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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Following

Mutually Fictional

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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mutually_fictional_4153.jpg

In Show A, you watch TV. In show B, the TV watches YOU. This is a special kind of crossover trope in which the characters from Show A will enter the universe of Show B—both shows of which are "real" to us. In other words, neither is a Show Within a Show. In addition to finding out that they're trapped in the universe of Show B, the characters of Show A discover that they themselves are the subject of a Show A in the universe of Show B. The characters from Show A are, in essence, simultaneously Trapped in TV Land and a Refugee from TV Land. This isn't Real-World Episode, since both universes are depicted as being equally "real".

A situation in which Show A is fictional in Show B and Show B is fictional in Show A isn't an example of this trope if they never share a continuity; if in A's continuity B is just fiction and vice versa. This could happen with two completely unrelated works that each incorporate real world elements that happen to include the other work.

This is a relatively common trope used in Crossover Fan Fic.

Strictly speaking, this kind of crossover should never logically be allowed to exist. At the very least, the particular episode of each series or work which references the other should be assumed to not exist within the other's universe. Otherwise, you would have a situation wherein it would be distinctly possible for the main characters to see the TV show of their entire reality within said reality, realize their entire existence was a lie, and freak out. And we wouldn't want that, now would we?

One possible justification would be if the two worlds are simply Alternate Universes and the "shows" in question are based on visions people have from the other world. In this case, expect the characters trying to establish what in this show is correct and what is not. It could also be the case that the creators of Show B, within the universe of Show A, simply decided to set Show B in a world where the main characters of Show A don't exist, but acknowledge their impact by making them fictional instead- though this explanation breaks down if the world at large, and particularly the media, shouldn't know about the events of Show A in the first place. Unfortunately, the Fiction Identity Postulate proves that all fiction is equally unreal. And anyone living in an Alternate Universe may be, by definition, fictional.

This is where Recursive Canon meets Recursive Reality. May create an accidental Intercontinuity Crossover.

See also Celebrity Paradox. Comic Books Are Real is a one-sided version, usually dealing with a Show Within a Show instead of another real-life series. Compare Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either, where each side believes the other is only stories prior to meeting, but both have always been fact and that's what the stories are based on. Contrast Stable Time Loop, which leads to a similar Ontological Paradox.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Comic Books 
  • Once upon a time, Milestone Comics and DC Comics' Superman books participated in a Crisis Crossover, Worlds Collide (1994). The story started with a mailman in the DC Universe who went to sleep and dreamed of waking up and working as a mailman in the Milestone universe (or vice versa), until other strange things started happening in both universes. The Blood Syndicate (essentially a streetgang with powers) were the first Milestone characters to meet Superman, and although they thought he was just a local wannabe, they all immediately knew who Superman was, what he could do, etc., because Superman was a comic book character in the Milestone 'verse. ("Does your mama know you left the house looking like Clark Kent?!"note ). Superman doesn't have the same benefits, realistically, since the Milestone Comics characters were hardly a household name, and he's not much of a comic fanboy. As the mailman develops into a Reality Warper, and reveals that he was an Ascended Fanboy of comic books, both the Milestone and Super-family characters start to believe that the other universe was created by the mailman's powers, which complicates their efforts to stop the new supervillain.
    • Static, an Ascended Fanboy, lampshades this; he drops his knowledge of Post-Crisis Superboy's history, and explains "I read all your comic books! Don't you read all of my comic books? (Do I have comic books?)"
    • In the wake of a Cosmic Retcon, the two universes have now been merged with a new, shared history. Only a handful of people (including Superman) remember that they were ever separate.
  • This happens to Superman a lot; it used to be that DC/Marvel crossovers operated under the conceit that the characters, if they didn't know of each other, at least operated in the same reality for the duration of the crossover (Spider-Man/Batman, for example), but after DC vs. Marvel/Marvel vs. DC, they were explicitly separate realities. It is true that the Fantastic Four knew of Superman from the events of that crossover in Superman/Fantastic Four, it was also established that Ben Grimm and Franklin Richards knew of Superman from the exploits of his comic book counterpart, and watch Superman: The Animated Series. Incidentally, Marvel vs. DC played with a retcon of Spider-Man/Batman when the Joker recognized Spider-Man from somewhere. Of course, since S/B was set before the Spider-clone saga and DC vs. Marvel was set during it, Ben Reilly didn't recognize the Joker from Peter Parker's adventure.
  • In Watchmen, DC Comics existed in their timeline but the complications caused by real costumed vigilantes have led to superhero comics falling out of popularity. Superheroes that are cultural icons in our world have long since fallen into obscurity by the events of the story, which is why nobody notices the similarities between Nite Owl and Batman or between Rorschach and The Question. However in the DC universe, Watchmen is a comic as well which the Question at one point reads and tries to emulate (which doesn't go well for him).
    • This is lampshaded in the Intra-Franchise Crossover Doomsday Clock when Ozymandias and Rorschach end up in the DC Universe and while seeking more information Ozymandias points out that several of the existing heroes are fictional in their universe, leading them to theorize Dr. Manhattan was somehow responsible.
  • Pre-Crisis at least, Earth-Two was fictional to Earth-One, which is why the writers had to create the multiverse so that Barry Allen could have a crossover with Jay Garrick. In Barry's first appearance, he mentioned how Jay was his favorite comic book hero, but lamented how the Flash was merely a fictional character. In a later story, Barry travelled to Earth-D where he was a fictional character and the local version of the Flash, Tanaka Rei, grew up idolizing Barry Allen and reading Barry's adventures in comics just as Barry had grown up reading Jay's comics.
  • Early crossovers between Superman and Shazam! had Shazam as a popular comic book on Earth-One and Superman as a comic on Shazam's homeworks, Earth-S.
  • The first Futurama/Simpsons Bongo Comics crossover comes about as the Brainspawn zapped the Planet Express crew into an old Simpsons comic. The second has the Simpsons characters and later, many other fictional characters materialising into the reality of Futurama from a comic by one of Farnsworth's inventions. However in their Bongo Comics crossovers, The Simpsons are pointed out as the fictional ones in Futurama's "real" universe. It should be only one way, being built off the idea in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" where the Brain can take people into worlds of fiction but since Matt Groening cameos on The Simpsons as the creator of Futurama...
  • Terra Obscura. Their science heroes are the stars of comic books in Tom Strong's world, and vice versa.
  • Jimmy Olsen in Superman comics is a fan of the Spin Doctors, a band with a Superman-inspired album and a song about Jimmy Olsen.
  • The Multiversity canonizes the idea that all comic book universes exist as entertainment in someone else's universe. Throughout the series, we actually see random characters reading other comics, most of which are other issues in the series. Or, in the words of Captain Carrot, as the Superman of Earth-23 reads a copy◊ of Action Comics v2 #9:
    "I always suspected that one world's reality is another's fiction. That's why I like happy endings!"
  • A four issue miniseries had Mr. Mxyzptlk and The Do-Do collide in interdimensional transit and conspire to cause mischief by mixing up their worlds. Superheroes recognize the Looney Tunes from their cartoons, and Foghorn recognizes Clark Kent as Superman because he's "had a subscription to Action Comics since [he] was an egg." The whole crossover ends with Clark reading a Looney Tunes comic at the Daily Planet, where Perry White has just found the singing frog - all of which is seen by Bugs Bunny, who's reading a DC comic.

    Fan Works 
  • Fan Fic author Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead used this trope to invert the Self-Insert Fic trope of Author Avatars knowing everything about the worlds they visit; there's always a Show Within a Show based on his life in each fictional world his SI visits, and at least one of the characters is guaranteed to be a fan.
  • In the Harry Potter and Fate/stay night crossover Fan Fic "Fictional", Harry is a servant created by Caster from the book series. A big part of the plot is Harry coming to terms that all of his hardships were fictional and how to deal with it after the obligatory freak out. And you know, deal with being a slave (*cough* Servant). He also has to hide his scar, because other people freak out when they meet Harry Potter too.
  • The Infinite Loops actually justifies this trope. The admins responsible for repairing the multiverse store backups of universes wherever they can, which has the side effect of making the natives write fiction about that universe. The Hub universe is simply the most well protected and undamaged area, which is why we have all this fiction....
  • In the first chapter of Walking in the Shadows, D'hoffryn brings Xander to Smallville to have a chat. During the conversation, he mentions forgetting that both are fictional in the opposite universe.
  • Played with in M. McGregor's The Wonderland Subject, a dimension-hopping Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Ultimate Marvel crossover in which each universe has fiction based on the other one. Xander and Jean Grey spend quite a while being fannish at each other.
  • In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, characters make several references to Lucky Star — which, in turn, contains many references to Haruhi Suzumiya.
  • In Origin Story, Xander used to read Marvel Comics and in the Marvel Universe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a fairly popular show though it only got two seasons and had a different cast (All of whom are a Mythology Gag from original casting ideas).
  • My Hero Playthrough: Canon!Izuku and Bakugou appear as Bosses in a Reflective Dungeon. An Omake in the same chapter has canon!Izuku experiencing the fight as a dream, commenting on the oddness of seeing Momo wearing "biker's leathers and a helmet", and fighting Sailor Mercury and a girl wielding electromagnetic powers that Shoto (of all people) identifies as Mikoto Misaka from the RailDex series.
  • It happens in crossover Echoes of Yesterday. In Earth-Bet, both DC Comics and Marvel Comics exist. Taylor Hebert used to believe their heroes were merely fictional characters who fell out of fashion several decades before her time, until she is rescued by one. When she expresses bewilderment at the fact that she's been saved by a comic-book character, Kara replies the Multiverse is infinite and Taylor life's history is guaranteed to be a fictional tale in other parallel realities, including her own universe.
  • In Fairy Tail Redux: Salamander's Time Traveling Escapades, Fairy Tail's characters are fictional in the Rave Master, Animal Land, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and When They Cry universes, and vice versa.
  • This trope is discussed, within the context of a single work, in the My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! fanfic Clashing Lives of a Villainess. The premise of My Next Life as a Villainess involves a Japanese teenage girl who died and reincarnated in the universe of Fortune Lover, a Romance Game she played shortly before she died, as Katarina Claes, the games main villainess. In Clashing Lives, Katarina and Maria, Fortune Lover's original Player Character, get transported into the universe Katarina once lived. When Maria notices a copy of Fortune Lover and its uncanny similarity to the universe she always lives in, Katarina's brother in her past life suggests the two universes are equally real and mutually fictional. This is collaborated by Maria who noticed a fantasy novel in her dimension happens to be a historically accurate account of Napoléon Bonaparte in the other dimension...
  • Paragons of Virtue and Glory: The heroes notice that many of the Remnant people they've met are similar to fictional characters from their world, while fictional characters from Remnant media like comic books are also real people from the MHA world.
  • In Chapter 18 of Ais A, SG-1 and MV-1(Fairy Tail's Strongest Team) end up in the Clancyverse, which Jack recognizes as he's read the books. He then gets the attention of people very high up by blowing a few secrets open in the right ears. Team Rainbow naturally can't trace or identify any of his teammates until somebody does a Google search and finds the Fairy Tail manga. It later turns out that the Clancyverse has the shows/games of nearly all of the MVTF's member universes, many of which are farther ahead than the universes were when they joined (for example MV-5 (the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series universe) is only just past Tiberium Dawn/Renegade, while the series up to Tiberium Wars is out in the Clancyverse.)

    Film 

    Literature 
  • From Through the Looking-Glass:
    "What ... is ... this?" he said at last.
    "This is a child!" Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. "We only found it to-day. It's as large as life, and twice as natural!"
    "I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?"
    "It can talk," said Haigha, solemnly.
    The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said "Talk, child."
    Alice could not help her lips curing up into a smile as she began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too! I never saw one alive before!"
    "Well, now that we have seen each other," said the Unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?"
    "Yes, if you like," said Alice.
  • Played for Laughs in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. After a Dimensional Traveller takes Sherlock Holmes across the dimensional barrier to meet Frankenstein, it transpires that Holmes thinks Frankenstein is fictional, and Frankenstein thinks Holmes is fictional.
  • Robert A. Heinlein's The Number of the Beast introduces the concept of the "World as Myth" which supposes that all fictional universes are equally real and, moreover, are accessible to one another via interdimensional travel. The act of authorship is what creates said universes, which leads to the interesting notion that the characters in any given universe may be controlled, at any given moment, by an Author from another. Or that characters could, in theory, meet their own Author. The novel concludes in a Massively Multiplayer Crossover whereby the protagonists host a convention of characters from nearly every Science Fiction and Fantasy universe ever.
    • The subsequent novels The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset run with the concept to its logical conclusion, in which the characters wage running pandimensional battles against groups of agents from other realities, all competing to see which can rewrite history to their whims.
  • Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle contains a Subversion. The novel is an Alternate History describing a hypothetical timeline in which the Axis won World War II and conquered the United States. And in the novel's 'verse exists another novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which is itself an Alternate History novel describing a hypothetical timeline in which the Allies won WWII, but which is not our reality. For example, in it, the British Empire is the dominant global power.
  • Scots author Quintin Jardine has written two long-running series: Skinner, about a high-ranking Edinburgh police detective, and Oz Blackstone, a private detective and part-time actor. In at least one Blackstone novel he is involved in making a film based on the Skinner books, while the Blackstone novels themselves appear in Skinner's world.
  • The Goosebumps series had a recursive fiction paradox. For example, a couple of the main books and a lot of the Choose Your Own Adventure books mention the main character having read about something like their situation in a Goosebumps book. In a good deal of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books, you need to know about the book being referenced to get a good ending!
  • The SF novel "Worlds Apart" by Richard Cowper is a particularly tricky case. A invented B and B A, but at the end both universes merge.
  • In Terry Pratchett's The Science of Discworld, the wizards create a universe containing 'Roundworld', where physics works but magic and narrative logic don't. The computer Hex tells them not to destroy it because "Recursion has occured".
  • Okay, this gets complicated: In Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next book Well of Lost Plots, Thursday is hiding out in the Bookworld, in an unpublished crime novel called Caversham Heights, along with two Generics, one of whom takes the form of Lola Vavoom, an actress frequently mentioned in the Thursday books. At the end of the book, Caversham Heights becomes a sanctuary for nursery rhyme characters, turning into a nursery rhyme/crime novel mashup. The Nursery Crime books are supposed to be what Caversham Heights becomes, and The Big Over Easy mentions that that version of Lola Vavoom has a backstory that includes appearing in an adaptation of The Eyre Affair, the first book in the Thursday Next series.
  • The Railway Series has a Direct Line to the Author; the Kayfabe is that the Rev. Wilbert Awdry has really visited Sodor and writes about events he heard about or witnessed there. Thomas and the Great Railway Show reveals that Thomas & Friends exists as an in-universe TV show that's an adaptation of these books. Then, towards the end of Thomas & Friends' run, it's revealed that Wilbert Awdry and The Railway Series exists in that universe as well, which means that both continuities exist as Based on a True Story works within each other.
  • House of Leaves: Used recursivelynote : According to the story of the novel, Will Navidson is fictional. (Even though he's also the protagonist of the main narrative. It's complicated to say the least.) At the very end of the story, he starts reading House of Leaves.

    This is far weirder than it sounds, because even with all The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You Mind Screw with a convoluted Framing Device, certain rules have been established, and this breaks all of them. For one thing, even though the manuscript detailing Navidson's experiences becomes frighteningly real, all rational evidence has so far indicated it to be a fake, whereas this detail is basically impossible and apparently magical all things considered. For another, even thought he "manuscript" is full of notes highlighting all its oddities and inconsistencies as well as overanalysing everything, nobody comments anything about this book House of Leaves — not Navidson, who should see it's his own story, not Zampàno with his obsessive analysis and background on everything, not Johnny Truant who apparently gave his unfinished edit of the manuscript the name House of Leaves before he even got to this part and who's been going nuts because of the way it has intruded into his life. After all that commentary that contained the story even though it didn't keep it from seeming far too real, you're suddenly hit with this impossibility that nobody acknowledges, and which no commentary could contain if it tried.
  • Wildbow, author of Worm, Pact, and Twig, among others, frequently includes references to his other stories, usually as fictional works in-universe. In Worm, when glancing through various alternate timelines, Taylor briefly glimpses an old house surrounded by roses, the setting of Pact, while "Weaverdice" (a game based on Worm) is mentioned as a tabletop game in Pact. Twig mentions dime store novels based on the previous two works. Pale has the characters note a painting of a group of 1920's-era children in a field of red flowers, a clear allusion to Twig.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Mexican shows El Chapulín Colorado and El Chavo del ocho recursively reference each other at different points, and they eventually got a crossover where the El Chavo characters believe Chapulín is only a fictional superhero and are surprised he really exists, there's also jokes about how Chavo and Chapulín are played by the same actor.
  • There was a crossover between Power Rangers and the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. It's particularly amusing when one of the turtles laughs off a mention of the rangers as comic book characters.
  • An episode of The Twilight Zone (1959) entitled "A World of His Own" somehow managed to do this to itself. The story deals with a writer named Gregory West who can cause fictional characters to appear in real life if he dictates descriptions of them into his tape recorder, and cause them to disappear again by burning the tape he described them on. At the end of the episode, as is traditional Rod Serling appears to give the story's closing narration.
    Rod Serling: We hope you enjoyed tonight's romantic story on The Twilight Zone. At the same time, we want you to realize that it was, of course, purely fictional. In real life, such ridiculous nonsense could never...
    Gregory West: [suddenly breaks the fourth wall and acknowledges Rod Serling] Rod! You shouldn't!
    Rod Serling: ...
    Gregory West: I mean, you shouldn't say such things as "nonsense" and "ridiculous! [takes out tape labeled "Rod Serling" and throws it into the fire]
    Rod Serling: [resigned] Well, that's the way it goes... [vanishes]
  • In Mad About You, there is an episode where Paul visits an old apartment of his. That apartment happens to be across the hall from Jerry Seinfeld's and he runs into and has a rather poignant conversation with current tenant Kramer. But in a later episode of Seinfeld, George is forced to suffer watching an episode of Mad About You with his fiancee Susan.
  • Doctor Who is fictional in EastEnders: they have a character who is a fan (Bradley) who even goes to a Doctor Who convention at one point. EastEnders is also fictional in Doctor Who wherein Jackie Tyler is a fan, and EastEnders appears Show Within a Show style in "Army of Ghosts". The Doctor also references it in "The Satan Pit". There was a crossover between them in 1993 for Children in Need, "Dimensions In Time". In the crossover, neither show acknowledges the other's fictionality and it isn't considered in continuity for either (one explanation touted by Doctor Who Spin Off Media is that it was All Just a Dream of the Seventh Doctor).
  • Sherlock does this in "The Abominable Bride", which is set up as an Alternate Universe featuring the modern-day Sherlock characters in the Victorian setting of the original Sherlock Holmes novels, before revealing the whole thing is taking place in modern-day Sherlock's head as he tries to figure out how Moriarty could still be alive. But the end cuts back to Victorian Sherlock and John, and Sherlock speculates on what their lives would be like in a hypothetical future... his descriptions, of course, matching the modern-day adaptation exactly.
  • References to characters watching Passions started showing up during season four of Buffy. Shortly afterward, Passions characters started watching Buffy. Also, characters in Buffy have talked about Xena: Warrior Princess, whereas, while they clearly can't have a television show on Xena, there is a play called 'Buffus the Bacchae Slayer'. Of course, as Xena is both told by a literary agent and fictional within itself, it's anyone's guess as to what is actually going on.
  • Sort-of real life example - the series Bones is inspired by the work of author Kathy Reichs. In the series, the heroine is an author who writes novels about a character named Kathy Reichs.
    • The novel character seems very close to the author in personality, though the events of each plot, per Reichs' afterwords, are only based on the broadest strokes of real-life cases. The television character is almost completely different from the novel character. It's really just the names.
    • Dr. Temperance Brennan gets a honorable cameo appearance in Fforde's Thursday Next series, which runs on recursive fictionality.
  • A tricky one: Green Acres coexists with Petticoat Junction, and Petticoat Junction coexists with The Beverly Hillbillies, but Beverly Hillbillies is fictional on Green Acres (and is Eb's favorite show).
    • In one episode of Green Acres Eb even watches an episode of Petticoat Junction.
  • Leverage and Psych are both mentioned as TV shows in each other's universes, but unfortunately, that leads to a What Could Have Been, because if Psych hadn't made Leverage fictional in their universe, Word of God says that Leverage's Eliot would've had an uncle named Henry.
  • Batman (1966) and The Green Hornet present a particularly snarly version of this trope:
    • An episode of The Green Hornet establishes that Batman is a (presumably fictional) television show in his continuity.
    • Likewise, in the Batman episode "The Impractical Joker," Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Alfred are watching a news program about how Batman and Robin were made helpless by a new Joker device earlier in the day. In disgust, Bruce asks Dick to change the channel, noting that The Green Hornet is about to come on. We don't get to see any of that, as Joker breaks into the TV channel's signal to gloat and taunt Batman over the airwaves.
    • Yet, The Green Hornet and Kato appear as a "Batclimb Cameo" - a regular occurrence where Batman and Robin are climbing a building and a celebrity or TV character appears to ask what they're up to. (Often this was used to plug other shows on ABC - including The Addams Family, Hogan's Heroes, and "The Felony Squad.") In that interaction, the Dynamic Duo greets the Green Hornet and Kato as fellow heroes from another city.
    • After that cameo, the Green Hornet and Kato appear as "special guest heroes" in the Batman two-parter "A Piece of the Action/Batman's Satisfaction." This time, the Green Hornet and Kato are treated as villains - because that's what their public persona was in their own show - gangsters looking to get "a piece of the action" and end up taking down criminal enterprises from within.
  • In The X-Files, a character is seen watching an episode of The Simpsons. Fortunately, it's not the episode where David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson appeared as Mulder and Scully. In Comic Book Guy's shop, one can see a poster to the X-Files movie.
  • Eek! The Cat did an X-Files parody, and was also shown in an X-Files episode "Eve" where one of the little murderous clones watched the animation.
  • Dr. House watches Gossip Girl and Blair Waldorf watches House. Leighton Meester, the actress who plays Blair, also guest-starred on an episode of House as a teenager in love with the titular character. In the 2011 movie The Oranges Hugh Laurie plays a man who falls in love with a friend's daughter... played by Meester.
  • In Community Abed's favorite TV show is Cougar Town and in one episode he talks about guest starring on it. In one episode of Cougar Town Laurie and Travis watch the first season of Community on DVD. This eventually came full circle with Laurie and Travis as bit characters in the season finale of Community and Abed as a bit character on the season finale of Cougar Town. A later episode of Community had Abed, Meta Guy that he is, explaining the Mind Screw the whole thing had been for him.
  • In Stargate SG-1, Jack O'Neill makes several references to The Simpsons, Richard Dean Anderson himself, being a huge fan. In season eight, Dan Castellaneta makes a guest appearance (even agreeing with Jack that Mr Burns is the perfect analogy for the Goa'uld). Just to make it more confusing, Anderson once appeared as himself in an episode of The Simpsons and, oh yes, they mention his work in Stargate SG-1.
  • Arrowverse:
    • In The Flash (2014), Cisco has worn a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock t-shirt, based on The Big Bang Theory, while Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory has worn Flash t-shirts and costumes.
    • In Superman & Lois, Clark mentions watching Seinfeld reruns. Famously, Jerry Seinfeld is a big fan of Superman and worked Superman references into every episode of Seinfeld.
  • The plot line in Red Dwarf where the Dwarf crew realise they are fictional characters, and the only way for Dave Lister to escape the situation and re-assert independent reality involves going onto the set of a soap opera called Coronation Street, where an actor called Craig Charles plays a genial taxi-driver who is something of a laid-back, somewhat scruffy, Scouse slacker... it all gets eye-wateringly recursive after a while.
  • In the episode "The Grasshopper Experiment" of The Big Bang Theory, Howard says that Raj's parents, who are doctors, probably love Scrubs, because it's a medical-themed TV show. In the episode "Our Driving Issues" of Scrubs, Dr. Cox says that he needs to watch The Big Bang Theory so that he can figure out why it's so popular.
  • In the first episode of Class (2016), spin off of Doctor Who, April compares their school to the Hellmouth of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Buffy, Andrew mentions having watched every episode of Doctor Who.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "The Tsuranga Conundrum", the Doctor's companion Graham says he's never missed an episode of Call the Midwife, while an episode of Call the Midwife set in 1964 had the main characters watching the contemporary Doctor Who serial "The Aztecs". (Sister Monica Joan finds it greatly exciting, the others seem more uncertain.)
  • The Office sometimes makes references to various Muppet productions. One episode of The Muppets (2015) features Ed Helms as himself, and he mentions his role on The Office.
  • When Rachel auditions at FOX studios in Glee there is a New Girl poster hanging in the office. Shivran on New Girl make's fun of Nick's new track suit by calling him "Jane Lynch" a reference to her character on Glee, Sue Sylvester, who always wears a track suit.
  • In an episode of Wynonna Earp, Nicole Haught mentions wanting to see Waverly in Sara Lance cosplay. Legends of Tomorrow returned the favor, when after Sara is captured by the creator of the Ava clones, he mentions "15 seasons of Wynonna Earp" to occupy her while she takes her time deciding what to do next.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Star Trek is frequently mentioned in modern Doctor Who as where most people's ideas of aliens and space travel come from. Doctor Who is mentioned less often in Star Trek, but the Diane Duane novel My Enemy, My Ally has a holodeck recreation of a Fourth Doctor story. In IDW's comic book crossover Assimilation, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory don't seem to recognise the Enterprise-D crew, or vice versa.

    Video Games 
  • In Atlus's 2011 puzzle game Catherine, Teddie from Persona 4 makes an appearance in the form of a figure on a bar table and a mascot on a beer bottle. The main character owns books called "Persona". A scene in Persona 4: The Animation shows that Yu Narukami changed his "girlfriend" Ai's ringtone to the game over theme from Catherine. Later, in Persona 5, there's a PVC figurine of Catherine in Futaba's room, and one of the crane game prizes is a doll of a sheep man from Catherine.
  • In a bit of Product Placement in Persona 5, the protagonist and party member Makoto can watch the Yakuza film, under its original Japanese title Like a Dragon. Makoto's text message extending the invitation even indirectly mentions the movie's real world director, Takashi Miike. In return, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has music from Persona 5's soundtrack that can be found in the game world and played on the jukebox at the party's home base. Both Yakuza and Persona are owned by Sega.
  • Maniac Mansion has a Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders poster in it, while Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders has a Maniac Mansion poster in it.
  • In Overwatch, D.Va's backstory is that she's a professional StarCraft player indicating that Starcraft is fictional in the world of Overwatch. Meanwhile, Heroes of the Storm is a crossover of all of Blizzard's franchises including Overwatch and Starcraft with all of the different franchises belonging to different universes in a shared Multiverse.
  • Dead Space 3 has a DLC "RIG" (futuristic armored space suit) based on Mass Effect, and notes that it's just as popular then as now. Mass Effect 3 has an armor based on the classic RIG suit.
  • Doodle Champion Island Games: The secret ending reveals that Champion Island Games and Halloween Magic Cat Academy are fictional Google Doodles in each others' verses. Things get weird when the protagonists meet.
    Lucky: Oh! You're the cat from the Halloween Magic Cat Academy Google Doodle! I love that game!
    Momo: Does that mean you're THE Lucky from the Doodle Champion Island Games? I've been playing it for days!
    Lucky: Wow! What a small world! Wait — does that mean you've been controlling me this whole time?
    Momo: But wouldn't that mean you were controlling me?
    Lucky: ...
    Momo: ...
    Lucky: Let's not think too hard about it. We don't want to end up in an existential quandary!

    Webcomics 
  • The Way of the Metagamer and The Way Of The Metagamer 2: In Name Only. In Name Only makes the occasional cameo in the original, and it's been stated that the original exists within the world of In Name Only. Interesting in that In Name Only does not exist.
  • Homestuck takes this trope to its Mind-Screw extreme with the events of the main story and the Midnight Crew. In the world of the main characters of Homestuck the Midnight Crew are from the latest MS Paint Adventures series, and the reverse is true for the actual members of the Midnight Crew in their world. However, the Midnight Crew exist in the same universe as the trolls - a universe where a significant part of the main story of Homestuck happens. In other words, it's not a Show Within a Show, it's a Show Within Itself!
  • A really subtle one with Questionable Content and xkcd. Marigold wears an xkcd shirt here, and this xkcd comic shows one of Hannelore's Twitter posts.
    • The page image is lifted from xkcd #372, which happens to illustrate the idea of the trope without neccessarily being an example in-universe — it's left ambiguous whether it's two (diegetically) real people thinking of each other.
  • In The Hero of Three Faces, it's all a show, and it's all real. That is, every fictional setting sees all the other settings as fictional, but some characters, most notably the Doctor, can travel between them.

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • Inspector Gadget:
    • In a few episodes the inspector can be seen watching Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats, likewise Inspector Gadget has showed up as a TV Show on Heatcliff. Both shows were produced by DiC at around the same time.
    • Hector also dressed as Inspector Gadget during a Dream Sequence in a Halloween Episode.
    • Hector and the other Cadillac Cats even appear in a cameo in one Inspector Gadget episode.
  • A ridiculous example in the first season finale and second season premiere of South Park; "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut" shows the characters see a promo for the movie "Not Without My Anus" and say they will watch it, and in the second season premiere, which turned out to be "Not Without My Anus" itself, Terrence and Philip flip channels and watch part of the former South Park episode (where you can at least hear Cartman's name). This gets a bit muddled as Terrance and Phillip are "real" actors in the South Park universe with a television show the South Park kids watch, but the characters (one assumes) Terrance and Phillip play have watched South Park. Do what now?
  • An episode of The Simpsons has a guest appearance by Richard Dean Anderson playing himself, where his work in Stargate SG-1 is referenced. However in Stargate, Rick's character, Jack O'Neill has openly talked about his love of The Simpsons many times, including comparing Mr Burns to the Goa'uld. The icing on the cake is when Dan Castallaneta, the voice of Homer, make a guest appearance on Stargate... and agrees with Jack's "Burns = Goa'uld" theory.
  • The Simpsons has Matt Groening introduced as "the creator of Futurama". Another one has Bart Simpson hallucinating, his classmates appearing as fictional TV characters, one of which is Bender. Meanwhile, a Futurama episode has a pile of Bart Simpson dolls appear as one of the many things in a gigantic (indeed, celestial) ball of garbage. Groening cameos as himself, the creator of The Simpsons as well as his new hit about life in 1,000 years, Futurella. Eventually the characters meet each other via time travel, and Bender shuts down in The Simpsons' basement to reawaken in his own time, and is sometimes seen in later episodes of that show.
  • In one episode of the first season of Lois & Clark, Lex Luthor made a mention about watching Simpsons reruns. In one Simpsons episode, Comic Book Guy saw some problem and said it was a job for, some heroes he mentioned. Then somebody asked about Superman.
  • For additional mindwarping, The Simpsons is a cartoon in The Critic - and then Jay Sherman visits the Simpsons family. Gah!
    • A rather cute fanwank points out that as a celebrity TV-Critic in The Critic universe, there is nothing unusual about him guest starring as himself in the Simpsons. Had the actual episode replaced Jay Sherman with a guest starring Roger Ebert nothing in the plot would have changed.
  • One episode of The Simpsons had Homer mistake Tony Blair for Mr. Bean... despite the fact that "Mind The Baby, Mr. Bean", shown a decade earlier, had featured a couple of shots of a Bart Simpson balloon in the background.
  • In Danny Phantom, Danny can be see playing a Crash Nebula arcade game. In the Crash Nebula Poorly Disguised Pilot episode of The Fairly OddParents!, Crash has a Danny Phantom comic book.
  • An episode of American Dad! ended with Peter and Cleveland appearing, but another one had Steve and Roger watch a Family Guy DVD. There's also an episode of Family Guy where Stan and his CIA boss showed up to try and stop Stewie. It gets particularly weird in the American Dad episode "The People vs. Martin Sugar", where Stan explicitly notes Brian as a fictitious character - only for Brian to then appear next to him, ask "do I know you?", then walk off as Stan shouts at him to "stop pretending I don't exist!". This is parodied in the Family Guy episode "Excellence in Broadcasting", when Stan is shown watching the episode and is proud of Brian for becoming a conservative.
    • Strangely enough, on an episode of The Cleveland Show where they go to Comic-Con, a giant statue of Stewie as Darth Vader appears in the background.
  • A cross-media example: An ad for Team Fortress 2 appeared at the end of The Venture Bros. Season 5 premiere, with some of the mercenaries too distracted by Hank and Dean's antics to notice a Spy sneaking into their base. A little over a season later, Dr. Venture and Sgt. Hatred were seen playing Team Fortress 2 when they were supposed to be working. While characters from both universes have appeared in the interdimensional bar known as The Inventory, they appeared one game apart.
  • The Goofy short How to Be a Detective features Goofy reading a Mickey Mouse comic book. You know, his best friend? Then again, most of these kinds of cartoon shorts are anthological and self-contained.
  • Dexter's Laboratory had an instance in the Justice Friends short "Things That Go Bonk In The Night". Krunk stays up late watching a multi-day marathon of his favorite show, TV Puppet Pals, finally falling asleep and immediately having a dream wherein he enters the world of the show. The dream predictably goes sour, Krunk wakes up in the midst of shouting, and there's the requisite stinger indicating it wasn't just a dream... and then cut to Puppet Pal Mitch screaming himself awake from a nightmare brought on by having stayed up late watching a multi-day marathon of Justice Friends.
  • Tiny Toon Adventures has had a few episodes referencing Batman, most notably the comics and films. Meanwhile, Batman: The Animated Series has an episode where one of the Joker's henchman can clearly be seen reading a Tiny Toons comic book.

Alternative Title(s): Stable Fictional Loop, Reciprocal Fiction Paradox

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