A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with some elements from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories And Other Disasters. It stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley. Widely considered a holiday classic in the United States and Canada, it has been shown in a marathon annually on TNT since 1997 and on TBS since 2004 titled "24 Hours of A Christmas Story", consisting of 12 consecutive airings of the film from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day annually. It is the third installment in the Parker Family Saga. The film was released on November 18, 1983, and received positive reviews from critics. Filmed partly in Canada, it earned two Canadian Genie Awards in 1984. In 2012, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot Set in December 1940, the film is presented in a series of vignettes, with narration provided by the adult Ralphie Parker reminiscing on one particular Christmas when he was nine years old in the fictional town of Hohman, Indiana. Ralphie wanted only one thing that Christmas: a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Ralphie's desire is rejected by his mother, his teacher Miss Shields, and even a Santa Claus at Higbee's department store, all giving him the same warning: "You'll shoot your eye out". On Christmas morning, Ralphie receives some presents that he enjoys but is disappointed not to find the rifle among them. When it appears that all of the presents have been opened, Ralphie's father ("The Old Man") directs him to one last box hidden in the corner, which proves to contain the rifle. He eagerly hurries outside to try it out, attaching a target to a metal sign in the backyard; when he fires, the BB ricochets back and hits him in the face. Believing at first that he has indeed shot his eye out, he realizes that the BB only knocked his glasses off and begins searching for them in the snow, only to step on them by accident and break them. He lies to his mother that a falling icicle struck him in the face and