It’s hard to pinpoint what makes Shepherd such an effective storyteller, but one thing I’ve noticed: He got the details right. His great radio voice, which occasionally betrayed an Indiana accent, was the icing on the cake. Shep not only had the gift of gab, he had the ability to talk to every listener one-on-one: “Have I ever told you this story?” he’d ask, like he was a relative addressing to you across the table at Thanksgiving. But when the man was on, he came across like the world’s most entertaining drinking buddy, or an impossibly hip older brother.Īfter the first commercials, Shep would generally tell a story, as if he realized that his audience-consisting of insomniacs, intellectual types, and kids like me listening past their bedtime-needed a tale to tuck them in at night. Not everything that emerged from his mouth was a gem, of course, particularly when listened to all these years later (some of his attitudes definitely reflected the Mad Men era). Sometimes he even read poetry and short stories, which isn’t nearly as pretentious as it sounds.
He was sometimes glib, sometimes profound, and, usually pretty funny. Introduced with “ Bahn Frei,” a raucous piece of classical music that sounds like a rock song, Shep would generally spend the first 15 minutes reading bizarre news stories (he was kind of a predecessor to Fark), and then sound off about the world. (Other reputed fans included Andy Kaufman, and Penn Jillette.)įor two decades, Shepherd held court every night on WOR in New York.
Narrator christmas story how to#
Jerry Seinfeld said on a Seinfeld commentary track that he “learned how to be funny from Jean Shepherd.” (And his son is, perhaps not incidentally, named Shepherd.) He also narrated and wrote the story to “The Clown,” the Charles Mingus cut that inspired The Wrestler. Steely Dan co-founder Donald Fagen paid tribute to him in Slate in 2008. He also wrote books, articles, and other films-but the best way to experience Shepherd was to hear him.Įven today, for a man who has been dead for 13 years, Shepherd’s influence still reverberates. The reason so many people remain interested in Jean Shepherd, the reason the guy has inspired scarily-detailed websites and a full-length biography, is not because of one yuletide film.
But as fans never get tired of explaining, there is a lot more to Jean Shepherd than that.
You probably know Jean Shepherd as the narrator and writer of A Christmas Story, the 1983 Yuletide comedy which is (over)played every holiday, and has become such a beloved classic that it’s easy to forget how cynical it is.
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