Flick from A Christmas Story went into the porn industry in the 90s
Topics: Christmas, Film and TV, Celebrity
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. / Everett Collection Inc / Alamy
Topics: Christmas, Film and TV, Celebrity
One of the stars of classic 80s festive movie A Christmas Story ended up working in the porn industry in the 90s.
Set in the 1940s, the movie focuses on nine-year-old Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley, who would go on to play head elf Ming Ming in Elf) and one Christmas where he really wanted a BB gun.
Narrated by the character's older self, the movie plays out a series of vignettes which tell a bunch of stories, some of which feature Ralphie's friend Flick (Scott Schwartz).
Flick ended up being in one of the most famous scenes in the movie, the iconic moment when he tried licking a frozen metal pole and got his tongue stuck in place.
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Flick gets 'triple dog dared' to lick a frozen flagpole and eventually gives it a go, but ends up getting his tongue stuck and is left begging the others not to abandon him.
It was one of those moments that stuck in the minds of an entire generation of kids who knew licking things in the middle of winter was a terrible idea, as you would surely get stuck there and freeze to death.
Frozen metal poles were right up there with quicksand as dangers kids learned all about when they were young that have somewhat disappointingly not had much impact on our adult lives.
It got so well known as a danger that the Mythbusters even checked it out to see if it was true, and found that a tongue would get stuck pretty much immediately, though it could be pulled away if you were willing to risk losing a few taste buds and maybe a bit of skin along with it. Ouch.
While he's best known for A Christmas Story, Schwartz ended up making more film and TV appearances before his career took a very different turn in the 90s.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Schwartz went into the porn industry in the 90s in one hell of a departure from the sort of roles audiences knew him for.
He worked behind the scenes on adult movies, while also appearing in front of the camera in Scotty's X-Rated Adventure and New Wave Hookers 5, which will be surprising news to people who dipped out of that particular franchise after four movies.
As for how they did the iconic frozen tongue stunt in the movie, Schwartz revealed that they used a bit of movie magic to stick his tongue to the prop.
He explained that the set designers painted the pole to make it look old and rusty before wrapping it in a layer of plastic which was masked so the audience wouldn't spot it.
They then cut a hole in the plastic and connected it to a suction tube, which they plugged into a vacuum that got hidden the snow beneath their feet.
With the vacuum on it pulled his tongue against the pole and made it look like he was stuck, but Schwartz reassured everyone he could pull away from it painlessly.