The Leg Lamp from "A Christmas Story" is one of the great gags of the movie and in recent years has become iconic. The movie explains that it's an award but never explains why anyone would award a leg lamp to anyone.
A few weeks ago I accidentally stumbled upon the explanation and feverishly began researching a full article. I looked up primary sources and began to buy reference books, but in my searches I found tons of trivia sites which already had the answer. My full scholarly article is cancelled.
Still, not everyone knows so here is the short version.
The company running the contest/sweepstakes was supposed to be the Nehi soda company. At one point, their logo was a single woman's leg (Nehi = Knee High) so the prize for their contest was a lamp of the company's logo.
"A Christmas Story" is based on the radio show/writings of Jean Shepherd. Shepherd reveals the Leg Lamp-Nehi connection in the TV movie "Phantom of the Open Hearth" which was made 7 years earlier, in 1976. Shepherd also talked about it in interviews.
Introduced in 1924, Nehi was bought by Royal Crown, which was bought by Dr. Pepper and is actually still made today. You can actually buy it.
"A Christmas Story" will be re-released to theaters December 10th and 13th for its 40th anniversary.
I quite like that the origin of the lamp is left unexplained. It reinforces the theme of childhood - the world is a strange place and rarely makes sense.
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