The Littlest Elf

The Littlest Elf is a claymation animated character from the 2004 film, "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". He is not a main character, but rather a "teaser" character.

The Opening

In the beginning of the film, the viewer is shown a bright-colored claymation setting that appears to be a meadow. The song, "Loverly Spring" is being sung in the background. The words, "Paramount Pictures presents" appear on the screen and in a moment, the Littlest Elf appears, wearing a pointed hat and having a wide smile on his face. Above him, the words, "The Littlest Elf(TM)" appear.

However, as the Littlest Elf starts dancing on the screen, the film soon changes to its actual self with 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 real live-action film then begins.

Loverly Spring

The song "Loverly Spring", which plays during the Littlest Elf scene, was written by film composer Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein. It is a very bright and cheerful tune, but only part of it is heard during the main film.

The Perplexing Puzzles

The Littlest Elf is mentioned several times throughout "The Perplexing Puzzles", a book filled with puzzles and activities based on the film. He is also 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.

Places Mentioned Throught the Books

Trivia

• In "Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography" Quotes shows a page from the book, " The Littlest Elf." It circles the 'Ring' Onomatopoeias in the story. This may state that the Littlest Elf was indeed a work of a member of V.F.D., using The Sebald Code, used by V.F.D. for codes. The Sebald Code is when every 11th word is part of the message, between the word ring.

• The Littlest Elf was mentioned in the "A Series of Unfortunate Events" book series as well, but it was in book no. 7, "The Vile Village", which was not part of the film. The elf was also a fairly unimportant part of the book.

• The Littlest Elf continued to be briefly mentioned throughout the movie: Violet Baudelaire accidentelly starts a "Loverly Spring" tape in a car, Sunny Baudelaire bites the head off of a Littlest Elf bobblehead, and Count Olaf says something about the elf when in the middle of one of his evil schemes.

• Only part of "Loverly Spring" is heard in the movie. However, the full song can be heard both in the end credits and in the movie's soundtrack.

Sources

• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (film)

• The Puzzling Puzzles(activity book)

• The Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events soundtrack(compacts disk)

• The Vile Village (book)