A Christmas Story is a 1983 MGM film based on the short stories of author Jean Shepherd. The film follows Ralphie (played by Peter Billingsley), a young boy growing up in 1940s Indiana, on his quest for the perfect Christmas gift, an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model BB rifle with a compass in the stock. Over the years, A Christmas Story has become widely popular and is now a perennial Christmas movie. For the past several years, twelve consecutive airings of the film have comprised twenty-four hour long Christmas Day marathons on TNT and TBS.