A 43-year-old man who dressed and sang as Buddy from Elf to meet his biological dad for the first time says his father must have thought he was a "lunatic" after admitting he had never seen the film.
Doug Henning decided to dress as Will Ferrell's iconic character, who also travels to meet his own father, when they arranged to meet at Boston's Logan Airport.
A hilarious video shows the moment the pair are reunited for the first time, and Doug breaks into song just as Buddy does when he meets his dad for the first time, bouncing up and down while shouting: "I'm here, with my dad, and we've never met, and I was adopted, but you never knew I was born.
"But now you found me, and you're here, and guess what? I love you, I love you, I loooove you."
Confused dad Raul embraces him to put an end to the song, saying "Oh my son, my boy" as others cheer in the background.
It was only once the excitement had settled down that Doug found out his dad had never seen the movie and had no idea what was going on.
"When he came out of the airport, he probably thought I was a lunatic," he told Boston.com.
"It was a really good way to break the ice. We ultimately sat down as a family and watched the movie."
Doug, from Maine, US, says he grew up with an "amazing" set of adoptive parents, but was recently linked with his dad through Ancestry.com, who never knew about his son.
The pair exchanged contact details and had been keeping in touch via Zoom during the pandemic but were yet to meet.
Doug is married and has two daughters, and is the first of Raul's offspring to have children of their own, meaning he also became a grandfather for the first time.
Days before they were finally able to meet, Doug watched Elf and says he got the idea to recreate the scene and bring a bit of comedy to the reunion - but never expected his dad not to get the reference.
