List of fiction that breaks the fourth wall

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The following is a list of examples of fiction that breaks the fourth wall for dramatic or comedic effect. It does not include situations in which the fourth wall is broken inadvertently, such as when a mirror or other reflective surface catches a film crew and the editors fail to notice it.

Contents 1 Examples in theatre or film 2 Radio and audio recordings 3 Examples in film 4 Animation 5 Literature 6 Webcomics 7 Graphic novels, manga, comic books, and comic strips 8 Music videos 9 Video games 10 Fiction that restores the fourth wall 11 References 12 See also 13 External links

[edit] Examples in theatre or film

Main article: List of theatre that breaks the fourth wall

[edit] Radio and audio recordings

• Goon Show - Plots constantly alternate between honoring the fourth wall and breaking it. For example, the episode entitled "Six Charlies in Search of an Author" was a parody of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. In the episode, the characters repeatedly seize a typewriter from one another to write in miraculous escapes, suddenly acquired weapons, descriptions of their own bravery, and the like.

• History of the United States of America (by Stan Freberg) - A comment weighted with drama is accompanied by a couple of horn fanfare notes. A second actor asks, "What is that?" in response to the first comment, and instead the first actor responds, "French horns!" On the same recording, King Ferdinand complains to Christopher Columbus, "This whole thing is madness, I tell you! I don't like the way the men are acting!" Columbus (Freberg) responds, "Well, you're overplaying it a little bit yourself, there!"

• Family Guy: Live in Vegas Album - The characters from the T.V. show are talking infront of a live audience and talking about their show Family Guy, including how they filmed episodes and who the met during the filming. One example is Lois saying 'We filmed an episode where Brian had a flashback of when he met his father, but we had to make a dog suit and put an actor in there to do the scene."

[edit] Examples in film

Main article: List of films that break the fourth wall

[edit] Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius episode "The Evil Beneath" - After Jimmy and Carl say things about Dr. Sidney Moist, when the camera gets to Jimmy and there is a short pause, Jimmy aims his finger at Sheen, telling the cameraman to move. In the same episode, Jimmy is tapping Sheen to say his line. Also in "Lights, Camera, Danger!", when Jimmy is watching movies at light speed, you hear a line from his own film, causing him to give the viewer(s) a smirk. At the end of "Who Framed Jimmy Neutron", Banjo Playing Boy plays his banjo, dispite the fact he doesn't know how, saying "that's the power of animation".
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Sno' Problem" - When Scratch and Grounder are flung off a ski lift, Grounder asks Scratch where he thinks they'll land; Scratch replies, "Probably sometime in the next episode!"
• The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 - In the episode "Do the Koopa", when the main protagonists find a huge lava chasm impossible to jump over, Luigi shouts "Stop the music!" to explain the situation, which causes the background music to shut off. When Mario finds several '?' Blocks, he commands "Start the music!", bringing the music back on. Secondly, in the episode "Up, up, and a Koopa", Toad complains about how Racoon-powered wings make him look silly. Princess Peach tells him "Don't be so self-conscious. It's not like you're on television with millions of people watching you.".
• Aladdin - At the beginning of the movie, the Peddler is talking about the story of the film, he asks the camera to come closer, only for it to slam into his face, causing him to say "Too close!", before the camera backs away. Also, during the closing of the movie, right before the credits roll, Genie pulls up the screen like a curtain to shout "Made you look!" to the audience.
• Aladdin and the King of Thieves - After momentarily transforming himself into Pumbaa from The Lion King and says "Hakuna Matata", Genie labels it as an "out-of-movie" experience.
• American Dad! episode "Bullocks to Stan" - In one scene (in which Klaus does not appear and couldn't conceivably be nearby) Klaus begins talking over a fight scene, pointing out that a background character is "played by the same actor" who 'played' a different character earlier, explaining that one of the extras ("Jimmy Ng") died during production. While he is talking, he realises that "we've just missed the funniest joke in the episode," and promises to shut up. At the end of episode, there is a brief "behind-the-scenes" clip of the actors who play the characters, and the show is dedicated to the memory of "Jimmy Ng".
• Anastasia - In the final closing film scene Bartok looks directly at the audience, saying "So long, everybody!" and pulls down the scene like a window blind.
• Animaniacs - Numerous characters break the fourth wall, such as Yakko, the oldest of the Warners, and Slappy the Squirrel, a cranky retired cartoon star. Most often talking directly to the audience and making numerous references to the fact that they are in a cartoon.
• Arthur - Although Arthur and his friends introduce every episode, sometimes they argue over who gets to perform the introduction or how to do it.
• Astro Boy - In Episode 25: "The Strange Birthday Present", Mr. Pompous asks the audience "What's very special about today." The audience responded, "No, it's not the day that Newton was hit on the head by an apple!" Mr. Pompous tells them that it's Astro Boy's birthday.
• Big Heel Watha - The main character proclaims, "In a cartoon, you can do anything!"
• Bleach - In the previews at the end, usually no one actually talks about the next episode, and Ichigo says something like "We're out of time again!"
• Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo - Beauty yells at the narrator. Also, in one episode Don-Patch demands to have a bigger part in the cartoon. In In almost every episode, the fourth wall is broken by one of the charcters (even the narrator).
• Bonkers- In one particular episode, Ludwig Von Drake complains that "Someone in the sound department is snoozing on the job!" when expecting a sound effect to play, while it did not.
• The Boondocks - In Riley Wuz Here Granpa Freeman beats Riley offscreen as he says "You're not gonna watch more of that Adult Swim.
• Brandy and Mr. Whiskers - Usually the title characters break the fourth wall. When Lola announced that this isn't a TV show and it's real life, Brandy spoke to the viewers that she doesn't have the heart to tell the truth. In one episode, Mr. Whiskers changed the channel to a shopping network to save the audience from hearing Brandy's awful singing. Most of the time, Brandy and Whiskers talk to the viewers at the end of an episode. For example, in Lame Boy, Whiskers says, " If there's one thing I learned today, it's that there's more to life than spending hour after countless hour staring at a flickering video screen." Brandy then responds nervously, "But... that lesson doesn't apply to television, does it, Mr. Whiskers?" Whiskers gets Brandy's hint about them being in a cartoon, and responds, "Oh, no, Brandy! One can never watch enough television!" The two laugh nervously, but they stop after they see a hand with a remote in it turning off the TV we see Brandy and Whiskers on.
• Captain Flamingo episode "Gum Control" - The narrator says "It looks like Captain Flamingo is in a very..." then Flamingo interrupts, "Please don't say it! Please don't say it!" The narrator finishes his sentence by saying "...sticky situation." to which Flamingo exclaims, "He said it." Later in the episode, the gum on Kirsten's face freezes and shatters, and Kirsten explains to the audience, "When gum freezes, it isn't sticky anymore." In Ball of Doom, a little kid runs toward the screen and collides with it, then slides down the glass, leaving a trail of saliva. At the end of the same episode, a "Never-Stops-Bouncing Ball" flies toward the screen and "shatters" it and the narrator cries out in pain. During Water You Waiting For?, before the commercial break, Milo and Lizbeth are trapped inside a bubble. The narrator says, "And now, while we take a short break, everyone can go pee." Milo yells out "EXCEPT ME!" The I Scream, You Scram! episode also contains a humorous scene where the narrator says "There comes a time in every superhero's life where they have to make a choice; a choice between duty, or desire." Two "bars" containing Owen-Only on out-of-control rollerblades and a "K2" ice cream cone appear. Milo says, "I choose desire." and attempts to jump at the ice cream bar, but gets crushed by the "duty bar". Milo tries hard to push the duty bar away, but fails. Finally, in Ten-Pin Peril, Captain Flamingo won't listen to the narrator, who, in frustration, says "YOU! I'm talking to you!" Captain Flamingo looks at the screen with a confused face. Most recently, in Burr in the Hand, C.F., Lizbeth and Max are forced to strip to their undergarments, when the narrator suddenly exclaims, "You know, I'm in my underpants right now!" before quickly adding, "Sorry, you didn't need to know that."
• Cars - During a scene in the credits, Mack openly calls Pixar a "cheap production company" for reusing John Ratzenberger in all of their films after realizing that the Hamm car, the P.T. Flea car and the Abominable Snowplow (As well as their real counterparts in the movies that are parodied in said scene) are all voiced by him.
• Catscratch - In the episode Tale of the Tail, in one scene when Gordon is with The Kraken, Kraken throws Gordon towards the TV screen, and Gordon slides off it.
• Chicken Run - The two rats who are discussing the chicken and egg question at the end, get on to talking about the movie's cast halfway through the credits.
• Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers - In the episode Rest Home Rangers. Prof. Nimnul threatens to age Chip 'n Dale with his FOGIE ray, and says "How would you like to be ninety years old, in chipmunk years?" He then turns to the camera and says "That's six hundred and thirty, to you and me."
• Cro episode "Things That Eat Mung in the Night" - Phil says that it is "déjà vu all over again. Just like in the pulley show," a reference to the episode "Pulley to You." Also in "A Bridge Too Far," Ogg hopes that they can fix the bridge in time before the show ends ("Hope so. Show about over."). Another episode is mostly 4th-wall breakage (with lines like, "I thought we were already in a flashback", and "How about nice rescue scene?").
• Dave the Barbarian - The characters frequently break the fourth wall. The characters will sometimes refer directly to the audience at the end of the show. Additionally, the characters are aware there is a narrator, carry a banter with him and even have a whole story where the narrator is kidnapped and made to change the storyline. Other moments include showing the characters waiting for their story to begin, saying they missed part of an episode, and holding a script on stage. One episode revolves around the main villain, Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy, forcing the narrator to read his script. The barbarians, the protagonists, must find a new narrator after they realize what has happened and after the current narrator falls sick. The settle on a science fiction-styled narrator. (Note that this show was created by Doug Langdale, who also created The Weekenders, which also uses similar techniques [see below].)
• Dexter's Laboratory - In Mind Over Chatter, at the end of the episode Dexter says directly to the viewer: "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking."
• Dick Spanner, P.I. - Dick Spinner in voice over occasionally breaks the fourth wall by complaining about the unseen writers or scenery department. Other characters also occasionally break the fourth wall such as doing a double take when catching sight of the camera.
• Dr. Slump - This animation series -as well as its manga counterpart- is known for constantly breaking the fourth wall. The author, Akira Toriyama, appears in a lot of chapters, and characters usually complain for having small parts, make suggestions to the plot, or even ask him questions about unexplained events. In one occasion the author is killed and characters wonder who is going to draw the next episode. There is also a chapter where a misunderstanding is resolved thanks to one character seeing on TV the same episode the audience is watching, and realizing what really happened some minutes before. At one point of the series, the main characters start wondering why they have been in the same grade at school for over two years, so when the author realizes he has been unintentionally ignoring the time factor, he makes every character grow up two years older than before (corresponding to the dates in real life), and all the students change grades or suddenly graduate from high school (some of them complain to the author for the extra time they have been attending school). During the last episode, dozens of main, supporting, and recurring characters are invited to take part in the final scene, where they gather and say good-bye to the audience (some of them also try to perform farewell speeches looking at the camera).
• Drawn Together- In a first season episode, right after being given a sewing machine by the producers, Ling-Ling sews a television that shows a clip of Drawn Together where Spanky Ham gets money-eyes. He then does this in the show a few seconds later. This is different from the normal reality-show concept as it shows a future event.
• Duck Dodgers In the episode" K-9 Quarry" - Dodgers says to the viewers, "Don't blame me - the martian gets one solo cartoon per season." In another episode, when Dodgers is eaten by Taz, the "view" pans out to show a family what the show on television. The child says, "This makes no sense; Daffy's bigger than Taz, but he's standing there in his stomach." The father replies, "It's just a cartoon, Son." Later in the episode, after Dodgers makes several attempts to show off, the view pans out again, but this time to an empty couch, implying that the viewers got bored of the show.
• DuckTales
  • In the episode "The Duck Who Knew Too Much" - When Fenton Crackshell is climbing under a train, he turns toward the viewers and says, "Kids, don't try this at home!"
  • In the episode Robot Robbers - Burger uses a giant robot to eat a hamburger-shaped hamburger stand, only to have Ma Beagle exclaim "Quit goofin' around, Burger! Whadda ya think this is, a cartoon show?"
• Duel Masters - Various episodes have praised the audience for tuning in, and in one episode a character tells another that he is allowed to be shocked and "can use [his] first season or second season voice".
• Dumbo - during the Pink Elephants scene, the Pink Elephants march along the side of the screen, with Dumbo following their movements.
• Earthworm Jim - It is done quite often in this show with different characters talking to the audience and the narrator in each episode. They also realise often when they are about to enter a flashback. In the episode "Bring Me the Head of Earthworm Jim", Jim asks the audience to give him super powers by believing he does (he didn't have a super-suit at this moment as it had been pinched) and clapping their hands (ala Peter Pan), and after 10 seconds asked "Are they clapping?", with his sidekick Peter Puppy replying "A few are; most of them are just changing the channel". In that same episode, Psycrow asks the audience if one of them is a taxidermist and someone (actually Peter in disguise) says yes. In another, Psycrow wrote a few lines on a piece of paper and forces the narrator to read it (and in doing so, make it actually happen). At the end of every episode, a cow lands on one of the characters, and the characters express knowledge of its appearance before it happens. Probably the most obvious is when Jim meets the "Great Worm Spirit", who turns out to be the show's creator, Doug TenNapel, which he proves by pulling up the ending credits and pointing out his name.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy -
• In the episode "Know-It-All Ed", Edd stated that Eddy's "25 days in the pokey" line is from the wrong cartoon.
• In "1+1=Ed", while attempting to "achieve wisdom," the Eds become aware of the inner workings of their cartoon world (perspective, etc.), and eventually their "reality" completely falls apart. Also they remove Jimmy's outline and is noticed and mentioned by Double and Eddy. *In "Knock Knock, Who's Ed," Double-D offers the Eds an easy way to solve the episode's conflict: go to either his or Eddy's house and watch it on TV. Eddy rejects the idea, saying "What? And ruin the plot?"
• In "Key to My Ed", after repeatedly tripping over a napping Johnny 2x4, Eddy complains, "Does this kid sleep through the whole cartoon?"
• In "Momma's Little Ed", Eddy blames an earlier burst of bad temper on Kevin, but Edd points out that Kevin wasn't in this episode.
• In "The Good Ol' Ed", Ed says he remembers the "Canadian squirt gun" (from the season 2 episode "Know-It-All Ed") that Eddy finds "as though it were only second season."
• In "Stuck In Ed", when Edd mentions that Eddy taught Jimmy everything he knew (from the episode "Ed in a Half-Shell"), Eddy asks "Didn't we win an Emmy for that episode?" *In "Brother, Can You Spare An Ed?", Eddy tries to get the money Sarah gave Ed for shopping by telling him it's too grubby, and says he doesn't want to "contaminate those badly-drawn fingers."
• In "It Smells Like An Ed", Ed drops a block of cement on his feet, and right before they cut to the commercial break, Ed quips, "I should have all the feeling back in my feet after a word from our sponsors, Double-D," and Edd mutters about the sponsors.
• In "For Your Ed Only", after the Eds abandon Kevin, he says "This show needs subtitles.
• In "Whose Minding the Ed", Eddy complains, "Oh yeah, well how about the diffacult time with you on my back through this entire show!"
• The Emperor's New Groove - Kuzco stops the movie to tell the audience that he is the star of the film, and later, Kuzco in the movie has a fight with Kuzco as the narrator, who keeps telling the story from his point of view. These devices were also used as running gags on the Disney Channel spin-off The Emperor's New School.
• The Emperor's New School - See above. Also in the pilot, Kronk tells Yzma that she doesn't have to go through all this since he knows he was going to win. Yzma then asks, "Then what will I do for the rest of the show?" In another episode, Kuzco wonders why the background has no color. Kronk then explains that he arrested the background artists. There was another episode where Yzma appears to win and Kuzco asks the question "If there is no me, there's no show. And if there's no show, what are you watching right now?" Also, in another episode, When Kuzco and Melina used a magic potion that made them have tucan beaks for mouths, in the end, Kuzco replies, "We'll be back to normal after the break." which meant the commercial break. In another episode, during the end credits, the sundial alarm clock plays its own song to the tune of the Ride of the Valkyries:

"It's the end credits It's the end credits It's the end credits Look at them go They are so tiny I cannot read them I wish that they were big And really slow So many people So many names Why can't they just say 'Made by Kuzco'? It's almost over Only a few more noe The only thing to do now Is to show the logoooooos!"

• Excel Saga - The show's crew, especially the director, Nabeshin, and the original manga's creator, Rikdo Koshi, often appear. Excel Excel (the main character) is killed in the first episode, and as this would leave little of a plot left, the Great Will of the Macrocosm does not allow it to be and revives Excel and resets the story as a result. In fact, the fourth wall seems to only exist when a joke works better that way - most of the characters show varying degrees of acceptance as to their fictional nature. Puni Puni Poemy, an Excel Saga spin-off, continues this idea even further, with the main character believing herself to be a voice actress, and that her father is the director, even referring to herself by her voice actress' name.
• The Fairly OddParents- In Where's Wanda? in the fishing pier scene before Timmy Turner finds out Cosmo kidnapped Wanda, when he runs home, he accidentally runs into the "camera", lets out a quick "AH!", and says to the viewer, "Sorry." and runs off. Timmy's Dad notes Timmy's "tough guy narration". In addition, most of that episode is actually in Black and White until the mystery is solved - until Jorgen points out that one corner of the room is still black and white. Also, in Emotion Commotion, two secret agents tell Timmy to "throw that hook off-screen". In Remy Rides Again, Cosmo "watches" Remy's, Juandissimo's and Jorgen's flashbacks. At the "THE END" card of Operation: F.U.N., Juandissimo Magnifico asks the audience "Do you think I'm sexy?"
• Family Guy
  • In "Death is a Bitch", Peter says that if he were to kill the kids from Dawson's Creek, he'd "have nothing to watch on Wednesdays." He then looks directly at the audience and nervously says, "... other than the fine programs on FOX."
  • In "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", Meg is fed up with the reality television show her family is taking part in, and says, "I want those cameras OFF!", to which Chris exclaims, "FOURTH WALL! YOU'RE BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL!!"
  • At the end of "Lethal Weapons" Peter complains about television networks. Lois tells him it's not a good idea to badmouth the network, to which Peter replies, "What are they gonna do, cut our budget?" He then leaves the room in a purposely poorly-animated walk.
  • In "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter," right before the first commercial break, Peter says to the viewers, "Stick around; more Family Guy coming up." Then at the end of the episode, he gives them a teaser for the next episode (although, in reality, the situation he describes has yet to actually occur).
  • In "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz," Stewie talks about Desperate Housewives, a series running on ABC at the same time Family Guy is on Fox. He then instructs viewers to "go ahead, switch over to ABC for five seconds. I'll be waiting right here for when you get back."
  • Right before the first commercial break in "Saving Private Brian", Stewie shoots the vaudeville duo Vern and Johnny, telling the viewers, "They're dead. We won't be seeing them anymore!" Later in the same episode, Stewie mentions that Peter went after a hockey coach once but then realises theres no cut away clip showing so he talks to some off camera saying"'oh no clip, thought we had a clip" then returns to his conversation with brian.

In Whistle While Your Wife Works, a new joke emerged when Peter falls down the stairs during the opening credits and falls onto a woman puncturing her lung, the camara shows some of the animated sound stage where they film the show with extras and camera men walking around. At the end of the scene Stewie pops up infront of the camera and looking directly in it says "we should proberly go ahead and turn that off".

• The Flintstones - Animals being used as household objects speak to the viewers when complaining about their jobs. Sometimes the main characters also complain to the audience.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends - At the end of "The Trouble with Scribbles", Bloo looks toward the camera and blows a raspberry on it, causing his saliva to fly onto the screen. There also is a friend named Jackie Khones, a reference to Khaki Jones, one of the producers of the show.
• Freakazoid- Freakazoid and other characters constantly break the fourth wall to sell merchandise, cut the soundtrack, even comment on an episode as in "Quantum Freak"
• Garfield and Friends - Characters frequently speak to the viewers and to the animators of the show. Several episodes focus on Garfield (or Orson in the U.S. Acres segment) telling something to the viewers.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
  • At the start of nearly every episode Mandy stands in front of the blank screen and says something to the audience and sometimes tries to injure them.
  • In "He's Not Dead, He's My Mascot", Mandy gets fed up that this is another pet episode and literally leaves the cartoon.
  • In another episode, Billy attempts to ask Grim for advice, to which Grim replies, "I'm not in this scene." Later in that episode it is revealed that Mandy is watching Billy on TV.
  • In "Duck!", Hector Con Carne, who had gotten his own show prior to this episode's airing, is jailed for public disturbance and complainss, "I'm not even on this stupid show anymore!"
  • At the end of "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?", where Eris and Hoss Delgado are kissing, Grim exclaims that "this is a kids' show!"
  • At the end of "Modern Primitives", Mandy remarks, "What a waste of an episode."
  • In "Pandora's Lunchbox", Billy asks Grim who writes "this stuff" and it cuts to a baby in front of a typewriter.
  • In "The Secret Snake Club", Billy is seen bursting into a room, supposedly where the main plot is happening, only to find Irwin, whom Billy arrests. Irwin exclaims that this is not what the episode was supposed to be about ("This episode was supposed to be about snake nerds! SNAKE NERDS!!").
  • In "Prank Call of Cthulhu", Mandy tells Grim that they have to save Billy, because "The Grim Adventures of Mandy doesn't sound as catchy as Billy and Mandy."
  • In "The Bubble with Billy", Irwin attempts to pitch to Grim and Mandy his idea of changing the show's title to The Grim Adventures of Irwin and Mandy.
  • In "The Secret Snake Club vs. P.E", after Sperg steals Grim's scythe, he responds, "I stopped carring about five episodes ago!"
  • In "The Crass Unicorn", Mary Francis said that the time that darkness overcame the land was the same time this show premired.
  • In "Billy and Mandy Begins", after watching Grim and Billy's false tales of how they met, Mandy shows clips of the first episode to show how they met, however Grim denies that's the truth, saying "that didn't look anything like us", referencing the old character desings.
  • In "Dream Mutt", Every time when Wiggy Jiggy Jed makes a joke or pun, he looks at the viewers and a laugh-track starts.
• Hare+Guu - In the first episode, as the character of Guu is sleeping with her eyes open, Hare turns to the camera and mentions it, then saying "Why am I saying every little thing that happens?"
• Hercules - Although the main characters never break the fourth wall personally, the Muses often talk to Bob the Narrator at the beginning and end of the episode. And in one episode, we see a bunch of hats walking by in mid-air and hear Bobs voice talking to his wife about the kids (making fun of the fact that we never see the narrator).
• Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi - In the episode "Rock 'n' Roe" Ami and Yumi told the audience never to eat cheap sushi. Also, in "Soap Box Derby" the group runs into a pair of bullies from Ami's youth and she asks, "What are the odds of this happening?", to which Kaz replies, "On our show, pretty good."
• Hikaru no Go - Before the first episode, Shindou Hikaru appears on screen to tell viewers that the series will begin shortly. Some episodes toward the end begin with Fujiwara no Sai addressing the audience.
• Homestar Runner - Viewers are able to send email to Strong Bad and he will respond. Characters are aware that they are in a website (shown by actions such as Homestar and Strong Bad walking into a "This Page Cannot Be Displayed" notice) but do not appear to know that they are fictional. This is especially prominent in the "virus" email, as the various characters become glitched (Strong Bad runs out of the screen "into the black") until the computer with the virus is destroyed with Bubs' shotgun, restoring normality.
• Horrid Henry - Henry (and possibly his brother, Peter) ocassionally complains to the audience about how unfairly he is treated or what he intends to do in this particular story or what the outcome was. The way he talks in these periods is like someone doing a video diary. In the episode Hike Peter looks directly at the camera as if to share with the viewer the sense of being confused at his brother's bizarre turnaround in behavior. The family cat often 'skips' the night sequence by pressing on the remote, essentially fast-fowarding the night time...straight to the morning.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) - After the final credits, Hugo the Gargoyle waves at the audience and shouts "Goodnight, everybody!"
• Jacob Two-Two - At the end of one episode Jacob Two-Two and the Dangerous Debut, Buford takes a photo of Jake and his family. He then says, "Oops. I'd better get one of the audience," turns towards the screen and takes a picture of the viewer(s) with the flash thus ending the show. In Jacob Two-Two and the After School Abattoir, a gothic piece of music is heard whenever someone mentions the title After School Abattoir causing the characters to pause and look around with their eyes to see where that piece of music is coming from. In some of the early episodes during the Nelvana series, Jake and one of his friends (usually Buford) explain to the audience how to do simple tricks, such as in one episode where Jake demonstrated how to walk through a piece of newspaper.
• Jem - In the third season episode "The Day the Music Died", Kimber Benton, the main character's sister, actually interrupts the opening credits before they have completed, and proclaims "There isn't going to be a story today." Throughout the course of the episode, various characters from within the series break the fourth wall to fill the viewers in on what has transpired in the three months within which events led to the current situation. Ironically, the only major character in this episode who isn't aware of those looking in from beyond the fourth wall is Jem herself.
• Johnny Bravo - Johnny is aware of being in a cartoon and constantly talks to the viewers, making comments about the show. Also, in at least one episode, he fast-forwarded and rewound the show.
• Johnny Test - In the episode "Johnny Hollywood", before the driver in the "Quickest and Monkiest" movie are about to drive Johnny and Dukey off a cliff, Dukey says, "You just had to break into your dad's DVD case, didn't you? You couldn't just watch a cartoon like normal kids!" After he says that, Johnny and Dukey look directly at the camera and they both raise one eyebrow.
• Kasimasi - Episode eight features Asuta speaking to the audience.
• King Arthur's Disasters - Although this doesn't break the wall often, every time the narrator says "His Trusty Steed", Arthur always adds "Called Alan" and the narrator adds it. In other episode, Merlin says "I'll use the growth forumla Sire, the one I was making at the start of the episode.
• Kim Possible - In "The Ron Factor", Kim interrupts the theme song.
• Kronk's New Groove - Early in the movie, Kuzco stops the movie and talks about his small role, then reminds the audience that Kronk now has his own movie, and even says, "I'm nice now. Didn't you see the first movie?" and "This is his movie, not my movie." Later, he stops the film to point out that Yzma is trying to sell slime to the old people, then bangs on the screen while assuring the viewers that it's a scam.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series - In the episode Morpholomew, Jake Long is captured by Gantu and later says to him "The Am Drag show is about saving magical creatures, it's not sci fi".
• The Lion King - Pumbaa sings "And I got down-hearted, every time that I..." and (before he can say "... farted") Timon interrupts him and, looking toward the viewer, says "Pumbaa, not in front of the kids." Simba also looks toward the viewer. Similarly, in The Lion King 1 1/2 Rafiki looks toward the viewer and says, "My work here is done." In the same movie, when Timon tries to look "Beyond what you see" he replies to the loud music by saying "It's kinda hard to think with all this music."
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies - Characters (often a rotoscoped, silhouetted "audience member" who stood up in front of the "on-screen" character) frequently talked to the audience or read the credits. This device was used in Chuck Jones' landmark cartoon Duck Amuck in which a "mysterious artist" tries to ruin Daffy Duck's cartoon. Daffy angrily comments (referring to studio head Jack Warner), "J.L. will hear about this!" In another older cartoon, a villain said that "no one could stop him, not even that guy in the third row!" Later, at the end, that same guy in the third row hits her with something. In 1943's "Wackiki Rabbit", the thin castaway points to some subtitles in fake Polynesian at the bottom of the frame and remarks, "Gee, did I say that?".
• Maya & Miguel - At the beginning or end of each show Maya or Miguel will often look up from the computer he/she is working at and speak directly to the viewer(s) as he/she explains about the events of this particular story or its outcome.
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Haruhi and Kyon openly speak to the viewer during the next episode previews.
• Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse - Goofy talks to the narrator during his "How to..." shorts. Also in the episode "computer.don", a box drops out of the sky and Mickey Mouse comes out of the box, remarking, "Hey, you got it all wrong. I'm not supposed to be in this cartoon." Other characters do the same thing in other shorts.
• My-Otome - In the penultimate episode, Mai makes an irritated comment about her not having much screen time in the series.
• Nadesico - In the "First Star" episode, Minato explains to the audience that "kancho" means both "spy" and "captain" in Japanese. As she does, Megumi tells the audience "Who says this show isn't educational?" When Erina asks who she is talking to, Megumi replies "The fourth wall!"
• Naruto - Shikamaru Nara says Naruto is clueless and could never become the main character of a show. Additionally, the 26th episode begins with Naruto announcing the new broadcast time of 7:27 PM. Unfortunately, he did this at 7:00 PM, thus making his teammates (specifically Sakura) rather upset with him, as they weren't prepared. The episode continues with expositional material intended for those unfamiliar with the show, interspersed with Kakashi's retrieving of the episode tape.
• New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episode "FrankenPooh" - After going through a huge growth spurt, Pooh gets stuck in a filmstrip and says "I seem to have reached the top of the picture."
• Ozzy and Drix episode "Ozzy, Jr." - When Amino asks Drix how a cold pill could have a built-in mixer, Drix turns to the viewer and says, "You know, I've often wondered that myself."
• One Piece In episode 62, when the Straw-hats are trapped inside Laboon, they meet Crocus. Sometimes, Crocus would widen his eyes, the location would change eight times before returning to his eye. After the third time, the Straw-Hats tell him to stop it. But Crocus only proceeds by asking if a old man couldn't have a running gag going on.
• Over The Hedge - In a scene before the ending credits, we see Hammy with a log full of acorns, and says, "I found my nuts!" and then runs into the camera, and his face collides with the screen.
• Ouran High School Host Club- In one episode, Tamaki says "Me and Haruhi are the stars of this romantic-comedy anime and you are the homo-characters". Also in another episode, Haruhi faces the screen and said, "For all AB blood types in the audience, don't get angry watching this".
• Pom Poko - At the end one of the film, Ponkichi notices the camera and addresses the viewer, asking humans to be more considerate of Tanuki and other animals less endowed with transformation skills, and not to destroy their living space.
• Pokémon - Meowth complains that the cartoonists never gave him a nose. In another episode, they attempt to capture two Pokémon by using a rather weak plan. That plan fails and they attempt another much better way. When James asks why they didn't use the second method in the first place, Jessie says that they had to fill a half-hour show. In one episode, Jesse and James are about to say their theme lines, but Meowth pulls out a remote and fast-forwards through it. In another episode, where they had trapped themselves in their own ambush, they reappear. On the confused reaction of the protagonists, they explain, that "even the script writers have no idea how we got out of this one". On a some occasions, they address the audience directly, mostly while discussing their evil plots. Oddly, only Team Rocket seems to be aware of being in a cartoon. In one of the Pokémon movies, Meowth wonders aloud whether Team Rocket will have a larger role in the next one. In the second Pokémon movie, The Power of One, Team Rocket starts their usual quote and state that they are on the big screen. Ash tells them, "I'll have to catch this on video!" Later, in the same movie, Team Rocket complains that they helped Ash and company, but nobody saw them do it. Slowking overhears them and tells them someone was watching. The four of them turn to the camera, and Team Rocket argues over whether their boss saw them or not. Also, in "Rough, Tough, Jigglypuff!" a Jigglypuff uses Sing, which even causes the narrator to fall asleep. In one of the first episodes, after Misty and Ash argue for about two minutes, Brock interuppts saying, "come on guys, we need to get going, the shows already started!" In the episode "May's Egg-celent Adventure!" before blasting off, Meowth said it was becoming a pain in his "can't say where because kids watch this show". Also, in the episode "Pasta La Vista!", when Team Rocket blasts off, Meowth says, "Team Rocket's Blaustein off again!" as a reference to the fact that it is the final episode with Meowth's voice actress, Maddie Blaustein. In the episode "Same Old Song and Dance", Team Rocket sings a song instead of doing a motto, and at the end, they sing that their next goal will be to be the stars of this cartoon. In the episode "Electic Shock Showdown", James suddenly exclaims "Drat! We wasted a whole episode cheering on the good guys!" as Jessie and Meowth realize this. The narrator then says "Better luck next time." And in Get the Show on the Road!, May introduces herself to the audience, before being startled by a Duskull and crashing into a tree.
• Popples - The Popples were clearly aware that they were in a cartoon. In some episodes, they would speak out to the audience, often to make a comment, or even ask for a helping hand, in which an animated hand would appear on-screen and help the Popples with their problem. In one episode, Putter accidentally destroyed part of the background, which he quickly repainted, followed by him painting "HI" on the screen.
• The Powerpuff Girls - The characters can frequently hear and respond to the narrator. In one episode, Mojo Jojo kidnaps him and narrates the episode instead, controlling the actions of the Powerpuff Girls. He also kidnaps the narrator in a comic book story and forces him to tamper with reality. Also, in the episode "Custody Battle", Mojo remarks that zero is "the amount of respect I get after six seasons on this show!"
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo - In an episode, Fred blames a scare on a character called Red Herring, but is then told that he is not in that episode. Most of the episodes begin with Shaggy telling the viewers what was going on at the beginning. In about half of the episodes, the viewers were supposed to keep track of all clues found, so they could figure out the villain of the show when the characters asked them who it was. And in another episode, just before Fred calls suspects, an announcer comes up and advises the viewers to just get a book while he's doing that. The characters do the same thing; read.
• The Real Ghostbusters - An episode featuring a newscast at the end refers to telling all more about the Ghostbusters after a commercial upon which the show itself cuts to one.
• ReBoot - In one episode, Dot and Enzo Matrix enter a game modeled after the Evil Dead series. When Dot looks at her revealing dress, she exclaims "Who plays games like this?!" and then she and Enzo glare toward the viewer. Occurring quite often during the first two seasons, the fourth wall is broken in many ways. Characters look towards the camera and shrug during awkward moments. Even the dog may turn with an exasperated look. The protagonist, Bob, speaks directly to the audience when he feels the need to mildly gloat (e.g., "well that was easy enough," and, "hidden file commands, ya gotta love 'em") and to casually provoke empathy for his circumstances (e.g., ""Don't you just hate it when that happens?"). The character "Mike the TV" has the most interaction with the audience, however. He usually gives a highly exaggerated and melodramatic narration of events, parodying television announcers and infomercials. Since the character is given exclusive attention during these moments and resembles a TV, the jarring effect of breaking the fourth wall is somewhat mitigated by the reality that the television is talking to the viewer.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle - Characters often "overhear" and interact with the narrator, and they occasionally refer to the imminent end of an episode, the network that was running the cartoon, etc.
• Roger Rabbit cartoons - Roger almost always gets blown out of his short by some sort of explosion or collision course, and then has to deal with the studio crew.
• Rocko's Modern Life- In the episode "Hypo-Puppy Love", at the end of the episode, Heffer got the X-Ray glasses he ordered, and claims he can see past Rocko and the other's clothes. The others run off, and shortly after, Hef looks directly toward the viewer(s), claim that he can also see past their clothes.
• Sealab 2021 - Sealab often references its own fictional nature; one episode ends in the revelation that the episode was just a pitch to Cartoon Network executives, who say that they don't like it. Others feature behind the scenes sequences in which the animated characters are revealed to be very different from the roles that the 'play'.
• The Simpsons-
  • In the episode, "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner?", Lisa tells Homer that she won't be writing his restaurant reviews any more, to which Homer replies "Nobody talks to me that way. I'm Homer Simpson, the most powerful food critic in town, who will never get his comeuppance! You hear me? No comeuppance!" before turning to the camera and saying "We'll be right back!" Homer's "We'll be right back" also occurs in the Treehouse of Horror special where the statues come to life, as he puts his head up to the camera filming Kent Brockman.
  • In the episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII", at the beginning the cameraman falls down the stairs and lands on the floor, then picks up the camera and opens the door.
  • In The Episode "Treehouse of Horror V in t Attack of the 50-foot Billboard, after Brockmans report at the Simpsons House, Homer Says's We'll be right back
  • In the episode, "There's Something About Marrying", Homer holds up a map with various places stated on it explaining that no one ever uses them, the camera then zooms in on the map and a very long pause is issued after which Homer replies, "Have you read them all yet? Yes? Good" giving the effect that he is talking to the audience.
• Sonic X
  • While Sonic is standing on an S-Team racecar in the first episode, the driver yells that they don't want little kids copying Sonic. The hedgehog then says to the audience, "Kids, NEVER stand on top of moving cars!" (In the 4Kids Entertainment version of the same episode, the joke is the same except that Sonic says, "Kids, don't use Formula 1 racecars to chase hedgehogs!"
  • In the episode "Fierce Battle! Sonic Baseball Team" Sonic catches a ball that went out of the field. Chuck comments that he's breaking the rules, and Sonic mutters, "Sheesh, why do we need to follow rules anyway? This is an anime!"
  • In "Chaotix Detective Agency" there is an aerial view of the Thorndyke mansion with an arrow pointing it out. Vector the Crocodile comments, "Why is there a floating arrow above the house? Is it because we're near the end of the episode?" Also, earlier in the episode, Vector and Espio the Chameleon introduce themselves, and after Espio's intro, It'sCharmy Bee's turn, but a commercial break starts and so the "eyecatch" displays Charmy's information. In the English version, Vector says "Sorry Charmy, but we're all out of time!" as the bee starts getting frustrated and presses against the screen. Also, while the Chaotix are trying to investigate Sonic, Espio sneaks into an electronics store (a la Best Buy) and steals a DVD and a DVD Player. When he plays the DVD, the Sonic X theme starts playing, and the Chaotix decide to skip that part and go straight to the episode, where they start watching actual episodes of the show (e.g. Super Sonic and Super Shadow fighting off the Biolizard).
  • Later on, in "Eggman Corporation", Dr. Eggman blocks the sun and sells "Sunshine Balls" to hypnotize the customers into thinking Sonic is a villain. Eventually, Eggman decides that the show should be called Eggman X and even shows its logo, which is the Sonic X logo, with an Eggman rather than Sonic, and instead of a shot of Sonic's head, there is a gray picture of Eggman's head.
  • And in The Ridiculous Epic Spy Battle, Chris Thorndyke imagines what it would be like if his teacher Mr. Stewart was a spy, and then imagines Stewart as a shadow walking across a blank background, then turning to the screen and shooting it with a pistol, smashing the viewer's television screen.
• South Park
  • In the episode where the boys go to Canada to convince the Prime Minister to allow Kyle's brother, Ike, to return to America, Kenny is afraid to go on an adventure because he is afraid he will die, implying he is aware of the fact he dies in a majority of South Park episodes.
  • In an episode where Stan sobs, fearing that Kyle is going to die, Kenny also angrily remarks "you never fucking care when I die" (his speech is muffled).
  • In a Christmas special at the end of the episode the boys say it feels like something is missing while Kenny looks around anxiously implying that they are aware Kenny dies in many episodes and think it is strange Kenny did not die in that episode.
  • In "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics", Mr. Hankey talks directly to the audience. When Mr. Hanky waves and says "howdy ho!" he normally faces the audience.
  • In one episode, Kenny's mother is pregnant and gives birth after Kenny's death. The newborn baby is exactly identical to Kenny, orange parka and all. Kenny's parents remark that this is the 52nd time that they've gone through this process, referring to the 52 episodes in which Kenny has died and come back to life.
  • In "I'm A Little Bit Country" Cartman tries to enter a Flashback, and almost the entire cast singing of being the 100th episode in the show, with Randy announcing it . Hilariously, Stan and Kyle are the only ones that are unaware that they are in TV.
  • In "Cancelled", the beginning of episode mirrors South Park's first episode and the characters realize that it already happened.
• Spacecats - The puppet and animated characters are fully aware of the narrator and will regularly talk to or argue with him. The three central characters appear at the end to do a moral of the story scene. In one scene set in a cinema, the characters on the big screen turn to face the audience and demand to know who made them lose concentration. One opening scene, that opens on a series of slide shows, only this time the slides are shown upside down, reversed or showing something completely different. One of the characters pushes a slide onto the blank screen, stating that a new projectionist is at fault, prompting the frustrated narrator to snap "Oh let's just start the show will ya!"
• Space Goofs In one episode, Etno says, "There's only about 10 minutes left in the show and I haven't done anything to help!" In another, as they are about to get engulfed by a big black closing circle, Candy steps in and tries to push it away and says, "And the show is not over until I say it is over!"
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series - In the series finale, the title character meets his creator, Stan Lee. It was explained as Spider-Man entering another dimension.
• SpongeBob SquarePants -
  • In the episode "Missing Identity", Patrick Star accidentally calls SpongeBob "SpongeBoob". After laughing a lot, Patrick looks at the screen and says "Sorry, people."
  • In "Plankton's Army", Karen the Computer starts nagging Sheldon J. Plankton and Plankton mutters to the audience, "And she's at it, ladies and gentlemen."
  • At the end of "I Had An Accident" the "view" zooms out to show a family watching the episode; they act confused and then turn off the TV.
  • In "No Free Rides" the narrator explains that if SpongeBob fails his final boating exam, he'll have to take another year of boating school. Upon hearing that, SpongeBob drives straight towards the "screen", colliding with it and creating static, and then a dead cameraman and a destroyed camera are shown in front of SpongeBob's boat. Mrs. Puff explains that he struck down a pedestrian. In Wet Painters, Patrick is shown holding up the signs that say "Three Hours Later" and such, and eventually addresses the director, saying that he's running out of them. **In "Christmas Who?" Patchy the Pirate reads a letter from a fan. After a comment from Potty the Parrot (a puppet), Patchy pulls Potty's string and a puppeteer falls down with him. In "The Paper", SpongeBob does some origami and the audience cheers. Squidward Tentacles does the same and the audience boos.
  • Plus, in "SpongeBob's House Party" Patchy demands the audience get off his lawn and Potty reminds him that they are the television audience.
  • In Welcome to the Chum Bucket Plankton angry at SpongeBob's lack of following orders places his brain in a robot body and proclaims "SpongeBob get in here, or rather Robot Bob Sponge Cheif Psnts...(Addresses the audience) I put the brain in the robot you know!"
  • Finally, in Sandy's Rocket, SpongeBob gets so happy that he gets to go on the rocket, he starts running along the wall, shouting gleefully. At some points, he walks right on the TV screen.
• Teen Titans - In "Lightspeed", The Hive Five broke into the opening credits, announcing that they were "taking over this episode." Also, in "Episode 257-494", Cyborg exclaims "Hey! I know where we are! We're in the first episode of season 4!" Though he probably meant the show they got sucked into, the episode the viewer was watching was the first episode of season 4 Also, Robin grabs the screen at one point and informs the viewer to stop watching the TV, because it is emitting harmful rays that are rotting out our brains. After a pause, he seemingly notices that the TV is still on, and says "I'm serious, stop watching this show!" To add to it, Raven comments "Uh... Robin? I don't think they're listening..."
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • At the start of the episode "Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop," Shredder explains that he shouldn't be near Krang's Mezmerizer when Bebop and Rocksteady activate it. Krang says that Shredder doesn't have to explain it to him, since he (Krang) invented it. "I wasn't explaining it to you," Shredder states, pointing to the viewers, "I was explaining it to them."
  • in "Enter the Rat King" at one point Donatello says "I wish we had some of those Anti-Gravity boots from Episode 6" (this quote was also a goof as the episode Donatello was referencing Sky Turtles was episode 23, Episode 6 was Return of the Shredder)
  • In "April's Fool," the turtles are hanging on to a helicopter as it flies over the city. Raphael then turns toward the viewers and says "Remember, kids, we're professionals." Rocksteady also says a similar line after he and Bebop leap off a subway train in "Casey Jones, Outlaw Hero."
  • In "Once Upon a Time Machine," Donatello points out they have fourteen minutes to get back to their own time. Raphael then asks if that includes the commercials.
  • In "Planet of the Turtleoids" as Donatello is fantasizing about a place where the Turtles could be accepted for who they were, Raphael tells the viewers, "If he starts singing, I advise you to switch over to another channel."
  • In "Michealangelo's Birthday", Rocksteady calls the Turtles and tries to remember where Shredder wants to meet them but can't remember; Donatello says he knows where the address is, to which Rocksteady replies, "Gee, he must have seen this episode before".
  • In "Turtles of the Jungle", Donatello and Jocko (a monkey) have been turned into 30 foot giants by a crazy inventors growth ray hitting them. The two giants have a huge fight in New York City destroying a lot of buildings. Donatello then looks at us viewers at home and comments "The producers must have spent the entire seasons budget on this one episode." as he looks over the damage he and Jocko caused in their fight.
• Trigun - In an episode that mainly revolves around Meryl Strife and Millie Thompson assisting in protecting the land of an old couple, Meryl tries to prevent an attack from the enemy by shooting them out of the air. Vash, hiding in a trashcan, synchronizes his shot with hers and prevents the attack. The screen starts to shrink and Vash turns toward the viewer and asks, "Is this all the air-time I get?"
• Viva Piñata - The theme song to the show seems to be very popular among residents of Piñata Island. In the episode "Chewnicorn in the Garden", Fergy tries to listen to it to stay awake. In the episode "Legs", Les Galagoogoo plays a CD with that song on it to try to get Fergy to control his Cluckle legs. In the episode, "Franklin Can't Dance", Franklin has a hard time dancing to the song.
• Wallace and Gromit - In the various shorts, as well as The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Gromit frequently looks at the camera to deliver a nonverbal comment (by means of facial expression) on Wallace's words or actions.
• The Weekenders - Tino addresses the audience at the beginning and end of almost every episode. Sometimes other characters take Tino's place or do it with him. Also, on one episode with the reopening of Telsa Park, Tino goes on a rant about how his mom should be with Dixon, he ends with "GO TO SUNDAY!", then going to Sunday.
• 'Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? -- With the expectation of "When It Rains" and "Timing is Everything", Ms. Carmen Sandiego chats with the live-action players after her first crime and after the AMCE detective regains the movie. Mason Dixon remarks "That fun and game time is over!" to the Player after the failed crime at the beging "Timing is Everything"
• What's With Andy - Andy Larkin always breaks the fourth wall by telling us his plans on pranking people or his status.
• Xiaolin Showdown - In episode 50: "Hannibal's Revenge", Raimundo openly mentioned the title of the show with the logo in his eyes. In addition, the rest (Master Fung, Omi, Kimiko, Dojo, amd Clay) smiled and gave a thumbs up to the viewers. Also, in the Sapphire Dragon episode, Dojo climbs beyond the barrier of a letterbox scene. The Sapphire Dragon notices him, turns, and in an effort to blast him, sends fire directly towards the viewer.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! - In the episode, "Steppin' Out", Téa and Johnny Step play a Dance Dance Revolution game with the Yu-Gi-Oh! theme song as the dance song, slightly sped up with a techno beat.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX - In the beginning of the episode "Back to Duel", Jaden Yuki acts as a voice-over twice. Both of those times, he gets interrupted by Syrus Truesdale. The first time Syrus asks Jaden who he is taking to, and Jaden replies, "To my fans, I guess." Whilst the second time, Syrus simply remarks, "Jaden, you're narrating again". In another episode, Jaden begins to sing the theme song of the show, only stopping when Chazz Princeton tells him to shut up. Also, during another episode when the protagonists visit the Town of Domino (the setting for the original Yu-Gi-Oh! series), and visit many of the sites from the original series, Syrus remarks "At least I'm up to date on my Yu-Gi-Oh! history!".
• Yvon of the Yukon - Before a commercial break during the last ten minutes of one episode, Tommy asks one of his clones from the future when he can thaw out Yvon. The Tommy clone answers with, "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps ten minutes including commercials."

[edit] Literature

• Approach of Spring (by Stefan Żeromski) - The narrator remarks about his own prudery and a possible reader's response before remarking of a scene in which is it suspected the main character is going to engage in a sexual intercourse.
• Amadis of Gaul--in one chapter, the narrator ceases talking, fearing that his speech will bore the reader.
• Anansi Boys (by Neil Gaiman) - The narrator frequently references the fictional nature of the story.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (by Lemony Snicket) - The author frequently addresses the readers, suggesting they skip over particularly gloomy parts or stop reading the book altogether.
• Automated Alice (by Jeff Noon) - Noon himself appears in the book and explain to Alice the nature of her existence.
• The Banned and Banished (by Tom Arden) - In the pentet, we are told in the prologue of each book to remember that "the author is a liar", and that just reading the text without the correct tuition is a hanging offense. Finally, we are told that the reason it is all so dangerous is because the whole story was true.
• Bend Sinister (by Vladimir Nabokov) - In the introduction, the author writes about his nonhuman appearances in the book, as a deity early in the story and then at the end as "a beam of pale light causing instantaneous madness" for the protagonist. Nabokov also jokes about a character's dream existing in a place where "the dream management" are simply changing the sets and aren't very good at it.
• Clive Cussler - From Treasure onwards, Cussler himself makes a cameo appearance in each book, meeting Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino, and frequently giving them some vital piece of information to ensure their survival. This regular gag climaxes in Trojan Odyssey with Cussler appearing for a "wrap party" with all the regular characters.
• The Dark Tower series (by Stephen King) - Characters and settings from previous King novels (such as The Stand and Insomnia) play a major part in the plotline, particularly in the series' later novels. At one point, the main characters learn they are characters in a book. Further on, the characters travel to Maine to prevent King's death so he can finish writing their story.
• The Fourth Bear (by Jasper Fforde) - at one point, after an extremely corny and long set up joke, the characters remark "How does he get away with it?". They are of course refering to the author himself.
• Gödel, Escher, Bach (by Douglas Hofstadter) - several of the fictional sections involving Achilles and Tortoise revolve around meta-levels (most notably 'Little Harmonic Labyrinth', in which the characters read a story about themselves, wherein they in turn read yet another story about thenmselves; at various points, comments made by the readers are noticed by those being read, and the piece ends without ever returning to the cliffhanger situation in which the first pair were caught). In some of the later stories, Hofstadter's recurring self-insert character, Egbert B. Gebstadter, is introduced as the author or Copper, Silver, Gold, a fictional equivalent of GEB itself. The final story ends with Hofstadter himself appearing (accompanied by Charles Babbage and Alan Turing) to put an end to the sequence.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy, and most notably So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish (by Douglas Adams) - At one point in So Long, the narrator advises the reader that a large part of the story to come deals with protagonist Arthur Dent building a relationship with a girl named Fenchurch, and that many readers might find this boring, and so they may want to skip ahead to a later chapter, assures them that Arthur does end up fucking, and that the readers will be pleased to find Marvin near the end of the book (which is all true). Also, in the series' first book, immediately before a sequence in which the Heart of Gold nearly avoids a collision with two thermo-nuclear missiles, the narrator reassures the reader that no one will be killed so they can be relaxed while reading the book, and that one character will merely hurt his shoulder in the sequence (though the identity of that character is kept a secret to drive the suspense). It turns out that Arthur is the one who hurts his shoulder.
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (by Italo Calvino) The book opens with you, the reader, walking into a book store to pick up Italo Calvino's latest book, If on a Winter's Night, a Traveller.
• Illuminatus! (by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson) Throughout the trilogy (and in most of Wilson's other fiction), references to the fictional nature of the story are mentioned repeatedly, including a scene in which one of the characters, Epicene Wildeblood, gives a scathing review to a book which is clearly the one he is appearing in. This is also highlighted by the absurdist names given to several of the characters (e.g., August Personage, Indole Ringh, Rhoda Chief, and the aforementioned Wildeblood). The final chapter of the third book ends with Joseph Malik declaring that their encounter with Leviathan was clearly allegorical rather than real. When Hagbard Celine attempts to dissuade him of this, arguing that it was just because the narrator, whom he identifies with the supercomputer FUCKUP, was a poor literary stylist, Joe answers that this is still more misdirection, and that the Authors (Shea and Wilson) were showing their hand by such a bald excuse.
• Jeeves series (by P. G. Wodehouse) - The narrator, Bertie Wooster, occasionally interrupts the story to describe how difficult it is to know where to begin, for example, or to ponder whether the reader would want a full description of a particular scene, or just for a brief statement ("I don't know how you feel about London in August") or summary of the action. He generally refers to the readers as "customers", thus further reinforcing "broken" fourth wall.
• The Neverending Story (by Michael Ende) - In the story, the Childlike Empress orders the book to be read 'from the beginning'. A jumbled sentence is read - "skooB dlO rednaeroC darnoC lraC", which makes no sense to Bastian at all. However, if the reader looks at the first page and notices what is being read, they will see that the characters are reading the mirrored text on the first page of the reader's book, but forgetting to reverse it.
• Pixel Juice (by Jeff Noon) - Several short stories and poems refer to each other as fictional, including one poem that sums up the entire book while poking fun at the author.
• The Princess Bride (by William Goldman)- Many references throughout the novel are made (often within parenthesis) to the author's cutting of certain parts of the original (and fictional) story due numerous reasons, including that the passages omitted were boring or superfluous in nature.
• Voice of the Fire (by Alan Moore) - The final chapter, 'Phipp's Fire Escape', begins with Moore typing the last words of the previous chapter into his computer. He then goes for a walk around his home town of Northampton, relating meetings with his family, deconstructing the previous stories in the book and musing that "this is fiction, not a lie".

[edit] Webcomics

• General Protection Fault - During April Fools week the strips are frequently loaded with fourth-wall violations. One features a character named Dexter taking over the strip for a week to denounce the other characters. Another has the characters' boss, Dwayne giving them pupils for their eyes in acknowledgement of the fact that most characters are drawn without them. Another time photos of the cartoonists cats were inserted into the strip to explain discuss the strip from a real-world perspective.

• 1/0 - Breaks the fourth wall in almost every strip, with the exception of a few strips presented during a "Fourth Wall Week" (ironically requested by one of the characters of the comic). 1/0 examines the concept of the fourth wall extensively and in a variety of ways, ranging from the nature of the influence of the author over the comic world to the use of the presence or absence of the fourth wall (and thus the acknowledgement of an omnipotent "author") as a metaphor for religion.

• Adventurers (by Mark Shallow)- In this RPG-themed webcomic, the main character Karn (the fighter in the story) always refers directly to RPG concepts in his speech and takes them at face value, knowing he's in a game. Ardam, the mage, treats their RPG world as if it should function like the real one, and dismisses Karn's blatherings as idiocy (which many of them still tend to be.) Some of the NPCs do this too.

• Bob and George - The author appears frequently and, in one instance, his in-comic character gets killed, and the strip "fades away". This occurred very early in the comic's history, and was a segue to some failed hand-drawn comics. A running gag involves the cast's constant disappointment with "the sound guy" and the sound effects he apparently supplies. Another is the fact that whenever one storyline arcs into another, the background changes. One scene depicts George running in panic when the background changes from blue to red, highly aware that the storyline was changing. Also, near the middle of the series, Protoman remarks that he reads ahead in the comic so he knows what's going on. Also, there are brief interludes in the main story on holidays, during which time it would seem that no fourth wall exists.
• Concerned - The main character of the comic, Gordon Frohman, acknowledges the mechanics of the game he is in, and in some strips makes frequent humorous remarks regarding them, or the actions of the game's protagonist that players take role of, Gordon Freeman.
• Ctrl+Alt+Del - Occasionally has author Tim Buckley appearing in the strip. The first time this happened, Buckley was shot with a longbow by the strip's main character, Ethan. Ethan did this in revenge for the times he had been hit with arrows himself, which he blamed on the author.
• Melonpool - Frequently breaks the fourth wall. This is parodied in the webcomic Zortic when Splink asks the artist to act as a deus ex machina, and is told, "If you want that kind of thing, go read Melonpool!"
• Neglected Mario Characters (by Jay Resop) - The author is a frequent character, but in a variety of guises. He is usually played by Bob Dole, but he also has been played by Kirby and General Leo Christophe. He is often portrayed as an employer to the characters and pays their salaries. Other shorts focus on him trying to update the NC website but he is busy working and playing games such as Xenogears, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Bros., or Final Fantasy VI. A running gag involves the character Fred the Spanyard saying his catchphrase, "Didn't we already kill Jay Resup?" (which he said in Bill and Fred's Quasi-Mediocre Adventure) whenever his colleague Bill the Extra Guy mentions Jay's lack of creativity or talent. There are also numerous times when the characters realize that they are just characters in a comic rather than in their own little world. In recent comics, there has also been a narrator character, "The Narrative Guy," a gray Shy Guy.
• Press Start To Play - In a recent comic, the protagonists are playing Guild Wars, to the narrator's annoyance. He threatens to quit, and Adam tells him to "get the door on [his] way out".
• PvP Online - Characters in PvP frequently break the fourth wall as part of a running gag in which the Brent character generally gets decapitated. They also complain to the artist on occasion - one arc has them complaining about the lack of background art attributing it the artist's laziness.
• Real Life (by Greg Dean) - It has interacted with readers from the beginning. The cartoonist has made a couple of appearances in the strip, and it also includes a character with god-like powers who is based on the cartoonist. The characters are very much aware that they are in a comic strip, but still try to follow their own lives.
• Sabrina Online (by Eric W. Schwartz) - The author sometimes draws himself in the comic as a bespectacled squirrel. In an early strip, Amy talks to Sabrina about the difference between fantasy and reality, after which Sabrina proceeds to grab the edge of the panel and rattle it.
• Schlock Mercenary (by Howard Tayler) - Called an "Online Comic Space Opera" by the author, this web comic, in which the characters occasionally break the Fourth Wall, often uses the narrator to break the Fourth Wall in more than one way (Breaking it towards the Characters and to the Audience), and the comic's characters usually respond in kind. Occasionally, the author himself (Drawn in, of course) will appear in the strip, and argue or agree with a character. A few instances where the fourth wall is broken in the Comic: 2001-04-08, 2002-04-07, 2002-04-11, 2002-04-15, 2002-04-21 Note: If you read Schlock Mercenary, and know of any other major or hilarious instances where the fourth wall was broken, please edit this and list them in chronological order. -Vikedal
• Shortpacked! (by David Willis) - One story arc involved the main character Ethan engaging in a series of back-and-forth edits and reversions of a Transformers wiki that actually exists. The story ends with the other person--David Willis himself--showing up at Ethan's workplace and attacking him.
• Sluggy Freelance (by Pete Abrams) - On September 22 and 23, 2006, Torg, the main character spoke directly to the audience as part of "hiatus week." Torg specifically made reference to the fourth wall in the latter, however the subsequent panel had Gwynn respond as if she were the listener and not the audience. The comic concludes with both characters looking out at the audience again.
• Something Positive (by R.K. Milholland) - Occasionally has the pet cat of the main character, the normally silent Choo-Choo Bear, appearing in front of a fireplace, wearing a robe and sipping cognac while he addresses the readers directly.
• The Wotch - The authors would occasionally show up in fillers to speak to the readers. At one point, the comic even "decided" to "read" the reader.
• User Friendly - The author often appears in the comic to explain things. He interacts with characters in nag strips, threatening to cut their salaries (the characters protest vehemently.)

[edit] Graphic novels, manga, comic books, and comic strips

• Ambush Bug - A running gag in one of the Ambush Bug miniseries was Darkseid appearing at the end of each issue in ridiculous situations. It was revealed in issue #4 that there never was any Darkseid in any issue but it was all a prop used by Ambush Bug in the hopes to help sales of the comic book he was in. There would be many moments found throughout all four issues that acknowledge that Ambush Bug realized he was nothing more then a comic book character and even references to all the different DC universes being created at that time and how confusing it was to everyone in the stories.
• Animal Man - Grant Morrison's celebrated run on Animal Man has the main character, Buddy Baker, slowly uncovering his fictional nature; this includes a scene where Buddy, having taken peyote to learn about the "true nature of reality", looks directly at the reader and screams "I CAN SEE YOU!". The story arc climaxes with Buddy meeting Morrison himself, and confronting him about the events in the story.
• Amelia Rules! - The first and last page of every chapter shows Amelia addressing the viewer and giving the prologue/epilogue to the chapter. (In Chapter 2 of the first book, it was broken even further when Reggie stuck his head in the panel and said "Who are you talking to?")
• 'Beano -The characters often get annoyed by the writers (one episode Gnasher tries to harm the editor) and some speech bubbles are labelled "reader's voice."
• Cable and Deadpool - Deadpool is aware that he is a comic book character (partly due to having been told the secret of the universe by Loki). On the first page of every issue, he directly speaks to the reader, usually to briefly explain what has happened in the story up to that point. Often, other characters will assist him in this explanation, but they do not seem to retain the knowledge of their fictional existence within the actual story. Deadpool also regularly answers the reader mail.
• Captain Underpants- In every book, in the introduction, George Beard and Harold Hutchins talk to the reader about Captain Underpants. They also tell the reader how to do the Flip-O-Rama chapters (and in the 5th book, two police men took their place and said the reader should give themselves 11 spankings and take a time-out because they do the Flip-O-Rama chapter). Also, a weird disclaimer page always shows up before a Flip-O-Rama chapter. In the 6th book, George yells at the narrator to stop making descriptions about the monster Melvin, because it was making his class sick.
• Cerebus - Dave Sim, talks to his "gray, obnoxious creation" at the end of Minds (chapter 10 of his six thousand pages graphic novel) and makes a personal visit at the end of Guys to tell cerebus that, basically, he is making him crazy by staying too long at the same place.
• Calvin and Hobbes - In one strip, Calvin Jumps out a window with his blanket< thinking it is a parachute. Hobbes then says "his mom is going to have a fit about those rose bushes".
• Deadpool, a Marvel Comics antihero, frequently shows awareness that he is a comic book character, although other characters dismiss this as merely a symptom of his psychosis. For instance, at one point Deadpool wonders whether he still "thinks in those little yellow boxes". On another occaision he dons a pair of wings and asks the reader "If I keep these on and stick an X in the title, do you think it will get the sales up on this book?", a reference to the character Angel and the X-men franchise. Another time he is asked by a character when they last met and responds "Issue sixteen". He also answered the letter column of his series himself, and in Cable and Deadpool narrates and occaisionally mentions that the editor told him the reader is the only one who bought the book.
• The Demon - At the end of Garth Ennis' run on the comic, Etrigan turns to the reader and delivers a farewell speech.
• Dilbert (by Scott Adams) - Adams wrote himself "by accident" into the cubicle world of his creation after drawing an "unfunny" strip by demand. He called this "breaking the third wall".
• Dr. Slump (by Akira Toriyama) -This manga series is known for constantly breaking the fourth wall. One example is when Arale cut the strip of the manga page. Some even read the manga within the manga.
• Doonesbury - The first breaking of the fourth wall was perhaps in the 1970's when Mark Slackmeyer instructed readers to cut out part of the given strip and mail it in protest to U.S. Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill. Gradually the number of fourth-wall-breaking episodes increased over the years. Recently the strip has featured yearly 'mailbag' week-long feature in which typically two characters address reader mail in a humorous way.
• Garfield - Characters often break the fourth wall to tell the readers what's happening or to complete a joke.
• The Goon - There are several examples of the comic referring to its own fictionality, including scenes in which the characters address the reader and one issue which had a bookending photo story in which a young boy decides to become a violent thug like The Goon. The Hellboy crossover had Hellboy being sucked into a copy of The Goon comic.
• The Invisibles (by Grant Morrison) - Has a story arc in which Ragged Robin writes herself into an Invisibles story from the future through the use of sensory deprivation and dissociative drugs. At another point, one character directly addresses the reader.
• Hellblazer - One story by Jamie Delano, titled 'Larger Than Life', strongly implies that the comic book is based around the tales recounted by the 'real' John Constantine. This idea was followed up in the comic's 10-year-anniversary issue, 'Desperately Seeking Something' by Paul Jenkins, in which John takes the reader on a pub crawl (the issue is seen from the reader's POV in which they meet several artists and writers who have worked on Hellblazer, including Delano, Jenkins, Garth Ennis, and Alan Moore. Also, Ennis's storyline 'Son of Man' has Constantine talking directly to the reader, in reference to the classic movie Alfie.
• NANA - Characters constantly refer to the reader base in arguments. (e.g. Junko Saotome scolds Shoji Endo for trying to hide in one page, and references the reader base hatred of his character not as a valid excuse for him to hide.)
• Negima Volume 9 - When the class is suggesting ideas for Mahorafest, Chizuru Naba suggests that the class do a Bottomless No Panties Café. Mana Tatsumiya tries to defuse the situation by asking younger readers to promise to not ask their parents what a "bottomless no panties café" is.
• Overboard - The author of the comic is often shown having a small office on the pirate ship with a sign "Overboard, Inc." On occasion, the characters will interrupt him to point out plot issues, complain, etc.
• Prisoners of the Sun - Tintin winks at the reader near the end of the book. In Cigars of the Pharaoh, Bab El Ehr says he has heard of Tintin's exploits and has a servant show him a copy of Destination Moon, a Tintin book that is set some time after Cigars of the Pharaoh.
• Jack Staff - The character 'Morelan the Mystic' sometimes addresses the reader, commanding him not to turn over the pages of the comic.
• Shade the Changing Man - In one storyline from the second series, the comic's author, Peter Milligan, turns up in the story and directly addresses the reader.
• She-Hulk - In the Sensational She-Hulk series by John Byrne, the green skinned beauty also known as Jennifer Walters is aware that she is a comic book, often addresses the reader, talks and complains to the writer, and once ran across an advert to catch a villain. In her further appearances in the Avengers and her new series, she does not have 4th wall appearance.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie) - The "Off-Panel" comic strip at the end of the comic book usually involves characters talking to the editor and/or the writer. In fact, one involved Knuckles the Echidna trying to memorize the script and another one involved Sonic the Hedgehog and Sabrina the Teenage Witch eavesdropping on the editors of the comic. One of the running gags in the first few issues involved the characters in the corner box. In fact, in one of them, Princess Sally banged against the "glass" and yelled, "Help! I'm stuck in a corner box!" Also, in Issue #2, Sonic searches for the Freedom Emeralds, but lands in the Underground Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic then asks, "Since when did this become an underground comic?" And in the cover of Issue #20, there is a statue of Sonic (the Freedom Fighters were convinced that Sonic was dead), and Sally says "Poor Sonic! He only lasted 20 issues!"
• Viivi & Wagner - Viivi and Wagner are usually aware that they live in a comic strip. Sometimes they complain about creator Juba being too lazy to draw properly, or selling out to market powers. Once Wagner got tired of Viivi's too short hair and gave her more hair by drawing directly on the comic strip page.
• Young Justice--Many works by Peter David break the fourth wall, and it happens often in this series, mainly because it's one of his most humorous. The start of issue 4, for example, takes place in summer while the previous issue took place in summer; the narrator mentions this, and also explains that while Tora (the villain) means nothing Spanish, "it was either that or 'Lotta Bull'".

[edit] Music videos

• Thriller (by Michael Jackson) - Just as he is taking his girlfriend home Jackson turns to the camera and smiles, his eyes yellow and wolflike. Weird Al Yankovic parodies this in his Eat It video.
• Eat It by Weird Al Yankovic is a parody of the video for Beat It, but ends with Al wearing the same yellow contacts as Michael Jackson in Thriller.
• In Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al Chevy Chase suddenly starts lip-syncing the song before Paul can, leaving him to carry props on and off screen and react to Chase and the audience.

[edit] Video games

• Many video games will utilize such conventions as providing tutorials to the player early on in a game, explaining such conventions as menus or save points, an idle character performing some type of antic if the player does not act for some time, or perform sight gags such as an object hitting the "screen" and slowly sliding off.
• Some games will scold the player for looking at the credits or beating the game with cheat codes.

• A broken fourth wall is a very prominent feature in the upcoming Nintendo DS RPG Contact. The game features an interesting triangular character set-up basis: the three main characters are you, Terry, and the professor. The professor finds Terry first, and, later, you. He wants to find the missing parts to his spaceship, which he intends for Terry to find by battling monsters. He wants you to help Terry through the touch screen, but considers it imperative that Terry not find out about your existence. The professor often talks directly to you while he's safe in his spaceship but Terry never knows you're there as he battles monsters.

• In the last stage of the game Ace Combat Zero , Pixy explains how the game needs to be reset to zero.

• In Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt, when the miner asks, "Well, stranger what brings you to these parts?", Yakko answers, "The person with the controller in their hand, if I'm not mistaken."

• In Bubsy, when a player beats the game, the congratulatory message (written from Bubsy's perspective) will acknowledge the player for "helping" beat the game. Also if you leave the game idle for a certain time, Bubsy will "hit" the screen causing it to shake.

• Big Fat Awesome House Party- If you roll over Bloo in the main menu for the game, he'll laugh because the player is "tickling" him. If you roll over him more, he'll get annoyed and will yell at you to stop rolling over him. If you wait a while on the main menu without making a chose, Bloo will yell at you to make up your mind.

• In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, once a player wins a level with Scorpion, he uses one of his moves to bring the screen towards him, using his spear, shouting "Get over here" as well.

• Secret of Evermore contains a philosopher named Socrates who preaches philosophical platitudes to a group of people. Talking to Socrates repeatedly causes him to say, "This is a video game. We are all characters in a video game." One of the people in the audience comments, "This guy is a nut case", to which Socrates replies, "If I am lying, may I be struck down by the powers that be!" A menu box then opens, allowing the player to select whether Socrates should be turned into a goat, a chicken, or a basket. He remains in this form for the rest of the game.

• In Panzer Dragoon Saga, it is revealed at the end that the Divine Visitor is not the playable character Edge or his dragon, but the player, who is referred to by the name he inputs at the beginning of the game.

• In Banjo Kazooie and its sequel Banjo Tooie all the characters demonstrate through their dialogue that they are well aware of being in a video game, such as Mumbo Jumbo's comment "Me best shaman in whole game." Both games include a character who provides information about the controls and how to play the game (Bottles the mole in the first game, and his brother Sgt. Jam Jars in the sequel). After freeing Tooty near the end of the game, the end credits are shown, but the game still contiunes, prompting Kazooie to wonder why the game isn't over yet, as does Banjo in the sequel after the credits roll and Bottles and Jingaling are brought back (before the credits roll, Kazooie says, "Do you reckon that's the end of the game?" and Banjo adds "I don't think so, we haven't had the credits yet...". At the end of Banjo Kazooie, the characters openly discuss the development of the sequel, Banjo-Tooie. At one point in Banjo-Tooie, Kazooie even points out that "Every time the music changes to that we have to fight some oddball" (just before a boss fight against Klungo) and the defeated Gruntilda also tells the characters she will have her revenge in Banjo-Threeie (a sequel which did not exist at the time). They also seem to know that they have transferred from one game to another, as in the prologue of Banjo-Tooie, after Bottles dies, Kazooie says, "He wasn't the favorite character in Banjo-Kazooie anyway!" and when they steal the water from Gobi the camel in Hailfire Peaks, he says, "It took me since the last game to save that!"

• In Black Dahlia, the main character sometimes yells at the player.

• In the original (Amiga) version of Cannon Fodder, when a save disk was formatted, the "Please Wait" messages would eventually develop into the Amiga telling players that they have time to make a cup of coffee and "pour it into my vents." (This is not recommended.)

• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, In the High School level when Xander finds an Ultraviolet filter he'll say "Ultraviolet filter, conviently placed and fits perfectly on my flashlight to see hidden writing, it's like a frickin video game," also on the final level after unlocking a secret door, Buffy will say "Secret Passageway, the kind of things you would only find in a video game.

• If a car passes by Lightning McQueen in Cars (video game), he comments, "Hey, this isn't how the story goes!"

• In Crash Bandicoot Warped, one of Crash's deaths is being hit by a two-headed giant into the screen. Also in Crash Twinsanity, Cortex shoots a farmer who asks Crash to do a favour for him, Cortex then looks at the screen and says "I'm an evil scientist what would you expect? This isn't a game you know." Later on in the game, Cortex is seen with a bunch of penguins who are talking about a cheque being bounced then Cortex explains that the last two years have been slow and that The Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as they hoped.

• In Conker's Bad Fur Day After defeating the final boss, the game appears to freeze; Conker complains that the "Q&A department" probably did not finish testing the game, then contacts the "programmer" to receive a better ending. Also when he is about to enter the prehistoric area he passes the guards saying "It's ok I'm the new King. Well I will be. Didn't you guys see the opening cinema?"

• In Conker: Live and Reloaded (which includes a remake of Conker's Bad Fur Day) when something isn't the same as it was in the original Conker says that he talked to the producer and was told that it was just a port of the old game. Conker also sometimes talks "directly" to the producer after such things occur.

• In Custom Robo (Gamecube version) durring the Police Sponsored Tournament one of the boys spectating says "It must feel great to be the main character. Me? I'm a minor character. I'm just stand here and add nothing to the plot." after another battle the boy comments "I don't even have a name. The hardships of a minor character."

• In Goose and Gol's Lunch PANIC! on the Amiga there was a bonus level where if the player achieved over 10,000,000 points they would be taken to a room at the end of the game which contained nothing but a giant wall with "4th" written on it, players could then break that wall, revealing a personal congratulatory message from the programmer to the player.

• In Destroy All Humans! if the player idles on the main menu, the character Orthopox will eventually begin complaining about it, such as acknowledging his status as a fictional character in a videogame.

• Disgaea 2 have many example of breaking the fourth wall, ex; Rozalin ask Adell what qualifies him to fight her father the Overlord, "Such as being level one hundred million". Etna tells Adell that her title used to be "demon lord" but she hacked it to say "beauty queen", and Laharl, Flonne, and Etna all try to pass a proposal in the dark senate called "I want to be the main character".

• In Donkey Kong 64, when Wrinkly is first heard from for the first time, she says, "My body may have passed away since DKC3..."
• In EarthBound, the player is asked several times throughout the game for his/her real name for use in the battle with the final boss. Also, some signs and characters say things like:
  • "These actions will help you in EarthBound"
  • "I wanted to get in touch with the people at [game developer] Ape."
  • (Outside of a closed building:) "Planning meeting for EarthBound 2".

There is also a sign in Moonside that says it can sense a controller in the player's hands.

• In the Extra Stage of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, if playing as Marisa Kirisame, the boss Flandre Scarlet informs the player that he/she can't continue prior to the battle.

• In Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, when the player's "sanity meter" drops or becomes empty, various effects occur such as the game appearing to erase the save files or turn off the television screen.

• In Jak 3, when Jak makes light of Seem's questions, Seem tells him, "This is not a game!" At this point Jak and Daxter both glance briefly toward the player.

• In Final Fantasy IV, the player can go into a room where they can meet the game's development team.

• In Final Fantasy V, during one of the dance sequences, the characters call out to "you on the other side of the screen!"

• In the Japanese and German versions of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, the main player can visit Zelda and hear a comment about being in the wrong game.

• In The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (video game), In story mode Grim says after he discovers that his trunk is empty he says "But what kind of sicko would make us fight just for their own ammusiment?" And Grim, Mandy and Billy look at the screen meaning the player. Another time in Story Mode Grim tells them that Irwin was infected with super natural rage and says it because he was part of that last fight. Then Mandy asks "What about you? Weren't you part of that last fight too?" And Grim responds "I thought we agreed not to talk about the plot holes Mandy." And at the very end of the game after they learn that Billy was the one who let all the mojo out Mandy says "I don't know about the rest of you but I hope this thing has a mode where we can all beat on Billy."

• In Serious Sam 2 (game), the main character frequently makes reference to the fact that he is aware that he is in a computer game. For example: when fighting a giant bee, he states that "There are no bugs in this game!"; when told to find and collect a statue to proceed for seemingly no reason, he says "Who makes these puzzles?"; when entering a sewer, he says "You can't have a game without a sewer level!"; he refers to the creators of the game, CryoTeam, when he sees a picture of them; in one sequence, he looks over a gallery of pictures of his adventures in previous computer games, remarking how fun those games were.

• In Jinxter, examining the table at your home gives the explanation: "Were this a different game, you would probably be able to play snooker on it, but it isn't and you aren't."

• In Kingdom Hearts, in the cutscene when Donald, Goofy and Aerith talk about why King Mickey has left, when the camera is focused on Goofy, Donald reminds Goofy that they have to find the keyblad, then pulls down the carmera so that it focuses on him, then the cutscene continues.

• At the end of the intro sequence of Lemmings 2: The Tribes, the young Lemming asks his father who will save all the Lemmings on Lemming Island. The father answers, "The same force that saved us before," and they both turn to look directly toward the player.

• In Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, there is road closed in one of the areas. If examined, Larry will say "Road closed? Oh way to finish the level, art staff!" and if the player examines a plant next to the library, Larry will say "What about it? It's a plant." Examine it again and he will say "Dude, it's a plant, get over it." Examine it a third time and he will make something up about the plant to make the player stop examining it. If examined for a final fourth time, Larry will give up and say "Oh I hate adventure gamers!".

• Looney Tunes: Back in Action (the game version) - In the final level, sometimes when Bugs gets hit by a spiked ceiling, he says, "Well, at least I'll be 2-D again." Also, whenever Daffy's in water, he may say, "The producers could've made this water a little warmer. ...I hope nobody heard that."

• Muppets Party Cruise - Sometimes when someone is losing, they say something about their player, like Animal may say "Save now! SAVE NOW!" or Fozzie saying "Uh, hello? Could someone please wake my player up? Thank you." Miss Piggy also complains that's she's having "a bad player day."

• In The Fairly OddParents: Breakin' Da Rules, when Timmy isn't moved for a period of time, his eyelids start going down, he starts looking around, and go back to normal, and might glare at the player. If you leave him for a few more seconds, he will start reading a comic book. If you still don't move him, he'll fall asleep, and wakes up as soon as you move him.

• In the PC version of "The Emperor's New Groove", Kuzco will at one point ask how'd Tico get there so fast. He replies, "Hey, it's a game!" Kuzco then says, "Don't get cocky, kid."

• One of the Wonderbot tricks in Robots is the Wonderbot looking right up to the screen and then starts to tap it.

• In Makai Kingdom, the main character Zetta is turned into a magical book, and states to the camera "I got turned into a book? who writes this crap?". Laharl, the main character of Disgaea, acknowledges that the only reason Zetta is able to beat him is because "I'm not the main character in this game, so I'm destined to lose", and later joins the party in an attempt to be the main character.

• In Max Payne the player is shown a cutscene in which the titular character hallucinates that he is in both a computer game and a graphic novel. This is doubly effective since both Max Payne and its sequel assume a film noir/comic book style of narrative, with cutscenes in framed comic layout.

• In The Matrix: Path of Neo the Wachowski Brothers, creators of the series, address the player directly to explain that they have changed the events of the ending to be "more suitable for a video game", although many players took that new ending as an insult to those who loathed The Matrix Revolutions ending.

• In Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, Psycho Mantis is able to stop the game's background music (which the protagonists take note of), and makes comments about other Konami games saved on the memory card. He also appears to "make" the player's controller vibrate and to display "Hideo" in green text in the corner of the screen (making it appear as if the TV was switched to "Video"). If the player is unable to defeat Psycho Mantis, Colonel Campbell will call and inform him/her to switch the controller to the second port. After Mantis is defeated, he says, "So, you used the other...." Colonel Campbell also tells the main character, Solid Snake, to look at the back of the game's CD case to find Meryl's (a female protagonist) radio frequency. In another scene Revolver Ocelot informs Snake that he is going to torture him. However, he tells Snake to "Press the O button repeatedly to regain your strength," and that if he dies during the torture, it's "Game over. There are no continues, my friend." If you haven't saved for a long time he will point that out at this time as well. Ocelot adds, "Don't even think of using auto-fire, or I'll know!" [1]. All of the above were retained for the GameCube remake Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

• In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a conversation between Pliskin and Raiden makes references to VR training and "war as a video game." Near the end, the game mechanics become affected and it becomes clear that the fictional Selection For Societal Sanity (S3) is an allegory for the game itself. The player is told what to do, where to go, how to achieve the mission, etc, and the game even manipulates the player's input and emotions, just as the S3 Plan does.

• In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, as the prequel to the Metal Gear Solid series, if the player kills a character who appears in a (chronologically) later Metal Gear game, they will receive a "Time Paradox" game over screen. Also, while calling The Boss during the Virtous Mission, she'll tell Snake to 'rely on his instincts as a gamer' after learning that he can't smell. Like the first Metal Gear Solid game, Snake Eater also allows players to think outside the game to complete specific sections. Most notably, When the player comes to the boss fight with The End they can turn the console off and move the internal clock of the PS2 ahead about a week; when the player goes back to the game they find out that The End has died of old age. Also, if the player is quick enough they can kill The End immediately after a cutscene early in the game and instead of The End showing up later as if it never occurred, he will in fact remain dead and the boss fight will never occur. Similarly, the player can drown oneself during the battle with The Sorrow and achieve the same result as making it to the very end of the battle.

• In the Monkey Island series, a number of characters, including Guybrush Threepwood and Lechuck frequently addresses the player. A popular refrence would also include the third game where Guybush has to die halfway through the game and the bartender commenting that Lucus Arts (the people who made it) just killed off their main character, and this leads straight into the end credits (Guybush screeming later that he isn't dead and to cut it out).

• The entire premise of Omikron breaks the fourth wall. According to the game, the player's character is actually the player, whose soul has been sucked into the game world, where it exists as a ghost-like entity capable of possessing the game's characters.

• In the video games The Simpsons: Hit and Run and The Simpsons Road Rage, the characters occasionally say things that break the fourth wall. For example, Homer says, "This video game SU-UHKS!" (a line that is reprised in Crash Tag Team Racing) when he loses, and Marge says, "Where to next, video game?" when she completes a mission or delivers a passenger. Homer will also accuse another driver of using a cheat code.

• In Crash Tag Team Racing Dr. Neo Cortex shouts "That would've hit you, but this game is rated E!" (The game is actually rated E10+.) when he misses hitting an opponent with a weapon. Also, when Pasadena O'Possum's vehicle is destroyed, she reprises the "This game SU-UCKS!" line from the Simpsons video games. (The three games were all developed by Radical Entertainment.)

• In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, certain characters will occasionally address the player directly; other characters react to the lines and wonder who they are talking to. Goombella, in one of her "Tattle" abilities, notes that she almost "broke the fourth wall". Other characters occasionally mention the game itself or make meta-references that it is, in fact, a video game. Also, at one point, when Lord Crump disguises himself as a pirate to follow Mario and his gang to Keelhaul Key, he says, "You out there, in front of the TV... I know it's obvious that I'm an X-Naut, but don't tell anyone!" Vivian overhears this and says, "What exactly does he mean by 'in front of the TV'?"

• In the Extra Stage of Perfect Cherry Blossom, Reimu Hakurei mentions that the enemy character Chen wasn't anything special, because "she's still a Stage 2 boss after all." Chen appears as a Stage 2 boss in the regular game, but is the midboss of the Extra Stage.

• In the Pokémon video games, various characters throughout each game can be found trading Pokémon between their own Game Boys; some of them will even trade a specific pokémon to the player. Additionally, Celadon City in the Kanto region contains a building staffed by "Game Freak" -- the game's own development staff, one of whom identifies himself as the game designer. If the player is able to fill their entire Pokédex (i.e. entries 1~150), the designer will reward them with a special certificate; in the Japanese Yellow version, he will also reward the player with Mew.^{[citation needed]}

• In RuneScape, if you speak to the bartender of the Blue Moon Inn in Varrock, he will say things about RuneScape, and that it is played on a computer. The player character asks what a computer is, and the bartender replies that it is a magic box that can do all sorts of things. The character replies that he/she doesn't know what the bartender is talking about, and that he must be completely mad. This is contradicted by the player attempting to explain the fact that RuneScape is a computer game to another bartender in a the Jolly Boar Inn north-east of Varrock.

• In Shadow Hearts Covenant the characters make references about events outside the game. In the 100-level "Tower of the Holy Ring" dungeon, the characters skip from level 26 to level 89 and are aware that something fishy has occurred. A recurring gag in the Shadow Hearts series is the ability to input a name for Roger Bacon, only to have the philosopher scold the player.

• In the adventure game Simon the Sorcerer, Simon has to make a group of men confess that they are wizards. The game offers several choices for Simon to say, but the only one that works is "But whenever I move the cursor over you, it says 'wizards'."

• In one mission of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Lambert tell Sam Fisher to try not to trip too many alarms. Fisher says "Let me guess, three alarms and the mission's over?", to which Lambert replies: "No, this is no video game, Fisher", referring to the previous two games where three alarms would end the mission.

• In 'Spyro: A Hero's Tail', when Lily the mermaid confuses Spyro with some sort of fish, he turns to the player and says "Chicks!" Also, when the surfing otter Otto asks Spyro to fill his pool with water, Spyro advises the player to "Just say no."

• In the 'SpongeBob SquarePants' computer game Employee of the Year, SpongeBob enters a television studio (to be precise, in Chapter Two, Rock Bottom). Upon examining a workstation of a secretary, SpongeBob remarks, "A computer! Sometimes I feel as if I am stuck in a computer game! Oh, the horror!" In the same room exists a poster of another 'Spongebob SquarePants' game poster. The tooltip states 'View America's Favorite Sponge' and the title character says, "Ah, (name of game), good times, good times..."

• In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time the player can access a special hidden dungeon after beating the game. One of the bosses in this dungeon is a powered-up version of an enemy from earlier in the game. After defeating him, the heroes comment that if they had fought the powered-up boss earlier in the game, it would have been impossible to complete the main plot.

• In Valkyrie Profile, upon entering a bonus dungeon called Seraphic Gate, the player is told, "There's no correspondence between the dungeon and the main game, and if you feel it might spoil your enjoyment, we recommend not playing it." If the player was able to recruit three characters to join his/her party temporarily during the main game, each of them gives a humorous speech prior to re-joining the player's party. Freya apologizes for not being able to join permanently in the first chapter because it was determined to be so from the beginning, Lezard complains that he was mocked as being a "dirty old man" and a "pervert" during game development, and Brahms apologizes to a member of the development team for switching game companies due to a better offer. Finally, after beating the Seraphic Gate dungeon and opening a chest the player finds a different Book Of Riddles from 2nd to 9th time he/she beat the dungeon. This contains messages from the programmers, such as informing the player that the level limit in the game is "only" 99, unlike in most tri-Ace games where it's 255 and commenting that you should move on to a new game already.

• In the first Virtual On game, the story plays the player's character is actually a gamer in the game's world, who thinks they're just playing a video game, not knowing that their input is driving a real battle between the fighting mecha.

• In Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, the Virturoids from Virtual On are aware that the Super Robot Wars world is a video game, but don't have the heart to reveal this to the various anime characters. The game also hints that they're being controlled by players in the real world). Additionally, Kaworu Nagisa from Evangelion makes comments suggesting that he has been shifting between the various Super Robot Wars universes.

• All through Burnout 3, the player is advised by Stryker, who views the player and the player character as one. Since there are no player characters in the Burnout series, it is assumed that the player is actually the driver.

• In True Crime: Streets of LA, if the player is driving furiously throughout the game and is crashing through walls and running over pedestrians, Nick Kang will say, "Hey, relax! It's only a video game" or "Yes five points, wait that's not funny".]

• The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (the game version) - After the final FMV, the narrator says, "Now go outside and play. You look pretty pale."

• In Twisted Metal 2, the driver information for Roadkill says, "I know the truth you freak! You sit back in your living room with your little video game console and play, play, play! But I know what's happening. I can see you! They think I'm crazy but you'll find out that I'm the only one who's sane!" At the end Marcus Kane asks to be in the real world for his prize.

• At the end of one of The Lost Vikings industrial stages with cranes. the three titular Viking brothers pose an existential question about if they were somehow being controlled by some other entity than themselves. One Viking states that is ridiculous then another of the Vikings points toward the player and asks "Then who is that guy?", then the other two notice the player, and all three of them decide to leave because this is too creepy. If the player fails to finish a stage too many times they complain about the player losing all the time or say they are getting tired of this stage, sometimes Thor's voice will come out of nowhere and ridicule the Vikings' incompetence, stating how he never took so long to finish stages in his videogames and how they are much harder than this game.

• In Tales of Symphonia Lloyd complains to Raine about the having to climb so many stairs, and asks why the game designers can't offer them a "quick-jump option." (Quick-jump is used previously in the game to skip through previously-completed mazes). When questioned about this, Lloyd merely comments "Nevermind". Also, in one of the rooms in the Sylvarant Base, a giant Nintendo GameCube sits in plain sight in the centre of the Cycle Lock System machine, but it is referred to by Lloyd simply as a 'weird thing'.

• In Tak and the Power of Juju, Jibolba addresses the player, thinking that he/she is a Juju spirit whom he has managed to summon. He calls the television "the box you watch him on" and the controller "a stick of power" that the player holds as if it is "very dear to [his/her] heart."

• The You Don't Know Jack series is supposed to take place in a television game show studio, complete with cameras, podiums, a band, and an audience (as referenced in the backstage sequence before every game). However, both the backstage crew and the hosts will break the fourth wall in their own ways. A producer (Raul, Cookie, or Sandy) will congratulate you on successfully installing the game when you first start it up (and will even detect a program crash and mock you the next time you start the game). The host will refer to previous editions of the game, introduce real-life game staffers (You Don't Know Jack: The Ride introduced Jellyvision employee Brian Chard as part of a Jack Attack question), and give instructions on using the keyboard.

• Several non-player characters (NPCs) in RuneScape seem to be aware of their fictionality; one, for instance, explains that he "doesn't want to make the game too easy" when asked for help. For a time, players could write letters to the three main gods of the RuneScape; the gods have suggested that the arch on the game's login screen is a dimensional portal between RuneScape and the real world, and several references have been made to "Mage Gower" and the "Jagex Council" (a reference to RuneScape's creators at JAGeX Software, headed by Andrew Gower). The player also has the opportunity to explain to another NPC that the Runescape world is just a game.

• In AdventureQuest a moglin says that he will not turn into a monster because the AdventureQuest staff doesn't have time for that. Also, whenever the Guardian Dragon is summoned in a fight, he has a sequence of snappy one-liners that include "Don't blame me, the idiots in the chat room came up with my lines" and "I'm speaking to Artix about reducing my summon rate."

• In Metroid Fusion, the computer Adam and the Galactic Federation head are aware they are in a video game, and there is a phrase in the Shinespark Sequence Break that says, "How many players do you think will see this message?"

• In the Donkey Kong Country series Cranky Kong mocks other video games.

• Upon a player's third play-through of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Atton jokes about being added to the game at the last minute.

• In The Sims series, if characters are told to do something creative while they are tired, they turn toward the player and say, "Uh-Uh", and then state the reason. They also turn toward the player and yell at him/her if they are neglected.
  • When a The Sims 2 (PC) player manages to kill every Sim in a household, the Grim Reaper informs them that the game is a life simulator, not a death simulator.

• In Lifeline (also known in Japan as Operator's Side), the player's voice is used to command the actions of Rio, the heroine. She always addresses the player directly and, having little will of her own, she looks to the player for advice, solutions to puzzles, and dispatching various enemies.

• In Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, the duo arrive at a planet just as the villain they're chasing leaves. Ratchet asks why they always seem to arrive just too late, then both characters look accusingly toward the player.

• In Rayman 3 Murphy, an NPC, reveals that he gets all the (debatably) helpful information he provides to the player by reading the manual. As the level progresses, he becomes increasingly sarcastic regarding the manual, which he seems to regard as merely stating the obvious, while the manual itself argues with him, through subtitles. For example, in one part of the level, rayman must stop a panicked Globox by closing a door in his path. Strangely, the door is right in the middle of an open area, apparently serving no other purpouse. Murphy then remarks "Who came up with the idea of putting a door there anyway? Must be the same peron who wrote the manual", to which the manual replies "Well, this is what the manual has to say to YOU!". At the end of the level, Murphy says goodbye to Rayman by saying, "See you in Rayman 4!" Globox, another NPC, is scared of the Hoodlums and attempts to calm himself down by repeating "It's only a video game... it's only a video game...." Shooting Globox can sometimes provoke responses such as:
  • "Quit it! The manual says you're my best friend!"
  • "You better watch out we're going to be censored mister. It's bad enough that I'm butt-naked."
  • "We're going to be rated PG-13!"
• In the Discworld games Rincewind is unhappy with the fact that he's in a video game, and he refers to environmental factors as "Plot element, Locations, Hint and Items etc" as though he were nothing more than an objective observer. The game includes an easter egg in which Rincewind travels back into the first game from the second, exchanging a few words with his previous self about its sloppy graphics and ridiculous budget, while at the same time boasting about his recently improved artwork. He is very sensitive about being clicked on, occasionally even "confiscating" the cursor for short periods of time.

• In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the player character is knocked unconscious and accosted by a group of Sabbat. After deciding to kill their prey, one of the Sabbat turns toward the screen and says "Those of you sitting in the first few rows will get wet!" In addition, Clan Malkavian's insane insight generates a few instances, such as the psychic beachcomber who, when prompted to reveal whether or not the character will succeed in his endeavours, replies "It doesn't matter if you win the game or not, it's if you bought it." Another reply the player's character (if it is a Malkavian) makes is "Don't tell me! Tell the person who is playing me!"

• In Super Monkey Ball 2 if the player beats the game in Challenge Mode, Aiai tells him/her to try a harder level of difficulty.

• In Vectorman, when Vectorman falls, walk to the right-hand corner of the screen and fire upward. A microphone will fall. If the player destroys it, the SEGA logo "fizzes out".

• In "Day of the Tentacle" Bernard says that sometimes he feels as though his actions are out of his control and that he is being controlled by some sort of puppet master.

• In Escape Velocity, a number of the programmers can be seen flying spaceships, one randomly displayed news article makes a reference to "Escape Velocity 637", and a spaceship buzzes the player and tells him/her to send in the shareware fee. This continues until it is turned off by registering the game.

• Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana summarizes its sequence of tutorials as the "Fourth Wall Lecture Series", and at one point another character claims "I can't do that! The ESRB would go nuts!"

• In the game *Marathon at some computer terminals the player will get incoming messages from Bungie, the makers of the game.

• In the remake of The Bard's Tale, during the tutorial, the Bard will make fun of the old man giving the tutorial, saying things like "You remind me of another bloke who kept talking about invisible mice I couldn't see." (a reference to tutorials from earlier PC Bard's Tale games) and "Buttons? What buttons you silly old git?"

• Any and all Real-time Strategy games break the fourth wall constantly. This is due to the in-game infantry, vehicles, etc. talking directly to the players, addressing them as commander, general, etc. Ironically, the players are commanding them. Even the mission briefing videos speak directly to the players. (Most humorous is Warcraft II's ability to amuse and abuse players if they click repeatedly on units, causing them to give funny comments or even get mad at the players. For example, some units say things like "What do you want?" or "That tickles!")

• In the real-time strategy game Fire Emblem, one of the characters is actually the player, a strategist who appears in cut scenes and can be named at the start of the game. Your character has his own sprite and background story, but it's obvious since he/she is a Tactician, runs off screen when there is a battle and the player takes over commanding the units and during cut scenes when people are speaking to the character they face the screen. See also Player Character.

• In NFL Blitz 20-03 the game commentators will insult the player for making poor play calls. One example is when the first commentator says "Why did they go with that play?" and the other responds "Ask the kid with the controller!"

• In Chrono Trigger, an enemy NPC, Dalton, steals the party's time machine, and begins modifying it. When he is finished, the main protagonist's theme begins playing, causing Dalton to yell to stop the music, which then changes into a theme commonly used by bosses. Also, in one of the variant endings for the game, you can speak with the developers of the game.

• In Viewtiful Joe, when Alstor appears, he reads from "the script" to explain the main villain's evil plot, to which Joe responds by noting that "there are children watching, ya know!" (despite the games' "T" ERSB Rating and "12+" PGEI Rating).
• In Viewtiful Joe 2, instead of explaining who Alastor is, Joe merely tells the audience to "go to their local discount store and pick up a copy of Viewtiful Joe".

• In Madagascar, Marty asks how Mort got up a ledge. Mort tells him that the plot calls for it.

• In the game Icewind Dale, a character with Male Fighter Voice 5 will react to being selected multiple times with, "I understood you the last twenty times you selected me!"

• In Baten Kaitos, the player is a guardian spirit of the main character, and often is asked for advice.

• Super Princess Peach breaks the fourth wall on a number of occasions. In the opening intro, Army Hammer Bro openly brags about how the Koopas will finally have their revenge on Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom thanks to the powers of the Vibe Sceptor. Bowser quickly corrects him, saying "Hey! Idiot! Not so loud!". He looks up toward the screen towards the player and says: "Hey! You there! Close that door in front of you, will ya?" He then points down to the bottom screen, where a little icon appears near the door. The player has to touch the door to close it, and resume the intro.

• In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Magneto reacts rather poorly at being left 'idle' and yells at the player "I command you to play the game this instant!". So does Bishop, who asks the player "Hey you! Yeah, you! What are you doing that's so much more important than this?" During the boss fight with Deadpool, he does his usual wall-breaking by saying that his last job was as a video game designer.

[edit] Fiction that restores the fourth wall

See also: List of fiction that builds the fourth wall

The popularity of breaking the fourth wall in modern fiction allows it to serve as a vehicle for irony.

• In an episode of That's So Raven, Cory and Victor demonstrate the son and father's meeting in their house by showing them juggling but Cory accidentally breaks the viewer screen on us. Victor replies "You just broke my TV screen." In another episode when Eddie gets to be psychic for a while somebody exclaims he should have his own show. Raven then says "Who would want to watch a show about a teen psychic."before smirking at the screen.
• The cartoon The Simpsons parodied breaking the fourth wall near the end of the episode "Duffless". After Homer leaves Moe's Tavern, Moe Szyslak says "He'll be back! And so will you! And you! And you!", pointing at the camera at the end. The camera then turns round to reveal he's pointing at Barney Gumble, who remarks, "Of course I'll be back. If you didn't close, I'd never leave." Another instance happened at the very end of the first part of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" When the people from Springfield are gathered around Mr. Burns's body, Dr. Hibbert points directly at the camera and says: "Well, I sure can't solve this mystery. Can you?" After a few seconds, the camera pulls back to reveal that Hibbert was really pointing at Chief Wiggum, who replies "Sure, heh, it's my job, right? Right?" Later, in "Mom and Pop Art", when Homer badmouths Matt Groening (the show's creator), a giant pencil eraser starts to rub on Homer's head, causing him to remark "Oh no! I'm being erased!" The pencil turns out to be part of a giant piece of art. Plus in "Brawl in the Family" Lisa asked whether, after 275 adventures they've had (as of Season 13), it was going to end their series. As everyone looked at her, she finishes with "Of events?" Occasionally the characters have broken the fourth wall, like the time when Bart talked to the viewers about war at the end of the episode "General Bart" and Homer actually ate a preview in one episode and coughs it up when it was from Fox.
• The game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time begins with the protagonist narrating the story, apparently to the player, a framing device common in the medium. The game maintains this appearance by casting interruptions to gameplay as breaks in the narrative. When the player pauses the game, the Prince asks, "Shall I go on?" Likewise, when the character on screen dies, the narrator insists, "That's not how it happened" or "No, that's not right...I didn't fall." Shortly before the end of the game, it is revealed that the Prince has been telling the story to another character. In fact, it is revealed that the Prince starts telling the story again after the plot of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the final part of the trilogy.
• The American comics artist Keno Don Rosa parodied breaking the fourth wall in his 1997 story The Last Lord of Eldorado. The story begins with the Ducks onboard a sailing ship, while Donald Duck explains the events that led them to this situation. Scrooge McDuck, upon hearing this, shouts: "I know all that! Who do you think you are, a narration box in some silly comic book or something?"
• In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka bumps the screen. The fourth wall is restored when it is revealed that he bumped into the Great Glass Elevator.
• The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 3: The Jerkinators featured Sheen asking the audience if they were going to know twice, it was restored when it was shown that he was actually asking Libby. Libby comments that he was creeping her out.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• The Fourth Wall
• List of fiction that builds the fourth wall
• Audience participation
• Breaking character
• Gaze
• Heckling
• Meta-reference
• Metafiction
• Self-reference

[edit] External links

• Sources of mystery play texts