The title from this post is related to two books from Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” Netflix has made a series that is available to stream now. The first season covers books 1-4. A while back a movie was made that covered the first 3 books, but they had change it a bit to fit the story into 2 hours. While I liked the art direction and costumes in the movie, I thought it lost some of the charm of the books.
I love the Netflix version. I was trying to think about how to describe this show to someone who hasn’t seen it yet. The closest thing I could think of was taking Edward Scissorhands, the Harry Potter movies, the Sherlock Homes movies (the version with Robert Downey Jr.), and Sesame Street/The Muppet movies from the 70s; shake them all up, and you have some thing like this. I’m not going to say all the reasons why I think this because I don’t want to wreck any plot elements, but the way the movies look is similar to Edward Scissorhands and Harry Potter. You’ll notice this the most when you see one character’s topiary garden, the animals, and the school shown in the series. I mentioned Sherlock Holmes because there is a mystery element to this show and some of the characters are very capable with superhuman abilities at times. I added the Muppets in here because it elicits little kids to shout out to the screen when the adults are missing something obvious similar to some of the very old episodes of Sesame Street. In this version of ASoUE Count Olaf breaks the fourth wall quite a bit just like Kermit does in the Muppet movies. I can’t remember if any of the other characters do, but since Count Olaf styles himself as an amazing actor, part of his character may pretend/believe that he always has an audience somewhere and addresses them directly from time to time.
I think my favorite episodes are based on the Reptile Room, but I also love the set design in episodes based on the The Wide Window. The Wide Window is set in a town on Lake Lachrymose. It is a tourist town, but the children go there in the off season so it all looks a bit bleak. They have a meal at the Anxious Clown. They are offered Cheer Up cheeseburgers which I don’t think are shown on screen, but there is an illustration of them in the book. The children also have Cucumber soup in this episode. The cucumber soup in the show looks more like water with slices of cucumber, but I made this recipe which is not cooked (you’ll know why when you watch the episode). I have the recipe below.
Lake Lachrymose Dinner
1 chopped English cucumber
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp chopped dill
1 tbl fresh cilantro (coriander leaves in Australia)
splash of milk
Put all the ingredients in a blender until it is a liquid. Chill in the refrigerator for a few hours to overnight. You could also add some lemon or garlic if you want.
Reptile Room Dessert
The children are offered coconut cream cake in the Reptile Room episode. These are from a Martha Stewart recipe, but I chopped up unsweetened coconut flakes instead of using sweetened shredded coconut. The gummy snakes represent the reptiles in the Reptile Room, and little Sunny is about to play with the Incredibly Deadly Viper!
For more “A Series of Unfortunate Events” party ideas, take a look at my Pinterest board.