Once upon a time, 20-something David Berenbaum moved cross-country, from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, hoping to make it as a Hollywood screenwriter. Though his family was Jewish, Santa still magically appeared every chilly Christmas morning when he was growing up. So the California heat that first December in L.A. made Berenbaum rather homesick.
To cheer himself up, Berenbaum binged as many Christmas movies as he could on VHS. Watching all of those holiday classics, including Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, didn’t just get him into the holiday spirit, though.
It also inspired him to write, at age 25, one of the most beloved Christmas movies of all time. But it would take nearly a decade between his first draft and the movie’s release to see his vision come to life.
That’s just one of countless fascinating anecdotes in Andy Richter’s new book, Elf Unwrapped: Behind the Scenes of a Modern Christmas Classic. Pulling together all of the untold stories behind the movie, he talked to nearly everyone involved in the unexpected blockbuster, including Will Ferrell (who wrote the forward), Zooey Deschanel and director Jon Favreau.
Actors Andy Richter (L) and Will Ferrell greet each other at the post-premiere party for Old School at The Highlands on February 13, 2003 in Los Angeles, months before the release of their movie Elf.Kevin Winter / Getty Images
When Elf hit theaters on November 7, 2003, Richter was best known as Conan O’Brien’s late-night sidekick. He landed the role of Morris, an employee of Buddy the Elf’s long lost dad, but he had no idea what a huge hit it would become.
After all, although Ferrell was a popular Saturday Night Live cast member, Richter said no one knew if he’d have enough star power as Buddy to sell movie tickets. Multiple movie companies dragged their feet on producing the movie. At one point, Chris Farley had signed on as the lead, but that deal eventually fizzled.
“I didn’t realize how closely this thing came to just not ever being made because, you know, Will was untested, John Favreau was untested,” Richter said. “And by untested, I just mean they hadn’t made anybody a big pile of money yet. It was touch and go for a long time.”
But they certainly proved themselves when the movie premiered. A cast that included Mary Steenburgen, James Caan and Ed Asner as Santa Claus didn’t hurt either.
Not only did Elf make a whopping $220 million worldwide, but it picked up steam as the years went on. In 2017, Ranker voters rated it “the best Christmas movie of all-time” and by 2022, research by YouGov showed two-thirds of Americans had seen Elf — tied with It’s a Wonderful Life.
“It took a few years before I really started to realize how important this movie was, how cross-generational it was — little kids watching it with their grandparents,” Richter told Parade.
“And then,” he continued, “it was maybe 10 years ago that I started to really go, ‘I think I’m in a Christmas classic!’ I mean, I’m in a movie that’s going to be probably watched for, well, who knows how long we humans are going to last!”
While catching up with the cast and doing research for the book, Richter said it became clear that Elf is so much more than a funny movie, explaining that it “does a lot of emotionally satisfying things, all at once, that a lot of movies don’t do.”
He pointed out, “Even the fact that Mary Steenburgen’s character, when she finds out that her husband has a son, goes, ‘How wonderful! let’s invite him into our lives!’ Pretty remarkable. In a lesser movie, that could have been like, ‘Whoa, I’m jealous! How dare you!’ Instead, it’s just openness.”
“And when you think about it, everybody accepts Buddy, except for his dad,” Richter marveled. “I mean, they’re all a little off-put by him, but everybody takes him at face value and accepts him.”
In 2025, Richter captured viewers’ hearts as he competed on Dancing with the Stars. As a non-dancer, he felt a bit like a fish out of water, not so unlike Buddy in NYC. It dawned on Richter that in the same way Elf reminds us all to chase joy no matter what, when or where, DWTS attracts millions of viewers for the same reason.
He explained that in addition to the joy of confetti cannons and sequined costumes, the show is “showcasing people at their best, where they’re really trying hard and scaring themselves with something new and exceeding, going further than they ever thought they would. There’s not enough of that out there, right?”
Richter’s Elf Unwrapped, co-written with Aaron Karo, is available everywhere books are sold. You can also catch Richter hosting the weekly Dancing with the Stars podcast that drops each Thursday on Disney+ and Hulu.
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