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An elf that raised questions: Where exactly was he seen in the 1990s?
Photo: Youtube / Joshua Rastia
One of the greatest mysteries in recent Internet history has its origins in the pre-Christmas period of 1991 or 1992, no one knows for sure.
In the Canadian province of Ontario, so the story goes, Emily Charette was sitting with her two siblings in her parents' living room, with the television on in the background.
At that moment, her father presses the shutter button and takes a photo, not realizing that it will occupy thousands of people from all over the world decades later.
An animated character can be seen on the TV in the background of the shot, apparently some kind of elf.
In 2016, Emily Charette stumbles across the photo again and wonders what series or movie it is.
She asks her work colleagues, but nobody knows.
A colleague shares a section of the photo on Facebook and more and more people join the search.
A comic artist creates a Tumblr post that collects all the clues from now on.
The film podcaster Will Sloan also plunges into the search for the solution.
His girlfriend is an acquaintance of Emily Charette.
But nobody, not even Sloan, finds an answer.
Could it be an excerpt from »The Smurfs«?
Probably not.
The internet knows everything, doesn't it?
Sloan searches and ponders, then in 2019 he asks his Twitter followers for advice.
But above all the US series »The Littles« is suggested to him.
But it can't be that, Sloan realizes, after all, The Littles characters had five fingers and not four like the elf in the photo.
Although more than 4,000 people have already liked or commented on the Tumblr post at this point, the search seems hopeless.
Because the matter does not seem to let him go, Will Sloan starts a new attempt a few days ago, on September 3, 2022, again via Twitter.
This time, a YouTuber named blameitonjorge, with around 1.5 million followers, takes up the mystery and publishes a short video about it.
And then, after more than six years, a Twitter user actually posts four other pictures of the same elf with the caption, "I think I know what you're looking for."
The user had recalled a video cassette he used to enjoy watching with a childhood friend.
His friend, Joshua Rastia, still has the cassette and soon uploads the complete film to YouTube.
Its title: »The Soulmates: Gift of Light.«
Now it's a lot easier to learn more about the cartoon.
It was first broadcast in 1991, but it also ran in the years that followed.
In terms of content, it revolves around two aliens who come to earth to save Christmas.
The elf in the photo is Santa's helper.
A Christmas special from Canadian television
In the meantime, even the author and producer of the cartoon has caught wind of the fuss surrounding her work and has spoken out in several comments on YouTube.
She states that the episode was produced as a one-off Christmas special, then aired on Canadian broadcaster CBC for five years and eventually marketed on videocassette.
Can't believe the years of searching are finally over, Will Sloan tweeted on Monday, "We found out.
We figured out where the animated elf came from.
Dear God in heaven, I can't believe it.« In an article for the magazine »The New Yorker«, he again sums up his laborious search for the origin of the elf.
"The elf seemed to betray the utopian promise that the Web has the answer to literally every question," Sloan writes in his article.
"And I wanted to at least stop thinking about him."
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