User reviews

I don't understand the huge amount of negativity in all these reviews. The only thing I didn't like was the musical numbers. They were kind of corny and not part of the original but as an avid fan of the movie I enjoyed this production. I thought the actors did a great Job with very minimal mistakes considering it was live, I noticed Maybe 2 or 3 miscues. The political correctness is silly too but that the world we live in today so get used to it. All in all I enjoyed it.

Now age 75 , I can related to this story and best evaluate its merits versus all 4 prior medium versions, down to the fact that TV did not exist at the time of the story or in my house either but bith hosuies had coal fired heating and I really wanted that RR BB gun, Yes, every adult told me " YOU WILL SHOT YOUR EYE OUT" In life that RR BB gun was the only thing I really wanted that I never obtained, but I always loved and respected my parent anyhow. I I Enjoyed this 5th level version and saved it on tape to share some ( but not all ) with my grandchildren who always ask about the "Leg " nitelite in my home. Down to the playground "monkey bars" the stage set were as valid as the songs were bad and rushed. The openning jazz seen was unnecessary but the coming attractions( live or made to appear live -fooled me ) was awesome. However, I am one of the few peopel who can say that i heard the original the first time told ny the "Shep' on NYC WOR radio on Christmas eve 1959 ( or so) and then read the book ( In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash" --like JamesBond- first published in Playboy Magazine ), long before the movie . Two years ago I saw the PLAY off-broadway. Only true Jean Shepherd fans/followers realized how much is lost at evey new levelwhile perhaps adding something new-- like music ,or as in this live TV production some political correct stuff. Hiowever, while I can't remember 1959 so well ( it was 250,000 miles of air travel ago ) Schwartz was in fact a Jewish family so those new additiions may well be more valid than the movie. It is hard to please the young today or capture their attention , but I do hope i will not live to see" A Christmas Story- the Video Game".

Absolutely awful. Complete waste. Should not have been a musical. The reasons the film is so popular and never loses its charm are the nostalgic feelings it churns up no matter how many times you watch it and the authentic portrayal of that era. Throwing in a bunch of poorly written modern show tunes sung even worse than the lyrics themselves completely disconnected the great story and the era it came from.

Having been thoroughly disappointed by Peter Pan Live, The Sound of Music Live and Grease Live, I'm not sure why I expected A Christmas Story Live, based on one of my favorite movies of all time, to be any better. (ed. It was worse. Far worse than I could have possibly imagined.)

The good: The kid playing Ralphie did look kinda like Peter Billingsley.

That's it for the good.

Everything else, from the awful pre-intro by some atrociously auto-tuned and over-mixed pop thing, to the horrible finale, was just wave after wave of telecinematic diarrhea. It was like the producers, director and Matthew Broderick went out on a weeklong bender of Pabst Blue Ribbon, dubious quality burritos, chili-cheese fries and buckets of MSG, then proceeded to explosively defecate this show on the consciousness of the North American people.

Broderick, your career was pretty much dead. You should have let it die completely, rather than sign on to this.

Every character, completely mis-cast, and without getting into specifics, the liberal-agenda political correctness B.S. sprinkled throughout was glaringly obvious and contrived.

Everybody associated with this production, from the executive producers, all the way down to the youngest performer, even the poor kid from the catering company who put out the napkins, needs to be blackballed/blacklisted from the entertainment industry, and be forced to eke out their existence flipping burgers. And not the good $15/hr burger-flipping jobs in Washington state. The crappy $10/hr burger-flipping gigs where the employees still get treated like scum.

Sadly, IMDB does not allow me to give this piece of excrement a zero-star rating. I'm looking at the other reviews, and anything that is not a 1star, I'm thinking "What the hell did you watch? Because you clearly saw something different than what I was watching."

To the strange, negative reviewers - this isn't a remake of A Christmas Story movie. This is true and accurate to the Broadway musical A Christmas Story. Many of the comments are obviously people who have never seen a live theater show.

Live shows aren't everyone's cup of tea (clearly) but this rendition was well produced, with excellent choreography and top notch acting. Remember, being live means every actor must remember nearly 2 hours of dialog, dance moves, positions on the multiple stages - and absolutely critical production and camera placement.

The cast is very good and well suited for live theater. The show is well done and I'm looking forward to watching it again.

First then good. The actors for the father and teacher did quite a good job and obviously have had extensive stage experience. The costumes were accurate and some of the characters looked very much like the original movie.

The bad. The rest of the cast would appear to have never seen a musical let alone sing in one. I have been to a lot of musicals and often there is a guest star who does a passable job in a role while the rest of the cast is superb. This was quite the opposite. There were new scenes and almost unrecognizable old ones, but the worst was the butchering of the funniest scene in the movie just to make the restaurant scene politically correct.

This will not become a classic like the original movie. Will have to watch the movie to erase the thoughts of this one.

Both Ralphies brought the story to life. There should not be those comparisons to the movie. This was a stage production and my husband and I were thoroughly entertained.

Nice, cheery songs, with good music and a reasonable good choreography.

Best to be enjoyed INSIDE a theatre, but it'll do as a Christmas movie as well for those who are into these kind of musicals.

Anything special? Not really, the acting by itself is rather cheesy, but that is often the case with these kind of musicals.

You won't be humming any of these horrible tunes and the numbers add nothing to the story because they're generic & vapid. The whole production looks like an Old Navy ad. Watch Little Shop of Horrors and learn what good music actually is. This all wrong, from the casting on down...a Titanic level disaster.

I didn't have high hopes for this production and it was even worse than I expected. Changed the channel.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this production. The musical numbers are fresh and energetically presented, especially Jane Krakowski's tap number, the cast is amazingly talented, especially the kids and it's a fine interpretation of the story. I was once visiting an elderly woman for the holidays and the only thing worth watching was the repeated showing of the original movie. It took me at least a decade to get up the energy to watch that movie again, and I'm pleased with this production. It's not as good as either Hairspray or The Wiz, but it's nowhere near as dreadful as the Peter Pan! I will probably stream this again!

Anyone writing anything positive about this is writing on behalf of the production team or the pr people. Even the scenes are set wrong. Go back to basic remake 101. You don't make a classic better you enhance what it was / update it. Should of kept it close to the original as possible. Worst show I've ever seen do not recommend it even if your deaf and blind.

I tried; only made it an hour and that was 55 minutes too long. I kept giving it a chance but it got worse as it went on.

I don't why this has gotten so negatively received, I absolutely loved it. I loved the musical numbers, the actors, the set design.

This was the most dreadful thing I ever seen. They need to stop tying to remake classics

Lord love a duck, this debacle (and I'll admit I could NOT finish it), was mind-numbingly awful. From Maya Rudolph playing as one-dimensional mom (and the mom in the original was NOT one-dimensional), to all the caterwauling songs, this is probably the worst "live" TV I've ever witnessed.

Not coming close to resembling the original story (which is now on 24-hours a day every Christmas), this was about as miscast as any production could be. Matthew Broderick narrating as the older Ralphie was bad enough, but he apparently didn't even know his lines.

FOX lulled everyone to sleep and should pay for its out-and-out lie about this production. I never saw the first thing about this being a musical. And you would think if you're bold enough to take a 100 minute movie and turn it into a THREE HOUR production, there would be something--anything--that might be memorable.

This was horrible to the nth degree. AWFUL.

But this was by far the worst. Many remakes of classical movies have been made and did very well. This on the other hand had scenes that never took place or were far off from the actually movie. Can't call yourself the Christmas story live if you don't plan on being somewhat clos to resembling the actual classic movie. The acting was mediocre at best and the so called singing could of used some professional help. Very disappointed and do not recommend anyone watching this. The production crew should be fired and never allowed to produce anything ever again.

I have no words. Every horror you could've conceived about this anathema has come to fruition. For the sake of you and your family, if you loved the original, stay as far away as you possibly can.

Firstly, I studied and performed in musical theater, so from a purely musical theater perspective I feel it was very good on its own. Not Broadway level by any means, but excellent at a college level. Therefore it gets a star and a half for that. From a story perspective, it was an abomination of the original storyline. Trying to apply political correctness to a 1940 period piece is like making a politically correct version of Les Miserable. The cultural diversity depicted is totally out of character to the time and place. The politicing at the beginning was also totally out of place and suggests a political agenda behind the production. The storyline was butchered from the original. If the period aspect of the production had been changed to a modern time period, and adapted as such, I would have gladly given it 7 more stars. As it stands, the most I can muster is 1 1/2. Unfortunately, there is no 1 1/2 and it doesn't deserve a rounding up, I am left with a one star option.