# Breaking the Forth Wall **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2003, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384 "2003-06-17T04:12:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/21 "2003-06-17T11:50:04Z")
One of my favorites happens in _The Hudsucker Proxy_, after The Caretaker jams the gears of Hudsucker Clock. “Strictly speaking, I ain’t _never_ 'sposed to do this.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@El\_Elvis\_Rojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Elvis_Rojo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/22 "2003-06-17T12:04:03Z")
I was thinking about this the other day because I saw an absolutely **GREAT** example of this on a sit com. It’s not one I regularly watch, but I believe it was _Yes, Dear_ (it stars that comedian from _Boston Common_). Anyway, they needed a new couch, and the husband points out how the wife is responsible for every item in the living room, and she makes a comment on how it should reflect his personality as well. He later buys a couch, and redesigns the living room so the sofa is facing AWAY from the audience. Everyone else comes in, sits on the sofa with their backs facing the fourth wall, and keep talking about how, for some reason “It just doesn’t feel right.” “What’s not right? I mean, you can see the fireplace, the front door, the window. I mean, what’s over there?” and everyone would peer over and look at the camera, think for a minute, look back away and say something along the lines of “Yeeeah, but this is just too wierd.” It was very witty and incredibly well done. I have to admit, I absolutely hated the little break at the end of **Election** where the guy from **American Pie** addresses the camera for no reason. That was poorly done. **Cuffs** was another good example, though. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/23 "2003-06-17T12:23:41Z")
The best 4th wall gag was Woody Allen’s “Marshall McLuhan” bit in **Annie Hall**. While waiting on line in a movie, the guy behind Allen keeps spouting nonsense about McLuhan – much of it completely wrong. Allen steps out of the line and addresses the audience about how you always get stuck in front of a jerk like this. The jerk addresses Allen and the audience, saying, “aren’t I entitled to my opinion.” Allen tells him and us he’s wrong; he insists he knows McLuhan. Then Allen goes behind a movie poster and says, “I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here,” and brings him out to put down the jerk. Allen then turns to us and says, “wouldn’t it be great if we could do things like that?” In addition to She-Hulk, **Ambush Bug** often talked to the audience and to Julie Schwartz, his editor. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/24 "2003-06-17T14:05:11Z")
Just to be pedantic, I should note that “breaking the wall” is not a modern idea. In fact, it’s pretty ancient. Shakespeare’s characters sometimes speak directly to the audience… and even in Shakespeare’s day, the idea was old. In fact, there are many scenes in the comic plays of Aristophanes in which characters step out of the action and address the audience. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if the gimmick was old when Aristophanes did it! ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/25 "2003-06-17T15:27:21Z")
**El Elvis Rojo** , the scene from _Yes, Dear_ was what inspired this thread. I never watch the show either, but I caught it switching channels and thought it was extremely well done. And yes, it was Byrne, not Moore. Don’t know how I managed to confuse those two. She-Hulk would occasionally rip through the other pages to get to action taking place later in the comic. _Duck Amuck_ really pushed the envelope, I loved that. At the end of _What’s Opera Doc?_ Bugs address the audience while his still form is being carried away by Elmer, “You expected a happy ending?” ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/26 "2003-06-17T16:29:01Z")
Jack Benny and his “audience”. He mugged and made asides to a studio audience that wasn’t really there. I loved that. Sometimes it was direct to the camera some times it wasn’t. The whole show within a show format was rather interesting. I don’t think it was intional, like the Garry Shandling show was, but instead they moved a radio program with a live audience into a TV studio and added the canned laughter. They pretended to keep the audience for those familar with the Radio show. I’ve been trying to find a cite to back up this assertion if any one has evidence supporting or to the contrary I’d like to see it. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/27 "2003-06-17T16:38:40Z")
4th wall breaks, asides to the audience and (I don’t know what to call it when you’re shown it’s a set) happen all through **Blazing Saddles**. My personal favorite: “Drive me off this picture.” ---
**Author:** ![shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/28 "2003-06-17T16:44:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > Just to be pedantic, I should note that “breaking the wall” is not a modern idea. In fact, it’s pretty ancient. Who said it was new? I read the whole thread and I didn’t see anyone say that. I must’ve missed it. Anyway, I have to agree with **Zoe** , about that moment in Harold and Maude - done to great effect. I can close my eyes and just see Bud Cort cutting his eyes up to the camera, but I can’t remember the scene. I’m trying to remember, is it right before he does the hara kari scene with the Drama date? And total agreement with the David Attison moments from Moonlighting. Those were brilliant. The only problem I have with breaking the fourth wall is that I can’t KEEP my students from doing it. They’ve grown up going to English pantomimes and are rather adamant that they should get to shout at the actors onstage, in response to the plot of the story. It’s a bit disconcerting. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/29 "2003-06-17T16:45:17Z")
Two examples where the fourth wall was broken but no-one speaks are a couple of my favorites. One was in _A Christmas Story_. Although an adult “Ralphie” (voiced by Jean Shepard, the author of the book on which _A Christmas Story_ is based) provides narration throughout the movie, the fourth wall remains intact until near the end. Ralhpie is sitting in his bathroom, sobbing as his mom washed his face after he faked getting hit in the eye with an icicle. As his mom focuses her attention and wetting a washcloth, Peter Billingsly looks at the screen and smiles. I wonder how many takes that took! Another one was in a recent _Saturday Night Live._ Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers play two Irish pub-goers who host a TV show from their favorite pub. They begin talking about Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz in _Gangs of New York_. One of them asks, “Who wants to watch a bunch of non-Irish people play Irish people?” Fallon and Myers then look at each other, at the audience, and back at each other. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/30 "2003-06-17T16:45:32Z")
Here’s one I _don’t_ like. It’s the scene neat the end of **A Christmas Story** , when Ralphie has just “shot his eye out” and made up a story to fool his mother into thinking a giant icicle was to blame. She falls for it, and Ralphie momentarily looks at the camera and giggles in victory. It’s the only time in the whole movie when you lose the feeling that you’re watching real people instead of actors playing characters. I’ve always thought it was way out of place in an otherwise perfect film. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/31 "2003-06-17T16:48:09Z")
Whoa! :eek: Talk about the weirdest simulpost **OF ALL TIME!** ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/32 "2003-06-17T16:49:34Z")
**JINX!** Holy crap! When I previewed my post **HeyHomie** ’s wasn’t there yet, so we must have posted that at EXACTLY the same time! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/33 "2003-06-17T16:54:22Z")
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. “Would you believe it? There was a mare sweating not two streets from here” "An honest virgin! What a terrible combination! " ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/34 "2003-06-17T17:27:36Z")
I understand the concept, but why is this called “breaking the forth wall”? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/35 "2003-06-17T17:34:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*:D:D:D:D > I think my favorite is “Pardon me while I have a ‘strange interlude’” during _Animal Crackers_. He then spoofs some O’Neill weirdness, including a classic sight gag after “as a smile played around his lips.” How the smile plays across Groucho’s lips cannot be described. “why, you couple of baboons!..what makes you think I’d marry either one of you!..strange how the wind blows tonight…it has a tintity voice, reminds me of poor old Moslin…how happy I could be with either of these two if both of them just went away…” > And then he does it again a minute later. Except he gives a stock report. \*\* To fully appreciate this, you have to remember that this bit is taken directly from the Broadway version of Animal Crackers, which spoofed the way that Eugene O’Neill used soliloquies to the audience as a way of giving the characters’ inner thoughts in Strange Interlude, from 1928. (Which is why Groucho prefaces it the way he does.) Broadway audiences would get the reference, of course, but the movie version of Strange Interlude didn’t come out until _after_ Animal Crackers so most of the movie audience must have thought that Groucho had simply gone, well, crackers. I also like Groucho turning to the camera before a Chico piano piece and saying, “I have to stay here but there’s no reason you folks shouldn’t go to the lobby until this thing blows over.” ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/36 "2003-06-17T17:54:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zoid \* > \*\*I understand the concept, but why is this called “breaking the forth wall”? \*\* Picture a stage set with three walls. The audience is observing the scene through the non-existant forth wall, the one between the stage and the first row. By breaking that wall, the players acknowledge the fact that they are in front of an audience, actors not real people. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/37 "2003-06-17T18:18:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > \*\*Just to be pedantic, I should note that “breaking the wall” is not a modern idea. In fact, it’s pretty ancient. > > Shakespeare’s characters sometimes speak directly to the audience… and even in Shakespeare’s day, the idea was old. > > In fact, there are many scenes in the comic plays of Aristophanes in which characters step out of the action and address the audience. > > Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if the gimmick was old when Aristophanes did it! \*\* What you see in the Greek comedies (and arguably in the tragedies as well, although this is a point of scholarly debate) is not actually “breaking the fourth wall” because at that time the convention of the fourth wall had not been established. The audience had no expectation that the actors onstage would pretend not to notice them. It was no more a gimmick for Aristophanes to have his characters address the audience than it is for modern playwrites to refrain from doing this. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/38 "2003-06-17T18:20:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zoid \* > I understand the concept, but why is this called “breaking the forth wall”? Consider the audience perspective vs. the performer perspective. The audience sees the perfomers on a set or stage with three walls, while the performers normally don’t acknowledge the audience–they act as if there’s a fourth wall between them and the viewers. From inside the story, the fourth wall is just a regular wall doing regular wall things likes supporting pictures and keeping Peeping Toms at bay. Every now and then, a performer will break that illusion by interacting directly with the audience. The performer metaphorically breaks a hole in the wall from inside, hence “breaking the fourth wall”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/39 "2003-06-17T18:24:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Bugs looks over his shoulder and addresses the audience (“Ain’t I a stinker.”) and breaks the fifth wall! Wouldn’t that be the ceiling? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384/40 "2003-06-17T18:40:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr Tambo \* > \*\*Buffy the Vampire Slayer, _Once More With Feeling_: > > Anya: It felt like there was a wall missing from our apartment and people were watching us! \*\* Buffy also looks at the camera and sings “And You can Sing Along” during her “Something to Sing About” song for Sweet. Steve Martin’s _Picasso at the Lapin Agile_ breaks the fourth wall repeatedly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-the-forth-wall/182384.md?page=3)