Breaking the Fourth Wall

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Kunmui

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Breaking the fourth wall applies when the boundary between any fictional setting and its audience is "broken". Name some moments in animation where the fourth wall is broken. I can name a few.

1. The one that comes to my mind the most is in an episode of Jimmy Neutron. While Jimmy and Sheen are riding in space (in a small jet with no helmets), Sheen keeps asking Jimmy questions such as why they don't have wear helmets in space and why it only takes 30 seconds to get into outer space. Even though Jimmy answered Sheen's questions, Carl (on another jet nearby) kept on singing. Thus, preventing the viewer from hearing Jimmy's answers (while Carl was singing, you could see Jimmy answering Sheen in the background). I guess this would imply that Jimmy's answers had something to do with the fact that it's all a cartoon.

2. Chowder tends to break the fourth wall so many times that I have trouble keeping up. It just wouldn't be the same without it. The moment that comes to my mind the most is when Mung spends all the money at the mall and he doesn't have anymore money so the show gets "cancelled". It then switches to the main voice actors of Chowder who decide to start a Car Wash to raise money to bring the show back.

3. In Sonic X (Japanese version), after Sonic caught the baseball on the top of the score board (which is against the rules of baseball), he was all like "Why are you so worried about that!? This is an anime!"
 
That's not really an example of fourth wall breaking. That's more like acknowledging they broke the rules of physics.

A better example is in that episode where Jimmy and co. faced off against seeweed monsters. Jimmy looked at the camera, and cued it to move over to face Sheen.
 
There are heaps i can think of, despite my lame memory. Tino Tonitini from The Weekenders is always doing a Malcolm in the Middle style fourth wall break, and is the first example which comes to mind due to the regularity of it. Other less constant examples would be The Secret Show and The Baskervilles and other cartoons that begin with a fake show that is destroyed in favor of the real ones supremity. (The Fluffy Bunny Show and the bosses intro) Then theres the occasional ones you get from Stewie or Marion from Bounty Hamster or the halloween episode THOH openings with Marge or Homer and Bart etc etc
 
I just watched the Family Guy episode yesterday where Peter looks out the window and sees a golden statue of himself and proclaims "Wow, I look like a freakin' Emmy!" then looks at the camera and says "Hint, hint."

Another one I can think of is at the beginning of The Simpsons Movie where Homer says "I can't believe we're paying for something we get for free on TV! If you ask me, everyone in this theater is a big sucker, including you, and you, and especially YOU!!" as he points at the camera.
 
I can name many.

1. In an early episode of Johnny Test, when Johnny and Dukey transported inside of his dad's TV, they were in a movie known as "The Quickest and the Monkiest" (a parody of Speed Racer and The Fast and the Furious) in which they were strapped into a car in which the main character was about to drive 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 do!" Then, both Johnny and Dukey glance at the screen and raise one eyebrow.

2. NUMEROUS times in the Pok?mon dub have Team Rocket broken the fourth wall.

- In the one where Ash battles Erika, Meowth says, "The stink blew my nose off!" Jessie says, "Meowth, you don't have a nose!" Meowth then says, "Oh yeah! The cartoonist never gave me one!"
- In "The Song of Jigglypuff" and "Same Old Song and Dance", they sing a song instead of doing the motto, which ends with "We want to capture Pikachu, we hope to do it soon, and when we do, we'll be the new stars of this cartoon!"
- In "Hypno's Naptime", Jessie and James try to mirror Hypno's power against him, though unsuccessfully. Then, they simply tie him up, which works out a little better. James asks, "Why didn't we do this in the first place?" Jessie says, "We had to fill a half-hour show."
- In the second movie, Jessie says, "Prepare for more trouble than you've ever seen!" James says "Make it double - we're on the big screen!" Ash then says, "I'll have to catch this on video!"
- Later in the movie, Jessie and James are upset that no one saw their heroic act. Slowking says something like "A lot of people out there saw you, they're watching us right now!"
- The kids broke the fourth wall once, I remember. In "The School of Hard Knocks", Ash and Misty argue at the beginning for about two minutes, to which Brock replies, "Hey, we gotta get going - the show just started!"
- They also scratched the fourth wall at one point, I remember Ash said, "Do you think I could do a show about me and my Pok?mon?" Misty says, "You mean a live stage show?" Ash says, "No, I mean a television show!" Misty says, "Now who'd watch something like that?"

3. In D.N. Angel, the eyecatch generally consists of a black feather going across the screen. In one episode, this happens numerous times, until Riku and Risa say, "Enough already!"

More to come.
 
That reminds me of two more Simpsons moments like that:

- In "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part 1", Hibbert says, "Well, I couldn't possibly solve this mystery, can you?" pointing directly at the camera... but actually pointing at Wiggum. Wiggum says, "Well of course, that's my job!"
- In another episode (forgot which one) Moe points around the bar saying "You'll be back... and you... and you... AND YOU!" pointing at the camera... actually pointing at Barney, who says, "Well of course I'll be back! If you didn't close, I'd never leave!"
 
ya chowder does break the 4th wall a lot. its been doing that since the beginning. at first i thought it was funny but now it seems like they do it too much(at least the episodes ive seen). when that happens it feels like they are running out of ideas.
 
I still think that “101 Dalmatians: The Series” had one of the most interesting examples of this. It had sixty-five episodes, but one episode entitled “The Making Of…” was a faux-documentary hosted by the characters in which they revealed that the entire series was merely a television series and they talked about what it was like to “make” the series and so forth. They showed some “auditions” and explained how several characters got their roles along with various other things.

I particularly loved the scene in which the writers lampshaded the fact that Pongo and Perdita had miniscule roles in the series despite being integral to the source material.

Perdita: We… We assumed that since we were the stars of the movie, we’d be the stars of the series, too.
Pongo: (sadly) Yeah. The studio decided to go for a younger look.
Perdita: But we’re not bitter.
(Perdita rips through a “101 Dalmatians: The Series” poster with her claws)
 
4kids does this a lot in their dubs. In yugioh GX dub, they have moments where Jaden, the main character, says he would rather study card games then go out with his friends. To the OP, how did 4kids dub that moment in Sonic X, I know they wouldn't say this is an anime.
 
Off the top of my head, in "Born to be Wild", SpongeBob jumps on one of the bubbles that are used as scene transitions as a shortcut to the Krusty Krab, appearing in the next scene instantly.

Also in "Krabby Land", SpongeBob says "Gee, I wonder what Mr. Krabs has been up to since I saw him last and then went home to do nothing of particular interest 'til this very moment", which pokes fun at how shows obviously don't show less important things in every characters daily routine.
 
On Ed Edd n Eddy there was an episode where they were collecting stuff for a time capsule and Ed sees a "Canadian squirt gun" and says "I remember this because it was only second season" or something like that.
 
The eighties TMNT broke the fourth wall too many times. At first it was cleaver but after a while the turtles making comments about themselves being in a cartoon just annoyed me.
 
Animaniacs broke the fourth wall a lot, talking directly to the audience.

Breaking the fourth wall can be very funny, done in moderation. It's funny and clever because you don't expect it, and doing it a lot kinda ruins it.
 
Don't forget the Genie's "Made you look!"



That's not really a fourth wall moment. If I remember correctly, that was the time when Jaden said, "We could stay up all night and talk about trap cards, discuss dueling strategies..." which isn't really breaking the fourth wall. However, from that episode, there was Syrus saying "I've been saying that all along, but no one ever listens to me! I'm just the wimpy little sidekick who's here for everyone's amusement! I could NEVER come up with anything that might actually advance the plot!" and Adrian's "The sooner I beat you, the less bad dialogue I have to hear!"

But yeah, that's happened before in the GX dub. Syrus once said "I've been carrying this water for three episodes!" and don't forget "Hey, well at least I'm caught up on my Yu-Gi-Oh! history!" when they revisited Domino Pier and I think it was Hassleberry thought that Yugi had dueled Kaiba there when it was really Joey.

I'm not sure about the Sonic X quote, what episode was it? I know they did change one fourth-wall line to another in Sonic X, when Sonic was standing on the car, in the original, the driver said, "Hey, what if kids start trying this?" Sonic turned to the camera and said "Kids, don't stand on moving cars!" which was changed to "Kids, don't use Formula 1 race cars to chase hedgehogs!"
 
South Park moment, in More Crap, an image at the bottom of the screen said "Emmy Award Winning" and then the priest gave Randy the "Emmy" as a trophy. Does that count?

EDIT: Yeah, I meant that whole episode really, as well as the Sho/Syrus water moment. That is right, the first episode of Sonic X does it too.
 
Agreed, once would've been plenty. At least once they got to season 8 it pretty much stopped. I know they did it once or two from season 8 until the end. But from season 2-7 they pretty much did it in every episode.
 
If Deadpool had a cartoon, it would do it every minute or so, he knows he is in a comic book, or show, or game, and makes it noticable.
 
Ed Edd n Eddy did that alot of times. In one episode Eddy says "Didnt we win a emmy for that episode?" and Double D goes "not quite" or that time when the eds say goodbye to kevin, they say it in different languages which makes Kevin says" this show needs subtitles"XD
 
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