# Comics device--it's not breaking the fourth wall exactly . . . does it happen in other media **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 1, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456 "2009-09-01T06:25:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/1 "2009-09-01T06:25:38Z")
I notice this in [9 Chickweed Lane](http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2009/8/31&name=9_Chickweed_Lane) and [Pibgorn](http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=b68b7d9ecf4f0333a6fec0c4f5d1db79) rather frequently and probably in other comics, too: the character in the comic seems to sort of acknowledge the medium that it is inhabiting, e.g., by grabbing or resting on the border of one of the panels bordering the action. But it’s not an explicit acknowledgement of the audience or an overt statement of “hey, I know I’m in a comic strip!” So it’s not “breaking the fourth wall” as I understand it-- _is_ there a name for this device? Does it happen in other media besides comics? ---
**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:** [September 1, 2009, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/2 "2009-09-01T14:46:15Z")
Animated films: [Duck Amuck](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045708/), [Out of the Inkwell](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0007151/), and Disney’s [Alice in Cartoonland](http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5644/Alice+in+Cartoon+Land+by+Walt+Disney+VCI+DVD+13+Cartoons+). It’s still “breaking the fourth wall.” ---
**Author:** ![wunderkammer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ed8c4c/32.png) [@wunderkammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wunderkammer)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/3 "2009-09-01T15:08:39Z")
But this isn’t a case where the characters consciously acknowledge the medium–could it be more like actors dangling their feet off the edge of the stage and talking to each other (poking through the literal “fourth wall”) without acknowledging the audience? Fourth wall or set design? Is it significantly different in the comics medium? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/4 "2009-09-01T15:22:55Z")
Spamalot, the Audience Participation scenes, where they have to find a (X), for example. They don’t break character, but they do wander out. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/5 "2009-09-01T15:23:01Z")
There’s an engraving by Peter Brueghel the Elder there a peasant is pushing his foot against the edge of the frame, which at that point is given a finite width – it’s as if there’s a bar at the edge of a window or stage or exhibit diorama that the scene exists within, and the character is acknowledging it. It sounds just like what the OP describes, and it long predates the comics. Cartoons sometimes acknowledged that they were artificial media, but usually more explicitly. Besides the Chuck Jones examples cited above, Tex Avery used to do this (characters run past a certain point, and everything changes to black and white. They warily go back and find a sign that says “Technicolor ends here.”). One example that comes close to the OP was when what was apparently a hair caught in the projectoion gate sits in the middle of the frame for a long period of time, jumping around distractingly, until the cartoon character reaches over and yanks it out. It’s a great effect, and was painstakingly animated, but today’s kids wouldn’t know what it was, I’ll bet. Especially if they’re watching it on a DVD. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/6 "2009-09-01T17:22:31Z")
[Order of the Stick](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0518.html) does this, too. (this particular strip is titled “At Least it Wasn’t the Fourth Wall Again”) ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/7 "2009-09-01T17:42:48Z")
Garry Shandling did this sort of thing regularly. Yes, he did the standard breaking of the fourth wall by talking directly to the audience, but he also had other ways of acknowledging he was on a television set. When his character had to drive somewhere, Shandling got into a studio “golf cart” and drove it around the sound stage. Other actors would say things like, “This could be the episode where you marry the housekeeper.” George Burns would begin his TV show standing outside of the house set, revealing that it was just a set, so he didn’t break the fourth wall as such, he established from the outset that there was none. One of the knights in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, looking toward Camelot, says “It’s only a model,” and Arthur escapes being eaten by a crudely animated monster when the crude animator suffers a heart attack. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/8 "2009-09-01T17:56:50Z")
TV Tropes calls this [medium awareness](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MediumAwareness). The linked page has examples from anime, comic books, film, literature, TV, video games, and other media. Including, very amusingly, stand up comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/9 "2009-09-01T18:03:24Z")
> [@wunderkammer](#): > > . . . could it be more like actors dangling their feet off the edge of the stage and talking to each other (poking through the literal “fourth wall”) without acknowledging the audience? That’s a great example of what I was thinking of. It’s not making a _point_ of saying “hee hee, look at us, we’re in a stage play!”, it’s just using the boundaries of the medium to some effect. ---
**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:** [September 1, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/10 "2009-09-01T18:44:04Z")
In the classic Mad Comic of “Starchie,” two characters are talking on the phone and are shown in a single panel with a lightning-like line separating them. One says, “Where are you?” and the other replies, “On the other side of this jagged separation line, idiot.” I believe that **Pogo** did this sort of thing often. There was the Sunday sequence where Bear drew a line in the dirt and created his own comic strip (A comic strip is like a dream," Turtle tells him. “A tissue of paper reveries. It gloms an’ glimmers its way thru unreality, fancy an’ fantasy.”). ---
**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:** [September 1, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/11 "2009-09-01T18:55:19Z")
There was also \*\*The Sensational She-Hulk \*\* and **Ambush Bug** , both of whom knew they were comic book characters. **Ambush Bug** would often comment on comic conventions and continuity.l ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/12 "2009-09-01T19:04:21Z")
In “Blazing Saddles”, sheriff Bart is riding through the desert with Count Basie’s version of “April in Paris” in the background. As the music comes to an end, it’s revealed that the Count Basie Orchestra is there in the desert playing the music “live” and Basie and Bart acknowledge each other. Something similar happens in “High Anxiety” when the characters notice that the dramatic soundtrack music is being played by a symphony orchestra in a bus driving next to their car. ---
**Author:** ![Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d9b06d/32.png) [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichini_Sanshigo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/13 "2009-09-01T19:22:18Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > TV Tropes calls this [medium awareness](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MediumAwareness). The linked page has examples from anime, comic books, film, literature, TV, video games, and other media. Including, very amusingly, stand up comedy. Heh. I was going to link to [**Genre Savvy**](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy), but **Medium Awareness** looks to be more accurate and encompassing of the phenomenon the OP is referencing. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/14 "2009-09-01T19:32:11Z")
Sounds sorta like what happens in the middle of the movie _Gremlins 2_, where it appears the film has broken and gremlins have taken over the projection room. [QUOTE=Wikipedia] At one point in the film , Dante attempted to involve his audience in the story by making it seem as if the gremlins had taken control of whatever theatre wherein Gremlins 2 would feature. The film seems to be broken by the gremlins, who then engage in shadow puppetry over a white screen. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan then appears in a cameo appearance and intimidates the gremlins into running the rest of Gremlins 2; this joke was inspired by a similar stunt in William Castle’s film The Tingler (1959). The studio feared that people might leave the theater in fact if they thought the film had broken; Dante therefore secured the inclusion of the sequence by assembling some people for a preview of the film. When the scene was shown, the real-life audience found it enjoyable and stayed in the theatre. Dante later described this scene as one of the most widely enjoyed jokes in Gremlins 2. When Gremlins 2 made its debut on home video, the filmmakers altered the scene, to make it seem as if VCRs had been broken by the gremlins. This time actor John Wayne forces the gremlins into continuing the film, although voice impersonation was needed since Wayne had been dead since 1979. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/15 "2009-09-01T20:13:27Z")
Several comics feature their creator. In Overboard the artist has an office on the ship, and in Pearls before Swind bad puns often get Rat yelling at Pastis. In 1941, there was [Hellzapoppin](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033704/). The movie proper begins with the writer telling the story, which gets visualized and then animated, and Chic and Ollie then move into it. In the middle, they talk to Shemp Howard who is the projectionist showing the movie. He screws up the vertical hold, which the characters have to deal with. Shemp also mixes up some reels from other movies. Lots of other examples in there also. ---
**Author:** ![TheMadHun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/16 "2009-09-01T20:46:54Z")
Most of the early cinematic cartoons used self-referencing images. [Clowns coming out of an ink bottle and then erasing it, that sort of thing.](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Out-of-the-inkwell.jpg) And the funny papers before that, Krazy Kat etc were always hanging on the panel lines or peeking at the “page below” ---
**Author:** ![TheMadHun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/17 "2009-09-01T20:53:01Z")
As to other media, Shakespeare had lots of asides to the same effect when he had a “play within a play”. Sometimes the lines are directed at the play characters, but sometimes directly at the Elizabethan audience. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/18 "2009-09-01T22:45:23Z")
> [@TheMadHun](#): > > As to other media, Shakespeare had lots of asides to the same effect when he had a “play within a play”. Sometimes the lines are directed at the play characters, but sometimes directly at the Elizabethan audience. Hmmm . . . I’m not sure which play you might be referencing – I don’t think the Player King and others from “The Mouse Trap” (within _Hamlet_) had any asides? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/19 "2009-09-02T00:56:20Z")
Here’s a copy of the Brueghel drawing “Summer”, which violates the “frame”, and where the “frame” actually seems to become a tangible bar: > **[Free art print of Summer by Pieter Bruegel The Elder](https://www.freeart.com/artwork/art-print/summer_fan14930082.html)** > > Summer I thought it was the engraving, but the "bar is missing in the engraving – it’s only in his drawing (although the scythe goes outside the frame in the engraving). It’s dated 1568 ---
**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:** [September 2, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456/20 "2009-09-02T01:49:47Z")
> [@h.sapiens](#): > > Something similar happens in “High Anxiety” when the characters notice that the dramatic soundtrack music is being played by a symphony orchestra in a bus driving next to their car. Woody Allen did the same thing in **Bananas** : he gets an invitation to dine with the president of a South American country. As he says, “I’m going to meet the president,” you hear a harp in the background. Allen then goes to his closet where there’s a harpist practicing. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comics-device-its-not-breaking-the-fourth-wall-exactly-does-it-happen-in-other-media/508456.md?page=2)