Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * And many people leave it on for a long time, with or without sound. “The strength of it is that it’s not intrusive,” Park said. “It’s not in your face. It’s in the background and people like that.” There are three different logs-a-burning this year, shot in three different cities. One is silent, one crackles, and the Edmonton version has a background of Christmas music.
While the idea first ignited in New York City in 1966 as a treat for apartment dwellers, Park said it arrived in Edmonton in 1986 when employees of the local community channel were overworked and were looking for a way to get some days off before Christmas. The manager asked them for ideas of how to do that and keep the channel on the air, and one of the employees came up with the burning log.
“It was a way to give the staff some time off, but we got such a response that the next year it was back, and the rest is history.” This year, they extended the time period because they view it as more than just a Christmas feature, but a seasonal program for this dark, cold time of year. Some people watch it carefully, he said. Shaw gets calls from folks who want to know whose hand is holding the poker that adjusts the logs.
In New York WPIX-TV first aired a loop for three hours on Christmas Eve, accompanied by easy listening seasonal music by the likes of Percy Faith and Montovani. The original 17 seconds of burning log was filmed in glorious 16-mm celluloid at the Gracie Mansion, the official home of then- New York mayor John Lindsay.