It's a Cool Yule (Log)

For many years, growing up in New York, the Yule Log on WPIX-TV (now a CW station) was a Christmas tradition. We didn't have a fireplace and this was the next best thing. Begun in 1966 at the New York television station by Fred Thrower, general manager of the station, as a gift to his viewers. It started as a three-hour broadcast on Christmas Eve, lasting four years until the tape wore out and had to be replaced. In later years it was reduced to two hours and then moved in Christmas morning. Finally in 1989, the Yule Log was canceled. In 2001, to help a recovering city, the Yule Log returned to the airways and is now also living on the web.

However (and here's the archival content for this article), they could not immediately locate the tape in the station's New Jersey archive. When they discovered it, it had been misfiled in a film can for a Honeymooners episode called, "A Dog's Life." In a nod to the filing error, the 40th anniversary broadcast and associated special this year is titled, "The WPIX Yule Log: A Log's Life."

Also an issue was the soundtrack. Many of the songs had been edited beyond saving and also featured mid-60s easy listening artists. Enter Chip Arcuri. A New York resident, he had made a tape of the old Yule Log and kept it for his family during its televised absence. Chip is also a holiday music collector and owned every one of the 70 songs featured on the original telecast. Arcuri digitally remastered the soundtrack for use on the program this year. You can even download the program as a podcast. Here's the website for the history of the true, original Yule Log.

Not to be outdone, there is also a high-definition option. INHD (now called MOJO), a network dedicated to the high-definition TV viewer has his own Yule Log, which has been broadcast since 2003. Since I have no fireplace (still) and no high-def TV, I'm sticking with the original.

This posting was prompted by an article in the Washington Post on December 18.