A Christmas Story Live ratings flop as viewers slam remake

We hope Fox kept the receipt.

The network’s attempt at turning the 1983 beloved holiday classic A Christmas Story into a live TV musical was bashed by viewers on social media Sunday evening. And it turns out the ratings were pretty terrible — the three-hour telecast was seen by 4.5 million viewers and delivered a 1.5 rating among adults 18-49.

Compare that to Fox’s production of Grease Live last year which had 12.2 million viewers and a 4.3 rating. Heck, even NBC’s notorious Peter Pan Live from 2014 did better (9.2 million, 2.4). Based on these early numbers, A Christmas Story looks like the lowest-rated live TV musical since NBC revived the genre with its surprise smash A Sound of Music Live in 2013 (22 million, 5.6).

EW’s review of the small screen adaptation of the Broadway production was somewhat positive (we gave it a B-), while others were less so (USA Today gave it 1.5 stars and snarked that the show “shot its own eye out”). Naturally, any attempt to remake a nostalgic title that’s considered a nearly perfect piece of entertainment will result in some fandom backlash, but Twitter was pretty brutal — slamming the production as “a dumpster fire” and “the worst thing to ever air on television,” among other jabs:

So was A Christmas Story Live a complete fudge-up? Were there any nice reactions? Sure! Some …