I love how the "shed" will "bring back childhood memories." Did you see the pic of the shed?!? Scary. It reminds ME of the shed from "Sling Blade." And for only $99,000 you have to wonder what sort of neighborhood this house is in. I doubt that kids getting their tongues stuck to poles comprises the major social problems that exist. As much as I love a "Christmas Story" I'd stay away from buying this house....

Michelle --
I know exactly what kind of neighborhood-- for I live about six miles away. The house sits on the rim of the Cuyahoga Valley, and below it are steel mills. For awhile, these mills had been shuttered, but they've started back up again.

Six or eight blocks north, the area is rapidly gentrifying, with lots of new restaurants, bars, rehabbed buildings being turned into condos, and the like. This part is the Tremont neighborhood in Cleveland.

"A Christmas Story" wasn't the only movie filmed here. Big chunks of "The Deer Hunter" were also shot in this neighborhood -- the church, the hall where they had the wedding reception (one of the buildings going condo), the grocery store where Meryl Streep worked, and quite a few other street scenes.

Bruce, this is interesting news! The movie is on TV all over the place this week. It's become a classic at our house.

Happy holidays,
Anita

Of course there's no lamp. It's broken!

thanks Bruce, very interesting local news - I would be concerned about the wiring and the neighbor dogs, though. At $100k there doesn't appear to be much of a "celebrity premium"

no problem andy, get yer leg lamps here.

I'd also inspect that #@!$%@#!!^&*! furnace very carefully, too.

Mark - I think I'd rather get mine the old fashioned way. Didn't he win that lamp writing dirty stories or something like that?

I can't recall ever being in Cleveland but if it is similar to other cities in the Midwest $99000 buys a pretty decent house. "When I was a kid..." Seriously the house I grew up in in Estherville, Iowa could probably be bought for under $50,000.

A good marketer could offer tours and could build "a package" that would get RALPHY fans coming all-year-long. With a SPECIAL "sleep at the Christmas Story house" for only $399.00. (That ought to make it a seriously great investment.) And if the NEW owners were smart they would get some autographed pictures to include in the pictures.

Just my two cents.

AZMike

P.S. Nice Blog!

Thanks Mike! Excellent marketing ideas - Cleveland is still underpriced for real estate although many areas are gentrifying. If you are willing to live within city limits you can get some great deals. Seriously crappy schools, though

I bought the house. I plan to rehab it and turn it into a museum for all to visit. Nice to hear the neighborhood is on the up and up. Having a tourist attraction should help generate even more business for the new restrauants and shops. The website www.achristmasstoryhouse.com will go up in about a month. It will chronicle the house, its restoration and the movie. It will take some serious work to do the restoration correctly but it will be a fun project and an adventure. I think the house is a true piece of Americana.

Happy New Year--- Brian

Brian -- good luck if you actually bought the house, although I hope you did more investigating of the neighborhood than just my capsule review

I don't if anyone has seen or made mention of this, but the Christmas Story lamp is on sale at Amazon, and was on a list of the 25 Weirdest Items you can purchase until, at some point recently, the leggy lamp ran out of stock:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000C6ECG/garylapointe-20/ref%3Dnosim/102-6978679-2813735

Eric Berlin
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
http://dumpsterbust.blogspot.com

This is the best leg lamp I've seen. I got one for xmas and it's just like the movie

that IS one hell of a leg lamp

I have a buddy in the entertainment biz and he heard Warner Bros. is going to file a lawsuit against the guy who bought the house because he is using the name and logo to promote this project. I guess they did'nt give him the thumbs up on the project. Too bad that the big corps have to get a piece of everything...the guys promoting their movie...what's the problem

I bought a Red Rider leg lamp from the company that owns this house. It's Garbage! It works but it's made very cheaply. My advice, get the One leg up leg lamp. It's much better quality.

I thought Red Rider was the BB gun - now they make leg lamps?

it would appear so given the ad at the top of the page

I got a Red rider leg lamp on ebay for a steal. Not the best quality lampshade and the stocking was a little stretched but a great price and a bargain for what I paid

I made the mistake of buying a redrider leg lamp on ebay. I was very dissapointed in the quality. All of the components seem to be bottom of the line. The seller hyped it up so much and says it's the best quality you can find....NOT TRUE! I'd love to tell fellow ebayers the truth about this lamp but I'm afraid I'll receive negative feedback from the seller if I clue people int. That's the problem with ebay. There is so much fear in telling the truth because you don't want to jeopardize your precious feedback. Anyway, It works fine but does not look anything like the movie lamp. Maybe the owner of the company should have spent more money on developing a good product instead of buying the christmas story house. ):

There are two other companies that sell leg lamps. You may want to try them. leglamps.com and leglamp.com. Found them on the web. They are a bit more expensive than the redrider but they both look pretty nice! and you can get crates too! May help you with your redrider blues. Don't shoot your eye out...Ha Ha!

OH MY GOD was I unhappy with the red rider leg lamp. I thought about sending it back but the guarantee requires me to pay to ship it back and I lose my original $45 that spent to have it shipped to me. So thats $90 for the pleasure of looking at the darn thing. Figure I'll just keep it. If you don't care about quality and you just want a leg lamp, then it will do. I was expecting a much nicer lamp based on the description.

The most authentic leg lamp is the NECA leg lamp. It is officially licensed by Warner Brothers and I guess looks just like the movie lamp. Don't let the other companies fool ya!

I didn't much care for the NECA lamp. The shade is too short for the width and the leg glow is dim. For the offical lamp it looks the least like the movie of any I have seen. Looks like NECA spend more on their license than making a good lamp. I got a Red Rider Leg Lamp to replace it and was very pleased with it. It was also half the price of the others. For my money you can't beat it.

Brian, from A Christmas Story House and Red Rider Leg Lamps here. Just wanted to make sure everyone realized that comments 22 by "Lori" and 24 by "Harold" in this blog were actually posted by Robert Golden at leglamp.com, our competitor. While it is rather underhanded to pretend to be our customer and post negative things about your competition I do have to give him points for creativity.
Here at Red Rider Leg Lamps we provide a quality product at a reasonable price. This obviously frustrates some of our higher price competitors. So we just wanted to set the record straight. He have maintained a 100% positive feedback rating in over 845 transactions to date by providing and high quality leg lamp at reasonable price backed by excellent customer service. Should you ever have a concern about our leg lamp feel free to contact us at 619-446-6851 or email info@redriderleglamps.com and we will be happy to address your concern. We stand behind our product and want you to be just as happy as The Old Man with your Major Award.

Visit on line at:

www.redriderleglamps.com www.achristmasstoryhouse.com

Editors - could someone get the IPs for ALL of these people and ban them? Seems like the right thing to do.

Dave

It seems that both companies should grow up and conduct their business with a little more professionalism. Based on these posts. I wouldn't buy a lamp from either company. Very low class!

I agree. But it's a tough call when your competitor resorts to classless petty attacks. Do you take the high road and ignore them. Hoping people will see them for what they are. Or do you answer them and risk looking like your stooping to their level. I always look it as a loose-loose situation. In this case since it was a veiled attack they wouldn't even own up to I figured it was less of a loss to answer them. But, I still lost. On the bright side only a leg lamp... which is none too classy itself.

Brian

My original post was just to let people know what was going on with the house and when and where they could find out more info. Seemed appropriate given the topic of the blog.

Hey, wait a second. I'm the originator of this thread, and it had nothing to do with an advertisement - I'm not related to any of the businesses here. I just thought it was interesting that the house was on eBay, and it also is a local story to me.

I think this entire discussion is loathsome. I would hope you have some criterion to make such defamatory accusations about your competitor.

I think it's hilarious and quite instructive: "the leg lamp wars."

And pretty obviously, Bruce's original story was a note about the house being for sale and had nothing to do with the freaking lamps at all

Bruce had nothing to do with any of the craziness that transpired since his original thread. He just thought it was interesting. Then I was just responding incase people were big fans they could find more info about the house later. Nothing in my original post mentioned anything about leg lamps. Things of course things degenerated from there. This is a fun business and we try to keep it as up beat and positive. After all its only a leg lamp...

Try the One Leg Up lamp. It's awesome! Each one is numbered for authenticity. This company has been making them since 1994. I received it for my Birthday last month. No quality issues here....it's GREAT! "it's fragilay"

I got a One leg up last xmas....it rules. I think I saw the redryder at a novelty shop...not half bad but not as nice as the One leg up.

my thinking is it's probably enough with the "testimonials": after reading this thread, people are going to assume all the statments are staged anyway

I agree. It's a little suspicious that "Brain boy" leaves a post about the Neca lamp being nice then, coincidentally a guy with the name "john boy" leaves a post about not liking the Neca lamp and preferring the Red rider and then, what a surprise the guy from red rider gives his little speech. I wouldn't believe any of this crap!

It's pretty sad that these leg lamps have gotten so cheap that anyone can afford one. I bought one years back and spent a lot of dough for it. Now it looks like there will be one on every block. It was cool to own one or see one in someone's window. Now it looks like the excitement of seeing one will disappear because of these guys who are turning it into big business...buying houses? Museums? come on that's going a little too far. I love the movie but guys like this are exploiting it to make a buck and in the process the're gonna wear out the charm and commercialize the whole thing...it's pretty sad!

I was just made aware of the negative post made about myself and my company. None of the negative posts about redriderleglamps were made by myself or anyone associated with my organization. It's very risky to tarnish ones reputation and integrity without any facts. I'd be more careful about the comments you make Mr. Jones.

I'll settle this! I've been to all the websites

Redriderleglamps.com
leg-lamp.com
leglamps.com.

The leg-lamp.com lamp is most like the A Christmas Story lamp. There is a big difference in the leg and size compared to the others. I looked at the movie again and it's just like it. The redriderlamp and leglamps.com lamp seem to be pretty similar. Can't you guys just get along. I'm sure there is a big enough market for everyone.

Hey Brian (owner of Christmas Story House). I drove by there yesterday (Nov. 27, 2005). I've lived in Cleveland all my 49 yrs., and never knew where it was. My 7 yr. old son didn't believe it was the real house because the color had changed. Are you going to renovate it to the original colors? The windows have changed too. It's our favorite holiday movie...glad to see someone taking an interest.
Callen

Callen,

Re-renovation will start Jan 2, 2006. I have already hired a contractor to restore the house to its movie glory. Its a re-renovatin because it was renovated in 2002 to modernize the house which certainly its not what we want it to be. The gray siding certainly doesn't work. All of the windows have to be replaced as well. It will take some work and financing but I think it is well worth it. The grand opening will be Thanksgiving weekend of 2006. I will try to keep the website updated with progress reports and pictures.

Got the lamp from leg-lamp.com. It looks exactly like it....what a great gift!

Brian, This is Mike, you bought my dads house the yellow one where the meusem at, i have a good feeling about you,i know you did the right thing buying those houses because the neighborhood is getting better downthere, i grew up in that area, so dont listen to no one, what they are saying about the neighborhood, well take care, hope to see you at C&Y Restaurant on 16, of november.