Fans of the movie Elf , this one is for you.
All the little behind-the-scenes secrets about one of your favorite Christmas movies!
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Why, golly gee, it’s a gosh darn Christmas miracle, it is!
Buddy’s Song in Santaland was improvised.
If you hadn’t already guessed, the song that Buddy sings in the store was all improvised.
With lyrics like “I’m in a store, and I’m singing”, we’re not surprised it wasn’t in the script.
Jim Carrey was supposed to be Buddy.
I know it’s hard to picture Elf without Will Ferrell, but it was actually Jim Carrey who was initially eyed for the role.
This was because the movie was initially written in the ’90s, and after a while, Carrey must have lost interest.
While Buddy might be good at wrapping, Will Ferrell is not.
He said in an interview :
“I can’t wrap a present. You always know if you’re getting, you know which present is from me under the tree because I used like six rolls of tape, and the paper’s all bunched,”
Will Ferrell was once a mall Santa.
So he had lots of practice spreading Christmas cheer before he took on the role of Buddy in the Elf movie.
Funnily enough, his A Night at the Roxbury co-star Chris Kattan was his elf!
Baby Buddy was supposed to be played by twin boys.
Unfortunately, the twin boys lost their jobs as baby buddy because they wouldn’t stop crying.
In the end, the baby was actually played by three different triplet girls.
Director Jon Favreau used practical effects as much as possible.
This was totally refreshing , considering Hollywood tends to lean towards CGI effects more often than not these days.
For example, they used forced perspective to make Buddy and Santa look taller than the elves.
Ralphie from ‘A Christmas Story’ makes a cameo.
He plays Ming Ming , the elf who tells Buddy he has “Special Talents”.
I’m assuming he also got as many Red Ryder air rifles as his co-elves could make with their tiny hands.
There was a lot of improv on set.
According to director Jon Favreau :
“I never really asked Will to do anything specifically. He would always come up with a really exciting choice. He has very good instincts, especially with physical comedy,”
Some of the snow was CGI.
Not everything in the movie could be practical, unfortunately .
The snow in the opening credits was CG, and the snow during Buddy’s snowball fight was also computer-generated.
Not surprising, considering the Elf’s aim.
Some of the sets were constructed in an abandoned mental hospital.
Yes, really.
It was called Riverview Hospital , and specifically, it was the sets for Walter’s Central Park West apartment, Gimbels’ Toy Department and of course that prison cell.
Ooh, that’s creepy.
The ‘Jack In The Boxes’ were controlled by the director.
We all remember that scene where Buddy was testing the toys, the one ridden with anxiety .
Well, that anxiety was real, as Jon Favreau controlled when the boxes went off, actually scaring Will Ferrell.
Jon Favreau made several appearances.
Yes, you may have recognized him as the doctor in Elf , but he also played the Narwal in the stop-motion section in the movie.
He was also the rabid raccoon that Buddy encounters!
The Movie was supposed to be a lot darker.
At least according to Jon Favreau :
“I took a look at the script, and I wasn’t particularly interested. It was a much darker version of the film…So for a year, I rewrote the script. It turned into more of a PG movie from a PG-13. He was a darker character in the script I had read originally.”
The Santaland scene was almost filmed at Macy’s.
Macy’s originally wanted them to use their store, and even the parade .
The problem was that they would have had to cut the scene where the Santa was revealed to be fake… Macy’s Santa is supposed to be real.
