Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas (2014)

This cynical cash in animation short basically retells the story of Elf, the Will Ferrell film without any of the charm and many of the cast from the original film.Ed Asner does reprise his role to voice Santa who tells the grown up Buddy who thinks he is an Elf in the North Pole that he is actually human who stowed away in Santa's bag as a baby.His real dad is Walter Hobbs living in New York who has been on the naughty list for years.Buddy travels to see his father who works at a publishing company with a horrid boss. Walter is taken aback at first to see this grown up infant but Buddy's relentless cheer transforms him and when Santa comes to deliver presents the curmudgeonly Walter gets the festive fever.Because this is labelled as a musical we have to put up with some mind numbingly dull songs. Even the animation is not much to shout home about.It would be just be better to put the Ferrell film on.

Calm down, people. It's okay if you don't like this special. Don't worry, you have every right not to like this, you just gotta believe that there are a lot of Christmas specials out there that are WAY worse than this. I mean, sure; It's not the best Christmas special of all time, and it's not nearly as good as the 2003 film with Will Ferrell, but that doesn't REALLY mean it's the world's worst Christmas special. The reason why it's practically like this is that, in case you didn't know, Elf (2003) had a Broadway musical back in 2010. It was called "Elf: The Musical". I have not seen that musical, but it's actually good. I like this special, because it had great songs, nice animation, hilarious voice acting, an interesting story, and likable characters. Though, I'll admit, the scene where one elf was all like "ALL THE TAHHME!!!!!" is kind of creepy, but this special as a whole is not the Christmas special from hell. Wanna know what's the REAL worst Christmas special of all time? Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is worse than this, Eight Crazy Nights is worse than this, The Christmas Tree (1991) is not only worse than Buddy's Musical Christmas, but THAT special is the second worst Christmas special of all time, where as Rapsitti Street Kids: Believe in Santa is the world's worst Christmas special of all time. Personally, I'd prefer to stick to this special than Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. If you don't like this, that's okay, just believe that there are a lot worse Christmas specials out there than this.

Whyyyyy? Terrible Rehash of the original. They took funny gags and lines and beat them to death. Nothing at all fresh.And the songs sounded like someone beating a cat against a mailbox. So many things could have been done to make it as fun as the first. I was excited when I read Ed Asner was involved but now I am sorry he was.How about Walter,Emily and Michael go visit Elf and Movies new baby for Christmas. Miles finch and Morris and Eugene and they see who can write a better Christmas book. Mailroom dude works in the toy factory. Anything other than this. I guarantee this will not become a classic. I'm trying to come up with any positives but it's not happening.

Christmastown in the North Pole is a really happy place. Buddy is the happiest one of them all and really really accident prone. Santa tells him that he is actually human who stowaway in Santa's bag as an orphan baby. His father is Walter Hobbs living in NYC who's been on the naughty list for over 50 years. He travels to see his father who works at Greenway Publishing. He's thrown out of his father's office. Then he meets and falls for Jovie who's ringing the donation bell on the street.The first song is funny. I hoped that the special would continue like that but it never gets back to that level. Jim Parsons is a great cartoon voice but completely different than Will Ferrell. He sounds a bit like Jack McBrayer. Buddy keeps the show rolling. However the other songs aren't that much fun or catchy. They sound like the usual Broadway fare. The animation looks charming. They do change a few things from the movie. I wish the changes could have made the second half better.