Trivia / Elf

• Adored by the Network: Whoever has the television rights to it — first the networks of NBCUniversal, then Disney under their Freeform channel, and currently AMC — will definitely have it in a heavy rotation during the holiday season, as a well-loved modern-day family Christmas staple. It's also quite popular on HBO Max, as it's usually the first title that pops up on the service's Christmas selection.
• All-Star Cast: The animated musical has Jim Parsons as the title character, Mark Hamill, Rachael MacFarlane, and Max Charles as the Hobbs family, Kate Micucci and Gilbert Gottfried as Jovie and Mr. Greenway, and Ed Asner reprising his role as as Santa from the original film. What a crew!
• Blooper: Michael's skateboard has both trucks facing the same way. Skateboard trucks are supposed to face opposite directions.
• California Doubling: While most of the film was shot in New York City, parts were filmed in Vancouver.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Zooey Deschanel, the "She" of musical duo She & Him, gets to show off her singing chops.
  • That's also James Caan really playing piano at the end.
  • In the animated version, Jim Parsons gets multiple opportunities to show off his singing abilities as Buddy.
• Creative Differences: Will Ferrell and Jon Favreau had frequent disagreements about the tone of this film. Ferrell and his frequent collaborator Adam McKay, both of whom did uncredited rewrites, wanted a more cynical PG-13 comedy but Favreau wanted something more lighthearted and family-friendly. Ferrell's feeling that he and Favreau didn't work well together is why the proposed sequel never happened, despite this film being a huge hit.
• Completely Different Title: In German, the movie is called "Buddy – Der Weihnachtself" (The Christmas Elf), probably because "elf" by itself means "eleven" in German.
• Corpsing: After Buddy screams at having his finger pricked in the doctor's office, James Caan can be seen smiling before turning his back to the camera.
• The Danza: Leon Redbone as Leon the Snowman.
• Descended Creator:
  • Doctor Ben and the North Pole animals are played by Jon Favreau, the film's director.
  • Ming Ming is played by Peter Billingsley, who co-produced the film.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Miles Finch is played by Peter Dinklage, who has real-life dwarfism.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Will Ferrell really did consume the spaghetti-and-candy monstrosity that Buddy creates his first morning at Walter's house. All the sugar reportedly gave him a migraine.
• Harpo Does Something Funny:
  • The scenes of Buddy first arriving in New York City were entirely improvised. Will Ferrell was simply followed by the director and one cameraman as he interacted with passers-by in-character.
  • Amy Sedaris improvised the Newhart Phonecall when Buddy first meets Deb. According to the bonus features, she said something completely different to the caller in each take.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The apartment that Walter lives in is the same apartment building (exterior shot) that Dana Barrett lived in Ghostbusters (1984).
• Irony as She Is Cast: Walter and Santa are played by James Caan and Ed Asner, respectively, who were both Jewish.
  • From a director's perspective, the movie was directed by partially Jewish actor/director Jon Favreau.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Wendy's had a set of five toys in their Kids' Meals. There was a plush clip-on of Buddy the Elf, a Launching Santa's Sleigh with Buddy, a Christmas Cheer Meter, a Travel Checkers game, and a Fun Kit.
• Making Use of the Twin: Buddy as an infant was initially supposed to be played by twin boys who resembled Will Ferrell but were replaced by brunette triplet girls due to the fact that the twins were allegedly crying non-stop.
• Milestone Celebration: For the 20th anniversary, the Empire State Building unveiled Elf-themed displays and lighting, and also hosted special screenings of the movie inside.
• Missing Trailer Scene: There was a scene where Buddy was playing ice hockey with his elf friends which ends in him checking an elf so hard he flies into the stands. It was in every trailer. Suffice to say, it didn't show up in the movie. It did show up in the deleted scenes on the DVD.
• One-Take Wonder: The elaborate Christmasland display that Buddy makes for his first day at Gimbel's Department Store took hours to set up. As such, the hilarious, room-trashing fight between Buddy and the Mall Santa was done in only one take, as the producers didn't have time to recreate the set.
• The Other Darrin: In the animated special Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, the only actor to reprise their role from the original film is Ed Asner.
• Playing Against Type:
  • One of Will Ferrell's few roles that isn't a lecherous, Jerkass Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, from before that became quite so firmly cemented as his trademark. Also, one of Zooey Deschanel's few roles where she isn't a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (if anything, it's the other way around). Or brunette.
  • Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas has Mark Hamill voicing Walter Hobbs. While Walter isn't a saint, he's significantly nicer than the villainous roles Mark usually plays.
• Reality Subtext: Miles Finch's anger at Buddy calling him an elf reflects Peter Dinklage's real life refusal to play elves or other mythical creature roles that are typically given to actors with dwarfism.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Will Ferrell's brother Patrick plays a security guard at the Empire State Building.
  • Jon Favreau's son Max plays Buddy as a toddler sitting on Papa Elf's knee.
• Recursive Adaptation: The animated special Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas, which includes elements of the stage musical.
• Referenced by...: In I Wish You All the Best, Ben decides to come out to their parents as nonbinary after the family watches Elf, hoping that the feelings of happiness and togetherness will make them more accepting.
• Role Reprise: Ed Asner as Santa in Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas.
• Saved from Development Hell: The script was written and optioned as early as 1993, ten years before the final film was released. The first studio that optioned it wanted it to be a Chris Farley vehicle and when their option ran out, it floated around the industry for close to a decade before Jon Favreau got involved.
• Star-Making Role: This was the movie that proved that Will Ferrell could carry a feature, although he didn't become a full-blown star until Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy a year later.
• Stillborn Franchise: There was serious consideration for Elf 2 shortly after the film's release, but Will Ferrell was only willing to participate if a different director was chosen, as he and Jon Favreau didn't work well together. For contractual reasons, the studio said no and plans were abandoned.
  Caan: We were gonna do it, and I thought "Oh my God, I finally have a franchise movie. I can make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do". The director and Will didn't get along very well. Will wanted to do it, and he didn't want the director. He had it in his contract. It was one of those things.
• Uncredited Role
  • Peter Billingsley has an uncredited role as Ming Ming.
  • Will Ferrell and his future frequent collaborator Adam McKay did a few uncredited rewrites of the script.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In addition to Chris Farley, Jim Carrey was reportedly considered to play Buddy.
  • Garry Shandling was the first choice for Walter, but he turned the role down.
  • The store Buddy works in was originally Macy's. The department store chain actually signed off on this, but with one stipulation - Santa couldn't be revealed as fake. Since Jon Favreau didn't want to alter the script, he changed his mind and replaced Macy's with Gimbels, which in real life went out of business in 1987.
  • At one point, the story more closely resembled Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with the North Pole elves acting as All of the Other Reindeer to Buddy's Rudolph. However, it would have made Buddy trusting everyone he meets to be as nice as he is a harder sell (and generally too depressing), so it was changed.
  • The fight scene with Buddy and Miles Finch was going to be longer and more violent, with Miles slamming Buddy's head against the cabinets repeatedly before flipping him on to the table. Buddy would have also fought back by biting Miles while he's in the chokehold, and Miles tells Walter "Nobody bites Miles Finch!" before his angry exit. Jon Favreau decided it was too violent and had it trimmed down.
  • Wanda Sykes was supposed to play the manager of Gimbels but dropped out, the reason behind the Wanda name tag. She ended up playing the character for the first time in a December 2020 script read as a fundraiser for the Democrats in the Georgia Senate runoff.
  • Katie Holmes was considered to play Jovie.

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