This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Seth: Image hotlinked from wikipedia - bad contributor.
George Burns takes credit for inventing this trope in the George Burns And Gracie Allen Show, as he would often step out of a scene to comment on the action.
However, while Burns may have been the first to do it on TV, an earlier example is provided in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town (first staged in 1938), in which a single person serves both as narrator, explaining various things to the audience, as well as certain characters within the scenes — and the narrator even explains to the audience that he'll be stepping into the scenes.
Arguably, an even earlier example is found in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream: Puck addresses the audience directly at the very end of the play. Aristophanes' play The Frogs, 404BCE, had the characters addressing the audience almost 2,000 years before that. (The specific case of a character doing this to request applause is the original meaning of the word "claptrap". It also appears in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Ben Johnson's Volpone, and Barrie's Peter Pan.)
Ununnilium: I'm fairly sure the *term* "fourth wall" comes from Russian playwright Anton Chekov.
Guesss Who: Speaking of Thornton Wilder-didn't he write The Skin Of Our Teeth? One of the characters in that said that she didn't understand the play!
Yonmei: Actually, Peter Pan's famous demand that the audience "Clap if you believe in fairies!" is a No Fourth Wall break - and an unusual one for the time the play was written. It was the single "effect" that J.M.Barrie was most concerned about (more so than the theatrical flights) and the producer had a claque seated in the audience to encourage applause in case the audience didn't react. (They did, with enthusiasm.) The first performance of Peter Pan was 27 December 1904.
Drop Dead Gorgias: The formatting on this article was really non-standard. I tried to move the historical and significant ones up, and the exemplars down, but I'm not sure it's quite right. Also, the sitcom with the fourth wall up was on The State for sure; I don't think SNL actually did it.
Gus: I went on a blue-pencil rampage. I think it reads a little better.
Tabby: There's a later, less-popular Looney Toons short that's the same setup as "Duck Amuck," but with Bugs getting abuse from the animator. I can't recall the name.
Ununnilium: Rabbit Rampage, maybe? But yeah. IIRC, Elmer Fudd turned out to be the narrator at the end.
Morgan Wick: Yes and yes. Now all we need is Elmer being abused by Daffy and we'll complete the triangle.
Ununnilium: Someone please flesh out the examples that are just series names.
Zubon: I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the Metal Gear Solid series in video-game examples of fourth wall breaking. MGS 1 features Revolver Ocelot warning players not to use the auto-fire button in the interrogation sequence, and gloats that you don't get any continues if you game-over at this point; MGS 2 has...oh, pants, the entire business with Raiden and 'Colonel'. MGS 3 has the cardboard box exchange between Naked Snake and that one guy...
Zeke: Removed One Over Zero from the "see also" list. Come on, I love the comic too, but it's not that huge a deal — it's just an example, and one that's already listed.
Guesss Who: We should have that Deadpool 'yellow boxes' bit for the page's picture . . .
Seth: Nothing wrong with that image but it is a big no no to use hotlinked images. We generally don't mind linking to their source but leeching their bandwidth sucks.
You have been visited by the image fairy. Hotlinking is bad.
Meta4: I think Deadpool's 'yellow boxes' scene is more an example of Medium Awareness. And that article already has the picture as well.
Meta4: There, new picture fits the subject better.
Fast Eddie: Pulled the opening quotes. Let's try to leave a little room for the actual entry, Hmm? Pulled stuff....
Erina: Who are you talking to?
Dan: Hold up dude, you still have to go through your entire "evil plan" and all!
Dark Pegasus: Wha? But it's exactly the same as the two you thwarted last time!!
dan: Well I know that, but you've got to explain it to all the readers out there so they know too!
Dark Pegasus: Gnrrr...cursed readers.
Joe: Wait a minute, that's the old script!
Alastor: Huh? So it is. Look, I'm not going to bother explaining the plot so far. If you want to know the Back Story, head to your local game shop and find a copy of the first game in the bargain bin. Go! NOW!
Does it count as No Fourth Wall in music when songs directly refer to the listener or themselves? The content of the songs is usually not explicitly fictional, but it still removes a barrier between artist and audience.
Jurodan: Not sure if this fits, but in the final season of the Drew Carey show, the cast went out of their way to make sure everyone saw there were, indeed, 4 walls to Drew's 'house'.
Lord Seth: Am I the only one who feels there should be two separate tropes; one, Breaking the Fourth Wall, lists examples where a series breaks the fourth wall on occasion but not so much that it really destroys the wall, but not so much that there is in fact no fourth wall, and series that fit No Fourth Wall, well, break it so much there really isn't any fourth wall at all.
Lord Seth: Okay, thanks to YKTTW, this has been split into both Breaking the Fourth Wall and No Fourth Wall (in one doozy of an edit). I did my best sorting the examples, but if you know more about a series than I do and realize I goofed up, feel free to move them!
Rev. Green: Tried to reach No Fourth Wall...
'Hello? Well, quite nice played!' - I thought staring at "The database hates you right now..." message
SenatorJ: I moved the image over to Breaking the Fourth Wall since the FF series has a strong fourth wall and isn't a good example of this trope.
slb1900: I've migrated several examples from this trope to Breaking the Fourth Wall. I asked in this thread
, and although I didn't wait very long for agreement, it seemed pretty logical and no one had any reason to disagree.
Guest: What's the term for breaking the wrong fourth wall? (e.g. saying that you're merely a set of brush strokes, but are really at the whims of a person at the typewriter?)
