Well “Son of a nutcracker! Will Ferrell’s “Elf” gets plenty of laughs with audiences — but co-star James Caan found the “Saturday Night Live” alum to be anything but funny while on set. 

Will Ferrell admits he was a bit of a cotton-headed ninny- muggins on the set Elf. Recently he shared that his late costar James Caan often got fed up with his jokes on the set of the 2003 holiday film.  “In between setups, he’d be like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny”.

But that dynamic wound up working out for the film, considering James played the grumpy biological father to Will’s Buddy the Elf character. 

“He was like, ‘I’ve got to tell you, I thought everything you were doing while we were filming was way too over the top. Now that I see it in the movie, it’s brilliant,’” Will remembered. “That was so funny.”

Ferrell also shared that yes, he ate spaghetti with syrup every day while filming/ to stay in that sugar buzzed Elf character! Can you imagine anyone other than Ferrell playing Buddy? Well, he wasn’t the first choice. Find out more Elf fun facts here: James Caan Didn’t Think Will Ferrell Was ‘Funny’ on ‘Elf’ Set (indiewire.com) And I say remember that not just anybody could have pulled off that costume! Buddy’s iconic costume was modeled off of the elves from the 1964 Rankin/Bass film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.