How Elf Became a Modern Christmas Classic
/Hint: It’s all thanks to Rankin/Bass.
source: New line cinema
Every year, the same Christmas movies make their rotations on cable television channels in addition to the dozens of new Hallmark movies made every year; but one always stands out as a classic that my family and I watch over and over again.
My parents, the SNL buffs that they are, rented Elf from out local Blockbuster to watch for family movie night. It was Will Ferrell’s first big film after leaving SNL and they figured it would be appropriate for their 6-year-old daughter to watch. Little did they know I’d grow up to watch it every December at school and always find it lurking on cable after Home Alone and before Love, Actually.
Elf was released on November 7th, 2003, although the script was written a decade prior by David Berenbaum.
It tells the story of Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell) who made his way to the North Pole as a baby when he accidently crawled into Santa’s sack. The elves take him in as one of them. He is adopted by Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), who later tells Buddy where he came from - New York City.
Buddy sets off from the North Pole to New York City in hopes to find his father, Walter Hobbs (James Caan). There he meets his first love Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) who helps him navigate human life and to ultimately save Christmas.
It was picked up by director Jon Favreau (The Mandalorian, Marvel’s Happy Hogan), who in a 2013 Rolling Stone interview, shared how he came to pick up a Christmas movie: “I remember reading it, and it clicked: if I made the world that he was from as though he grew up as an elf in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, one of those Rankin/Bass Christmas specials I grew up with, then everything fell into place tonally.”
source: rankin/bass animated entertainment
Favreau was really interested in drawing inspiration from Rankin/Bass’s 1964 animated movie Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This is another film that makes its television rotation every year and rightfully so.
The claymation inspired by Robert L. May’s 1939 story of the same name featured Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman, who narrates the story of Rudolph. Rankin/Bass used stop-motion animation to create one of the most heart-warming Christmas specials in television history.
This was my favourite Christmas special growing up and it still is today. I always love hearing Burl Ives’s voice around the holidays and the aesthetically pleasing imagery is engulfing.
It was important to Favreau for this film to look like something out of a Rankin/Bass studio to recreate that classic, Christmas feeling.
From there, production began and decisions were made in how to make this early 2000’s Christmas comedy resemble a nostalgic childhood animated special.
The first notable comparison is in the character appearances. Buddy wears a similar ensemble to Elf Foreman in the claymation – a pointy hat with a yellow ribbon, a green, fur-lined coat, yellow tights, and curly-pointed toe shoes. In fact, all the elves in Elf dress like the elves in Rudolph. Others wear blue and pink like Hermey the elf who wants to become a dentist. At the end, when Jovie and Buddy live at the North Pole, she wears a fully pink outfit like the female elves in the Rankin/Bass special.
There are also notable character comparisons besides the characters. In building the North Pole scenes for Elf, set designers took more inspiration from Rudolph. When the elves are inside the workshop building toys, they are in a similar, grey-wooded building that the elves in the Rankin/Bass work in.
For the snow covered North Pole, a real set was created for actors to film on. It was snowy and white, covered in Christmas trees like in the claymation.
These little details made Elf such a memorable film for those who grew up watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but production didn’t stop there.
Favreau also wanted to incorporate elements of stop-motion and old-school techniques: “We didn’t have a tremendous amount of dough. Part of the pitch, to make it a Rankin/Bass world and not a big CGI extravaganza – part of it is my aesthetic. I like the techniques and technologies used when I was growing up. It feels timeless.”
Stop-motion was used in the opening sequence as a storybook flips pages to reveal the cast and production crew. The penguin ‘Artic Puffin’ makes an appearance here and later along with the other puppets, polar bear, the walrus, and Mr. Narwhal who talk to body and wish him good-bye when he sets off for his journey to New York.
A part of the gag of Elf is that Will Ferrell is huge next to the elves, but believe it or not, no CGI was used to create this illusion. Instead, Favreau reveals that forced perspective was used: “The forced perspective is where you build two sets, one smaller than the other. One set is raised and closer and smaller, and one is bigger and further away. And if you line up those two sets and measure them, you can have one person on one set appear to be much larger than a person on the other set.”
source: new line cinema
Avoiding CGI and opting in for classic film and animation techniques worked in this film’s favour - it made Elf a timeless piece. The stop-motion, large-scaled sets, and costume design played a special homage to Rankin/Bass that also makes this film nostalgic for those who grew up with the Rankin/Bass Rudolph.
Now, only 14 years later, Elf is on everyone’s television screen this Christmas. It is available to stream on Crave, but keep an eye out if you have cable; it will most likely be on a different channel everyday leading up to Christmas.
Sarah Travis
Sarah is a second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. When she’s not in zoom classes, she’s either making coffee for the green siren, or at a thrift store.
