Elf Trivia | 40 did you know facts about the Christmas movie

What anyone could say about the”Elf” movie is that “it’s a classic”. It is one of the most popular Christmas movies, but how many things do you know about it?

December is here, and Christmas is only a matter of time. So, let’s find out more about the “Elf”!

1. Elf is a 2003 American Christmas comedy film.
2. It is directed by Jon Favreau.
3. Will Ferrell is the leading actor as… the elf.
4. James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Tay, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner costar along with him.
5. The film centers on Buddy, a human who was adopted and raised by Santa’s elves.
6. He learns about this and heads to New York City to meet his biological father while also spreading Christmas cheer in a world of cynics in the process.
7. Elf was released in the United States on November 7, 2003 by New Line Cinema.
8. From the early beginning it earned critical and commercial success.
9. It grossed $220 million worldwide against a $33 million budget.
10. Ferrell’s performance as Buddy the Elf was praised by audiences and critics alike, with many calling it one of his best performances.
11. It inspired the 2010 Broadway musical Elf: The Musical and NBC’s 2014 stop-motion animated television special Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas.
12. These are some of the reasons why it is often listed among the greatest Christmas films of all time.
13. Several minor traffic accidents occurred when Will Ferrell walked through the Lincoln Tunnel in his costume, because people were so surprised (and distracted from their driving) to see him wearing an elf outfit.
14. Will Ferrell turned down $29 million to be in Elf 2 in late 2013.
15. The scene when Buddy eats different candies and pastries with the spaghetti noodles had to be shot twice, because Will Ferrell vomited the first time.
16. The cotton balls Buddy eats while in the doctor’s office were actually cotton candy that had not been dyed.
17. On the final day of shooting in New York City, it was just director Jon Favreau, Will Ferrell, and a camera man driving around the city looking for locations to shoot.
18. They would jump out and ask pedestrians if they would be willing to be extras for some quick cash, while Ferrell paraded around acting like Buddy.
19. Much of the montage when Buddy first arrives in New York City was filmed then, such as when he is getting his shoes shined, and jumping between traffic.
20. Will Ferrell suffered from headaches throughout filming, as he had to actually eat all of the sugary foodstuffs in the Elf food pyramid on camera.
21. The scene where the fake Santa is chasing Buddy had to be done in one take, because it was too hard to rebuild everything.
22. The elf Ming Ming, who appears briefly in the beginning of the film, is played by Peter Billingsley, who starred as Ralphie Parker in the classic holiday film A Christmas Story (1983).
23. Will Ferrell’s brother Patrick played a security guard at the Empire State Building.
24. The apartment in which Buddy’s dad lives is the same apartment building (exterior shot) in which Dana Barrett lived in Ghostbusters (1984).
25. The film’s exterior of Gimbels department store has previously been reported to be a digitally altered view of the Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street in Herald Square, Manhattan. This is incorrect. It is actually 295 Fifth Avenue and 30th Street, also known as the Textile Building. Meanwhile, the Macy’s was only used for all of the interior scenes.
26. But it is true that considerable CGI work was put into transforming the exterior into “Gimbels”.
27. The actual Gimbels was the main competitor for Macy’s, with its flagship store located on 33rd Street in Herald Square, just a block south of the Macy’s.
28. The Gimbels closed in 1986, and the site is now the Manhattan Mall.
29. Mary Steenburgen who plays Emily, basically Buddy’s “step mom”, would go on to play his mom again in Step Brothers (2008).
30. Jim Carrey was about to play the Elf at first, when the script was written in 1993.
31. Zooey Deschanel performs three songs in this film. One of them is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, which she sings in the shower accompanied by Will Ferrell, and then sings again with Leon Redbone over the end titles. She later made an official recording with her indie duo She & Him, released on their album “A Very She & Him Christmas” released in 2011.
32. Plans for Elf 2 were scrapped because Will Ferrell turned down the role.
33. The name badge for the male toy store manager at Gimbel’s says Wanda.
34. The elves have a pitcher of syrup in their break room instead of coffee.
35. The 4 Central Park Rangers are spoofs of the Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse.
36. In the scene in which Buddy gets drunk in the mailroom with a mail worker, the mail worker laments “I’m 26 years old.” The actor who plays the mail worker, Mark Acheson, was born in 1957 and was approximately age 46 when the movie came out.
37. The director had a movie-cameo as a doctor, and the narwhal voice.
38. The scene after Buddy hugs the raccoon and exits the forest to walk down a paved forest road was shot on Paradise Valley Road in Squamish, British Columbia. The crew was in the area randomly searching for a suitable location, and were found trespassing on private property just as they finished shooting the scene.
39. Contrary to popular believe, Zooey Deschanel’s hair is not naturally blonde as seen in Elf. She dyed it for a project that was never released, and did her audition and screen test for Elf during that time frame. The studio did not want her to dye it back because they hired her based on footage of her as a blonde.
40. The Christmas tree being too big for the living room is a nod to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989), where Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) also uproots a tree with the Family station wagon that is too big for his living room.