This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss archiving nostalgia, newsworthiness, and plans for 2025.
SAM: Between the four of us, we’ve written dozens of stories about archivists, internet archival efforts, and general attempts to save what’s ephemeral, whether it’s rotting links or literally-rotting magnetic tape in VHS cassettes.
Earlier this month, I was looking for costume (cosplay?) ideas for a “yuletide” themed Renaissance faire, and was trying to track down video from my favorite Christmas movie: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, a stop-motion movie from the 80’s by Rankin Bass. This is difficult for a couple reasons: the movie has an extremely generic name that’s also the name of the 1985 book by L. Frank Baum (the guy who wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) that it’s based on, and a remake in the 2000's that is nowhere near as weird or cool; the plot is nearly incomprehensible, and in my child-memory feels more like a dream or a nightmare, so it's impossible to put into a search bar; and it’s apparently not on any streaming service or YouTube, at least that I could find.