Red Ryder BB Gun - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The Red Ryder BB gun was prominently featured in A Christmas Story, in which Ralphie Parker requests one for Christmas, but is repeatedly rebuffed with the warning "You'll shoot your eye out". The movie's fictional BB gun, described as the "Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time", does not correspond to any model in existence nor even a prototype; the Red Ryder featured in the movie was specially made to match author Jean Shepherd's story (which may be artistic license, but was the configuration Shepherd claimed to remember). However, the "Buck Jones" Daisy air rifle, immediately above the Red Ryder in the Daisy line, did have a compass and sundial in the stock, but no other features of the "Red Ryder" model. The guns and a stand-up advertisement featuring the Red Ryder character appeared in a Higbee's store window in the film, along with dolls, a train, and Radio Flyer wagons.
• Crazy Earl, a character in the book The Short-Timers and the film based on the book Full Metal Jacket, carries a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun in addition to his M16 rifle.
• A "Red Rider Air Rifle" was the exclusive in-game Christmas gift for World of Warcraft's 2009 Winter Veil world event, with a similar description to the one appearing in A Christmas Story, featuring 200 charges (shots).
• In the movie Tactical Force about a SWAT team using non conventional methods, SWAT Sgt. Hunt (played by the actor Michael Jai White) uses a Red Ryder BB gun which he named 'Daisy' to shoot a kidnapper/robber in the forehead. He explains that it is a Vintage 1965 Red Ryder model he received for Christmas. Sergeant Hunt is later confronted by the Chief of Police that he shot a robber with a BB Gun and he asks Sergeant Hunt when the Los Angeles Police department started issuing the Daisy Red Ryder BB Guns to LAPD SWAT Teams. The rifle is shown and talked about several times in the movie. The movie even ends with the rifle having a prominent role. When they receive new orders, Sergeant Hunt asks if 'Daisy' can come. Captain Tate (played by Steven Austin) tells him that he wouldn't have it any other way. Then Sgt. Hunt arms the rifle and the whole team smiles.
• On the television series House M.D., the main character played by Hugh Laurie joke about him saving money to buy one on the episode "It's a Wonderful Lie".
• In the Fallout-series you can get a Red Ryder LE BB gun.