No Fourth Wall - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Slayers often had characters addressing the viewers in an aside.
- Similarly, at one point Lina notes that Martina's still alive after NEXT's climactic battle because she's the comedy relief. Sylphiel quickly warns her she's giving too much away.
- Revolution has Lina pursuing new character Pokota because he usurped her traditional big scene in the first episode where she blows up an unsuspecting town with the Dragon Slave.
- One could venture that that the entirety of The Slayers novel-verse has no fourth wall, as they are first person, Lina's point of view. She frequently pauses to address the audience, often reacting as if she's been called on her sometimes (often) less-than-ethical actions where assaulting local banditry is concerned. This usually results in her denial before readers are given the details of what actually happened to cause ten armed men to be chasing her.
Martian Successor Nadesico had entire episodes explaining various aspects of the show.
In the first episode of Ichigo Mashimaro, Nobue describes the other characters directly to the audience; while describing herself, she turns to look directly at the proverbial camera (incidentally, doing a Shout Out as well).
- She does the same thing in the Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere chapter of the manga, acknowledging the reader while saying: "A 16-year-old girl shouldn't be smoking!"
Excel Saga and its Spiritual Successor Puni Puni Poemi don't so much demolish the fourth wall as they never bother to build one in the first place.
- In particular, Poemi in Puni Puni Poemi hasn't even gotten as far as the first wall yet — she's convinced that she's actually her voice actress and refers to herself by that name, and also believes her father Nabeshin is actually the director. Which he is, but she shouldn't know that.
In Kodomo No Omocha, both Babbitt and Sana make frequent references to the fact that they are in an anime; Babbitt in particular scolds Sana on several occasions for doing things that she shouldn't in a kids' program.
Hayate The Combat Butler invokes this trope pretty much every single episode, with the characters constantly aware that they are in an anime and that there is a narrator and audience. This goes for the manga, too.
The characters in the manga version of He Is My Master constantly break the fourth wall by doing things like getting mad at the authors or wondering if an (apparent) resolution to the story means no more chapters will be produced.
Occurs regularly in Sonic X, a notable example being during the first episode of the series where Sonic perches himself atop a fast-moving vehicle. The driver points out how outrageous this is and asks him "what if kids are watching?" Sonic promptly turns to the camera and states "Kids, never use Formula One racing cars to chase hedgehogs". This may be something of a self parody based on the Sonic Sez segments that aired at the end of episodes in the original Western series Adventures Of Sonic The Hedgehog.
- In the original Japanese version, Sonic merely says "Kids, don't stand on moving cars!"
- One episode also features Eggman taking over the public's affections and becoming a "hero". At the end of the episode, the robots reveal the titles of the show, changed to state Eggman X rather than Sonic X.
- Chris also breaks the wall in an episode not long after this one, even winking to the audience.
- In the Japanese version of a Sonic X episode titled "Fierce Fight! Sonic Baseball Team" Sonic remarks, "Why are you so worried about the rules? This is an anime!" after catching a pop-fly outside the fence that was counted as a home-run.
- Another example has the Chaotix crew discovering what happened while they were gone by watching Sonic X on DVD.
Bobobobo Bobobo broke the fourth wall all the time in the manga, but the anime did it even more.
Paradise Kiss characters were perfectly aware of being manga characters. For example, Yukari, the main character, tells her boyfriend that he should be careful because if they break up, he'll become a secondary character. The rest of the cast cheerfully confirms this to the Non Genre Savvy George.
Ninin Ga Shinobuden is full of characters who constantly address the camera. The last episode is dedicated to the characters trying to figure out a satisfactory way to end the show.
Ouran High School Host Club deserves a special mention for its constant references to it being a romance anime — which at one point leads to Tamaki declaring himself and Haruhi the romantic leads and relegating the rest of the club to the homosexual supporting cast.
The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya routinely breaks the fourth wall as Kyon's narration is consistantly interrupted by Haruhi.
Samurai Pizza Cats of course!
Gintama is so full of this that there would be no show without it. And of course Shinpachi is always complaining about it.
Seitokai No Ichizon makes no effort to even build a fourth wall, as the first two minutes are spent on the characters discussing how to title their own series.
FLCL never even really had a fourth wall...and if it did, there is now a crater where it once was...
YMMV, but the Bleach anime episodes 213-214 (the Karakura Riser filler) hits, dents and breaks the Fourth Wall so repeatedly that it occasionally feels like No Fourth Wall at all.
Dr Slump does this all the time to, with jokes often hinging on the fact that the characters are aware that they are in a manga.
Violinist of Hameln (manga version) never built a fourth wall in the first place:
- The characters say things like "this is a really stupid manga".
- When the heros first meet Ocarina, Hamel is happy to "finally have a girl in sexy clothes in this manga".
- When Hamel's violin is broken his friends plan to take over the manga and steal the main character status.
- At one point, Hamel tells Olin that he's not important because he wasn't in the Anime adaptation.

Deadpool, of the Marvel Universe, has "Blasting down the fourth wall, brick by brick!" as his Catch Phrase. Among his powers is the ability to see the yellow text boxes. He has also made sarcastic comments re: "that dreamy Tobey Maguire" being the reason Spider-man is so popular. Other characters tend to dismiss the "merc with a mouth" as completely insane, which he is, so it sorta works out.
- Deadpool is so aware of being in a comic book, he even has knowledge of events that, in-book, shouldn't be known by anybody. For example, he's aware of One More Day, and Spider-Man's deal with Mephisto.
- Deadpool is so aware of being in a comic book, he even wishes he knew about what he was informed about during the recap pages, which aren't part of the continuity.
- Deadpool is so aware of being in a comic book ^*
  ^{how aware is he?}
  he even speculates on whether pulling off something specifically awesome will get him a solo series or movie.
  - Deadpool will probably be happy at Wolverine netting him said movie.
  - Or not.
She-Hulk's second series, The Sensational She-Hulk, had breaking the fourth wall as a central comedic device. Her current series, simply titled She-Hulk, uses it more subtly, using the comic-book version of the Literary Agent Hypothesis to poke fun at comics fandom.
Pretty much the entire point of Ambush Bug, whose works usually serve as a satire of the comic book industry, and who can even see speech bubbles, and interact with his own writer and editor.
Animal Man of The DCU became aware of the true nature of reality during Grant Morrison's revival of the character. This even extended to a peyote trip where Buddy looked out of the page and declared "OH MY GOD! I CAN SEE YOU!" to the reader. Unlike most who share this knowledge, Buddy Baker has a hard time dealing with it and is prone to mental breakdowns as a result.
The First American and U.S. Angel from Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories.
Squirrel Girl is yet another example of a character from the Marvel universe who seems to be able to break the fourth wall at will. She often gives recaps when she appears, once explicitly stating it's okay to break the fourth wall during recaps, and she seems to be the only character who takes Deadpool seriously.
- In Deadpool/GLI Summer Spectacular she even gives the readers short history of her team with using their comics' covers and pages. And Deadpool get rid of her, so he could join team in major plotline by showing her comics in wich her secret love interest has become Darker And Edgier. That's constructive way to use comics books.
- Her two squirrel sidekicks Tippy Toe and especially Monkey Joe, also often break the fourth wall, though, ironically, Squirrel Girl seems to be unaware of this.
Included in the latter half of DC Comics' Tales of the Unexpected mini-series as comic relief (which it desperately needed) were the adventures of the DCU's resident Doubting Thomas, Doctor Thirteen, as he and a team comprised of other canceled, abandoned characters to battle DC Comics' head writers for the right to continue existing in the about-to-be rebooted universe. However, they are referred to in-character only as "the Architects", leading to a finale similar to Rick Jones' (see above), when the good Doctor finally puts the pieces together and begs the reader not to turn the page, "Our very existence depends on it!" This, of course, turns out to be the last page. Turn it, and the comic's over.
One memorable crossover between Batman and Sergeant Fury also crossed into the real world, with the villains holding the writer at gunpoint and trying to make him write the deaths of the heroes. Batman and Sergeant Fury could't hear the narration he wrote, but he could indirectly help them if the villains were distracted.
Pip would do this in the beginning of Lithium. Interestingly, the character was originally hopelessly depressed, but was made a lot more comedic and given the ability to break the wall to cover up an error in the original drafts.
Superboy-Prime follows this trope as the Clark Kent from Real Life brought into the comic world. As a comics nerd back home he already knows everyone's stories and weaknesses, and has no problems killing probably around a trillion characters (though only a dozen or so are relatively important) by exploding an Earth or two. His conclusion for Legion of Three Worlds takes this trope to the most extreme of meta, reading the same page of the same comic as you do. His story concludes in his parents' basement, plotting revenge on the comics universe by complaining about comic books on the internet. He's probably here now.
The Fantastic Four once met The One-Above-All ("God" in the Marvel Universe) and it's... Jack Kirby.
In Hsu And Chan, the titular brothers have spent whole issues addressing the reader and at one point prepared for a possible disaster because "that text box guy is being smug again."
The Pathetic Fallacy of Jack Of Fables knows that he is part of a comic book, to the point where he chastises Jack and Wicked John for interrupting his story "that shouldn't have taken more than two pages is now going to have to be continued into the next issue" and worries about losing readers because of their bickering.
Sonic the Hedgehog was like this pre-Cerebus Syndrome. Now it's limited to Off Panel, a strip in the back pages about the characters reacting to the story.

In The Muppet Movie, the characters actually possess a script of the film they're acting out. The use it to sum up the story so far to new people they meet, and make decisions for the future based on what it says.
- In The Muppet Christmas Carol, fourth wall-breaking was limited to Gonzo and Rizzo as the Narrator. But since, unlike most narrators, they regularly took part in the action of the film, the effect was as if the Fourth Wall was being broken from the other side.
- Muppet Treasure Island had Rizzo's line "He died? But this is supposed to be a kid's movie!" and lots of Lampshade Hanging on the Crowd Songs ("That's it, lads, show 'em you've been practicing!") Not to mention Statler and Waldorf performing their usual critical role from the figurehead of the ship. When the Swedish Chef has a cameo, the "singing fruit" address the audience, saying "How else did you think we were going to get him in this movie?"
- The Muppet universe as a whole has a lot of this — The Great Muppet Caper had the villain giving his motivation for the heist as "Why? Because I'm a villain. It's pure and simple." This is not an isolated incident in the movie, which starts with the main characters kibbitzing about the credits, immediately followed by a cheery song-and-dance number called "Hey, A Movie!"
  - The most blatant example is an extended argument between Kermit and Miss Piggy about her overacting in one scene. She actually starts crying and Kermit needs to cheer her up so they can continue to film.
Ferris Buellers Day Off: The title character constantly speaks to the camera.
Mel Brooks loves breaking the fourth wall:
- In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the introductory scene for Maid Marian begins with a camera zooming in on the door to her chambers as she sings to herself. The scene cuts to the inside of the room where Marian continues to sing until the zooming camera from the first shot suddenly breaks through the window above the door. Later on, when the Sheriff splits Robin's perfect bull's-eye arrow in twain, they have to resort to the script to find out that Robin gets another shot. Not to mention that the opening scene, a credit run with flaming arrows that ends with a peasant village burning to the ground, is followed by the entire population of that village shouting as one, "Leave us alone, Mel Brooks!"
- Spaceballs does this many a time: The camera zooms in on Dark Helmet in the middle of a dramatic speech and conks him on the head. Helmet accidentally kills one of the cameramen during the climactic final duel. And how does he find out where the heroes escaped to? By watching Spaceballs, of course! This includes fast-forwarding past the embarrassing scenes that happened to the bad guys, and accidentally finding the scene where they are watching Spaceballs, causing a very confusing conversation about defining the concept of "now".
  - Additionally, early in the movie when Col. Sandurs finishes explaining the Spaceballs evil plot, Helmet pointedly turns to the camera and asks, "Everybody got that?"
- Blazing Saddles does the same thing. Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid, having already destroyed their own movie set and that of a nearby Busby-Berkeley-esque movie, wonder how Blazing Saddles ends... so they go to the theater and watch it.
  - And at the end of the movie, they ride off into the sunset only far enough to meet the film's horse wrangler and their limo.
- Brooks literally breaks the fourth wall in High Anxiety — at the end, as the camera is pulling away from the hero and his new wife as they occupy themselves on the honeymoon bed, it crashes through the fourth wall of the motel room, resulting in a huge hole in the wall and prompting the off screen camera operators to panic ("Just keep going!").
The theatrical cut of Gremlins 2: The New Batch had a scene in which the Gremlins destroyed the film of the movie (yes, the movie that the audience is watching right at that moment), and start doing shadow puppets on the white screen that results. An exasperated theater owner finds Hulk Hogan in the audience, and the Hulkster cuts a classic wrestling promo threatening the Gremlins if they don't get the movie back on the screen. The home video release has a completely different Fourth Wall-breaking scene in place of this, in which the Gremlins take control of the television set, and flip it through various shows before ending up in an old John Wayne western, where The Duke takes them out in a gunfight and re-starts the movie.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang featured ongoing narration by Robert Downey, Jr.'s character. He would repeatedly break the fourth wall, sometimes apologizing to the audience for the tortured plot or pacing, and often pointing out various tropes, such as a memorable Chekovs Gun moment.
Annie Hall basically consists of a trip through the psyche of Allen's character Alvy Singer after he breaks up with the title character, trying to figure out how the relationship went wrong. Not only does Alvy frequently address the camera, but the film takes place wildly out of chronological order, characters in different split screens start talking to each other, he actually seems to bring other people with him into his memory of his childhood, etc. At one point, after shutting up a movie snob by pulling over the director he was talking about to tell him he got everything wrong, Alvy tells us "If only life was like this!"
Waynes World has Wayne and Garth frequently addressing the camera and viewers. This is vaguely lampshaded.
Wayne: (To another character) Hey! Only me and Garth get to talk to the camera!
The Truman Show features this about the show-within-a-movie for everyone but the titular character. In fact, because the show doesn't have commercials, the people interacting with Truman will often mug at the camera while holding some random item placed there by sponsors. Eventually, this tips Truman off about the nature of his world — when his "wife" launches into a poorly-timed pitch out of nervousness, Truman exasperatedly asks who she's talking to.
Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof spends a good part of the play addressing the audience.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, anyone? Examples include King Arthur (or is it?) killing the "famous historian" relating the knights' strategies to the viewers, the narrator being attacked (off-screen) and replaced by a hairy creature (that continues to leaf through the Book of the Film), the "aptly named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film", the characters talking about "scene 24", a castle guard calling Arthur on using coconuts to make riding sounds, a monster dying because "the animator suffered a fatal heart attack" and, of course, the ending where the police arrives to arrest the protagonists for the murder of the famous historian and one of the policemen turns off the camera, remarking "All right, sonny, that's enough, just take off." — and that's not nearly all of them, mind you.
The entire premise behind Stranger Than Fiction is a man who can hear the narration of the story. It gets even better when he actually meets the author, and the author discovers that everything she writes actually happens to him.
In High Fidelity, John Cusack addresses the audience throughout the entire movie.
- At one point, his shout of rage to the audience is heard by his girlfriend though.
24 Hour Party People is an interesting one considering that it's a biopic. Aside from the main character narrating on screen (including one time where he remarks that one scene will be "cut and appear on the DVD extras"), there is also a scene in which a (fictional) incident is recounted in which Tony Wilson's wife cheated on him with Howard Devoto of the Buzzcocks. The real Devoto, playing a janitor in the scene, turns to the camera and remarks "I definitely don't remember this happening!". And there's also one point in middle of the film where every cameo by an actual musician is pointed out, which happens right after Steve Coogan — playing Tony Wilson — points out that the guy in the last scene was the actual Tony Wilson.
- This isn't the only Bio Pic that does this. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, anyone? (See Post Modernism.)
The Bob Hope/Bing Crosby series of Road to... movies. Archetypal example from the end of Road to Morocco, as the duo are left floating on a raft in the Atlantic:
Hope: I can't go on! No food, no water. It's all my fault. We're done for! It's got me. I can't stand it! No food, nothing! No food, no water! No food!
Crosby: What's the matter with you, anyway? There's New York. We'll be picked up in a few minutes.
Hope: You had to open your big mouth and ruin the only good scene I got in the picture. I might have won the Academy Award!
- Keep in mind that half the dialogue in any given Hope/Crosby road picture was improvised.
In The Mouth Of Madness married this trope and had little half-movie, half-trope babies. Trent is looking for a very popular author who has vanished while in the process of writing a novel. He finds out that the town featured in the previous book is a real place, and goes there to find every minute detail exactly as it was in the book. He also finds the author, only to slowly discover that he himself is the protagonist of the author's current novel, "In The Mouth Of Madness." The author has written himself into the book, which is about how that same book ended the world, and how Trent has to try and stop it from going to publication. Otherwise it will drive people nuts, turn them into monsters, and allow the really bad monsters back into the world. Trent fails of course, but sees a movie theatre playing the movie adaption. On the screen is the beginning of the film the audience has just been watching. Epic Mind Screw.
George Of The Jungle is a serious contender for king of this trope. For one, the beginning of the second movie, where George explained, at the behest of the narrator, "Me new George. Studio too cheap to hire Brendan Fraser."
Funny Games is a horror movie with No Fourth Wall. The villain is well aware that he's a slasher movie villain, and frequently talks to the audience. Why is he torturing this innocent family? For no reason other than the fact that he is a horror movie villain. Isn't that why people watch these movies?
Whatever Works, the recent Woody Allen comedy starring Larry David, opens and closes with the main character Boris openly and deliberately speaking to the audience, fully aware they are in a movie theater. This is toyed with for laughs, as it seems only he is capable of seeing and speaking to the audience. In the opening scene, it even shows that from the point of view of everyone else, he's speaking to no one. A black woman shuffles her child away, fearing he is insane. He explains this in the end by pointing out that he's the only person who can see "the whole picture".
The Insane Clown Posse movie Big Money Hustlas blatantly breaks the fourth wall as a comedic effect close to a dozen times throughout the movie. Examples include:
- When Fat Titty Kitty shows her breasts to the cameras, Big Baby Sweets looks at the camera and says "See? I told you we'd hook you up. This movie is the shit."
- When Sugar Bear is talking to the ghost of Dolomite about catching criminals, Sugar Bear comments that Dolomite isn't dead and lives in L.A.. Dolomite says "bitch, I know I'm not dead, I'm standing right here. This is a movie. Blame that guy," then points at the camera man. The director comes from around the camera, holds a script out and says "guys, come on, stick to the script."
- When The Chief is talking to Sugar Bear about how to capture Big Baby Sweets, he points to a room on a blue print and says "Okay, Harry Cox is being held in this room. You'll have to fight through all his lackeys. But don't worry, there isn't any fancy stuff left. The movie has almost reached it's budget."
- When Sugar Bear is wrestling with Mankind, Mankind says "Have a nice day! Goddamn it, that isn't the right line."
- After Sugar Bear defeats Mankind in the wrestling ring, Big Baby Sweets says "Now I know this is a movie, because if this was real life, he would have fucked you up."
- Throughout the movie, every time someone says Sugar Bear, a trumpet plays. All the characters can hear it. Near the end of the movie, Big Baby Sweets yells out "Okay, who the hell keeps playing that music?" The audio director for the movie comes out from around the corner and says "I'm Rob. I'm the sound director. I keep playing it," then gets shot.
Bizarre Takashi Miike film Gozu has a brief Fourth Wall breaking moment that manages to be both humorous, and oddly disturbing at the same time.
"This never happened to the other fellow!"

Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveller is written in the second person, with the Reader as the protagonist, and begins: "You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveller."
Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series of novels rarely break the fourth wall directly, but the basic conceit of the books is that characters in novels are aware of their fictional status, and "act out" the events of the book each time it is read. On a few occasions, the fictional nature of the "real world" in the books is acknowledged; for example, when the main character Thursday Next is in the "real" world, and a fictional character communicates with her using footnotes, or when an intimate moment is interrupted because Thursday feels like someone is watching.
Robert Rankin's novels are full of No Fourth Wall devices, including characters complaining the plot is the same as an earlier book, and minor characters demanding names and descriptions before they'll continue. Notably, Armageddon: the Musical concludes with Elvis Presley listing every Fridge Logic moment in the book. He doesn't get a satisfactory explanation.
- At one point, two characters reappear some time after apparently being blown up. One says "Oh, it's us! I thought we were dead!"
- In The Witches Of Chiswick, the plot really starts to get muddy and away from Rankin about 3/4ths in. One character comments more or less: "This is starting to get so confusing, I wish the author of this book would plan things out ahead of time instead of making up the story as he goes along".
In Robert Anton Wilson's and Bob Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy, the main characters eventually learn that they are characters in the book itself, being narrated by an all-powerful, overseeing AI. Of course, the book is so perspective-jumping and Mind Screw-filled that what the "truth" is intentionally left up to the reader.
- In an earlier example, twice in the books the associate editor of "Confrontation" (the magazine that several of the characters are associated with) calls up his book reviewer to ask about the progress of his latest review. The books described by the book reviewer are obviously the Illuminatus Trilogy itself (for added humor, the book reviewer has nothing but contempt for the trilogy's length, shifting perspective, complicated plot, or frequent use of sex, drugs, and obscene language).
  - It's also a clear Take That against book critics, as the critic in question cheerfully admits not reading the whole thing, calling such thoroughness a waste of his time, but promises to skim it through, and write an entertaining, if crushing, review about it. Considering that R.A. Wilson's previous occupation had been Playboy editor, he may have entered some personal experience into the scene.
The novel How to Mutate and Take Over the World is all about... the writing, publication, and aftermath of How to Mutate and Take Over the World. A review of the book actually appears in the book about a third of the way through, and it spoils the ending.
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales manages to break the fourth wall before the first page, when the Little Red Hen appears on the front endpaper, loudly demanding that Jack the Narrator tell her story (or at least help bake her bread). Things only get worse as the book progresses: Little Red Running Shorts and the Big Bad Wolf refuse to perform their story after Jack the Narrator spoils the ending. The Giant takes issue with the usual plot of "Jack and the Beanstalk", so he tells his own (nonsensical) story, then threatens to eat Jack the Narrator if he can't tell a better one. After Jack bores the giant to sleep with a recursive story, he tries to sneak away by moving the endpaper a few pages before the actual end of the book.
In The Neverending Story, this becomes the entire basis for the first arc. It turns out that the whole purpose of Atreyu's adventure inside the book is to draw the main character (who is outside the book, reading the book... inside the book we're reading... you know what I mean) into the story and give him important information. To further complicate matters, there is another "neverending story", or possibly the same one, being written inside the story by a god, which is the story of the world. The main character also rewrites the reality he inhabits by coming up with new stories.
- The movie version went a step farther, in that the Childlike Emperess makes direct reference to how the audience has been observing Bastian all morning.
The classic children's book The Monster at the End of this Book features the Sesame Street muppet Grover — having read the title on the frontispiece — taking increasingly (and comically) desperate measures to prevent the reader turning any more pages, as he's terrified of meeting the Monster at the end. Fortunately, it turns out the titular monster is Grover himself.
Mr B Gone by Clive Barker is about a demon trapped inside a book, the book he is trapped in is in fact the one you are reading. The plot of the novel is: the demon attempting to convince you, the reader, to burn the book,this book. Over the course of the book he asks politely, begs, bargains, and out-right threatens you in his quest to get you to stop reading the book and burn it right now.
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder evolves over the course of the plot into a multi-layered version of this that doubles as a textbook on the history of philosophy as revealed by a Genre Savvy, quasi-Author Avatar philosophy teacher, much to the shock of the title character. By the end of the book, the dominant POV has switched to Hilde, the daughter of the "author" of a book called "Sophie's World," who has received the book as a birthday present from her father, who is not Jostein Gaarder. Confusing, but brilliant.
- Also, the philosophy teacher briefly states that it's possible that Hilde and her father could be part of a book themselves, so this would be more of a "No Fifth Wall", yes?
  - Not just possible but indisputable since, as stated above, Major Knag, the in-book author, is not Jostein Gaarder, the actual author, and is therefore one level of reality down from us, the readers. Of course, he also leaves open the possibility that we are not the highest level of reality either. "No Fifth Wall," indeed. Welcome To The Real World?
- To get even worse in both multilayered and fourth wall aspects... Sophie finds in a library the book Sophie's World. But she doesn't read it, thank God.
The way House Of Leaves is written plays up everything in it to have actually happened, with Johnny Truant directly addressing the reader several times. The problem comes up when other, supposedly fictional agents begin to address the reader directly as well.
- And then there's the scene where Navy reads and burns a copy of House Of Leaves.
The main character in Chris Wooding's Poison learns that she is a character in a story being written by the heirophant of the Fairy world. When she goes into a suicidal malaise after hearing this, she is snapped out of it by being bluntly reminded that she isn't just a character in a story — she is the main character in her story. She ends the book, seemingly beginning to write the Story which we have just been reading.
Examples abound in the Lord Of The Rings parody novel Bored Of The Rings, mostly involving characters looking to see how much of the book remains to be read before they can get out of the mess they're in.
- "Five-eleven's your height, one-ninety your weight, you cash in your chips around page eighty-eight."
In the novel The Great Good Thing and its sequel Into the Labyrinth, the protagonist, Sylvie, and everyone surrounding her, are all characters in a book-within-the-book. They all have to run around in the book to perform their lines for Readers, and Sylvie even starts up a friendship with the Writer. In the second one, the book is moved online, and they have to run down the screen. They get their dresses caught on the words, etc. There's no fourth wall at all in the book-within-the-book.
In the Martha Soukup short story The Story So Far, the narrative character is a secondary character in someone else's story, and is only conscious while she's "on screen", and is forced to act like a puppet. But she learns tricks that let her remain aware and in control of herself while the main character and the readers can't see her.
In the Robert A Heinlein novel "The Number of the Beast—", the four characters eventually discover they can travel between worlds that only exist in fiction, as well as other "real" dimensions. This leads them to speculate on traveling to universes created by Heinlein.
- They actually openly mock Stranger in a Strange Land, saying, "Some people will write anything for money."
Captain Underpants is fraught with examples, too many to put in here.
- Having green gloop running through the classrooms of their school, through hallways, and even covering up the text on the page.
The Samurai Cat series is this trope. It folds, spindles, mutilates, and slices sashimi out of the Fourth Wall, so much so that the feline characters constantly deride the author for being such a spineless, unimaginative hack. Occasionally, this incurs direct in-story retaliation in the form of bad luck and/or nasty enemies' sudden and inexplicable appearance.
In Michael Gerber's parody of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Blarnia: The Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe, one of the characters asks another if he thinks they are in a children's book. The addressed protagonist merely replies if the asker hasn't seen the page numbers below them.

One of the earliest TV series that regularly broke the Fourth Wall was The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show, a Sit Com in the '50s. Not only would George (playing himself putting on a TV show) turn to the audience and comment on what the other characters were doing, but in later episodes he would often direct the audience's attention to a TV set in his private study. On the screen you would see the events that he was talking about, occurring in real time as if it was a security camera monitor. He would use this information to intentionally complicate things in order to ensure that maximum Hilarity Ensues.
- In the original live broadcast, this is how the commercials were done. (George walks over to the "neighbor"'s "driveway" where he's waxing his car; "Say, Bob, that sure is a beautiful new Oldsmobile you got")
The ultimate example may well be the late-80s HBO series Its Garry Shandlings Show. From its self-referential theme song to its numerous guest stars, it extensively parodied the conventions of the Sit Com while actively demolishing the fourth wall, starting right from its opening credits:
''This is the theme to Garry's show, the opening theme to Garry's show.
Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song...''
Malcolm in the Middle: Would regularly make snide comments to the audience.
The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis
Allo Allo: Rene would regularly explain his ongoing predicament at the start, and make asides at the Audience regarding other people's leading statements.
On Andy Richter Controls The Universe, Andy's voiceover narration would frequently address the audience directly.
- Jerry Espenson broke the fourth wall in one episode. He mentioned to Shirley that he had a "happy song" stuck in his head, and when prompted to hum a bit of it, he ends up singing the theme song as the opening credits roll.
Rab C Nesbitt: Espousing theories at the audience. These may have been deep and important, but were almost incomprehensible.
Saved By The Bell: Zack Morris is notorious for saying, "Time out," then stepping aside to speak to the audience. This may be an homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off or the musical Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, which both had a similar gimmick.
- The gimmick was lost in the spinoff Saved By The Bell: The New Class, possibly because the constantly rotating cast left the show without a central figure (like Zack) to do the speaking.
- Taken to the extreme in one episode, where he uses it to dodge an incoming punch and escapes. Nobody seemed too bothered that he just vanished into thin air...
- In an episode of Conan O'Brien, Mark-Paul Gosselaar showed up as a guest, as Zack Morris, in character and all, and used the "time out" trick at one point to explain something without Conan interrupting him. When he timed back in, Conan stopped for a second, then asked, "Did you just time me out?"
  - That was Jimmy Fallon, not Conan.
Ellery Queen (NBC, 1975) always had one No Fourth Wall moment every episode. Immediately following Ellery's mandatory Eureka Moment, he would turn to the audience, briefly review the key evidence for the viewers, and ask them if they'd figured out who the culprit was — right before going to a commercial. (See All In Hand.)
The Office has No Fourth Wall by construction. The same will be true about pretty much all Mockumentary shows.
- Arguably, the fourth wall wasn't really breached on the UK version of The Office, which was based on the conceit that there was a real documentary crew making a TV series about the Wernham-Hogg company — the length of that series and the limits on where cameras went made this at least vaguely plausible. David Brent even mentions having watched the original series and objected to the filmmakers' presentation of him in the finale Christmas Special (a la Don Quixote, or Spinal Tap). The US series, on the other hand, has gone on so long, with the "camera crew" following the characters to so many unlikely places, that the conceit of a "real" documentary existing in the show's universe is no longer tenable.
- Also, the American executives probably thought that people would mistake the show for a real documentary
Seans Show was a UK sitcom with a similar premise to Its Garry Shandlings Show; the main actor/character (Irish comedian Sean Hughes) knew he was starring in a sitcom and what sort of plots he could expect as a result.
Also from the UK, The Young Ones regularly made reference to their being characters on a sitcom. In one episode, Neil's mother visits to complain about his working on a program with such shoddy production values, smashing a chair as an example; Mike points out that the chair is a breakaway prop Rik was going to be struck on the head with. Sure enough, Rik gets clobbered with a chair a few minutes later ... and is knocked unconscious, because his attacker unwittingly uses a normal chair instead of the ruined prop!
In Eerie Indiana, there was a entire episode about Marshall's life suddenly becoming a television show, and finding out that he isn't even Marshall Teller at all, but somebody they keep calling 'Omri Katz' (which is, of course, the real name of the actor playing Marshall).
In Titus (A sitcom starring comedian Christopher Titus), the main character addresses the audience from a small room with one light bulb, viewed through a black-and white filter. On one occasion, when he was drunk, there were three light bulbs.
In Mystery Science Theater 3000, the crew of the Satellite of Love were apparently broadcasting their skits to the Mads and us. In pretty much every skit, Joel, Mike, or one of the 'bots would talk to the camera, addressing either the Mads or the audience. (The Mads also talked to the camera, but almost always to address the SOL crew.) The camera itself was a character (a robot named Cambot), albeit one who never spoke, rarely interacted with the others (beyond filming them), and was only seen during the opening theme. And the Magic Voice's main job on the Satellite of Love was to announce the start of the first commercial break.
- The Movie reversed this, with Dr. Forrester addressing the audience while Mike and the 'bots ignore the fourth wall.
Moonlighting used this trope quite often.
In The Bernie Mac Show, Bernie frequently goes to his garage to sit facing the camera and address "America."
The Narrator in Arrested Development addresses the audience, responds to things the characters say, criticizes the narration of other TV shows, and observes after a remark about "arrested development," "Hey! That's the name of this show!"
Subversion: Stargate SG-1 ended up plotwise, with Wormhole X-Treme, a show made by an alien character suffering from multiple amnesia layers. In a bonus clip for the 200th episode, one of the real-life actors playing an actor in the show becomes confused and disoriented at where exactly the fourth wall is. Doubly subverted in that the actor was just, well, acting and knew what was reality all along.
- Hilariously, in the same episode, the Wormhole X-Treme creator says that they need something unexpected to reel in audiences, prompting Jack O'Neill (who hadn't been seen for a couple of seasons) to wander into the room and say, "Something like this?" Which then caused Sam Carter to remark "Are you kidding? They'll show that in the commercials." In fact, the commercials for the episode did showcase the "return" of Jack O'Neill to the show.
Monty Pythons Flying Circus was famous for its numerous breaking of the fourth wall; but one unfortunate example was actually forced on them by Executive Meddling . A sketch that the team wanted to do, about a undertakers asking a man if he wanted to eat his wife's corpse instead of burying it, was only allowed by the BBC if they showed the studio audience reacting with distaste and invading the set during the sketch.
- And of course, everyone's favorite Running Gag character, Colonel Mustache. "Quite right, quite right, stop this sketch, it's getting entirely too silly."
The story arc of Red Dwarf — Back to Earth consists mostly of the intrepid four (having accidentally arrived on Earth in the early 21st century) discovering that they're just characters in a TV series, and hence trying to track down the writers to find out how long they have left.
Francis Urquart of House Of Cards speaks to the camera as a confidant — after all, we're right there to see his machinations. Towards the end, it backs away from him during his narration, and he tells us it's far too late to start getting squeamish.

The folk song "Railroad Bill and the Kitten" is about a character who gets into an argument with the singer. It doesn't end well for him.
Weird Al Yankovic's "This Song's Just Six Words Long" consists of the songwriter proclaiming he can't think of anything to write about, so he'll just keep repeating the same phrase.
Simon And Garfunkel's "Leaves That Are Green" (and Billy Bragg's "A New England") kicks off with the line
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
I'm 22 now but I won't be for long
Neil Young's decidely odd Rock Opera Greendale features the following line as one of the characters is dying and suddenly notices Young singing about him:
That guy just keeps singing
Can't somebody shut him up?
The Beatles had 'Only a Northern Song,' a song written (by George Harrison) largely out of contractual obligation, in which the lyrics talk about how badly-written the song is, and then says that it "doesn't really matter." It's basically a Take That against the record label.

Jerry Dumas and Mort Walker's sadly short-lived Sam's Strip of the early '60s was more or less built around this. The title character would address the readers directly, frequently complained to the cartoonist, kept spare idea bulbs and swear symbols in a closet, and would occasionally rent out the strip's panels. Characters from other strips, many of them old and obscure, would frequently pop up.
Every once in a while, Doonesbury runs a strip that features Mike and Zonker answering fan mail.
Garfield has had gags that directly addressed the audience literally since day one.
Jon: Our only thought is to entertain you.
Garfield: Feed me.
Pearls Before Swine milks this for all its worth. Sometimes there are storylines about production mistakes (like when they ran out of As for text balloons), sometimes the cast interacts with fellow comic characters, and sometimes the characters gripe about and/or reprimand the author for Incredibly Lame Puns.
Berke Breathed's various strips had not only jokes but entire story arcs built around the fact that the characters knew they were in a comic strip — although the characters treated it more like a TV series. Opus, after delivering a particularly stupid line, occasionally pulls out his script to make sure he didn't botch it; characters argue frequently with the narrator, demand that boring scenes be re-written, and complain to the show's "producer" (who essentially personified comics-page Executive Meddling).

Professional Wrestling, in its various forms, has no fourth wall (or first through third, for that matter) by design; characters frequently directly address the audience (either the audience in attendance at the arena, the viewers at home, or both), and the production crew often find themselves employed as characters in the story. As well, characters often directly address the camera in order to talk to characters not appearing in the episode, saying, "I know you're somewhere watching this right now..."
- The wrestling stable D-Generation-X takes this trope to a humorous length in one of their CatchPhrases: Triple H will usually dedicate their upcoming match "for the thousands in attendance, for the millions watching (or not watching) at home, and for [insert opponent here], who [insert insult here]". (The first part of that is a parody of Michael Buffer's schtick.) He's also been known to riff off various mistakes ("fantastic sound system we have here. It was on sale at K-Mart") and various real-life events ("my God, the guy who knocked Stephanie up must be packing a bazooka"). In general, wrestling loves to break the fourth wall.
  - Well, now that Kayfabe is no longer king, they did...it was a lot stricter back when it was. Sure, they did address the crowd, but it was accepted that the crowd was a part of the performance back then.
- Before that, there was the "Sandman gets blinded" angle in ECW. Tommy Dreamer "blinds" Sandman in a match, and the camera went backstage, showing Faces and Heels co-mingling (really taboo back then), and Dreamer saying he didn't mean it.

The brilliant Over The Edge includes a metaplot in which the PCs encounter odd things, and start to notice clues, and finally discover that they are actually characters in a role-playing game!
- [[spoiler: The adventure in question eventually has the characters meet the players playing them. (The rule book specifically advises that the players not play that adventure under the influence of psychedelic drugs.)
Bride of Portable Hole Full of Beer, a farcical Dungeons And Dragons supplement includes a prestige class that slowly figures out that it is a RPG character as it progresses. At the final level the character enters the real world and moves in with the player.

Before the Realism movement, the fourth wall wasn't really acknowledged. Asides and soliloquies were of course common, and actors weren't particularly subtle about the fact that they were speaking to the audience and not to each other, and no one really expected them to be. Also, supposedly Elizabethan actors occasionally had to deal with overzealous audience members trying to join in with the action.
- Having said that, in {{The Revenger's Tragedy}}, one character gives an aside to the audience only for one of the other characters to ask who he's talking to. The whole play is an exercise in Refuge in Audacity.
Noises Off is a play within a play that shows three performances of the same first act. It practically demolishes the fourth wall, with actors popping up from seats in the audience and throwing props off the front of the stage. At one point, when everyone is screwing up magnificently, Gary Lejeune gives up and addresses the audience directly, trying to explain what just happened, "In case any of you are out there thinking, 'My God!'"
German playwright Bertolt Brecht was notoriously fond of breaking the fourth wall for its "alienation effect", that is how it reminded the audience of the play's artifice.
- Some versions of The Threepenny Opera have Peachum turn to the audience and explain "This is an opera. You deserve a happy ending." Then the royal messenger arrives. Of course, Brecht never had any use for the fourth wall.
In Spamalot the Holy Grail is found under an audience member's seat. Then, there is the scene of the Lady of the Lake's actor coming on in the middle of the show and having a great musical number asking what happened to her part!
The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder has No Fourth Wall — and depending on your definitions also lacks the other three as well. It has a character named "The Stage Manager" who directly addresses the audience, narrates the action, plays the role of the minister in one of the scenes involving the other main characters, comments on the lack of scenery, and interacts with actors planted in the audience.
- Similarly, the musical Into the Woods features a Narrator who addresses the audience and, at one point, gets pulled into the story proper by the other characters who don't like the way he's been telling the story (with gruesome results).
Cirque Du Soleil shows, structurally more akin to theatre than traditional circus, thrive on this, with tons of wall-breaking involving everything from audience plants to real Audience Participation. Mystere might be the crown jewel in their use of the latter. One of the adult-sized "babies" declares an audience member their papa (or mama, as the case may be) when he returns the tot their big red ball early on, and it becomes a Running Gag. The "animal" characters frequently scamper out into the audience during segment transitions. And then there is Brian Le Petit, who takes all of this to the next level...
The 60's musical Hair has one of the characters complain to his parents that they're embarrassing him in front of the audience, not to mention that police officers arrest audience members for watching an "obscene" play right at the intermission. Also, at the end of the play, after the curtain call, the cast members invite the audience to dance with hem.
There's a song in Gilbert And Sullivan's The Mikado where the Lord High executioner is listing people who are on the list the be executed. At one point he mentions "The noisy Timpanist", followed by a loud crash from the orchestra pit. It's common in contemporary productions to update the lyrics of this song to talk about people the audience would be familiar with.
The script for Picasso at the Lapin Agile has an actual fourth wall, usually represented on stage by a row of colored lights. At points in the production, various characters step into the colored light with an audible cracking sound as the rest of the scene freezes so that the character who's broken through the fourth wall can address the audience directly without missing anything.
Some productions of Hamlet have the soliloquy performed by the title character presented as talking to the audience instead of simply to himself.
- Shakespeare loved this trope — it's a rare protagonist who doesn't freeze everyone else in place so they can talk to the audience. The talks range from quick asides to full on soliloquies.
  - Special mention should be given to the prologue to Henry V. Not only does it provide the normal amount of Exposition that you'd expect from a normal soliloquy, but it also lampshades the fact that the theatre can't possibly represent a real battlefield or army, and attempts to inspire the audience to make up for these deficiencies with their imagination.
Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author is about the titular six characters approaching a theater group and trying to get their story told, which leads to several different levels of "reality" throughout the show. By the same author is Absolutely! (Perhaps), in which the main character looks at the audience as he's meant to be looking in a mirror. At the end, after the central mystery of the plot is very pointedly not resolved, he turns to the audience and says "Are you satisfied?", then laughs wildly.
Hellzapoppin constantly broke the fourth wall.
As did Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth, once described as "a sort of Hellzapoppin with brains." The entire play is actually framed as a Show Within A Show, which leads to odd moments where actors shift from their main characters to the characters of the actors playing those characters. Sabina is the main offender here, frequently complaining about and apologizing for the ridiculousness of the play and even refusing to do one scene. The whole thing is quite the Mind Screw.
The musical Pippin is about a group of evil "Players" trying to convince the main character to die for his art, literally. They want him to immolate himself. Hilarity Ensues — with a sing-along led by Pippin's grandmother Berthe, a character being late for her entrance because of wardrobe malfunction, and at the end, the Lead Player giving orders to strike the sets, take down the colored lights (leaving Pippin, Theo and Catherine in stark white spotlights) and even taking Pippin and Catherine's costumes and wigs. The final exchange is "How d'you feel?" "Kinda depressed — which isn't so bad for a musical comedy."
The musical Urinetown is based off this premise. The characters of Officer Lockstop and Little Sally frequently break away from their in-show groups (Lockstop from police officers and Sally from the urchins) to discuss with the audience the musical they're in, with Lockstop giving Sally advice on how not to put too much exposition into their conversations with the audience, or at the end when Sally complains that the show should have a happy ending because the music is so happy.
The Mystery Of Edwin Drood plays with this, being written as actors putting on the show in a London music hall, and narrated by the Chairman of the company, who at one point has to step in to fill in for another actor and is frequently confused about which he is currently acting as. The audience and actors also vote on the ending, the actors at one point making a decision because they dislike the supposed music hall actress playing one character.
One of the major themes in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Hamlet, and that they die because the playwright had written that they were dead. At one point Rosencrantz even shouts "Fire!" in order to demonstrate the abuse of free speech. This is a play off of the "Shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" exception to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (since they are characters in a play, it is obvious that they are in a crowded theatre).
All The Great Books Abridged embodies this trope. The entire play is three teachers jotting through a list of classics to the audience, who are all students in a remedial English class.
In Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, at the end of the opening number "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" the cats become aware of the audience, and de-facto narrator Munkustrap acknowledges the confusion of certain audience members as to what exactly a "Jellicle" cat is.
- Later, the cats take refuge among the audience when hiding from Macavity.
In Rock Of Ages, Lonny acts as the narrator of the story and at one point, actually informs the main character, Drew, that he is in a Broadway Play and shows him the playbill to prove it.
In Avenue Q, the characters frequently address the audience in a manner similar to Sesame Street, which the show is parodying. At one point, when the characters are trying to collect money, they literally run into the audience with hats and collect money from audience members (the money is donated to Broadway Cares).

The Discworld games do stuff like this a lot, particularly the second game. Constant references to "obvious plot devices" and "the games budget cant afford a better action sequence". The games protagonist, Rincewind, also identifies many typical fantasy cliches and character stereotypes.
The Elder Scrolls game series incorporates this trope in subtle but relatively major in-game ways, especially in The Elder Scrolls Three Morrowind.
- In fact, the games' developers are known for incorporating programming errors and other game quirks into canon by explaining them in later games. Obliterating the fourth wall is just one of the ways they have done so.
Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals has a meta ending, where Larry and Patti are transported at one point to Sierra studios, where they have to navigate through obvious stage sets from other game series by Sierra, such as Space Quest, Police Quest, and King's Quest. At the end, they meet Roberta Williams, co-owner of Sierra, who agrees that their story would make a good set of adventure games. It ends with Larry essentially starting to write the first game in his own series.
- The ~~fourth~~ fifth game in the series, Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work, begins with Larry and Patty separated and with no recollection of what happened in the last game, because Big Bad Julius Bigg stole the master floppies and the game was never released. In reality, Al Lowe just thought he'd written himself into a corner by giving Larry 3 such a conclusive ending, so he decided to skip the fourth game and start fresh with Larry 5.
  - Actually, not only had he written himself into a corner, he had actually promised there was not going to be a Leisure Suit Larry 4. The only way to keep his promise was to skip 4 and go straight to 5.
Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2: At least in the GBA series, American release, the Inspectors are prone to breaking the 4th wall. If you actually beat him when you're not supposed to, Mekibos will stay silent and asks the gamer, "What, you want me to say anything? OK, OK. Good job". Original Generations adds this further in one of the Save-Quit dialogues, Gilliam asks the same thing and ends up promoting Hero Senki, his REAL game of origin. In fact, the whole save-quit dialogues are full of Fourth Wall breaking dialogues (including Shu lying about 'Saving more times will make the game more difficult!').
- Another feature in the GBA game is when Sanger obtains the Dygenguard, just in time for the chapter title screen to appear, Vigagi says "What!? And what does Episode 30 mean!?". Of course, Sanger, being the Bad Ass he is, instantly tells him to shut up, only to find that the Dygenguard is weaponless and immobile, and the rest is history.
- We can't forget the slightly creepy No Fourth Wall / Lampshade Hanging moments by Evil Ascended Fanboy Tenzan Nakajima. When you finally kill him (mostly), he cackles about "Level Grinding" and other game concepts that are perfectly applicable to the situation (i.e. you can restart a level and keep the experience if you're defeated)...if he was the player and not just an insane NPC.
- Very early on in the original Super Robot Wars 3, Masaki Andou appears about halfway through the game, having only been mentioned once or twice earlier. Within a few bits of dialogue, someone asks who he is. His answer? "Buy Super Robot Wars 2!"
The Disgaea series. The first game cracks it here and there (such as Laharl complaining about The Rival's tragic past and Vyers' nickname "Mid-Boss"), while the second game decides to nuke it from orbit (How do you know the Big Bad isn't dead yet? Because nobody's title changed to "God of All Overlords" like it's supposed to. Don't forget those Senate hearings over who gets to be the main character. Then there's that one time where Rozalin tells Adell that she's leading him around in circles to give him a perfect opportunity for Level Grinding...) And hell, Etna's constant kvetching over going from Level 1000 to Level 1 after a botched summoning.
- In the third game they've just thrown up their hands and run with it, with characters noting that expository dialogue explaining a past relationship is very helpful for a player who is on his first time through the game, another commenting on how cheat-codes would help him not have to level-grind and in the very first chapter where they attack a fake-boss having Mao comment on how efficient the game is to have the first chapter be the final chapter too. Not to mention how the first few chapters completely revolve around Mao's quest to gain the "title" of Hero, which basically shows up as his character's status, while Almaz keeps complaining about his own title, which is always some variety of "Demon". And then at the end, the final boss lets you save first, talks about how final bosses need a "true form", and after you beat him Mao comments on what a "normal ending" should be. Then in the bonus story, a character talks about someone stealing a letter out of his name, and declaring that it's not a text bug since he "reported it five times" and was told that the scene was supposed to look that way.
Nippon Ichi Software's grand continuity features Asagi, a character whose entire purpose is attempting to take over games from their main protagonists to make up for her own Makai Wars becoming Vaporware.
Conkers Bad Fur Day includes, for example, buying and reading the in-game manual, subtly pleading the game designers not to change the game signifigantly in the remake, and Conker winning the game only because the game locks up near the end.
Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines: Some Sabbat vampires have captured and are considering mutilating the player character; the leader turns, gives the player the finger, and comments, "Those of you sitting in the first few rooms will get wet."
- Also, if the player asks Rosa if they will be victorious in the end, she says "Whether you win or lose is irrelevant. What's important is that you bought it."
The Nintendo DS game Contact does this almost all the time, with the Professor speaking directly to the player asking you to "guide" Terry, the main character.
- That's just to start. In the ending, following the final boss fight, Terry wakes up back on the first island and start to talk to you. Up until this point he had been a Silent Protagonist, as you (the player) controlled him, and you could not actually speak. He then tells you that he realized that he just was being controlled, and was angry at you. He then attacks you, forcing you to fight him yourself. After that, the rest of the ending rolls, and if you're lucky, you can see the epilogue, in which the professor explains that the entire plot of the game was started when he realized he was a video game character. He learned what he was, and afterward, began to live even when the game was turned off. He then says that he's leaving the game to travel the (real) world, and creates a copy of himself in case you want to play through the game again, leading you to wonder if the one that left that message was even the original to begin with...
  - And worse — after the epilogue, the BGM keeps going, and the final background is still there — a scene thats always visible during the game, but conspicuously empty. There are no words to describe this. I left the game on for three whole days, just in case.
Destroy All Humans (and Destroy All Humans 2) does this a lot.
Orthopox: Oh don't mind me, I'm only a fictional character in a simulated universe, after all. I have nothing better to do, really. I'm just made up of a bunch of electrons floating around your console, and a few hundred kilobytes of data stored on your DHS disk... DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEE!
- After talking to The Freak in disguise and trying to recap his mission goals, The Freak had already forgotten what he said 30 seconds ago. Crypto turns to the camera and says "This is why you shouldn't do drugs."
- While constructing an interstellar communicator from parts found around the city, Crypto starts singing a rendition of Dry Bones:
  Cryptosporidium: The sensor cell connects to the focal plane; the focal plane connects to the plasma beam... I know you're waitin' for me to sing that damn song. Well, I ain't doin' it. I've got standards; they may not be high but I've got 'em. Also we couldn't get the rights.''
- When Crypto asks Ponsy what the appeal of Modern Art is, he gives a long-winded explanation. Crypto says "You realize the player's probably in the kitchen making nachos by this point".
- Not to mention all the times Crypto mentions the name of the game, such as when he got stuck on a mission that required a more subtle approach or when he found himself saving the earth.
  Cryptosporidium: Man, what ever happened to "Destroying All Humans"?
- Whenever you linger around on the mothership for too long in the first game:
  Orthopox: (angrily) Look, the game is called "Destroy All Humans", not "Screw Around On the Mothership!"
- Reading the mind of a Majestic agent will sometimes reveal ahead of time that Silhouette is a woman, this is quickly followed by the agent thinking "Crap, the player's not supposed to know that yet!"
The Game Cube RPG Baten Kaitos played this alarmingly straight by having the player serve as a "Guardian Spirit" assisting the paty, whom the characters would occasionally address by turning to the camera and asking a direct question. Choosing an answer contrary to the plot wouldn't change the storyline, but would reduce the likelihood of getting certain special attacks in battle. Having said that, separating the player from the party wasn't entirely a gimmick: it allowed the main character, Kalas, to hide his motivations for betraying the party until the Face Heel Turn actually happened.
Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People Ep. 1 breaks the fourth wall on the title screen. Strong Bad asks if the frames per second can handle all the action.
Some sample quotes from the Metal Gear Solid series:
Baker: I forget, it's on the back of the CD case.
Mantis: [reading your memory card] I see you like ... Castlevania.
Ocelot: There are no continues, my friend. And don't even think of using auto-fire, or I'll know!
Colonel: Turn the game console off right now. ... Don't worry, it's a game.
Rose: You'll ruin your eyes playing so close to the TV.
Colonel: You wouldn't be trying to give yourself a bogus score using some ingenious trick, would you? That's just about as low as anyone could possibly stoop.
Mei Ling: You should be happy you have time to be playing video games, Snake.
Mantis: No memory card! Where are your saves? ... No vibration either. (alternatively, "Vibration is back!")
- And how about Otacon in MGS 4, after the Crying Wolf boss fight? It goes like so:
Otacon: Hold it, Snake! Time to change the disc. I know, I know, it's a pain. But you need to swap Disc 1 for Disc 2. You see the Disc labelled "2"?
Snake: Uh, no?
Otacon: Huh? Oh! We're on Playstation 3! It's a Blu-Ray disc! Dual-layered, too. No need to swap!
Snake: Dammit, Otacon, get a grip!
Otacon: Yeah, what an age we live in, huh, Snake? What'll they think of next?
- The first two MSX2 games, Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, had their fair share of fourth wall breaking moments. In Metal Gear, Big Boss tells Snake to "turn off the MSX computer" when he arrives at the final building, while Metal Gear 2 has Campbell telling Snake to check the back of the game's packaging to obtain his second frequency number.
- In the Twin Snakes version of MGS, when Mantis tells the player to put down the controller, Snake actually turns toward the camera and nods to give the OK.
Izuna 2: The Unemployed Ninja Returns has moments of this. Most notably on menu screens and such, but also any time the plot from the previous game becomes important the fourth wall comes down long to inform you that if you want to know what they're talking about you should go play the original game, which they refer to by name.
The SNES game Secret of Evermore held one instance where, if the player talks to an old man enough, he will say "This is a video game. We are in a video game, and there is a person outside, holding the controller, controlling our every move, every word we say!"
The Banjo-Kazooie series has remarkably little fourth wall, especially in the second game—Kazooie observes when the music changes, signifying new events, Banjo continuously asks if the quests are over so they can get jiggies, and Jamjars works the names of the controller buttons into his Sound Off. It helps that both protagonists have become alarmingly Genre Savvy since the last game.
In Rhapsody A Musical Adventure, missing the timing while fighting the Puzzle Boss leads to Etoile blaming Cornet for the mistake. Cornet immediately shifts the blame to the person holding the controller (or stylus in the DS remake).
- A nice example comes pretty early on, actually. After the first Boss Battle, Myao orders another boss to attack. Cornet immediately accepts and says she will fight with all she got, to which Kururu asks something similar to:
  Kururu: Are you sure you want to fight? I mean... if you lose, it will be game over... and you'll have to watch this whole scene again!"
No More Heroes. Right off the bat in the intro. "Just push the 'A' Button!" Then slowly chipped them away one by one until the last mission and then completely destroyed at the end ("I would expect you and your players would expect a twist or some kind!").
Characters in the Donkey Kong Country games, much like those in the Banjo-Kazooie series, seem very much aware that they are all video game characters, particularly Cranky Kong, who's known for lacing in-game hints with his Fourth Wall Shattering insults. Some of his greatest examples of showing No Fourth Wall include his Video Game Hero Awards, and the storyline for Donkey Kong Land in which he arranges for the Kremlings to steal Donkey Kong's bananas again as part of a bet he tricked DK and Diddy into that they couldn't pull off a successful adventure on the less technically capable Game Boy.
In Rayman 3, Murfy spends much of his time in the game bickering with his copy of the game's instruction manual (which replies via on-screen captions.) To heighten the effect, the real instruction manual is very uncomplimentary of Murfy in the character profiles section. Additionally, Murfy farewells the player with the words "See you in Rayman 4!" and Globox can be bullied into saying, "You were nicer in Rayman 2!"
Viewtiful Joe breaks and stomps the fourth wall to pieces in the first two games. In the first, the opening cut scene has Six Majin reach through the movie screen to pull Joe into Movie Land and become the hero. In the second, Joe (still in the movie) regularly speaks with his father Jet (who is in the theater) when Jet changes the film reel between each stage.
Sam and Max from Sam and Max Hit the Road to present, are pretty casually aware of the Fourth Wall, and have employed every trope involved with interacting with it.
The Simpsons Game is definitely a good example of "There Is No Fourth Wall". After the first level (which is a direct reference to the "Land of Chocolate" daydream from the German episode) Bart finds a videogame user's manual for the very game we're playing right now, and through that manual, discovers that each member of his immediate family has some kind of videogame superpower.
- In the final cut scene Ralph Wiggum walks up to the TV screen, knocks on it, and says, "Daddy, people are looking at me!", just before the TV (not the real one) turns off.
- Also, at certain points as you play, the game is interrupted by the Comic book Guy pointing out the fact that you just came across some typical videogame cliche, such as invisible walls or an enemy that is physically identical to another one but they changed the colours.
- Plus, there are entire levels that scream nothing but "You're in a videogame, this is a videogame, and we're going to remind you that you are playing a videogame. Also, here's some references to some other videogames."
Gaia Online's Gee Boi Turbo item was a minigame in which the two dark elves and their pet owl go to a Gaia Online-centric anime convention. The owl commissions Head Tiltingly Kinky fanart of the local Yaoi Guys, among other things.
Kuro: *upon finding Kuro/Devin yaoi fanart* Seriously, guys. This isn't canon.
- Other Gaia Online events have involved user participation more directly, such as playing games (the Olympics) or voting on matters (Ian's trial, Timmy's puberty). These have not always turned out quite the way the users expected (Timmy's puberty).
- And during the Alien invasion one alien (02) got a huge fan following. The leaders of the 02 fan group even got drawn into the manga.
In Mega Man Battle Network installing the Humor program into the Navi Cust lets Megaman tell (bad) jokes, one of which Lan responds to with "We'd better stop this or our players will get crabby!"
In Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal which is based on the 2nd edition AD&D ruleset, Mazzy the Halfling Fighter has a discussion with another NPC who suggests she should become a Paladin. Mazzy responds by saying Halflings can't become Paladins (as is the case in 2nd edition). Paraphrasing: "It's not as though there's a third edition out is there?"
X Edge spends most of the game with a solid Fourth Wall for the main scenario, however, after you beat the last boss and hit the post game, they waste no time in tearing the fourth wall into bite sized chunks and dancing merily on its remains. They act very Out Of Character, quote completly insane lines, refer to in game events as such, count the number of lines they have in a scene, blatantly lampshade numerous RPG and Character Tropes, and basically throw away all pretentions they are anything but a game.
Eat Lead: the Return of Matt Hazard eats, drinks and breathes this trope. The developers even went as far as adding fake fansites detailing the non-existant Matt Hazard games.
In the Artix Entertainment Games, the one who really broke the Fourth Wall was (and still is) the Guardian Dragon in Adventure Quest when you summon(ed) it for a super special attack. Most of his jokes and gibes were (are) at the player, the game creators, and a few other things. In Dragon Fable, however, when your character is asked why he fights for good, he answers, "I'm the Hero of the story. It's my job."
- And now, recently, they decided to break it down again in this cutscene at the end of a war.
  - After being defeated, Lionfang decides to jump out of a window and down into a moat than joining forces with Evil to defeat Chaos. When Artix asks, "Do you think he can survive that fall?" your character answers, "Possibly...he was strong, and even had a stronger will. But remember...I survived that fall off the mountain at the beginning of the game."
The hidden ending for The Nameless Mod has Trestkon wandering around the boundries of the final level, watching all the mooks respawn and go about their business. He talks to the player, and decides he enjoys having God-like powers over the world. He accepts his position of existing solely to entertain, and bids the player good-bye, inviting him or her to come back if "you ever want to play again sometime."
This shows up in Batman Arkham Asylum. As you solve the Riddler's puzzles, he occasionally throws out different comments. When you've got most of them he demands to know if you're cheating by looking up their locations on the internet.
- A more bizzare occurance occurs midway through the game with the third Scarecrow encounter. While the first two encounters were in-universe hallucinations, the third one begins by making the console appear to lock up and restart the game, this time with Joker taking Batman into Arkham as an inmate. Even more, the Joker pulls out a gun and shoots Batman in the face, triggering a fake "Game Over" screen with a "Try This Next Time" tip that's impossible (the console versions say to use the middle joystick to dodge the bullet (lucky there's no N64 version); the PC version says to tilt the mouse). Choosing continue or quit will both bring you to the actual fight stage.
As a nod to his fourth wall breaking talents, Deadpool breaks the fourth wall in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 by talking to the player in his introductory scene and saying, "Time for a boss battle!" which is also the name of the achievement you get for defeating him.
Happens in-universe in the final scene of Assassins Creed II, where Minerva turns and looks directly at Desmond and speaks to him, ignoring Ezio, who is understandably confused by the whole thing.
Umineko No Naku Koro Ni both has and omits a fourth wall. The Rokkenjima part of the story is viewed by, played with and commented on by characters in a meta-world. Also, in episode 5, Bernkastel sends her piece Erika to the game board, making her break the fourth wall almost non-stop, claiming to have detective's authority, saying it could be a plotline murder, etc.

In Homestar Runner, talking to the audience is pretty much the entire point of the Strong Bad Email cartoons.
- This is not a 100% wall break, since it's assumed that Strong Bad is actually the star of his own webcam show within his fictional universe. There are still several other qualifying occurences, though.

1/0 takes the concept fairly seriously; the cartoonist is a disembodied voice who talks with the characters often. Incidents such as the characters going on strike (refusing to talk or move, to drive down readership and force the cartoonist to give in) or developing "personal fourth walls" were common, and the end of the series was largely concerned with the question of how to let the characters survive past the strip's end.
Bob And George breaks the fourth wall in the very first strip, with Mega Man addressing the audience to explain that the main comic won't be ready in time. From there, it just gets more ridiculous. Mega Man deviates from the script and runs away. When this results in Dr. Light's accidental death, the Author steps in and uses his authorial control of the story — which translates to in-universe omnipotence — to revive him. Two different villains attempt to end the comic by attacking The Author. And throughout all the insanity, Proto Man is able to maintains his composure by knowing what's going to happen — because he reads the comic's archives.
Deviant ART based comic The Grind takes place in the game RuneScape, and the characters are players in the game. As such, all of the characters know they are in a game...except for the main character, who is the only one who doesn't know what he is actually doing, sort of an anti-FourthWallObserver.
- One character, Death, knows they are in BOTH a webcomic and a video game, and in one comic breaks both walls at once by referring to their actions being controlled by the comic's writer, though other characters don't know what he is talking about.
Roomies also has the narrator directly interact with the cast. The plot device to explain this is he is a disembodied spirit of some kind. (Not to be confused with the other webcomic named Roomies, which evolved into It's Walky!)
Characters in DMFA regularly break, or rather tap on, the forth wall.
- The entire "what makes a comic great" Story Arc breaks the fourth wall when, in a attempt to make the comic more interesting, a group of characters kill off the main character, have several spontaneous pregnancies, introduce a new character then kill him before he can even get his name out as well as try to do some Shonen Al. The arc ends with the author apparently being strangled by her own mouse cord.
- The characters also regularly puzzle over the plot holes that randomly appear here and there. You can find them wondering about their instantaneous wardrobe changes, odd plot devices and the "urge to say something comedic and ironic out loud".
Framed! is based on the premise that the characters really are the real people they are based on, whom the cartoonist, DaMonk, has trapped in a Pocket Universe; unfortunately for DaMonk, being real people, he has no control over them, and at one point they turn the tables on him, trapping him in the comic.
Schlock Mercenary does this quite often; for instance, the mercenary captain asking the narrator why he's not allowed to swear.
- Of course, the Fourth Wall does exist, otherwise they wouldn't have had to fix it
- On a couple of occasions, the Author actually shows up in the strip to warn the characters to straighten up.
- They also converse with the narrator and discuss tropes amongst each other. The Fourth Wall is basically the second-most-commonly destroyed object in all the comedy. (The first? Lawyer drones.)
The Metroid-themed Sprite Comic Planet Zebeth regularly breaks the fourth wall, including but not limited to having the animator appear in the strip, numerous digs at game continuity, and a Running Gag involving one of the arch-villains running a bar.
Due to its exceedingly Genre Savvy characters, Order Of The Stick breaks the Fourth Wall all the time. Just a few examples are:
- In the Order Of The Stick book On The Origin of PCs, Elan requests a room, stating that he just needs four walls and a bed. The Innkeeper responds that fourth walls are a rarity around here... and they both wink at the reader.
- In this Order Of The Stick strip the characters are caught napping by the end of a flashback. Elan says "Aren't we supposed to get a two-panel warning?"; Vaarsuvius decides s/he can't work in these conditions.
- Likewise in Start of Darkness, a character complains about the demonic cockroaches (who exist primarily to make aside comments on the action) doing a lot of damage to the walls—especially fourth ones.
  - The title of this comic lampshades this trope, as its title is "At Least It Wasn't The Fourth Wall Again".
- And here some characters from one of the prequel books provide some background exposition — checking the details from a copy of said book. The page is titled, "Hey, I Need to Sell Them Somehow".
- In one recent comic, Durkon needs a large diamond to cast a resurrection spell, but the ones he had were stolen... So Haley grabs the diamond she is seen holding on the Cast Page, returns to the current strip, and hands the diamond to durkon. Incidentally, as of editing, the aforementioned diamond is replaced with a note saying "I.O. Me one big-ass diamond."
  - Not only that, but the comic's title is "It's a shame she didn't take the script while she was there.", referring to the script that the whole cast ends up complaining about in one way or another.
- The Oracle is able to understand Haley's garbled speech . . . by looking forward in time to the point when the strip is compiled in a book and reading the translation.
The Insecticons are the most frequent offenders in the Insecticomics, but to some degree or another the characters are aware of their status. Some of the hand-drawn comics feature the author herself talking to the characters — and one rather odd one in the usual Photo Comic format with the Insecticons (who are only about two inches high, as toys) talking to the author's giant head.
The Stick Figure Comic Stickman And Cube. The two titular characters are fully aware of their status as comic characters and are constantly making meta-jokes and talking to the readers.
Triangle & Robert takes the no-fourth-wall concept way past its logical conclusion. Not only does the Cartoonist interact with the characters, his presence has altered their universe — everything has been badly drawn and monochrome since he showed up. Unsurprisingly, there are anti-Cartoonist protests in the characters' world.
Partially Clips breaks the fourth wall early on, then the next strip was another fourth-wall breaking strip, showing characters in the strip rebuilding the fourth wall so that it could never be broken again.
- One Partially Clips strip was about the narrator deciding never to do forth-wall-breaking strips again. He was lying.
Real Life does this on an almost daily basis, with the author talking to characters of the strip. This interaction works both ways, with the strip's characters sometimes talking to the author, the characters or the author talking to the readers, and even, at one point, an instance where the comic's main character vandalised the comic's website.
Checkerboard Nightmare — the story of Checkerboard Nightmare's attempt to create a wildly popular webcomic, starring himself — smashed the fourth wall to bits and danced across the rubble from day one.
- In the particularly ~~notable~~ insane "Repairing the Fourth Wall" arc, Vaporware decides webcomics have become too dependent on No Fourth Wall gags, so he decides to rebuild the Fourth Wall. He succeeds in spite of much opposition from the rest of the cast, who come to grudgingly accept that removing the crutch of self-aware humor is probably for the best. Then Chex smiles at the audience and says, "That's it for this storyline, folks! Be back here next strip for more Checkerboard Nightmare! And please click on a few ads."
The characters of Sluggy Freelance frequently complain when they are forced to participate in lame filler strips, especially when illness, laziness or holidays mean they're drawn as stick figures. The cartoonist, Pete, occasionally speaks to the cast (appearing as a godlike figure whose features are not visible due to golden light), and Shirt Guy Tom (represented by a stick figure) frequently tries to take the comic over, which everybody hates because he is a terrible artist. There's an entire mini-arc drawn by a guest author, featuring the guest author coming up with a guest comic and then being chased by angry fans because she messed with canon.
- However, the plot proper firmly requires a fourth wall. Even when it's broken within the normal comics (as opposed to filler), it's always in throwaway lines, and the characters go back to being unaware of being in a comic for most of the time and at all important points.
Also most characters in Least I Could Do]] use No Fourth Wall on occasion, especially during the comic's annual Valentine's Day contest, wherein the characters themselves often read through fan-mail and pick a winner to go out on a date with a chosen character in the strip.
- Another instance of LICD No Fourth Wall is when the author and artist send a letter to the characters stating that they will no longer be "forever 24", and that they will begin to age like normal people do. See also Webcomic Time.
- In a perfect example, the main character Rayne recently threatened both the writer and artist should they censor a reconcilliation between a lesbian couple. (Or Rayne's attempt to seduce them both). Linky
Irregular Webcomic is also a frequent offender, especially in the "Me" theme. An example possibly topping all of those in this page is the current storyline in that theme where after saying a regular cast member would die permanently before the end of 2007, the author himself is killed by what is later revealed to be his future self who has since become Death Of Going Back In Time And Killing Yourself.
- And when he is sent back to kill himself, he refuses and are now on the run from death it(?)self.
Jayden and Crusader used to use this trope heavily, and was indeed a pivotal plot point in one storyline, but since March 2008 has been desperately been trying to put up a flimsy fourth wall.
- It then totally blew the fourth wall into tiny smithereens in this page [1]
Some characters in Magical Misfits know they are fictional.
Applies to some series in The KAMics.
Three Walls Tavern. 'Nuff said.
Jerkcity contains what is probably the first, and perhaps the only, occurrence of a fictional character reporting a real bug in OpenBSD.
How did we get this far without metioning the (now-defunct) No Fourth Wall to Break?
In Zelda Comic, the fourth wall is broken many times. Once, Sheik begins to think that they are only meant to entertain people, in which, the animator makes her forget about what she was saying before, while Link asks, "Who am I?" Later in the series, Bub says that they "don't do that fourth-wall breaking thing anymore."
Darkmoons Silly Web Comic. Lampshaded, even.

In Survival Of The Fittest schizophrenic Wade Wilson starts to, having run out of medication, give the narrator a piece of his mind, getting to the point of incoherence at times.
Narrator:Wade was, of course, well into his descent into madness, and as it had been days since he'd last taken his pills, the medication within his system was beginning to break down, and impulses that he'd only ever had once were beginning to rise to the forefront.
Wade: Descent into madness?! Holy cliché alert, Batman! Was it a dark, and stormy night, too?! Was I giving a hundred-and-ten percent, and having no 'I' in 'TEAM'? WELL GUESS WHAT, MISTER NARRATOR!? THERE'S A 'ME' in 'TEAM', SO YOU LOSE!
- Wade Wilson? There's no way that can't be a Shout Out.
Part of the premise of lonelygirl15 and LG15: the resistance, as stated by Word Of God, is that there is no fourth wall. The characters are always aware that there is an audience, and often address them directly. However, the characters do not know that they are fictional, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the fourth wall exists — it's just transparent.
- KateModern follows the same premise, but additionally, characters sometimes play with the Fourth Wall in a more traditional sense.
A major part of the plot of The Church Of Blow is Cornelius discovering he is a fictional character. And it is so sad.

A Pup Named Scooby Doo had a gimmick similar to Ellery Queen, just before they revealed who the monster was.
Perhaps the most brilliant example ever was the classic Looney Tunes short "Duck Amuck", which entirely consists of Daffy Duck and an unseen (until the final shot) animator arguing with each other across the Fourth Wall.
- Said animator turns out to be nobody else but Bugs Bunny (but then, who didn't see that coming?).
  - "Ain't I a stinker?"
  - There's a much-less-classic sequel, called Rabbit Rampage, in which Bugs Bunny is tormented by Elmer Fudd. Basically effective only in highlighting the character-driven brilliance of the original in contrast. Bugs, as Chuck Jones thought of him, has far too much grace under pressure to freak out as beautifully as Daffy.
Rocky And Bullwinkle is also noted for its missing fourth wall; the characters know that they are on a TV show, know that there are censors watching, realize that it's a children's show, and recognize that the writing/plot/script/concept is "bad writing" at times.
A 1940 Looney Tunes short titled "You Ought to Be in Pictures" involves Porky Pig and Daffy Duck literally jumping out of their animation cels and interacting with the real (live-action) world.
Jem's fourth wall gets smashed into pieces "The Day The Music Dies". It has the following characters break the fourth wall: Kimber Benton, Aja Leith, Carmen "Raya" Alsono, Riot, Pizzazz, and Ashley.
Three characters-aware-of-the-narrator examples.
- In an episode of Dangermouse, the narrator is tired of his voiceovers and just says, "London, city of millions...blah blah blah blah." Colonel K pauses in mid briefing to say, "Did you hear someone going 'blah, blah, blah' just then?"
- In an episode of Batfink, Hugo Agogo shoots the narrator with his speed up ray so he will talk faster and keep the action moving.
- In one of Disney's Winnie the Pooh stories, Tigger is stuck up a tree and asks the narrator to narrate him down, which he does by tilting the page so Tigger can climb down the text of the story(!).
  - This happened quite a bit in the old videos — at one point in "A Day For Eeyore", when the titular donkey gets rescued from the river, he argues with Tigger about wether or not he was bounced into the river. The narrator promptly interrupts, much to the confusion of everyone (except Tigger, of course), then he turns the pages back in order for everyone to see the scene and find out. Earlier in the episode, the narrator has to tell Pooh why he used sticks insead of fir cones for Poohsticks (you know, that game where you drop sticks from a bridge).
Garfield And Friends did this constantly from the beginning, to the point where there are several cartoons entirely based around the cartoon status of the show, acknowledging the audience on a regular basis, and characters remarking that they want bigger parts in the show. At one point Garfield even sits down and watches his own show on TV to find out what he should do next; and another episode, opening in medias res, has him pull out a script to find out what has happened up to that point. In one other episode, Garfield was afraid the plane he was on was going to crash, so he turned to the camera and asked the viewer to check their TV listings to see if it was the last episode.
Chowder breaks the fourth wall so often that it's doubtful that they rebuilt it after the first time. Take the episode "Brain Grub" where Chowder becomes so intelligent that he figures out he's in a cartoon, then uses his brainpower to change it into a boring talk show (and then again to basically delete the universe). Sadly, the fourth wall seems to have been almost fully rebuilt in the third season.
- Then, when Mung Daal spends all of their money, he asks the delivery guy, "Do you know what this means?" He guesses twice and gives up on the third try, and Mung says it means no animation. Then it cuts to the voice actors who decide to raise money by doing car washes. Yeah.
- In an episode in which Chowder tries to practice his handwriting, at one point, he tries by writing on the screen. Gazpacho wipes it off the screen, and Chowder asks if he's "going to wash that one off, too", pointing to the Cartoon Network screen bug. Gazpacho says that "it doesn't come off. I've tried."
  - Unfortunately, the bug changed extensively several months after that episode aired, destroying the illusion Gazpacho was pointing to the genuine CN logo.
- Panini once asked what the title character's favorite color, food, and cartoon was, and said "I bet it's chowder!" Does she mean his favorite food or cartoon?
In Dog City, animated detective Ace Hart would frequently engage in conversation with his creator Eliot Shag, even stopping the show while it was being animated to do so.
Dave The Barbarian often uses that, to the point where the narrator is brainwashed by the Big Bad to narrate a story where he is victorious. Sometimes the low budget of the show is referenced too ("And so, our heroes defeated the muffin monster in an epic battle which is too expensive to be animated in such a cheap show like this").
Dora The Explorer is a prime example. In fact, the whole point of the show is to be "interactive" with its viewers. Of course, it's not practical to make it really interactive so it is just assumed that the child does interact and the appropriate pauses are given. "We're going to need your help to get Map to open! Say 'map'! (pause) Louder! (pause, then map opens)" Not to mention the whole "Swiper no swiping" exchanges.
- Long before Dora, though, there was Winky Dink, who not only interacted with the kids watching, but actively needed their help — as provided via crayons and a clear plastic overlay for the TV screen (conveniently available for sale at your local store).
- While the above example is earlier, Blues Clues is usually credited as the genesis of modern interactive children's shows. Live-action host Steve (or, more recently, Joe) talks directly to the audience and, like Dora, waits for appropriate responses to his questions. Unlike Dora however, there is audio of children answering him after a short pause, probably to make the children at home feel more comfortable with participating.
The Goofy "How To" shorts, most notably the newer ones from Houseof Mouse. The older shorts are mostly wall breakers through constant narration and Goofy's continued glances and grins at the audience, whereas the newer ones have the narrator and Goofy playing off each other, and Goofy humorously commenting on everything to the viewer. Even outside of the "How To" shorts, though, whereas a lot of the characters after the black and white era usually stayed completely in the moment, Goofy would still pause, turn, and point something funny out to the audience.
In The Emperors New Groove, Unreliable Narrator Kuzco not only breaks the fourth wall, he draws on it.
- In the end chase scene a map shows us where Yzma/Kronk and Kuzco/Pacha are by leaving footsteps behind icons of them. Cut back to Yzma and Kronk who are staring at the purple footsteps they are leaving behind in bewilderment.
- Later, the same map is consulted by Yzma and Kronk when asked how they got to the palace before Kuzco and Pacha.
In The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy, during a telephone call the creature was not speaking English so subtitles appeared on the screen. When Mandy asked Grim what he said Grim relayed the message explaining that he didn't understand a word of it, but he was pretty good at reading subtitles backwards.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Crossover movie Turtles Forever had an absolutely beautiful moment where the goofy 1980 cartoon version of Raphael speaks to the audience, causing the Hun (a villain from the more serious 2003 cartoon) to look at the "camera" in total confusion.
- The third time it happened, Hun lifted him in the air and started shaking him, demanding to know why he keeps doing that, and who he's talking to.
Subverted in Duck Dodgers. In one episode, the Martian robots think the Martian Commander is crazy for narrating his plans to an unseen audience. The subversion is that he probably doesn't know such an audience really exists, and really is just talking to himself.
In the Jonny Quest TOS episode "Monster in the Monastery'', Jonny turns and looks right into the camera, then tells the viewers "I hope Hadji and Bandit made it."
In an episode of Johnny Test, the title character and his genetically-altered intelligent talking dog Dukey get themselves trapped in a virtual reality designed by Johnny's super-genius twin older sisters. As they face certain doom, about to go over a cliff in a speeding car being driven by an action movie character, Dukey admonishes Johnny for getting them into the mess by using his sisters' lab without permission. 'Why can't you just watch cartoons like a normal kid?' At that, both Johnny and Dukey glance sideways at the viewer.
The "Sam And Max" animated show never had a 4th wall, pointing out jokes that were used in the comics, referencing the constraints a kid show puts on them, and even going so far to point out the shows lack of viewers.
Max: Sam, I think we're being watched.
Sam: Judging by the lack of fan mail, I beg to differ little pal.

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