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Framing devices typically involve outer-story characters as the audience of the inner story, such as a parent reading a bedtime story to a child. Other times, the outer-story character is the author of, or a performer in, the inner story. Occasionally, the inner story is a hallucination or delusion experienced by one of the outer-story characters.
The inner story does not need to be a work of fiction from an frame-story character's point of view: letters, journals, and memoirs can also be used as framing devices, often in the form of [[Day in
Anthologies and [[Clip Show|Clip Shows]] often use framing devices to connect the unrelated elements into a unified whole. The earlier "Treehouse of Terror" specials of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' use a framing device in this way, though the practice was eventually abandoned.
Occasionally, an entire series can use a persistent [[Framing Device]], such as ''[[Cro]]'', which was framed by a recently thawed mammoth, who was telling the stories which composed the bulk of each episode. A noteworthy example from the days of radio is ''Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar'', whose stories were told in the form of explanations to a private detective's expense account. To a lesser extent, devices such as the [[Captain's Log]] can be viewed as a [[Framing Device]], especially when (as in many ''[[Star Trek:
The [[Framing Device]] is [[Older Than Dirt]]: It goes right back to the Old Kingdom of [[Ancient Egypt]] with the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, c. 2300-2100 BCE. Sometimes the trope is written using nested framing devices that are several layers deep, as in the ''[[
The technique sometimes seems to be a byproduct of an ancient notion that it was improper to waste people's time with lengthy fabrications.
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== [[Anime]] ==
* A particularly ingenious version of this is used in ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]],'' in an inversion of its [[Show Within a Show]] relationship with ''[[Gekiganger 3]]'' -- it airs as an episode of ''Gekiganger'' in which its characters are watching ''Nadesico.'' It manages to [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] the [[Recap Episode]] when one of the ''Gekiganger'' characters complains that nothing new happens in them, and it's an excuse for the production company to take a break.
* ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]] Extra Chapter: Galaxy Police Mihoshi's Space Adventure'' (a.k.a. ''Mihoshi Special'') is framed by Mihoshi telling the story to the other characters from the original [[OAV]] series. Most of the characters in the "inner" story are [[Alternate Continuity]] versions of them.
* ''[[
* ''[[Monster (
* The story of the manga ''[[
* ''[[Jing King of Bandits]]: Seventh Heaven'' is a 3-episode [[OVA]] series in which the first and third episodes act as a frame for the second one.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Conan by Dark Horse Comics. The actual stories are framed by the tale of an Eastern Prince of a less ancient (but still pre-Gutenberg) era that discovers the Nemedian Chronicles (maybe the "Know, o Prince" line gave them the idea).
* Many horror comics had framing devices in which the comic had a "host" who would welceom the reader into their domain, and start to tell this month's story. [[EC Comics]] was best known for this, with their most famous being [[Tales
** The current ''[[House of Mystery]]'' has a framing device of characters swapping stories in an [[Inn Between the Worlds]].
* In ''[[
== [[Film]] - Animated ==
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' begins with a peddler selling a magic lamp and proceeding to tell the story of the fortune it brought its previous owner. The third film, ''Aladdin and the King of Thieves'', ends with the same peddler bidding the viewers farewell with a reprise of ''Aladdin'''s opening song, "Arabian Nights."
** One of the proposed (but unfortunatly rejected) ending of the framing device was revealing that the peddler was in fact the Genie. (which explains why only these two are four-fingered when everyone else is five: because they were the same character. It also explains why the peddler has the lamp, as obviously Aladdin wouldn't have sold or thrown away a memento of his best friend)
* The children's movie ''[[
* The film ''[[Heavy Metal (
* Used often in direct-to-video [[Barbie]] movies. For example, ''[[Barbie and
== [[Film]] - Live-Action ==
* Most of the action in [[Buster Keaton]]'s film ''[[Sherlock, Jr.]]'' is presented as the protagonist's dream, and at the end he wakes up.
* The film ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[The Princess Bride (
* The [[Framing Device]] in ''[[Titanic]]'' is elderly Rose telling her story.
* ''Heathcliff: [[The Movie]]'' (released in 1986), in which the "stories" he tells to his nephews are actually select episodes taken from the TV show's first season (premiered in 1984).
* ''[[Stand
* The movie adaptation of ''[[Of Mice and Men]]'' with Gary Sinise starts and ends with George on a train, recalling the events that led to Lenny's death.
* The story of the Bell family in ''[[
* ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'' is told as a testimony given by one of the story's main characters to the police who are interrogating him.
* ''[[Edward Scissorhands]]'' (1990) by Tim Burton
* ''[[
* ''[[The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman]]'' is another interview-framed film. The interview takes place in 1962, when Miss Pittman is 110 years old. Her memories extend back to before the American Civil War.
* ''[[
* ''[[Kind Hearts and Coronets]]'' is framed by the main character writing his memoirs as he waits in prison to be executed for a murder he ''did not commit''. The memoir details the eight murders he ''did commit''.
** At the last minute he's reprieved, and walks out of the prison into a beautiful day, forgetting his confession in his cell.
* ''[[
* ''[[The Prestige]]'' features a framing device ''within'' a framing device, as Borden reads in Angier's diary about Angier reading ''his'' diary.
* ''[[Mystery Team]]'' begins and ends with the Mystery Team investigating a case.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* The short story [[How Kazir Won His Wife]] by Raymond Smullyan has a framing story in which a sorcerer on an island where the [[Knights and Knaves]] puzzle is implied to have occurred tells some travellers a story which he says is from the ''[[
* In [[
* ''The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar'' by [[Roald Dahl]] has two layers of framing.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[
* It's possible that Chaucer was familiar with [[
* [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[The High Crusade]]'' uses this ''twice'': the action is framed as being the chronicle written by a monk, which in turn is framed as a translation by a group encountering the subjects of the story.
* The book ''[[The Manuscript Found In Saragossa]]'' and its later [[The Movie|adaption]], ''[[The Saragossa Manuscript]]'' take this trope to extreme lengths, telling stories within stories within stories ''within stories''. The initial [[Framing Device]] quickly disappears among the layers of narrative.
* The [[Pink Carnation]] books, featuring the successor to [[The Scarlet Pimpernel (
* [[Stephen King]] used a nursing home and the narrator's old, ''old'' age to frame his re-entries into the serial story of ''[[The Green Mile]]''
* Also by [[Stephen King]], book 4 of [[The Dark Tower]] series, ''Wizard and Glass'', is a back story told by Roland to his group.
** Similarly, in the next book, ''Wolves Of The Calla'', we get a another story within a story. This time, it's Pere Callahan explaining the to [[Nakama|ka-tet]] what happened to him in-between ''[[
* All William King's ''[[Space Wolf]]'' novels are framed - the first two as his flashbacks because something reminded him, and the third as his recounting to [[New Meat|younger Marines]] an episode as an explanation.
* [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''[[
* ''The Book of Lost Tales''--the original draft of the book that would later be published as ''[[The Silmarillion]]''--employs a [[Framing Device]] in which a Man from England, Ælfwine/Eriol, discovers the lost island of the Elves and is told the ancient tales of their folk by a succession of characters.
* [[Lampshaded]] in a later chapter of ''[[
* Many of [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' stories had introductions in which the story was said to be a manuscript written by a character.
* Joseph Conrad's stories ''[[
* [[Robin Hobb]] in her ''[[
* The same framing device is used in Mika Waltari's ''[[The Egyptian]]''.
* [[Plato]]'s ''[[
* Dan Simmons' ''[[Hyperion]]'' is more or less explicitly based on Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'' [[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]]!, down to the fact that the storytellers are on a pilgrimage. [[Shout-Out|Literary allusions]] and [[Genius Bonus|Genius Bonuses]] abound. As it turns out, the stories framed all shed light on the frame story, and the sequel ''The Fall of Hyperion'' picks up from the end of the frame story.
* "The Story of Samson Yakovlich" in ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]'' provides some [[Start of Darkness|backstory]] for one of the antagonists.
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** Similarly, Holmes' investigation in the short story ''The Boscombe Valley Mystery'' is a [[Framing Device]] for a story about a soldier in India, and his involvement in ''The Adventure of the Gloria Scott'' is entirely incidental.
* ''[[Shutter Island]]'' is presented as Dr. Sheehan's desire to set the record straight at last.
* In the novel version of ''[[The Princess Bride (
* ''[[The Name of the Wind]]'' has Kvothe narrating his story to a scribe. The book is the first in a trilogy, and each book is a day's worth of narration.
* In the novel ''Slumdog Millionaire'' the hero of the story, Raj Mohammed Thomas, frames the story as testimony to the police who have arrested him.
* Mil Millington's ''A Certain Chemistry'' is framed by God telling us how all our emotions, actions and thoughts are governed by our bodies' chemistries, using the main character's story (in which a writer cheats on his girlfriend with a soap star) to illustrate his points.
* In ''[[
* [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] novella ''[[The Culture|The State Of The Art]]'' is framed by the protagonist writing a letter about the events to a historian interested in their setting ([[Insignificant Little Blue Planet|Earth]]), translated (with snarky footnootes) by her [[Robot Buddy|escort drone]].
* The novel of ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' has a prologue written by an alien, who [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|found a record of the story]] under a rock in the deserts of the north-western continent of an uninhabited planet they're currently exploring.
* The ''[[Dinotopia]]'' prequel ''First Flight'' is told as a story that one of the main characters from the main book is studying.
** The first and fourth books are also presented as journals the author had discovered.
* ''[[The Time Machine]]'' by [[
* ''[[House of Leaves]]'' takes this trope to [[Mind Screw]] levels. The core story is about a {{color|blue|house}}. The story this is framed in is a document by Zampano, who is narrating a movie about the house. He also includes a variety of other information. The entire thing is edited, organized, and documented by Johnny Truant, who tells his own story in footnotes. The [[Mind Screw]] comes in because it's made fairly clear that becoming involved in this {{color|blue|house}} in any capacity will destroy your mind. It's inevitable that every layer of the story is an extreme case of [[Unreliable Narrator]].
* ''Encounter With Tiber'', by Buzz Aldrin (yes, the [[NASA|Apollo 11]] Buzz Aldrin) and John Barnes, uses the framing device of a scientist who writes novels. She's selected to be on the first manned voyage to another star. Because of the length of the trip, she has time to write four novels (well, two novels and two translations of existing novels), which together explain [[How We Got Here|how humanity developed the technology for interstellar travel]].
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* ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'' is framed as the 99-year-old narrator, Lucy, telling stories of her life (and the lives of many people she's known) to a journalist interviewing her. The stories get more personal, revealing, and risky as the book progresses, until [[The Reveal]] in the penultimate chapter.
* [[Older Than Dirt]]: [[Egyptian Mythology|The Egyptian]] Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, from the 6th dynasty (c. 2300-2100 BCE) in the Old Kingdom, is framed by the sailor explaining his survival to an official, and the official telling him not to overstep his station by dispensing advice.
* [[
* Most of the ''[[Redwall]]'' books are framed as a character (often a traveler stopping for a visit) telling others a long story.
* The ''[[
* Though the frame of Margaret's story in ''[[
* Meridion's story in ''[[Symphony of Ages]]'' is set in an apocalyptic future as he observes and manipulates the past(i.e., the present to the rest of the story) in order to avert the end of the world.
* [[The Go Between]] is narrated by an elderly man reminiscing about a summer fifty years earlier. Only at the very end do we see any live action.
* Hiob's account of his voyage to India frames the story of the fall of Pentexore in ''[[
== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* Most of ''[[Lost]]'''s flashbacks do ''not'' have a Framing Device. The continuous flashbacks, however, do. "Meet Kevin Johnson" is a story Michael is telling Sayid and Desmond. The other ones launch off due to prompting in the frame story: Charlie and Hurley getting Desmond drunk, Locke remembering his death...
* ''[[The Golden Girls]]'' had several episodes constructed of three or four shorter stories, always framed by the girls recalling events fitting a particular theme. (For example, in one episode the girls are dieting, and they recall past attempts at self-improvement.) The show also did several [[Clip Show|clip shows]], in which the framing device was usually a time of crisis, such as Blanche considering selling the house.
* The ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise
* The ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
** Also the episode "Necessary Evil".
* And let's not forget the original ''[[Star Trek:
* The whole of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' is a framing device. It's older Ted telling his kids [[Exactly What It Says
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has experimented with them on occasion; Timothy Dalton's [[Narrator All Along]] in ''The End of Time'' is an example, but the clearest one is the season-spanning ''Trial of a Time Lord'', where three complete four-part stories were presented as evidence in the Doctor's trial.
* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' is told from the perspective of a semi-omniscient gossip blogger. What makes this unique is said blogger is an actual (albeit anonymous) character, and the rest of the cast is fully aware of the fact that she is telling the world all about their lives with much of the story conflict revolving around keeping her from knowing too much.
* Not only is most of the ''[[Round the Twist]]'' episode "Santa Claws" a flashback told by Pete, explaining to his classmates how his mouth was shrunk, [[All Just a Dream|this was a dream]] as well (which we knew from the opening scene).
* The final episode of ''[[Smallville]]'' featured Chloe Sullivan reading a comic book to her son titled "Smallville" that framed Clark Kent's transformation into Superman.
* The Nickelodeon series ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' sets up each episode with the Midnight Society, a group of teens, gathering around a campfire in the woods to tell ghost stories. After the tale was finished, the episode would end with the Midnight Society calling their meeting to a close.
* The [[Christmas Episode]] of [[Power Rangers
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== [[Radio]] ==
* [[Charles Dickens
* Every episode of the radio serial 'The Adventures of Sam Spade' (based on the novels by Dashiell Hammett, and Humphrey Bogart's character in 'The Maltese Falcon) opened and closed with Sam dictating a record of the episode's events to his secretary, Effie. Sometimes subverted when Effie was, herself, involved in events.
== [[Theater]] ==
* Oddly, [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[
* The same goes for ''Shrew's'' musical adaptation, ''[[Kiss Me Kate|Kiss Me, Kate]]''; the show ends during the play-within-a-play and not with an external sequence.
* ''[[
* Cervantes and the Inquisition in ''[[Man of La Mancha]]''.
* ''Equus'' is the story narrated by a psychiatrist about a particularly disturbing case, inside the same story his patient recalls the events that led to his hospitalization through hypnosis.
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** The second installment wasn't narrated at all, and the third was narrated by Kaileena. At the end of the series, {{spoiler|the Prince starts telling Farah the story all over again.}}
* The text adventure game ''[[Spider and Web]]'' is known primarily for its ingenious framing device, wherein the player is a spy who has been captured and is being interrogated using a machine that causes them to relive their actions. If the player ever strays too far from the correct path, the interrogator interrupts them and says, "That's impossible, that's not how it happened" and makes you try again.
* [[
* The overarching narrative of ''[[Okami]]'' is told by a mysterious narrator, beginning with the legend of [[Orochi]] and [[Physical God|Shiranui]] one hundred years ago. By the end of the game, if you haven't figured out the narrator's identity, he'll berate you and switch to more familiar speech patterns that make it easier to recognize him.
* ''[[
** ''[[Assassin's Creed Revelations
* Used in a memorable way as part of a [[Twist Ending]] in ''[[Second Sight]]'', where the player character, an amnesiac with psychic powers, seems to be having flashbacks to his past self...{{spoiler|until it turns out that the flashbacks were instead in the present day, and everything else was a part of his premonitions of things to come}}.
* The [[Canon Dis Continuity|old Satellaview sequel]] of ''[[
** So does ''[[
* The story of ''[[Odin Sphere]]'' is told when a little girl finds the books telling each character's role in the tale of Armageddon in her attic and starts reading them. In the end when she finishes reading the last book, she notices that a Pooka coin is lodged in the back cover. She offers a silent prayer to the people in the story before leaving the attic {{spoiler|and in the True Ending Pooka!Cornelius and Pooka!Velvet take the coin to complete their collection to make the wish that restores their humanity.}}
* ''Catherine'' has the whole game be an episode of the show The Golden Playhouse, with your hostess, Trisha: The Midnight Venus. It plays out as if it's a TV series that shows late night movies, complete with opening and closing narration by Trisha. There's even a watermark in the corner of some cutscenes.
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== [[Web Animation]] ==
* The letters between the Director and the Chairman in ''[[Red vs. Blue]]: Reconstruction'' run parallel to the main plot and serve to put the central conflict in the context of the larger world the characters exist in.
* ''[[
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* The second part of ''[[
** And Don, {{spoiler|the current Dream King, was given the position by technically "killing" Fiona through sending her back, since ownership of Nod works via [[Klingon Promotion]] and she took the title from [[Big Bad|Sadako..]]}}
* The bulk of ''[[Spacetrawler]]'' is a personal history that Nogg is sharing with Mr. Zorilla.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* The [[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* A recent episode of ''[[
* ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' was framed as being stories being told by Mr. Conductor in ''[[Shining Time Station]]''.
** The early episodes featuring the narrow gauge engines were framed as Thomas telling the other engines a story about them.
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* A show named ''[[The Noddy Shop]]'' framed episodes of the BBC's stop motion ''[[Noddy]]'' series as being stories the child characters told to each other.
* For that matter, any of the [[Looney Tunes]] antholgy movies fit this trope. For instance, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner movie presented the selected shorts as Bugs Bunny reminiscing about his "hare-raising" exploits.
* The early [[Halloween Episode|Treehouse of Horror episodes]] of ''[[The Simpsons (
** The first one had Homer listening in on Bart and Lisa exchanging stories in a treehouse ([[Artifact Title|hence the name of the series' Halloween episodes]]).
** The second one had Bart, Lisa, and Homer eating too much candy before bed, with the [[Three Shorts]] themselves presented as prolonged [[Nightmare Sequence|Nightmare Sequences]]. The last short appears to have ended with a return to the frame story, only to continue where the short left off by {{spoiler|revealing that Mr. Burns had his head grafted to Homer's body}}. Cue fake [["On the Next..."]].
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* ''Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol'' has the title character performing in a Broadway production of [[A Christmas Carol|Dickens' story]].
* The ''[[Kim Possible]]'' episode "Rewriting History" has a story of Kim's great-grandmother (who vanished in disgrace at the start of the century), which is framed by Kim uncovering what really happened, while her [[Arch Enemy]] Dr. Drakken chases his own ancestor's involvement in the same events, piling up into [[Generation Xerox]] and [[Contrived Coincidence]] {{spoiler|and ending as [[All Just a Dream]]}}.
* The ''[[
* Many episodes of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' used this trope to tie together otherwise unrelated skits.
* Early ''[[Caillou]]'' episodes start with a grandmother telling her grandchilding a story of Caillou's life, which is a setup for the episode itself. Later episodes ditched this beginning though.
* ''[[
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''"...and I believe that's about it."''<br />''"Good times. So what do we do now?"''<br />''"What else? Go write more articles!"''
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