Meta Reference Examples

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[edit] Television

  • In the Animaniacs cartoon, "Slappy Goes Walnuts", after Skippy tells Slappy that it's not a cartoon, it's real life, she looks at the camera and says, "Don't tell 'em. He might crack."
  • In the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Gee Whiz", several references are made to the fact that certain things are unacceptable according to Standards and Practices. Frylock explains to Meatwad that he can't say the name of a certain religious figure, because of standards and practices. Meatwad asks what that means, and Frylock shows a video clip where a man explains the concept by shooting a nun with a shotgun. When her head explodes and blood flies everywhere, he explains that this is "not OK." He then shoots the nun over again, only this time her head pops like a balloon and a rainbow pours out of it. This is considered to be "OK." Ironically, when the camera pans to show the nun's body on the ground, while the rainbow is still coming out of her neck, there is blood on the ground around it.
  • In the Blackadder the Third episode "Duel and Duality", Edmund Blackadder, lamenting on the unfulfilled dreams of his life, comments, "I want to be remembered when I'm dead. I want books written about me. I want songs sung about me. And then hundreds of years from now I want episodes from my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age." To which Baldrick replies, "Yeah, and I could be played by some tiny tit in a beard," referencing his previous bearded character in BlackAdder II. The exchange is made all the more piquant due to the references to the actors themselves, with Rowan Atkinson being described as a "great heroic actor of the age," thus borrowing some of his character's self-aggrandizing nature, and Tony Robinson's self-deprecating description as a "tiny tit".
  • In one episode of Boy Meets World, Corey laments that he has to be in two places at once. Shawn suggests that he could run back and forth between the two places like Fred in The Flinstones. Corey says that that's a TV show, and this is real life, but Shawn just replies, "Trust me, it's the same thing."
  • Occasionally, the show Brandy and Mr. Whiskers makes a meta-reference. Example:
    • Episode: Less than Hero:
      Mr. Whiskers: At least I can still touch the hearts of millions!
      (camera zooms out to reveal someone watching him on TV; the person changes the channel on their TV set)
  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Once More, with Feeling", the main character says of another character, "[She's] in trouble; must be Tuesday." This is a reference to the fact that all throughout the show's run, the episodes were aired on Tuesdays. Also in this episode, Buffy looks directly at the camera and invites the viewers to "sing along"
  • In the Darkwing Duck episode "Comic Book Capers", the protagonist's civilian self, Drake Mallard, tries to write a biography of his secret heroic alter ego in the form of a comic book, without success. In disgust, he leaves and says to his companion, "Let's see if we can sell this epic to Disney. Maybe they'll make a TV series out of it!"
  • In the Doctor Who serial, Remembrance of the Daleks, an announcer says "This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc—", but is cut off by a scene change before completing the title. A meta-reference during the Ninth Doctor's era was dropped: the episode "The Empty Child" references the long-running joke about the Doctor's name, or lack thereof, with Rose calling him "Mr. Spock." The Doctor originally replied, "I'd rather have 'Doctor Who' than Star Trek."
  • Dukes of Hazzard has a character dedicated to breaking the forth wall: The Balladeer (played by Waylon Jennnings). Apart from acting as just a narrator to explain details that would otherwise be left out of the episode, the Balladeer commonly addressed the audience with such types of quotes as "Don't you just hate it when Daisy's in trouble?", "Don't look at me... I don't know how this'll turn out, either.", or "Don't go to get popcorn just yet..." when the action is paused for commercial breaks. Once, he even said "Now, for those of you out there with long memories, when was the first time you saw the General chasing a police car?", in reference to the show's pilot episode.
  • Ed, Edd, n Eddy has meta references as well. Exempli Gratia,:
    • In "Know-It-All Ed", Edd tells Eddy his "25 cents or 25 days in the pokey" line is from the "wrong cartoon".
  • The anime Excel Saga is an experiment in parody, breaking the fourth wall, and meta-reference. Excel comments directly to the audience, and the director Nabeshin makes several appearances.
  • In The Fairly OddParents episode "Wish Fixers", a TV advertisement for the episode's namesake shows a list of various bad wishes, all of which Timmy Turner wished for in previous episodes.
  • The anime FLCL features several examples, most notably being near the beginning of the first episode. The camera cuts to the inside of a trailer with the characters fanning themselves and discussing the scene that was just interrupted.
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel Air features several examples. In one pre-credit sequence, Will asks the father, Phillip, why, if they're so rich, has their house not got ceilings, at which point the camera reveals the set, lighting apparatus and studio. In another episode when returning back to Philadelphia, Will recognizes one of the bullies from the title sequence and comments that it is the big guy who is spinning him over his head in the opening credits. At one point Will describes himself as being from 'west Philadelphia, born and raised', thus quoting the lyrics from the opening credits rap. Comments are also made in some season-opener episodes proving that the characters are aware of the improbable changes that have supposedly occurred between seasons, like recasting of the part of Vivian Banks, or the rapid aging of Will's cousin Nicky.
  • Futurama features an episode in which, faced with the prospect of risking her and Fry's lives to save Bender, Leela exclaims, "It's not an easy decision. If only we had two or three minutes to think about it!" The show then breaks for commercials.
  • In the Hannah Montana episode "I Can't Make You Love Hannah If You Don't", Billy Ray Cyrus's character is leaving a concert and is reminding Miley, Lilly, and Oliver to get out of their seats and leave by saying,"Cuz it's the end of the show and we gotta go!"
  • At the beginning of the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi episode "Manga Madness", Ami and Yumi, upon returning to Japan, are anxious to read their favorite manga, with Yumi remarking that "American cartoons are terrible!" Immediately following this, she looks at the camera and says, "Oop! Sorry."
  • In the episode 'No Hands on Deck' of the web-cartoon show Homestar Runner, Homestar is talking to Coach Z when he says "Well, i'd better get back if I'm gonna build a deck in this cartoon!"
  • In the live-action series, "Kenan and Kel", the two title characters introduce each show to the live audience. This is actually part of the show, as Kel often remarks that he has no idea what the show is going to be about. During the show, they make numerous references to the fact that they are on television, from Kel standing in front of a curtain with a video camera and shouting, "Look, Kenan! It's like our show!", to Chris keeping a box of videos of the show underneath his desk.
  • In one episode of The Monkees, a comment that "we seem to have passed this place before" is met with "Don't worry — they're filming this on a small set".
  • In Moonlighting, the lead characters would sometimes directly address the audience. On one occasion the characters of David and Maddie were shown to be aware they were characters in a series and that it was the season finale; they then attempted to thwart the expectation there would be a big finish. On another occasion, the characters, while chasing a bad guy, left the set and entered the montage room.
  • At the beginning of the ¡Mucha Lucha! episode "The Magnificent Three", when the main characters are watching a movie, at one point The Flea complains, "Why do they always cut to a word on the screen instead of showing the action?" This references a common occurrence on the show.
  • The Nanny frequently referred to other television roles of its cast members, including scenes where they watched those roles on TV and offered their critiques of the performance. In one episode Fran Drescher appeared as her This Is Spinal Tap character Bobbi Fleckman. Another episode featured a temperamental child star who acted in a sitcom about a nanny with an impossibly outlandish and expensive wardrobe. One episode also featured a false wedding between the two lead characters after which Drescher's character addresses the audience to admit "Oh I just threw that one in for you guys".
  • In an episode of Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain titled "That's Edutainment!", Pinky and Brain are offered to have their low-budget correspondence show (which has been mistaken for an educational show) on network television, but they receive poor ratings. When Elmyra finds out the mice went on the air without her, she storms the set, and when she does this, the show's ratings go up, a fact that Brain finds ironic. (In real life, Pinky and the Brain had jumped the shark at this point.)
  • At the end of every episode of Police Squad starring Leslie Nielsen, main characters in the last scene would know the show was about to end, and would stop in whatever pose they were in while the credits rolled. Often, they in the process of pouring a cup of coffee when they froze, and so the coffee continued to run onto the floor. Other characters would be unaware of this however and would continue going about their business in the background, or when they realized what was going on (after not getting a response from the frozen characters), would assume their own pose for the remainder of the credits.
  • The narrator of Rocky and Bullwinkle frequently speaks directly to the characters, and is at one point bound and gagged. This has the unintentional side effect of completely stopping the plot, because the narrator cannot introduce a character.
  • One episode of Roseanne features characters realizing that "something like this seems to happen every week" and that in the summer it seems to happen again. Also, several veiled references were made to the recasting of the part of Becky Conner.
  • In the anime Samurai Pizza Cats, characters would frequently make references to the fact that they were cartoon characters and that they were following a script. The voice-over narrator would sometimes converse with the rest of the characters.
  • In one episode of Scrubs, Dr. Cox, instead of the usual "Barbie," referred to Dr. Reid as "Becky #2," a reference to Sarah Chalke playing the character of Rebecca 'Becky' Conner-Healy in Roseanne.
    • A sub-plot of one episode revealed that the Janitor (Neil Flynn) was actually an actor when he was spotted in The Fugitive playing on TV.
  • The Simpsons features meta-references frequently, and the Usenet group alt.tv.simpsons features a Meta reference watch for each episode. A classic example is when Homer Simpson — in the style of a Road Runner cartoon — gets stuck in a hole in the ground of a narrow ledge jutting from the edge of a tall cliff. Homer declares "If this were a cartoon, this cliff would break off now." After a pause for comic effect, it does, but not till after some time passes in the show (goes from day to night). The show frequently self-criticises with this technique, often featuring Bart watching the television and announcing his gripe with the current programming, which is descriptive of the present episode itself ("They just make an episode out of footage from previous episodes and pretend it's new"; "I smell another cheap cartoon crossover"; "There's no one watching us").
    • In "Boy-Scoutz N the Hood", Lisa points out to Bart that television shows don't have to make sense. At this point, Homer walks past outside, although he has been sitting on the couch for the whole scene.
    • In "Fat Man and Little Boy", Homer asks himself how hard it could be to build a nuclear reactor. He says, "Korea did it, and look at the quality of their animation," at which point the animation cell of his beard moves off of his face, about a meter to the right.
  • South Park has also featured several meta-references:
    • In "Quest for Ratings", the main characters run an amateur news show as a school project, but when ratings drop they decide to make news stories up. During a brainstorming session, Eric Cartman suggests a storyline feature 'Crab People'. This is immediately derided as a ludicrous and implausible idea for a television show. 'Crab People' were themselves featured in a previous South Park episode.
    • In "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000", while Cartman is hanging by a pole, he asks Stan, Kyle and Kenny to push him further left, but then corrects himself: "No, camera left, camera left!"
    • In the episode "Proper Condom Use", the character Chef speaks about the dangers of having sex ed be taught by a "complete pervert," as the camera pans to Mr. Garrison. Garrison then says, "Hey, why'd you pan to me?"
    • In the episode "It Hits the Fan", it is discovered that only gay characters are allowed to say "fag" without being bleeped. Several of the characters say the word and are bleeped, but when Jimbo says it he is not. They tease him about being gay.
    • In the episode "The Return of Chef", during an exposé sequence about the "Super Adventure Club," the words "This is what Super Adventure Club members actually believe" are flashed, similar to how the words "This is what Scientologists actually believe" were flashed in the episode "Trapped in the Closet", effectively parodying a parody.
    • In the episode "Cartoon Wars", Cartman explains why his jokes are better than Family Guy, effectively saying why (from the creator's perspective) South Park is better than Family Guy.
  • In the pilot episode of Stargate SG-1 Carter remarked that it took the SGC fifteen years and three supercomputers to "MacGyver a system" to dial the Stargate, referring to Richard Dean Anderson (Jack O'Neill)'s previous role as MacGyver's title character.
    • A fan-favorite episode, titled "Wormhole X-Treme", is full of meta-reference, as the plot in part revolves around an alien from a previous episode taking part in the creation of a TV show blatantly based on his previous experience with the SG-1 team. The episode's main story (there's a "making of" featurette at the end) ends with a joke about "walkaway" lines - as the two characters walk away from the camera.
    • In the episode "Citizen Joe" Joe Spencer (played by Dan Castellaneta) experiences visions of SG-1's adventures and writes them down as sci-fi stories, at one time lamenting "the more recent episodes are lacking in character depth and story-driven plots, I'll admit..." reflecting fan opinion. Joe also discusses characters on The Simpsons with O'Neill.
    • In the episode "Chimera", Carter hums the Stargate SG-1 theme song while in the elevator.
    • In Avalon, when Vala Mal Doran meets Cameron Mitchell for the first time, she remarks, "I know I haven't met you. That I'm sure would remember," referring to the actors' previous costarring roles on Farscape.
    • "200", a direct sequel to "Wormhole X-Treme", is similarly packed with meta-references to all aspects of the show, including comments by the characters about the improbability of their adventures and the history of the show, such as when Teal'c wonders why "everything must inevitably explode."
  • The Supernatural episode "The Usual Suspects" guest-starred Linda Blair as Police Detective Diana Ballard. After working with her to solve a number of mysterious deaths, Sam asks Dean whether she looked familiar to him. He says no, but a moment later expresses a craving for pea soup, referring to her famous role in The Exorcist.
  • One episode of Yes Dear features short sequences where, at the urging of his wife, the main character, Greg, redecorates furniture in a way humorously inconvenient to the viewers. First, he faces the sofa and chairs away from the camera (thus forcing characters to face away from the camera when they sit) and then later he hangs a framed picture in front of the camera (apparently believing he is hanging it on an actual wall). During both attempts Greg's wife Kim and the other family members comment that the changes do not feel right. When Greg angrily asks why they look at the camera and say "I don't know".
  • There are several examples of this in The Young Ones One being that of the landlord Alexei, who turns to the camera and drops his faux-European accent and reverts to his natural British accent and addresses the audience.
  • In an episode of the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Jaden and Chazz go into the forest to look for some cards. In order to liven up the situation, Jaden starts to sing the shows theme song, but a few lines in, he is told by Chazz to shut up.

[edit] Audio

CATHERWOOD: Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
NICK: No, allow me to introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
CATHERWOOD: Well, maybe you should pick up your cues faster.
NICK: Are those my cues over there?
CATHERWOOD: Yes, and you'd better get them out of the cellophane before they scorch. [Referring to cellophane being crumpled to make a fire sound effect]
At other points, characters make reference to the sound effects being applied to their voices, compare their places in the script after losing track of what's happening or inform others of the correct way to end a flashback scene. ("All I do is fade my voice out like this...")
In the song "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage" by Panic! At the Disco, The singer sings, "Wait Wait! Dear Studio Audience, I have an Announcement to make. It seems the artists these days are not who you think/So we'll pick it up on another page."
In the song "Dance Inside" by The All-American Rejects, the singer sings "Don't Waste New Precious Time/We'll Dance Inside the Song." Romantic, Huh?
In the Song "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of this Song So we Wouldn't Get Sued" by Fall Out Boy, The Title is Actually a Meta Reference, and the singer sings at the beginning "Brothers and Sisters Put This Record Down/Take My Advice/Cuz We Are Bad News!/We Will Leave You High and Dry/It's Not Worth the Hearing You'll Lose/It's Just Past Eight and I'm feeling Young and Reckless/The Ribbon on My Wrist says Do Not Open Before Christmas!" Most of the song is meta-reference.
The song "Title of the Song" by Da Vinci's Notebook is entirely meta-reference. The song consists of a line-by-line template for a generic boy band song. A representative example, from the first stanza: "Declaration of my feelings for you / Elaboration on those feelings / Description of how long these feelings have existed / Belief that no one else could feel the same as I."

[edit] Cinema

  • Many movies have a narration role deliberately to break down the barrier between the action of the plot and the audience. These range from the introductory asides of American Beauty to the role of the narrator as a major character in both The Rocky Horror Picture Show and High Fidelity.
  • The John Carpenter film In the Mouth of Madness depicts Sam Neill's character as a fraud investigator pursuing a horror book-in-progress for a publisher but finds that the border between reality and fantasy is progressively collapsing as more people read extracts. It turns out that the movie is of the self-same book being written, so the movie becomes closer and closer to a full meta-reference. At the end, the book - and the breakdown of the border - is complete, Neill is insane, and he finds himself in a cinema watching himself eating popcorn on the screen. The last scene shows an exterior wall of the cinema bearing a promotional poster for the movie within itself, complete with the list of actors' and crew's real names.
  • The film Adaptation., in which the writer Charlie Kaufman writes himself into his own movie. The movie itself is a story about the writing of the movie. And in turn, when in the movie his brother takes over writing the in-movie movie, the film itself abruptly changes in tone.
  • In the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, Woody Allen interrupts an argument about Marshall McLuhan to introduce McLuhan himself, commenting to the cinema audience that he wishes arguments in real life could be as easily solved.
  • In Natural Born Killers, whilst editing a programme, television presenter Wayne Gale argues that it is okay to have segments repeated within the same show, claiming "Repetition works!" The piece of dialogue is immediately looped, so we hear him say "Repetition works!" a few seconds later.
  • In Mel Brooks's 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles, Bart's character, while traveling through the desert, meets the orchestra who plays his theme music, and much of the final act is set in the Warner Brothers back lot, ending with many of the lead actors watching the film in a local cinema. In his 1987 movie Spaceballs, the villains watch a video of the movie to find out where the heroes have gone, and become slightly confused when they end up briefly watching themselves watching themselves on video. In his 1993 film Robin Hood: Men In Tights the characters pull out their own scripts in order to check a plot point. In the 2005 remake of The Producers, when Leo Bloom walks away from Ulla, she asks him "Why Bloom go so far camera right?"
  • In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Pee-wee spends most of the movie chasing down his missing bicycle, finally finding it being used in a Warner Brothers movie. He attempts to steal the bike from the studio, in another back lot chase reminiscent of that found in Blazing Saddles. At the end, the Warner Brothers execs are so moved by his story that they make a meta-film version of the events of the film, with Pee-wee recast into the James Bond archetype. Pee-wee watches the movie and laughs at his own ridiculous cameo.
  • A similar thing occurs in Chicken Little, where at the characters end up watching a rather changed version of their own adventures.
  • In Gremlins 2: The New Batch, a film reviewer (Leonard Maltin) holds up a copy of the original Gremlins movie and denounces it as ridiculous and stupid, his rant cut short when Gremlins proceed to mock him in the background, the Gremlins then pouncing on him and attacking.
  • The Monkees' movie Head was an extended experiment in meta-reference, with many of the features in the movie referring back to the fact that nothing in it was real.
  • In Top Secret!, during a dialogue, Hillary exclaims, "It all sounds like some bad movie". This is followed by a long awkward pause as the characters look at the camera. The movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back repeats the same gimmick multiple times.
  • In The NeverEnding Story, a dual-layered meta reference is made, as the characters in Fantasia (especially toward the end) frequently reference their own status as imaginary beings being read about in a book "right now."
  • Dot the i is an independent film about a love triangle, however it turns out that the love triangle was set up by one of the love triangle's participants, who is an independent film director intent on making a film about a love triangle without his girlfriend knowing it.
  • In the opening scene of Charlie's Angels based on the TV series of the same name, two characters are watching an in-flight movie (TJ Hooker the movie), and one comments "Another movie remake from an old TV show."
  • In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Cartman criticizes the 'Terrence & Phillip' movie suggesting that "The animation's all crappy," which is immediately followed by a few, dialogue free, seconds of characters walking along in South Park's 'crappy' animation style. The creators have stated in interview that 'Terrence & Phillip' is meant to be South Park.
  • In Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the entire movie is a re-enactment of a script that is supposedly being written as the film progresses. Ultimately, the story is resolved by the reluctant actress, Heather Langenkamp, playing her role in the script.
  • In Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    • The narrator, played by Michael Palin, runs through a list of the knights who decide to follow King Arthur before concluding with a picture of a baby in knight's clothing and calling him "The aptly-named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" (it is in fact Michael Palin's baby son William).
    • Several drawn out speeches are interrupted by characters from future, as yet unrevealed, scenes extolling them to "Get on with it!"
    • One character is referred to simply as "The old man from scene 24."
    • Several characters are impressed by the appearance of Camelot, until one points out that "It's only a model."
    • Several characters are saved from certain death at the hands of a horrible beast by virtue of the animator suffering a heart-attack.
    • A historian appears several times and comments on what is happening in the film (although had he not been murdered by one of the characters, this could have been considered to be narrative, rather than meta-reference.) The police are seen several times, in pursuit of the murderer.
    • A medieval battle is interrupted by the arrival of modern day policemen, one of whom tells the cameraman to stop filming and puts his hand over the lens.
    • After a speech by Tim the Enchanter, King Arthur looks into the camera and states "What an eccentric performance."
  • Not Another Teen Movie is filled with meta-reference, starting with the title. Malik introduces himself as "the token black guy", and adds that he "just stays out of the conversation, and just says things like 'damn,' 'shit!' and 'that is whack!'"
  • The opening scene of Freddy vs. Jason involves Freddy relating his prediciment and solution to the audience. Later, after he fails to kill a teenager who fell asleep, he turns to the camera and says "Not strong enough yet... I'll let Jason have some more fun...". At the end of the movie, his severed head smiles and winks at the camera.

[edit] Theatrical drama

  • There are many instances of meta-reference in theatrical drama, most notable of which is perhaps Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, in which a leading role is played by the stage manager.
  • Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth is likewise filled with meta-references. Notably, the actor playing Henry Antrobus breaks character in the final act, and starts speaking of his (scripted) past as a "real" person. This leads to a dialogue with other characters speaking out of character.
  • The musical Into the Woods also features an outside narrator character. The character relates and comments on the plot, unnoticed by the other "internal" characters, until Act II Scene 2, wherein some characters not only realize his existence, but clearly resent him for not having to exist within the confines of the story. The Narrator defends himself by claiming that "I tell the story, I'm not part of it." The other characters soon tell him that they don't approve of the way he's been telling it, and threaten his life. The Narrator makes a desperate plea, stating that they'll never know how their stories end without his help, and will be "lost . . . in a world of chaos." He's then murdered by a giant, leaving the rest of the characters free to find their own way through their stories.
  • In Shakespeare's Hamlet [Act III, scene II], Hamlet recites "A whole one, I./For thou dost know, O Damon dear,/This realm dismantled was/Of Jove himself; and now reigns here/A very, very—pajock!" Horatio responds: "You might have rhymed." In this, Horatio acknowledges the poetic structure of the play's dialog. Earlier on Hamlet refers to his father's ghost as being in the "floorboards", a reference to the construction of the Elizabethan stage.
  • At the start of the second act of The Producers (musical), the Swedish secretary Ulla has repainted the office entirely white (including the pictures and coats on hangers). When Leo Bloom asks when she did this, she replies, "Intermission". Later on in the show, during the song "Betrayed", Max Bialystock sings snippets of the entire show's score up to that point. When he reaches the intermission, he pauses for a few seconds. (This joke was lost during the translation to film.)
  • At the beginning of Pokémon Live!, Ash tells Professor Oak, "Just don't bring my mom home too late," implying that his mom and the Professor have a secret relationship. In real life, Dee Roscioli and Patrick Frankfort, the actors who respectively played Delia and Oak, do indeed have a relationship.
  • Act 2 of Dario Fo's play Accidental Death of an Anarchist (first staged in 1970) features a scene in which The Superintendent (an Italian intelligence officer) boasts to an incredulous journalist of the extent to which his organisation has infiltrated all strata of Italian society. Indignant at the journalist's scepticism, the superintendent announces that "we have one or two right here in the audience tonight, as usual" before clapping his hands and eliciting the response "Sir, Yes Sir!" from two voices in the auditorium. The character of The Maniac then chuckles and, addressing the audience, declares, "Don't worry, those are just actors. The real ones sit tight and don't say a word." An additional layer of irony is added by the very real possibility that government agents would indeed have been present at contemporary performances of the play.

[edit] Written media

  • Perhaps the earliest example in written media occurs in Part Two of Don Quixote. Another author had written a spurious Part Two, and Cervantes not only inserted in the authentic Part Two a reference to that, but had his characters kidnap a character from the spurious book. Again, the unnamed Duchess whose court Don Quixote and Sancho Panza visit in part Two refers to them as characters from Part One.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson's parable The Characters in the Tale is "set" between Chapters XXXII and XXXIII of his novel Treasure Island. Long John Silver and Squire Trewlawney take a brief respite from the story to enjoy a smoke, and when Trelawney criticizes Silver for his criminal behaviour, Silver defends himself: "I'm only a character in a story; I don't really exist." When Trelawney asks if he believes in an Author, Silver replies that if there is an Author, he made Silver into the criminal that he is; and given how frequently he appears in the novel, the author seems quite fond of him.
  • In the novel Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder, the protagonist, Sophie, and her philosophy tutor realise that they are part of a novel. They aspire to escape.
  • In Robert Anton Wilson's surreal Schrödinger's Cat trilogy, a character named Dr. Dashwood tries to explain to someone that humans are primates, but none of us consciously realize this. He argues "If I were to write a novel...and mentioned on every one of the first hundred pages that all of us are primates, we would find it funny or satirical. Even stranger, if I stopped mentioning it for about two hundred pages, the readers would all forget it quickly, and be startled if I mentioned it again on page 515." In the first hundred pages of the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy humans are constantly referred to as 'primates', and Dr. Dashwood's above quote is indeed on page 515.
  • Stephen King's Dark Tower books are supreme examples of meta-reference: not only does King himself appear as a prominent character in later volumes, but characters and themes from his many other novels are woven in and out of the main plot. In many Stephen King novels the characters are often portrayed as thinking, "If this was a novel, [something clichéd would happen,]" after which something less clichéd and more in character with the real world will happen.
  • In Georges Perec's lipogrammatic novel A Void, the book itself is mentioned, and at the same point in Gilbert Adair's translation, Adair himself is named as the translator.
  • In the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, the narrator's inspiration to write stems from memories of childhood triggered by his tasting a petite madeleine (a type of small sponge cake) dipped in tea. In the final volume he says "If it is accepted that the author and the main character of this book are one and the same, then my name is Marcel, but this is not necessarily true." Also in the final volume, the narrator begins to write his book, which mimics Proust setting out to write In Search of Lost Time itself.
  • In Amos Oz's novel The Same Sea, Oz himself is a character who meets and interacts with the other characters.
  • In the newspaper comic Pearls Before Swine, by Stephan Pastis, the characters often comment on their own strip (and the comic medium in general). In one instance, Pig told an enormously long story only to set up a lame Rolling Stones pun, to which Rat replied, "Who writes this $&#!?" A more recent example came after a lengthy set up to an Elvis pun when Rat said "Sometimes I hate being in this strip."
  • In weekly children's comic, The Beano, the characters sometimes actually read The Beano. Some even turn to their own strip and comment how funny they are that week.
  • In Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series of novels, the author sometimes appears as a character and provides key clues.
  • Quite a bit of the humour in the manga Sgt. Frog is meta-referential. In the second chapter, Fuyuki worries about his mother's reaction to finding Keroro in the house, and imagines her as a beserk Eva-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion, which promps Natsumi to quip "That visual might have been a bit exaggerated". A few chapters later, Keroro buys an issue of Shonen Ace, the magazine that originally published Sgt. Frog, and reads a comic similar to his own called "Baron Frog". Needless to say, the sergeant is not impressed by his depiction as a bumbling, easily-distracted idiot. ("This 'Baron Keroro' is a buffoon!")
  • Terry Pratchett makes good use of meta-reference in his Discworld novels, as almost all of them contain plentiful jokes about tropes and clichés that pop up in the books due to what Pratchett calls "narrative causality". One example is the discussion in Guards! Guards! between Corporal Nobbs, Constable Carrot, and Sergeant Colon on how million-to-one chances always pay off.
  • In J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings Frodo and Sam have a discussion about whether their story will ever be written into a book. They jest that Sam may be known as "Samwise the brave". There are also other references towards the end of the book where Frodo passes the book on to Sam to finish the last chapters. Similar references are also seen in The Hobbit which is written as though it were written by Bilbo.
  • Notably, Michael Ende's The Neverending Story features probably the most ambitious use of metafiction in children's literature. Halfway through reading a novel titled "The Neverending Story," Bastian reads of The Old Man of Wandering Mountain, a kind of meta-character and stand-in for the author. The Old Man starts reading his book aloud from the beginning, which Bastian doesn't recognise because rather than starting from the beginning of Bastian's (internal) version of "The Neverending Story," The Old Man begins with the frametale -- that is, he starts reciting page 1 of the (external) The Neverending Story. This starts a recursive loop that Bastian can only break by breaching the fourth wall of his (internal) version of "The Neverending Story" and entering into the world inside his book.
  • The detective story writer Edmund Crispin frequently engages in self-reference. In one book, his sleuth Gervase Fen and a companion have to decide whether to take a left or right turn. Fen suggests that they turn left, adding "After all, Gollancz are publishing this book", (a reference to the publisher's well-known left-wing politics). At another point, when asked what he is doing he says that he is inventing titles for Crispin.
  • In the comic Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, during an introspective session the protagonist notes, "We begin to speak in badly constructed, melodramatic prose! OH, RAGING HORROR! Make this stop!"
  • Deadpool, a Marvel comics character who seems to be aware that he is a comic book character. He has made references to the "little yellow boxes" he talks in,—unlike many comics characters, all of Deadpool's speech bubbles are yellow instead of the traditional white—the reader and those who make the boks he is featured in.
  • Ambush Bug likewise realizes that he is a character in a comic book. He makes frequent references to this throughout his stories, and was once called upon to save the DC universe from an overabundance of retconning.
  • In the recent Plastic Man series by writer/artist Kyle Baker, plas makes occaisional references that suggest he is aware of his own fictionality. He even muses about how much the original art of his battle with Ras Al Ghul will be worth some day.
  • In Grant Morrison's Animal Man series, the main character learns he is, in fact, a comic book character, even having a conversation with Morrison himself. The comic book Morrison then proceeds to speak to the audience in a kind of farewell letter, eventually returning Animal Man to his state of ignorance as to his fictional nature.
  • The last week of daily strips for U.S. Acres was filled with apocalyptic messages, in reference to the end of the strip's run. In the strip published on April 14, 1989 [1] , Orson tells Sheldon that their days are "not only numbered, but signed and dated", and that he lives each moment as if it's his last panel, "[a]nd after that, there's always animation!" (The latter quote was in reference to the animated version featured on Garfield and Friends.) In the very last strip, published the next day, Orson opens the newspaper to the comics page, asks "HEY! WHERE'S?...", and then suddenly vanishes.
  • Author Douglas Coupland appears as a character in his most recent novel, jPod. The protagonist trades his laptops to Coupland in exchange for a ride, and later a position at his start-up firm. Coupland is of course using the contents of the laptops as the basis of a novel.
  • The narrator of the epic knight-errant novel Amadis of Gaul stops himself during a long stretch of narration, as he is worried about being too boring.
  • In Dilbert, the Pointy Haired Boss is sometimes shown reading Dilbert cartoons, commenting on the stupid hairstyle of the boss character, but not realizing the boss character is himself.
  • In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels, the main character can enter the world of fiction. Within the Fictiverse characters lose track of which of two people is talking if it isn't in the text, find themselves suffering from spelling mistakes, and so on.
  • Characters in Robert Rankin novels are aware of their status as fictional characters, often complaining about the plot, or that they never get the good lines.
  • At one point in the Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventures novel The Infinity Doctors the Doctor says "The best thing about books"..."is that you can always tell when you're getting to the end. No matter how tricky a situation the hero's in, you hold the book in your hand and think 'Hang on, I'm two hundred and twenty-nine pages in, with only another fifty-one to go'". This sentence appears on p229, and the book is 280 pages long.

[edit] Interactive entertainment

  • In Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, the main character, Guybrush Threepwood encounters a payphone in the middle of the jungle on Dinky Island. He can use this to call the LucasArts technical support helpline, where he tells them "I'm stuck in the jungle on Dinky Island" and asks for assistance. At another point, one of his options to remind a group of characters of who he is involves saying "You tried to sell me the minutes of a PTA meeting in the last game, claiming it was a map"
  • In The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush encounters Mort the Gravedigger, a fellow who owns a massive collection of cheap pulp novels. When asked, "Why are you wasting all your money on this bad fiction?", Mort replies "At least my bad fiction doesn't require $1000 worth of hardware", a not-so-subtle jab at the high system requirements of many modern games.
  • In Escape from Monkey Island, Guybrush asks a dart player in the SCUMM Bar if he can hit "that guy over there", and the dart player ends up throwing a dart at the screen, apparently putting a hole in the monitor.
  • One of the endings of Chrono Trigger allows the player to talk to the game's staff. A prank is also pulled which involves a character counting down "Three, two, one! Reset!". The screen will go black for a moment but then come back for the character to laugh at the baffled gamer.
  • In the controversial game Postal², the player's character is employed by "Running With Scissors", the company that created Postal². You can meet, interact with (or shoot, if you are so inclined) the computer personifications of the game's own creators.
  • In the beginning of a mission in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Lambert informs Sam Fisher about a recently installed alarm system. Sam remarks, "Let me guess: three alarms and the mission's over?", to what Lambert replies "Of course not! This isn't a video game, Fisher!". This is a reference to the previous games of the series, where if the player caused the enemy alarms to be triggered three times (by being detected, or leaving a body in plain sight), he would have to restart the mission, a feature that was removed in Chaos Theory.
  • Towards the end of Max Payne the eponymous main character hallucinates and has the horrifying realization that he is merely a character in a video game with no free will. He concludes this by finally noticing the mysterious statistics he sees floating incessantly around his body (a reference to the HUD) and the way he feels as if someone else (i.e. the player) is controlling his actions.
  • In the adventure game Simon the Sorcerer, Simon has to talk to a group of wizards. He greets them, asking if they are wizards, but they reply "Oh no we ain't". Simon has various replies available to argue that they are wizards, but the only one that works is "But when I move the cursor over you, it says 'wizards'."
  • In The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Marge complains about how violent video games are becoming, when blowing up cars, running over pedestrians, and kicking random people are constant throughout the game.
  • In many of the Pokémon games for the Nintendo Game Boy system, you can meet the game developers in the upper floors of some large building, usually a hotel. In nearly all of the Pokémon games to date, the developers were near the top of the Celadon City hotel; in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, they were elsewhere. Characters are also seen throughout the game with a small grey block, meant to be a Game Boy, obscuring part of the character sprite and remarking that they are trading "x" Pokémon for so-and-so's "y". Also, the characters sometimes briefly mention that they are in a game.
  • In the Hideo Kojima game Snatcher, the main character has difficulty hearing a noise, another character suggests that he turns up the volume on the TV. A massive explosion follows in short order.
  • The 'Spongebob Squarepants' computer game Employee of the Year, SpongeBob enters a television studio. 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..."
  • The Metal Gear Solid series, also by Kojima, features many meta-references. In the first Metal Gear Solid, the Colonel tells Solid Snake he can look at the back of the CD case that the game came in to get Meryl Silverburgh's radio frequency (an action that the player, not Snake, must do). In the battle with Psycho Mantis, Mantis urges the player to put the controller on the floor (Snake will nod to the player, telling them to do so), to demonstrate that he can move it with his mental powers (which he does by activating the controller's rumble feature). Added into the remake, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Psycho Mantis will not only move your controller, but read the contents of your memory card. The games read include Super Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Brothers Melee, and The Legend of Zelda. During Twin Snakes, you will also be given a shitzu massage, which you are told to hold the controller to your arm. Both the original and remake have Revolver Ocelot threaten you to NOT use autofire during a torture session. Near the end of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty the Colonel tries to convince Raiden to "turn the game console off". The Colonel later chastises the player for "sitting too close to the TV", then accuses them of using cheat codes. Later in the game, Snake tells the player to keep fighting, no matter what. Soon thereafter, the game sporadically shows the game over screen, even though the game is still continuing. The game over screen is an attempt to distract players. A similar situation, is on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where Snake is dealt a devastating blow, causing the Game Over screen to instantly appear. Although this has happened, you can still open your items menu, as part of progressing in the game.
  • In Conker's Bad Fur Day, before the second stage of the fight with the Haybot, some ominous music kicks in, and Conker comments "I don't like the sound of that music..." Later, just as a vicious alien is about to attack Conker, the game apparently freezes. After a moment, Conker begins to move, exclaiming surprise at the fact that the game has such a significant glitch in it. He calls out to the game's programmer, who responds by typing on the screen. Conker asks the programmer to provide him with some weapons to aid in his battle with the alien. In return, Conker promises not tell anyone about this critical bug in the game. Conker's Bad Fur Day is in part a parody of video games in general. It contains many other meta-references.
  • At the beginning of Super Mario RPG, when Toad asks Mario why Princess Peach isn't around, he gets no response. Toad then says, "Mario, what's with the silent treatment? You're not saying anything," a reference to the fact that in some video games, especially RPGs, the main character never speaks.
  • In SimCity 2000, a newspaper article refers to students "playing the role of mayor in a simulation that puts country planning in their hands," and wondering if the city is "just a simulation" and if they are "just residents in a computer."
  • In the demo version of Warcraft II, the foot soldiers, when clicked repeatedly, make comments such as "In the retail version, I am much funnier".
  • Towards the end of Custom Robo the main character finds the game's developers inside his apartment.
  • Space Quest, an early adventure game series produced by Sierra, features frequent meta-references in its textual messages and plot. Space Quest IV, featuring time travelling, assigns a game number and subtitle to each time. For one example, at the end of the opening sequence, main character Roger Wilco jumps through a time rift, landing on a deserted street. The narrator says, "Casually glancing at the status bar, you happen to notice that you're in Space Quest XII." Also, Space Quest III ends with an encounter with the Two Guys from Andromeda, representations of the game's creators who are taken to Earth where they are given jobs at Sierra.
  • In EarthBound, there are several meta-references, including a building reserved for the "making of Earthbound 2", and one of the characters asks for the player's name. At the very end of the game, Paula's prayers are answered by the player.
  • In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, there are a few meta-references to grab the player's attention, i. e. "You, in front of the TV screen! Pay attention!" Also, during chapter 4, Goombella tells Mario (whose identity was stolen by Doopliss, making him unrecognizable) that before "Mario" (Doopliss) became the way he was right now, he did not talk, thing that RPG heroes commonly "do". Also, in chapter 5, while Lord Crump is disguised as a crew member, he tells the audience that they shouldn't tell Mario who he really is. Your current partner then calls Lord Crump crazy.
  • The Super Robot Wars series features a number of meta-references as a tip of the hat to eagle-eyed players. One popular example is the voice actor jokes slipped into most games in the series, which make reference to the actors playing the characters as well as other characters they are famous for playing (references to Sailor Moon are especially common). Additionally, if the player quits in the middle of the game, he gets humorous dialogues between the characters that break the fourth wall; one notable example has the cast of Ideon discussing the title machine's power to reset the universe, and wonder if they've been using it every time the game itself is reset. However, the biggest example of meta-reference comes in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, which brings in machines from Sega's Virtual On series. When questioned about their pilots, the Virtualoids claim to be AI-controlled, but it is heavily implied that their pilots are people playing the Virtual On games. Topping it all off, the Virtualoids (or rather, their pilots) are shown to be aware that Super Robot Wars itself is a video game that they themselves are in, and comment that they don't have the heart to reveal this information to the rest of the characters.
  • The Disgaea games and subsequent anime contain several meta-references used for comedic effect. Examples include the title of "Mid-Boss" bestowed by Laharl upon the nonplussed Dark Adonis Vyers in the original game, and Etna's complaints in Disgaea 2 that she had "lost her levels" after becoming a playable character.
  • A recently revealed cinematic [2] of the upcoming Family Guy videogame shows Brian reading the following from a videogame magazine: "Hidden pornographic scene viewable by pressing by pressing 'up','up','down','down','left'." After a pause he continues: "Horny gamers believe anything.". Besides being a jab at the players, this could also be a reference to the infamous Hot Coffee scandal.

[edit] See also

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