Celebrity Paradox - Television Tropes & Idioms

No-one mentions Rose Tyler looks like the girl who married Chris Evans; it gets in the way of the story and doesn't help it along.

— Doctor Who: A History by Lance Parkin

Celebrity Paradox is the fact that celebrities and fictional characters/works don't exist as media within works about or related to them. So, in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't exist and is not the governor of California. There's no Governor Terminator. Or, in the world of Batman Begins, the Batman comics never existed, and neither did Christian Bale. In modern updates of a work, the original may be unheard of. This is an Omnipresent Trope, and there are notable Lampshade Hanging and subversions on part of a handful of cheeky writers who get a li'l kick out of toying around with the concept, such as having the character meet the actor/actress playing them somehow or giving out a Shout Out to the original source.

This avoids such awkward issues as why the plucky hero isn't constantly asked for autographs. It can become extremely awkward when the show is set amongst the showbiz industry, and the stars and writers become famous enough to be on the scene where the show finds itself. Also, if a larger-than-life celebrity was chosen to play a nerd, a geek, or a loser (for example, Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story) — that would also be extremely awkward.

To what extent this is done is a subject for discussions amongst fans. Do the actors themselves not exist? Do other works the actors have appeared in exist? If they do, who starred in them? It's probably best not to overthink these, but some impulsive connections are bound to occur. If taken far enough, such speculation can overlap with the Literary Agent Hypothesis. (In fact the Literary Agent Hypothesis may be the best way out of the paradox: the Tenth Doctor doesn't actually look like David Tennant any more than Erin Brockovich really looks like Julia Roberts.)

If the actors or their works do not exist, this implies an In Spite Of A Nail Alternate Universe. In a recent and amusing example, actress Jeri Ryan divorced her husband to play Seven of Nine on Star Trek Voyager (he refused to move to Hollywood with her). The divorce was contentious, and a lot of salacious dirt was spilled. When Jack Ryan ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, the release of the documents forced him to withdraw, allowing his challenger to win in a landslide against a last-ditch replacement. The landslide victory propelled the challenger, Barack Obama, to a position from which he could then launch a campaign for President, and... well, you know the rest. But it probably goes differently in Voyager's historical database.

Many a show or movie trying to be hyper-realistic do their best to distill this concept to an extent by refusing to cast a Celebrity Star because he or she is not obscure enough and would be too recognisable, as it strains Willing Suspension Of Disbelief.

Note that, in Animated Series and Anime, the Celebrity Paradox wouldn't be as big of an issue. After all, in this type of medium, the characters wouldn't necessarily resemble the actors who do the voices of them. Additionally, the paradox may be avoided if the work is a Period Piece set before the actors were famous. So, for example, no one in Raiders Of The Lost Ark can wonder why Indy looks exactly like Harrison Ford because the film is set before Harrison Ford was even born. Perhaps, the paradox may also be avoided in works that take place in the far future — when the actors are likely to be forgotten.

Playing with this is a form of Post Modernism. Actor Allusion can be a form of playing with this. Contrast Your Costume Needs Work.

Examples:

Completely and utterly justified in The Grapes Of Wrath film. In the book, the main character was said to look exactly like Henry Fonda, so guess who played him in the film? That's right, Henry Fonda.
- Joseph Heller tried to pull the exact same trick in Catch 22. Maj. Major Major Major looks identical to Henry Fonda, and is often mistaken for him by other characters. Heller admitted that he wanted either Henry Fonda or someone who looked absolutely nothing like Henry Fonda to play him in the movie; he ended up getting his latter wish when Bob Newhart was cast as Major.
- The exact opposite happened with the Constantine adaptation. John Constantine is stated to look exactly like Sting in the comics, so naturally, they had Keanu Reeves play him in the film.
  - Although to be fair by the time of the Constantine film Sting was in his early fifties while John Constantine seems to have been time-frozen with Sting's haircut in the early eighties.
  - Then again, since Vertigo Constantine ages in real time, the character is in his fifties now. Though the story arc adapted for the film happened in the '80s. Either way, they clearly weren't going for fidelity to the source here.
The Catherine Tate Show did a sketch for Comic Relief which featured David Tennant as Lauren Cooper's teacher. She frequently jokes throughout the sketch about how much he resembles the Doctor. At the end, he zaps her with the Sonic Screwdriver, turning her into a Rose Tyler action figure.
- And adding onto the confusion, Catherine Tate later played Donna Noble, a companion of the Doctor. Conveniently, Lauren Cooper was killed off before she could watch the show and notice the woman who looks just like her traveling through space with a timelord who looks just like her English teacher.
  - Actually, while Donna Noble hadn't yet become a regular character, she had appeared (played by Tate) in a Who Christmas special prior to the Comic Relief sketch.
The British Sit Com My Family featured Nick obtaining a toy of Madame Hooch from Harry Potter. He doesn't seem to notice that she resembles his mother a whole lot...
In season two of House, the title character gets mocked for some of the shows that are saved on his Tivo. One of them, seen briefly but not mentioned, is Blackadder, in which Hugh Laurie played a few major characters twenty years earlier.
- It's possible that only the first series of Blackadder exists in the House-universe, because it's the only one that Hugh Laurie wasn't in.
- There's a strange little fanfic where House finds a Jeeves And Wooster DVD...
In the Schwarzenegger flick Last Action Hero, the real world contains the same actors and movies that we know in reality. In the Film Within A Film Jack Slater IV, there is still a Terminator movie — but it stars Sylvester Stallone. Furthermore, when Slater is in the real world, he runs into Arnold, who mistakes him for a look-alike.
There's a memorable Lampshade Hanging of this trope in the otherwise forgettable film Stakeout: To pass the time while on stakeout, Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss's characters are playing a guessing game where they cite memorable lines of dialogue and quiz the other as to what movie it's from. Emilio Estevez's character, in a hammish way, recounts the line: "This was not a boating accident!" Dreyfuss, after a moment's pause, replies "I don't know." The line is from the film Jaws, spoken by Matt Hooper — a character played by Richard Dreyfuss.
In the play Arsenic and Old Lace, one character is told repeatedly (and to his borderline homicidal annoyance) that he looks like Boris Karloff, who played the part in the original Broadway production. The play was written in 1939, so this is Older Than Television.
- This is Lampshade Hanging in the play, as the part was written specifically for Karloff.
Possibly the earliest example after Arsenic and Old Lace : In the 1940 film His Girl Friday, a character played by Ralph Bellamy is described as looking a lot like "that actor, Ralph Bellamy."
The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension averts this by treating the movie as a documentary of the real life of Buckaroo Banzai, who also has his life's stories printed in comic book form and uses his fan club as a spy network.
Ocean's Twelve had Tess Ocean, played by Julia Roberts, infiltrating a museum by exploiting the fact that she looks like Julia Roberts. And then she has to interact with several other celebrities like Bruce Willis who know Julia Roberts. The fact that Danny Ocean couldn't do the same implies that this is a case of One Shot Revisionism.
- The original Oceans Eleven, starring the Rat Pack, also played with this. In the final shot, the characters played by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford walk past the marquee of the Sands hotel. The marquee advertises the Sands' featured entertainers: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. Despite this, Dean Martin plays a completely different singer named Sam Harmon, who does a few shows in Vegas without anyone mentioning he looks familliar.
- The remade Ocean's Eleven flirted with this in one of the earliest scenes, when Danny and Rusty walk out of the club where they've been teaching celebrities to play poker. It's very odd to see Topher Grace and Joshua Jackson get mobbed by squealing fans, while George Clooney and Brad Pitt stroll by unnoticed.
Similar to the Julia Roberts example above: as a running gag in Cannonball Run, eccentric competitor Seymour Goldfarb Jr. obsessively impersonates Roger Moore, both to attract women and to justify his use of 007-style gadgets to get an edge in the race. Goldfarb, naturally, is played by Roger Moore ... who sends up both his actual celebrity status and his past in-character behavior as James Bond.
The webcomic Darths And Droids is about roleplayers playing a tabletop RPG following the basic plot of the Star Wars movies, but the notes on strip 50 have specifically stated that there is no Star Wars in the universe where they are. They then extrapolates on how that would impact things such as Mark Hamill's and Harrison Ford's careers, Spaceballs, the fate of sci-fi in media, and finally what the webcomic Darths And Droids would be parodying instead of Star Wars: Harry Potter.
- On top of that, that very sentence links to a sample page from that alternate universe Harry Potter strip, which includes a full site layout, cast page, FAQ, and a (non-explorable) archive complete with 50 strips of punny stip titles. Then, when the main strip #100 was released, this page was silently edited with the same extrapolation on a world where Harry Potter never existed, complete with a link to a The Sound Of Music comic with the same bells and whistles. The process repeates every 50 strips, going through X-Men, Aliens and The Wizard Of Oz now. Given that we're still partway through Episode II, by the time Darths And Droids is finished, the innermost world will be very culturally poor indeed.
- Although its spiritual predecessor DM of the Rings never explicitly referenced this trope, Fridge Logic leads one to wonder how D&D became popular in a world without Lord of the Rings.
MacGyver starring lead Richard Dean Anderson, is lightly brought up in the very first episode of Stargate SG-1.
- SG-1 got even more confusing by having a guest appearance by Dan Castellaneta while The Simpsons had a guest appearance by Richard Dean Anderson. In SG-1, Jack is a fan of The Simpsons, but doesn't seem to recognise Dan, whereas in The Simpsons, Anderson plays himself.
  - In one episode of SG-1, O'Neill points out that there is another O'Neil "spelled with one L" and that he has no sense of humor. The Stargate movie featured a Jack O'Neil (one L) played by Kurt Russell who wasn't nearly as snarky as Richard Dean Anderson's character.
- The Stargate Verse has yet another circular dependency: with World Of Warcraft. Dr. Lee is a fan of the game (and curiously claimed to have a level 75 character, which was impossible at the time the episode supposedly took place)... while the Champions' Hall in WoW contains NPCs named after SG-1 characters.
- In another interesting case, Carter tells O'Neill that they can't call the first X-303-class spaceship "Enterprise" in homage to Star Trek. Given that NASA has already named a spaceship after the fictional Enterprise, were this not a television show — whose creators would certainly be sued by Paramount for their insolence — there would be absolutely no reason not to name the ship Enterprise. Realistically speaking, it would in fact be a virtual certainty.
  - Although, if we're really overthinking this, they would be unlikely to do so until the current USS Enterprise was retired, freeing up the name for military use.
In the Doctor Who episode "The Idiot's Lantern", the Doctor refers to Kylie Minogue. Kylie later appeared in the Christmas Episode "Voyage of the Damned" playing Astrid Peth. However she was a Human Alien who had never been to Earth until that episode and from a race with very fuzzy knowledge of our world, thus she probably wasn't aware of the fact. She only met two people who would recognise her as Kylie; the Doctor, who probably chose not to confuse her by mentioning it and Wilfred Mott, who only talked to her for a few minutes. That being said, despite the fact she's very famous in the UK one elderly lady did confuse her for a real waitress during filming.
- "Spatial genetic multiplicity" was referenced in a later episode. May or may not apply here.
- "The Idiot's Lantern" was written by Mark Gatiss, who also appeared as the villain in "The Lazarus Experiment". Mark Gatiss is one of the leads on The League Of Gentlemen, in which one of his characters claimed that an episode of Tom Baker-era Who was filmed in the town. Another League member, Steve Pemberton, also appeared on Who in "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead". And Christopher Eccleston once did a guest appearance.
Also in Doctor Who, the Harry Potter books exist and have been made into movies. The person playing Barty Crouch Jr. has not been revealed though.
- Clearly, it's going to be Christopher Eccleston.
- The Doctor does have a Hogwarts uniform in his cupboard. Perhaps it's him, acting under the assumed name "David Tennant".
  - And Barty Crouch Jr. has a box that is bigger on the inside than on the outside.
- Just to further twist the self-reference, an Episode with the 7th Doctor in the original series was set on the day the TV show actually launched, and a voice on the telly is briefly heard to say, "It is now 5:15, and its time for the new science-fiction series Do—" before it is cut off.
  - Does the story provide an explanation on why the good Doctor wasn't in Dallas that day?
  - Who says he's not? It's a time travel show, he could always go there later... or earlier!
- The Big Finish Sixth Doctor audio drama Pier Pressure, set in the 1930s, features a young actor called Billy. References to his films make it quite clear that this is young Billy Hartnell, some thirty years before playing the First Doctor.
Robin Williams does exist, as himself, in the Mork And Mindy universe. And Mork is horrified when people think they look alike. This is actually almost believable, until Mindy mentions he's a star of "TV, film, and nightclubs". Maybe Robin Williams was part of the cast of whatever TV show replaced Mork And Mindy in said universe.
In an episode of Sabrina The Animated Series, Sabrina questions about "Who needs Melissa Joan Hart's autograph?" Melissa Joan Hart plays both of the aunts in the animated series, and she also played the title character in the earlier live-action series of Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
The TV show Mad About You exists in the Seinfeld universe, but characters from Seinfeld have appeared on Mad About You. Some sort of Seinfeld series also exists on Mad About You, but it's unclear whether the series in question is the one from the real world, starring real Jerry Seinfeld, or the fictional sitcom Jerry, starring the real Jerry Seinfeld's character portraying a character named Jerry Seinfeld (who might himself be the real Jerry Seinfeld).
- Paul Reiser's Mad About You character, Paul Buchman, has never seen the movie Aliens, which co-starred Paul Rieser.
In Back To The Future, Huey Lewis makes a cameo appearance as an audition judge — and Marty has a Huey Lewis and The News poster on his bedroom wall. The Cafe '80s scene in Part II shows brief clips of Family Ties and Taxi — featuring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, respectively. However, whether the actors were featured in the shows of the universe is subject to debate.
Furthermore, in an episode of Back To The Future The Animated Series, Marty sarcastically claims to be Michael J. Fox (who played Marty in the movie trilogy) — prompting Verne to comment that there is a similarity in appearance.
In one episode of The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton meet Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. This was done by alternating the actors and their roles: Ed meets Gleason just as Ralph is conveniently absent, while Ralph meets Carney while Ed is out.
Averted and played with extensively in the Thursday Next series — almost inevitable, since the series is about the BookWorld and the title character can travel in and out of works of literature. In the most recent installment, Thurs is forced to work with two alternate versions of herself from "fictionalized" book versions of her adventures.
- The Thursday Next books take this much, much farther than any sane person could go. There are many "meta" levels — for example, there's the real world, the "real world" of the Thursday Next novel, fiction that exists in the Thursday Next world (which is largely unchanged from ours), how the fictional characters act outside their novels, etc...
- It gets even more confusing because the Thursday Next novels as shown in the fifth Thursday Next book are actually nothing like the real-world novels; the rights were sold and the plot and characterization was thrown out the window. At the very end of the fifth book, apparently one of the fictionalized Thursdays begins "rewriting" the fictional Thursday Next books and it looks like they'll end up identical to the real-world versions. Confused yet?
Like everything else they do, comic books (particularly those from Marvel and DC) tend to be pretty up and down when it comes to this. One storyline will explicitly state that the other version of heroes are simply limited to fictional comics, another will confirm that they all coexist with the same world, and in another, Alternate Universes come into play. All in all, most writers try not to stress over this too much, as more often than not, the main objective is to either have two heroes duke it out in a prize fight or simply deliver some cheap shot.
- DC, prior to 1986, did this using Earth-2 and claiming that the Earth-1 characters had comics about the Earth-2 characters but not about themselves. This explanation worked for characters like the Flash, but wouldn't make sense for someone like Superman, where both versions had the same secret identity.
- However, at least in the Marvel Universe, there is Canon evidence from comics such as She-Hulk and The Fantastic Four that the exploits of the (in-universe) real live heroes are actually recorded in comics and sold to the general public. These comics (in the She-Hulk comics) are then used as evidence by lawyers defending and prosecuting super heroes and super villains. And, at least once, to save the world when all the characters had forgotten some hugely important fact or Mac Guffin which they found out about by reading the comics. One wonders, though, if the comics published in-universe are the same as the Real Life ones, and the references to comics are infinitely recursive. But then one's head starts hurting.
  - Marvel actually released a set of in-universe comics during a Fifth Week Event in 2000. These were titled "Marvels Comics" and how similar they were to the "real" superheroes varied — the Fantastic Four licensed their comic officially and appeared in their real identities, but since nobody knows who Daredevil or Spider-Man are, the in-universe comic fabricated origins for them.
- Similarly, in the Ultimate Marvel universe, one issue of Ultimate Spider Man involved Spidey's exploits being filmed by Sam Raimi to save money on CGI for a blockbuster movie starring Tobey Maguire.
  - Marvel did another joke on this in Spider-Girl; Mary Jane comments that Reilly Tyne (son of Spider-Man's clone Ben Reilly) looks sort of like like Peter; Pete, on the other hand, thinks he looks more like Tobey Maguire.
- Subverted in Superman: Secret Identity, where there are no superheroes, but Superman comics do exist — they're, in fact, the reason Mr. and Mrs. Kent decided to name their perfectly human boy Clark. Then, after being constantly bullied about his nonexistent superpowers, he actually gets them, and the rest of the plot explores the differences between comics and "reality".
  - This is also the origin of Super~~boy~~man-Prime. His psychopathic behaviour in pursuit of Silver Age values can be at least partly explained by the fact he still thinks of these people as fictional characters.
- A Golden Age Superman story had Clark taking Lois to the movies... where a Fleischer Brothers Superman cartoon was showing before the main feature. Hilarity Ensues as Clark goes to great lengths to ensure that Lois is distracted every time his on-screen counterpart changes identities. The story ends with Clark and his on-screen counterpart winking at each other, even as he wonders who the Fleischer Brothers are and how they found out all they did.
On a more metatextual character level than a literal actor level, Smallville falls particularly afoul of this. In every other incarnation of the Superman mythos (comics, TV, movies, radio etc.) Superman is, by the very nature of his existence, a world-famous figure, probably the most famous person on Earth. Therefore all the kinds of nicknames, catchprases and allusions to the fictional character in the real world (e.g. "Faster than a speeding bullet", "The Man of Steel" etc.) are equally well known in the various fictional realities where Superman is actually real (with the exception of "And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter..."). But in Smallville, a prequel show set explicitly in the present day, the viewer is faced with the bizarre dissonance that these characters exist in an early 21st century version of America who's popular culture has not been irrevocably impacted by the existence of Superman (real or fictional), who originated the entire superhero genre and flooded the lexicon with all manner of specific phrases and ideas.
- This is rendered even more head-numbingly dissonant by the show's sheer volume of sly references, homages and shout-outs to the Superman mythos that has yet to actually take place, with constant winking deployment of terms that contextually shouldn't have been coined yet, like "Man of Steel", "Faster than a speeding bullet", "mild-mannered" etc. etc. They have even shown that words/concepts like "superhero" are already in common parlance, despite their actual existence not yet being known to the wider public.
  - You could argue that most examples are fairly organic; someone sees bullets bounce off Clark and calls him "a man of steel" (not "THE"), etc. We're seeing the in-universe origins of these phrases not the common use of them.
  - Partly justified, since superhero comics do exist in the Smallville universe, since Lex was shown to have been a fan of one such comic (featuring a bald protagonist) growing up, called Warrior Angel — ironically a very historically-accurate '90s style archetype. This leads one to wonder who was the first superhero character to be published in the Smallville universe, since it obviously wasn't Superman...
- There is also some limited amounts of doubly-metatextual actor paradoxes in later seasons, as past actors associated with earlier film and TV versions of Superman guest-star as different characters, such as Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Dean Cain, Lynda Carter, Helen Slater... You can't help but wonder why Clark isn't constantly saying "Hey, didn't I used to look like you?" (or, perhaps, "Man, will I really look like you when I grow up?).
  - It gets even weirder when you consider that Clark's mother is played by Anette O'Toole who previously played his love-interest Lana (no, not the boring one) Lang in Superman III, and that the AI "ghost" of Jor-El featured through most of the middle seasons is brought to life by the very distinctive voice of Terrence Stamp, the indelibly memorable villain General Zod from Superman II.
  - Lampshaded a bit — the first time Christopher Reeve shows up, they start playing John Williams' Superman themes.
While maybe not textbook, Watchmen played with this a little bit. Since superheroes exist, they became commonplace and nobody bought superhero comics anymore. To fill the publication vacuum, comics starring pirates became popular.
- Astro City plays with this as well, with one issue detailing a comic company that publishes accounts of "real life" heroes and villains. Thing is, the guy in charge embellishes; the hero Nightingale threatens to sue when he paints her and her crimefighting partner Sunbird as lesbians, and the villain Glowworm almost kills him when he's portrayed as a racist. (Glowworm has a radioactive sheen due to the accident that gave him his powers — underneath it, as he puts it, "You know what color I used to be?") The company decides to deal with "cosmic" (alien/otherworldy) heroes and villains, since they can't register complaints. The building has been vaporized when the central character arrives for work the next day.
- Runaways mentions The DCU a few times, but it's implied they only exist as TV shows.
In Love, Actually, Liam Neeson makes several jokes about having Claudia Schiffer appear and start a relationship with him. Towards the end of the movie he meets a woman named Carol...played by Claudia Schiffer.
In Looney Tunes: Back In Action, DJ Drake says to Daffy: "Have you seen those Mummy movies? I was in them more than Brendan Fraser was!". At the end of the movie, Drake runs into the real Fraser (obviously played by Fraser as well) then punches him in the face for acting like a dick.
The novel Bridget Jones' Diary is based in part on the plot of Pride & Prejudice — the love interest is named Mark Darcy, and the title character is obsessed with Colin Firth's portrayal of the original Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of the Jane Austen novel. In the film, Pride & Prejudice isn't mentioned, but Mark Darcy is played by... Colin Firth.
- Bridget interviews Colin Firth in the sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. This was filmed for the movie but ended up being a deleted scene.
In the novelization of the first Spider Man film, Mary Jane has seen the movie Interview With A Vampire and was creeped out by the little girl who played Claudia. Guess who played both of them.
In Friends, Ross, Joey and Chandler are die-hard fans of Die Hard. However, when they meet Paul Stevens (played by Bruce Willis), he doesn't seem to remind them of anyone.
- In earlier episodes, Ross has Winona Ryder on his "list," but when Rachel's sorority sister shows up, nobody says, "Wow, you look just like Winona Ryder."
- Ross also rejected Susan Sarandon for the list. She also turned up in a later episode, not playing herself.
In That 70s Show, characters are shown to be watching The Brady Bunch. Later, Christopher Knight and Barry Williams appear not as themselves.
Pretty much averted in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Ben Affleck plays the character of Holden McNeil, the same character as in the earlier Chasing Amy. The movie's central conflict is that a movie is being made about the titular characters and they aren't being paid for it, so they start discussing who's going to star in the movie. Ben Affleck's character comments that, because it's Miramax, it's probably going to be Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Later on, Affleck shows up again, as himself, shooting Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season with Damon.
- It gets better when Jay and Holden talk about how they hate Good Will Hunting, which Affleck starred in and co-wrote, and Holden citing that Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.
- Come to think of it, before Affleck and Damon do their part in Hunting 2 Damon mentions that Affleck talked him into Dogma. Jay and Silent Bob were in Dogma, as main characters.
  - For the hat trick, at the very end, two characters leaving a theater say that the movie they saw was "Better than Mallrats," (which one of them was in) but that Chasing Amy, the movie the other one was in, would never work as a movie.
- Even better is the DVD documentary where the writers talk about how for a while, they were actually considering having different actors play that universe's Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They even considered the Wayans Brothers for it. Sadly, they chose in the end to just keep the originals.
In one episode of This Is America, Charlie Brown, the Peanuts gang visit the Smithsonian Institution. Among other things, Charlie Brown and Lucy discover the lunar and command modules from Apollo 10 (nicknamed "Snoopy" and "Charlie Brown", respectively), and a Peanuts Sunday strip.
- In the January 1, 1974 Peanuts strip, Linus and Lucy watch the Tournament of Roses Parade on TV. Linus asks if the Grand Marshal had gone by, and Lucy tells him yes, "but he wasn't anyone you ever heard of." The actual grand marshal of the parade that year was Charles M. Schulz.
One episode of Jackie Chan Adventures has Jackie and company going to Hollywood. Of course, the actor Jackie Chan doesn't exist and this is confirmed by people asking "Who's Jackie Chan?" Furthermore, once Jackie is found by a studio and Hilarity Ensues, a hot-shot director claims that there will never be a Jackie Chan in Hollywood.
Hiro Nakamura from Heroes is a Star Trek fan. George Takei, who played Mr. Sulu on said series, plays Hiro's father.
- Kaito Nakamura could well also be a fan- his car's number plate reads NCC-1701.
Played with in Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip: Allison Janney of The West Wing appears as herself, guest hosting the titular Show Within A Show. Timothy Busfield plays the director of said show. Busfield formerly played Janney's character's love interest/husband on The West Wing, and their interactions in the Studio 60 episode play this up. Note that The West Wing exists in the Studio 60 universe, and fictional Janney was in it, while fictional Busfield apparently wasn't, since he doesn't exist. Confused yet?
- This becomes even more confusing when you think about how many other actors were in both shows.
- Be glad that the guy who played Josh wasn't in that episode.
- Adding another layer of confusion, the fictional Janney is annoyed at being confused with Christine Lahti. The reporter played by Christine Lahti wasn't in that episode, but she hadn't been gone long.
In penultimate episode of The Nanny, Fran Fine meets actress Fran Drescher. She mentions how everyone says she looks like her, and Drescher is not happy. She also comments on her voice, her hair, and on how the episode she's taping is very similar to what's happening in Fine's life at the moment.
The 2006 film of Casino Royale faithfully reproduces a scene from the original novel where James Bond orders a very specific kind of martini — three parts Gordon's gin, one part vodka, 1/2 part Lillet. In the real world, this drink, called a "Vesper" after Bond's love interest in the novel, has become well-known enough to have an entry on That Other Wiki, and a bartender presumably wouldn't need to be instructed on how to make one — of course, in the movieverse, the James Bond novels don't exist and so presumably nobody has ever heard of a Vesper martini.
- This is also lampshaded in the movie, when Bond mulls over what to name the newly invented drink until telling Vesper flat-out that he's naming it after her.
  - Not really a lampshading — again, that's a reproduction of a scene from the original novel, and was how the drink got famous! (Ian Fleming, or a friend of his, invented it!)
- James Bond had been said by Ian Fleming to look like Hoagy Carmichael and David Niven. The latter got to play him in That Other Casino Royale.
In the 2004 made for TV movie Frankenstein, the story of Frankenstein is mentioned a few times. When asked about it, the original creature says that Mary Shelley's novel was actually Based On A True Story.
Lucky Star has quite a bit of this thanks to its numerous modern-day media references to anime, manga, video games, etc. Prime examples include multiple shoutouts to its fellow Kyoto Animation anime The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya and the guest appearances of the character's own seiyuu.
- Probably the prime example of this is in the last episode. Patty bribes Konata (voiced by Hirano Aya with a ticket to a live event where she can meet... Hirano Aya
- Of course there's also an earlier episode where Konata attends the 'Suzumiya Haruhi no Gekisou' live concert and sees Hirano Aya on stage.
Blazing Saddles
- The Fourth Wall-shattering climax of — just watch it.
  - Includes a scene where Taggart says "I'm working for Mel Brooks!" (writer/director), who also appears in the movie.
- Hedley Lamarr — and later Bart and the Waco Kid — go to Graumann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to watch the movie they're in. Mel Brooks seems to be a bit fond of this device.
Similarly, in Spaceballs the villains are able to track down the heroes' location by popping in a Spaceballs VHS. No really.
- That's more of a fourth-wall break rather than a confirmation that Spaceballs actually exists in-universe. They do something similar in Robin Hood Men In Tights where they pull out the film script to see what happens next.
  - The "character pulling the script" gag is used twice by the Genie in Aladdin.
On a similar note, in Heroes some of the characters learn what is going to happen by reading the comic book "9th Wonders." Which is basically the show, but in comic book form.
- However, the comic book tells the story of the show because it was created by a person with precognitive powers.
The Scream franchise made it big in part because it was a horror movie that acknowledged that people will know about horror movies and thus display at least some Genre Savvy, compared to all the horror films that take place in universes where apparently no such things exist.
- Scream 2 took it further with the (fictional) film Stab, which was based on the events of Scream, scenes from Stab having Heather Graham and Luke Wilson playing the the characters played by Drew Barrymore and Skeet Ulrich. Courtney Cox's character also mentions David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston.
- In Scream, Neve Campbell's character Sidney jokes that if they did make a movie of the Woodsboro murders, Tori Spelling would probably play her. In Scream 2 with Stab... cue "Sidney" being played by Tori Spelling.
Like most rapper-actors, Method Man can most often be found portraying gang members and fictional rappers in his numerous television/film roles. Wonder if any of them listen to Wu Tang.
- In The Wackness he plays a drug supplier who gives the main character a copy of Biggie's Ready to Die AN ALBUM HE WAS FEATURED ON!
- Even more confusingly, RZA has a role as a detective in American Gangster. At one point, the Wu-Tang tattoo on his arm is clearly visible. Note that the film takes place in the 1970s.
An episode of Scrubs has J.D. mentioning that he thought he noticed the Janitor in the movie version of The Fugitive. Neil Flynn, who plays the Janitor, was indeed in that film. The Janitor later implies that it was indeed him in the movie. Whether this means that all of Neil Flnn's roles in the Scrubsverse are played by The Janitor or if this was a one off is unclear.
- Of course, nothing the Janitor says can be taken seriously. It is perfectly plausible that in the Scrubsverse, the Janitor just happens to look like Neil Flynn and was messing with JD/the Audience's head(s).
- Or the Janitor is Neil Flynn, fallen on hard times.
In the world of the forgettable 1998 Godzilla film, there was no such thing as a Godzilla movie. The titular monster was named after a supposed mythical Japanese sea creature called Gojira (Godzilla's name in Japan) whose name gets mispronounced.
The Disney Channel appears to enjoy this trope. In an episode of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, Maddie (played by Ashley Tisdale) auditions for the part of Sharpay in High School Musical (who was also played by Ashley Tisdale). She claims all her friends say she looks the part, but no one else sees it.
Similarly in Hannah Montana, Robbie Ray (played by Billy Ray Cyrus) puts on a mullet wig and claims to be Billy Ray Cyrus. The woman he's talking to thinks he's crazy and quickly leaves.
In Futurama, Katey Sagal (the voice of Leela) is one of actresses in the head museum.
In the KateModern episode "Fictionality", Ralf Little's character, Gavin, complains that people keep accusing him of being a professional actor.
Hook handles this quite nicely. J.M. Barrie's play Peter Pan does exist, as do all of its adaptations like the Disney film. It was based on a true story that Wendy told him. Hence, everyone knows about Peter Pan but thinks he's a fictional character, including Peter himself after he grows up, so he's understandably reluctant to believe it when he finds out.
Subverted in Airplane!, in which Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then a basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, played the co-pilot. A child is brought up to the cockpit, recognizes Kareem, and begins making disparaging comments about his basketball skills; the co-pilot at first denies that he is Kareem, but eventually defends himself.
- A bit of a sly nod to that particular scene occurred in MTV's first Rock and Jock Basketball game, in which the show opens with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (coach of one of the teams) being approached by a fan who mistakes him for Roger Murdoch, famous airline pilot. The scene plays out almost identically, except with roles reversed.
- Furthermore, when the co-pilot is removed after falling ill, he is clearly wearing goggles and a Lakers uniform, as if he was ready to hit the court the second the scene wrapped.
A complete aversion occurs in the unaired pilot Heat Vision and Jack — character actor Ron Silver plays character actor/assassin Ron Silver.
In Gremlins 2 this was done several times — the Gremlins attack a movie critic who is giving a negative review of the first movie, and mid-way through the movie, the Gremlins appear to take over the cinema's movie projecter room, using it to make shadow puppets and show black and white porn. They are only stopped when an usher gets Hulk Hogan, who is in the audience at the time, to threaten to introduce the Gremlins to "The Hulkster".
- The movie critic in question is real-life critic Leonard Maltin. In his Movie and Video Guide, Maltin notes that Gremlins 2 contains "gratuitous celebrity cameos."
In the sequel to the novel Forrest Gump, titled Gump and Co., Forrest is inserted into events from the 80s and 90s. As such, he gets to meet famous people from that time. One such celebrity whom Forrest gets to meet is Tom Hanks, the actor who played him in the film. In fact, the movie is mentioned several times throughout the book — the first book exists in that world as Forrest's autobiography, and he's rather upset throughout the second that the film got almost everything wrong. "Don't ever let anybody make a movie out of your life" are practically Arc Words.
Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong is apparently set at the same time that Merian C. Cooper is directing a film for RKO Studios starring Fay Wray.
- It needn't be King Kong, since at that time, Cooper was also producing another RKO movie with Fay Wray, The Most Dangerous Game.
In the fictional world of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert's other works do exist, but Colbert (the actor) doesn't — all of his roles were played by Kevin Spacey instead.
A case in Detective Conan once revolved around the titular character and his friends meeting singer Minami Takayama. Minami happens to do the voice of Conan Edogawa, and their similar voices were not only pointed out by other characters, but it also was a vital plot point in solving the mystery of the week. The weird part? That story appeared in the original Manga.
- Not so weird, considering mangaka Gonsho Aoyama was dating, and then got married to, Minami.
Skins had Anwar reciting a list of Hugh Grant films in order to stave off orgasm during sex: "I never get as far as About A Boy". About A Boy being a film in which Skins actor Nicholas Hoult played a leading role.
In the U.S. version of The Office, Creed Bratton plays a fantastical (and waaay crazy) version of himself. He was a bassist in the Grass Roots in the 60s and 70s, and now (instead of acting) works at a paper company.
- In the second Christmas episode, he sings a Grass Roots song on a karaoke machine, which the real Creed Bratton did the vocals for. Wrap your head around that.
- Also on the U.S. The Office, Michael Scott has mentioned that he is a fan of The Wire, yet does not notice Holly Flax's strong resemblance to Beadie Russell (both played by Amy Ryan). Nor Charles Miner's resemblance to Stringer Bell (both played by Idris Elba).
- Not to mention the numerous references to Michael's beloved Whose Line Is It Anyway and Saturday Night Live, when the stars of both have appeared as characters on the show, such as Charles "Chip" Esten, Tim Meadows, David Koechner and Nancy Walls, who in addition to being on SNL, is also married to Steve Carell, who plays Michael, in real life.
An episode of Akahori Gedou Hour Rabuge has two of the Hokke sisters meeting their own voice actresses and then proceeding to argue about which one of them is better.
One episode of Sue Thomas FB Eye had Sue (the character) meeting Sue (the real FBI agent that sparked the series); IIRC, one of them said she'd always wanted to be an FBI agent while the other said she'd always wanted to be an actress.
Veronica Mars is said to get nightmares when she watches Paris Hilton movies. Quite understandable, as there was a girl at her school played by Paris Hilton.
The title character in Suddenly Susan finds herself unable to remember Andre Agassi's first wife — because it was Brooke Shields herself.
- Similarly, the main character in The Naked Truth could only remember that David Duchovny's wife was "that goofy blonde sitcom bimbo"... whom we know as Téa Leoni.
Likewise, an episode of Quantum Leap features an heiress played by Brooke Shields, whose resemblance to herself causes no comment from Sam or Al. Then again, in this case it may be a Justified Trope because Sam is amnesiac and the show takes place in a timeline which is (at least at first) significantly different from ours.
Completely pulled off in Nogizaka Haruka No Himitsu, Meido Nanami Nanashiro distracts the proud Otaku Nobunaga Asakura by telling him that seiyuu Kana Ueda is nearby and proceeds to mimic her voice to make Nobunaga 'chase' the seiyuu. Of course, Kana Ueda herself IS the seiyuu of Nanami.
Played with in the Hellboy film, which is based on a comics series: the titular demon is actually a pretty popular myth, on par with stuff like Yeti and Bigfoot (though perhaps slightly more believed), and has comics based on him, prompting a supporting character, upon meeting him, to be surprised that his comics hero from childhood is real, and for Hellboy himself to comment that he dislikes the comics as they get his eyes wrong.
- On the other side of the Canon, the graphic novel Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus has articles detailing the title character's in-world media appearances. One of the articles mentions that interest in remaking the largely inexplicable Mexican Lobster Johnson movies had been expressed by "acclaimed Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro".
- Referenced in Abe Kroenen, where Kroenen mentions that the Hellboy clone had gotten himself a job as a Hellboy impersonator. Abe asks if the clone has a partner impersonating him and Kroenen mentions that there is an Abe impersonator "but she's not very good at it".
Similarly, in Transformers Cybertron there is no "Transformers" cartoon but Transformers have become an urban legend. Somehow.
According to Word Of God, Saturday Night Live does not exist in the world of 30 Rock for this reason. Tina Fey has said that making reference to Eddie Murphy is about the closest the show could ever come to acknowledging the existence of SNL.
- In one episode, Liz and Tracy argue about Wayne Brady. A few episodes later, Wayne Brady appeared on the show as a character.
- In an early episode, Jack mentions watching Friends and asks about Ross and Rachel. Both David Schwimmer ("Ross") and Jennifer Aniston ("Rachel") later guest starred. And in an episode after Aniston's appearance, Jenna mentioned her (the actress, not the character).
- This MySpace page someone created for Liz Lemon lists Tina Fey as one of Liz's heroes.
Bobby Flay cameoed in an episode of Law And Order SVU as a TV chef who's enough like real Bobby Flay that if he wasn't playing himself he might as well have been. He had cheated on his wife—only since Flay is married to Stephanie March (Alex Cabot on SVU) in Real Life, on the show he had no wife to cheat on.
Both Spin City and Just Shoot Me have celebrities appear in regular roles as well as themselves, though no celebrity has ever done both.
At the end of the Clint Eastwood movie Any Which Way You Can, the cast is musing over their drinks in a bar, where the lounge singer is singing the song, "You're Just a Coca-Cola Cowboy," with the line "You've got a sexist smile and Robert Redford hair." The actual line in the song is "You've got an Eastwood smile and Robert Redford hair."
Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet was the R2D2 or C3PO of its day and has been used almost like a live action Animated Actor, making this one of the few times this trope applies to a nonhuman character. The Blu-Ray/HD home video version of the movie includes a Thin Man episode and a movie The Invisible Boy where Robby appears, under his own name; needless to say, characters are astonished by the robot but never associate it with a movie.
Arguably, this can occur in literature when characters are based around real people. For example, in Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, there are characters clearly based on real people like Gladstone and Disraeli, but on at least one occasion, the real people were referenced. Another example, is the problem of how to deal with Arthur Conan Doyle in a universe where Sherlock Holmes is a real person. A common idea is making him a literary agent, but if that was true, he likely wouldn't be as wealthy and famous in that universe as in reality.
A bonus cutscene in Metal Gear Solid 4, from the Verse's bizarre television, shows the actress Lee Meriwether (rather creepily) interviewing the screenwriter David Hayter — Meriwether and Dayter being the voice actors for Big Mama and Solid Snake respectively. In case we didn't get it, Dayter is dressed in a snakeskin jacket and digital eyepatch, and Meriwether talks to him in the somewhat stilted, poetic, dramatic tones of a Metal Gear character giving an important speech, only addressing him by his full name. Did we mention the Metal Gear Solid has No Fourth Wall?
- More subtly, Metal Gear Solid 3 mentions many movies which served as an inspiration for the game, and the first Metal Gear Solid ends (if you submit to the torture) with Snake openly discussing his Theme Naming with his new friend, Otacon (they're called Dave and Hal).
In an early Dawsons Creek episode, Joshua Jackson comments on how great "those ducks movies" were — a coy shout out to his role as Charlie in the Mighty Ducks films.
Averted in The Young Ones, where the characters are quite aware they are in a sitcom which is being broadcast. In fact, in one episode Neil's parents upbraid him for appearing in such a offensive sitcom and asked why he couldn't be in something nice like The Good Life.
3rd Rock From The Sun referenced William Shatner a couple of times before he became the Big Giant Head.
- In one episode, the cast asks the Big Giant Head how his flight was & he replies that it was terrible. there was a monster on the wing and no one would belive him. Dick assures The Big Giant Head that the same thing had happend to him. Of course, John Lithgow and William Shatner played the same part, in the Movie and the series respectivly.
- A companion book to the series includes an introduction by John Lithgow despite the book being written in an in-universe manner. Attached to the introduction is a note purportedly written by Dick in which he says he has no idea why it's there, but that Lithgow is an Earth actor from "some helicopter movie".
- Then there was the episode with George Takei...
Star Trek IV The Voyage Home was played largely as a Fish Out Of Temporal Water comedy in which the Enterprise crew goes back to The Present Day (1986). You have to wonder why they never meet anyone who has heard of Star Trek.
- The same could be asked of the Star Trek Voyager two-parter Future's End where the crew of Voyager find themselves in the mid-90s (especially confusing at they appear at a time where the Eugenics War should be raging, but this apparently has had no effect on the people of California).
In the real world, the first (test) Space Shuttle was named "Enterprise" in honor of Star Trek. That Enterprise does appear among the models of earlier ships to bear the name that Picard keeps in his ready room, and appears in the montage during the opening credits to Star Trek Enterprise, though the reason for its name is presumably different (presumably, the same reason as Kirk's Enterprise: "Enterprise" is a name with a long naval history).
- In Star Trek: Enterprise, the second Warp-5 ship was named the Columbia by the shows writers in tribute to crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia who had recently died in the Columbia Disaster. The in universe reason given for this name, was that it was taken from the second space shuttle, with the implication that the Starship Enterprise is supposed to be named for the space shuttle.
In a Saturday Night Live sketch from the 2008 U.S. election with Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton mocks her "Tina Fey glasses".
In the 2007 St Trinians movie, Colin Firth plays the Minister for Education — which means that we get jokes about a dog named "Mr. Darcy" and a reference to The Girl With A Pearl Earring.
On Will And Grace, Britney Spears is referenced many times by the characters, particularly Jack, who has memorized her dance moves and even swears on her name ("Britney Spears Federline!"). Yet when she appears as a special guest star as Jack's new co-host, he doesn't comment on how much she looks like his idol.
- Similarly, Jack says, "Me digs Taye Diggs," in one episode. When Grace later married Will's boyfriend James, Jack never noted the resemblance.
- On the other hand, when he meets Cher, he initially assumes she's a drag queen dressed as Cher.
- Also there's the paradox presented by Bernadette Peters. One episode opens with Jack holding up a lock of her hair that he recently acquired for a "Broadway Diva Wig" (leading to a confrontation with Patti LuPone), but then in a later episode she plays Karen's sister Gin.
In Kids Incorporated, they did a cover version of "More Than You Know" by Martika, herself a former star of the series, making one wonder if she exists in the KI universe.
- Almost every character in the series was The Danza, playing a character of the same name as the actor, so one might suppose that the character and the actor were meant to be the same person. Ironically, Martika was one of the few characters who wasn't (her character was named Gloria).
- Bonus point in that said cover was performed by Stacy Ferguson, who by the 1989 season was the last cast member left who had worked with her.
Final Destination. It's Very Loosely Based On A True Story. Nobody remarks about the extremely similar 747 crash four years earlier.
In one episode of Hermans Head, Louise angrily snaps "I do not!" into the phone, slams the receiver back into the cradle, and then asks, "Herman, I don't sound like Lisa Simpson, do I?" Louise, of course, was played by Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson.
A particularly complex example is in Man on the Moon, a Bio Pic of Andy Kaufman. Danny DeVito plays Kaufman's agent George Shapiro. DeVito was also a producer of the film, and explained in a making-of short that he had wanted to play Shapiro from the beginning — not realizing that this paradox would be created because he had played Louie DePalma on Taxi, which was Kaufman's biggest mainstream success and thus had to be brought up in the film. The solution was to write out Louie (and thus the real DeVito) from the Taxi-related scenes (though, in an early script draft, there was going to be an aside referencing the character and thus the paradox as an in-joke). At least one critic admitted he hadn't noticed Louie's absence until later, perhaps in part because most of the other Taxi cast members appeared as themselves.
- Tony Clifton's character on Taxi was supposed to be Louie's brother.
- DeVito's characters in the movie and Taxi were visually and dramatically distinct enough that he arguably could have still appeared as himself/Louie. The mustache alone is all the license you need.
Monk: In the season one finale, Tim Daly makes an appearance as himself. Sharona mentions that he was in the show Wings. So who plays Antonio in the Monk-world? If it's Tony Shalhoub, Adrian must be pretty sick of people telling him how much he looks like Antonio.
All the remakes of Miracle on 34th Street (there are no less than four of them, five if you count the Broadway musical) are presumably set in a world where the 1947 classic doesn't exist.
The Harry Potter spin-off books Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages each begins with an introduction purportedly written by Albus Dumbledore in which he describes how proceeds from the book will go to a fund set up in Harry Potter's name by Comic Relief UK and JK Rowling. This, of course, raises the question of how exactly Rowling can exist within the Harry Potter universe.
- Fyre's The Eighth Weasley — a Harry Potter crossover Fan Fic set after Voldemort's defeat — explicitly states that the Harry Potter books exist alongside the Wizarding World (to the consternation of the latter), and strongly hints that "JK Rowling" is merely a pen name behind which is hiding Hermione.
In one The Dark Tower book (The Waste Lands) Eddie Dean compares a haunted house the characters escaped to the one in Kubrick's The Shining.
- King infamously believes that the movie is different enough from his original work for it to be considered its own work. Presumably Kubrick made the movie in Eddie's world without the source material.
- King also referred to The Shining movie in The Tommyknockers.
The first scene of Tango and Cash has Tango saying "Rambo is a pussy." Guess who plays Tango.
Adaptation., starring Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage, is about a playwright's struggles to adapt Orlean's book The Orchid Thief to film. Streep plays the film version of Orlean (who really existed, and really did write The Orchid Thief), with Cage starring as screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Guess who wrote the actual film? Charlie Kaufman.
- And then you realize that the screenplay being written by the film's Charlie Kaufman is the screenplay for the actual film you are watching.
Super Robot Wars loves to play with its Hey Its That Voice casting like this, with characters mentioning other characters' similar voices, and even making Shout Outs.
The Double Dragon arcade game makes a cameo appearance in a scene in The Movie adaptation, and is then destroyed during the fight that follows. The Nostalgia Critic made a big fuss about this in his review of the film and points out that the game being destroyed is an appropriate analogy.
In Spiderman The Animated Series, we at the end have episodes with many realities. In one of those, Spider-Man doesn't exist — but the comics and films do, and Peter Parker is an actor who plays him.
- This raises the question of who the secret identity of the fictional Spider-Man in that universe is, unless Parker is using The Danza.
In one Darkwing Duck episode, Darkwing tries to sell a screenplay about himself, but the studio rejects him. He threatens: "I think Disney will be more forthcoming!"
In a case of works, rather than actors, existing in universe, Rent is a 20th century adaptation of La Boheme. In the show, Roger plays a strain of music on his guitar and Mark comments that it sounds like "Musetta's Waltz"... which is from La Boheme. One wonders if the characters noticed how closely their lives reflected the opera.
In the film The Freshman, Matthew Broderick's character tells Marlon Brando's, "You know, you look an awful lot like the Godfather." The problem was that Marlon Brando tripled his body mass between movies, so he didn't really look that much like The Godfather.
In the South Park episode "Passion of the Jew", Stan and Kenny want to get their money back from Mel Gibson just as they did from BASEketBall.
An odd variation on this occured in an episode of Green Acres. The cast decided to put on a play based on the "popular television show", The Beverly Hillbillies. That would be fine, except The Beverly Hillbillies takes place in the same universe as Green Acres, along with Petticoat Junction, with characters frequently crossing over from one show to another. Which means that in The Beverly Hillbillies universe, there is a TV show called The Beverly Hillbillies, featuring the characters of Jed, Jethro, Granny and Elly May, which those same characters could then watch. One wonders who played the characters on the show.
- Also, one of Lisa's talents is doing Zsa Zsa Gabor impressions. No word on whether she does Eva.
- An episode of The Beverly Hillbillies featured Jed Clampett (played by Buddy Ebsen) reminiscing about how he'd seen Buddy Ebsen's song and dance act.
Invoked by Lost, possibly intentionally: Sawyer calls Karl "Cheech," and then Cheech Marin shows up playing Hurley's father a scant two episodes later.
Literary example: Characters in some of Douglas Coupland's books have read his other books.
Used to effect in Fight Club: There's a scene where Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter are talking outside a movie theatre, after Norton has discovered that Brad Pitt's character is his split personality. The movie playing is Seven Years in Tibet, a subtle reminder that Pitt's character is invisibly present in this scene.
Flight Of The Conchords is set in a world where The Lord Of The Rings movies were made and filmed in New Zealand, but nobody mentions the fact that Brett McKenzie looks alarmingly like one of the elves.
- Although Bret wasn't in the film for very long, and given the nature of the Conchords characters, it's entirely possible that no-one thinks it worthy of comment.
Disputed in the Cthulhu Mythos: orthodox fans (as well as the game Call Of Cthulhu) assume that Howard P. Lovecraft is absent from this universe, but in a move that would be controversial in hindsight, August Derleth made Lovecraft a character in the Mythos. Fan consensus dismisses Derleth's idea.
- Lovecraft does show up as a historical background character in the partly Mythos-inspired Whateley Universe; his stories are acknowledged as fictionalized accounts of real in-universe events, at least some of which he was personally involved in.
In CSI New York, nobody comments on Detective Mac Taylor's remarkable resemblance to Gary Sinise, but he does share last names with Sinise's most famous recent role, Dan Taylor.
In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Luigi's parallel adventures are published as serial novels under the title "Super Paper Luigi".
- Captain Lou Albano played Mario in both the live-action and animated segments of The Super Mario Bros Super Show. In a particularly memorable live-action segment, Luigi mentions that Mario idolizes Captain Lou, who goes missing. Albano appears at the end of the episode, shortly after Mario leaves...
- In the Super Mario Adventures comic serial that ran in Nintendo Power, the first thing we see Princess Peach doing is playing a Super Mario Bros. game.
There is a Star Trek: The Next Generation/X-men crossover novel written that has, Picard meeting Xavier. The resemblance they have to each other is noted. It was written before the X-men movies.
In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Poole recalls an old sci-fi author who said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
In the movie Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, walking thro' a rock club in a flashback within the film, Depp as Thompson narrates, 'There I was...,' suddenly stopping when he spots the real Dr Hunter S. Thompson in the shot, exclaiming, 'Mother of God, there I am! Holy fuck....
Apparently, the American version of Life On Mars is an astronaut going to Mars, thinking of the song "Life on Mars," picturing himself in an American version of Life On Mars. Or Was It A Dream? (Yeah.)
In the Kings episode "Judgment Day", Prince Jack says, "Everyone wants an old-school lord and master. Cutting a few babies in half." in a reference to the Judgment Of Solomon... except that since Kings is a retelling of the story of Solomon's father, King David, the original Judgment Of Solomon story shouldn't exist in their universe.
- Alternatively, that universe has the same Bible we do. This would explain why a newspaper thinks the headline DAVID SLAYS GOLIATH means anything. But the parallel between the Bible story and the modern David's career would start to freak people out eventually.
Sanford And Son has Fred G. Sanford winning a Redd Foxx lookalike contest.
In the Grand Theft Auto universe, California and New York City don't exist, having been replaced by San Andreas and Liberty City respectively, but some of the songs on the radio still reference California and New York City. For example, Grand Theft Auto IV takes place in Liberty City, but the song list still includes "New York Groove" by Hello.
- A radio DJ in Vice City Stories explicitly mentions New York at one point.
One issue of Teen Titans had them explaining to Impulse why he couldn't just release their real names to the public. He wonders why not since they're all in the Teen Titans and Justice League comics he's holding. Superboy points out that those aren't their real names. Which confuses Impulse as he's been calling Superman Dirk for months.
In Moliére's play The Imaginary Invalid, which satirizes the medicine of the era, the brother of Argan, the hypochondriac main character asks him if he would like to see a Moliére play. Argan angrily berates Moliére for making fun of doctors. So, the trope is Older Than Steam.
Played with on Las Vegas when "Big Ed" Deline, played by James Caan, is shooting a commercial for the Montecito, and can't act. The director tries to get him to act more naturally by referencing a conversation with Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Ed looks confused for a second before saying he has no idea what the director is talking about.
In Crank: High Voltage a witness is asked to describe Jason Statham's character, Chev Chelios, and refers to him as "like the man from those Transporter movies." Guess who plays the Transporter.
On the sitcom Hope & Gloria Alan Thicke played both himself and a talk show host named Dennis Dupree who despises Thicke for looking just like him. This eventually leads to a fistfight between the two during a Growing Pains reunion on Dupree's show.
Katy Perry's "Waking Up In Vegas" has a rather bizarre version. In the video, Perry plays a woman tooling around Vegas with her boyfriend. They hit a run of good luck, then a run of bad luck. You could reasonably assume that some random woman wouldn't be able to phone up Perry's agent or whoever and ask for more money, but the character actually plays some of Perry's songs on her conspicuous phone, including "Waking Up in Vegas". Complete with album cover. Presumably, the music video for the song hasn't been released yet, or the character hasn't seen it yet, or it's much different from what it is in this world.
In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer "Season 8" comics, we see Bufffy and Dawn are big fans of Veronica Mars, although no mention is made to the fact that actors from Buffy have appeared on Veronica Mars, as well as show creator Joss Whedon.
An episode of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter confirmed that Threes Company definitely exists in-universe, but Paul Hennessy's remarkable resemblance to Jack Tripper is never commented on. To make things even more bizarre, Paul then has a dream sequence resembling Threes Company wherein he plays the part of not Jack, but Mr. Roper.