Who Is Netflix's Lemony Snicket, Anyway?

You may have stumbled across Lemony Snicket as the charismatic and well-tailored protagonist in Netflix's latest teaser trailer for Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events. But who is Lemony Snicket, anyway? The answer to that most pressing of questions is twofold, children. Firstly, Lemony Snicket is the pseudonym for real life American novelist Daniel Handler, who uses the pen name to write his children's books, including the bestselling A Series Of Unfortunate Events . It's a little more complicated than that though, I'm afraid. Handler has invented an extremely elaborate history for Lemony Snicket, who isn't so much just the author of the books as a part of their action and a narrator who enjoys nothing so much as interjecting.

From these interjections, we have deduced that he was once romantically entangled with a woman named Beatrice, who went on to marry someone else and who is the mother of the children A Series of Unfortunate Events focuses on: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. As such, Snicket's method of narrating the teaser is wholly appropriate for the series, since his doom-laden tonality is such a large part of the book's style. If you haven't yet checked out the trailer, then what are you waiting for?

Handler started writing as Lemony Snicket in 1999. Apparently, he originally came up with the name when "requesting materials from a right-wing organization for a book project" and resurrected it when asked if he might consider writing children's books. In interviews, it sounds as if Snicket isn't so much a pseudonym as a movement. According to Handler, he's devised a test to discern whether or not a child is old enough to enjoy "Lemony Snicket books," namely, "If there was a small child here who said, ‘Can I have one of those cookies?’, I might say, ‘One of those cookies is poisoned. We have no idea which one.’” If the child laughs, then they're ripe for Lemony Snicket's brand of dark irony, whereas, if they get upset, maybe the books aren't for them. Or something.

But if you're wondering who the actor is who plays Snicket in the Netflix trailer, I've got you. You might be thinking, hey, his face isn't so familiar, but that velvety voice is. Who is this guy? While actor Patrick Warburton has done more than his fair share of live roles (like David Puddy on Seinfeld or Agent T in Men In Black II), you'll probably know him for his voice roles. That delicious bass of a voice played no other than Kronk on The Emperor's New Groove and the paraplegic police officer with anger issues Joe Swanson on Family Guy. Basically, we associate that voice with untrammeled masculinity, which makes him the perfect candidate for telling the nation to never, ever check out Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Check out Warburton's vocal stylings in this behind the scenes video of The Emperor's New Groove — he's on from 2:10 in.

Is it me or is Warburton's description of Kronk — aside from Kronk's obvious intellectual deficiencies — not worlds away from how we see Warburton? "He's just sorta a big, sweet guy... he's really a sweetheart." Because, if you've checked out his Instagram, you'll know just how sweet Warburton is: he's a proud dad of four kids, and he makes sure the world knows it via his Instagram account.

But it's not just all about his kids. His siblings also get their moment in the spotlight on his account:

Heck, you don't even need to be related to this big softie. Even his TV family gets a shoutout:

So whether you're into Lemony Snicket the author, Lemony Snicket the persona, or Lemony Snicket-as-acted-by-Warburton, you should definitely inscribe the following date into your calendar: January 13, 2017. That's when the series is set to drop, and while it's a Friday the 13th, this sounds like it could be the luckiest date of the year if you're all about macabre comedy.

Images: Netflix; Netflix US & Canada; 7UpDoll/Youtube (2)