Hacker News Reader

Comment by dylanz | Hacker News Reader

A perfect "be sure to drink your Ovaltine" moment! If anyone is unfamiliar, it refers to the movie "A Christmas Story". The moment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdA__2tKoIU

I first saw that movie a only a couple years ago and quickly realized how many pop culture references come from it. It does such a good job of capturing a period of time in North America. Even before I saw the movie, eating out at a Chinese restaurant was a thing for me and my family. I had no idea it may have been related! Also... one day I'll own that lamp.

View on HN

This is great, thanks. I haven't seen this movie or heard of it. This scene is delivered very well and really explains the 'be sure to drink your ovaltine' concept

A Christmas Story is classic Americana

The movie was a childhood staple, but the book is even better - literally LOL'ed, snorted, etc. "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash" by Jean Shepherd. There are lots of additional short stories there not featured in the movie.

Growing up in the 90's my family would make it a point to watch this every year around the holidays, good times. If you are ever in Cleveland, OH, you can actually tour the house they filmed most of it in.

It was a reference to an actual ad campaign, I believe, for a real product

Seems meta. As far as references to ads in movies I enjoy Demolition Man. I loop the classy cover of the jingle for Jolly Green Giant from time to time to endear me to my (close) colleagues. It's burnt deep, whelp time for a listen.

Fascinating aside on Demolition Man: some versions have all restaurants as Pizza Hut rather than Taco Bell [1]. The version I saw as a kid was Pizza Hut, so when I said “in the future all restaurants are Pizza Hut”, a friend said “you mean Taco Bell” and we both learned something :).

> For some non-American releases, references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. This includes dubbing, plus changing the logos during post-production. Taco Bell remains in the closing credits. In the Swedish release the subtitles still use Taco Bell while the sound and picture has been altered as above. The original version released in Australia (on VHS) contained Taco Bell, yet the newer version on DVD was changed both in logo and dubbing to Pizza Hut (in the scene where the restaurant patrons are looking through the glass windows to the fight scene outside, Taco Bell can be seen etched into the glass, even in the modified version).

[1] https://tacobell.fandom.com/wiki/Demolition_Man

Indeed, in my youth I downloaded a version that had this and I was alarmed at first. Some further research showed that it was an international release as Pizza Hut has a broader brand globally. The scene in San Angles where Westley Snipes attacks a bunch of police and he learns of his programming was filmed in Irvine, CA. I've got a few photos of the location and now would be a good time to take some shots since it isn't as busy. Also tripped out that the Mall scene in Kindergarten Cop was shot at the Main Place Mall in Santa Ana.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com