Midweek Mention... Elf

Elf

Dan: Elf.

Sidey: Yes.

Reegs: Have you got an elf on the shelf?

Dan: No,

Sidey: we have got

Reegs: Five.

Sidey: What? But we don't, we no longer have to do, go through the whole pretense. Yeah. They're just decorative.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. It was a chore. Yeah, right in there. Are

Reegs: We still got it. We still got the elf. Yeah,

Dan: we, well, we it was done in our house once, twice maybe, but

Reegs: the kids do like it, but I was just a bit like, God, another

Dan: it's

Sidey: if he forgot, then you had to like panic in the morning and trying to sort something out quickly.

Dan: It's all about the kids. It's Christmas.

Sidey: we had all different ones, different colored ones and different outfits and blah, blah, blah, and it's a lot. And my daughter made them a sleigh out of lollipop sticks.

You had to incorporate that into all the shenanigans. It was a

Reegs: Oh gosh. That it brings an extra level of like creativity and stuff.

So what could you sprinkle a bit of flower on it? So it's been in the

Sidey: crash it break it.

Reegs: Break it. Yeah, that's good.

Sidey: But this is elf the movie.

Dan: right? Yes.

Sidey: A John Favre joint.

Reegs: Yeah. Will Ferrell. [00:01:00] Yeah. As well.

Sidey: It's sort of a perennial favorite of people. I think these

Dan: And

Reegs: a modern classic, I would say modern, classic Christmas film, although I, when I say modern classic, it's 22 years old, isn't it?

So,

Sidey: it as old as that?

Reegs: it was 2003.

Dan: It was, it was written by David Burnbaum.

Reegs: Yes. Or Berenbaum?

Dan: No. And it also has James Cannon.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: Peter Dinkle. Mary Steinberg.

Yeah. Would be

Reegs: Zoey. Yeah. Dechanel not look looking very different

Sidey: She's got blonde hair in

Reegs: This, yeah.

Dan: And Bob Old Heart

Reegs: New Heart, yeah.

He opens the movie Daniel Does, which is a nice segue into that. Directly addressing the camera. He's sort of does his typical, like stumbling over his words style. Oh, you'll probably hear about the story type vibe. And he's gonna narrate the movie bookend. With the Adventures of Will Ferrell's Elf.

Sidey: Yeah, buddy. He, he

Reegs: talks about elf culture basically. There are only three jobs available to elves, making shoes at night, [00:02:00] baking cookies in a tree, which he says is a dangerous job. And you see the tree burst into flames. And the third show job, which is the big dance, working for Santa and making toys.

Sidey: That's probably the most prestige I would say.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: the big dance. Yeah.

Sidey: Something like immediately apparent about Buddy Yes. Is that he's not actually an all. Yeah. In fact he's Will Ferrell size human.

Reegs: Yes. Six foot three. 'cause Will Ferrell's a big size human as well, which is part of it. He

Sidey: he had crawled into Santa's sack at an orphanage. Yes. At a very young baby type age. Yeah. And been taken back to the North Pole

Reegs: and they christened him buddy because of his little buddy diapers

Sidey: Yeah. That he

Reegs: was wearing. Yeah. But yeah, it, it's obviously apparent to the elves very quickly that he's not one of them, but they treat him as if he is and

Dan: he acts as if he is, it

Sidey: gives you a, a chance to have lots of sort of physical comedy where he's disproportionately out of shape

Reegs: A lot of the sort of lord of the ring style, force perspective stuff going on here. Yeah. It's quite [00:03:00] amusing him in the shower and other bits and pieces.

Sidey: He is told the truth though, that he isn't one of them.

Reegs: yeah, well, 'cause he struggles with the basic elf tasks.

Really. He can only make 85 etcher sketches an hour or whatever it is. Which is way behind the thousand that you need if you are

Dan: a proper

Reegs: of the proper elf. And they hear and talk, they, I think, what do they call him? A he calls himself a cotton headed ninny muggins, which is

obviously a Shocking.

language for the elves.

So yeah, it, it's clear they have to tell him his real roots.

Sidey: Yeah.

And, and that's gonna kick off his journey to finding his birth

Dan: Finding Nemo.

different film. Yeah, he's got, I

Reegs: he ends up sitting on Bob Newhart's knee, isn't he? Like, he's the tiny elf sitting on his massive knee and he tells him the story. I think he shows him a snow globe of saying that's where your dad is.

And he tells him about Susan Wells, his parents, the real

Sidey: Yeah. She had died, didn't she? Yeah. And he had no idea that she had had a baby.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: So he[00:04:00]

Reegs: And Walter is now the dad. James Carnes will come to me. He's a big time like executive, but this is obviously, comes to a big shock to what's his job, don't it?

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Ferrell, he runs screaming Past the Puff in

Sidey: Yeah, yeah. I was giving like Pingy

Dan: No, I was just gonna say it's Walter, which is Buddy's dad, he works for a children's kind of book company, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. And as you said, he's a hard nose kind of executive.

He's not particularly got the Christmas spirit, so. Buddy and him always gonna collide with much ity.

Reegs: he's first, he's gotta get there. He is got the, he's got all those stop motion animation guys to chat to and then narwhal to wish him luck. And then

Dan: Yeah, he's

Reegs: going through the candy canes and all that.

And then he just comes out the Lincoln Tunnel. She's quite amusing and he sees a, I think the first thing he sees in the real world is a raccoon, isn't it?

Sidey: Oh.

Reegs: he's like, they're used to like, you know, laughing and singing and [00:05:00] with all the animals, with this one obviously just attacks him.

Sidey: Well, it's New York City. Everyone's gonna attack you. Yeah. He finds a, he sort of walks around his knee, he finds a cafe that says Best Coffee in the World. It's

Dan: He can't believe it.

Reegs: he gets run over by a taxi and then apologizes for it, which is quite neat. So yeah. Fish out of water type story now of Buddy the Elf

Dan: Have you ever been to New York dressed in an elf suit?

Reegs: Not in an elf suit. No,

Sidey: Okay.

Reegs: not New York. Sorry.

Dan: it's, not, it's not relevant then.

Yeah. So, Walter's Publishing Company is struggling,

Sidey: But

Reegs: Well, he goes to meet Walter.

Dan: Yeah, well, it's his

Reegs: and Walter, because he obviously, he's chasing his dad there via the scene where he flicks on every, every button in the lift. Yeah. And he then

Sidey: because it's done by state building,

Reegs: It's the Empire State Building. Yeah. They go, oh, I didn't give you a hug to that guy. He just looks terrified. So he goes off to see him and his dad thinks he's there as some sort

Sidey: a Christopher Graham. Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: So he just very matter of fact, all right, go on.

Do [00:06:00] do me a song or whatever.

Sidey: Yeah. And it has him ejected.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: When was the first time you had seen this? 'cause I haven't seen it for the pod here, but I have seen this film probably two or three

Sidey: Oh. I've seen it a good few times. I'd say five at least.

He, he get in this bit, he gets volley by his old man. He kicks out and he goes then to the department

Reegs: It's a, a Gimbals, which was a real brand that had gone bust in 87, but they filmed it in Macy's and it was all looked like Macy's know, sets but yeah, he ends up going in there. 'Cause they've got a Santas

Sidey: there. That's

Reegs: And

you know, obviously he feels right at home.

Sidey: I

Dan: Well, he is mistaken, isn't he? For an employee there, there's somebody's go where have you been?

Where have you? And he transforms the whole area into

o overnight

Sidey: of

Reegs: decoration. Yeah. Well, 'cause the store manager's like, oh, well Santa's coming tomorrow. And he is like, what? I Santa he's can't

Sidey: believe it.

Reegs: So he [00:07:00] is off all night making the decorations.

It just, when he catches the eye of his romantic interests. Zooey.

Sidey: Yeah. Jovi or something. Her

Reegs: Jovi, yeah. Something's like that. And next day, I think when Santa does turn up and obviously isn't him, you sit on a throne of lies. He ends up in a big fist fight. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: And is this where he gets thrown in jail and then he calls his dad?

And it's, you know, it, this is where I think they give him a, a DNA test so that we do actually confirm that he is

Sidey: we lock it in. Yeah, his dad.

Reegs: So he ends up sort of taking him home and meeting the family.

Sidey: Yeah. We get some good scenes of the food he likes to eat.

Reegs: The four sugar group. The four groups is like syrup, candy, canes, whatever it is.

Sweets.

Sidey: like a big thing of spaghetti doesn't he? With all sorts of like stuff on it. It's crazy.

Reegs: read about that scene? No. He vomited the first

Sidey: time.

Really?

Reegs: it. Yeah. So it did it on take two. But yeah, it's just load of spaghetti with like maple syrup and stuff and

Dan: Haribos and shit like Lovely.

Reegs: It

Sidey: He bonds with the [00:08:00] with the son because Walter does actually have an actual kid that he, that he does know about Michael, isn't he? Yeah. And he's sort of getting bullied or there's a snowball fight in the park.

Yeah. And buddy shows him how to win that

Reegs: Well, that's when he starts winning. Michael Round a bit, isn't it?

'cause he's obviously like a machine, like his arm

Sidey: is Yeah.

Reegs: Literally like

Sidey: he could just do hundreds of, hundreds of snowballs a minute. Yeah. Yeah. It just pounds those kids into oblivion.

It's great.

Reegs: Andy gets on with everybody else. There's a good scene where as his love interest is warming up with the Avi, she's singing in the shower and he's like joining in baby.

It's cold outside. And then until she realizes what's going on

he's sort of bringing her out of her shell as

Sidey: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: She's singer as well in

Sidey: She does, yeah. She's me and him. Is it me and him or she and him that she has a few records at that. Yeah,

there's a Christmas one actually. Album with them. Yeah.

Reegs: But like you were saying, Dan, the publishing company that he's working for is really struggling and there's this big wig, writer in town, Finch, is that his name? Walter? [00:09:00] Is it Finch? Something like that. Miles, Finch. And he turns up, it's played by Peter Dinkle. I mean, there's a, there's a few gems in this scene anyway, before it even starts where they're tossing around ideas like, oh, what about asparagus children who

Sidey: afraid of the

Reegs: of their wee

Sidey: or whatever

Reegs: and then Dinkle turns up and starts, you know. He's, he's all, he's like a sort of stockbroker or

Sidey: something. Yeah,

Reegs: like dressed like power.

Sidey: Is he march up down the table?

Reegs: Yeah. And he's like the big wig. And then obviously Buddy turns up and everybody's warming to him and it's all been all right. And then he turns up and he sees Dinkle.

He's like, oh, an elf. And obviously Dinkle does not take to this very kind is another fight.

Sidey: Yeah, it bats him.

Dan: oh, that's it. I, I think Walter then disowns him, doesn't he? Yeah. Pretty much says not having anything to do with you. And he, he writes that massive apology on a, on an

Sidey: sketch. Yeah, sketch.

Dan: Which is amazing.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: was you ever any good at an extra sketch?

Sidey: No. Awful.

It's

Reegs: impossible. Yeah. It's [00:10:00] impossible to do anything good on an extra sketch,

Dan: and then you just shake it off if you did anything good. And nobody would believe you. That's what happened to me.

Reegs: And then somehow it's sort of got a tie into a sort of spirit of Christmas type thing. Santa's

Sidey: it's quite a pivot, isn't it? Sorry, it's quite a pivot,

Reegs: Yeah. Just like a real leftfield turn. Santa's sleigh breaks down in Central Park, doesn't it? And

Sidey: but Walter, Walter quits to, to go and find buddy. Yeah. He gets sort guilted by his son, doesn't he? He does. Michael does it and yeah.

Then just for some reason Santa Slay is crashed in Central Park and the, it's, I always was led to believe that it was reindeer that caused it to fly. Or just magic,

Reegs: But this is definitely a new idea that is, 'cause it's in the Christmas Chronicles as well, that if you're not cheery enough, then Santa's sleigh can't fly.

Sidey: Yeah. So that's it. They have to the Slay Engine is powered by Cheer. Yeah. And so I really hate this ending. They have to sing a song. Yeah. And Jovi, Jovi kind of like cheer, you know, leads the [00:11:00] singing and it's, I don't like it.

Reegs: it, Santa Claus is coming to town. It's a good

Dan: Yeah. You bear, isn't it?

Sidey: Mm.

It's

Reegs: it?

Yeah. And that generates enough Christmas spirit to power the sleigh and Christmas is saved, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then I think we go to a kind of epilogue, don't we, with Bob Newhart again, picking up the story and telling us what happened to everybody afterwards.

Sidey: Walter and Buddy have got into business together.

Reegs: Yeah. They've got a book called Elf. Yeah. Which is written by Buddy. Yeah. Who's a big success now. And we see him reading it to some kids at Gimbals. And he's married Avi and they've got a daughter.

Sidey: Which they, they take to visit puppet elf.

Reegs: Yeah, they do.

We get some more sort of forced perspective hilarity at the end with the elves and the baby and the, her avi

Sidey: and, but a general kind of mega happy ending. Yeah.

Dan: It's not often you get these kind of true stories at Christmas, is it?

Sidey: No, it's nice to have some

Dan: Yeah.

It's still a classic, isn't it? Just listening back to counting some of those those scenes, [00:12:00] there's so many to laugh at at this, that it will be a Christmas classic for years to come.

You say it's 23 years old, but. We'll continue to watch this one in our house. So probably go on at some point over Christmas. Now you've seen it enough, you can just drop in and drop out any time. But it will still give you laughs. It does, you know, with the end bit. It, it does, maybe not.

Sidey: It's a

Dan: Finishes

Sidey: heavy on the mage,

Reegs: Oh, but it's a Christmas

Dan: but it's a Christmas movie.

Weeks. Yeah. And

Reegs: are certain things that you need at the end of a Christmas movie, isn't it? I mean, you could,

Dan: and some good news and happiness and happy endings is probably three of them

Reegs: All to all the way through. I it is charming because it's not cynical at all. It's just like, it enjoys the premise and it, you know,

Sidey: will ferrell's so good in

Reegs: a good performance. Will Ferrell, who I was like that about until this movie and then you think Okay. Right. He's funny, funny guy.

Sidey: Yeah. It's just like seeing a massive guy like that in the costume, you know, out and about on [00:13:00] location and you is just funny. Yeah. So, you know, it, it

Reegs: And then lots of good touches. I really liked the, the fact of the stock motion animation stuff that was in there.

Dan: the naral,

Reegs: that was John Favreau voice. That and Ray Harry Hausen. Actually the legendary animator was a voice, one of them as well, I think.

So All, all in all my, my kids had never seen this. This is the first year they'd

seen it.

Dan: really?

12 and a

half

Reegs: and nine and a

Dan: half. Okay.

Reegs: And both of them really enjoyed it. The eldest was into the sort of cringe comedy element, the sort of, of him and, you know, the other, the youngest enjoyed all of the sort of slapstick and the Christmas spirity stuff.

So I think that it, you can all watch it as a family and enjoy it is a good thing out of a Christmas

Sidey: for sure.

Dan: Strong

Recommend

Sidey: strong.