A YouTuber who runs a nostalgia channel has won a small victory in a dispute with NBC over the unauthorized use of his video on the “Today” show. Steve, the creator behind the Life and Sad Ending channel, had originally posted a tribute to the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog. Years later, he was watching the Sunday edition of the “Today” show when he saw a clip from his own YouTube video being broadcast without his permission. He contacted NBC to complain, arguing that the network should at least have given him a screen credit for the footage.
The network responded, and since then, NBC has added the Life and Sad Ending credit to the video, which now appears when it is aired. Steve acknowledged the gesture, saying it was some consolation that they finally acknowledged his work. The original video itself is a fond look back at the Sears Christmas catalog, often called the Wish Book, which was a holiday fixture for generations of American families. For children growing up in the 1950s, the thick catalog was a source of endless fascination, with kids diving in to browse the pages and rarely wanting to come out.
The catalog played a central role in holiday ritual. Families would flip through it to pick out gifts, and children would write letters to Santa Claus, including specific page numbers from the catalog so that Santa would know exactly which toy to bring. The Wish Book was so influential that millions of items were sold directly because of it. The tribute also features a version of the “Hallelujah” chorus accompanying scenes of families with the catalog, capturing the warm memories associated with the seasonal publication.
The acknowledgment from NBC has added a new layer to the story of the video, which had already found an audience online before it was pulled into the network spotlight.
