Leg Lamp brightens holidays

It’s been called an American icon, the shining light of freedom and the epitome of kitsch.

Standing 42 inches tall, adorned with a black fishnet stocking, a size 6 stiletto heel and a black tasseled shade, it arrives in a wooden crate with a “Major Award” certificate and is UL listed for electrical safety.

We’re talking about the Leg Lamp, that tacky piece of Americana featured in the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” – which, according to several polls, has surpassed “White Christmas” as the favorite American holiday movie.

In the film, a cantankerous, curmudgeonly patriarch played by the late Darren McGavin receives a telegram telling him he’s won a “Major Award.” The award soon arrives in a huge wooden crate marked FRAGILE.

” ‘Fra-gee-lee,’ ” McGavin exclaims. “That must be Italian.”

Inside the box, buried beneath mountains of excelsior straw, is the prized lamp, which immediately goes on display in the front window.

Joe Egeberg, a successful yacht broker in Daytona Beach, Fla., is a big fan of the movie. Such a big fan that in the late ‘80s, he made a copy of the lamp as a gag gift for a friend.

It immediately became a conversation piece, which led to requests for more. What started as a joke among friends turned into an online business, called One Leg Up.

With “A Christmas Story” becoming a cult classic and TBS turning its 24-hour “Christmas Story” marathon into an annual tradition, the popularity of Egeberg’s lamps grew. He now employs three part-time workers, a lamp builder, a crate builder and packager and a secretary-customer service representative.

One Leg Up offers five options on its Web site (www.amajoraward.com), with prices ranging from $169.95 for the basic model to $339.95 plus shipping for the limited-edition lamp with signatures from five of the actors who played children in the movie.

Egeberg also offers the option of a wooden shipping crate – stenciled with FRAGILE, just like in the movie – for an additional charge.

One Leg Up lamps are featured in the 20th-anniversary edition “Christmas Story” DVD in an extra called “The Leg Up, a humorous peek at the making of the leg lamp.”

“At the time Time Warner was working on the 20th-anniversary DVD, we were the only company manufacturing the lamp, and they were intrigued,” Egeberg writes via e-mail.

Since then several other companies have gotten into the illuminated extremities business. A Google search of “Christmas Story leg lamp” nets more than 651,000 hits.

One competitor, Brian Jones, who started making the leg lamps in his San Diego condo in 2003, recently bought the Cleveland house featured in the movie, renovated it and has opened it for tours. His Web site (www.redriderleglamps.com) offers his lamps for sale for about $175.

Egeberg shrugs off the competition.

“We’ve been making the leg lamp since 1994,” he said. “Most of the other guys just started making the lamps in the last few years.”

He’s had some strange inquiries over the years.

“I have had a few requests from people wondering if I could cast their wife’s leg for a lamp,” Egeberg said.

He declined.