Will Sloan, a film podcast host in Canada, first posted an outdated household photograph on-line in 2016, asking if anybody knew what cartoon was enjoying on the TV within the background. Oddly, no one might determine it out. But somebody lastly cracked the case on Monday after six lengthy years.

“My gf and her friends have spent years trying to figure out what cartoon (glimpsed in the background of a family photo) is from,” Sloan tweeted a couple of days in the past in his most up-to-date plea.

“Dozens, maybe even hundreds of people have seen this image but nobody knows what it is from. If you recognize this man, please tell me,” Sloan continued.

It seems the picture is from an animated TV-film titled “The Soulmates: The Gift of Light” and aired in 1991. Why did it take so lengthy to determine? It seems to be just like the film solely performed on TV simply as soon as in 1991, and solely in Canada, earlier than it was launched on VHS. And the videocassette launch was, once more, possible unique to Canada.

The unique photograph from Sloan was a snapshot the place the TV and no matter it was enjoying is clearly not the topic. But that’s what made the thriller much more fascinating. This piece of media was by some means each acquainted however utterly forgettable. It’s not like anybody was deliberately photographing the TV prefer it was displaying viewers an exclusive glimpse at Elvis or one thing.

And that photograph from Sloan has been shared a number of time throughout social media platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit since 2016, with many individuals completely satisfied they had lastly solved the thriller alongside the way in which. Sloan was solely capable of present a handful of clues concerning the photograph: It was in all probability taken in 1991 or 1992, actually in southwestern Ontario, Canada, and possibly round Christmas.

Many individuals instantly seemed to different VHS movies on a bookshelf within the photograph for potential solutions however that turned out to be a lifeless finish. Before final week, Sloan’s photograph most not too long ago went viral in 2019, when individuals on Tumblr began accumulating the wrong guesses for what the picture might’ve been from.

The one who lastly solved the thriller was YouTube person Joshua Rastia, who was tipped off by the YouTube present Blame It On Jorge, which not too long ago lined the thriller. It was solely after watching the YouTube present that Rastia realized he owned a duplicate of the program everybody was on the lookout for. Rastia digitized his VHS tape, importing the video to YouTube on Monday.

When the picture was nonetheless a thriller, several individuals have insisted it was from a present known as The Littles, however no one might produce a video clip proving it was truly from that program. Other individuals thought possibly it was the Smurfs or a TV industrial that includes the Keebler elves. But they have been all flawed.

This reporter even emailed a former government at Bohbot Entertainment after somebody on Twitter floated the idea the present might’ve been from a pilot TV episode that didn’t get picked up for a full collection. We by no means did hear again from them.

But wanting by means of newspaper archives, Gizmodo found this system aired on TV in Ontario at 7:30 p.m. on November 27, 1991, simply after Jeopardy and proper earlier than the sitcom Married With Children. The TV itemizing described the present as, “Two alien children with special powers arrive on Earth just in time to save Christmas.”

Other listings present the TV-movie could have been performed once more for viewers in Edmonton round Christmas in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

It doesn’t appear like the TV film performed anyplace within the U.S., a minimum of not below the title “Soulmates: The Gift of Light.” And it seems to be like the dearth of American publicity is what doomed this piece of media historical past to relative obscurity.

Canada’s inhabitants was simply 28 million again within the early Nineteen Nineties, in contrast with the U.S. inhabitants of 253 million. There have been merely fewer individuals who possible noticed this present than the common American cartoon, even when it aired simply as soon as.

The TV-film was directed by Chris Schouten, who labored within the animation division on films like Heavy Metal (1981), Anastasia (1997), and Titan A.E. (2000).The lead voices have been carried out by Al Waxman, who was in all probability finest identified for his function in the TV present Cagney & Lacey, and Sheila McCarthy, who had small roles in The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Die Hard 2 (1990). Waxman died in 2001, in keeping with IMDB, although McCarthy seems to nonetheless be working.

You can watch your complete 24-minute present, “The Soulmates: The Gift of Light,” on YouTube, a minimum of till whoever owns the rights tries to get it taken down for copyright violations. And in the event that they do, simply do not forget that copyright protections used to final for simply 14 years, for this actual purpose. The unique producers of the content material have had their time to revenue from this cartoon. Now it belongs to the web—our gigantic collective reminiscence. Or a minimum of it ought to.