It’s one of the greatest holiday movies out there!
Here are 15 things you didn’t know about “Elf”:
1) Will Ferrell turned down $29 million to be in Elf 2 in late 2013.
2) Will Ferrell caused several minor traffic accidents when walking through the Lincoln Tunnel in his costume because people were so surprised to see him wearing an elf outfit.
3) On the last day of shooting in New York, the director, Will Ferrell, and a camera man drove around the city looking for locations to shoot. 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. Much of the montage when Buddy first arrives in New York was filmed then, like when he’s getting his shoes shined and jumping between traffic.
4) Will Ferrell’s reactions in the Jack in the Box testing scene are totally genuine. Director Jon Favreau used a remote control to manually pop the jack-in-the-boxes in order to surprise Will Ferrell.
5) The cotton balls Buddy eats at the Doctor’s office were actually Cotton Candy that had not been dyed.
6) Will Ferrell got a lot of headaches throughout filming, because of all the sugar he had to eat on camera.
7) Jim Carrey was attached to star as Buddy when the screenplay was first written.
8) Will Ferrell’s brother Patrick plays a security guard at the Empire State Building.
9) The scene when Buddy eats different candies and pastries with the spaghetti noodles had to be shot twice because Will Ferrell puked the first time.
10) The scene where the fake Santa is chasing Buddy had to be done in one take because it was too hard to rebuild everything.
11) Director Jon Favreau also did the voice of Mr. Narwhal for the movie. (“Bye Buddy. Hope you find your dad!”) and of course, he played Buddy’s doctor.
12) Director Jon Favreau drew Buddy’s crayon drawing of himself in the card he made for his dad.
13) Will Ferrell worked as a mall Santa before his career took off. His Saturday Night Live co-star Chris Kattan was his elf.
14) Some of the sets for Elf, like Walter’s apartment and Gimbals’ toy department, were built in an abandoned mental hospital in Vancouver, the same hospital where New Line shot Freddy Vs. Jason.
15) THIS is cool! The elf Ming Ming, who was keeping track of toy production in the North Pole, is played by Peter Billingsley, who starred as Ralphie Parker in the classic movie A Christmas Story.
