The Littlest Elf
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The Littlest Elf is a reccuring theme in the macabre children's series A Series of Unfortunate Events. Its overtly cheery and fairy-tale stereotype is used in contrast to the dark and often woeful series.
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[edit] Character History
The Littlest Elf is a book about a “teensy-weensy little man” who lives in Fairyland and skips about having jolly adventures. He has jingle-toed shoes and spends his days singing and dancing with friends. The reader is often advised to read about him and his adventures rather then explore the lives of the Baudelaires who spend their days alone, scared, and often running from the law.
[edit] The Puzzling Puzzles
The Littlest Elf is mentioned several times throughout "The Puzzling Puzzles", a book filled with puzzles and activities based on the film and book series. He is the subject of some of them, including a "Mystifying Maze" in which one must help the elf travel through a purposely easy maze to the "pretty unicorn" at the other end, and a "Perplexing Picture" in which one has to rearrange a series of pictures featuring the elf in their correct order.
[edit] The Movie
The claymation film that the Littlest Elf appears in is at the very beginning of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The film opens with a bright-colored meadow. The words, "Paramount Pictures presents" appear on the screen just before the Littlest Elf appears, wearing a pointed hat and having a wide smile on his face. The words, "The Littlest Elf (TM)" appear above him.
As the Littlest Elf starts dancing on the screen, the happy mood is abruptly broken by the narrator Lemony Snicket (voiced by British actor Jude Law) saying, "I'm sorry to say that this is not the movie you will be watching. The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant...." The actual film then begins, which is in live-action rather than the claymation style of the opening.
The song "Loverly Spring", which plays during the Littlest Elf scene, was written by film composer Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein. It is a parody of "Let's sing a gay little spring song" from the film Bambi. Only part of "Loverly Spring" is heard in the movie. The full song can be heard during the credits and in the film's soundtrack.
The Littlest Elf continued to be briefly mentioned throughout the movie: Violet Baudelaire accidentally starts a "Loverly Spring" tape in a car, Sunny Baudelaire bites the head off of a Littlest Elf bobblehead, and Count Olaf says that the Baudelaires will not end up happy like the Littlest Elf at one point.
Though the magazine was not mentioned in the books or movie, the December 2004 issue of Nick Mag Presents had the Littlest Elf shown at the top of both the first and last pages.
[edit] Other
As part of a promotion for The Penultimate Peril, a link appeared on Nick.com advertising the Littlest Elf. It led to a page describing the fictional twelfth book in the Littlest Elf series, The Remarkable Resort, describing the book in terms that mirrored what was known at the time about The Penultimate Peril. The page highlighted certain letters to spell out a coded phrase needed to continue on The Penultimate Peril's promotional website.
Just before the The End came out, a button saying "the Littlest Elf" appeared on Nick.com and it directed you to a page about the fictional book, actually containing the name of Book the 13th in the Sebald code.[citation needed]
[edit] Sources
- The Puzzling Puzzles (activity book)
- The Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events soundtrack
