Anyone who isn’t a cotton headed ninny muggins (sorry for the language) knows that Will Ferrell’s Elf is a wonderful Christmas film that’s fun for all the family… but could it be linked to another film in Will’s filmography?
The obvious answer is of course, no. But one keen-eyed and slightly delusional fan believes he may have linked the sweet and heartfelt Elf with the lewd and crude Step Brothers.
Now anyone who’s seen both these great films will know there’s as much chance of them being linked as Buddy the Elf being on the naughty list, but Twitter user @BarstoolTrent believes Elf is a prequel to Step Brothers.
His rationale? That Mary Steenburgen plays Ferrell’s characters’ mother (technically stepmum in Elf but whatever) in both movies and that in Elf Buddy gets a warmer welcome from his step-mum than from his bio-dad James Caan.
He explained:
So last night I was doing what I do every December and watching Elf on a loop when I had this thought. What if Buddy’s step mom in Elf divorced James Caan, got custody of Buddy, renamed Buddy to Brennan, remarried and that’s Step Brothers?
If though, like myself, you’re thinking ‘but Buddy’s called Buddy not Brennan’, well @Barstool hypothesises that the elf’s stepmum changed his name, as ‘Buddy’ was just a brand of diaper not his real name.
Of course despite their being a few Santa sized holes in the theory people on Twitter went along with it…
Barstool rounds off his theory with a few more coincidences he manages to weave together into a semi-believable narrative. Well semi-believable in as much it’s not written on the wall in shit.
Basically he noticed the brothers in both films looked similar…
Still not convinced? Me either, but maybe Barstool can convince you with the similarities between Buddy and Brennan.
He writes:
One of the strongest pieces of evidence. Both Buddy and Brennan are amazing singers and their pipes are proudly displayed in each movie.
It’s mentioned in Step Brothers that Brennan recently worked at PetSmart which means he loved animals enough that he wanted to be around them everyday for his job.
You know who else loves animals? Buddy the Elf.
His final piece of evidence is that both characters refuse to grow up, which kind of ignores that that’s basically Will Ferrell in every movie he’s ever done.
To take a leaf out of the Film Theorist’s book (check out his YouTube here) we ran the numbers to see if it’s possible that Buddy and Brennan are the same character?
If we hypothesise, as Barstool did, that Elf takes place in the year it was released, 2003, then Buddy is 30-years-old during the events of the movie as he was in the orphanage in 1973.
Brennan is specifically said to be 39-years-old at the beginning of Step Brothers, despite the film being set in 2008, this means ‘Buddy’ would have had to of aged an extra four years in between both films, which is impossible, barring elf magic?
But hey that’s just a theory and I hate fan theories…
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.