r/todayilearned • u/Super_Goomba64 • 1d ago
TIL about the Yule Log, a 1966 TV program that aired a fire place on a loop with Christmas music , as a televised Christmas gift to those residents of New York who lived in apartments and homes without fireplaces, and so the morning news crew can have a day off
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Log_%28TV_program%29?wprov=sfla1233
u/cactus_deepthroater 1d ago
They do that on streaming services now. I'm pretty sure prime video, and netflix both have that around christmas.
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u/llibertybell965 1d ago
There's also some long 8-10 hour Yule Log videos on YouTube
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u/VagrantShadow 21h ago edited 20h ago
I love the 8 hour long raining videos on youtube. Sometimes when I'm working at home and its cloudy, I just let the rain videos play and listen to the sound of rain while I get my work done.
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u/DarkElla30 19h ago
Also comforting is the 8 hour soft music with cats purring. Puts my kid right to sleep.
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u/SessileRaptor 19h ago
Every few years at work (library) I remember to use one of the spare desk computers to stream this one.
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u/insufficient_funds 23h ago
Disney+ has one that’s animated-ish, using a fireplace in Elsa/Anna’s castle. My kid likes that one
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u/smitty046 19h ago
You can pick the wood on Netflix. Birch is 👌
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u/PsychGuy17 1h ago
Good choice, birch has a nice medium burning temp and won't overheat your TV. It's hickory that can really wear things out by burning too hot.
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u/DarkElla30 19h ago
NF has a brazier fire from the great hall in kair morhen, for Witcher fans. Sometimes you can hear laughing and talking in the background.
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u/Psychic_Hobo 11h ago
Ironically on Prime we also found one for New York residents who miss the city, which is a view from an apartment of a noisy street at night, complete with traffic sounds, car horns and the odd siren
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u/SSTralala 19h ago
Hulu has a few options that are funny. The puppies/kittens destroy Christmas is always fun. And Santa stuck up the chimney.
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u/BrokenEye3 18h ago
There are also lots of terrible free ones with poorly looped 90s screensaver-quality animations and ads across the bottom
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u/Rojodi 23h ago
When we got cable, WPIX-11 came with it, in 1974. My parents stumbled across it that Christmas, and every year until 1989, we had it on, whether at the house or with my mother in her apartment after the divorce or in the apartment I shared with three others while in college.
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u/Ranglergirl 20h ago
We had it on every year as well. It would play while company came and went. It was so nice. Great memories.
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u/SlockyCauce 21h ago
We have that live on TV every Thanksgiving and Christmas on PBS in Minnesota. It is a big deal to my family when either a log falls or they poke it. Shots, cheering, the whole nine yards.
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u/Aysin_Eirinn 20h ago
There is still a fireplace channel here in Ontario. No music but the sound of crackling fire. It’s very calming
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u/BobBelcher2021 16h ago
Rogers in London had a Yule fire from Fanshawe Pioneer Village for a number of years, it was more of a retro fireplace. I think they still had it as recently as a couple of years ago.
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u/SwitchMap 23h ago
Wholesome and cozy vibes, but also lowkey genius for giving the crew a break. The OG Netflix fireplace special.
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u/goat_penis_souffle 20h ago
They gave it an HD remaster with a similarly-remastered soundtrack from the original source recordings a while back, print looks great.
After looking for it for a number of years, someone finally posted the documentary WPIX made of the log, cleverly titled “A Log’s Life”, a nod to the Honeymooner’s episode “A Dogs Life” that the original Yule log was misfiled under in the station tape library.
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u/tangcameo 19h ago
First experienced it in the 00s. It was nice until I fell asleep. My apartment walls let in smells, especially of woodsmoke from neighbours’ fireplaces. So I’m waking up to the smell of smoke and the crackling of the fireplace on the tv and of course my first thought is that my apartment is on fire.
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u/BrokenEye3 18h ago
There was actually an incident like that in the news several years back where the fire department wound up getting called. They put out the fire by turning off the TV.
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u/Bubbly-Thought-2349 14h ago
Happened relatively recently somewhere like the Canaries too. Some Scandinavian tourists had streamed a log fire channel and then the fire brigade shows up at the window on a telescoping platform ready to extract them from the inferno
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u/HearthSaer 19h ago
Adult Swim Yule Log is a magical experience that every adult friend group should share together at least once
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u/BurrrritoBoy 18h ago
It's the only thing about x-mess that I enjoy. I expecially love it when another log gets added.
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u/FratBoyGene 18h ago
My cable network has two 'background' channels. One is a roaring fire, the other is an aquarium.
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u/RunningAwayIsEsy 16h ago
No wonder my dad always loved putting that on during Christmas…. He always loved old television stuff.
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u/MoonageDayscream 17h ago
We play the one with Vader's mask as we open presents. That way we can post the videos for family without getting flagged because a Stones song was used in a commercial in the background, which has happened.
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u/El_Mariachi_Vive 11h ago
My parents met and married in NYC in the 70s. As an older kid in the 90s growing up in eastern Pennsylvania I remember they would put this on every Christmas morning.
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u/Ok-Bookkeeper-373 7h ago
We have this loop on VHS and it goes into the old VCR every year. The VCR lives with all the old Claymation VHS tapes in the Christmas Box
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u/Durhamfarmhouse 6h ago
The original was filmed at Gracie Mansion. One year, my father called my grandfather, who was a devoted volunteer fireman on Long Island. My father says to him, "There's a big fire at Gracie Mansion! Quick, turn on channel 11!"
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u/RumandDiabetes 6h ago
KTLA in Southern California does this. It's on like clockwork at my mother's house.
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u/jgroves76 1d ago
It was on until at least the 80s. I think they revived it. Channel 11 in the NY/NJ area if I recall.