Hey! How're you doing out there? It sure is nice to be the Breaking The Fourth Wall page on TV Tropes. Sure, I don't get as much attention as some of the other pages, but I try my hardest.
Anyway, the status quo in a work of fiction is that the characters are unaware of their fictional nature and of their audience. This is the Fourth Wall. Right now, this wall would be the screen you're looking at right now.
Breaking the fourth wall is when a character acknowledges their fictionality, by either indirectly or directly addressing the audience. Alternatively, they may interact with their creator (the author of the book, the director of the movie, the artist of the comic book, etc.). This is more akin to breaking one of the walls of the set, but the existence of a director implies the existence of an audience, so it's still indirectly Breaking The Fourth Wall. This trope is usually used for comedic purposes.
It should be noted that other sources will refer to any fiction that draws attention to its fictionality as "Breaking The Fourth Wall". Our definition is a bit narrower: Breaking The Fourth Wall only occurs if the characters acknowledge the audience or the author, whether directly or indirectly, got it? It's not enough that I recognize my status as a wiki page, it's the fact that I'm commenting to you about it!
Named for the theatrical convention of building sets with right, left and back walls. The audience would look at the action through a virtual fourth wall. Breaking the fourth wall would occur when the actors would step through where the virtual fourth wall should be and address the audience directly.
This is a very old trope: Shakespeare's characters often addressed the audience. They broke it regularly in Ancient Greek theater, too, pretty much as soon as they'd invented the Fourth Wall - or, arguably, ''before'' inventing the Fourth Wall.
When a series breaks the fourth wall on such a regular basis that there might as well not be one in the first place, then you've gone straight into No Fourth Wall.
Not to be confused with Medium Awareness or Painting the Fourth Wall. When done literally, it's Camera Abuse. See also: Narrator (this trope is their job), Post Modernism (loves this trope), Aside Glance and Aside Comment (particular kinds of this), Animated Actors (an animation-specific subtrope), and Who Would Want to Watch Us? (characters lampooning the premise). He Knows About Timed Hits often involves breaking the fourth wall through necessity. For a detailed discussion of the line between this and No Fourth Wall, see Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness. If the creator of a work, the audience, or you, personally, interact with characters in a way that isn't Audience Participation, it may well be From Beyond The Fourth Wall.
Often used for Lampshade Hanging. But if a character lampshades without addressing or acknowledging the audience, it's justLampshade Hanging. Similarly the fourth wall can be broken with no lampshades in sight.
If somebody is not in the break and doesn't understand who the ones breaking the wall are talking to, see Audience? What Audience?.
Anyway, thanks for your time... on to a couple examples, in which I shall kindly stop smashing your computer screen with a hammer:
Examples:
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Advertising
A commercial for the Nissan Juke parodying action movies. At one point, the "hero" looks directly at the camera and says, "Professional driver, closed course," right as said disclaimer appears on the bottom of the screen.
A commercial for The Big Bang Theory episodes showing on TBS involved Sheldon noticing the TBS logo on their table and having a conversation with Leonard about it. Leonard eventually tells Sheldon that "They aren't supposed to know they're on a TV show."
Anime and Manga
Seitokai no Ichizon constantly reminds us that it doesn't have a fourth wall ..
All the time in Hiroshi Strange Love, with Professor Iaizawa complaining about how his face is cut out, wondering when things got so serious, asking where the government got the "World Domination" style picture of him, proclaiming the coming sequel, talking about how he hopes they become an anime, etc.
In the Black Cat Manga, Sven does this literally when he bangs his head on the edge of the panel in surprise, cracking the page.
In Fushigi Yuugi, when Miaka is told to remove her clothes as part of a test to see if she is worthy of receiving a magical relic, she strips down to her one-piece underclothes, then comments "This is the limit of what the broadcast code allows."
He even goes so far as yelling at the characters about things that bother him:
"I swear if your face gets any closer to hers, somebody who's not even in this scene is going to come out there and kick your ass, dammit!!"
While generally not appearing in the anime, the manga series for Tenchi Muyo! featured quite a few references to episodes of the OVA, as well as Aeka stopping a bit of it by screaming at Ryoko and Washu to, in the English translation, 'stop this Brecht crap!'; the two lackadaisically agree to return to the story.
In episode 96 of Ranma ˝ after yet another dreary conclusion Ranma pointedly asks...
"Speaking of which, what was the point of this episode again?"
Jessie, James, and Meowth in Pokémon occasionally show awareness that they're cartoon villains. In Pokémon 2000, they even proudly and dramatically declare their presence on the big screen, to which the annoyed Ash retorts, "I'll just catch this on video!" The Slowking from the same film also breaks the fourth wall by telling Team Rocket how people have been watching their sudden switch to heroism the entire film.
Later in the same film, they mention diamonds and pearls again, and Meowth comments, "Let's get through this season first."
In the first Mewtwo film, Pokémon: The First Movie Jessie, James and Meowth had their memories of the events erased. In the second one, Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns, James said he felt like he was in the sequel of a movie he missed.
An early episode has Lupin stepping off of a plane and saying "Title!", followed by the episode's name appearing.
This was much more common in the manga, with Lupin frequently insulting the author, and at least twice making him one of the main characters of the story!
At the end of the penultimate arc of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, when trying to figure out why their efforts failed, Rena says she understands why, looks straight out at the screen and says, "Did you really believe?" It turns out that she's talking to Hanyuu, who then affirms her desire to finally fight alongside them, but the double meaning seems clear.
This is even more prevalent in the final episode of the game, where Rika (maybe) directly speaks to the player, saying that the task of getting the Good End is monumentally hard and he must not be overcome by despair, because it's despair that kept them locked in the Groundhog Day Loop until then. Like in the anime, she explains that Fate can be defeated only if everyone believes, including you. And she even adds that if you give up and uninstall the game, they will stay trapped in the Downer Ending. Forever.
The sequel-of-sorts, Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, has Bernkastel (who may or may not be an incarnation of Rika's) occasionally addressing the readers directly as well.
In the series 'Cafe Kichijouji De' when Hifumi Minagawa walks in with pink hair during the colour pages and everyone asks "What's with your hair?" He replies "What do you mean? It's been like this the last two chapters, but no body noticed because the Manga is in black and white,"
He goes on to say "The boss' hair is thinning too, but even he doesn't know because the artist only draws lines" to which Taro and Maki ask "Who's drawing lines?!"
In one episode of Martian Successor Nadesico, Izumi makes yet another Incredibly Lame Pun. This one, however, makes use of such an obscure, outdated word that some of the characters have to explain to the others what in the world she was talking about. The scene ends with Megumi looking directly into the "camera" and saying, "We've learned something today, haven't we?" The others then ask her who she's talking to, a question she completely ignores.
In the dub, she actually answers the question with "The fourth wall!"
The Houshin Engi manga has the occasional Breaking the Fourth Wall moment. For example, one villain advises the readers to look up the difference between strategy and tactics in a dictionary after saying he favors the former over the latter in war.
Pulled once in Air Gear during the battle with the Night King gang. When Emily explains to the reader/viewer how the track team was able to move the shed to trap Buccha, Yayoi quickly asks her "Who are you explaining this to?"
In the manga version of Kare Kano, when Kazuma's band crashes the school festival and the narrator starts spouting a bunch of stock rock and roll manga cliches, Yukino appears with a very cynical look and says "When did this become a rock manga?"
Keroro Gunsou has had episodes where the characters have conversations with the narrator. This has also happened in the manga.
The Omake at the end of the most recent Filler arc of Bleach is made entirely of this. It shows Ichigo teleporting back into the main story, at which point Nel asks him if the corporate guys said he could come back. Then Orihime shows up with the corresponding volume of the manga and tells him "go to this scene".
It's actually a running gag. At the start of the next filler, Ulquiorra stops his fight with Ichigo and sits down to have a sip of tea. When Ichigo asks why, Ulquiorra tells him that the studio execs will be cutting to something different for a little while. Nel then appears and asks the audience to "just bear with us here." They also ran a similar omake at the end of the filler.
And then later in the couple of episodes focusing on the Kakura Rizer team, Ishida pops up, and offers this gem, whilst explaining about various abilities.
Ishida: While in that state, she gains the ability to use several techniques that we can't air on TV.
During the Hueco Mundo arc, after Mayuri Kurotsuchi's victory against Szayel Aporro Granz, Captain finds his lieutenant and (sort of) daughter Nemu Kurotsuchi lying on the ground without a sign of life. He bends over and... does some unknown, yet very embarrassing actions for anyone who saw them (Renji Abarai and Uryuu Ishida, to be precise). In both manga and anime they ask "which part of those movements involved any kind of healing?!", yet only in the anime Ishida said that those actions were impossible to air on TV. Mayuri not only responded, that those actions were only as perverted as "they" saw them, but also helped in Breaking The Wall. Also during this battle, when Pesche Gautiche reveals his zanpakutou and likens it to Seele Schneider, Uryuu denies the similarities. This leads to Pesche's angered rant about how his "thingy" is "way thicker and more useful than Uryuu's thingy". This soon cuts out to a "Technical difficulties" screen featuring Dondochakka.
When Noba zips his mask after being approached by Rangiku, Ururu turns to the audience and explains: "He's a little shy."
During the Zanpakto unknown tales saga, in one of the episode previews, Ichigo asks why Kenpachi's zanpakto hadn't materialized. The conversation continues with:
"Idiot! If Kenpachi's zanpakto materialized, Soul society would be wiped from existence and the show would be over!"
"So the studio stepped in huh?"
"Bingo"
THE iDOLM@STER - Subverted/Played with in a In-Universe example, with Haruka mentioning the script during the Are we live? show and with Ami and Mami commenting about the report during the Ramen segment with Takane.
The last episode of Bastard!! has Arshes Nei asking Gara why he hasn't won the fight with the giant monster yet, prompting him to explain that "It's no fun to win while offscreen!" He then turns to the camera and says "OK folks. Watch this." before unleashing his most powerful attack.
There's multiple instances of this in the manga, such as Lars freaking out that the story content is much too sexy for its rating, and Dark Schneider commenting about what he's gonna do with his censored penis.
In the Ichigo Mashimaro manga, the prologue to episode 2 begins with Chika sitting in a wastebasket. We go back 30 minutes to see the events leading up to this predicament, after which she tells the viewer, "...and that's how it all happened." Miu asks, "You say something?"
In the prologue to episode 3, she tells the prematurely-appearing "The End", "No! Not 'The End'!"
In episode 5, Nobue says "A 16-year-old girl shouldn't be smoking." But she's not facing Chika, she's facing the reader.
Akahori Gedou Hour Rabuge had Akumako stating that "this anime has only three episodes left! We don't know if we may get a second season!".
Sonic X does it a few times, particularly Charmy finding out what happened when the Chaotix team were away by watching Sonic X on DVD, Eggman becoming the "main character" of the series and renaming the show Eggman X, and Eggman denying Sonic's claim that he (Sonic) is the main character.
Consecutive to the DVD scene above, the Chaotix introduce themselves directly to the audience. After Vector and Espio finish up, Charmy is ready to start when Vector informs him that they're low on time. Charmy tries to start his introduction anyway, and is promptly cut off by a commercial.
Only in the dub - in the original, the Eyecatch features his information.
Kids, never stand on moving cars.
or in the English dub, Kids, don't use formula 1 race cars to chase hedgehogs!
Done several times in Slayers. Season one has 'Pretty Lina's Magic Lesson' because she thinks she's not getting enough screen time. Shortly after that, in a patently ridiculous moment busting up a serious fight, Zelgadis huffs that "They'll never let this show get serious". Episode one of season four has Lina screaming about stolen screen time, since it was someone else blowing up the town for a change.
Also done in Niji Iro Togarashi. When Shichimi asks the landlord who his father is (considering that The father had many wives, including Shichimi's mother, I doubt it's going to be a happy reunion), the landlord replies that he can't tell Shichimi who his father is yet because it's only the first chapter and that he should really respect the mangaka's wishes.
The very end (as in the second-to-last line) of Full Metal Panic!? Fumoffu has a one of the Jindai high school students swearing revenge on Shouji Gatou and Yasuhiro Takemoto for putting him through hell in the final episode.
In the first episode's "In the Next Episode" sequence in Fumoffu, Sousuke informs the viewers that the next episode will be featuring the giant armed suits "Armed Slaves" before Kaname shoots that down because Fumoffu was going to be a high-school romantic comedy.
The manga has frequent references to the fact that it's a comic (eg. "I said that three chapters ago!")
The manga version of He Is My Master is made entirely of this trope; the Author Avatars are essentially main characters at this point that regularly interact with the rest of the cast.
Gintama uses this a lot. Possibly the most triumphant example of this trope: Otae jumped out of the TV to kill the author because she was pissed off that the gorilla was more popular with fans than her. The anime promptly gets screwed up and stopped airing altogether, until the studio staff rebuilt a robotic replacement of the author.
In FLCL, Naota looks to the audience and says "Do you find this as confusing as I do?"
After Kamina declares his plan to hijack a ganmen and pilot it through sheer force of will in the second episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Yoko turns to the camera and says, "Where does he get his confidence from?"
In chapter 226 of Mahou Sensei Negima!, Rakkan has stolen the panties of one of two girls who have imprisoned him and several of Negi's friends in a dimensional trap. In order to draw the girls out of hiding he begins... enjoying the panties in a rather perverted manner. As he threatens to lick them, Konoka holds up a "please stand by" card to the reader while telling Rakkan, "You can't go any further than that... There are children reading this!" Later, Konoka murmurs, "Are we really allowed to show this?"
In the first episode of the Saber Marionette J sequel Saber Marionette J To X, Hanagata (upon being punched through a roof and into the sky) proudly announces to the audience that this is his first appearance and flight in the new series. The exact opposite was true in the final episode of J to X when Hanagata proudly announces to the audience that it is his last flight in the series.
Also in the manga, when Lime wakes up for real and she and Otaru... erm... get acquainted, he suggests her to get dressed because "this is a shonen manga".
In the English dub (but not the Japanese), Kyo responds, "Don't try it here!! Who are you even talking to?"
Later in the same episode, Tohru comments, "Somehow this has turned into a fighting anime."
In one chapter of the manga Bizenghast, when asked, "Do you see that?" the quirky spirit Edaniel looks up out of the page and reacts with shock: "There are people reading this book!"
Though the main series had none, Neon Genesis Evangelion had a few in the extras (you ran out of ink too, didn't you ya bastards!)
End of Evangelion had a treat for those who went to see the premiere. Near the end of the movie there's a host of live action clips, including an empty theatre. Gainax, get this, shot footage of the same theatre where the film screened when it filled with otaku and then spliced it in. Break them walls down.
At one point in the recent third series of OVAs for Tenchi Muyo!, Washuu takes a moment to explain things to the viewers at home, and is complimented for doing so by the Lady Seto.
In one episode of Noir Mirielle hums along with the soundtrack that's playing while she's cutting Kirika's hair.
The Gag Dub of Ghost Stories positively mauls its fourth wall, breaking it more and more as the series goes on. Characters identify plot points, comment on how they're being animated (usually poorly), and wonder which movie they're ripping off for a given episode's plot (especially that they meet so many villains who look like Samara from The Ring). In one episode towards the end of the series they conflate Satsuki's father with his voice actor, Illich Guardiola, and call him "Illich" for the rest of the episode. Maybe it's safe to say this show has no wall whatsoever.
In one episode of D.N.Angel, the eyecatch typically used before and after commercials is farcically placed at major scene changes as well, prompting Riku and Risa to yell, "Enough already!" after half a dozen appearances.
In an interesting variation, in Princess Tutu, Princess Kraehe breaks the internal fourth wall at one point by speaking directly to Drosselmeyer. The latter is very put off by this.
It's touched on in the last episode when Drosselmeyer wonders if he's in someone else's story.
In Detective Conan, Conan makes frequent internal asides to the viewer, such as when Mouri Kogoro talks about all the cases he's solved and Conan thinks to the camera, "Oi oi, I'm the one who solved those."
In the opening narration of the Non-Serial MovieCrossroads in the Ancient Capital, Heiji Hattori is talking to the camera about the series's backstory when his girlfriend Kazuha comes up and asks him who he's talking to. When Heiji says he's explaining things to the audience, Kazuha thinks he's just being silly.
In Sketchbook Tanabe Ryou and Himuro Fuu seem to have this ability, but it is hard to tell, as their whole school life seems to be a comedy stage to them, and they might just be speaking to an imaginary audience.
In Part 3 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure it looks like the hero has died. The foe who slew him begins to brag out of the blue that he caused an early finish to that Part. Then the hero is revealed to be alive after all, and speaks about how he will not be replaced by his supposed killer as protagonist of the series.
In Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, as Belphegor is describing the fights between himself and his brother, Flan remarks to the viewers concerning knife throwing 'It's dangerous, so good little kids shouldn't try it at home.' This is then lampshaded when Bel then says 'Who are you talking to?!"
The whole "Lucky Channel" segment of Lucky Star anime (no, the manga does not have this) implies that the series is just a TV show produced by fictional TV channel Lucky Channel. During these segments, the 2 staffs of Lucky Channel, Minoru and Akira, speak to the audiences and act like the characters are just acting in their show. This also happen in the OVA.
In the 8th chapter of the Dragon Ball manga, Akira Toriyama used an unusual (for manga) way of breaking the fourth wall. Son Goku sends Yamcha into the air with his punch, but Yamcha bounces off the frame's border back to the ground.
In later chapters there are a few instances, where different characters refers to the fact that it's a manga, such as discussions of acceptableness of dirty jokes in the manga for children.
The Buu saga featured a scene where Kuririn realized that the panels showing Goten's and Trunks's Fusion Dance were being photocopied and criticized robot Akira Toriyama (the series creator) for his laziness. Toriyama even said to his editor that he didn't need to pay him for this page. After that, he disappeared off the face of the Earth. Naturally, this scene isn't in the anime. (Not like Toei doesn't reuse animation or anything...)
There is also at least one blatant breaking of the fourth wall in the anime. In episode 205 "I'll Fight Too" Krillin is shown for the first time (outside of the opening and closing credits) with a full head of hair. Gohan then immediately turns to the camera, gesturing his thumb back at Krillin, and tells the audience that Krillin has stopped fighting and has also stopped shaving his head. Though I should note, this same scene appeared in the manga first, breaking the fourth wall there as well.
Also, in episode 287 "Celebrations with Majin Buu," Vegeta says, "What are you looking at?" in response to the narrator implying he is not having fun at the party.
Dororo does this several times. Author Osamu Tezuka getting crushed by a rain of rocks summoned by a demon while at his drawing board. Later, when a mysterious voice speaks to him, Dororo asks the reader if it was him/her. And when Dororo is embarrassed, he asks the writer to stop showing this part.
Also happens in other works of Tezuka; he appears in a Special of Black Jack as a stressed-out manga artist drawing at a table in a bar. Pinoko rushes in and causes him to spill coffee all over his hard work, much to his dismay. And in another instance in Black Jack manga, a character falls and hits the panels of the manga page
The English broadcast of Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee - Samurai Pizza Cats - constantly involved the narrator conversing with the cast and commenting on the Japanese attributes such as the written language and sight gags, and made complaints to the writers and producers regarding strange plots.
Shuichi from the Gravitation manga does it in the final volume, stating, that Yuki's behaviour doesn't make any sense at all since there was no single hint in the previous 11 volumes.
In an episode of Axis Powers Hetalia, Japan comments on the normally slow Italy's sudden burst of speed when he sees England:
Japan: They say that Italian tanks can advance 60 kilometers a week on the battlefield, but after spotting English troops, they can retreat 60 kilometers in a single day.
Prussia complains in one episode that he should be a main character, going so far as to insult the staff making the anime.
And many more times in the dub. For instance, Italy telling the viewers that they should feel Germany's firm butt.
Iceland breaks the fourth wall when he introduces himself at the beginning of The Movie. During the Hetaween 2011 event, he also tells the audience to stop staring at him.
In the 3rd episode of Rosario+Vampire, succubus Kurumu does this when she is treating Tsukune in the school infirmary. She suddenly steps to the front of the screen, looks straight at the audience while making a fist and complains "Hey, what the hell is this? I just debuted on the previous episode, can't you let me appear earlier?"
Then the announcer (a bat) appears in the screen saying "Who are you talking to?". Strange, in that the bat constantly appears to be talking to the audience.
Kurumu has broken several more walls after that episode, actually. Since she is a succubus, and succubi have control over reality, it would make sense that she's the only one (other than the bat and maybe her mother) who knows that her world is just an anime.
At the end of episode 11, after Ryuuka has declared that Mariel is her rival for Taro's affection, Grace turns to the audience and says "Is this going to continue?"
La Verite (2nd season) episode 7. The group encounters a series of odd traps.
Ryuuka: Why is this place full of so many lame traps, anyway?
Ikuyo Suzuki: It's as if the producers wanted to show us how unimaginative they are!
In Episode 6 of the Durarara!! anime when Kadota Kyohei explains why they're rescuing Kaztano.
Erika: Who are you talking to?
An episode of the English dub of Sailor Moon altered a line of dialog where Sailor Moon was looking straight at the camera to have her ask the audience to tell her where Luna went. The original script had her worrying to herself.
High School Of The Dead sometimes pokes through the fourth wall, saying that what's happening now would make a great manga. Of course at one point Saya tells Takashi "We get it, you're the main character."
In Neko-de Gomen! when preparing for a school field trip, Yayori packs some feminine supplies. When her father points out what they are, she attacks him claiming that "The readers can hear you!"
In the final chapter of Helen ESP Helen asks Victor if he thinks they're in a story, and Helen says she'd like to meet their readers. Cue dreaming... Hello! How do you do? You're the person who's been reading my story, aren't you? My name is Takahara Helen.
Obake no Q-Taro managed to combine this with Deus ex Machina in its Grand Finale. The heroes are captured and all hope seems to be lost when they are suddenly rescued by Perman. They ask who he is, and he declares himself to be the star of the show. Q-Taro then angrily informs Perman that his show starts next week, and he's arrived a week too early. Sure enough, Perman debuted the following week in Obake no Q-Taro's former time slot.
A minor fourth wall-breaking moment happens in One Piece : in the Laboon arc, Crocus loves to make dramatic glares at people. The third time he does that, the Straw Hats get pissed and tell him to stop doing that, causing him to answer : "Haven't you ever heard of a runnning gag ?".
Tamaki: This anime is a school love comedy to begin with!
Haruhi(while discussing that Honey has type AB blood, the same as Kyoya, and therefore has an evil split personality): Oh, those of you watching who are type AB, don't get upset.
As early as the intro before the opening in the first episode: even if the anime is a Square Enix-Sunrise collaboration, it would not add mecha or RPG elements to a Slice of Life series.
Intro of episode 3: The main trio recognized the anime aired in winter. They also recognized by starting the story in Summer instead of Spring (when the Japanese school year starts), it misses many cliches of High School anime—but this is a Slice of Life show anyway.
The Distaff Counterparts of the three main boys wondered why those boring boys could have their own anime.
Comic Books
Animal Man from DC/Vertigo found out near the end of his series in a rare completely serious fourth wall breach that he was a comic book character. He didn't take it well.
The Psycho-Pirate has it even worse; he hasn't seen the fourth wall since Crisis on Infinite Earths, and knows when attention is focused on him. He even calls the readers "perverts" for watching him. When the remnants of the Infinite Earths start being revived through him, he tries to get the revived characters to break the fourth wall down completely and kill everyone who is reading the comic, so they won't have to be controlled by writers anymore.
And it gets worse: when he has faded away almost completely (apparently a side effect of conjuring up all these characters) he remarks that the readers - that's us - "aren't real either."
Actually it makes sense, because the people who read their books are still in-universe. Earth Prime, anyone? The only character that can break our wall is Superboy-Prime.
Superman would do it from time to time during the Silver and Bronze ages by winking at the readers, especially after succeeding to protect his secret identity (an example would be the final panel in the Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow? saga).
The Joker breaks the fourth wall occasionally. For example, he has referenced an out-of-continuity Batman/Spider-Man, addressed the artist of the story, and sometimes seems perfectly aware of his status as a comic book villain. He also displays a certain amount of Medium Awareness, by handling his own speech bubbles, or, in the animated series, talking to the camera. This is likely part of the idea his insanity has allowed him to become aware of things other people don't realize.
He even turns the page for the reader in Emperor Joker, where he breaks not just the fourth wall, but the other three as well.
One of Deadpool's powers seems to be the ability to let him break the fourth wall. In one example, he wonders in a yellow box whether his thoughts still appear in yellow boxes, leading him to say, "I'm good." out loud and to exclaim in another yellow box "Oooh, I've missed you, little yellow boxes! What fun we shall have together!"
In Cable and Deadpool, he feels the need to help the 'reader' along by every once in a while delivering complicated exposition, aside from the first page. The other characters perceive this as Deadpool being crazy as usual.
In the Britain-only special editions, this is used out of the comic, having Deadpool answering a letter on the letters page with a reference to the Marvel spotlight pages, stating that everyone else freezes during one while he takes a toilet break.
Breaking the fourth wall is also one of She-Hulk's super-powers, though whether she gets it from gamma radiation is anyone's guess. Since her own title isn't as much of a Gag Series as it used to be, she doesn't do it that often, but one memorable scene in a recent (early '00s) run has her address the narrator while her supporting cast watches her apparently talk to herself. In her 100th issue, she is asked whether she really can see through the fourth wall, and she responds "No, I can't" - looking straight at the reader and smiling.
Ambush Bug does this frequently, and has also interacted with his own writer and editors. He can also actually see the speech bubbles that come out of character's mouths, and once asked Zatanna why the text in hers is backwards.
The DC Heroes tabletop RPG from Mayfair Games had an adventure centered around Ambush Bug (Don't ask!) Of course he is completely aware that he is in a roleplaying game scenario and that the player characters are just that.
In the Beano and Dandy comics, the characters sometimes talk to the artist, and frequently talk to the readers. Occasionally the artist even shows up in the actual comic strip. Also, the "readers" themselves are given lines of dialogue, marked with a speech bubble coming from off panel labelled "Reader's voice".
Squirrel Girl breaks the fourth wall during the recaps of pretty much every issue she appears in (which isn't that unique when you think about it). However, for Monkey Joe and Tippy Toe there is No Fourth Wall, so they talk directly to us readers.
Infinite Crisis, another serious moment out of DC Comics. Alexander Luthor, a separate entity from the classic Lex Luthor, is looking for a preferred reality out of uncountable thousands that lay spread before him. He finds it...ours. He turns straight towards the reader, gazing up and out of the comic page and...GRABS FOR THE READER. Alexander's plans are stopped.
Jack of Fables, a spinoff of Fables, does this in every single issue to some extent - originally, it tended to just be throwaway gags, such as Jack giving fancifully ludicrous descriptions of what (allegedly, but in reality never) would happen in the next issue, in the little box at the bottom of the last page. However, pick up the "Turning Pages" collection (aka volume 5), and you'll run across a new character, a Literal called "Eliza Wall"... a temporary narrator who addresses the audience directly, deconstructs Jack's crazy fake teaser texts, acknowledges that certain things will happen in say, "seven pages" (acknowledging the medium itself), talks about the story in actual story terms (both blatantly and slyly: "that's why no one really likes [fellow Literal character] Deux Ex Machina"), and even warns the reader that she'll have to step in shortly in order to prevent an unpleasant outcome... on top of having three (identical) brothers who are shown circling her at a picnic and failing to understand "who she's talking to" as she looks over her shoulder at the reader. In short, she's not just a fourth-wall breaker, but is, perhaps true to form, the personification of the very act of breaking the fourth wall. Talk about your Post Modernism ...
Despite being practically an unknown, Rick Jones has seen a lot of the Marvel Comics world. This includes everything from being the stupid teenager Bruce Banner saved, resulting in his transformation into the Incredible Hulk, to serving as replacement Bucky for Captain America. This was brought to the forefront at the end of the 2004 Captain Marvel series; while Marvel was blessed/cursed with "Cosmic Awareness", Jones, through his experiences, had acquired "Comics Awareness." It didn't usually manifest in actual fourth-wall breaking, so much as just being Genre Savvy. However, at the end of the issue, Jones calmly explained that sales weren't good enough, and the comic itself was literally rolled up in big sheets and put in storage by other out-of-print characters.
In the recent miniseries Joker's Asylum, Joker plays a modern take on the Cryptkeeper. At one point, in Two-Face's issue, he turns to the reader and tells him to find a coin, with such an intensity that probably sent a few comic book fans scrambling for their wallets.
It wasn't just that point. The implication in several of the stories in Joker's Asylum is that he is indeed talking and narrating the stories directly to the audience. Cue lots of looking directly at the Fourth Wall.
In another recent story, Joker is being psychoanalyzed by a prominent pop psychologist (in-universe, anyway). At one point, the psychologist asks who Joker is talking to while in isolation. The Joker says he's entertaining the audience ("the Bat's not the only one with fans, you know!"), and the psychologist replies that he is entertaining nobody because they aren't real. Joker then counters with a question of his own: what if it's he and the psychologist who aren't real? At the end we see Joker back in his cell at Arkham, narrating about how he really is crazy and how the audience isn't real, before turning to the reader and asking, "Are you?"
Mr. Mxyzptlk is also able to do this, one time even telling the Joker straight up that no one remembers that the Joker had 5th dimension reality warping powers because a) Mxy didn't want everyone to remember and b) they hadn't collect those issues into a trade paperback yet.
The "Son of Man" arc of Hellblazer has John Constantine speaking to the reader where narration boxes or thought bubbles would more typically be used.
Done from time to time in the Sonic the Hedgehog Comic Books back in the 90's, before the onset of the title's Cerebus Syndrome. For example, in Super Sonic Vs. Hyper Knuckles, Tails at some point tells Sally that "Knuckles will punch Sonic on Page 7". Guess what happens...
At the end of The Secret of the Unicorn, Tintin informs the reader (much to the surprise of Captain Haddock) that the next part of the adventure will be told in Red Rackham's Treasure.
A lot of what Snowy says in the series is breaking the fourth wall, or at least purely for the reader's benefit, since it's usually made clear that the other characters can't hear him. At one point, he looks at the reader and says "I could have told them that. But nobody would have listened to me!"
A Show Within a Show example is cited in the "Treasure Island Treasury of Comics" excerpt from Watchmen. In Tales of the Black Freighter #7, a rhyming monologue by Blackbeard concludes with the pirate looking directly at the reader, and taunting them that their world may be no nobler than his.
Superboy-Prime does this constantly. In fact, he is from the real world itself. In Blackest Night, he even buys Issue #4 of the comic you are reading, in an effort to figure out the ending and avert his own demise. When he realises that Issue #5 is not out yet, he even tries to murder the writers at DC Comics.
In a Futurama promotional comic explaining the in-universe reason why the series was cancelled then returned for the movies (available as a bonus feature with full cast voiceover on the Bender's Big Score DVD) nearly Breaking the Fourth Wall becomes a Running Gag (someone mentions "episodes" only to clarify that by that they mean missions, and so on). Even the reruns are given an in-universe explanation of a time warp.
The first episode of the series reboot had Fry mention how he felt like he'd been in limbo for years.
In the comic continuation to Gargoyles, a time-travelling Brooklyn addresses the audience in regards to his ignorance about Scottish history:
Internally breaking the fourth wall, and, it could be argued, breaking ours as well in The Filth, where agents of the Hand go down into a comic book in order to mine it for fantastic weapons.
Amelia Rules! is narrated by Amelia, who frequently speaks directly to the reader, even when her friends are present:
Reggie: Who are you talking to?
Some of the characters in Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories had No Fourth Wall to start with, but despite addressing the reader at the end of the story, JackB.Quick isn't usually one of them. However, in his last adventure, he makes a pair of time-travelling shoes, heading back though history as he crosses town. But it goes wrong and he passes back before the formation of life, and even the start of time, then back to his first issue until he's left drifting on a blank white void, before the comic started. As there's no panel borders to keep them apart, he can talk to the other Jack B. Quicks on the page.
Averted by Executive Meddling in an issue of Justice Society of America. Time traveler Per Degaton has been harassing the JSA, apparently just to mess with them. At the end, standing alone, he remarks that he enjoys watching the heroes suffer. The last page, which was cut by the editors, had him turning to the reader and saying "Just like you."
One issue of Alpha Flight has a character start talking back to the writer, but it was a villain's plot to make him think he was a comic book character.
In Duncan and Mallory: The Bar None Ranch the main characters take turns tearing up the fourth wall.
Lampshaded in the collected volume, with Empowered talking about how annoying it can be.
Done occasionally in The Awesome Slapstick, most notably in the final page of the last issue:
"I need my own series! Write to Tom DeFalco! Write to Mark Gruenwald! Write to your Congressman!"
Doctor 13 leads a group of washed-up DC characters who are about to be deleted from continuity. A group of DC comics editors appear in the form of the "Architects" who are rewriting the universe. They challenge the characters to prove they are interesting enough to be included in the new universe, and only have an interest in including "the hot girl." In the last panel, Doctor 13 realizes he exists in a comic book and begs the reader not to turn the page, as finishing the book implies the end of their existence.
The origin of Captain Marvel Junior featured some Fourth Wall breaking. In the title Master Comics, the villain Captain Nazi beat up veteran Fawcett hero Bulletman, leaving a note to Captain Marvel warning him to "Stay in 'Whiz Comics'," and not get in his way. In the following month's "Whiz Comics", Freddie Freeman's father rescued a drowning Captain Nazi who immediately killed him and crippled Freddie. Captain Marvel then rescued Freddie, brought him to the Rock of Eternity and, with the wizard Shazam's help gave Freddie powers identical to his own. He then told then newly-minted Captain Marvel Jr, "I'm sending you back to 'Master Comics' to take on Captain Nazi."
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers had a story where Fat Freddy is alarmed to find themselves in a comic book. Phineas ponders the metaphysical implications - "We could be erased at any moment!". Franklin gets them to change their look so they won't be associated with those losers. Then, after their transformations, they're chagrined to find themselves in a bar holding a Freak Brothers lookalike contest.
Scott Pilgrim breaks the fourth wall every now and then. Kim Pine, one of Scott's friends, is told several times to "read the book" when she asks about plot points that have happened previously, and when Ramona and Scott are discussing past jobs, Scott says that he'd like to save the story of his last job for a later volume.
A major plot point in the final book relies on a chekhovs gun that Scott picked up in a previous volume. Just in case readers forgot, Scott's mom calls just at that moment, just so his sister can remind her that he got the item in volume four.
Done several times in Quantum And Woody, once to explain using the word "noogie" to replace "the N-Word", and a second time at the end of issue #17 when the comic was abruptly canceled.
In Fear Itself: The Worthy #5; on the last page, Hulk turns around and says "You'll hate yourself tomorrow, but you don't have to, you can just hate the Hulk, that's why you made me, isn't it?"
Han: Excuse me as I break character here: To the author: About this dialogue, are you on some form of illegal substance? Wedge: And could we please have some?
In context, however, Han's only breaking the fourth wall in a play they're rehearsing.
In The Last Airbender parody Bring Me All Your Elderly, the Animated!Characters not only are aware that they are animated (and discuss it very casually), they also leave the Animated!Universe to enter the Movie!Universe, generally blame all unexplained events either on the fanfic author or M. Night Shyamalan, read their own fanfic and comments straight off the internet, and basically suffer severe existential crises as a result. The fourth wall itself actually makes a brief appearance at one point in the story, along with a sign that says "fragile."
Mai: But for future reference, guys - try to be careful about breaking the fourth wall around Zuko, okay? He doesn't know, and it tends to freak him out a little.
Zuko: Fourth wall? What wall? Someone broke a wall?
Mai: Nothing, Zuko. Just don't worry about it.
Film
Two Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker films have brief uses of this device:
In Airplane! after Elaine tells Ted she can't see him anymore, he turns to the camera and says, "What a pisser."
In Top Secret!, Hillary tells Nick about how she grew up on a tropical island a la The Blue Lagoon, with accompanying parody flashbacks. She ends by saying, "It sounds like the plot of some bad movie," at which point both characters stop and slowly turn to face the audience.
I was fortunate enough to see this movie in a theater with a friend who couldn't resist shouting out, "It is a bad movie!," only to have the characters on screen stop and stare at him. Priceless.
After Nick Rivers performs in the Malt Shop, Albert Potato turns to the camera and says "This is not Mel Tormé!"
In the George of the Jungle movie, the Narrator says that the characters react with awe at a mountain, at which they all go "Awwwww". He repeats himself, spelling out the word and they say "Ooooh". Later, the bad guys get into an argument with the narrator after he refuses to help them.
Not to mention the sequel:
Narrator: ...wait a minute! You're not George!
George: Me new George! Studio too cheap to get Brendan Fraser.
In The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy is locked in the Witch's castle, she sees Auntie Em's image in the crystal ball, looking for her. Auntie Em's image is then replaced by the Wicked Witch's image, who mocks Dorothy and then turns to cackle directly at the audience, possibly to secretly taunt/scare the audience as well.
Billy Ray Valentine in Trading Places turns to look directly at the camera after being told that you might find bacon in a "bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich".
The 1941 classic Hellzapoppin' absolutely obliterates the fourth wall: the characters comment on other plots, they talk to the audience, they talk to the projectionist (and in fact, when the shot goes out of frame, they confront the projectionist, who it turned out was getting a little action in his booth), they deconstruct myths, they talk to still photographs (which come alive), they pause the phrase, mock the movie they're watching and the movie they're in (including muting the soundtrack and making jokes over it MST3K-style), criticize the writing, talk about their roles, use double-exposures deliberately, control the direction, and have a running joke with overlaid wording that "Stinky Miller" needs to go to the lobby because his mother is looking for him, and the characters stop in the middle of a musical number to yell at Stinky, who eventually (in silhouette), gets up and leaves. Whew.
Perhaps the earliest film example is The Great Train Robbery (1903), which ends with a shot of a gunslinger shooting at the camera, causing many in the audience to duck for cover, as they actually thought they were going to get shot.
Another early example is the 1963 film Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney. In one scene, he finds that all his money had been stolen while he slept, and he shouts at the chambermaid, demanding to know if it was her who robbed him. Unsatisfied with her answers, he turns to the camera and shouts "DID YOU SEE HER?! DID YOU?!"
At the end of "Amelie", two characters are shown riding down the street on a motorcycle, teasing one another playfully and generally being so deeply in love that they are completely oblivious to the world around them. Then, for a second, they both turn and make faces at the camera. It's a little disconcerting, but seems to work in this offbeat movie.
The bad guy Hedley Lamaar is considering his orders to find a new sheriff for the town of Rock Ridge.
Hedley Lamaar: A sheriff! But law and order is the last thing I want. Wait a minute... maybe I could turn this thing into my advantage. If I could find a sheriff who so offends the citizens of Rock Ridge that his very appearance would drive them out of town. (looks into the camera) But where would I find such a man? (pause) Why am I asking you?
After Sheriff Bart takes himself hostage, he retreats to his new office and says, "Oh, baby you are so talented...(looks into the camera) and they are so dumb."
When Bart hears the Waco Kid moaning in his bunk, he turns to the camera and says "The drunk in number two must be awake."
After boring the Waco Kid to sleep, Sheriff Bart looks at the camera and says, "I like to keep my audience riveted."
As two thugs assault a little old lady, she turns to the audience and asks, "Have you ever seen such cruelty?"
During a speech, Hedley Lamaar says "You will only be risking your lives, while I will be risking an almost certain Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor."
The big fight towards the end of the movie breaks out of the set and ruins a neighboring Busby Berkeley Number. This would be breaking the third wall.
Taggart: "I'm working for Mel Brooks!" (writer/director).
Bart and the Waco Kid attend a premiere of the movie Blazing Saddles.
At the end of which, they ride off into the sunset, only to get off their horses and into a waiting limousine.
In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, at many points (most specifically the beginning and the end) Ferris talks directly to the audience while setting up the stereo and moving model in his bed.
In a rare non-comedy example, there is a moment in Fight Club when Tyler Durden begins monologuing: "You are not the car you drive. You are not the contents of your wallet..." By the end of the monologue ("You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.") he is looking directly into the camera, and the film shakes and appears to come loose (the sprocket holes are visible). Also an allusion to his job as a projectionist, and habit of tampering with the films. As he does at the end of Fight Club.
Then Tyler again, later: "Ah. Flashbacsinging to a crowded audience (though, somehow, we, the audience, see them too). This would explain his possible Break The Fourth Wall abilities.
Anything Else's protagonist repeatedly explains to the camera his predicaments and thoughts.
White She Devil: Oh, Undercover Brother, you're too much man for me.
Undercover Brother: Baby... [looks at the camera] sometimes I'm too much man for my own damn self.
In the original film The Producers, Max sees some of Leo's eccentricities and says to the camera "This man should be in a straitjacket." In the musical adaptation and the later film based on it, Max says the line to a statue instead, though there is an outtake from the second film where Nathan Lane says it to the camera, then realizes it's supposed to be different in this film.
Also in the remake: in a jail cell, Max answers his own question of "How did I get into this mess?" by re-enacting the entire movie with snatches of dialogue and song. Brilliant.
Intermission! * Pulls out the program book, reads it* ... * Continues*
This is, to some extent, the plot of the movie Stranger Than Fiction, in which the main character discovers that he is a character in a book.
However, the main character never becomes aware of or interacts with the audience. Since he exists in the same reality as the writer who's guiding the events of his life, it's more a case of internal meta-fiction.
Happens a couple of times in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, with one example being when the view is zooming in on outside of Maid Marian's room, whereupon the shot switches to inside her room. A couple of minutes later, the camera (which had been doing the outside view) smashes through the window, before retreating rather awkwardly. The fourth wall is then again broken later, when the Abbot is walking up the aisle of Maid Marian and the Sherrif of Rottingham's wedding, and his staff hits the camera, causing the Abbot to loudly say "Sorry!".
Wouldn't the incident with the camera breaking the window technically be the Inverted Trope
The big archery tournament, where everyone pulls out a copy of the script to confirm that Robin gets another shot.
And during Robin and the Sheriff's fight scene, one of them accidentally skewers a set worker's bagel on their sword, who had been leaning through a 'window', showing the rest of the studio.
Not to mention the very first scene in the movie when, as the village is being burned to the ground, one of the villagers says, "There must be a better way of doing the credits," to which another responds, "That's right! Every time they make a Robin Hood movie they burn our village down." They soon have all the villagers exclaim in one harrassed voice: "Leave us alone, Mel Brooks!"
NB: this is right after they read his name in the credits.
And then, of course, there's the wonderful line at the end where Robin names Achoo Sheriff of Rottingham. Everyone yells "A black sheriff?!?!?!" Achoo looks right into the camera and says, "Why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles."
Robin: "Unlike some other Robin Hood's, I can speak with an English accent!"
In Spaceballs, a cameraman bites it during the climactic battle sequence between Lone Starr and Dark Helmet. Earlier, Yogurt promises that the whole crew will meet again in Spaceballs II: The Search for More Money. (Promising sequels that never happened also occurred in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I.)
Also in Spaceballs, the scene where they located the hero Lone Star by popping in a copy of Spaceballs on VHS, explaining that through the advancement of technology movies could now come out on VHS before they were even finished filming them. If only that poor camera guy knew about that.....
After having his own dastardly plan explained to him by his first officer, Dark Helmet turns to the camera and asks, "Everybody got that?"
Which has been shown to bleed into the animated series as well.
And who can forget the stunt doubles getting captured instead of our real heroes?
Or Dark Helmet getting knocked over by the camera as it moves in for a close-up.
and all that spaceballs merchandise in Yogurt's hut.
and all in the movie, including "spaceballs the toiletpaper" and "spaceballs the bedsheets".
"spaceballs the FLAMETHROWER! the kids love this one."
and when Yogurt mentions a superpowerful universal power known as— Barf interupts saying "the force?" Yogurt:"No! the schwartz!"
In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, one of Ben Affleck's characters says to the eponymous duo, "A Jay and Silent Bob movie? Who'd pay to see that?" At which point all three of them turn and glare at the audience.
Another scene with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, reprising their roles in Good Will Hunting for a sequel, are arguing about their motivations for accepting certain roles, with Affleck finishing with "...you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him." With a pause to look at the camera... just for good measure.
Most movies starring Jim Henson's Muppets involved some degree of fourth wall breaking. For instance, in The Muppet Movie, Kermit tells Fozzie not to explain the story so far to the other characters, for fear of boring the audience (Fozzie then gives the other characters a copy of the script to read). In The Great Muppet Caper, one scene suddenly stops as Kermit scolds Miss Piggy for over-acting.
In Muppet Treasure Island, Long John Silver (Tim Curry) cuts off other cast members from singing. "Upstage lads, this is my ONLY number!"
A Muppet Christmas Carol featured Gonzo (as Dickens) and Rizzo narrating the movie. During the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come sequence, they decide that the scene is too scary for them, with Gonzo telling the audience, "You're on your own. See you at the finale!"
When Scrooge lights the lamp to search his house, it turns out to be an electric light.
During the special memorial program for Jim Henson, one of the Muppets asks about including "those other people" in the memorial. "What other people?" is asked, and the first replies, "Them, down there", while gesturing toward the unseen puppeteers below the lower edge of the screen. After a few moments, he then adds, "On second thought, don't look. It's too weird" to general agreement.
In Smokey and the Bandit there is a scene early on where Bandit (Burt Reynolds) is being pursued by a city cop. He escapes by pulling his Firebird into a used car lot, then pulls away, slowly, as he checks to make sure the police car is gone. Just for a moment, he stops the car, then turns and looks directly at the camera. He flashes this most WONDERFUL "Ain't I Something?" grin, and then turns away and proceeds with the movie.
Though it could be argued that it is the usual "I know this so well that I'm not going to turn around to talk to you" thing that mothers do all the time and girls start at an early age.
The camera is aimed at the perfect angle to make both interpretations work, so this might have been planned.
At the start of Mary Poppins, Burt greets the audience and leads them to the Banks home.
At the end of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, the three main characters invite the audience to come and visit them some time.
At the beginning and ending of Whatever Works, Boris turns his friend's attentions to the audience watching them. Some people don't believe him, others wave.
In The Devil's Advocate, Milton reveals himself as Satan by boiling some holy water by dipping his finger in it - while GRINNING AT THE CAMERA.
I always thought he was looking at the murals on the ceiling of the church. A Take That to God (I am in ur church, boylin ur holi water).
Could be a nod to the final shot of The Omen, in which five-year-old Damien, attending his adoptive parents' funeral, looks directly at the audience and smiles.
Dr. Frank N. Furter of The Rocky Horror Picture Show seems to be aware of the audience, throwing a drink at the camera during Sweet Transvestite and meeting the audience's gaze at other times. He even addresses them directly at least once, when he says, "It's not easy having a good time! Even smiling makes my face ache!" None of the other characters seem to share his knowledge.
It helps that Frank is completely and utterly insane as well. If his final song I'm Going Home is any indication, he's so out of touch with reality that he actually thinks he's singing to a crowded audience (though, somehow, we, the audience, see them too). This would explain his possible Break The Fourth Wall abilities.
And the Criminologist, who appears to exist in a reality distinct both from the film itself and the viewers, and aware of both.
An 'in-universe' example in Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo. The lead character watches the eponymous movie so many times that the lead actor in the movie falls in love with her and breaks out through the cinema screen to join her. The rest of the characters in the movie have to wait around since the plot cannot continue without him.
In another Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall, a puffed up character: Man-In-Theatre-Line, spouts nonsense about Marshall McLuhan's theories of media. Allen's character Alvy argues with him, and then pulls the real Marshall McLuhan into the shot to back up his argument. Once that is done, Alvy faces the audience and says something like "Don't you wish that happened in real life?"
At the end of Secretary, Maggie Gyllenhaal's character looks directly at the camera and practically smirks as her new husband drives away. Considering her behavior and decisions are, shall we say, unorthodox throughout the film, it comes off as a direct challenge.
In Fatal Instinct, after Ned Ravine finds his skunk missing the camera follows him. As it does so it runs into a tree and the lens breaks.
In a rare horror version, John Carpenter's movie In The Mouth Of Madness has the premise that breaking the fourth wall lets the Eldritch Abominations hiding behind it in.
Yes, but what about people who don't read books?
There'll be a movie.
Near the end of A Shot in the Dark, Clouseau gathers the suspects in the case together as part of a plot to catch the killer. It turns out that all the suspects have been having affairs with each other and, with one exception, have committed at least one murder, the admission of which leads to a massive row between all the suspects. Clouseau is unable to get a word in edgeways and ends up looking at the audience in exasperation.
In the extended cut of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Dingo turns to the camera partway through her scene and starts talking to the audience about how she didn't think the scene was funny, but now that she's had the chance to perform it has changed her mind. This results in various other characters from the film appearing and telling her to shut up and GET ON WITH IT!
At another point, a monster died because the person animating it had a heart attack.
Funny Games has No Fourth Wall, but only Paul can break it. He seems to be the only character aware that he's in a film.
One of the best examples of completely obliterating the Fourth Wall is when he rewinds the effing movie to reverse the death of the other killer.
The eponymous character in Kuffs talks to the audience throughout the movie, sometimes in the presence of other characters who fail to notice.
In The Neverending Story, near the end, the Childlike Empress tells Atreyu that as he was adventuring through Fantasia, the Earth-child Bastian was sharing his adventures by reading the story, then mentions that others are sharing Bastian's adventure, referencing the viewers.
Twice in the 2003 live-action adaptation of Peter Pan, Smee addresses the audience, in both cases to remark on the story ("It's all a bit tragic, isn't it?" and "How exciting, two dead so far!") in progress.
In Zombie Strippers, a man is pulled into the champagne room by the zombified stripper played by Jenna Jameson. When the man says "Baby, I've been dying to get to a lap dance with you!", Jameson smiles and shoots the camera a look that positively shatters the fourth wall.
In the Marx Brothers' Horse Feathers, Groucho's putting the moves on Thelma Todd is interrupted by Chico's barging in. He launches into one of his piano numbers; Groucho steps up to the screen and tells us "You know, I've gotta stay here, but there's no reason you shouldn't go out to the lobby 'til this whole thing blows over!"
Also, in The Big Store, Groucho parades some beautiful women. One of them is wearing a red dress and he tells the audience that 'This dress is really bright red, but Technicolor is sooo expensive'.
And in Go West, after the brothers hijack a train and tie up the engineer, after putting a sock in his mouth, Groucho turns to the camera and says "You know this is the best gag in the picture?"
In This Girl's Life, the main character, Moon, breaks the fourth wall throughout the film, but this becomes a little confusing because her character is a webcam star who also talks to the camera from time to time. At times, it's not immediately obvious whether she's talking to the real audience or the webcam audience.
In the Ian McKellen version of Richard III, Richard (McKellen) often turns to the audience to comment on the action, following Shakespeare's script.
In the old Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra comedy Western Four For Texas, Martin turns to the audience on several occasions and gives them wry/conspiratorial looks when something particularly odd happens.
Help!! - Ringo is trapped in a cellar; he hoists up a ladder but several rungs snap under his weight - he turns to the camera and deadpans "All of the rungs have been neatly sawed in the middle!" Earlier on, Eleanor Bron as Ahme thwarts one of her bad guy superior's traps and tells us "I am not what I seem."
Hot Tub Time Machine has the scene where the characters realize that the hot tub time machine has, indeed, taken them back in time. When this dawns upon one of the characters says, "It must be some sort of hot tub time machine," and then turns to stare at the audience.
High Fidelity. John Cusack's character talks directly to the audience as he talks about his life, relationships and love of music.
Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Basil tells Austin that he should stop worrying aboutTime Travel complexities and just enjoy himself, then turns to the audience and says “That goes for you all too!” and Austin says "Yes".
In Bedtime Stories the narrator breaks the fourth wall near the end of the movie, asking the main character if this is really how he's gonna have the story end.
Frank in Maniac addresses the viewer during one of his insane ramblings.
In the Wayne's World movies, Wayne frequently addresses the audience to provide exposition or commentary on the action. At one point in the first film, he goes on a lengthy tirade about his problems, to the point where the camera tries to get away from him and has to be coaxed back.
In the first film, the servr at the donut shop (Played by an extra-insane Ed O'Neill) starts a monologue/flashback, talking to the camera. Wayne interrupts and reminds him that only Wayne and Garth are allowed to address the audience.
In Some Like It Hot, Joe manages to hatch a plan to escape from the gangsters. As he arranges everything by phone, Jerry turns to the camera and says "Isn't he a bit terrific?"
In Hallmark's Alice in Wonderland the white rabbit turns to face the camera after being hit time after time with pieces of slate from his roof and raises his eyebrows at the audience.
Subverted in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, when Mr. Smith turns to wink at the camera at one point, only to then reveal he was winking to an old couple next to him.
Oliver Hardy wouldn't talk to the camera, but he often gave it pessimistic or exasperated looks when things were going wrong.
At the end of High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the main characters run across a field at the end of their graduation ceremony, jump out of the "screen" and onto a theatre stage complete with red drapes and then grin for five minutes straight as the camera zooms up on each one of their faces.
The teaser trailers for "Marmaduke", "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "Ratatouille" all have the main characters break the fourth wall.
In Kick-Ass the main character narrates the whole thing, discussing superhero tropes with the audience as they come up and at one point telling the audience off for assuming he'll survive because he's narrating, mention other films where that's not the case.
Rubber opens up with a cop talks directly to the camera about how things happen in films for "no reason," and dedicates the film to that tradition. It turns out he was addressing a crowd of spectators, though his statements apply to the actual film as much as the in-universe film.
In the 1953 version of House of Wax there is a hawker playing with paddleballs ushering people in to see the titular building. As he interacts with the crowd, he eventually turns to directly interact with the camera and addresses people in the movie theater as well ("...Well there's someone with a bag of popcorn!").
Further, in a Moment Of Awesome, is the fact that the original House of Wax was released in 3D, so not only is the crier speaking directly to the viewers, but his warnings that he might accidentally hit someone in the audience with one of the bouncing paddleballs becomes a very clever use of 3D.
In the 1978 Superman film and all its sequels, the final scene always shows Superman looking and smiling at the audience as he flies away.
In an earlier scene, Clark and Lois are in danger of being mugged, but disaster is averted when the gun seemingly misses her and the crook dashes off. Clark collapses, but it soon turns out he only fainted in shock from the gunshot. When Lois turns away, annoyed, Clark opens his hand to reveal he caught the bullet before it hit her and gives the audience his classic "Just between you and me" sort of smile.
In The Empire Strikes Back when several characters are escaping from the collapsing rebel base, the door closes on C-3PO, who turns to the camera and mutters "How typical." The door opens again and he's pulled out by Han. This is the only moment in the entire series to break the fourth wall.
Literature
The very first novel written in a recognisable format was Don Quixote. Its sequel features Don Quixote, the book, the author, fans of the book and a fake sequel written by a man who was not the original author, leading to the hero having to track down the Don Quixote from the fake sequel to get him to sign away his rights to the name/concept, in order that the real author can write a real sequel. That makes this apparently postmodern trope older than Shakespeare.
House of Leaves is unique in the fact that it has two fourth walls. Both have a lovely coat of paint. The majority of the story lies in The Navidson Record, telling the story of a house with some interesting features. While reading, it's easy to forget that the house doesn't even exist in the context of the novel. (Narrator/Editor Johnny Truant states this in the foreword, but even he eventually forgets this fact). However, there are several asides in the text of the Record to remind the reader that "none of this ever happened." Early on, a paragraph about the Navidson's famous friends is riddled with blanks, as if Zampano had yet to decide which celebrities to fill in the blanks with. Later, in Will's drunken apology letter to Karen, struck out text reveals a list of characters who do not appear in the novel. Finally, both Will and Johnny find and read books titled House of Leaves, which brings up paradoxesperhaps better left unexplored...
Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie series usually has at least one moment per book where Piggie looks directly at the reader and snarks a bit, but the newest book, We Are In A Book, is where it gets a bit... crazy.
At the end of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the main character realizes that he is merely a fictional character and that the events of the book are just that: events in a book. He then goes on to analyze some of the more mindscrewy aspects of the novel, and to criticize the author for placing more importance on symbolism than on giving the book a satisfying conclusion.
And then there's the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy by one of the same authors (Robert Anton Wilson), in which each novel is a different parallel universe, but features characters who realize they're living in a bad novel and start hopping between the books. The third book is almost entirely novel-hopping.
A Perfect Vacuum by Polish Sci-FI author Stanisław Lem is a book full of reviews of nonexistent books. If that weren't enough, the first book review in the book is a review of the book itself and an explanation of why it can't possibly ever be written. (Well then what are we reading if the book can't be written?)
Thursday Next features a scene where Thursday is about to get intimate with her husband, then suddenly stops and says she can't do it with so many people watching. After Landen reminds her she's not a character in a book, she apologizes and says she's spent too much time in the BookWorld.
And then the book conveniently cuts to a chapter break. These books have so many different meta-levels it can get really confusing. One particularly fine example comes when Emperor Zhark's arrives to talk to Thursday. He makes a grand entrance described in about ninety words, which ends the chapter. The next chapter is titled "Emperor Zhark" and during the conversation, he tells Thursday that he's renegotiated his contract in the BookWorld so that in his series he gets at least one chapter per book with his name in it, two chapters have to end with his arrival, and the first time he appears requires at least eighty words of description. All those conditions have just been fulfilled in the book you're reading, except Zhark's second chapter-ending arrival. He leaves, then pops back in - ending the chapter again - to ask Thursday for a recipe.
In his recent "Under the Dome", on page 802, the narrator (King himself, as usual) is describing the current state of the town, when he mentions that one of the statues at the war memorial is the great grandfather of one of the characters. Immediately after, he notes "I probably don't have to tell you that," not because we know already, but because it's unnecessary and he knows it.
In the classic Locked Room MysteryThe Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr, one chapter consists of Dr Gideon Fell giving a lecture on Locked Room Mysteries in fiction. When asked what relevance this has to the situation, he replies "Because we're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not."
Carr's The Nine Wrong Answers periodically stops to warn the reader that if s/he thinks such-and-such is the case, s/he's wrong.
A kidnapped mindwiped character in the Doc Savage series regains his memories after seeing the previous Doc Savage Magazine on a news-stand.
Simon Hawke's The Reluctant Sorcerer series of short novels features a villain who not only can hear the narrator and snark back, but ends the series himself by stepping out through the fourth wall, buying the author's publishing company, and forcing him to re-write the story so that he wins.
In Spike Milligan's novel Puckoon, a character wants to know what page of the book the story is up to, so he stops to look down at the bottom of the current page, and then he reports the (correct) page number in the dialogue. If this novel goes into a new edition, the dialogue must be revised to reflect the correct page number.
Kayari does this in chapter four of Twilight Dragon. Apparently the novel is the accounts of her adventures.
Sophie's World is a book about a book (among other things), and contains an example of in-universe Breaking the Fourth Wall, brilliantly written, as its climax.
Anthony Trollope usually wrote in third person omniscient observer voice. However, in one novel, whose title escapes me right now, the narrator entered into the action by commenting on a character directly, 'and I caught him in a fib once'.
Trollope veers from extreme to the next - at one point in Barchester Towers he is describing how he has sat and passed time in the titular cathedral and expressed personal enmity to one of the characters, at another he is telling us he needs to pad out the novel by 12 pages.
The picture book Have I Got a Book For You! by Melanie Watts presents a fox salesperson who begs the reader to purchase the book. His sales tactics grow increasingly more desperate. The book ends up with an actual ripped page and the fox says that if you break it, you buy it.
Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is subtitled "An Autobiography", and presented as being Jane's autobiography. Chapter 11 of the first volume begins by acknowledging that it is, in fact, the start of a new chapter in a novel, and encouraging the reader to imagine this in the manner of a scene change in a play.
The later Myth Adventures novels tend to do this, with narrators addressing the reader as a reader, and/or offering shameless plugs for previous books in the series. (Is there an Advertising On The Fourth Wall trope?)
In The Dresden Files, Harry will sometimes directly address the audience, usually while explaining certain principles of magic, or occasionally when he makes an off-color comment.
Have you ever been approached by a grim-looking man, carrying a naked sword with a blade about ten miles long in his hand, in the middle of the night, beneath the stars on the shores of Lake Michigan? If you have, seek professional help.
In L.A. Meyer's series, Bloody Jack Jacky's best friend Amy starts publishing books about Jacky's adventures under the titles of the previous books. This gives Jacky a chance to respond to the more scandalous parts of her life.
In Tom Stoppard's play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, some characters (namely Rosencrantz) will look at, gesture towards, or refer to the audience. Although they do not speak to the audience directly, they do talk about them.
The short story "The Van on Atlantic Street" by Desmond Warzel pauses briefly to address the reader and reassure him that he has nothing to fear should he encounter the eponymous van.
Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist begins with the reader filling the role of an American man who bumps into the main character in a shop in Pakistan. The reader only knows what's going on from the dialogue of the other character, as there is no description or dialogue for their character. Most of the novel is flashbacks in the form of the protagonist recounting his life from the age of 18 until now, interspersed with returns to the present in order for the protagonist to comment on the apparently mundane occurrences around you.
Live Action TV
From 1950 to 1958, George Burns was breaking the fourth wall on The Burns And Allen Show. In every episode, he spoke directly to the audience while predicting events later in the episode and reporting on events that he (as a character in the episode) shouldn't know about. In many of the later episodes, he was seen watching the other characters on television. In fact, the term "breaking the fourth wall" is a massive understatement when applied to this series. George Burns did some crazy things on this show that have rarely (if ever) been replicated:
In the first two seasons of the series, the show looked like an odd hybrid of a radio show and a stage play. Because TV was still new and experimental — not to mention live — Burns and his production partners decided to broadcast the show from an actual theater where a mockup of a house had been built on stage. The house set looked like an artillery shell had hit it, wiping out the fourth wall and one corner of the house. Rather than watch scenes of the show on the TV set in his office — that wouldn't start until the show was shot on film starting in the 1952-53 season — George would lean against the proscenium arch and comment directly to the theater audience about the goings-on inside the house. See for yourself. Here's a sample episode titled "Rumba Lessons" that aired on December 28, 1950.
In the first episode of the 1953-54 season — in what may have been the most extreme breaking of the fourth wall in history — Fred Clark (who played Harry Morton) left the series in part because he had demanded a higher salary. Literally! He left the series about twenty minutes into the episode. As Blanche was about to express her displeasure with a gift Harry had given her by hitting him with a vase, George stopped the action, turned to the audience and told them that Clark was leaving the series. Clark exited, replacement actor Harry Keating entered, and the action resumed.
The sitcom Unhappily Ever After broke the fourth wall regualarly. In fact, almost every episode they acknowledged that they were characters on a sitcom. They would address the audience, talk to the camera, mention what the subject of the episode was, etc.
30 Rock: In one instance, the characters of Jack and Liz are talking about cell phones, and Liz starts talking about how great Verizon phones are, then breaks the fourth wall by asking the camera, "Can we get our money now, please?"
On a recent episode, the crew of the Show Within a Show goes to Boston for plot reasons, and Jack gets an office that is nearly identical to his one in New York, leading to this exchange:
Liz: Is it identical?
Jack: Not quite. Seven items are different. See if you can spot which ones.
Freddie: Aw, sometimes it's OK to break the fourth wall.
Baby Spencer: No! It violates everything I believe in!
Freddie: Did you know Jerry Trainor is up in the Teen Choice Awards?
Baby Spencer: Hush! Don't talk about it!
Freddie: Don't you want everyone to go online and vote for Jerry Trainor?
Baby Spencer: Baby don't like shameless self-promotion!
Freddie: Don't you know iCarly is up for lots of Teen Choice Awards?
Baby Spencer: SHUT UP! I'm so uncomfortable with this in so many levels!
Boy Meets World played numerous games with the fourth wall, culminating in the final episode, where Corey announces that he finally "gets" the meaning of the show's title.
It also had an episode in which a character joined a soap opera called 'Kid Gets Acquainted With the Universe' and meets the cast, playing themselves (and also their usual characters in the B-plots.)
The State had a sketch which subverted this, purporting to be a revolutionary new Sitcom that showed the fourth wall. A wall was moved in front of the set, blocking the audience's view of the scene.
Part 7 of the First Doctor story The Daleks' Master Plan, titled "The Feast of Steven", featured The Doctor turning to the camera and wishing the viewers a Merry Christmas.
An advert featuring The Second Doctor had him advising children to "hold mummy's hand if she's frightened" during an upcoming episode. It ended with him hearing shouting off-camera and rushing off to help.
The Fourth Doctor spoke to the camera in The Invasion of Time and The Face of Evil. And in the Fourth Doctor story Genesis of the Daleks, a Dalek shouts into the camera about how its species will conquer the universe.
The Armageddon Factor has an unabashed fourth wall-breaking moment where the Doctor says right to the camera, "Even the sonic screwdriver won't get me out of this one."
In the Ninth Doctor story "The End of the World", one of the (CGI-animated) spiders "accidentally" collides with the camera.
A special 2005 interactive episode available to digital TV viewers had the Tenth Doctor inviting the viewer aboard the TARDIS to help solve a mystery using their remote controls. The episode was shot from the viewer's POV, with The Doctor talking into camera, though this "episode" is generally not considered canon.
In "The Shakespeare Code", a baddie speaks to the camera about how her species will return - this is reference to the soliloquies that Shakespeare used in his plays. From the same episode, when Shakespeare gets a bit flirty with the Doctor, the Doctor remarks, "57 academics just punched the air."
This is the whole point of the Proms special short "Music of the Spheres".
"Journey's End" includes a widely debated moment where Martha Jones appears to smile directly into the camera, though the context of the scene strongly implies that this is the point of view of the Doctor not the audience.
In "The Big Bang" when The Doctor is flying the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS, for a moment Matt Smith looks right down the camera lens.
At the very end of "Blink", the Doctor looks directly at the camera and tells the audience, "Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back. Don't look away. And don't blink. Good Luck." The affect can cause the viewer to never go near a statue again.
The Basil Brush Show refers to the 'viewers' frequently, and occasionally shows the studio outside the set and camera crew.
Joss Whedon did a Lampshade Hanging in the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Once More With Feeling". Anya complains that during her musical number with Xander, it felt like their apartment had only three walls, not a fourth, and that it felt like they were being watched. Also near the end of the same episode the song "Something to Sing About" features the line "And you can sing along" which Buffy sings while looking directly at the camera.
The only other time Buffy looks directly at the camera in a close-up is in the second episode of season 4.
In the season 2 premiere where after she saves Wiloow & Xander, Buffy looks at the camera and asks "Missed me?"
And the same episode has Buffy's line, "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday." (At the time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired on Tuesdays.)
There's a version of this as early as the Season 3 episode "Revelations". Buffy: "Some demon looking for some all-powerful thingamabob, and I gotta stop him before he unleashes unholy havoc, and it's another Tuesday night in Sunnydale."
And then there's Willow's line; "I think this line's mostly filler."
Again in the song "Something to Sing About", Giles calls out "She needs backup! Tara! Anya! Go!" Tara and Anya immediately run to Buffy's side and... start dancing as backup dancers. (Made even funnier by the fact that those two have less combat skills than anybody else on their team, even Xander.)
And the fact that Amber Benson (Tara) proceeds to accidentally dance straight into a pillar, breaking character in the process. And they keep it in the final cut.
Give them their due! They also sang backing vocals.
Done a few times on Monty Python's Flying Circus. At the end of the "Crunchy Frog" sketch, for example, Mr. Praline turns to the audience and says "It's a fair cop," as he's being led away by the police, and the officer leading him away admonishes him with "And stop talking to the camera!"
A recurring Python joke, it was even used in the movie, after the witch is balanced with a duck.
You could say that Monty Python's Fourth Wall consists of nothing but holes.
Surely the most common and well known Python example is John Cleese sat at the news desk saying "..and now for something completely different"
We mustn't forget the Dirty Fork skit, which is even set up by a black cue-card stating "And now, the punch line."
At the end of the Just Shoot Me! episode "Erlene and Boo", Dennis goes to bed with Nina's half-sister Erlene, played by Brooke Shields. Halfway through the scene, Shields breaks character and questions why her character would sleep with him. Laura San Giacomo (Maya) informs her that David Spade had paid off the writers to have his character end up with beautiful women.
Power Rangers Ninja Storm often lampshaded and outright parodied various PR conventions. Only Lothor (who wasn't Genre Savvy but certainly had a sense of humor) ever actually broke the fourth wall, however.
Once, after making the monster grow, he turned to the camera and asked, "What'd you expect? It wasn't going to get smaller."
In the Grand Finale, after getting his own Humongous Mecha and ripping apart both the Rangers and the countryside, he yells, "This is the most fun I've had all season!"
PR's fourth wall was actually broken long before Ninja Storm, actually. In an episode of Power Rangers Zeo, when the Rangers were faced by Rita's Impursonator monster, Prince Sprocket commented "A purse monster? That's SO last season!" This, of course, referred to Zedd and Rita's habit of making monsters out of ordinary items.
Power Rangers Samurai has Antonio, the Gold Samurai Ranger, who's Barracuda Blade attack is too fast to actually see. After he quickly defeats some Moogers, he turns to the camera and gives an instant replay of what happened, with the fight slowed down so the audience can see what happened.
One Farscape episode had Crichton humming along with the show's music while on a bad trip.
There tends to be a fair amount of leaning on the fourth wall with Farscape. Usually it's fairly subtle. Then again sometimes (I'm thinking of a very specific episode in season 4... John's in a coma? Trippy visions? Cartoons? yeah, you'll find it...) it's not so subtle.
Then again that could be John-in-the-dream addressing the "real" John, who's watching.
Similarly, one Stargate SG-1 episode had Carter whistling the show's music after meeting Pete.
In the episode "Fallen", upon seeing Teal'c, one of the villagers from the planet of the week fearfully said, "H-He is Jaffa!" O'Neill casually responds, "No, but he plays one on TV." This is perfectly in character for O'Neill.
In "Homecoming", upon hearing the news that Anubis has just appropriated Jonas' planet's entire supply of Naquadriah, O'Niell starts humming some ominous music which is immediately followed by the exact same piece being played as the show fades into a commercial break.
And in "200" Martin Lloyd complains about budget cuts that shortened the third act of his film and says that now it 'just ends.' The third act of the episode promptly ends.
Happens in an early episode of How I Met Your Mother - usually Future Ted just narrates, but in one scene he describes the attractiveness of a girl at a party, and she thanks him for the compliment.
In the episode "History vs. Mystery", Ted talks about how "Annie Hall" was Woody at his prime and how people have been ripping off his breaking of the fourth wall ever since. Robin then looks directly at the camera and says, "Can you believe this guy?"
In a Scrubs episode, JD shows up in an Italian suit, and he asks Carla what she thinks of it. She says something derogatory, and JD goes "Well it doesn't really matter what you think, it's what you think what counts," as he turns to the camera. Scene change, and Elliot's standing there, commenting on that he doesn't really fill it out. Once again, JD brushes this off and goes "Well it doesn't matter what you think either, it's whether or not America likes it as he looks into the camera again. Scene change and an Italian tailor is standing there going "Of course I like it, I made it! And it's Amerigo!"!
They did this because there was a home viewer contest going on, with on-screen promos in that very scene.
And at the end of the opening sequence, again. JD walks away from the scene, looks at the camera and goes "We'll be right back." scene change, Carla and Nurse Roberts. Carla: "Was he talking to us?", Roberts: "Hmmm hmmm?"
In the very first episode of the eighth season, which had been shown on NBC since the first season and had recently been moved to ABC, there is a scene where JD appears, points at where the ABC logo is on the screen and goes "Hmm, that's new." Apparently, he's just pointing at the Janitor's new watch. The joke is completely ruined on other channels, especially because JD has to point in a very odd way in order to point at the ABC logo.
In a rather bizarre episode of The Twilight Zone, a playwright with the ability to bring his characters to life and destroy them if they get unruly erases Rod Serling during Serling's trademark epilogue.
The episode is "A World of His Own" (1960). Keenan Wynn plays the playwright.
In the fourth season finale, Will's character decides to move back to Philadelphia. In the 5th season premiere, he is forcibly abducted by network executives (the door on the van said NBC Star Retrieval, complete with the peacock logo), tossed in a van, driven back to Bel-Air, and the show returned as it was in a no-fourth-wall instance of the Reset Button. Why? Because the series is "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", not "The Fresh Prince of Philadelphia".
In the very next scene, Jazz asks who would be playing Vivian that season, to which an inexplicably 5-year-old Nicky tells him it's the same person as the last season. When Jazz asks why Nicky is five now when he was a toddler in the previous episode, Will just shrugs, to which Jazz says he's going back on the streets where things make sense.
In said fourth season finale, ("The Philadelphia Story"), Will decides to confront a bully named Omar. Will describes Omar as "the dude who be spinning me over his head in the opening credits".
In one episode, after getting an 85 on a chemistry test by cheating on the person next to him, Carlton questions Will on whether he's really gonna leave the viewers with that. Will proceeds to leave and re-greet Carlton, stating that while he failed the test, he learned his lesson about last-minute cramming and plans on going to the library right then to start making up. Will then smiles at the camera and walks away.
In one episode ("Will's Misery"), Will was lured into a cabin by a sorority member, who was out to teach him a lesson. When she revealed that it was Carlton's idea, Will convinced Carlton that he actually killed the girl, which caused Carlton to freak out. He then started to run through all the sets used for that episode and through the studio audience, to the laughter of many.
A throwaway gag at the beginning of one episode showed Will sitting on the couch reading as several family members walk in arguing over finances. Will's uncle stops the argument saying "What are you all so worried about? We're rich." That settles things for everyone as they walk out of frame. Will waits until they're gone, then looks at the camera and comments "If we're so rich" — here he looks up, prompting the camera to pan up to a view of the studio lights — "how come we can't afford no ceiling?"
Also, when lying to Carlton over the phone, Will turns to the camera and asks "I can't see him. You can. Is he buying it?"
In an episode where Will gets jealous when Geoffory dates a hot young British nanny, at the end when Geoffrey bows out and gives Will the nanny's number, Will looks at the camera with a big grin and gives the audience a tongue-in-cheek speech about what he learned over the course of the episode.
One episode dealing with poetry ends with Will turning to the camera with a serious expression on his face and saying "If you'd like to learn more about poetry...nah, I'm just kidding. Good night!"
In one episode Will's uncle is talking to him about something. It annoys him so he points the remote at him, presses a button, and his uncle disappears. Will then turns to the fourth wall and says something along the lines of "Ain't that fly? Don't you wish you lived on TV?".
Boston Legal is chock-full of Fourth Wall breakage. Denny Crane has done this so often that he has earned himself a place on the No Fourth Wall page.
A rare non-Denny example:
Carl: The only show that currently hires actors over 50 is B- [gets weird looks from everyone] Oh sorry, can't say it. [points at camera] It would break the wall.
In the final episode, Alan points out that the show has Jumped the Shark.
Another show that did this was House, where for most of Season 3 Chase would refer to once a week reminding Cameron that he loved her. He said that he did this every Tuesday, which (not-so-)coincidentally is when FOX airs new episodes of House.
The first episode of season three also had Cuddy yelling at House about how he comes storming into her office "24 times a year". This is the standard length of a TV season.
Knocked on in the eleventh episode of the fourth season, "Frozen," Cuddy cuts off cable access to the room of a coma patient that House had been using. She tells him that he'll have to get by with the broadcast networks, to which he replies, "I'll be fine on Tuesdays." Tuesdays are, of course, when House airs on FOX.
The episode "Three Stories" features a plot line that is told from House's point of view through a series of flashbacks to different time periods. At one point House suddenly decides to move onto a different time and asks his team "What about snake-bite guy?" They look at him in confusion, whereupon he realises that they have no idea of the alternate timelines taking place. He says "Oh, that's right, you guys don't know about him yet. He doesn't get bitten until three months after we treat the volleyball player." He then turns to the camera and says, "It's already been well established that time is not a fixed construct." When the camera pans back around a few seconds later, the symptoms on the whiteboard have changed to match the new case and Chase, Cameron and Foreman are wearing different clothes and sitting/standing in different positions; thereby humorously referencing the habit of TV shows never following a plausible, linear timeline.
In the first broadcast episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit the Frog (a puppet) is shown sipping milk from a glass with a straw; he takes a moment to say to the audience, "Think about this, friends."
Malcolm in the Middle did this on a regular basis, as it was part of the show. Several times in every episode, Malcolm would turn to the audience and speak to them as if they were a diary, explaining his feelings about what was going on in the show.
During the 2003 MTV Music Awards, Gollum wins the then-newly-created Best Virtual Performance award. Things start off normally enough, with Andy Serkis shown in the motion-capture studio giving a standard acceptance speech. Then Gollum steps in, swipes the award from Serkis' hands, and begins ranting about the awful conditions during the making of The Two Towers, verbally discharging both barrels at several key people and organizations involved in the movie's creation, including Andy Serkis himself. You can see it here; just make sure you're not eating or drinking anything, lest you cover your monitor with it from laughing.
And in the episode "The Play's The Thing" Joxer, as the producer of a particularly horrendious play, is left hanging from the ceiling as the main characters walk off to watch Buffus, the Bacchae Slayer, yells 'Hello?! You guys?! Hey! I'm the producer! Anybody?! Hello?! I'm gonna tell my brother! Mommy?!'. Now, the character does have two brothers, but neither of them would be very useful here, nor is he very close to them. The actor's brother, on the other hand, is Sam Raimi, the producer of Xena: Warrior Princess.
At the end of the episode "Callisto" as Xena and Gabrielle walk pass by a captured Callisto and her army in chains, Gabrielle tells Xena 'I'm glad you saved Callisto' Xena replies 'It was the right thing to do'. After they're off screen, Callisto repeats to herself 'The right thing to do...' then looks up to the camera and adds 'That's what they think.' with a smile.
Northern Exposure does this in the episode "War and Peace," when Maurice gets into a duel with the visiting Russian chess player. Just before the shooting starts, Joel holds up his hands, silences everyone, and announces that the show "play[s] to a very sophisticated audience" unlikely to buy the story that Maurice would kill his opponent in a duel or be killed himself. The rest of the characters then chime in about the implausibility of the plotline.
Occurs several times, to a mild degree, in Blackadder.
In "Bells," Queenie turns to the camera and says "I've got SUCH a crush on him!" after Lord Flasheart says she looks sexy.
The ending theme of "Beer": "Blackadder, Blackadder, I heard that he had died. Blackadder, Blackadder, the writers must have lied!"
And, of course, this:
Blackadder: 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 of my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age.
Baldrick: Yeah, and I could be played by some tit in a beard....
In the Blackadder the Third episode "Amy And Amiability", Blackadder comments on how he has been left tied up on 'an unrealistic grassy knoll'
In the second series episode "Chains" (the season finale), at the end, Ludwig, disguised as Queenie, stands over the dead bodies of the other main characters. He turns to the camera, laughs, and says in his deep, male, German accent, "Now this is a disguise I'm really going to enjoy. If I can just get the voice right..."
Happy Days: At the end of the final episode, Howard is giving a wedding toast. At one point he turns to the camera and thanks the viewers for "being a part of our family".
In the older show Magnum, P.I., often after some event, Thomas Magnum (played by Tom Selleck) would look directly at the camera and grin.
In one episode of The Mighty Boosh, when Howard is being taken to gorilla Hell, he gets to haunt someone as a ghost as a present from the grim reaper for taking him to the wrong hell. He haunts his friend, Vince, who tries to put his hand through him, only to find out he's still solid and can't be passed through. When Vince asks why not, Gost!Howard says "because we spent all the show's budget on your hair style!" The friend then turns and smiles at the camera.
On Family Matters, Steve Urkel once literally broke the fourth wall by putting a cannonball through it. The screen shattered to reveal a bunch of electronic components reminiscent of the inside of a TV, then Urkel popped up and asked the viewer if they've seen the cannonball he lost. (The episode was originally broadcast in 3D, and viewers who wore special 3D glasses saw Urkel "reach through the TV screen" as though to grope for the lost cannonball.)
In another episode, Carl and Harriet are attempting to enjoy a romantic moment when incidental "romantic" music begins to play. Both characters begin looking around, trying to find the source of the music.
The Monkees did this frequently. One episode had a story where the band needs a great idea to get out of a bad situation, and Micky Dolenz literally walks out of the set, past the production crew, and leaves the studio to go to the writers' room. The writers (who are all stereotypical old Asian men) quickly come up with something for Micky, who returns to the set and suddenly throws the page away as terrible.
Another episode had a hooker approach Micky, who hissed at her, "Not now; this is a family show!"
An episode parodying Robinson Crusoe had a native character repeatedly popping up in the middle of the action to say "Who writes this stuff?"
Too many examples to name here (watch any episode, and there's bound to be at least one...or ten). The Monkees' wacky sitcom universe literally had No Fourth Wall.
In an episode of Green Acres, Lisa's lemonade causes a giant beanstalk to grow in the Douglas' backyard. Eb climbs it and claims a "Green Giant" lives on top, which drops canned vegetables on command. When Mr. Douglas' asks Mr. Kimball how this could have happened, he replies "You're in a TV commercial!", then picks up a can and smiles at the camera. It was All Just a Dream though.
It's not just a dream in the rest of the episodes, though. In one, Lisa refers to the opening credits by asking Oliver about the words and names suddenly appearing on things (which he fails to notice), and characters often comment on the musical theme that accompanies every soapbox speech that Oliver gives.
Angel has the episode "Spin the Bottle", in which Lorne speaks directly to the audience, narrating the plot, and even going as far as to say "Well, those were some exciting products. Am I right?" after one of the act breaks.
NewsRadio did this in the Titanic Parody Episode where Dave and Mr. James comment about the lack of peril around them as the "ship" sinks. They say it was probably due to the production team blowing the special effects budget on the previous breakroom scene.
Greek Live Action series S1ngles breaks the 4th Wall constantly via various means but in the second season (S1ngles 2) the main characters go as far as taking the Director and the Script Writer as hostages, requesting changes in the plot.
One occasion where someone other than Ned broke the fourth wall was in "Guide to Girls". After Moze finishes writing tips, Ned adds the final thing she must do: face the camera and elaborate on the tips while the theme music plays from a boom box.
In the "Guide to Extra Credit", when Moze shows Ned and Cookie her extra credit project, a volcano, Ned says "But it's just so played out, and it's been like on every TV show ever," after which all three of them turn to the camera and back.
UFO ("Mindbender"). Green Rocks make Commander Straker start to hallucinate that he's an actor in a sci-fi television series. As he remembers being Straker, but can clearly see the cameras and backstage crew around him, he naturally starts to go insane.
Kenan & Kel had a subtle one. In an episode where an X-Ray reveals that Kel's chest is orange in the inside, Kenan remarks something like
Kenan: "Oh, come on! It's more orange than the Nickelodeon's logo.
The Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Journey to Babel" ends with Kirk, Spock, Sarek, Amanda and Nurse Chapel all starting to argue about something. One by one, McCoy gets them all to shut up, then when he finally has silence he turns to face the camera and says "Well, what do you know? I finally got the last word."
Israeli Soap Opera "Hashir Shelanu" ("Our Song") went on for two seasons of the star-crossed male and female lead going through hell until they finally got together, with a proper saccharine ending of them taking their marriage vows. But, apparently, the show sort of got tired of its set of characters by that time. You can tell because the first episode of season 3 starts with the director yelling "cut" and the newlyweds coming off the set- everything that has happened up until that point was just a Soap Opera. In real life, they are Platonic Life Partners with acting careers. Now we get to explore the Darker and Edgierreality. Your Head Asplode.
Made In Canada: Almost every episode begins with Richard speaking to the camera in the cold opener, giving some insight into the lives of producers and executive, corporate life and almost every episode features one of the story's primary characters (occasionally a guest star) saying to the camera either "I think that went well," or "This is not good."
In one episode where each of three characters is telling their story ŕ la Whole Episode Flashback, Richard walks into the office of Veronica and is seen speaking to an unseen entity "I think that went well," where Veronica responds confusedly "Get out of my office!"
Is there a term for watching a third party perspective of a different character breaking the fourth wall?
The BBC series Lovejoy. During the first five minutes of each episode, Ian McShane's character Lovejoy, an antiques dealer/con artist/detective, talks directly to the camera, explaining a key plot point in the episode or an obscure fact about the antiques trade. One episode, where he was scamming a crooked dealer with a forged Russian church icon, his junior partner and a friend dress as Russian sailors to complete the scam. Lovejoy turns to the camera and comments, "They look about as Russian as Stevie Wonder."
Francis Urquart of House of Cards speaks to the camera as a confidant — after all, we're right there to see his machinations. Towards the end, it backs away from him during his narration, and he tells us it's far too late to start getting squeamish.
After dealing with the holodeck-generated Moriarty in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Elementary, Dear Data", Picard muses that perhaps his reality is simply a simulation being played out on a box on someone's table.
It goes beyond that. Barclay, who is left in the meeting room alone after Picard makes that statement, is visibly disturbed. As if to test the theory, he says aloud, "Computer, End program." Seemingly pleased that nothing happens, he relaxes and leaves the room. Then the credits roll.
In The Adventures of Superman George Reeves as Clark Kent would wink to the audience at the end of most episodes.
One episode of Growing Pains had Ben dream he was a character on a TV series; he suddenly found himself interacting with the actors instead of his family, even calling them by the actors' real names.
One episode of Wizards of Waverly Place ended with the cast inviting guest star Moises Arias to take their picture. They then showed him their album containing pictures taken by all their guest stars. Of course, since the guest stars took the pictures, they didn't appear in any of them. Then everyone leaves except David Henrie, who says he likes to stay behind after shooting to play with the props.
The Prisoner has a variation in the episode "A, B, and C", where Number Six is drugged so that his dreams can be manipulated to discover why he resigned. Eventually he catches on and retains control of his last dream, and when it seems the answer will finally be revealed he states "We mustn't disappoint the people watching," referring equally well to the actual characters and the audience.
The finale episode, "Fall Out", contains more straightforward examples of fourth-wall breaking. No. 48 on two occasions looks directly into the camera (the second time basically saluting it as the actor's name appeared on screen), and No. 2 says "Be seeing you" directly at the camera in another scene.
It's Garry Shandling's Show based its entire premise around this trope. Over the course of each episode, Garry would comment on the action to the audience, introduce new characters and occasionally even invite the studio audience to participate in the show's action. All the other characters were aware they were in a TV show as well. The meta extended right up through the show's unforgettable theme song:
Garry called me up and asked if I could write his theme song / It's almost halfway finished / How do you like it so far?
In one episode of the 80s Canadian mystery show Seeing Things, Louis Ciccone responds to a question with "I don't know. We'll probably find out before the next commercial break."
Just about everything with Frankie Howerd: Whoops, Baghdad, Up, Pompeii, Carry On Laughing, etc.
At the end of an episode of Yes Dear has Jimmy saying "How hot is that?" while looking straight into the camera.
Space: 1999 has one in the episode "Black Sun." After a series of miraculous events result in a feelgood ending, Professor Victor Bergman starts to walk up a corridor, then turns and salutes the camera with his cigar.
The final episode of the short-lived sitcom I Married Dora concluded at an airport where the husband, Mr. Farrell, is saying goodbye to his wife Dora and the rest of the family on his way to a new job overseas. But he suddenly returns seconds later...
Supernatural broke the fourth wall plenty of times, especially in the episode The French Mistake, when Sam and Dean crash through a window and land in an Alternate Reality where they're actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles for the show Supernatural. When they look for Castiel, the end up finding Misha Collins, the Twitter addicted actor who plays Castiel.
Castiel breaks the fourth wall by directly looking at the camera in "The Man Who Would Be King".
In one episode, Batman and Robin are climbing up the batrope, when Santa Claus sticks his head out of the window. Santa offers to bring them a present, if they'll tell him the location of the Batcave. Batman looks at the camera and says, "If you can't trust Santa Claus, who can you trust?"
Episode "King Tut's Coup". Commissioner Gordon calls Bruce Wayne and they realize that King Tut has returned. When Gordon calls Batman, Batman tells him that he knows that Tut has returned even before Gordon can tell him. Gordon looks into the camera and says "You'd think the man could read my mind!"
In the Charmed episode "The Bare Witch Project", Piper tells Godiva to keep her clothes on. It was even featured in the episode promo.
Piper: Keep your clothes on, this is a family show.
German comedy series Harald und Eddi uses this as a Running Gag: Each episode starts with Harald Juhnke as an old-fashioned TV announcer:
Harald: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to announce a new episode of our sketch show Harald & Eddi -" (cut to Eddi, who's preoccupied with something, like food or handicraft, with the TV running in the background, with Harald on screen)
Harald (louder): "a new episode of our sketch show Harald & Eddi!"
Harald (even louder): "Harald & Eddi!!"
Harald: "Eddi!" (breaks the fourth wall and takes away whatever Eddi is occupied with, leaving Eddi flabbergasted)
In the Gormiti DVD "The Legend Begins," at the end, Gheos breaks the fourth wall, first turned away from the camera, giving info about the Great War that begun, and then turning to the camera, asking us that must this be their destiny. Then, the DVD goes to a diffrent screen, and scrolling text appears, along with a voice, possibly the Old Sage. Then Gheos once again breaks the fourth wall, asking us that it could be us, and the animation ends.
In the episode "What a Lovely Landing Strip" on Two and a Half Men Walden's ex-wife literally breaks the fourth wall of the sitcom's main stage, which we've never seen before and was specially constructed for the scene, by driving through it with her car.
Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell had the power to freeze a scene and then turn and address the viewers directly. He would also usually make little asides to the audience as a closing gag for an episode.
In Gilligan's Island, the Skipper often looked at the camera in response to Gilligan doing something stupid.
One episode of Seinfeld did this as a homage to all the times Superman pulled it off. After winning a race to impress the Girl of the Week (named Lois), to the uproaring tune of the John Williams Superman score, we get this exchange.
Lois: So will you come to Hawaii with me, Jerry?
Jerry: Maybe I will, Lois. Maybe I will. (winks at camera)
Music
Lou Bega pulled this off in his CD A Little Bit Of Mambo. With the prelude of him improvising a song from a non-song conversation he has on the 12th track, he explains on the song he's "improvising" that DJs can play this {the song) since it's on their play list.
In the live stage version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, there's a large stage screen that most of the action takes place on via CGI. In one scene, there is an empty area on the stage screen, which is then filled by a 30 foot fighting machine prop lowered from the ceiling. The song addresses this fighting machine, and then, during the latter half of it, cannons fire on screen and pryotechnics go off on the model.
They also have smoke bombs go off on the stage in time to the on-screen heat rays.
Is that breaking the fourth wall? Or just trying to overcome the limitations of theatrical special effects?
Many folk songs directly address the audience in the last verse. "The Creggan White Hare", for example, is a tale about a crafty hare largely told in third person, but the narrator takes charge at the end:
And now to conclude and to finish my rhyme
I hope you'll excuse me for wasting your time
If there's any amongst you in Carrickmore Fair
Drink a jolly good health to the Creggan white hare
Britpop/Shoegaze band Lush uses this in their song Hypocrite. "... and maybe you're right, but this is my song"
On Jimmy Buffett's album Banana Wind, after the last credited song, "False Echoes (Havana 1921)" ends, there's a silent beat, after which you can hear Buffet asking "Ramos, where's the hidden track?" followed by the sounds of an intense search and a lot more comments about not being able to find the "hidden track". After which the song "Tree Top Flyer", the hidden track in question, begins.
The "Too Drunk to Fish" by Ray Stevens ends with Ray catching a piece of the boat that sank halfway through the song and turning abound to look directly at the camera.
Thenardier seems to do this in Les Misérables when he justifies his scavenging of the dead, singing, "Well, someone's gotta clean'em up my friends" in Dog Eats Dog.
Newspaper Comics
Pearls Before Swine does this more and more as time goes by. The most common instances consist of the characters discussing a situation that results in an extremely lengthy and groan-worthy pun, followed by Rat scolding Stephen Pastis.
Dilbert often utilizes this in order to respond to reader feedback, including the artist drawing himself into the strip. Examples include putting up a survey as the last panel, encouraging readers to vote on whether Ratbert would get whacked with a newspaper, having Dilbert attend a book signing where a "renowned cartoonist" is asked how he can keep thinking up ideas for a daily strip, and having the artist appear to explain that the "Wizard of Oz Dilbert version" concept is a popular suggestion for a strip arc before trying out that arc for the week.
Earl in Pickles during a recent Christmas strip looks directly at the reader and wishes them a Merry Christmas. This causes the following exchange:
Opal: Who are you talking to?
Earl: Oh, no one. I just keep having this eerie feeling that we're being watched.
Garfield was prone to this, especially early on. One notable time featured panels of nothing but Garfield sleeping, with him waking up in the last panel to say "Oh no! I slept through today's strip!"
Another time involved multiple strips, when Garfield caught Odie eating out of his food dish, he kicked Odie into next week. Two strips later, Jon asked Garfield if he'd seen Odie around, to which Garfield replied that he was probably somewhere over next Tuesday. A full week after the kick, the strip started with Garfield thinking to himself "I feel as if there's something I should be remembering..." at which point Odie landed on him, causing him to think "Oh yeah, I kicked Odie into next week last week."
In Frank And Ernest, Frank pulls off a card trick by buying the early edition of the paper to see how it was done.
In the May 6, 2002 strip of Beetle Bailey, Gen. Halftrack — confused by a high-tech-related communication from the Pentagon — walked into cartoonist Mort Walker's studio and demanded a new character to help him with computers.
Opera
In Sergei Prokofiev's Love For Three Oranges the action is frequently interrupted by a Greek Chorus (or rather, four or five separate Greek Choruses) of opera fans and stagehands. This on its own doesn't quite break the fourth wall. But when the stagehands decide to intervene in the plot by kidnapping the main villain, you've got to feel like some kind of line has been crossed. Relatively rare in that the fourth wall is broken from the OUTSIDE: rather than one of the characters in the play turning to address the audience, characters from the "audience" reach in and start mucking about in the play.
Professional Wrestling
There was this gem from Hulk Hogan on a November 2010 episode of TNA ReAction:
"Well, brother, we're lightening the load around here. We're trimming the fat. We're thinning the herd. I mean, you know, it's pathetic. It's pathetic, that Dixie would let this company get in the shape it's in. It's her train of thought! Raven? Who hasn't had a damn shower or bath? Y'know, with RVD, and that whole crew out there? They meant to professional wrestling what Hulk Hogan, who sold out Shea Stadium? who put 94,000 people in the Pontiac Silverdome? who slammed a 700-pound giant? They mean to professional wrestling what Hulk Hogan means?
"No wonder this company was in the shape it's in. It's time to get rid o' the trash, the garbage, the worthless piece of crap out here, and we started with Dixie Carter. Yeah, we're gettin' very real around here. We are so, real, it's unbelievable. Because, if you don't get over like I said, you're fired. If you don't draw number, if you don't entertain, if you don't put asses in seats, if you don't put the coinage in the piggy bank, you're fired. No more games. No more, "Kayfabe." "It's a work." "I've won 34 tag team belts." Who gives a damn, how many…fake belts you won!? If you don't draw money, you get fired around here. If you don't put asses in seats, you’re gone."
Professional Wrestling as a whole exists in a weird space where there is no fourth wall...but there is. The universe portrayed in the ring is considered "real", for all intents and purposes. The people who enter the ropes, be they the living undead, obliviously narcissistic, or rich beyond belief; that's who they actually are. The audience has to believe that they exist both on and off the clock just as you see them. Likewise, they are constantly aware they are on television and performing before a live audience, so the concept of a fourth wall in the traditional sense is not there. The actual fourth wall is Kayfabe, which is something you generally do not want to break (as the notion is almost critical to the concept of pro wrestling making sense at all; even admitting its existence, like the above, is a surefire way to throw Willing Suspension of Disbelief out the window and even the audience knows it).
CM Punk, through his scathing shoot promo, has created an on-screen character for himself where he can fly between the fourth wall and reality.
Puppet Shows
The Cashore Marionettes do this occasionally; one of the most significant instances is the skit "The Quest", in which a puppet scales his own puppeteer like a mountain, accompanied by triumphant music.
A Midsummer Night's Dream deserves special mention for Puck's ending speech, which can be condensed into "We're sorry if you didn't like the play," and, essentially, a Shakespearean version of the MST3K Mantra.
It also deserves a secondary mention for the continuous breaking of the fourth (fifth?) wall in the Pyramus and Thisbe second. Frequently the action stops so Bottom can reply to the characters watching the play. Plus the prologues. Oh, the prologues.
And of course in Henry V where the opening monologue is an extended apologia for not showing the tremendous battles that are going on in-between the play's scenes. Made doubly strange because it was retained in both the Olivier and Branaugh films of the play, where they do show the battles.
Any time Iago opens his mouth he is likely to address the audience by the end of the speech.
One of Hamlet's many soliloquies (this one in Act II, scene ii) includes the lines "I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play/Have by the very cunning of the scene/Been struck so to the soul that presently/They have proclaimed their malefactions..." A great many productions have Hamlet break the fourth wall at this line and speak directly to the audience, for a darkly comedic effect.
Launcelot in The Merchant Of Venice tells the audience to pay attention while he plays a prank on his dad:
The epilogue in As You Like It, in which Rosalind admits her nature as a guy who plays a girl who dresses as a guy (or a girl who plays a guy who plays a girl who dresses as a guy, in most modern performances), complains that the play was no good, and flirts, collectively, with everyone in the audience so that they'll "like as much of this play" as they possibly can.
The Narrator of Our Town doesn't so much break the fourth wall as completely ignore it. The rest of the cast is entirely unaware that they're in a play or that what's happening isn't real, but the Narrator talks to the audience throughout the entire show. In between narration, he inserts himself into the action by picking up different bit parts, such as the owner of the soda shop, and interacting with the characters as one of them.
A more subtle but no less important one appears in the second act when during the wedding of two of the characters, the bible that the minister (also played by the Narrator) uses is not actually a bible but is in fact a copy of the screenplay.
Normal in pantomime, and many other forms of audience participation theatre.
Subverted in plays like Moby Dick Rehearsed where the action is set on the stage of a theatre and the front few rows are kept empty so that the cast can use them as though they were in an empty theatre.
Not to mention plays that remove the fourth wall altogether and have the actors go out and bother the audience.
Or even just move through them (or out from amongst them).
In RENT, Maureen asks the audience to moo with her near the end of her protest.
In [title of show] during a blackout in a scene where Susan isn't supposed to hear Jeff's dialogue, she calls him out for eating her turkey burger.
Hunter reads aloud a real online post as a revenge of sorts, "Dear Talkin' Broadway's 'All That Chat,' is it true [title of show] has its eye on Broadway? Why would anyone think a tiny, 'insidery' downtown show would appeal to a wider audience is beyond me. I'm sorry, but four chairs and a keyboard do not a musical make. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if their crappy show actually does get to Broadway and they just put this entire posting in it word for word. Signed, sweeneyluvr12."
Done all throughout N F Simpson's A Resounding Tinkle. At numerous points, the 'Author' comes on to explain to the audience about what is happening; characters discuss whether they should carry on entertaining the audience or just leave them to it, at one point a group of critics come on stage and discuss the play so far and the play ends when an audience member protests loudly about the quality of the show.
Smashed to ribbons in Spamalot when the Lady of the Lake explains to Arthur that he is in fact in a Broadway/West End Musical, and they go out into the audience to look for the Grail, which is found under a patron's chair.
And while the Lady of the Lake's actor interrupting the show with a song complaining about being part of this absurd show where the characters are looking for shubbery and she needs a better agent isn't technically Breaking the Fourth Wall, because she's playing herself, after she does get back in character she make a comment about the fact she hasn't been on stage for far too long, although she had a great lounge number in act 1. Which is strangely meta, because the actor has been on stage, in the aforementioned interrupting song, but the character hasn't.
Used for both humorous and chilling effect in the Stephen Sondheim musical The Frogs.
The humorous: The opening song, "Invocation and Instructions to the Audience":
"When we are waxing humorous,
Please don't wane.
The jokes are obscure, but numerous —
We'll explain."
The chilling: The god Dionysos has gone to the underworld to retrieve a great dead playwright whose new work can revitalise the public and save the world, but Pluto, king of the underworld, discourages him, and a chorus of the dead counsels inaction and apathy:
"And a leader's useful to curse,
And the state of things could be worse.
And besides...
It's only a play."
This is directly from the original. Aristophanes' ancient Greek comedy, Frogs, opens with Dionysus' servant Xanthius asking (per the Paul Roche translation), "Hey, boss, like me to perk things up a bit with one of those corny cracks that always get the audience laughing?"
Aristophanes believed that the fourth wall existed to be broken. Clouds has the Anthropomorphic Personification of the right and wrong arguments arguing about stoicism. The right argument voices the opinion that if you're hedonistic your landlord will think you're gay. The wrong argument then defeats this by pointing out that most politicians are gay, most religious leaders and from the look of it most of the audience too.
In the musical Spring Awakening, whenever a singing number takes place, the actors on stage take out microphones they've been hiding in their pockets. Like in Chicago, the idea is that whenever they're singing they're imagining it's happening on a stage in front of an audience. As such, that actually is happening, but the characters don't actually know that.
The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged has the actors frequently talk to the audience, and discuss the plays they are supposed to be performing with each other. At one point, audience members are even invited on stage to participate in a scene. The ones sitting in their seats aren't left out, either.
Complete Works doesn't so much break the fourth wall as shatter it with a sledgehammer, then gleefully dance on the pieces for an hour and a half.
"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", which opens Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, features a somewhat bizarre bit of fourth wall breaking, with the main character talking about himself in the third person:
What happened then? Well that's the play And he wouldn't want us to give it away Not Sweeney, not Sweeney Todd...
The second act of Into the Woods features the main characters trying to convince a giant that the narrator is Jack (who the giant is looking for) because the characters are tired of the way the narrator is telling the story. The narrator ends up being dropped to his death by the giant once she realizes he isn't Jack, and the characters now wonder who's going to tell the story since the narrator is gone.
Pretty much the whole point of Stephen Gregg's one-act S.P.A.R. (Stephen's Play About Renata) The author is summoned when the eponymous Renata holds a seance to find out about her crush Todd, and he proceeds to reveal the existence of the fourth wall. Renata literally puts her head through it and discovers the audience, and then the trope is further played out when three audience members are called to scrutinize a wall of the theater and reveal that there is another audience watching the audience. Finally, Stephen Gregg himself is called upon to scrutinize the wall, and discovers that though he thought he was omnipotent, he is in fact a character in the play-within-a-play-within-a-play. And his creator's pissed. The whole play's a bit of a Mind Screw, unsurprisingly.
As the plot of Nunsense revolves around the nuns putting on a variety show to raise money, there is literally NO fourth wall, as it's assumed that the audience came to see them perform, as opposed to a play. As such, there's a lot of interaction with the audience beyond merely speaking to them, including interaction with the orchestra pit, dancing, and a quiz for the audience to see who was paying attention to the opening.
Absolutely shattered in Billy Twinkle: Requiem for A Golden Boy, when Billy jumps off the cruise ship prop, to find that he is on a stage, and asks Sid-the hand-puppet personification of his crotchety mentor-"Who are all these people?" to which Sid replies "They're your audience, you idiot!" Yes, It Makes Sense in Context . I swear.
In Avenue Q, the characters are struggling to raise enough money. Hence their decision to go pester people who clearly have enough money to waste on things like theatre shows. They then go into the audience looking for spare change.
The Glass Menagerie opens with one of the characters explaining to the audience that this is a play based on his memories. The script comes with very detailed instructions for how to make the play appear as if it's being told through memories, although they're not always followed.
Fiddler on the Roof's Tevye speaks to the audience quite often, either to explain why he and his family are like a fiddler on a roof or to battle with his principles when his daughters break various traditions.
This is used in A Very Potter Musical, when Ron enters and tells Harry that he'd been hanging out with Hagrid backstage.
"Now that we've got that four-part harmony out of the way, why don't we look for that horcrux?"
Some theatre adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld preserve the humour in the footnotes with a character called "Footnote" who sounds a horn to freeze the action, comes on stage to say the note and sets things going again.
Done beautifully by Lonnie in Rock Of Ages, in which he cheers up the main character by telling him that everything he has done thus far has happened within a broadway play.
Done in the final scene of Dog-Ear, when Ian and Ell discover the Scriptreader on the balcony.
and steal her script.. and promptly run off into the night.
Scriptreader: i told you there was a prop director, I told you there was a writer, I'm narrating, Of course there's an Audience! come on, do you to even watch theater?
In the most recent London revival of Oliver!, Fagin breaks the fourth wall during a few of his monologues, especially when he is play acting with his 'treasures'. For example, he was looking through an opera glass and pretending he was at a theatre, gesturing towards the Stalls in the actual theatre (where the most expensive seats are) and mentioning that was where all the rich people were, then gesturing at the top tier and saying that was full of poor people. In the second monologue he started recounting the story of the musical and ended up saying: "What the Dickens am I going on about?"
In the live-action play version of the Tyler Perry film I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Perry's character Madea is asked to leave the living room so a private conversation can be had. A couple minutes later she makes a comment and is asked why she didn't go to her room. Her response?
Madea: This is a play; ain't no room or no door up here!
Due to Peter Pan being the Trope Namer for Clap Your Hands If You Believe, the theater production of course does this. After Tinkerbell takes poison that was meant for Peter, he looks out into the audience and asks them if they believe in fairies. Then he tells them to clap their hands if they do believe in fairies in order to save Tinkerbell.
In the musical adaptation of Vanities, the cast don makeup, wigs, and costumes for each of the four scenes at on-stage vanity tables. The first scene uses Audience Participation for a cheer. In the Theatre Works Palo Alto world premiere, Mary addressed the audience during the Set Switch Song"Open Up Your Mind".
In The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Mel literally breaks one of the set walls by banging on it too hard, and the crew repair it (and the rest of the apartment) during the intermission. During scene transitions, a circle of television sets drops down and displays a Channel 6 news report to the audience.
At the climax of "The Lambeth Walk" from Me & My Girl, the company dances through the aisles.
In Assassins, during the song "How I Saved Roosevelt," Giuseppe Zangara yells at the audience for laughing at one of his lines.
In Romeo and Juliets Unofficial, Unnecessary Sequel Prince Escalus acts as the narrator, routinely talking directly to the audience. At one point he is caught doing this by Lord Montague, resulting in the following exchange:
Montague: Excuse me, but what are you doing?
Prince: Just talking to them.
Montague: My fourth wall? Why do you call it “them?”
Prince: What do you mean your “fourth wall?”
Montague: These are my first three walls, and that one is the fourth.
Benvolio: Which is wall number one?
Montague: I don’t know. I just know this one is the fourth wall.
In the Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of [[Aladdin, Babkak, Omar, and Kassim frequently do this, such as commenting on prop camels and split scenes, as does the Genie during the "Friend Like Me" number.
Done wonderfully in Hair. The actors run through the audience, hand out flyers and flowers, and ask for spare change. At one point, Claude even says "Mother, the audience!"
The opera Gianni Schicchi ends with the title character turning to the audience and imploring them to clap their hands if they believe he deserves a better fate than what he got according to Dante (whose Divine Comedy found him in the eighth circle of hell). He starts the applause himself.
In ACT Theatre's annual play of A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkles his torch incense on the front row of the audience.
Video Games
In Batman Arkham Asylum, the audience participates in "Scarecrow" sequences in which Scarecrow injects Batman with terror gas that makes him see things. In one of these sequences, the audience is confronted with the screen that appears upon an in-game death, only to find out that it is part of the Scarecrow sequence.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: One of the Tutorial notes in Sturgeons House listed is "Learn all there is to learn in lessons one through nine… And no matter what happens… Do not give up, do not complain, and do NOT stay up all night playing!"
In Skyward Sword Fi breaks the forth wall to tell you when your wii remote needs new batteries.
Talking to Jack Frost or Pyro Jack in the Shin Megami Tensei games often leads them to brag about being famous characters in human video games.
In The World Ends with You's bizarro universe, Another Day, speaking to Joshua in Udagawa results in him practically addressing the player with remarks about why the sprites for the main female protagonist remain the same, despite the fact that in the main storyline, she's in her friend's body.
In the same regards, the advice Hanekoma gives Neku about going out to meet new people seems to be equally directed at the players, and this is further enhanced by the fact that the game itself rewards players for turning the game off, or finding friends in wireless mode.
"Tutorial box out."
Vangers goes much further then just breaks the Wall - it reaches out and drags you inside. After you beat the game, the Spector, a vague supernatural entity that was helping...enlisting...manipulating your character in the course of the game, addresses you, i.e. the gamer, revealing that the events of the game are going to happen for real, and that it had caused the game to be created in its past and your present (yeah, they can do that), so that your gaming skills and urge for exploration could be used to make a real Vanger which could break away from its normal repetitive routine and fulfill the Spectors' mysterious goals.
Tank Dempsey from Nazi Zombies. He seems to have quite the talent for it.
Hey Player, drop the chips and get me some ammo!
Power's out...wait-does power even make sense in an acient temple? Seriously Treyarch? SERIOUSLY?!
Eat Lead: the Return of Matt Hazzard. The whole game breaks the fourth wall on a number of levels.
In The Secret of Monkey Island, after his lessons on insult swordfighting, Guybrush says to the player "I can't help feeling I'm being ripped off. I'm sure you're feeling the same." Later, Herman Toothrot talks to the player on several occasions. In at least one scene, Guybrush then asks him who he's talking to, and Herman replies, "The people watching, of course!"
Upon first seeing Monkey Island, Guybrush says, "WOW!!! This was well worth $59.95 + Tax."
The player gets to select various speaking lines in the ending of the game. One of them is, "At least I learned something from all of this..."
Elaine: What's that?
Guybrush: Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
Elaine: A what?
Guybrush: I don't know, I'm not sure why I said that.
Going even further, in Monkey Island 2 you can actually call Lucas Arts tech support. In-game.
And complain about the stump/disks joke from the previous game.
In Curse of Monkey Island, when Guybrush "dies," the Grave Digger comments "Funny, I didn't think you could die in LucasArts adventure games."
After that, you get a really funny Fission Mailed, in which the credits roll until Guybrush breaks the fourth wall again by complaining, "Hey! I'm not really dead! Oh, come on, cut it out!"
In Escape from Monkey Island, if Guybrush asks a dart player in the SCUMM Bar to try and hit "that guy over there", the dart player will end up throwing a dart at the player and apparently putting a hole in the monitor. Another example of literally Breaking the Fourth Wall.
Done again in Escape. When talking to a group of lawyers, the player can ask to sue several things. Sorry, if I don't get it correct, my disc broke up years ago.
Guybrush: Let's sue video game companies for making horrible adventure games!
Lawyer: WHAT!?
Guybrush: I have no idea why I just said that.
Guybrush also tells the player to be thankful the game doesn't simulate smells, once when entering the Bait Shoppe on Lucre Island, and again when at the perfume stand.
In the second game, when Guybrush falls while climbing a tree, he gets knocked unconscious and starts dreaming. The screen turns red, and he tells the player not to adjust their set.
The first game hilariously parodies the frequent and accidental death screens of Sierra adventures when you can fall off a cliff.
After losing a multiplayer match on the COG side in Gears of War 2, Chairman Prescott will deride you. He occasionally says: "Reload, refocus, RESPAWN!"
In Drawn to Life on the DS, one of the characters named Jowee wonders how the creator (that's you) sees everyone there. He then thinks that the creator sees them through a white box with buttons, with two windows and controls everything with a magic wand (which is all true). Mari then claims that that's the dumbest idea ever and Jowee agrees.
This entire game, the characters speak directly to you, as their creator. You also have to touch things that will affect the game (usually on request to you, the creator).
In Conker's Bad Fur Day, Conker will ask the player if they understand at the end of every new tutorial and at the end of the game, there is a big glitch where the end boss freezes up as he's about to jump at Conker. He then gets out of his mech and knocks on the screen, asking if there's a programmer in the audience (one communicates with Conker via text at the bottom of the screen). He asks for some weapons (and they warp to a matrix-style weapons area) and to be teleported back to the throne room where he can kill the alien easier. After killing the alien, he realizes that he forgot to ask the programmer to bring Berry back to life and tries to get him to come back with no success.
Perhaps as an homage to the Metal Gear series' tradition of breaking the fourth wall, Solid Snake is the only character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl who gets to do this. In his first appearance in the Subspace Emissary adventure mode, he stands up from his trademarked cardboard box and addresses the player by saying, "Kept ya waiting, huh?"
Also, if a character is knocked off the screen at the top, they will sometimes bounce off the camera.
In Max Payne one level has Max shot up with drugs. First he hallucinates that he sees a note that tells him he's in a graphic novel, a format the game uses in place of cut scenes. He exits the room only to find himself inside it again, with the note on the desk again. This time the note tells him he's in a computer game. The latter call stayed the same even when the game was ported to other systems like the Playstation 2.
Let's not forget a similar scene in Max Payne 2, where he walks along a corridor lined with rooms filled with other versions of him, including his character model from the first game (It changed) on which he remarked "I don't look anything like that!"
In the first game, there's also a part where you have to enter an elevator. If you shoot at the speaker in the ceiling of the elevator, thus ending the elevator music that plays continuously unless you do so, Max will actually thank the player.
One was a rather hilarious Woolseyism by the translator about the censorship the game had to go through to get released in the West. Gillian, the main character, calls a "Love Line", and the girl tells him that people are watching everything they say and do. When Gillian protests, she asks him, "Haven't you noticed that every time we try to talk about sex, we're restricted to sly innuendo?" He attempts to prove her wrong, but instead makes a lot of ridiculous double-entendres about "greasing her baking tray", much to his horror. He's finally forced to concede she had it right — in a furious rant, most of the words in which are replaced with "CENSORED".
Gillian can also call the various programmers of the game and get short messages from them, but the only one he can actually talk to is the game's translator. It starts off with casual talk with him and his wife, but after calling him several times, it becomes apparent that their cat is actually somehow a Snatcher, who proceeds to murder them as Gillian and Metal Gear listen to it in horror. Gillian tries to rush to their aid, but Metal Gear says something to the effect of them being unable to because such a scenario doesn't exist in the game and it'd be better to just forget any of it ever happened. And no, .
At one point, Gillian is allowed to return to his apartment. He cheerfully exclaims, "Wow, I have a home too?" His Robot Buddy, Metal Gear, tells him that he's being silly, to which he sullenly responds, 'I was just trying to make it more exciting for people playing the game.'
During the prologue, there's a very elegant one. Gillian and Metal are in a factory, and Metal remarks that it can hear a sound. Gillian complains that he can't, so Metal tells him to turn the volume up on the TV. The ticking turns out to be a bomb, which soon explodes, Gillian escaping just in time. He stands up, staggeringly, and complains, "My ears are ringing." Snippily, Metal replies, "That's because you left the volume turned up."
Tiny Tiger berates Crash for not including him in the previous video game.
Uka Uka prolongs a cutscene so he can enjoy the dramatic music.
In the first Viewtiful Joe game, Alastor explains the baddies' evil scheme to Joe by reading from the script.
When he reappears in the sequel, he starts to do the same thing; when Joe points out that he's reading from the old script, Alastor apologizes and advises the player to go buy a copy of the original game to find out who he is.
In Final Fantasy V, one of the dancers invites various NPCs from the crowd to dance with her, and ends with in invitation to "You there in front of the screen, you too."
When Krile makes her first appearance, Galuf acts like he doesn't recognize her, with the standard question mark appearing over his head. He then remembers that his amnesia had been cured earlier, and tosses the question mark off the side of the screen.
Several of the insanity effect in Eternal Darkness are based around breaking the Fourth Wall, such as fake error messages, bugs in the game, or a blue screen of death. One of the subtler effects is characters making random attacks in empty rooms; when the character has a gun equipped and happens to be facing the character, bullet holes will appear in the screen.
Balthier, who constantly refers himself as the "leading man" in Final Fantasy XII, admitted that his appearance in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions seemed to "have more the feel of a cameo role".
Super Paper Mario refers to death as "ending one's game," among a lot of other breakages.
Jaydes refers to returning from the "death" as a "continue."
Then there's Peach's conversation with Francis, the nerdy chameleon. When Francis asks Peach to marry him, the player can have her ask how much money he makes, to which Peach cries, "Who is picking these answers?"
The first Pixl, Thoreau explains his controls, and when Mario asks what the '1' button is, he says "Don't worry, the great being who watches will understand."
The X-Men game for the Sega Genesis asked the player to "Reset the Computer" to finish the Danger Room level. With no in-game switches or controls to operate, usually the player would be stumped... as it turned out, it meant resetting the game console itself.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga has a scene where Bowser is launched into the air, and lands on the "monitor" of the game boy, leaving cracks and sliding off.
At one point in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, Professor Frankly tells players to pay attention to his explanation. Also, in another part, "Four-Eyes" warns us not to reveal his real identity (Lord Crump) to Mario, even though he himself admits that it's probably pretty obvious to us who he really is.
Goombella also does it when describing certain enemies and characters. "Oops, I just broke through the fourth wall there, didn't I?"
In the second part of the string of final battles, Bowser inexplicably falls through the roof of the final dungeon and decides to fight Mario because he's there. To comment on the fight's Giant Space Flea from Nowhere quality, he says: "Gwar har har har har har! What's a finale without a Bowser appearance, huh? A cruddy finale, that's what!"
The game also realizes that the environments and people in it are made of paper, such as at the end of chapter 5, where Cortez' ship rips through a cliff wall as if it were just part of a set.
The battles also take place on a stage in front of a live audience, the fourth wall between the action and that audience is constantly shattered.
There's at least two bosses that are Dangerously Genre Savvy to know that the audience gives Mario items and power up his Star Power, so they attack the people in the audience to lower their numbers and restore their own HP.
At one point, a little boy NPC says that he's playing Fire Emblem. After the chapter, he says that he's playing the game that he himself is in.
Subverted at the end of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: We see Phoenix talking to what sounds like the player. He's actually talking to the members of a jury.
However, at the very end of Justice for All, they come very close to doing it—Pearl observes, "This is the first time I get to hear the real you!" The in-game reason is that she's not actually heard him yell "OBJECTION!" during a case, but you're encouraged to yell it into your DS microphone, as it's voice activated (You can still just press "A".)
In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All, examining the patient on cruches in the Hotti Clinic during case 4 prompts "Director Hotti" into talking about how the patient seems to have not even moved since when you were there last. He also states how the man seems to be standing in the same postion all the time referencing the static backgrounds used in the games.
The All-Knowing Vortigaunt Easter Egg Character in Half-Life 2 seems to be vaguely aware of the relationship between the player and Freeman ("Far distant eyes look out through yours.", "Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind, you would see how much we share.")
Fable does this as an amusing Easter Egg. One sidequest involves finding medicine for a young boy who has eaten the wrong mushroom, and consequently spends his days lying in bed and muttering nonsense to himself. If the player hides in the house for long enough (many do, as it's the city guards' blind spot) he will hear the boy say "Nothing is real! We're all just pixels, and our brains are just numbers... whoaaaa..." as well as a reference to the "sandgoose", a nonexistent NPC made up by the developers purely to have something to spread rumours about prior to the game's release!
"Ever get the feeling someone's playing games with you?" "All the time."
In Soul Calibur IV, there's a voice that can be used for female characters in Character Creation. After winning a match, it may say, "Even with the same moves, it all depends on the user."
Altered Beast has us believe the characters are making a movie.
Serious Sam 2 does this quite often. First, NETRICSA mentions having "a bigger game budget", which leaves Sam confused. Despite this, he goes on to say "this game is full of bugs!" upon meeting the Zum Zum, a giant bee, and after beating it, he says "There will be no bugs in this game!"
Also included is a telephone call to the game producers.
Lampshaded in Kingdom of Loathing: in the entrance to the Clan Dungeon, there is a "notice posted on the fourth wall" explaining that the clan dungeon is subject to change and setting out the rules on multis.
Triple H does this in WWF Attitude. Part of his entrance has him talking to the audience..."for the thousands in attendance, for the millions watching at home...", usually follow by something funny. For the game however his lines are followed by "...and for that one fat ass guy sitting on the couch playing this video game." Take that.
Smackdown vs. Raw has done this twice during the "Road To Wrestlemania" modes on 2010 Santino Marella during the CAW RTWM says your character "Looks like somebody some loser made in a video game,".
Christian's RTWM in 2011 has a scene where Edge says he acted the way he did the previous week to "pull one over on the player" when Christian asks him about this player Edge says "That weirdo sitting right in front of the TV" WHILE POINTING RIGHT AT YOU.
In all three Animal Crossing games, if you turn the system off without saving, Mr. Resetti will appear every time you restart and give you increasingly longer lectures about how resetting the game is cheating. City Folk pulls a fake-out the first time you save - Resetti shows up, gives a (relatively) short lecture on the need for saving, then says you saved correctly this time if he showed up.
Weirdly/brilliantly deconstructed in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind - it's heavily implied through the in-game literature that Vivec attained godhood by realizing that he was in a video game and using that knowledge to edit the situation around him through a process he calls CHIM. The books he wrote directly reference the player (The ruling king who only he can address as an equal), glitches in past games, saving and reloading, etc. It's all covered up in symbols and the dense writing style he uses, though, so it can be incredibly easy to miss.
EarthBound takes this to a whole new level in that you actually defeat Giygas's last form by breaking the fourth wall. It uses the player name that you give to the game when you use Paula's Pray command for the ninth time, saying that the player prays for the kids' safety even though he (or she) has never met them before.
In Mother3, some characters attempt to cheesily describe how to perform a certain command (i.e. looking at the map or dashing), and then simply describe it in terms of the game's controls. Sparrows, on the other hand, will simply cut to the point. Then there's the Save Frogs, who talk about preserving one's own memories, which they call "saving." Finally, when you pray at the sanctuary for the first time, you, the player, are addressed directly and are asked to input your name.
Not to mention the player enters the world of Mother 3 at the end of the game. Yes, the player. YOU. And this is before the credits sequence even starts, when the game is supposedly over.
The fourth wall is pretty soft in that game. During the prologue, Lucas' grandfather breaks the fourth wall, then apologizes and returns to gameplay. Later, a Pigmask, very nervously, asks for the name of 'the person pulling the strings... you know, the player!'
All three Mother games actually show the player name at the credits sequence if it was given - it was optional in EarthBound Zero.
Tomb Raider 2 ended with a wink at the nude raider cheat rumours, with Lara about to undress for a shower, then turning to the screen and saying "Don't you think you've seen enough?" before blowing away the "camera" with a shotgun.
King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow has a unique example: The only way to know which lamp to get from the lamp trader is to watch a cutscene that Alexander doesn't witness. Later, when Alexander is asked how he knew which lamp to take, he simply states, "Just intuition, I guess."
It also has a more "traditional" example elsewhere in the game: On the first screen of the Cliffs of Logic, if you misclick on the steps Alexander will simply land on the ground on his backside instead of dying from the fall. Do it enough times and he'll look right at the player and gripe that you should "Stop making me fall!"
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption may contain a more subtle breaking. Once Samus acquires the X-Ray visor, she glances towards the camera and recoils slightly in surprise, as if she's seeing beyond the fourth wall. Some consider the ending an example of one as well, since she gives a thumbs up, and while it seems to be directed at Admiral Dane denoting that the mission to destroy Phaaze was a complete success, her gunship's windows are tinted and she's moving at too fast a velocity to be seen anyway. Therefore, some consider Samus to be congratulating the player instead.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Upon visiting Agon Wastes for the first time, the player might notice quickly a huge statue of a worm. Scan it and the visor will suggest it's a "potential warning to visitors". That worm was actually a boss. The game just warned you that you're going to fight a huge-ass worm.
While building a communicator in Destroy All Humans! 2, Crypto sings a bit of "The leg bone's connected to the thigh bone" (with more appropriate lyrics) before telling us "I'm not singing the song. I got standards. They may not be high, but I've got them. Besides, we couldn't get the rights." One of the the things NPCs say when they see you is "You were taller in the first game!"
In Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, Cat Girl Norn gets scared and asks the protagonist Klein to sleep with her in her bed. He refuses, saying "the ESRB would go nuts!" In the end he's a nice enough guy that he at least holds her hand.
Edge: I guess it's possible. What's this game rated?
''Ninja Ninja would like you to know that you are a button mashin' motherfucker, and to go take care of this shit while he gets some coffee.
Ninja Ninja broke the fourth wall every chance he got. This Trope remembers him asking if you've seen the T.V. show at one point, and complain about the "endless hip-hop" music that played whenever you met an enemy. There was one trailer for the game where he commented that someone "...dressed up as their favorite character: guy who dies like a bitch." The worst moment had to be when, after Afro Samurai gets grabbed by the Doppleganger and flown into space where they have an epic battle, Ninja turns to the screen and says "You saw that, right? This is some fucked-up shit right here. I'm gonna go get some coffee. Keep an eye on that bullshit for me, will you?"
One of the rewards for collecting all 120 stars in Super Mario 64 is altered dialogue after the final Bowser battle in which he tells Mario to "keep that Control Stick smokin'" until the next time they meet.
The DS remake, being on a system with no control stick, has Bowser telling you to keep the Touch Screen smoking instead.
The flash game Escape from Rhetundo Island has one huge breach for a difficult puzzle. On level 11 you will see flames in top left corner and will immediately attempt to do something with them, while they move in insane patterns. Turns out that they're mouse-controlled, if you don't move your mouse, the flames won't move either. So if you let the guy walk in between two of the flames and slowly drag your mouse to the right, you're safe.
In Tales of Symphonia, there is a large tower called the Tower of Mana, which the protagonists have to unlock as they climb. It can take a while, especially since the group is split into two teams. Eventually, the group have to climb the tower again. Whilst climbing in the second time, a skit is available where Regal comments on the doors being unlocked already. This prompts Lloyd to complain about having to climb the tower again, wondering why they can't use the "Quick Jump" option, leaving Raine and Regal thoroughly confused as to what he's talking about.
The "Quick Jump" option (for those unfamiliar with the game/series), is simply an option that allows you to skip a part of an area that you have already completed, that may be tedious to get through.
Tales Of Phantasia, a soldier in the castle of the future talks about how lazy it is to use the same music for (the entire time taken in account) 150 years.
Nina and Max from both Secret Files games sometimes break the fourth wall. Always humorous.
The characters from Touhou occasionally seems aware they're in a video game. It's at times done subtly (the constant references to the adventure as a dungeon crawl in Marisa and Alice's Subterranean Animism scenario, which could pass as wrong genre savvyness) and at others extremely blatant ("I mean, she's still a Stage 2 boss after all.")
Kogasa's appearance as the UFO extra-stage boss may count, as she does "surprise" the players.
Pretty liberal in Kagetsu Tohya. "But... Why has the background music become so foreboding?" - Random thought Shiki has when Ciel is talking about her not being in the play and she has her angry glarey face on. In fact, the whole scene is one big fourth wall breaking complaint about Ciel regarding her low popularity, how her scene for the cultural festival was cut due to time constraints and how little she gets to do in the story this time. She consoles herself with the knowledge that even if she's the least popular heroine, at least she has a custom sprite. Several of the side stories are similarly unkind to the poor, oft abused fourth wall.
In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, a cutscene after the player's character first arrives to Los Angeles. After being ambushed by three Sabbat vampires, one of the Sabbat declares "Boys, we're going to have a lot of fun with this one." before facing the camera and saying "Those of you in the first few rows, will get wet!"
If the player is a Malkavian (a clan of insane vampires) the dialoge has a few options for such.
The third Silent Hill game manages to combine this with a Continuity Nod. In a cut scene only accessible to gamers who have played (and still have the save files from) Silent Hill 2, Heather thinks she sees something suspicious in the bowl of a toilet. As she's about to reach in, she suddenly stops herself, muttering that she can't bring herself to do it — at which point she turns directly to the player and asks, "Who would do something so disgusting?" Anyone who's played the second game knows the answer to that.
In the original Punch-Out!!, Mike Tyson says between rounds, "You think the speed of your fingers can match the strength of my fists?"
In Punch-Out!! Wii, Aran Ryan literally breaks the fourth wall if you lose to him in contender mode.
The VGA remake of Quest for Glory has a hilarious instance where breaking into the sheriff's safe more than once will give you more experience. However, Otto and the sheriff will wake up to find you doing this and then arrest you for "blatant power-gaming."
In Quest For Glory II, you can quite literally break the fourth wall by throwing things (or a flame dart spell) at the tree that looks like a woman (a rather dickish thing to do). It bounces off and breaks your monitor. Since this is a Sierra game, it's fatal.
Space Quest is notorious for breaking the fourth wall routinely and without reservation throughout the whole series, most often through direct asides and comments to the player through the narration and mockery of your poor skills when you die. A few more notable instances include:
In Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter (VGA version), if you decide to touch a pool of acid, you get a special, elaborate death scene where the Two Guys from Andromeda, the creators of the series, appear on the screen and detail to you exactly how you messed up, complete with instant replay and on-screen circles and lines drawn pointing to your melted arm. You can also get a similar death scene by walking through a set of lasers, where the Two Guys will again appear and tell you to keep it up since it's amusing.
In Space Quest III: Pirates of Pestulon, you have to rescue the Two Guys from Andromeda from an evil software corporation. While you're making your getaway, one of the Guys turns towards the screen and says "So, how do you like the game so far? Was it worth $59.95?" At the end of the game, you bring the Two Guys to Sierra, the company that made Space Quest. The current CEO at the time then hires them to, you guessed it, make Space Quest.
The entire premise of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers revolves around breaking the fourth wall. Roger Wilco is pursued by the "Sequel Police" for perpetrating unwarranted sequels to his franchise. He uses a Time Pod to travel between various games in the series, some of which don't even exist (such as Space Quest XII). At one point you can even buy a strategy guide to Space Quest IV in the game itself, which gives you some fairly unhelpful hints on what to do (as well as advice on what to do if your computer crashes or freezes while playing, which is all equally unhelpful).
Newer Sierra adventure games use a variety of icons to portray the characters actions. If you click on the hand and then Roger the Narrator will berate you by saying "Hey! Keep your hands off yourself! This is a family game!"
In Space Quest VI: The Spinal Frontier, Roger comments at one point, "Who wrote this crap? Oh yeah, Scott, yeah, well then, yeah, good...good work," Scott being the first name of one of the Two Guys from Andromeda. At another point, the narrator directly addresses the player with, "See what I have to put up with? Maybe they need a narrator over at Myst 2. A guy can dream..."
Space Quest 6 also has several instances of Roger and the narrator talking to each other. And at one point Stellar Santiago also appears to hear the narrator, only Roger tells her it's nothing.
If you die a certain way in Leisure Suit Larry, Larry's body gets dumped into the programmer's bit bucket and recycled for future adventure games.
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time arguably breaks the 3.5th wall as part of its plot when your party discovers that their entire universe isn't real and they are all actually exist in a video game created by being from the 4th dimension. They then proceed to break out into "reality" and kick their own creators' asses.
Happens quite a bit in Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Early in the game, the party runs into a Large Ham masked bandit named "Grand Papillon" (who turns out to be Joachim, one of the playable characters). He boasts about how he's fighting for truth and justice and then the camera cuts to his face, then his chest, then his butt, and finally Yuri standing in front of and facing the camera, holding his arms out in disgust.
And near the end of the game, Joachim is asked by his mentor if he and the party can participate in the "Man Festival". Yuri quickly responds with, "Not in a clean, mega-hit RPG such as this!" After clearing the 50th (?) floor, the quest jumps to the final eight fights. Anastasia comments, "Didn't we just skip about 30 or so floors?"
Also, in Southampton, when Joachim finds a weapon for himself: An annoyed Yuri says, "Don't we usually get our weapons from chests and shops?"
In Secret of Evermore the player meets a crazy old man who rants about how people have no free will and are puppets of a button pressing madman. You (the player, not the protagonist) then get to push a button to determine what horrible fate befalls him.
The MMORPG City of Heroes includes an NPC, Fusionette, who talks about her in-game actions as if she were actually playing the game; she refers to her character's level, talks about going to the "trainer" NPC that players use to gain new abilities, and uses phrases such as "Just wait until my Build Up recharges!" to other NPCs (Build Up being a damage/accuracy boosting ability with a long recharge time). She also appears in one mission where she is not supposed to be, and tells the player, "Don't look at me like that! I had to be in this mission!"
Also in City of Heroes there is a hidden room in the Faultline city zone where Melissa Bianco and Mike Apolis (two of the game's designers) hang out as NPCs and chat with the players.
In Star Control 2, the various alien races address the player directly during the credits, with many of them behaving like actors who have just wrapped up a shoot. Several even go so far as to explain what they expect to be doing in the sequel.
The Jak and Daxter series has some really great examples of this, but a standout is a scene that appears in Jak 3, when the characters meet the Precursors in person. One of them, while the group tries the old "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" thing, is seen trying to cover the camera with his hand during the scene.
Jak and Daxter pause, stare at the camera, look back at Seem, and continue the scene
In Jak II they have to join a race team owned by Krew. Their contract mentions that Krew owns all rights including game rights.
World of Warcraft taps this one with one of their jokes generated by a human female character using the /silly command. "Do you ever feel like you're not in charge of your own destiny, like...you're being controlled by an invisible hand?"
Same goes for a Night Elf female character, though it's a little more subtle. "Oh, look, I'm dancing again! I hope all your friends are enjoying the show..." (considering the way they dance is pretty stripperific.)
Apparently the folks at Blizzard really like this trope. They actually break it with these two by a Blood Elf female. "Do you think the expansion will make me fat?" and "I'm the girl the ESRB warned you about."
There is also one of the tips that appears when logging into the game: Bring all your friends to Azeroth, but don't remember to spend time outside Azeroth with them too!
Try clicking on a unit you select in Warcraft III multiple times after hearing the whole speech. For example, you can hear the Human Sorceress saying "Click me baby, one more time.".
The biggest one is probably the Crypt Lord, a big-ass spider: "And they say Blizzard games don't have bugs!"
Nearly all Blizzard games use this trope in pretty much the same way. In the Warcraft games, clicking on certain unit types repeatedly results in the unit ordering the player to "Stop poking me!". In the Starcraft series, each unit type and character has a short dialog that is triggered by repeated clicking. Most of them stay in character, talking about themselves and their missions; while others break the fourth wall to talk to the character, usually expressing frustration at being constantly harassed by the player, or opinions about how bored the player must be to keep wasting his time like that. A few use quotes from various other pop-culture sources — for example, the Terran drop-ship pilot uses quotes from Aliens, and the German-accented Terran Valkyrie pilot references the "Frau Blücher" running gag from Young Frankenstein. Protoss character Artanis quotes the "Stop poking me!" line from Warcraft. Although the Zerg have no dialog as such, repeatedly clicking on them results in a number of different noises not normally used during play.
"This isn't Warcraft in space!"
In Lost Souls MUD, some NPCs are aware that some of the people found in their world are the puppets of beings from an entirely different order of reality — that is, Player Characters. One has written a book about it.
Sonic Chronicles for the Nintendo DS took the whole wall, stabbed it and hanged it upside down with the ending cutscene. After the heroes exit Nocturne and return to their own world it turns out that Eggman played the heroes for fools and had deliberately helped them to get to Nocturne in order to get all the necessary time to take over the entire world without the meddling of Sonic and his friends. Tails and Sonic then end up having a conversation about how they didn't expect such an ending, how impressed they were of it and how they'll have to wait for the next episode in order to see what happens next. Tails then ends up telling Sonic about the makers of the game, BioWare, and ends up listing the whole cast credits at which point you can, as Sonic, tell Tails that you want to skip it.
Tails would in fact break the fourth wall a few other times before when he constantly reminded you to save your game unless you tell Tails to stop reminding you.
In Sonic Colors, Sonic really took the cake by saying no "Copyright Infirement" will stop him from defeating Eggman.
YMMV; Eggman had just gotten through a legal disclaimer, in that context what Sonic said wasn't touching the fourth wall
And earlier, when Tails tells him the aliens are called Wisps, he turns to the camera and says "I'm just going to call them aliens if that's OK with everybody."
In most Sonic the Hedgehog games, if Sonic is kept still for a long time, he will look at the player and foottap. In Sonic 2 he also looked at his hand (as if he was looking to a watch), and in Sonic 3 he would even point to the player and then point foward.
Special mention goes to Sonic CD, where if you leave him sitting for 3 minutes, Sonic will yell, "I'm outta here!" and jump out of the screen, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over
Characters in The Sims do this a lot as well, looking straight into the camera and yelling at the player if one of their needs gets too low (like if they're really hungry or tired, or really have to use the bathroom).
The heroine of Dreamfall, Zoe, speaks to you, the player, near the ending of the game as if she is telling you her story.
No More Heroes does this a few times (Travis: And you, with the Wii Remote? Just press the A button...), and throughout the game Travis has little speech bubbles over his head telling you what button to push. The fourth wall is ripped to pieces in the ending of the game ("You'll only jack up the age rating of this game even further!" "Fine, I'll fast-forward through it so you can tell me.") and Sylvia even taunts the players with "Too bad there won't be a sequel!"
And of course, there is a sequel.
Which breaks the fourth wall almost immediately. "Aren't you going to explain what happened since the last game?"
In the RPG/Adventure Anachronox you encounter a man at a spaceport who is telling listeners that they are in a video game and that most of them only have a limited amount of dialog they can say. This is, of course, the only thing he can actually say. One of the listeners, when spoken to, will refute the speaker's claims by saying he certainly had more than one thing that he can say. Again, this is the only thing he can actually say.
In Phantasy Star IV, one of your party members leaves for a bit and flat out tells you not to go after the big bad while he's gone because at this stage of the game, you aren't powerful enough to beat him. Of course, Chaz doesn't listen.
The entire Metal Gear series is rife with instances of breaking the fourth wall. One classic wall-breaking moment in Metal Gear Solid is the advice to contact Meryl by codec by looking up her codec frequency on the back of the game case. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, after uploading Emma's virus, the Colonel Campbell construct begins to go haywire and criticizes the player for playing too long and then demands that the player turn off the game. Metal Gear Solid 4 features a fourth-wall breaking moment that advises against the strategy used to beat Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid.
The colonel telling the player to switch off his console is a reference to the original game, where Big Boss did the same near the end.
Psycho Mantis. During his boss fight you actually have to UNPLUG YOUR CONTROLLER AND PLUG IT INTO THE SECOND CONTROLLER PORT! And, as if this isn't bad enough, until you figure it out, he constantly makes fun of you, comments about the games you've played by reading your memory card and even tells you that he's deleted your memory!
When Revolver Ocelot prepares to torture Solid Snake, after explaining how Snake can rapidly press a controller button to recharge his health, he suddenly turns away from Snake and toward the player before warning that he'll know if you're using an auto-fire controller.
Also in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, Snake tells Raiden not to worry about Snake running out of bullets and points to his headband and knowingly says "infinite ammo". The player can get a headband that gives them infinite ammo after beating the game.
In Shift 2, the wall of spikes actually stop in the beginning of the game due to faulty actionscript.
In Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando when the aforementioned main characters first land on Notak, they see their target fly away. They then comment to each other that they always seem to be just a bit too late, and ask themselves how that could happen, before turning to look at the camera.
In Tools of Destruction, when Ratchet & Clank meet The Plumber (a recurring NPC in the series) he says that he "didn't recognize them in high-definition".
In the first Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet would turn his head and look at the player when idle. Disconcerting when you were trying to figure out the next platforming puzzle, which was when Ratchet was most likely to be idle.
Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories has many of these, one is pointed out by the main character when one random NPC says that there are multiple endings available by responding "You aren't even trying any more are you?"
The Disgaea series barely has a fourth wall to begin with. Characters are fully aware of their stats and levels, different NPCs try to steal the "main character" spot, and there's surprise when a Bonus Boss from an earlier game turns out to have a role in the main quest. Why, yes, the one Laharl couldn't believe was level four thousand.
The first game also has a beautiful example at the end of chapter four, when Vulcanus says that he's going back to Celestia to come up with a new plan and starts to walk away, then pauses and turns and says, "Got that!? Don't forget it, even if I don't make an appearance for awhile!" Sure enough, he doesn't re-enter the plot until there are only a few chapters left.
This tradition continues in crossover games. In Trinity Universe only the Disgaea characters break the fourth wall. The Prinnies are especially proud of it.
Skate 3, oddly enough, breaks the wall early on, when a cutscene details the Object Dropper dropping objects out of the sky in a cutscene, and Atiba Jefferson comments on it, saying that "Objects are falling out of the sky, man! It's crazy!"
Some of the AI pros say stuff when being faced in a 1-up battle, such as "Who programmed me?!?"
True Crime Streets Of LA The 'hero', a wildly out of control cop, can run over pedestrians. One of his replies? "Don't worry about it, this is just a video game." Made extra creepy, because the bad ending, narrated by Christopher 'Creepy' Walken, has the hero cop thrown from the top of a fifty story building.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time does this while the Prince and Farrah are in the library. After she reads a poem to him:
"What was that for?"
"I thought you'd like it."
"If you really want to be helpful then find a book that tells us how to get out of here!"
"This isn't that kind of game!"
"Game? She thinks this is a game!"
Dmitri Petrovich of the Backyard Sports series does this many times. In the original Backyard Baseball, he says that if the AI improved and there was less chatter, the game would be better. (True thing.) In Backyard Skateboarding, he says "I think we are wasting time" on the choose character screen.
In Simon the Sorcerer the protagonist encounters a group of four wizards; when he talks to them, they pretend they are farmers. But you can point out that when you point at them with the cursor, it says "wizards"...
And when you talk to them, you DO treat them as wizards. You can even tell them about the cursor.
Picking up an extra life in MadWorld has the announcers wonder why the enemies never pick up power-ups - "It's like they can't see them!"
Kefka does this in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. When a fellow villain asks him why he doesn't just ambush his rival and kill her without theatrics, he answers: "I wanna have some fun! After all, she's a — good old friend of mine. Mwhehehe!" At the last part, he turns to look directly through the fourth wall, giving the players a knowing gaze since both they and he know about the events of Final Fantasy VI where he met her before.
TECHNICALLY, Kefka sorta does it during his EX-burst. Right before the part where the player has to memorize a three-button sequence, he tells his opponent, and quite possibly you, to "Watch this."
Sometimes he will hum the victory fanfare when he wins too.
In duocedim, Gilgamesh does this when he initiates his ex-burst, starting with a spinning slash and LITERALLY breaking the fourth wall, with his face, specifically.
The Dark Spire's final ending concludes with the characters looking up at the sky and seeing the player on the other side of the DS screen. They thank you for your guidance, and you are awarded the title "WINNER".
While the fourth wall in Contact is pretty much swiss-cheesed by the end of the game, the ultimate in fourth-wall-breaking comes at the very end, when the player's character gets fed up with being manipulated and actually attacks you, the player, through the DS's screen.
In The Guild 2 each character belongs to one of four classes: learned; craftsman; self-employed; and outlaw. If you click too often on an outlaw, he/she will reply, pissed: "Stop clickin' me!!!".
In Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, right before the Final Boss fight starts, Duke turns towards the screen and invites the player to help him beat the boss.
Duke: This is it. Let's you and me finish off this bastard once and for all!
One of the endings of the Valkyria Chronicles DLC Enter the Edy Detachment. If you get the worst rank possible, Edy starts ranting about how she deserves a better rank, how the player sucks ("I'm talking to you, sloth fingers!"), and ends the rant by literally telling the player that she is going to re-do the mission to get a better rank. Hilarity Ensues when Homer keeps asking Edy who she's talking to.
In Assassin's Creed II Desmond is using the Animus to view his ancestral memories of Ezio. At the end, Minerva, a precursor to the human race, looks straight at the camera and delivers her message to Desmond, chiding Ezio each time he interrupts saying that the message isn't intended for him (the only person in the room), but is instead meant for the viewer, Desmond, thereby "breaking the fourth wall" of the Animus.
Dead Space 2 has one in the rantings of the increasingly insane Nolan Stross, whom in his paranoid ramblings mentions "him watching".
When boarding the tram with Ellie in Chapter 9, he looks directly at the camera and screams "STOP STARING AT ME!"
The third Gabriel Knight game has a running gag where the player is given options to try some nasty things but Gabriel will refuse to do them, and then he will comment on the player with quips like "You're sick," or "You really are sadistic. You need help." Repeated attempts later would result in "Are you still on that track? Get. Help."
Ristar has a minor break whenever the player loses a life. When you lose the last star that represents Hit Points, it falls down and conks Ristar on the head, knocking him out.
In the final battle of Golden Sun, the first thing that happens is that the Big Bad grows large enough to shatter the screen. Thankfully, this has no real effect on the battle other than following the Rule Of Cool.
In The Lost Age, answering "no" to every question up to a certain point results in Kraden going off on Felix and asking if he thinks this is all just a game.
This happens in Fire Emblem of all places. Normally gameplay elements are described in a matter fitting to the world, with the increased avoid in forests being attributed to branches making it hard to hit, and the Secret book increasing skill as a legendary knight wrote down his battle techniques into a book. However, one villager in Rekka no Ken blatantly asks you if you know how to use the R button to look up information.
In Sharin No Kuni Kenichi is generally treated like he's crazy because of his constant narrative dialogue, forever addressing some 'you' character. It's actually a subversion; He's talking to his sister who has been standing behind him all along. People treat him like he's crazy because they are not allowed to acknowledge her existence in any way. On the other hand, Touka also wakes up from a dream that was done from Kenichi's perspective and complains about the confusion that made it seem as though it were really happening. Kenichi has no idea what she is talking about.
Borderlands. If you stand idle with Mordecai he will say "Now that you mention it i do love standing here doing nothing" another interesting note. if you save someone on co op he will say that he's not paid enough and in the first DLC a character says he wish he was a villain rather than a NPC.
In Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, the main character loves to do that, and not only him.
In Zeus Master Of Olympus, you can right click people to listen to their quotes. Sometimes, a trader from a not-so-friendly city will say, "Right click me? I'll right click you! You and this city stink and I only trade with you because my leader demands me to."
Played with in Kingdom Hearts II. Stitch crawls on it, licks it, and stands on the Command Menu, as well as Sora's HUD, or, to be precise, on the Drive/Summon Gauge.
The lesser known PS1 fighting game Zero Divide has an instance of fourth wall breaking, when the announcer asks if the player is trying to break the controller if buttons are mashed repeatedly. This instance can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4ucvOVJjpI (Cut to 1:28 when the video has loaded enough).
Rayman has the eponymous character look towards the screen and attempt to contact the player through motions and gestures if left idle while standing still or hanging from a ledge.
In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Murfy straight-out takes out a copy of the game's manual and uses it to explain to Rayman what's going on.
At the entrance to the Heavenly Jade Imperial Tower in Bunny Must Die is a red gate and a switch where you place your yellow gem, which naturally doesn't do anything. Cue message stating that it isn't a glitch, and Bunny wondering what the voice she just heard was.
The first devil, El Bobomboi also lampshades the fact that she's supposed to be the first devil if you sequence break and fight Pyoa Aaaa first.
In League of Legends, every so often, one hero Mordekaiser responds with "You only need to click once... fool!" when given the order to move.
Some of the units in Company of Heroes will break the wall if you click on them enough. A few examples:
British Infantry Section: Oi! Get your filthy hands off the mouse!
Panzer Grenadiers: Clickity, click. Clickity fucking click. Fucking scheiße...
In Celadon Mansion in Pokemon Red And Blue, you can talk to a programmer, graphical artist and script writer who worked on the game. They talk to you about your Game Boy and one even remarks "I drew you!"
Fallout 2 has LOTS of these. Bartender of the parlor: "Are you OK? It seems consuming so much alcohol Z had some effect on you." Chosen One "I'll pop out of the conversation one second and check my max hit points." Chosen One: "Bastard! Wait till I load my last save!"
Deadpool carries over his habit of breaking the fourth wall into Marvel vs. Capcom 3. When he's knocked out, he yells out "YOU PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON!", referring to the player controlling Deadpool. Upon winning. he'll also scold the player for sitting on the couch and being lazy while he has to do all the fighting. Finally, his Level 3 Hyper Combo has him assume a girlish pose and walk toward his opponent with a pink aura and hearts surrounding him for a few seconds. If he is attacked in this state, he'll jump up, grab his health bar, and whack his opponent in the head. He then grabs his Super Meter, winds up, and knocks his opponent sky high.
He also shouts something to the effect of "OMG! I love Streetfighter!" at the beginning of a match if he and Ryu fight each other. Also, in his ending, he says "I'd invite you to party with me, but you'll just have to make do with the points you got for beating the game. He then accidentally destroys a city, causing the cops to put out an APB for him and his accomplice, "The Player."
If you fall far enough to hurt yourself, but not far enough to die, The Saboteur will shout things. One of them is "Stop that!"
There's a minor example in Dead Rising 2. The player can get Chuck to wear various outfits you find in Fortune City, and he comments on most of them with stock lines like "Killer", "Smooth", and "Nice". Make him crossdress, though, and while sometimes he'll deadpan "Pretty", he'll also say "Um...Seriously?", and "If you say so..."
Whacky Wheels has a literal example of this. If you run into certain obstacles at high speed, your character will fly out of their little go-cart, hit the screen (leaving huge cracks) and slowly slide off.
The early Resident Evil games shot the fourth wall on occasion.
In Resident Evil 1 there's an area in the laboratory where the player can shoot directly into the camera. If you're using a pistol bullet holes will appear on the screen. A nice little Easter Egg.
In the sequel, Resident Evil 2 there's a small alley with dogs where the same thing can happen. It can also be done while fighting G on the turntable lift.
Stay on the menu screen too long in Ghost Hunter and a spirit would zoom up and audibly tap on the screen.
The camera viewpoint moves across the interior of the shaman's hut as he chants to summon a juju spirit. When the camera is on his face, he opens his eyes and screams at the sight of the player looking at him.
"You are so strange! Your clothes. That powerstick you hold in your hand. I have never seen a juju like you before. What is this magic box you watch me on? [Presses his hands to the screen so you can see his fingers flatten themselves on the screen.] It is clearly the most important thing in your hut! You do me great honor to watch me on it...."
In X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, every character has a couple of lines when they're idle for too long, and several are directed at the player, like Bishop's "Hey you! Yeah, you! What are you doing that's so much more important than this?"
Spyro does this a lot in A Hero's Tail, often turning to the camera and making a remark. One that springs to mind...
Yo-Jin-Bo does a pretty good job of smashing that wall, too. The guys like to tease Mon-Mon about "not being one of the characters you can get at the end of the game", and his response is that he has an Image Song and has spent too much time reading his lines to not be a "captureable character".
The Simpsons Game is just layers of this. At the finale of the game, God asks you for his guide book back, which then zooms out to Ralph Wiggum playing on his TV. Ralph then turns and just STARES at you.
In the Runescape 2011 Easter event, a squirrel named the 'Antipodean Squirrel', is angry about how the Easter event is Northern-Hemisphere-Centric, and about how it is Spring in the northern hemisphere and how it is autumn in the southern hemisphere and it is not fair to no autumn event. (One responce is to tell him to stop breaking the fourth wall, which the response is 'Yeah, likeyou stay in character all the time!')He is angry how one half of the world is being left out. And his way of solving the problem is to 'Stand here... and keep shouting'.
The first game has the Professor refer to the game interface after you capture the angry Rhydon — "By options, I don't mean fooling with some text settings, I mean consider what we might do!"
Also, Magikarp's Pokédex entry in Platinum, and Pokemon Black And White says that if it lives for many years, it can leap a mountain using Splash, but that "The move remains useless, though."
Mega Man Battle Network 6: There's a Navi Customizer program called Humor, in which we can trigger a conversation between Lan and Mega Man (and occasionally someone else). In one occasion, Mega Man asks whether Lan is being "operated" by an unknown guy. Then Lan somehow recognized (indirectly) that he's a guy in a 6th installment of a game. Detailed here.
I can't believe the art dealer from Little King's Story hasn't been mentioned. Upon approaching him, he says "You in front of the TV playing Little King's Story!"
On the last level, Bubsy asks, "are you still playing this thing?".
In the space action sim Tachyon: The Fringe, when entering a console cheat code, the main character will start taunting the player for his lack of skill.
In the Kirby's Dream Land enclosed instrution book, if you get to the point in which the booklet says, "And here's Kirby," Kirby breaks the fourth wall by telling players what to do.
Night Trap has characters frequently speak to you via the cameras, and some of them call you Control.
If you play Rogue Galaxy for too long, Kisala will make a commentary on how long you have been playing the game.
Sniper:"Where'd I get you that time? The liver? The kidney? I'm loosing track."
"Kill ya again soon, mate."
"How many times have you died? I'm actually getting impressed."
Scout:"Yeah, I dare ya, rage quit. C'mon, make us both happy."
(upon earning an achievement) "No otha' class gonna do dat!"
"Dis map ain't big enough for da two of us!"
At the beginning of The Reconstruction, Fell talks to the player directly. Justified in that she is some sort of demigod.
Ornot, though whatever technology gives the Watchers their precognitive abilities probably grants them this knowledge as well.
When you have selected or modified your multiplayer character's weapon in Call of Duty: Black Ops, he will examine it briefly, then nod appreciatively at the player.
The cast of Zenonia often break the fourth wall, such as when the Chief of Hades tells Regret that "People in this game are rude." and to have an open mind.
One side-quest involves giving a fortune cookie containing a marriage proposal from a man to a woman in another tow, but the woman accidentally eats the message. Regret comments that it's like this was actually a true story that happened to a member of the development team.
In the game Castle Shikigami III (full name Castle of Shikigami III), the characters sometimes break the fourth wall, such as Reika from Time Gal.
Reika also metions the game Time Gal, then asking the players.
Reika: No arrows show up on the screen, so I don't know which way to go. Hey, don't you guys playing the game think so too?
And it gets more odd; Reika metions THE PLAYERS, then TELLING THE PLAYERS TO POWER UP THEIR STRENGH at the begining of the last boss.
In Destroy All Humans!, at the opening choice options screen on the mothership, if you fail to make a decision and leave the screen idle, Pox will sometimes say a random thing to you relating to the situation (i.e., "Well, it's your electric bill. You could have thought to turn the console off. Haven't you ever heard of global warming?" or "May I remind you that the name of this game is "Destroy All Humans", not SCREW AROUND IN THE MOTHERSHIP!").
Web Comics
Megatokyo - - A seriously frightening example (in retrospect) where the character is reflecting the symptoms of her real-life namesake's autoimmune disorder which later turned into cancer. Note the knee brace on Seraphim then read Rant 1042 for details.
In the sprite comic Bob and George, the 4th wall never existed, and it was a constant running gag. All the characters knew that they were in a comic, and the author of the comic often made appearances. Once he even came out to fight another author that entered his comic's universe. One of the characters even read ahead to know what was going to happen next. Of course this wasn't exactly a bad thing, as it made the comic what it was.
In PvP, now and then, the characters break the fourth wall, usually for some movie impersonation. Nearly every time, someone dies horribly, but as it's fourth wall breaking, it gives an excuse for a Snap Back.
Scandinavia and the World occasionally breaks this, but without referencing it. Whenever the Netherlands and Denmark, (and sometimes Germany) surprise Japan by making out, they call it Yaoi, with is never real people; meaning that they, even if it wasn't intentional, know that they know that they are drawn.
In Acorn Grove, after a long break, the creators of the strip write themselves in to apologize for the last strip being there for so long. [2]. In another strip the resident redshirt get killed when he notices the fourth wall [3].
"Dr. McNinja's Final Thoughts" breaks the fourth wall at the end of each chapter in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (usually used to deliver a humorous 'lesson' from the story or a moral of questionable veracity)
The Insecticomics wavers between breaking the fourth wall and not having one altogether. The Insecticons themselves don't really seem to bother with it.
Done (incredibly skillfully) every now and then in Dragon Tails.
Corlis: That's it, I'm finding a new comic, this one's stupid!
Rich Burlew's The Order of the Stick is pretty random with the fourth wall. The worst is probably the Oracle constantly addressing the audience and referring to books or in-comic years. Also the 100th and 600th strip had lampshading referring to the anticlimax in each. And V once referred to how many strips would be necessary to get another dumb trial done. Belkar also once referred to himself as the only funny thing left in the comic strip.
Strip #649 memorably includes Haley stealing a diamond from the site's cast page (which is not part of the comic's continuity) in order to power a Ressurection spell. Ever since then, the actual cast page has shown Haley holding an "I owe me" note instead of the actual diamond.
The Cyantian Chronicles: Broken and played for laughs in the bonus comic at the back of the printed collection "Akealae 5". (Available by purchase only.)
Arguably, a Censor Box with "We have a Shivae 13 rating to maintain" to cover up a certain naked anthro fox's naughty bits should qualify.
In Keychain of Creation, a comic based on the Exalted tabletop RPG, the characters frequently talk as if the rules of the game were the solid rules of their reality, and they knew their own stats. However, they don't actively break the fourth wall; that's left to a band of the Fae, especially their leader, who says quite frankly that he only led his band back to fight the main characters because there'd be no story otherwise. The main characters all act like he's a jabbering mental patient when he says as much.
Shape Quest, an RPG video game parody comic, does this during the first strip, where Lance acknowledges that he is poorly drawn and tries to think of something clever to say so people will continue reading past the first strip.
In Drowtales, Kiel can tell that the readers are there and talks to them when she's bored. Others consider her weird for still having an imaginary friend.
In a rare twist of breaking the fourth wall in a tragic rather than comedic manner, Kiel grows furious at the audience watching her and throws a belt at them. According the forum fandom, it broke many screens and hit many eyes.
Darths & Droids' 468th strip says "Puny Comic-Reading Humans, Bow Before My Magnificence!".
In an early Faulty Logic page, Fox and Jalyss break through the fourth wall of the author-comments section (with a hammer) to make sure there are actually people reading their strip.
More recently, a spacial vortex reverses fourth-wall positions. Notably, readers can actually see the Fourth Wall in the background.
The xkcd blag features "Federal Reserve Skateboard: A Short Story," which includes the following:
Bernanke, trying not to slip in the patches of blood on the floor, struggled with Greenspan. The older man moved like a snake that moved like a former Fed Chairman who moved like a ninja. At last, Bernanke got a solid grip on Greenspan?s collar and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground.
Penny from Out at Home pretty much exists to break the fourth wall, to the confusion of the other characters, who don't have her Medium Awareness.
"Why are you talking to that wall?"
The Cyantian Chronicles: Mostly averted in the canon comics. Only NOT averted when "We Have a Shivae-13 Rating To Maintain", which only happened once so far.
Played for laughs in a fan scripted bonus comic contained in the print version of Akaelae 5.
In the hundredth strip of Loserz, protagonist Ben remarks: "I just got the strangest feeling, like I'm being watched. — What's even weirder is that I'm somehow sure this has happened exactly 100 times..."
Girls with Slingshots doesn't usually break the Fourth Wall, but in this strip Hazel takes back a hasty comment by pulling the speech bubble back into her mouth and swallowing it.
Too Much Information has a solid Fourth Wall, with one exception. There's an auxiliary webcomic called Maddie's Monster, in which one of the regular characters (Maddie Cartman) meets an Eldritch Abomination named G'Nar The Insignificant. G'Nar, being non-human, can see through the fourth wall, and tries to point it out. Maddie is unable to figure out what the heck he's talking about.
Flying Man and Friends does this on a regular basis, with characters addressing or reacting to readers. In this strip, there was even an actual wall underneath the comic, which was peeled away to reveal it.
Nowhere University has the characters make references to plot twists & their author, then again the teachers at that school come from literary classics so...
In the "Little Diddle" comic Lucky Day◊ little diddle finds a lucky penny and lucky ducky says there is no such thing as luck. little diddle then says that they are in a comic so it does exist, then lucky says that the fourth wall just broke.
Untitled! had elements of this early on, with, for example, a character who was introduced as "living in the gaps between frames," complete with a character grabbing the frame and leaning her upper body out of the frame and looking into the afore-mentioned gap. What makes this case interesting is that the comic later caught a bad case of Cerebus Syndrome, and as a symptom, acquired a fourth wall. Some of the fourth-wall-breaking elements where explained away (e.g. as the actions of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens or psychic planeswalkers): I don't recall an explanation ever being provided for what was happening when the protagonist leaned her upper torso out of the frame.
Most obviously in Bittersweet Candy Bowl during the chapter Out Of The Frame, when all of the minor and background characters form a "Neglected Club" to campaign for more screentime.
In this Random Chaosstrip the reader is killed. Complete with blood splattered on the "screen".
In "The Cartoon Chronicles of Conroy Cat", where all cartoon characters are actors in Cartoon Land, the 4th Wall is revealed here to be one of the main principles of Toon Physics.
Dragon City's fourth wall is usually only broken by Erin and she often gets in trouble with her mom for it. Most of her other family members try to avoid it.
Jix generally tries to avoid it, but sometimes one or two of the characters slip. The first time it happened, Jix was trying to stop Lauren from doing it. It all went downhill from there.
This SMBC comic has the entire human race break the fourth wall of the universe after figuring out that it is just a simulation.
In Homestuck there is an actual goddamn physical fourth wall. It's first used as a lame joke and then later by the author as a self-indulgent insert to the comic where he recaps the story. Then the comic introduces a fifth wall (according to Word of Hussie, it separates multiple omniscient narrators) and promptly starts breaking that, too. It's strongly implied that this will be a major plot point. On his formspring page, Andrew Hussie joked that there's also a sixth wall, and that it's what's holding back all the "shitty memes". That wall apparently broke a long time ago.
And in [S] Cascade, it's revealed that Jade's plan to save them all is to actually fly through the fourth wall, traveling through our universe for about three nanoseconds (from our perspective). The destination is another fourth wall leading to an Alternate Universe. The real world is apparently a Void Between the Worlds.
Every chapter of Tales of Gnosis College ends with a "Women of Gnosis" pin-up that depicts one of the series's female characters and contains a brief caption. One of these characters — Iris Brockman — uses her caption to complain to the reader about how she got neither a name nor a dialog line in the preceding chapter.
Web Original
KateModern comes dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall on a number of occasions, always with some in-universe justification (however flimsy). They finally break it directly in "The Last Work", when Tez, after talking to an off-screen Meryl, turns to the camera and says, "She should get her own show, that one." This was also a direct Shout Out to the fanbase, as the concept of a Spin-Off called "MerylModern" was a popular fan in-joke.
Of course, KateModern never had a Fourth Wall in the traditional sense, because while the characters aren't aware that they are fictional, they are always aware of the audience and address them frequently. The fictional "fan" Sophie, in particular, broke the fourth wall repeatedly on her Bebo profile.
Homestar Runner does this, particularly in the "Virus" Strong Bad e-mail where the format of the web page gets tampered with. Also, "My mouth was a broken JPEG!"
Happens literally in some of the iTunes openings, where Strong Bad will either press his face against the screen, leaving a print, or literally try to break your screen!
Certain characters in Star Harbor Nights are "meta-aware", notably the Hex Kittens and the inhabitants of the Sands of Time, the local Inn Between The Worlds. Most often used for Lampshade Hanging.
The chapter Super VisionLampshades this when Johnny Dark cautions Maria not to Fridge Logic the nature of the Sands, due to the fact that it makes the author irritable. Tigerlily Bender later seems to fall afoul of this same phenomenon.
This is an actual plot point in Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series. According to Ishizu, if the fourth wall collapses completely, then Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged will be cancelled. Sure enough, Melvin defeating Florence is enough to bring the fourth wall down (for some reason), and 4kids (as run by Noah and the Big Five) cancel the show... And then LittleKuriboh announces Season 3. Yeah. Trippy, much?
And now we have season 3. First off Serenity tries to talk to Joey about the fact that she's frightened she'll get written out of the show because her character doesn't serve any significant point... And then all the main characters are told their show has been cancelled. Their reaction? "What the fuck?!" Just... There's no fourth wall anymore. There's a fifth wall, but the fourth wall is just broken. And no, it is not going to be revived from the shadow realm.
In Avatar The Abridged Series, Iroh actually teaches Zuko how to break the Fourth Wall. He ends up using it to re-write the episode to make Sokka's life hell.
At one point in a Happy Tree Friends interactive minigame, a character is killed when they're crushed against the fourth wall.
In the Anti-Cliché and Mary-Sue Elimination Society's base of operations, there is an actual fourth wall that makes a tremor when broken. Also notable is the fact that Tyler will frequently have arguments with the narrator.
In Bioshock Above The Sea Zero does this twice, once, when a roleplayer states her upset at being dumped Zero "kills" her ex in the actual roleplay, and another time when he spends a few seconds speaking with the roleplayer that made him.
This was a prominent running gag in We Are Our Avatars, where characters like Bass, Deadpool, Bernkastel, "Raven", among others, would refer to the readers and the people reading, but, the gag was done to death and it's since been downplayed. It got to the point where Etheru retconned the ability out of Bass because of annoyance with the gag.
In The Guild, Codex breaks the fourth wall at the start of every episode, talking to the audience about what's bothering her.
In the Whateley Universe, the Monkey King is a godlike being who apparently has this as a power. In his own point of view short story, he repeatedly addresses the readers and even makes comments about some of the forum posters.
Western Animation
In too many children's cartoons to name, dialogue, violence, or risque material gets censored or nixed before it starts, either by the characters or the narrator. The reason? "We can't show that on a kid's program!"
Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues use this to try and teach skills to the children, becoming very quickly annoying to any viewer over the age of five.
In Mulan II, Shang walks away and Yao asks Mulan, "What's his problem?" When Mulan walks away, he asks the screen, "What's her problem?" Then he asks, "Who am I talking to?"
Pumbaa: And I got downhearted... Timon: How did you feel!? Pumbaa: Every time that I— Timon:(slaps hands over Pumbaa's mouth) PUMBAA! (looks at the fourth wall) Not in front of the kids! Pumbaa:(also looks) Oh! Sorry. Simba:(also looks, with a perplexed expression on his face)
One third-season episode of Reboot featured Enzo and Dot hiding behind tombstones as a player looking like Ash (from Evil Dead) massacred zombies and ghosts in a game. They both express horror at the (offscreen) carnage and wonder what kind of sick, demented person would ever play a game like that...and both turn and glare at the camera.
There's also an incident during the first season in which Mike the TV is being particularly annoying, and Enzo asks "You want to live to see another season, right?" in an attempt to shut him up.
Since Mike is a TV and speaks often in TV-related lingo, Enzo might simply have been putting the threat into words Mike will be more likely to understand.
In one episode an ancient Japanese sorcerer gets summoned and starts threatening the Turtles in English. One turtle says, "If he's from ancient Japan, why is he speaking English?" Another replies, "Because we can't afford subtitles."
In another episode one turtle constantly suggests that the strange things happening are a work of Krang and Shredder (the usual villains). The other disagrees each time until saying "In fact they don't appear in this episode at all."
Even better, one episode has Shredder in As You Know Mode explaining the effects of Krang's mind control device, to which Krang responds "Why are you explaining this to me? I invented it!" Shredder's reply: "I wasn't explaining it to you." (points to camera) "I was explaining it to them!"
"Will you leave off it already? He's not even in this episode!"
Donatello trying to bring April up to speed on the episode so far:
Donatello: Do we have time for a flashback?
April: It's your show.
A recurring moment whenever a dangerous stunt is or being performed, mostly Raphael will tell kids not to try this at home.
A very unusual double example in the episode Return of the Shredder. April finishes a news broadcast by saying "Whoever you are, thanks." then winks at the camera, leading to this hillarious exchange.
Donatello:She was winking at me, you know.
Michelangelo: You're totally warped dude! She was winking at me!
Raphael: Get real you guys! It was meant for yours truley!
Leonardo: I hate to argue fellows, but I think she meant it for me.
April: *Still talking through the TV* Cool it fellas. If you must know, I was winking at Splinter!
Splinter: Age has its privileges. *Winks at camera*
Used straight, and topped with a turtle themed green lampshade in Turtles Forever. When 80's version Raphael keeps breaking the fourth wall, other characters pause with confused looks. The third time he does it, The Dragon gets angry and starts shaking him. "Why do you keep doing that? Who are you talking to?! THERE'S NO ONE THERE!"
When it comes to it, this is the whole plot of the movie. The 2003 Shredder learns about the fourth wall and decides to destroy it forever.
Subverted in JimmyTimmyPower Hour 2. Multiple times in the movie, *** appears to be asking the viewers a question before the camera cuts to behind him, revealing that he's actually talking to Libby.
In the Superhero Episode of ''The Fairly OddParents, Timmy and the Crimson Chin explain to the Nega-Chin his existence is controlled by the comic book writer. The villain decides to confront him.
Double Fourth Wall smashed—by Captain Planet. In "Hog Tide", to keep the Planeteers' minds off the hurricane that's doing a number on Hope Island, Gaia tells a tall tale about fictional heroes based on the Planeteers. As usual, the fictional heroes combine their powers to form Captain Planet, and asked who he is. Captain Planet sings his own Ending Theme.
"I'm your powers, magnified. Haven't you heard the song? 'Captain Planet, he's a hero...'"
In an early episode, there is a normal & reverse Fourth Wall smash from the other side. This episode was the first time the Planeteers faced Zarm. After Zarm is sent away, the Planeteers talk about aliens and that people had to share the Earth. Wheeler states, "We get the hint. Your turn." A mystery voice says Captain Planet's catchphrase, "The Power is Yours" ending the show.
In the Japanese Gag Dub of Beast Wars, Rattrap would occasionally comment on what audience members were eating.
Happens on occasion on Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers. There are a few in-story occurrences, and a number in various episode endings. The most obvious ones are during Professor Nimnul's rants, when he seems quite aware of the camera's presence.
Family Guy toyed with this in "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", where they broke the fourth wall in a reality-TV Show Within a Show. Chris hung a lampshade on it with "Fourth wall! You're breaking the Fourth wall!"
What's especially funny about the example above is that it's a reality show, which acknowledges the fact that there's a camera there, so even though Peter is talking to the camera, it's not actually breaking the fourth wall any more than a TV news show would be because there's no pretense of not having a camera there.
Another episode had a pretty direct fourth-wall-breaking when Stewie mocked the cast of Desperate Housewives (which shared a timeslot with their show), then turned to the camera and encouraged the audience to switch over to ABC and look. "I'll wait. I'll wait five seconds. [pause] Oh my God, did you see? Did you see how old and ugly they all are??"
Very recently, Stewie broke from the current scene to start complaining about the banner ads promoting other shows that are commonly shown across the bottom of programs now (don't get me started). It started off as Medium Awareness, because Stewie was obviously cognizant of the fact that he's on a TV show. He then broke the Fourth Wall by telling the audience to enjoy the ads as they went to commercial.
In the episode "Dial Meg for Murder", Peter uses the TV Guide to find out what will happen.
Also, in "Saving Private Brian", after Brian discovers that Stewie got them into the army, he says that's ridiculous, and the Vaudeville duo come out and break into piano and dance. Stewie then shoots them with his pistol, and addresses the audience, "Okay, they're dead, alright? We're not gonna be seeing them again."
In the episode "Stew-Roids," there is a scene where Connie D'Amico (the main antagonist of the Griffin's daughter, Meg) is knocked unconscious. It appears Peter is coming to her aid ... until he decides to take advantage of the situation by touching her inappropriately. Just before he rubs his thing to her crotch, he glares and (as if looking at the audience) says, "It's just a cartoon, OK?"
In the Futurama episode "Fear of a Bot Planet", Fry and Leela are attempting to work out how to rescue Bender from a planet full of human-hating robots. Leela remarks, "If only I had two or three minutes to think about it," at which point it immediately cuts to a commercial break. When the show returns from commercial, Fry and Leela have worked out a plan and are enacting it.
An episode of Johnny Test did this as well. Johnny and his talking dog Dukey are trapped in an action movie (through the use of VR helmets created by his genius sisters), and when they realize how the movie's supposed to end (think Thelma & Louise) Dukey screams at Johnny "You couldn't have just stayed home and watched cartoons like normal kids!". Johnny and Dukey then pause and look at the audience before continuing to panic about getting out of the movie.
Multiple characters in Taz-Mania do this but Digeri Dingo is by far the most notorious.
Rocky and Bullwinkle's characters do this a lot. Particularly, the lead characters. When they reference things that happened in previous episodes, they actually say they happened in a previous episode. They talk to the narrator from time to time. And they also mention the conditions of the show.
At one point, the narrator was kidnapped, then shown tied up and gagged alongside Rocky and Bullwinkle (who were in the same fix). That's not just breaking the fourth wall, that's blowing it to smithereens!
Subverted at the end of the first part of the two-part Simpsons episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns?". Dr. Hibbert points straight at the camera, asking the viewers if they can solve the mystery, but a reveal a second later shows him to actually be pointing at Chief Wiggum, who is standing in front of him.
Also at the beginning of The Movie, where Homer complains about TV shows being recycled as feature films: "I can't believe we're paying to see something we get on T.V. for free! If you ask me, everyone in this audience is a giant sucker! (pointing at the camera) Especially you!"
In one episode, they talk about a home for TV/Film animals that aren't cute anymore. Snowball immediately perks up and does something to get attention.
There was also one gag in which, as an ad passed across the bottom of the screen, Homer ate it. Yes. The ad.
"Mmm...promo... Eeew! Fox!"
In one episode, a character (arguing that everything is plagiarized from everything else) mentions that Chief Wiggum is a ripoff of Edward G. Robinson... which is kind of true.
One episode has (Sideshow) Mel narrating. Just before the first commercial break, he says "And so Lisa entered the world of show business, and it is indeed a business, as you'll find in 3... 2... 1..."
Done in a (faux) High Octane Nightmare Fuel-inducing way in "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores," a segment of one of their Halloween specials in which giant mock-ups of famous advertising characters come to life and almost succeed in destroying Springfield. At the end of the story, after the creatures have been vanquished, Kent Brockman turns to his TV audience (and thus, to us) and warns that "the next ad you see could kill you and all of your loved ones!" Homer then casually steps in front of Kent and says: "We'll be right back."
Batman The Brave And The Bold. Most apparent in the episodes with Bat-Mite. Its comparatively minor, maybe subtle even, until the series finale. The plot of which centers around Bat-Mite trying to force the show to Jump the Shark to get it canceled and make room for a Darker and Edgier Batman show. EVERYBODY breaks the fourth wall in that one. Aquaman's temporary new voice actor even breaks character.
Ed, Edd n' Eddy breaks the fourth wall often in the later episodes. One example is Rolf saying "Rolf finally feels safe to appear in this episode!" in "Look Before You Ed"
The episode "One Plus One Equals Ed" was largely devoted to breaking the fourth wall, with the Eds making observations about the things they could do that broke the laws of physics (Stealing Jimmy's outline, going from the foreground to behind the background and crushing stuff), taking notes, and eventually warping all of reality, until the balloon they were using to fly pops on the animator's pencil.
"Every Which Way But Ed" has them parodying the Flashback technique in a way that has to be seen to be believed. For instance, they manage to get caught in a flashback that's in a flashback that's in a flashback that Eddy's having.
In "Key to My Ed", Cloud Cuckoolander Johnny is found sleeping in the middle of the street. The second time the Eds encounter him, Eddy asks "Does this kid sleep through the whole show?"
In "Mama's Little Ed", Eddy apologizes to Edd for an earlier outburst of bad temper, blaming it on Ed and Kevin, and Edd points out "Kevin wasn't in this show, Eddy."
In "Ed Overboard", Eddy is being sworn in as a temporary member of the Urban Rangers, and remarks, "I'd swear, but standards won't let me."
Kevin gets one in as well in "For Your Eds Only". After the Eds tie him to a tree so he doesn't blab about Eddy stealing Sarah's diary, Eddy shouts "Hasta la vista, baby!" and Double D apologizes before following, ending with "C'est la vie!"
Kevin: This show needs subtitles.
In "Run, Ed, Run" the fourth wall is literally smashed to pieces when the Eds are thrown into the sky - and hit it. The "sky" then breaks and falls away to reveal television static.
Ed Eddn Eddy's relationship with the fourth wall seems to be something between a regular TV show and No Fourth Wall. The best way to think of it is a show where Peach Creek is a regular town and some TV director decided to make a documentary about their neighborhood. He tells them not to do anything they wouldn't do if the camera wasn't trained on them but from time to time, they will comment about their status in the show, which doesn't get edited out because it doesn't break the flow of the show (in other words they're still being themselves).
One Bugs Bunny short had Yosemite Sam hunting Bugs. We see a shadowy figure in front start to sneak out (remember the shorts used to be shown in theatres) and Sam points his gun at him and orders him to sit back down. Then says to the audience, "Anybody else try to get out to warn that rabbit gets his hide blown off!" Pause. "And I'll do it, too."
Along the same lines, another short has Bugs as a concert pianist. Who shoots an audience member for continually coughing. Audience interaction was a pretty common gag in those days.
One of the most famous No Fourth Wall lines in Looney Tunes history was introduced in the 1941 Bob Clampett Bugs Bunny short Wabbit Twouble. When Elmer Fudd, his face covered in soap, reaches for a towel, Bugs leads him around with the towel on the end of a branch. He tells the viewer, "I do this kind of stuff to him all through the picture."
A variant of this line also turns up in Tex Avery's first Droopy short for MGM, Dumb-Hounded.
Another short has Bugs convincing Fudd (who had brought him home to make into stew) that he was infected with the highly deadly and infections disease Rabbititis. In the last scene, he points to the audience and goes nuts, telling Fudd that everyone out there had Rabbititis. After Fudd runs off, he assures the viewers that if the actually had Rabbititis, they'd see red and yellow spots before their eyes (spots appear on the screen), and then they'd start swirling around (the spots on the screen do so), and then, everything'd go BLACK! (the screen blacks out).
In one of the Bugs/Daffy cartoons with the Abominable Snowman, Daffy leads the snowman to Buggs and, sneaking off while the snowman is hugging bugs, he turns to the camera and says "sure, I know I'm a louse. But I'm a LIVE louse." - on one instance, the Snowman says (Looking for bugs) "Where's the little bunny rabbit I saw on TV last week?"
A Porky Pig short called Porky in Wackyland was about Porky trying to catch the elusive dodo bird and gets sent into an insane reality world where said dodo bird would torment him in a Roadrunner-esque way, albeit more insane. One way he annoys Porky is by riding up from the horizon in the Warner Bros. logo (complete with the "boing" sound effect) slaps Porky, and zooms back into the horizon, with the WB "boing" sound effect playing in reverse.
An early Porky cartoon The Case of the Stuttering Pig had the villain warning the audience not to try and help the heroes - he especially singles out "that guy in the third row." At the end, the guy in the third row helps subdue the villain.
In another short featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, they are trying to get to sleep to wake up early in the morning, so they are not fired for being late to work. Of course, this causes many things to plague them and prevent them from getting to sleep. One of them is the moonlight shining through the window and keeping Porky awake. The problem is resolved when Daffy shoots at the moon, causing it to fall and disappear over the horizon. In response to the unexpected outcome, Daffy looks at the audience, and expresses his disbelief ("Amazing, isn't it?").
Foghorn Leghorn did this often. Speaking to the foil du jour: "It was, I say, it was a joke, son!" Then turning to the camera: "Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack o' wet mice."
Marvin the Martian does this in an episode of Duck Dodgers. He details his evil plot and laughs evilly when one of his henchmen comes up and asks who he's talking to. He stammers out a brief 'You know...them! The people watching us!' before the henchman goes "Oooooookaaaay,' and whispers to his fellow goon that Marvin is insane because he thinks there are people watching them.
Chuck Jones is infamous for this, but in his movie The White Seal, the 4th wall is broken constantly by looking straight into the camera. At certain points, it happens repeatedly with only seconds between them.
Staying with Jones, the entirety of his Daffy Duck short Duck Amuck is devoted to this very idea, with Daffy being tormented throughout by a mystery director. Daffy spends the entire short talking to the director who is constantly changing the scenery, props, and even Daffy himself with the use of a paintbrush. And in the end, the director turns out to be Bugs Bunny!
Animaniacs features this on several occasions. Example: Wakko, dressed as a doctor in a Russian-themed segment, remarks of his patient: "I think he'll need some Anastasia." Dot turns to the camera and says "Historical reference. Ask your parents." Lampshaded in the episode "Hello Nice Warners," where they're asked who they're talking to.
Slappy: I wrestled with Walto Wolf, Sid the Squid, and Beanie the Brain-dead Bison. This Doug-guy here's nothin'!
Skippy: Yeah, but those were cartoons and this is real life!
Really just one of many examples of how Animaniacs took most of Looney Tunes' running gags and did them to wretched and hilarious excess... another example being anvil-dropping.
Ron occasionally gets to play with fourth wall breakage during the post-script season of Kim Possible; most notably in the first episode, where in the tag he tells Kim about a dream he had where she jumped sharks, and once in "Grande Size Me", where he delivers a PSA to the audience about the dangers of allowing your DNA to be mutated in chemical vats (while the other characters stand around confused as to who he's talking to).
Kim does it one time herself, interrupting the opening title to double-take at the scientists wanting to study Ron as the secret to her success.
Hanna-Barbera's The Adventures of Gulliver episode "Gulliver's Challenge". After Bunko says (of an opponent) "He's going to get it", Glum turns to the camera and says "I have a feeling we're going to get it too".
In the South Park episode "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society", when Eric tries to kick Kyle off the group of main characters, Kyle remarks that he's "been there since the beginning".
There's also a gap in the fourth wall in "Cartoon Wars". The overall plot is a battle to show the prophet Mohammed uncensored in a cartoon. The closing narration for part I: "Will the cartoon be allowed to appear uncensored? Will Family Guy be destroyed??? Will television executives fight for free speech? Or will Comedy Central puss out?" They did.
South Park has an intermittent tendency to lean on the fourth wall. Example 1: In "Christmas Critters", Stan is arguing with the narrator of the story over the ridiculous plot (the narrator wins) (although considering Cartman was telling the story this could be considered a slight subversion), Example 2: Kyle deconstructs the entire episode structure in "Butt Out", trying to get everyone else to realize that they go through the same formula every week, and bemoaning the fact that he's always the one to deliver the Aesop... Look, it's Trey Parker and Matt Stone. There's gonna be leaning on the fourth wall.
Space Goofs Christmas episode. The aliens were about to blow Santa Claus sky high with firecrackers as he was climbing down the chimney when the characters give a PSA about fireworks safety.
Etno: Remember kids, handling fireworks is dangerous.
Stereo: You could hurt yourself.
Bud and Gorgeous: Or someone you love.
Candy: So remember, have a safe
Santa: ...and happy holiday!
In a first season episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man, Dr. Octopus, enraged by one of Spider-Man's signature glib quips, asks Spider-Man if he ever shuts up. Spider-Man responds by saying that the fans require a certain amount of quippage. Since hardly anyone ever sees him fight or hears these quips besides his adversaries, it's clear he means the audience watching the show.
In the episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants, "Missing Identity", SpongeBob retraces his steps, and Patrick has to say hi to him to make it complete, one of the times, we get this, even though SpongeBob is the only person around, and he was already leaving.
Patrick: Hi Spongeboob... uh Spongeboob?! I said— haha, who's Spongeboob?! Haha I said Spongeboob! Ahahaha again, okay, sorry people.
Also in the episode 'Wet Painters', SpongeBob is going to start painting the wall. The next scene shows a time card, with the narrator mentioning "One Hour Later". Cut back to SpongeBob, who is still not starting to paint the wall. Another time card is shown, the narrator says "Two Hours Later", and yet again SpongeBob is still not starting to paint. Another time card, the narrator says "Three Hours Later", and then Patrick is shown to be the one handling the time cards and he tells SpongeBob to move along because he's all out of time cards.
In a episode that practically centered on fourth wall breakage, but Patrick broke the fourth wall again in the episode 'Krusty Krab Training Video'. He acknowledges the Narrator several times throughout the episode, believing the Narrator is the Krusty Krab's ceiling or a ghost. SpongeBob also addresses the Narrator a lot, asking if he can make a Krabby Patty multiple times.
Also happens in the episode "Drive Thru". When one of Pearl's friends shouts through the cheap, tin-cans-on-a-string "microphone" with a megaphone [causing huge ear pain for Squidward], he turns to the camera and says "I'm not faking it, you know. That really hurt."
The Trapped in TV Land episode of Teen Titans has this in spades, with Cyborg referencing the particular episode and season they're in, and Robin giving quizzical glances out the TV screen and then later running up and grabbing the camera, yelling at the audience "Do not watch this program! It will liquify your brain!" (The In-Universe explanation for this action is that Control Freak has tampered with the broadcast.)
Another time, the HIVE Five appeared over the theme song and spray-painted their logo on the screen. The leader, Jinx, steps forward and says "We're the HIVE Five and this is our show now." (If you look closely, you can see Gizmo in the background, using some device to hijack the broadcast.)
Tex Avery was the master of this. His characters would often do things like running off the edge of the film. One of his best involved a wiggling hair stuck on the film (which often happened in old projectors). After being there for a while, one of the characters stops the action and plucks the hair off the film and tosses it away before resuming the scene.
KaBlam!: God, [[ Henry and June]] seem to find this as their favorite activity. What happened to kids playing video games and watching TV? Well, they're the hosts of the show, and they're pretty much on TV (at least 1996-2001, 2002-2006).
A planned but unproduced finale episode of The Angry Beavers had Norbert explain to Daggett that they were really cartoon characters who were now facing cancellation. Although the episode was never animated, parts of the audio recording can be found floating around online.
Super Friends (1973) episode "Dr. Pelagian's War". Dr. Pelagian has captured Wendy and Marvin and is planning his next move.
Wendy: Marvin, we've got to reach the Super Friends!
Marvin: Sure. Any idea how?
Wendy: Uh uh. [Looks at the camera and the audience] Do you?
Batman: The Animated Series The episode "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich." Robin trips a thug on a table by yanking the tablecloth. He then says "I love that trick, but I can never get it to work" unmistakably to the camera.
Another episode had Gotham City being rampaged by a Godzilla sized cow. Robin reacts to the destruction by saying "Holy cow!" Batgirl turns to the audience and says "He had to say it."
This gag was used very early on in the show's history, in 1992's "Christmas With the Joker." The Joker is airing a pirated TV broadcast from some unknown location, and the viewer often sees him via a TV screen. About two-thirds of the way through the show, he tells all the Gothamites who are watching that his Christmas special will return after "a word from our sponsor." Both the fictional program and the episode itself then cut to a commercial break in our own world. (Of course, the gag is ruined on DVD, where there are no commercial interruptions.)
Phineas and Ferb did this in their video game episode, where the characters could see their own life bars.
Lampshade Hanging near the beginning of Make Play: "What did I tell you about breaking the fourth wall, Carl?"
When the episode's song blames Bajeet for forgetting to bring marshmallows, he starts talking back to it, until Phineas says "Barjeet, would you stop arguing with the soundtrack?"
Characters do their own commentary on the episodes, where they acknowledge that music seems to come from no actual source (and sometimes start arguments with the disembodied singers) and where the characters host clip-shows for a "live animated audience".
The Narrator of The Powerpuff Girls commonly acknowledged himself as the narrator of the show, interacted with the characters in almost every closing narration, and was often in on the show's gags. One particular episode, "Simian Says," had Mojo Jojo kidnap the narrator and take his place, causing the girls to rob banks and commit crimes for him and nearly destroy each other through his narration.
Muppet Babies broke the fourth wall a couple times in the episode "Good Clean Fun"
Beetlejuice the cartoon does this quite a few times. Most often, it's BJ himself, but in "The Wizard of Ooze" the Wicked Witch of the West also broke it quite throughly.
Witch: Thanks to that commercial break, I had plenty of time to round up some friends of mine!
Witch: Curse that Lion's character design! Why couldn't he have been drawn with some eyes?!
A staple in The Weekenders when Tino tells the audience what's happening this weekend and its outcome in the beginning and the end of an episode.
Perfect Hair Forever has a moment when Cat Man is forcibly pulled by Coiffio into a boat. When it is forcibly rocked he turns to the camera and insists with increasing anxiety that they go to commercials.
"Let's go to a commercial. Let's go to a commercial! COMMERCIAL!"
In this episode of Darkstalkers, Anakaris breaks the fourth wall by turning to the camera and saying, "You know, I hate it when my bandages get wet because they break!"
Garfield and Friends indulged in this a number of times. One episode had Garfield waking up in the wrong cartoon, a Mazinger Z-esque action cartoon. A U.S. Acres short had Wade, freaking out over a cryptic message warning that "The bunny rabbits is coming", turn to the audience and shout "Why are you just sitting there, watching TV? Don't you know that the bunny rabbits is coming!"
The New Adventures of Superman. At the end of every episode Clark Kent would make some kind of lame pun based on the events in the episode and wink while looking at the audience.
Done in the episode "A Dog And Pony Show". Rarity starts crying after one of the Diamond Dogs calls her a mule, and in the middle of her rant she grabs the "camera".
Spike also indulges in this occasionally, like in "Bridle Gossip" with his Aside Glance, or in "Lesson Zero" with his interrupting of Twilight Sparkle's Imagine Spots. He rolls one up like a window shade and pops another like a balloon.
There is a scene in one of the Veggie Tales movies that may not count but here's what it's like: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything theme plays, followed by a record scratch. This may count as Painting the Fourth Wall.
Another example of the cartoon series Taz-Mania. As mention before, it sometimes does this; for example, in Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty breaks the fourth wall by pulling down a paper that reads, "I'll Be Back," which is set to take place in Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty Part II.
Speaking of which, the LONGEST FOURTH WALL BREAKING was Axel in Sidekicked, when he does his speech about that he is a sidekick (cue to rapid falls of the boulder crushing Taz.)
In one episode of Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Yogi and pals are trapped in a room filling with water as it goes to a commercial. When the show resumes, they're on the roof of the building safe and sound.
Huckeleberry Hound: If it weren't for that there commercial interruption, you folks would've seen a real exciting escape!
Snooper: Yeah, take Huck's word for it - it was a doozy!
Young Justice version of the Joker is not the most well received version of the character, however he, like his comic iteration knows he is in an entertainment media. Episode 14, features not one, but two instances of 4th Wall shattering. In the first he actually Lampshades his very appearance by letting the viewer know he is aware of just how surprised they are at his appearance, he then knocks on the TV screen to make sure everyone is paying attention when the Injustice League gives their demands.
Real Life
There's no better way to mess with your friends than by breaking the fourth wall in conversation. That way, if there's ever a movie made of your life, you can include fourth-wall breaking scenes without having to fictionalize anything.
So that's what you've been doing. Knock it off, Derek! Yes, this is an attempt to mess with the heads of every Derek in the world. Don't spoil it
Thanks to the existence of wiretaps, it is now possible to break the fourth wall by giving a friendly, or not so friendly, hello to the FBI/DHS/NSA/SRI/etc. This is customarily done after making a particularly seditious comment, as exemplified by this xkcd comic and another from Last Days Of Foxhound''.
Can you say that directly into the microphone please? * Prominently displays shirt pocket or some other mundane place a microphone could be hiding*
George Carlin once told a story about a friend of a friend who, while under investigation by the FBI, took to answering his phone with "Fuck Hoover" instead of "Hello".
If your boss is prone to listening in on staff you don't even need the FBI.
On online games, some savvy players do this to moderators who might be monitoring the chat.
Have you ever had a homework in which you have to write X amount of sentences? Now how many times have you (or classmate) written: "I am doing my homework" or "I am learning [insert subject] at school". (This is more frequent in a foreign language class.)
You know when you're waking up and half-dreaming still, and you say something utterly surreal that makes complete sense at the time but makes no sense later, until you realize that it was actually a very profound remark, as if someone were narrating your life? You just broke the fourth wall.
Bonus points if you just turn your head away (usualy towards left side) and give a look worth of Deadpan Snarker and make a mental note over the situation.
