especially with the kids, who would seem to be all looking at camera one, but it was camera 2 that was actually filming them.

Then there was the fact I think this is the first adaptation of a 2.5 hour plus musical that decided the characters and plot needed to be further fleshed out.... Normally when musicals are adapted into another medium they need to be condensed to the songs and scenes that are essential to the plot to maintain pacing. A character driven song, no matter how great it, even if its a showstopper in the original stage version, if it slows down the plot too much it will be cut. Examples include Mamma I'm A Big Girl Now, from Hairspray, The Ballad of Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd, Happy New Year or Goodbye Love from Rent, Dog Eats Dog from Les Miz. For some reason the minds who be decided to flesh out a musical whose score is almost all character driven songs since the movie its adapted from is essentially just a series of vignettes during one Christmas season.

I know everyone is praising the kids, but I honestly think most of them fell flat, as were just going through the motions. You can get away with "look at me I'm cute" on stage, but during a 3 hour television production it just got old fast, especially when they were looking into the wrong camera. I remember I kept thinking while watching this, "This doesn't bode well for Annie Live!" , which we all know is coming.



Overall though I think Fox picked musical that had been perfectly adapted for the stage, and that was why it didn't work. There are certain musicals that are truly theatrically written musicals and cannot be successfully adapted to a different medium without radical reinterpretation. This mostly applies to smaller musicals that originated off Broadway with an inventive staging like Next to Normal, Fun Home, Hair (If you think the Hair Movie worked....there is an issue), The Great Comet, but this production made me add A Christmas Story into that category.

Hi! Forgive me for reviving this thread, but I had read Maya Rudolph had some significant flubs during the live broadcast. I tuned out about halfway through, can someone explain what happened and when in the show? It appears most reviews of the show mention the moment.

Thanks!

Updated On: 1/27/18 at 11:01 PM

I guess the reviews I read noted one particular instance where Chris Diamantopoulos had to cover for her?

She missed an entrance cue so he put on the prop apron and sang the entire first verse of her number before the camera switched over to her with her hair disheveled and her mic showing and she singing mid-sentence.