This is a great movie. I am surprised, given how popular the Christmas Story is, that they have not released this to DVD as a sequel. I wish I could get a copy to show my kids, but have never been able to find it. Many favorite lines that we can relate to, e.g. when the family kinds a junky gift shop, "somehow, things that you would never buy at home, when you are on vacation, they make sense!" The movie has the same slow-paced, Garrison-Keillor-type wry humor that the Christmas Story has. It has the same nostalgic sense that times of blue-collar kitsch were silly, but also there was something noble about the attempt of the working man to create beauty.
11 Reviews
Wonderful
Lyd2007-125 December 2005
This, I believe, is a superb installment of the Jean Sheppard Christmas Story trilogy. Jerry O'Connell does a, though very different from the "A Christmas Story", wonderful job in his portrayal of Ralphie. I believe it offers many humorous parts (ie. the mother's voice, "We're not buying any junk today!", etc.) There may be some slow parts, but if you pay attention to dialogue and such there really aren't any excessively dull moments. The Randy character, though not as major a character as in "Christmas", takes the scenes he is in he makes absolutely and annoyingly funny. The unique stylized format and period obvious clothes put you directly into the movie. My family and I enjoy this movie very much and I think if you took the time to sit and watch the movie you will, too.
So realistic that it's boring!
srmccarthy22 April 2001
I kind of like the beginning, but after 20 minutes or so, I could barely tolerate it. It is so normal, every day. It is like watching your next door neighbor's life. There is no adventure, no excitement and little humor, however, for the sake of originality, I must say that it is a couple points above average.
Funny movie from Jean Shepherd
smitheeallen20 May 2002
The late Jean Shepherd who wrote "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", which "A Christmas Story" was based on wrote and narrated this funny little movie based on his short story of the same name. It deals with the same family from "A Christmas Story" though with different actors and their family vacation when Ralph(ie) is 14 and all the crazy things that happen before and during their long drive to their favorite vacation spot. If you like "A Christmas Story" you'll probably like this movie too. It's quite funny in a low key sort of way.
Jean Shepherd movie
BandSAboutMovies23 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This Jean Shepherd story isn't about a holiday but is about summer vacations. But first, work. Ralphie (Jerry O'Connell), Flick (Cameron Johann) and Schwartz (Ross Eldridge) are working a horrific first career at Scott's Used Furniture Palace - run by a character played by Shepherd - while dreaming of having a few days off. Before that, the family dog Fuzzhead (Shepherd's real life dog Daphne) goes missing and ends up living in a mansion.
The trip to get to the trailer park of the title is described in the words of Shepherd as a journey "beset on all sides by strange creatures, the lost mariner searches and searches, in the Sargasso sea of life."
James Sikking, who plays The Old Man, is also in The Night God Screamed, which is pretty awesome casting. Mom is played by Dorothy Lyman, who depending on when you watched TV was a pretty big deal. For those who watched soaps in the afternoon, she was on a ton of soap operas, including A World Apart, The Edge of Night, as Gwen Parrish Frame on Another World, Rebecca Whitmore on Generations, Bonnie Roberts on The Bold and the Beautiful and most importantly, she was Opal Sue Gardner on All My Children. If you watched TV at night, you knew her as Naomi, the daughter-in-law on Mama's Family.
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss was co-produced by Disney, public TV's American Playhouse and Boston public TV station WGBH. While funded by Disney, they had nothing to do with production. After airing on their channel, it moved to public television.
This was the last film Shepherd made for television. He wanted to turn his stories into a series, but by 1988, he was making from the reruns and home video sales from A Christmas Story and decided to make another movie. That would be 1994's It Runs in the Family: My Summer Story or as it is better remembered today, A Summer Story.
The trip to get to the trailer park of the title is described in the words of Shepherd as a journey "beset on all sides by strange creatures, the lost mariner searches and searches, in the Sargasso sea of life."
James Sikking, who plays The Old Man, is also in The Night God Screamed, which is pretty awesome casting. Mom is played by Dorothy Lyman, who depending on when you watched TV was a pretty big deal. For those who watched soaps in the afternoon, she was on a ton of soap operas, including A World Apart, The Edge of Night, as Gwen Parrish Frame on Another World, Rebecca Whitmore on Generations, Bonnie Roberts on The Bold and the Beautiful and most importantly, she was Opal Sue Gardner on All My Children. If you watched TV at night, you knew her as Naomi, the daughter-in-law on Mama's Family.
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss was co-produced by Disney, public TV's American Playhouse and Boston public TV station WGBH. While funded by Disney, they had nothing to do with production. After airing on their channel, it moved to public television.
This was the last film Shepherd made for television. He wanted to turn his stories into a series, but by 1988, he was making from the reruns and home video sales from A Christmas Story and decided to make another movie. That would be 1994's It Runs in the Family: My Summer Story or as it is better remembered today, A Summer Story.
Ralphie is BACK!!
krmwcccd26 April 2005
OK, if you loved "A Christmas Story"....then there's no way you won't LOVE this movie!!! It's Ralphie as a teenager! The family takes a summer vacation and it is HILARIOUS!!!!!! We even get to see Flick and Schwartz again! Will Flick stick his tongue to the flag pole again?? HMMM...could be!!! You'll have to watch it to find out! I think what makes this movie SO funny is how realistic it is...exaggerated a tad, of course. The trip they take is exactly how all my family vacations went as a kid. If you watch "A Christmas Story" every Christmas, then you need to start watching "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" every 4th of July!
Fantastic Fun!!
deborah6715 June 2004
Believe it or not, I actually saw this movie before I saw "A Christmas Story"! This was the movie that made me fall in love with Jean Sheperd, Ralphie and all of his lovable family and friends ...including, "Fuzzhead, Fuzzhead, Fuzzhead!" The cast has changed, but it doesn't seem to matter, as I always think of it as being the same. The characters are captured beautifully as established in the original film by Darrin McGavin, etal. The film is wonderfully nostalgic as it follows Ralphie's family on their annual family vacation. Lots of good, clean, family fun and humor. It is unfortunate that it has never been released on video as this is a family favorite and an absolute must see!
Good fun, charming enough, and a fair follow up to A Christmas Story.
JoeBobJones23 December 2020
There are more Jean Shepherd films than some folks know about, starting with a truly great pair of movies, The Phantom of the Open Hearth (1978), and The Great American 4th of July and Other Disasters (1982). These two are absolutely wonderful, low budget PBS American Playhouse prequels to A Christmas Story (1983), the classic movie that put Shepherd on the maps of millions. Squeezed in there after Xmas Story is The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski (1985), also charming and set in Ralphie's senior year, then finally this one: Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss in 1988. I won't even mention It Runs in the Family, that unfortunate entry from 1994, except to say it's better than this one.
This one barely holds up, and although it doesn't have the charms of the previous four Shepherd films, it is still sorta worth watching because it's all we have.
I'm really not sure why this particular installment was stretched out to 90 minutes, because it drags on, and it's clear it was just filling cinematic time. Maybe Disney had a slot to fill and they dragged this one out in the editing room. Ollie Hopnoodle would have benefitted from the 50 minute runtime format of Great American 4th of July, and the Phantom of the Open Hearth. This film is a bore and a chore. I get it, we want to love it because it's Jean Shepherd, and the library is all it will ever be, but honestly it's spread thin.
So, the whole movie is cobbled together, which isn't unusual for a Shep film story. But this one is drawn out too long. It's not all bad, but it lacks the genuine charms of the fantastic four Shep films that precede it. If nothing else, it's a nostalgic piece of storytelling where we get to sit back and bask in the glorious voice of Jean Shepherd's timelessly spun narratives, and we will never get another one. That much is a good thing.
This one barely holds up, and although it doesn't have the charms of the previous four Shepherd films, it is still sorta worth watching because it's all we have.
I'm really not sure why this particular installment was stretched out to 90 minutes, because it drags on, and it's clear it was just filling cinematic time. Maybe Disney had a slot to fill and they dragged this one out in the editing room. Ollie Hopnoodle would have benefitted from the 50 minute runtime format of Great American 4th of July, and the Phantom of the Open Hearth. This film is a bore and a chore. I get it, we want to love it because it's Jean Shepherd, and the library is all it will ever be, but honestly it's spread thin.
So, the whole movie is cobbled together, which isn't unusual for a Shep film story. But this one is drawn out too long. It's not all bad, but it lacks the genuine charms of the fantastic four Shep films that precede it. If nothing else, it's a nostalgic piece of storytelling where we get to sit back and bask in the glorious voice of Jean Shepherd's timelessly spun narratives, and we will never get another one. That much is a good thing.
The sequels to A Christmas Story never capitalized on the first.
vertigo_1429 May 2004
Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss is one of two sequels to 'A Christmas Story,' a timeless holiday cult classic. Jerry O'Connel plays a slightly older, much different looking Ralphie Parker and his failed attempt to rush into "manhood," by getting himself a respectable job which might jeopardize his attendance at the annual family vacation to Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, which is basically a campground.
Ralphie, and his loyal friends, Schwartz and Flick, don't exactly go for the ideal job, moving heavy furniture around for a crummy boss that takes pride in yelling at his eager, idealistic new employees. The even less interesting subplot involves Ralphie's parents, who go looking for their family dog.
The story is not nearly as exciting as the first movie, probably because Ralphie Parker, fourteen-years old in this movie, has moved beyond the crisp imagination that he possessed as a grade school student in the first movie, which produced a film mostly from his childish perspective, and one that many could enjoy. Ralphie Parker in this story is just too old to entertain things from that childish, but imaginative perspective. If they wanted to entertain children, they should've used a younger character. Someone might've recognized this, as the sequel that follows it is about a second-grade Ralphie Parker in "My Summer Story."
The movie is not very interesting and is hardly funny. It is, as one viewer previously wrote, like something so real it's not even entertaining. And that's the problem with this movie. There is nothing in the story particularly catching, and the characters themselves are not as likeable as those of "A Christmas Story." Especially, Randy Parker, who is exceptionally whiny in this movie. Of the two sequels, "My Summer Story" was much better, though neither could ever be better than the first. "A Christmas Story" is a great classic.
Ralphie, and his loyal friends, Schwartz and Flick, don't exactly go for the ideal job, moving heavy furniture around for a crummy boss that takes pride in yelling at his eager, idealistic new employees. The even less interesting subplot involves Ralphie's parents, who go looking for their family dog.
The story is not nearly as exciting as the first movie, probably because Ralphie Parker, fourteen-years old in this movie, has moved beyond the crisp imagination that he possessed as a grade school student in the first movie, which produced a film mostly from his childish perspective, and one that many could enjoy. Ralphie Parker in this story is just too old to entertain things from that childish, but imaginative perspective. If they wanted to entertain children, they should've used a younger character. Someone might've recognized this, as the sequel that follows it is about a second-grade Ralphie Parker in "My Summer Story."
The movie is not very interesting and is hardly funny. It is, as one viewer previously wrote, like something so real it's not even entertaining. And that's the problem with this movie. There is nothing in the story particularly catching, and the characters themselves are not as likeable as those of "A Christmas Story." Especially, Randy Parker, who is exceptionally whiny in this movie. Of the two sequels, "My Summer Story" was much better, though neither could ever be better than the first. "A Christmas Story" is a great classic.
A classic summer flick in my house
daisyduke800015 July 2004
My family and I have been watching this movie at least once every summer since 1988 (we taped it). It's one of those movies you can watch a thousand times, have every line memorized, and still laugh at all the same jokes. One thing I noticed about this one is that they switched the characters of Schwartz and Flick. In "A Christmas Story", Schwartz is the cool, cocky one and Flick is the pathetic loser. In this installment, Flick is the cool one and Schwartz is the loser. Is this intended? Oh well, no matter what it's a great movie. The people who play the parents are excellent. Especially James Sikking, he is absolutely hilarious. I want to see this on DVD sometime soon. Everyone should see this movie. Family Channel should run it again.
Jean Shepard does it again!
SanDiego22 September 2000
Continuing adventures of Ralphie and family from "A Christmas Story" and "A Summer Story"...aka "It Runs in the Family." Jean Shepard is back as narrator and writer but as in all films, an original cast (they do such a good job capturing the spirit of the actors in "A Christmas Story" that you won't notice the cast change). Great nostalgic fun from the Walt Disney Channel. Note: Though this film was made second, it actually falls third according to the period of the film.
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