Saturday, December 27, 2008

Yule Never Understand It

So I'm all nestled in the in-law's guest room the night of Christmas Eve, all full of turkey and Christmas cheer. I'm flipping channels on the TV, trying to find something that will help me fall asleep.

Hey look! It's the Yule Log!

For those who don't know, a couple channels suspend their usual programing for a few hours around Christmas and instead show a close-up of a fireplace. I suppose with the right eggnog this can be strangely hypnotic.

I'm about to turn the channel when I notice they're using the audio from "It's A Wonderful Life."

That's kind of strange, I think. I guess they're trying to set a scene, like you're falling asleep in front of a fire while somebody's watching TV on Christmas. That's kind of coo- what the hell?

This version of the movie was taken from a live screening with some sort of mics on the audience, so every couple minutes you'd hear a roomfull of phantom people laughing.

So I keep getting hypnotized by this log and trying to follow along with the movie, which is pretty hard since every couple of minutes a roomfull of Christmas ghosts start laughing at me.

I wasn't the only one. A co-worker happened to catch it at the beginning and thought that the two burning logs were the voices of Clarence the angel and God.
Apparently, this year's grand experiment caused all sorts of controversy with dedicated yule log watchers, who I guess were used to Christmas carols or something as the audio.

Me, I'm itching to catch this psychedelic Christmas show again next year.

2 comments:

Linda Morris said...

Had you Tivo'd it... you could have shared it with your friends.

kevrob said...

That wasn't the audio of the film version of IAWL that you heard, but the Lux Radio Theatre production.

See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/21/sunday/main4680366.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4680366&referer=sphere_related_content

Kevrob