Canadian cartoon mystery finally solved after 6 years thanks to the internet | CBC News

How well can you remember the names of cartoon characters from your childhood?

Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Pikachu are easy enough. But a nondescript cartoon elf featured in a Christmas photo has baffled the internet for years, and some have lost sleep trying to figure out exactly where it came from.

And perhaps none more so than Emily Charette, whose father first snapped the photo at their Ottawa home in 1992.

Charette stumbled across the photo again a few years ago. But this elf with gray hair, beard, glasses and overalls has confused her ever since.

“It just drives you crazy. It’s like you think you can remember an actor’s name or you have something on the tip of your tongue,” she said.

In 2016, when the marketing agency she was employed by decided to hold an in-office photo guessing contest, Charette decided to submit the photo in the hopes that her colleagues could figure out the elf’s origins.

No matter who she showed it to, no one seemed able to pinpoint exactly where the figure came from. Unable to solve the mystery, Charette and her friends turned to the internet to post an image of the photo online.

This prompted a year-long search by citizen detectives around the world, which finally culminated in an answer last week.

“It was my full-time job for a week”

What, did you think we’d tell you the answer right now?

In 2016, Sophie Campbell, an illustrator for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in New York, heard about the elf from some friends at the agency.

Looking for an answer, you Posted about the mysterious elf on her Tumblr page – even offering a cash reward for anyone who could solve the case with evidence.

“All these suggestions came in and my friend and I looked at all these old, horrible cartoons,” Campbell told CBC Toronto.

Inundated with tips, Campbell looked through 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 that stupid thing on Tumblr,” she said. “And then it kind of faded away.”

But the online posts continued to garner occasional attention over the years, as Campbell received sporadic messages from strangers inquiring if she’d cracked the case.

Trail going cold until viral post

Enter Will Sloan, a Toronto writer who first heard about the photo from his girlfriend in 2019.

Curious about the mystery, Sloan made his own posts on Twitter and Reddit in search of hot leads. Another three years passed without luck. The trail was cold as always.

“Then a few days ago my partner said, ‘Hey, you have more Twitter followers than you did in 2019. Could you post it one last time? Maybe we can finally solve this mystery once and for all,'” he said.

He made mail. And this time it went gangbuster, sparking another spate of attempts to identify the enigmatic elf.

A few days later, the enduring mystery was finally solved.

After six years and over 11 million social media views, two brothers from the United States have finally solved the case.

‘Oh my god, that’s it!’

Little did Lucas and Josh Rastia of Green Bay, Wisconsin know that an old VHS tape gathering dust in their home would hold the key to solving the Internet mystery.

Josh Rastia – who doesn’t use Twitter or Tumblr and was previously unaware of the photo – learned of the mystery on YouTube last week.

That’s when they realized they might know the answer.

Coincidentally, a few years ago Lucas Rastia was looking for a Christmas special that he had seen growing up. So he started looking for obscure cartoons.

“I just started going down the rabbit hole,” he said.

After almost giving up, he finally found the show in a compiled VHS box set he bought on eBay. Among the tapes was a TV movie called The Soulmates: The Gift of Light, Created in 1991 by Canadian screenwriter Gabrielle St. George.

Josh said he looked at Charette’s photo several times to make sure it matched the elf on his brother’s tape.

“When I finally watch this thing to the end, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is it,'” he said.

The brothers sent the reply to a friend who posted on Sloan’s Twitter thread, which at the time had several thousand views.

“We found it…God in heaven, I can’t believe it,” Sloan replied.

The mystery even caught the attention of the creator of the cartoon, St. George, who said she had no idea her decades-old cartoon elf had become an internet enigma. According to St. George, the special aired on CBC for five years and sold internationally before going to video.

‘Definitely’ adding cartoons to the Christmas Movies list

The Rastias say they are just happy to preserve a piece of history and solve a mystery that made so many feel like children again.

Meanwhile, Charette says she never thought a family photo taken 30 years ago would become such a phenomenon.

“I was like, ‘Holy shit,'” she said. “I loved this whole elf comic mystery adventure. That is the power of the internet.”

Her family is also enjoying the moment, said Charette.

“My parents just think he’s great. We will definitely be adding this movie to my Christmas movie list for years to come.”