The A Series of Unfortunate Events books have gone from page to screen twice, first as a Nickelodeon movie in 2004, and then Netflix picked up a full adaptation of the series in 2017. Much to the delight of fans, the three season Netflix series closely followed the original story written in the thirteen books by Lemony Snicket.
A Series of Unfortunate Events is notorious for breaking the fourth wall. The series is driven by the personal narration of Lemony Snicket himself, and there are multiple instances when characters speak directly into the camera at the audience. All the episodes are filled with meta-references and Easter eggs. Some are easy to catch onto, and others are less obvious.
Nine Years
Count Olaf and Esmé discuss Madame Lulu in their tent at Caligari Carnival. Esmé has some jealousy toward Madame Lulu and asks Olaf, “If she's so good at fortune-telling, why does she live here instead of having her own show in the city?”
Olaf’s response, “I tried that for nine years. Look where it got me,” is a reference to Neil Patrick Harris’s work on nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother. Barney Stinson is one of Harris’s best-known roles, and he received four Emmy nominations for the part.
Dr. Faustus, M.D.
Klaus and Sunny disguise themselves as a doctor at Heimlich Hospital so they can find and rescue Violet. They bump into Olaf, who’s also disguised as a doctor, on the way. Klaus introduces himself as Dr. Faustus, M.D., who attended medical school in Oxford. Olaf laughs and says Oxford “sounds made-up.”
Louis Hynes hails from Oxford, England and put on an American accent for the role of Klaus Baudelaire. Olaf also tells Dr. Faustus that he looks “terribly young” to be a doctor, a nod to when Neil Patrick Harris starred as a teen prodigy medical physician in Doogie Howser, M.D. when he was merely 16 years old.
Growth Spurt
Something that all multiple-season TV series with child main characters struggle with is the inevitable aging of the actors. A Series of Unfortunate Events had the challenge of moving from season to season with two teenagers and a baby as main characters.
Season two picks up immediately after the ending of season one, but by the time production happened, Presley Smith’s (Sunny’s) growth spurt had become too noticeable, so the show decided to draw attention to it instead of ignoring it. Violet says, “I feel like we've been sitting on this bench for months,” and Klaus adds, “We've been waiting so long, Sunny's starting to look less like a baby and more like a toddler.”
Wait In the Car
Count Olaf and his troupe put on a show at Caligari Carnival, and they attract an audience by promising that one carnival freak will be fed to the lions by the end of the performance. During the show, two children in the audience ask if what’s happening on stage is legal.
The kids are Neil Patrick Harris’s son and daughter. Like a father, Olaf tells them that they can “wait in the car” if they aren’t going to enjoy the freak show.
The Pony Party!
While on the phone at Mulctuary Money Management, Mr. Poe holds up a book titled The Pony Party! and recommends it to Mr. Tamerlane. The cover of the book is designed in the exact same format as the original A Series of Unfortunate Events books.
The Pony Party! (The Luckiest Kids in the World!) is meant to be the polar opposite of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and it wasn’t created just as a joke for the Netflix show. It’s a real satirical book jacket for Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.
A Family Show
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny meet Jacques Snicket in the Village of Fowl Devotees. Jacques has been framed as Count Olaf, and Mr. Poe is convinced that Jacques is Olaf because of his distinct unibrow.
There isn’t enough evidence for the Council of Elders to throw Jacques into jail, so Mr. Poe demands that he exposes his ankle to the crowd and reveals the eye tattoo. Jacque replies, “Little racy for a family show, but sure.”
It’s Off-Book
After exposing Captain Sham as Count Olaf, the Baudelaires hop onto a truck heading to Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. Once Mr. Poe realizes that they are gone, he panics and says, “It’s a disaster! It’s a catastrophe! It’s off-book!”
This moment in season one is literally off-book from the original series. In the books, Mr. Poe takes the Baudelaires to the lumber mill himself instead of the siblings hitching a ride on a truck.
On the Lam
While running on the lam, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny stop at the Last Chance General Store in the Hinterlands. The man behind the counter seems to recognize them and asks where he’s seen them before.
The Baudelaires’ faces have been all over the local newspapers as wanted murderers, but instead, Klaus says they're child actors. Well played, Netflix.
Episodes and Seasons
The Netflix series repetitively refers to chapters in the Baudelaires’ lives being broken up like a television program. On the car ride to Prufrock Preparatory School in season one finale, Mr. Poe announces, “It’s the end of the season, uh, semester…” In the same episode, Count Olaf taunts the siblings, asking, “Haven’t you learnt anything this year? This week? This season?”
At the beginning of season two, Olaf refers to the events at Prufrock as a “batch of new episodes.” Jacquelyn is told that characters aren’t due to meet in a certain location until the end of the season. New plot lines are blatantly introduced as new episodes in the lives of the Baudelaires.
Long-Form Television
Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Uncle Monty are sharing Chinese food for dinner with Stefano (Count Olaf in disguise). Uncle Monty advises that they hurry up and finish their food so that they aren’t late for their trip to the movies to celebrate Stefano’s arrival.
At first, Stefano refuses to go with the family because he “prefer[s] long-form television to the movies.” He smiles at the camera to tell everyone watching Netflix that “it’s so much more convenient to consume entertainment from the comfort of your own home” and then turns back to the other characters.