I found an old copy of “The Fiery Eye”, one of the books in the Alfred Prufrock Hitchcock endorsed series of Kids books. To be specific, it was one of the “Three Investigators” books. Well, when reading it, I was struck by the fact that Alfred Hitchcock was actually a character in the series, and interacted with the heroes without any fourth wall breaking to be seen. Interesting.
This leads me to wonder, what series of books/television shows/plays/moves/etc. play around with reality. In other words, it is a cross over, but not with some other series, but with reality. 4th wall breaking counts, but so does example that do not break the illusion. Btw, Mary-Sue fan fiction counts, but I hope people would show restraint and only post example of deftly written stories, not the usual “Girl from the real world does everything perfect and seduces the leading man” crap.
Rudy Guiliani appeared in a couple episodes of Seinfeld playing himself. Perhaps the best example would be Curb Your Enthusiasm, which has dozens of celebrities playing themselves as complete assholes.
The TV show Homicide was filming one day, and a man who was running from the police came around the corner and saw the actors. He thought that they were real police, so he surrendered and the chasing police officers were able to arrest him.
A Final Nightmare had Heather Langenkamp as the protagonist, playing herself. It also had Wes Craven “playing himself” (entirely through reference rather than on-screen).
Whoa, it is like a post every five minutes. Very nice! Thank you guys. Oh and just so you know what the hell I meant, the Op was meant to contain the following lame [del]typo[/del] joke,:
Looney Tunes: Back In Action had Brendan Fraser playing a character whose profession was being the stunt double for Brendan Fraser. The character eventually meets Brendan Fraser (also played by Fraser) and I think they get into a fight.
I hear there was a fairly popular show about a standup comedian, done by a standup comedian, that always started and ended with him doing a standup routine about what the show was going to be about. Rheinfeld? Schteinmeld? Something like that…
WKRP in Cincinatti aired a show about the real Who concert in Cincinatti where 16(?) people were crushed to death because the venue featured “stadium seating.”
The Steven Sondheim musical Into the Woods featured a narrator who stood at the side of the stage, heping the story progress. In the second act, the characters haul him on stage and complain that he’s not part of the story. He protests his innocence, saying that he’s only supposed to be telling the story. The witch’s reply: “Some of us don’t like the way you’ve been telling it.”
DC Comics had (during their Pre-Crisis multiverse days) several references and appearances of “Earth-Prime”, a dimension where superheroes only exist in fiction, i.e. us. Comic artist/writer Curt Swan wrote himself into a story where he falls asleep at his desk on Earth-Prime and wakes up on a park bench in Metropolis on Earth 1 (i.e. the mainstream superhero universe).
I Flew With Superman (1983)
Kurt Vonnegut wrote himself into his novel Breakfast of Champions, with godlike control over his characters.
What about when West Wing addressed 9-11? They had the characters locked down because of a security emergency, with a group of touring high schoolers locked in with them. To reassure the students, the main characters explained how/why Arabic extremists become terrorists and what the goals are and how it’s never worked in the history of the world, etc etc.
I don’t think they specifically said ‘planes crashing into WTC’ but it was very clear that’s what they were referring to.
Michael Dukakis had a cameo on St. Elsewhere when he was governor of Massachusetts.
I can’t believe no one’s brought up Murphy Brown’s scolding of Dan Quayle after the vice president scolded the show for featuring an unwed mother. I thought the producers’ response was wonderful. Rather than taking it to the real-world media and public opinion, they chose to frame their response within the context of the “FYI” show, where Murphy Brown the character answered Quayle’s real-world charges. To me, this response was gentler and less polarizing than keeping it in the real world.