Man Dresses Up Like Will Ferrell's Elf To Meet Biological Father, Who Hadn't Seen The Movie

A Maine man recreated the scene from Jon Favreau's modern classic Christmas movie Elf, dressing up like an elf and greeting his biological father with a song when meeting for the first time.

Doug Henning, who is in his 40s, met his biological father, Raul, for the first time recently at Boston's Logan Airport dressed up like Will Ferrell's Buddy the elf, but unfortunately for him, his dad hadn't seen the movie and didn't get the joke. Still, it sounds like a pleasant encounter in the Boston.com report.

From the report:

"As Raul, Henning's father, strode toward him at the airport, Henning broke into Buddy's familiar song about father and son finding each other. He couldn’t get the whole thing out before Raul wrapped him in a hug.

“When he came out of the airport, he probably thought I was a lunatic,” Henning said. “It was a really good way to break the ice."

In the movie Elf, Buddy grew up on the North Pole in Santa's village. In this story, Henning was raised by his adoptive parents, but he was interested in learning more about his life, so he used Ancestry.com to get answers.

A cousin eventually sent him an email, and connected him with one of his biological sisters. This sister then put him in touch with his father, who, like James Caan's character in Elf, did not know he had a son.

Everyone involved got a COVID-19 test, and then Raul got onto a plane to visit Henning in Boston where they had the meet-up. As it happens, Henning had only seen Elf just days before meeting his father; watching the film prompted him to dress up to recreate the scene.

Check out the full story at Boston.com, and be sure to watch the video there, too, as it may warm your heart.

2003's Elf was a big success at the box office (it earned $223 million at the global box office against a $33 million budget), and it's always very popular around the holidays, but a sequel was never made. According to Caan, Ferrell and Favreau clashed, and this is one of the reasons why the sequel never got off the ground.