00:00it's crazy to think that this movie is turning 23 years old this year yeah I was just doing a
00:06re-watch on HBO Max and they put it in a category titled yes these movies are 20 years old
00:12and so why was now the right time to revisit the making of this movie
00:18uh I you know I didn't make that decision um uh Carrie Thornton who is the uh editor of
00:29Daystreet um she said hey I want to do a movie or I want to do a book about the
00:34making of Elf
00:35and I think Andy Richter would be a good person to write it uh and she was telling that to
00:39our
00:40agent and he said well I think we can make that happen so um it was kind of her call
00:45I didn't I
00:46wouldn't have thought I wouldn't have had the nerve to say I'm going to chronicle Elf you know um so
00:51she brought it to us and we said okay you know and it is good it maybe was maybe five
00:58years
00:58earlier would have been better because people's memories would be better uh because there was a
01:03lot and I mean for me personally I wrung out my memory banks for everything that I could remember
01:10from that um and and it was the same for everybody we talked to were like any more particular anecdotes
01:16and they're like look this is all I got it's 22 years ago well yeah there was a quote from
01:22I think
01:22it was Judd Apatow that was like I have no recollection of making this movie yes yes and we don't
01:28we
01:29there's no way to verify one of the producers says yeah I think because different people came in and
01:34this is a common thing especially with comedies they bring in a group of comedy writers to just do
01:40a quick pass and have suggestions bad jokes and one of the producers said uh Judd Apatow came in
01:47and worked on it and we I reached out to Judd he's like I have no recollection of working on
01:53that so
01:53he says he didn't but he might have and just doesn't remember you know I mean I wasn't even born
02:00when the
02:00movie came out so this is all right exactly yeah and Aaron coming into this project were you an Elf
02:06fan
02:06how much how familiar were you with the movie and kind of the making of it coming into this project
02:10when our agent said to me uh uh we have a book project it's about a Christmas classic I thought
02:15it was going to be Die Hard um I was a very casual fan of Elf I did not actually
02:21realize it was it was
02:22had such a fandom yeah uh then I of course realized that people go nuts for it when I tell
02:27people I
02:27co-wrote a book about Elf they go nuts like Buddy does when he finds out Santa is coming so
02:33now I just
02:33drop the fact that I am writing a book about Elf even when no one's asked when when Will Farrell
02:39showed up for the interview he was pissed that it wasn't Bruce Willis yeah it was weird it was
02:44strange awkward it was awkward yeah completely and the interview access you both got for this book was
02:50pretty incredible I mean the quotes span from Will Farrell who also wrote the foreword yeah to Jon
02:55Favreau and even the actor who plays the iconic mailroom guy yeah loved getting to see those quotes
03:00take me through your process of reaching out to these interview subjects how hard was it to get
03:04in touch with everyone and he's a super that was I that way I booked the interviews too um you
03:12know
03:12that was that was really like because I had access to everybody some people I had to you know talk
03:19to
03:19their manager and see if I could get their email and stuff there were other people that were they're
03:24just a matter of you know will and and a couple of the producers I I you know was friends
03:30with prior
03:31and continue to be friends with people were incredibly generous with their time a couple people said I
03:36don't do this but it's you so I'll do it so that's nice it's I guess it pays to have
03:43dirt on people
03:45and and it was it was it was really a fun process it was fun to get to talk to
03:49everybody was there
03:50anything that you couldn't include from the book or in the book or that you had to cut out throughout
03:54this process that's a good question I mean nothing that we're gonna tell you yeah I mean come on I
04:02I don't I don't want to pay lawyers um I think more discussion of sequels probably there's there were
04:10two sequel scripts written one was by Scott one was by Scott Armstrong who did rewrites who's a who's
04:16a buddy of Andy's who wrote like new line hired him he got paid a bunch of money and then
04:20the
04:20project just died and then the edge from U2 wrote a sequel of elf on his own and called one
04:28of the
04:28producers and say I want to meet with you and they never met and we've never seen the script yeah
04:33no
04:33one knows what happened and we need to find out what happened with the edges yeah Shauna Robertson
04:38said out of the blue yeah hey the edge wrote an elf too yeah want to meet with them and
04:42she's like
04:43absolutely and then it just never it never happened do you think the edge watches the decider or like I
04:49hope so
04:50we're gonna tag him come on come on we need the edge to like release the cough it up yeah
04:55I love it
04:56and there were so many like what ifs with respect to the making of this movie especially when it came
05:01to its casting how Chris Farley was originally up for the role of buddy the elf Gary Shanling was being
05:06considered for Walter Hobbs and Katie Holmes and Selma Blair were contenders for Jovi I guess what was
05:12the what if that surprised you the most while writing this book and looking back I guess none
05:18of those really did I I'm I'm happy that it all turned out the way it was and Chris Farley
05:23was just
05:24you know that the script was passed around for eight years before it settled at New Line and he was
05:29just
05:29attached to it for a moment and we don't have any way of knowing exactly what that meant and that
05:35you
05:36know and a good amount of the book is about that is about how close you know how close it
05:41came to
05:42the you know Bob Shea at New Line not writing a check to to start the movie so it might
05:48have happened
05:49because nobody was a sure bet everybody was fairly fresh and untested in terms of feature films and
05:56that's that was the days when there was a big difference there was TV and there was movies now it's
06:01all together to
06:03me what was interesting is not just that Selma Blair was considered for Jovi but it was because she
06:08was skateboards or she's well that was yeah because John wanted to have a skill of the actress be a
06:14skill
06:15of Jovi's right which is why Zoe and Jovi sing Zoe sings so Jovi sings and Selma skateboard so they
06:22were gonna have her skateboard a skateboarding Jovi what was your special talent showing up on time okay
06:28yeah yeah sure you know what a very essential it is yeah it's it's rare these days exactly and how
06:35many times did you both re-watch Elf in the process of writing this book I think about three for
06:42me I
06:42mean it's so different because he's in the movie yeah he was literally there I think I pretty much
06:48have it memorized it's also a very short movie yeah it's like 85 minutes long but I've also watched
06:54all the directors there's a there's a Will Ferrell commentary and a Jon Favreau commentary which they
07:02don't really do that anymore it's pretty it's pretty it's pretty boring yeah yeah thank sorry Will yeah
07:11sorry you've been so generous with your time yeah yeah your DVD commentary was boring and outside of Elf what
07:18are
07:18your go-to Christmas movies to watch during the holiday season well Die Hard is my favorite movie
07:24so I would say Die Hard is one and two for me what about you you mean Die Hard one
07:29and Die Hard two
07:30just watching Die Hard again I do both I do like Die Hard two and I'm sure Andy's gonna say
07:34the 1942
07:35classic no 1951 version of A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim there is a version of A Christmas Carol
07:43that's it's fantastic it's good you know I mean there's also this movie it's a wonderful life
07:49it's pretty good Christmas themed vaguely that's a good one
