Gunther

“	Pretty lady, why don't you eat here with your boring husband? I'll take the children to the herring restaurant for kidnapping. I mean hors d'oeuvres.	”
	— Gunther to Esmé Squalor, "The Ersatz Elevator: Part One"

Gunther is Count Olaf's disguise in The Ersatz Elevator.

Usage

He is a pinstripe-suit wearing auctioneer. He pretends to come from another country so people believe that he doesn't speak fluent English. Olaf constantly says "please" after and in the middle of every sentence. This is also done by Madame Lulu. He wears horse riding boots to cover up his tattoo, and a monocle to distort his eyebrow. Esmé Squalor was aware of Count Olaf's identity due to being trained by him.

Count Olaf's identity is revealed when he slips on a doily and his boots and monocle come off. He and Esmé run out of the auction hall and the audience that tries to chase them get into a hopeless tangle when slipping on the doilies and tumbling down.

TV Series

Gunther appears straight away when the Baudelaires open the windows to let light in. He then attempts to kill Jerome Squalor by cutting the chandelier rope but Klaus saves him. They go to a restaurant called Herring Houdini and Olaf's associates give Jerome a sleeping potion. Gunther performs a musical number called "Keep Chasing Your Schemes" at the request of Larry the Waiter.

Back at the penthouse, Esmé pushes the children down the elevator shaft. The two of them dance and then they go to the auction. He gets angry when the children fool his plan so he and Esmé fun away and drive off.

Gunther wears sunglasses to cover his eyebrow, knee-high boots to cover his tattoo and fingerless gloves. He has a cane (the same one Georgina Orwell had) and he wears a pinstripe suit. He also has white hair in a ponytail.

Quotes

Books

TV Series

"Pretty lady, why don't you eat here with your boring husband? I'll take the children to the herring restaurant for kidnapping. I mean hors d'oeuvres."
"You can sleep it off on way home please. Time to hurry to penthouse to make sure nothing has been stolen during afternoon."
"The auction, please, has started. As you can see, Lot Número One-o is a wanted poster for notorious good-looking villain named Count Olaf."
"We proceed as normal, please, to the crying of Lot 49."

Trivia

In the Netflix show, Gunther uses "Please" considerably less.

About Gunther

"Gunther's look was inspired by Karl Lagerfeld. For the accent, I mostly tried for German, but I didn't really choose a specific town. I kind of went all over the Eurorail." - Neil Patrick Harris on Gunther.

Appearances

Books
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Books)
1. The Bad Beginning (1999):	Absent	7. The Vile Village (2001):	Absent
2. The Reptile Room (1999):	Absent	8. The Hostile Hospital (2001):	Absent
3. The Wide Window (2000):	Absent	9. The Carnivorous Carnival (2002):	Absent
4. The Miserable Mill (2000):	Absent	10. The Slippery Slope (2003):	Absent
5. The Austere Academy (2000):	Absent	11. The Grim Grotto (2004):	Absent
6. The Ersatz Elevator (2001):	Debut	12. The Penultimate Peril (2005):	Absent
13. The End (2006):		Absent
All the Wrong Questions
Who Could That Be at This Hour? (2012):	Absent	Shouldn't You Be in School? (2014):	Absent
When Did You See Her Last? (2013):	Absent	Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? (2015):	Absent
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (2014):		Absent
Snicketverse
Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography (2002):		Absent
The Dismal Dinner (2004):		Absent
The Beatrice Letters (2006):		Absent
29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy (2014):		Absent
The Hero of the Story (2017):		Absent
Poison for Breakfast (2021):		Absent
Other Snicket Books
The Baby in the Manger (2002):		Absent
The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming (2007):		Absent
The Lump of Coal (2008):		Absent
The Composer Is Dead (2009):		Absent
13 Words (2010):		Absent
The Dark (2013):		Absent
Goldfish Ghost (2017):		Absent