Grover Dill? Or Scut Farkas?
I'm already getting a bunch of emails in response to my Bully Round-up in today's paper. Seems I mistakenly referred to Grover Dill as the primary bully and object of Ralphie's revenge in the 1983 classic "A Christmas Story," when in fact Dill is merely the toady of Scut Farkas (in photo above).
And yet I'm not wrong! If you came to "A Christmas Story" through the original Jean Shepherd stories on which the movie was based, as I did, you'll know that Grover is the bully Ralphie fights -- and he has the yellow eyes to prove it. Exhibit A: the story "Grover DIll and the Tasmanian Devil" itself, and if you've never had the joy of reading Shepherd, read now and thank me later.
So, yes, my bad, but not wholly my bad. And I still think Grover Dill is a funnier name than Scut Farkas.
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Glad to hear that Mr. Burr's piece has brought out fans of Jean Shepherd! You are, of course, correct that "Ralphie" fights Grover Dill in the original story, yet it is Scut Farkas who gets it in the movie (the braces worn by the young actor playing Scut I always thought a bit jarring and out of character, by the way). "Ralphie" duels Scut with fighting tops in another story, so he gets his in the end, in Shep's Pantheon of Bullies. "A Christmas Story," the movie that finally made Shep as rich and famous as he always wanted to be, contains eight different stories from Shep's alleged upbringing in Hammond, Indiana, and most of them are twisted in some way to suit the film.
I always wondered why, as a memoirist, Shep used the name "Ralphie" instead of his own, but I assume it was part of the whole "Boy Named Sue" thing.
Folks interested in Jean Shepherd would do well to get the recent biography "Excelsior, You Fathead! The Art and Enigma of Jean Shepherd" by Eugene Bergmann. For someone who "lived" on the radio, in television, and in the movies, his biography is just as fascinating for what we still do not know about the man as for what we do know. He was so private a personality, that major aspects of his life, such as marriages, are shrouded in mystery to this day.
Such a wonderful writer! And, yes, Grover Dill IS a funnier name than Scut Farkas.