How well can you remember the names of cartoon characters from your childhood?
Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Pikachu are pretty easy. But a nondescript cartoon elf seen in a Christmas photo has stuck around the internet for years, with some losing sleep trying to figure out exactly where it came from.
And perhaps none more so than Emily Charette, whose father first took the photograph in their Ottawa home in 1992.
Charette found the photo again a few years ago. But that elf, with gray hair, a beard, glasses and overalls, has been confusing him ever since.
“It just drives you crazy. It’s like when you think you can remember an actor’s name or something is on the tip of your tongue,” she said.
So in 2016, when the marketing agency where she was employed decided to hold a photo-finding contest in the office, Charette decided to submit the photo in hopes that her co-workers would be able to determine the origin of the elf.
No matter who he showed it to, no one seemed to be able to determine where the character was from. Unable to solve the mystery, Charette and her friends turned to the Internet, posting an image of the photo online.
This prompted a long search by citizen sleuths across the globe that finally culminated in an answer last week.
“For a week, this was my full-time job”
What, you thought we were going to tell you the answer right away?
In 2016, Sophie Campbell, an illustrator for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in New York, I heard about the elf from some friends at the agency.
In search of an answer, she posted about the mysterious elf on her Tumblr page — even offering a cash reward to anyone who could solve the case with evidence.
“All these suggestions started coming in and my friend and I were looking at all these old terrible cartoons,” Campbell told CBC Toronto.
Flooded with advice, Campbell watched more than 30 old cartoons in search of an answer, all to no avail.
“For a week, that was my full-time job … keeping up with this Tumblr bullshit,” she said. “And then, it kind of faded.”
But the online posts continued to attract occasional attention over the years, with Campbell receiving sporadic messages from strangers asking if she had opened the case.
The trail goes cold to the viral post
Enter Will Sloan, a Toronto writer who first heard about the photo in 2019 from his girlfriend.
Curious about the mystery, Sloan scoured Twitter and Reddit for clues. Three more years passed without luck. The trail was as cold as ever.
“Then a few days ago my partner said, ‘Hey, you have more followers on Twitter than you did in 2019. Can you post one last time? Maybe we can finally solve this mystery once and for all,'” he said. he.
The post he made. And this time it went gangbusters, sparking another flurry of attempts to identify the enigmatic elf.
My gf and her friends have spent years trying to figure out where the cartoon (seen in the background of a family photo) is from. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of people have seen this image, but no one knows where it is from. If you know this man, please tell me. pic.twitter.com/nZibSf1QQH
A few days later, the enduring mystery was finally closed.
After six years and over 11 million views on social media, two brothers from the US finally solved the case.
“Oh my God, that’s it!”
Lucas and Josh Rastia, of Green Bay, Wis., had no idea that an old VHS tape gathering dust in their home would be the key to unlocking the mystery of the Internet.
Josh Rastia — who doesn’t use Twitter or Tumblr and wasn’t previously aware of the photo — learned about the mystery while on YouTube last week.
It was then that they both realized they might know the answer.
Coincidentally, several years ago Lucas Rastia had been looking for a Christmas special that he grew up watching. So he started searching for unknown cartoons.
“I just started going down the rabbit hole,” he said.
After nearly giving up, he finally found the show on a VHS box compilation he bought on eBay. Among the tapes was a TV movie called Soul Twins: The Gift of Light, created in 1991 by Canadian screenwriter Gabrielle St.
Josh said he looked at Charette’s picture a few times to make sure it matched the elf on his brother’s ribbon.
“Finally, seeing this thing all the way through, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is it,'” he said.
The brothers sent the response to a friend who posted it on Sloan’s Twitter account, which by that point had several thousand views.
“We found it… My god in heaven, I can’t believe it,” Sloan replied.
The mystery even attracted the attention of The creator of the cartoon, St. George, who said she had no idea her decades-old cartoon gnome had become an Internet mystery. According to St. George, the special aired on CBC for five years and was sold internationally before it was released on video.
‘Definitely’ adding the cartoon to the list of Christmas movies
The Rastias say they are just happy to preserve a piece of history and solve a mystery that had so many feelings as children again.
Meanwhile, Charette says she never imagined a family photo taken 30 years ago would become such a phenomenon.
“I was like ‘holy motherfucker,'” she said. “I’ve been loving this whole elf cartoon mystery adventure. That’s the power of the internet.”
Her family is also enjoying the moment, Charette said.
“My parents think it’s great. We’ll definitely be adding this movie to my Christmas movie list for years to come.”
