So, this article mentions this:
"We looked at movies like 'Big' and 'Being There,'" the Favreau says.
"(Those were) movies with similar concepts that were played very real
and very emotional -- and they were good movies, not just funny
movies."
To that end, the director (who is most famous for writing and starring
in "Swingers") tried to give the movie an old-fashioned sensibility,
hoping to capture the spirit of Christmas classics past, in part by
using in-camera techniques instead of special effects to make
Ferrell's co-stars like Bob Newhart seem elfin in size and also by
paying tongue-in-cheek homage to perennial holiday favorites like
"Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" with his own
stop-motion-animation sequences.
But that isn't really a quote, per se. However, in this interview we find
"...so my pitch was to do it for a price instead of making it this big
CGI extravaganza we would sort of use the old fashion methods, make
the sets small, make it feel like a nostalgic, old Christmas movie,
make it feel like an old Christmas special, actually. Like the Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Rankin/Bass one. That was part of it. We
justified it creatively by making the world that Buddy (Will Ferrell)
came from was sort of this '60s TV special Christmas world."
I think it's safe to say that Favreau was trying to capture that nostalgic feel.
