As I sit watching A Christmas Story for the 8th time on TBS, I’m reminded of a scarring moment in my past, the moment I discovered a vexing and perplexing cinematic travesty of magnificent proportions – It Runs in the Family. Take a gander at the synopsis of It Runs in the Family from IMDB.com:

It is now summer in the Parker family; and the usual amount of numerous events are happening in their separate lives. Ralphie is searching for the perfect top to use to beat the school bully with, the Old Man is in battle with their hillbilly neighbors, the Bumpus, while eagerly awaiting the discovery of the perfect fishing spot, and the Mother is attempting to collect all of the pieces of a glass china set at a local movie theater.

You may have read through that and thought, hmm, sounds like an innocuous yet standard piece of drivel churned out by the movie industry. But wait, then it hits you – Ralphie? Bumpus? The Parkers? What the hell is going on here?! I’ll tell you what’s going on here. MGM tried to slip a sequel to A Christmas Story past us without so much as a “sorry for the smell, I wouldn’t go in there for another 35, 45 minutes”.
You may ask, how bad could it be? Well, to illustrate, check out the IMDB listing and you’ll see a veritable cornucopia of movie-making suckitude:

First, the movie art:

The film was apparently originally titled My Summer Story, a subtle (read: weak) link to the original, yet was changed to It Runs in the Family. However, none of the movie art was ever updated to reflect this change. I know PhotoShop existed in 1994. They couldn’t just put a new title on the movie poster? Apparently the film studio gave up on this film before the public had a chance to.

Second, the casting:

Who	Christmas	Summer
Ralphie	Peter Billingsley	Kieran Culkin
Breakdown: Seriously, Kieran Culkin? At least Macauley was a cute kid. This isn’t even close. Verdict: Christmas

Who	Christmas	Summer
Randy Parker	Ian Petrella	Christian Culkin
Breakdown: Another frickin’ Culkin? Sure, this was 1994, but wasn’t the Culkin Experiment over by this point? Verdict: Christmas

Who	Christmas	Summer
Mrs. Parker	Melinda Dillon	Mary Steenburgen
Breakdown: While the mom isn’t exactly a scene stealer, at least Melinda Dillon can act her way out of a crate marked fra-jee-lay. Verdict: Christmas

Who	Christmas	Summer
The Old Man	Darren McGavin	Charles Grodin
Breakdown: How did Charles Grodin find the time in his demanding schedule of comically struggling against the whimsical desires of a lovable St. Bernard in 18 straight direct-to-video films to work on this gem, in which he comically struggles against the Bumpus hounds? Verdict: Christmas

I think we have our winner. Stick to TBS today, pretend this movie never happened, and enjoy your Christmas.