Elvish Presley

Uh-hunh.

"Elvis" sounds a lot like "elvish" and looks a lot like "elves", making for a comedically useful stock pun.

The incongruity between the decidedly ethereal and long-lived elves and the earthy and very much mortal and hedonistic Elvis Presley arguably just makes it funnier. Of course, some versions of elves are earthy and hedonistic, in which case it makes an awful lot of sense. And sometimes this is all an act designed to let them steal human children, which just proves the Moral Guardians were right about that hip-thrusting Lothario the whole time.

His immortal supernatural heritage may be used to explain his "disappearance"; that is, Elvis is not dead, he just went to the Undying Lands.

Then again, sometimes there's no significance to it at all, it's just funny.

For some reason, no one ever makes these jokes about Elvis Costello. Perhaps it's because he doesn't have Presley's far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

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Examples:

Advertising

• An advert for Yellow Pages had a man at a fancy dress party dressed as an elf, surrounded by other people dressed as Elvis. He mentions that "[his] invitation definitely said elves, OK?"
• A UK Christmas card has a queue of Elvis impersonators outside Santa's workshop, while he says to Rudolph "What did you write on the want ad, again?"

Comic Books

• ElfQuest included one reference to "Elfis" at some point in a parody version of itself.
• The Elvis Impersonator Spellvis from Gold Digger isn't an elf, but his music is Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious to women.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures the Neutrinos from Dimension X are Space Elves and Greaser Delinquents with a love for Doo Wop, Jive Talk, and hot-rodded flying cars.

Comic Strips

• Murphy's Rules (a compendium of nonsensical rules, funny errata and other game weirdness) included Elvish Presley in a list of annoying NPCs for players to encounter (along with Sailbad the Sinner and Uselysses).

Fan Works

• In the Lord of the Rings Chilean parody "El Señor de los Ladrillos," the Elves became "the Elvis".
• In The Silmarillion fan fiction, the two greatest Elven musicians, Daeron and Maglor, are still assumed to be in the Hither Lands, and often presented as rock musicians. Though usually they aren't associated with any real-life musician (and if they are, it will be someone more recent than Elvis). For some reason they (especially Maglor) are usually depicted as penniless street musicians or otherwise total unknowns. In the original text elves are said to be able to essentially make multimedia presentations with their voices alone, because their powerful souls and minds are more closely aligned. This is sometimes depicted in the fan stories and sometimes ignored.

Literature

• One of the earliest examples is Emma Bull's War for the Oaks, where the rock band has Elvish lead guitar and bass players, and a faerie roadie.
• Discworld: Multiple:
  • In Soul Music, everyone keeps asking Buddy (a parody of every dead rock star, ever, but especially Buddy Holly as, you know, Buddy's real name "Imp y Celyn" translates as "Bud of the Holly") if he's elvish. (Which is worrisome for Buddy in certain kinds of company, because dwarves and trolls have a standing blood feud against elves.) At the end of the book, after he's saved from an alternate universe in which he dies in a carriage accident, someone comments that there's a new guy working in the chip shop, and she could swear he looks elvish. In the Animated Adaptation, he looks and dresses like Elvis.
  • A quick gag in The Shepherd's Crown, when the dying down of an elf's glamour and imperiousness is described as "the elvish was leaving the building".
• In The Dresden Files:
  • In Death Masks, Harry Dresden goes on a tangent on how more than one Elvis could be worded as Elvises and then notes how that sounds like he was talking like Gollum trying to say "Elves". Gentleman Johnny Marcone is more than slightly bemused and confused after hearing this particular tangent.
  • He also once accused Thomas of dressing too much like fat end-of-his-career Elvis. Thomas is a vampire, not an elf, but White Court vampires have a similar too-pretty-to-be-human allure.
• In the short story "The Return of the King" by Susan Wade and Don Webb, Elvis is an elven prince who originally came to Earth to try his hand at music. The fat, drug-addicted, dead Elvis from Real Life was merely a magical copy of the original Elvis, used as a Body Double to cover the real Elvis's return to his homeland.
• In Quantum Gravity, Zal, who is an elf does just about every genre of music, but is referred to as a rock star. And the incongruity earns him little love back home.
• In Esther Friesner's Elf Defense, one such elf is found to have once been a small-time rock star in the 1970s.

Live-Action TV

• In the Due South episode "Gift of the Wheelman", where the robbery suspects are dressed as Santas, the police accidentally round up Elvis impersonators for questioning instead of Christmas elves.
• In The Nanny animated Christmas episode "Oy to the World", Fran and Brighton Sheffield meet Santa's chief elf Elfis, being played by Niles, who briefly impersonates Elvis in his first scene.
• The 2023 RTÉ Late Late Toy Show had "Elfish Presley". A kid in elf costume and Elvis wig who gave out prizes to the audience.

Print Media

• MAD had a comic in which Santa Claus put out a Help Wanted ad for new elves, but it was misspelled and he ended up with a bunch of Elvis impersonators instead.

Puppet Shows

• Muppet Classic Theater: The last story is "The Elves and the Shoemaker". Rizzo the Rat exclaims "A story about Elvis?" Gonzo tries to correct him, but sure enough in the story, the elves all look and act like Elvis. And they make blue suede shoes.

Music

• Tom Smith did a rockabilly song called "Return of the King" about The Lord of the Rings Elf-descendant Aragorn chock full of Elvis gags and his usual atrocious puns.

Radio

• The Mark and Brian Radio Program gives us Elfis.

Roleplay

• Dorf Quest features "Presley", the Shadar-Kai bard.

Tabletop Games

• The Magic: The Gathering card Elvish Impersonators, depicting a tubby Elvish Elvis in a white sequinned suit.

Video Games

• Kingdom of Loathing has "Elvish Sunglasses." Among other things, they give you the "Rock Out" ability while you're wielding a musical instrument. The Mysterious Island Arena also gives you the Elvish effect for 20 adventures if you choose the option Try To Get Into The Music.
• In Discworld Noir, Lewton will say "Thank you very much" with an Elvis accent when a wizard informs him that glamours are "an elvish thing".
• In Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the player can grow Elvish Parsley.
• In World of Warcraft, one April Fools joke introduced the Bard class - a new hero class which would attack enemies via Guitar Hero minigame. Had this actually been introduced, one could have expected to find lots of Night Elf or Blood Elf rockstars Bards. As a Shout-Out to this trope, the Bards on the World of Warcraft announcement were Blood Elves.
  • Sig Nicious is an actual in-game bard of sorts, being the rhythm guitarist of the Warcraft mascot band Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain.
• My Sims Kingdom. Forest Of The Elves. One is your classic wood elf, the other IS A ROCK STAR!!!
• Serious Sam II has planet Ellenier, populated by Elvians. Just look at their King!
• In a bonus level in Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, there's a poster of a Christmas elf resembling Elvis named Elfis.
• Earthworm Jim: In the sequel, Jim carries a tiny, elfin Elvis in his back pocket. He produces and discards it in one of the idle animations.

Web Comics

• This Elf Only Inn strip, setting up for an elvish wedding.
  Woot: Then, as the music reaches a climax, you and Lord Elf will walk down this path, which will be carpeted with rose petals, to be married before THE KING!!!
  Megan: Goodness!
  Megan: This is very lovely, Woot. Thank you. But just to be safe, when you say "the King", you're not talking about a Vegas-style Elvis impersonator, are you?
  Woot: Uh, of course not.
  Herman: [dressed as Elvis] That's not what you told me.
  Woot: Herman, I distinctly said "ELVISH" impersonator.
  Megan: *sigh*
• Rusty and Co.: "Level 8: #79" has a character making a not-so-subtle jab at Roxy, the elf bard:
  The Viscount: Oh come now, my dear! Are you an Elvish performer, or merely an Elvish impersonator?

Western Animation

• Larry's silly song in VeggieTales's Lord of the Rings parody had him dressed as Elvis (and emulating his style) while singing a song about being in love with a girl who speaks Elvish. The reaction from the Legolas parody? "You're not a real elf! You're an Elvish Impersonator!"
• Melfis, the leader of the Elves in the videogame of Faxanadu was in two episodes of Captain N: The Game Master. He shared some facial features (not to mention the wardrobe) of the singer, but with blue skin. Well, his face was blue. Everything from the neck down was white.
• The ChalkZone Christmas Episode "When Santas Collide" depicted the head Christmas Elf as an Elvis Presley lookalike named General Elvis, who was voiced by Jess Harnell doing an impression of Presley.
• Beany and Cecil surely had one of the very first instances with "Elfis" in the episode "So What and the Seven Whatnots".
• One of the MCs of a fashion show in the Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders episode "Fashion Fever" was the diminutive "Elvis Elf." He reappears in "Trouble in Elftown" as the proprietor of a footwear store that appears to specialize in blue suede shoes.

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