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{{trope}}
[[File:painting-the-
This is typically done for one of three reasons:
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* [[Played for Laughs|Cheap laughs]].
Some of the most popular variants have become so conventional that we stop noticing them
By Painting The Medium, a writer turns a transparent
'''Subtropes include:'''
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* [[Screen Shake]]
* [[Speech Bubbles]]
* [[
* [[Splash of Color]]
* [[Think in Text]]
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----
== Advertising ==
* Axe launched a series of ads for Axe Rise which are shot from a fake first-person perspective, from the point of view of a young man. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfEWU7XM5UM&feature=player_embedded He walks into a restaurant], and meets an attractive waitress, who recognizes him from "that party last week, remember?" And a caption pops up, asking the viewer what name was on her name tag, which she is now accidentally covering. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APiGrIsJc9A&feature=player_embedded Another commercial], shot later on in the same diner, involves her inviting the man to a party and giving him her address and the time. He's distracted by an attractive woman at the next table, and the waitress says she has to go. "What," asks the caption "was her address?" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ans-cforcBs&feature=player_embedded A third] involves said young man putting on a shirt and meeting another pretty girl and her five friends, all of whom she introduces by name before they leave. One of them, clearly interested, stays behind to talk to him. "What was her name?" These commercials work because the next time the viewer sees them, they are actually paying attention, just like the product is supposed to help you do.
* A commercial on British radio starts out advertising, say, a kitchen sale, until the voice actor suddenly collapses on-air; their co-star or producer freaks out and starts shouting for help. The real point of the commercial is to encourage people to get first-aid training.
* A Duracell sports match commercial features the TV scoreboard running out of power and having the batteries replaced.
* There was an entire series of Energizer commercials which would appear to be ads for something else until interrupted by the Bunny. One was supposedly for long distance phone service, featuring a split
** Although most fake-ad Energizer Bunny commercials were parodies with fake brand names, one ad used the opening to ABC's [[Wide World of Sports]] more-or-less as-
* A radio commercial has the voice actor breaking into the "next" commercial to mention a sale, leaving the second actor spluttering "She can't do that, can she?"
== Anime and Manga ==
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** Similar gags showed up from time to time in Akira Toriyama's earlier ''[[Doctor Slump]]''.
* In ''[[Hellsing]]'', dream sequences end themselves by panes getting smaller and smaller until they're pinprick-sized, as the dreams go weird before the character wakes up.
* Many [[Fan Sub
** Played by Order, a [[Fan Sub]] group, in their release of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': every time Simon and Kamina are [[Calling Your Attacks|Calling Their Attacks]], their subtitles get a different font as well as karaoke-like highlights. Also, when someone emphasizes the end of a phrase, the beginning appears first and then the emphasized part appears, and when they're yelling, you can see the words shaking.
*** [http://media.onemanga.com/mangas/00002662/000144682/18-19.jpg This]{{Dead link}} (Caution: spoiler warning!) scene from the spin-off ''Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann -- Gurren Gakuenhen'' shows off interaction across different panels (and involving a flashback scene no less)
** Similarly, Arienai Fansubs's release of ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure]]'' had some of the karaoke lyrics in the opening credits mimic the motion of objects onscreen, sliding across the screen or spiraling off into the distance.
** A pioneer in these effects was Kaizoku Fansubs with their ''[[One Piece]]'' sub-work. Each character got an elaborate font for calling out their attacks, and sometimes different ways for the letters to appear. It's a bit over-the-top, but then again it's ''One Piece''.
** A somewhat humorous one is done in a fansub of ''[[GaoGaiGar]]''. A certain energy source that greatly boosts the power of any mecha (potentially, ''anything at all'') with mostly unknown origins goes by the name '''{{color|orange| THE POWER}}'''. Whenever a character mentions this, the only subtitles that would show on the screen would say '''{{color|orange| THE POWER!}}''' in gigantic orange letters (the color someone or something becomes when infused with it).
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20120527035528/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8466225710208488797&ei=ArTuSJv_CYmwrQL0tfzJBg&q=garlock+ subtitled This Gurren Lagann scene] is an example of the first technique mentioned (in the last few seconds).
* During Lucy's [[Start of Darkness]] from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'', the moment when Lucy snaps and murders the [[Kids Are Cruel|cruel kids]] who have just {{spoiler|[[Kick the Dog|beaten her little puppy to death]]}} has her final words ("...ARE YOU!!!") {{color|red|subtitled in red}}. In some [[Fan Sub
** The same effect was used by at least one fansub group in the final scene of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'''s Watanagashi-hen, when {{spoiler|Mion ([[Twin Switch|apparently]]) murders Keiichi in his hospital bed.}}
*** They got that from the [[Visual Novel]].
** Yet again the same effect is employed by a fansub group in the ''[[
* One Pokémon fansub uses the typewriter-like font "Prestige Elite" for the Pokédex.
* ''[[Houshin Engi]]'' is a shounen manga which loves to play with this, for example during a no weapons duel between two characters ''[[Street Fighter]]''-esque health bars and names appear at the top of the panel and when the protagonist uses drunken fist to humiliate his opponent the panel arrangement becomes that of a 4koma ([[Breaking the Fourth Wall|which greatly annoys his more serious opponent when he notices it]]).
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* Interestingly, ''[[One Piece]]'' has an example here. The so-called "Levels" of Impel Down are written with Roman letters by Oda himself, katakana spelling shown above, and are also written with Roman letters when the characters mention them. However, in Luffys speech bubbles, they're written purely with katakana. The reason for this is unknown, but might be related to Luffy's rather childish speech pattern.
* The second, remade Tokyopop translation of the ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'' manga features a different font for each kind of character.
== Comic Books ==
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*** The same applies to other important characters, especially the Endless. For example, Delirium's speech bubbles are colourful and the font is a little... unusual, and Desire speaks in a very pretty, sharp-edged font. Only Death's font and speech bubbles are normal. Among the other characters, there are Matthew the Raven's orange speech bubbles and thin, "sticky" font, Bast's faux-Egyptian font and angels' beautiful cursive.
** In ''[[Swamp Thing]]'', it was used when the titular plant-creature and his wife make love through the use of hallucinogenic tubers. No, really.
** Dave Sim seems quite fond of this
** Also, Frank Quitely's 3-issue art duties on Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin, frequently blended sound effects into the scene. Explosions in the shape of "BOOOOM" and when Damian gets smashed into a wall, the cracks spell out "smash", etc.
* In ''[[Y: The Last Man]]'''s ''Safeword'' arc, Yorick is drugged with hallucinogens, and the structure of the page breaks up, with the panels placed at odd angles and overlapping. The white-on-black title cards (which normally carry objective information like "Tel Aviv, Israel, Three Days Later") show things like "Where The Hell Am I?"
* An even earlier use of this was the surreal ''[[Krazy Kat]]'', done by George Herriman. At times, the characters would draw various props themselves, and one Sunday sequence emphasising words that end in '-tion' ends with Officer Pupp hauling Ignatz to... an incomplete panel. Pupp asks Herriman if he's got 'kartoonist's kramp', while Ignatz muses on 'sweet procrastination'.
* In the ''[[Asterix]]'' stories, different fonts are used to show languages that cannot be understood by the main characters (or at least notable accents). Most obvious are the Goths, who are written in a thick, heavy Gothic font, and Egyptians, who speak entirely in hieroglyphs (that are subtitled for the reader's benefit).
**
** Other frame-using examples include Asterix leaning onto the frame for support, his hand and elbow going out of the frame. There's absolutely no wall in this place.
** At the beginning of ''Asterix and Cleopatra'', which depicts a dialogue between two Egyptian characters, a footnote indicates that the scene will be dubbed for the reader's convenience, and goes to explain that the reason why the movement of characters' lips doesn't fit the pronunciation of the words is because dubbing techniques of the time were not sophisticated enough.
*** At one point, Obelix attempts to speak Egyptian. Since Egyptian is represented by hieroglyphics, his faltering efforts look like a child's drawings.
* In ''[[Superman: Secret Identity]]'', almost the entire narration is formatted as if it were written on a typewriter. In the last scene, Clark makes note that the aforementioned machine finally gave out and that he's finishing his autobiography on a computer, something exemplified by the change of narration bubble format.
* One issue of ''[[She Hulk]]'' (written by [[John Byrne]]) had the titular character
* ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Mighty Avengers]] #9'' has several characters accidentally yanked back in time; this is shown by printing everything but the word bubbles and captions in a faux-CMYK halftone style, like the comics of the time they were transported to. In the next issue, it goes even further by adding the introductory caption, tiny ads at the bottom of pages, and so on of the era.
* ''[[Rising Stars]]'' contains a truly rare and ''brilliant'' use of the comic medium. As the protagonists leave a character who has become a hermit because he is plagued by seeing the dead, they comment on how he will be alone when they leave. The last panel is a full right-hand page of him muttering that he'll "never be alone" while huddling in a chair. It's all normal until the reader starts to turn the page and light illuminates it from behind, causing the next page to show through and outline a host of dead people and their speech bubbles clustered all around the huddled man on the chair. The entire next page is just a white space with reversed images of people and text to bleed onto the previous page.
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* Jim Steranko was fond of this; one issue he did had [[Nick Fury]] making his way through a booby-trapped facility. The page was laid out like a maze, requiring the reader to solve it in order to read. The panels weren't even oriented to each other, which reflected Fury's disorientation.
* In a short sci-fi story appearing in the Swedish edition of ''[[The Phantom (comic strip)|The Phantom]]'', a group of humans are attempting to subvert an alien world so they can seize control. The only thing the aliens care about is The Thinker, a heralded being who, according to their faith, thinks the universe into existence; the humans reason that if they can sedate The Thinker with a stunner, they will reveal him as a fraud, and the resulting chaos from the revelation will make the planet easy for conquest. They succeed in the assault... and the following two pages are filled with ''empty frames''. In the last page immediately after, The Thinker wakes up again, realizes he's forgotten what he thought about, and thinks about something else.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Zot]]'' features an issue dealing with Terry's lesbian urges and her dilemma of whether to confess her feelings to Pam, an open (and widely mocked) lesbian. The final page features Pam greeting Terry, only for her to shamefully walk away. {{spoiler|Next comes a page of letters to the writer, or if you're reading the trade paperback, author commentary. Flip the page, and you see the ''real'' last page, where Terry changes her mind and rushes back down the hallway to say 'Hi' to Pam.}}
* ''[[Deadpool]]'' was also the only character who thought and spoke in yellow boxes or balloons, when everyone else used normal white. Now major characters like [[Iron Man]] and [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]] have started having their own distinct boxes and bubbles.
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*** {{spoiler|He doesn't talk like this out of costume, either}}. {{spoiler|[[Fridge Brilliance|That's because]] when he's out of costume, ''[[Secret Identity Identity|he isn't Rorschach.]]''}}
** Manhattan speaks in blue speech balloons while everyone else's are white.
* In one issue of ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'', an extra {{spoiler|who is actually [[Captain America (comics)]] in disguise}} asks [[Doctor Doom]] how he manages to talk in all caps.
** '' "{{smallcaps| Silence,}}'' {{smallcaps| minion.}}"
* In ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', Zonic the Zone cop comes from a "perpendicular" world; he's always shown floating sideways, sometimes with his feet resting on the side of the panel.
* At the end of the ''Legion of 3 Worlds'' [[Final Crisis]] tie-in, [[The Scrappy|Superboy-Prime]] literally punches himself out of continuity. As he does so, he's reduced to inks, then pencils, and then nothingness. He then appears back on Earth-Prime, our Earth, where his family now fears him because they've followed his exploits in [[The DCU]]. In the end, he ends up on the official DC forums, just like [[You Suck|the whiny]], [[Unpleasable Fanbase|ever complaining]] [[Fan Dumb|fanboy]] he's been reimagined to represent.
* One of the ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' stories in prog 2010 is told in two parts, with the second part set in 2131 and the first in 2098. The first part is done in the style of an 80s
* In ''[[The Grievous Journey Of Ichabod Azrael And The Dead Left In His Wake]]'', scenes in the world of the living are in full colour, and those in the world of the dead are black and white. Additionally, the [[Grim Reaper|grim reapers]] and their horses are drawn in a very sketchy style which contrasts with the clear, stark art of the rest of limbo; souls awaiting judgement refer to them as blurry.
* [[Batwoman]] villain Alice speaks with black speech bubbles and white text just to re-inforce how crazy she is. The only time she uses a normal speech bubble is {{spoiler|her last line before falling off a plane into the river: "You have [[Evil Twin|our father's]] eyes".}}
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* DC's magician Zatanna Zatara casts her spells by speaking them backwards. In issue 23 of ''Countdown to Final Crisis'' we meet her Earth-3 counterpart, Annataz Arataz, who speaks them ''upside-down''. How this sounds to the other characters in the story is not explained.
** [[Meta Guy]] [[Ambush Bug]] can see speech bubbles, and asks her why the words in hers are backwards. She runs away crying.
== Film ==
* ''[[Casino]]'' features a rather unique example. The characters of Ace Rothstein ([[Robert De Niro]]) and Nicky Santoro ([[Joe Pesci]]) provide offscreen narration throughout the movie. In one scene Santoro is narrating the action when his voice is
* Here's a really meta one: the early Disney ''[[Winnie the Pooh]]'' shorts were played out as readings of the books, down to the animated characters being able to walk on the text, a hurried page-turning at one point to keep Pooh from flying out of the book, and so forth. Thus it [[Medium Awareness|played with the concept that it was a book]], when in fact it ''wasn't''. All this in a cartoon for children.
** This gets ''really'' weird when the same concept is played with in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', especially the second game -- [[Recursive Adaptation|where it's technically a book (in-game) based on (the Disney) movie, based on (the original) book]], all in a video game.
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* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' opens with commercials and [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie|movie trailers]] starring the main characters of the [[Show Within a Show|film within the film]].
* During a very frantic and drug addled day in ''[[Goodfellas]]'' the editting and camera work shifts from the usual pacing to an equally frantic and excited style, mimicing the character's drug use.
* ''[[Monty Python and
* In ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|The Emperors New Groove]]'', Kuzco-the-[[Narrator]] freezes the frame and literally paints on the screen to bring the story back to himself. He then continues to interrupt the story so it focuses on himself. Later on in the story, Kuzco-the-character yells at Kuzco-the-narrator to stop talking and leave him alone. From then on, the movie is un-narrated.
* In ''[[Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]'', the opening scenes have the credits spelled out in flaming scenery lit by arrows. The villagers are understandably distressed by this and one remarks, "Every time they make a [[Robin Hood]] movie, they go and burn our village down!"
* In ''[[Metropolis]]'', on-screen text about an underground city of the poor scrolls down. Text about the skyscrapers of the rich scrolls up, and is shaped like a tower. In a story sequence, the text shines and bleeds.
* ''[[Spaceballs]]'', the Movie.
{{quote|
* In the 3DMovie version of ''[[Tron: Legacy]]'', the Grid is a 3D world, obviously, but scenes in the real world are filmed in 2D.
* ''[[District 9]]'' seems to love splattering the camera with blood every time someone gets shot. Sometimes justified in that portions of the film are in mockumentary form, using footage that was recorded in-universe.
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* At the end of ''[[Shrek]]'', the heroic ogre palms the camera's lens for privacy before kissing ogre-Fiona.
* [[A Nightmare on Elm Street|Freddy's Dead]] had a segment of the film (in a dream) filmed in 3D. When the audience is supposed to don their 3D glasses, the character entering the dream actually puts on a pair herself; it is explained that while the glasses mean nothing in the real world, in the dream they "can be whatever you want them to be", and allow her to navigate Freddy's mind. The glasses vanish once she puts them on, and reappear at the end of the film, when the 3D is over.
* [http://www.youtube.com/wariolandshakeit2008 This] ''[[Wario Land]]: Shake'' [[YouTube]] video causes the entire page to shake-up.▼
* [[Cracked|Britanick]] plays with the convention of cross-cutting in tv & film [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6xnR9kuYE here]▼
* The ''[[Due South]]'' fanfic ''[http://trickster.org/speranza/Scrabble.html Scrabble]'' has the story divided into two-to-three columns, representing the two narrators and, occasionally, the scrabble board they were playing with.▼
* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4099993/1/Forward Forward]'' invokes this when covering scenes from River's perspective to portray her chaotic and jumbled thoughts. Text is centered instead of left aligned, and a seemingly random mixure of italics, bolds, capitalizations, and underlinings are used. Coupled with a stream-of-consciousness narration that is liberally sprinkled with nonsequiters, random thoughts, and the sheer jumbled confusion that is River's brain, it makes for a ''very'' surreal and effective read.▼
* [http://ihasahotdog.com/2009/05/18/funny-dog-pictures-weddy-bewwywub/ This] loldog.▼
** Or [http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/06/24/funny-pictures-o-hai-2/ this] lolcat.▼
* During his "[[Let's Play]]" of ''[[Eversion]]'', DeceasedCrab [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcTBp8gpNM starts sounding] {{spoiler|like someone is chipping away at his [[Sanity Meter]]. "'''[[Eversion (Darth Wiki)|Stop your cheery lies]]!'''" Even the ''video description'' descends into madness.}}▼
* ''[[Open Blue]]'' has [[Eldritch Abomination|Kukulu]], one of the [[Powers That Be]], as an admin account made to smite [[God Modding|godmodders]] and add unforseen elements to an RP thread. The account always posts with green text as opposed to the forum standard.▼
* In the beginning of the eleventh episode of The Escapist's home webseries ''Apocalypse Arcade'', the heroes meet a wizard who pretends he can stop time. After one of the heroes make a sigh of incredulity, the loading icon appears for a few seconds before being pushed aside by the incredulous protagonist.▼
* The web story ''Ted the Caver'' is presented as a caving log with dated daily entries, and as the story continues it gets progressively [[Cosmic Horror|weirder and scarier]], ending with the protagonist acting oddly and against all logic planning another trip to the cave, but he promises several times that as soon as he returns, he'll write up everything that happened on his final journey. He states it won't be more than a few days. This is, of course, the last entry, dated sometime in 2001. Clicking on the link for "Next Entry" brings the reader to a 404 error. (The ending is told in the lack of an ending!)▼
* [[Survival of the Fittest]] v4's [[Cloudcuckoolander|Maria Graham]] does this at one point, starting with a flashback where she and another character are having a conversation, with their lines in blue and orange respectively to clarify who's saying what. After the flashback, Maria's ''still'' talking and thinking in blue text until she finally goes "{{color|blue|Wait, why am I still thinking in blue?}}" and promptly stops.▼
* Whenever some sad sad person thinks they're being funny on a wiki or message board by using the tired joke of mentioning [[Candle Jack]] and then not fi▼
* The "Pokemon Black" creepypasta was [http://kotaku.com/5619302/creepy-pokemon-story-now-a-visual-novel-for-the-ds turned into a visual novel], playable on Nintendo DSes with homebrew-running devices. The last line is {{spoiler|"GHOST cursed you, [DS owner]!"<ref>It uses the name entered on the DS profile screen as the final word.</ref>}}▼
* In the [[Pokémon]] fanfic ''[[Ash's Return|Ashs Return]]'', Chapter 3 ("Parallel Process") uses three columns of text to represent [[Simultaneous Arcs|three simultaneous lines]] of action. [[Dynamic Entry|Until...]]▼
* Some moderators on forums are known for emboldening and changing the colour of their text to indicate seriousness (as in, keep-that-shit-up-and-you-get-banned serious).▼
* [[Zalgo|ZALGO!]] H͉͙̖͎́ͬ̿͟͠ͅȨ̶͚̺͈̬̏̑͊̄̓ͨͪ̚ ̻̬̂̎͒̂̌̕͟C̦̦͚̱̯͕̾͊̏ͦ͘͜O͕͕̟͇͎̩̞̅ͩ̚M̵̪͔̗̺ͯͭ̀E̢̟̙̗̰̬̲͕̘̍ͪͬ̌̏̑͜͢S̴̤̯̫ͩ̑̄̂̚͘͠.̭̞̠̟̘̪̉͒ͧͯ̾͆▼
== Literature ==
* ''[[Flowers for Algernon]]'' by Daniel Keyes is written as a diary by Charlie, the main character, and his grammar and vocabulary weaken or expand in tandem with his intelligence and schooling.
* This is kind of the whole ''point'' of ''[[Finnegans Wake]]''. Joyce does it quite a bit in ''[[Ulysses]]'' as well, and to a lesser extent in his earlier fiction.
* ''[[Discworld]]'' is full of textual variations. Terry Pratchett's Death SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS (or, in some editions, {{smallcaps|speaks in Caps and Small Caps}}), Klatchians speaking in their vaguely Arabesque native language use an ornate cursive font (interspaced with ordinary letters if they have an accent!), Azrael the Death of Universes <big> takes up a page to speak a single word</big>, and the Auditors of Reality, those cosmic-level [[Obstructive Bureaucrat
** Specifically, the Auditors don't ''need'' quotation marks, as they do not actually speak, but alter reality so that they have already spoken.
*** Except in ''The Science Of Discworld III'', in which an Auditor who speaks to Rincewind is forced to actually vibrate some air molecules to communicate. It seems reality isn't as easy to alter in the Roundworld universe, and its words are described as "windy and uncertain" as well as using quotation marks.
** Speaking of Azrael, ''[[
** The "single word" was ruined in the Corgi paperback edition, as Pratchett inserted an entire extra page just to get it on a left-hand
** Susan and Mort also start speaking in capitals whenever they "do the Voice".
** Also in ''[[
** In ''[[
*** Also in ''Thief of Time'', each chapter break is marked with the ''tick'' of a clock... until the Glass Clock stops time, and the breaks are marked with a simple space as in the other books.
**** It gets better. The chapter break after the Clock stops time is marked with a ''ti-''... and the breaks are marked with a simple space, until time resumes with an ''-ick''. Thereafter chapter breaks are marked with ''tick'' again.
** In ''[[
{{quote|There was no sound in the-
"Open up there!"
-no sound in the-
There was a tinkle of broken glass.
"You've broken their window!"|''not a sound'' in the-}}
** And in ''[[
*** Conversely, the hordes of belief-deprived microgods which Om warns away from Brutha are too simple to form words, but express themselves with fragmentary subverbal interjections, like this:
{{quote|
** In the hardback edition of ''[[
*** And the ones who can speak Speak Like That All The Time.
** In ''[[
** One of the thugs in ''[[
** Not [[Discworld]], but Death speaks the same way in ''[[Good Omens]]'', also co-written by Pratchett.▼
▲** One of the thugs in ''[[Discworld/The Truth|The Truth]]'', Mr. Tulip, says things like, "Shall I hit him up alongside the --ing head with the --ing oar again?" It's not until you're partway through the book that you learn he's really just saying "ing" in a very angry and aggressive way.
*** Mind you, this is kept deliberately ambiguous earlier, and interpreted depending on the [[Rule of Funny]]. For example, when Tulip refers to a virginal as "an instrument for --ing young ladies" he gets the raised-eyebrow response "I thought it was just a sort of early piano" and his colleague intervenes with "intended to be ''played'' by young ladies."
** Several characters are also noted for their ability to pronounce punctuation and italics. The sort of people who can pronounce [[Wiki Words]].
** There's one paragraph in ''[[
*** There's a similar trick in ''[[
** ''[[
*** We find out in ''[[
** Carrot can pronounce "d*
** In several books, when a character mentions something Important, it is written with the First Letter in each word Capitalized. Other characters note that they can Hear the Capital Letters.
*** The 25th anniversary release of the paperbacks fix many of these that were previously left out. YAY!
** In ''[[
{{quote|
'You shouldn't ---- them, then,' muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes. }}
** In ''[[
** One of the earlier books had an elderly wizard who could pronounce brackets (when he used them, which was often).
** Edward D'eath is a ''very'' dangerous ''person'', as illustrated by his ability to "''think in italics''".
** Both ''[[
▲
* Lemony Snicket's ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' does this sort of thing a lot.
** From ''The Bad Beginning'', the first book, comes this quote: "He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over."
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** And yet ''another'' book features the trio falling down a very long elevator shaft. Two pages are pure black. Stop for a moment to consider how closely Handler/Snicket must have worked with his publisher to get the word counts to exactly fit the trick pages.
** Another example mentioned how sometimes books would have passages that would seem to make no sense to people who were just skimming, to get them to go back and actually read the book. This was followed by a sentence about construction workers carrying a door.
** ''[[
{{quote|
* According to [[The Other Wiki]], when ''The Hobbit'' was published Tolkien wished for "Thror's map to be tipped in (that is, glued in after the book has been bound) at first mention in the text, and with the moon-letters (Anglo-Saxon runes) on the reverse so they could be seen when held up to the light." This turned out to be prohibitively expensive and was left undone. Alas.
** Fortunately the 'moon letter' version of the map has been created in the 2004 deluxe edition.
* In some editions of Daniel Handler's book ''Watch Your Mouth'', {{color|brown|the second half of the story is printed in burgundy.}}
* [[Iain M Banks
* ''[[Life of Pi]]'' ends with an extended conversation, written in script form, between the protagonist and two Japanese businessmen. The Japanese businessmen alternate between speaking to the protagonist in English and to each other in Japanese. The Japanese dialogue is denoted with a bold, paintbrush-like font.
* ''[[The Neverending Story (novel)|The Neverending Story]]'' uses two different colors for the two reality levels in the book, or two different typefaces in cheaper printings.
* ''[[House of Leaves]]'' is printed in three colors, although there are some variations between the different [[wikipedia:House of Leaves#Colors|versions]] of the book. Normal text is printed in black, the word "{{color|blue|house}}" appears in blue, and {{color|red|references to mythology}} or <s>{{color|red|struck out passages that are somewhat threatening to the reader}}</s> are in red, with the addition of colored and Braille plates. "{{color|red|Minotaur}}" may or may not be struck out, depending on whether it's used during one of the aforementioned mythology references. In addition, there are a few instances of purple in the book as well, including the phrase "{{color|purple|A Novel}}" on the front cover, the {{color|purple|edition number}}, and one instance of a {{color|purple|struck-out purple phrase}} in Chapter XXI. There are two different typefaces, which are used to represent the contributions of the elderly blind man, Zampano, and the twenty-something slacker, Johnny Truant, with a rare third typeface for "The Editors"
** Some paperback editions have covers that are smaller than the pages. The book is larger on the inside than on the outside.
** Similarly, Danielewski's sec{{color|gold|o}}nd b{{color|gold|oo}}k, ''{{color|gold|O}}[[Only Revolutions|nly Rev]]{{color|gold|o}}[[Only Revolutions|luti]]{{color|gold|o}}[[Only Revolutions|ns]]'', had tw{{color|gold|o}} st{{color|gold|o}}ries, {{color|gold|o}}ne starting fr{{color|gold|o}}m the fr{{color|gold|o}}nt and {{color|gold|o}}ne fr{{color|gold|o}}m the back. With every passing page, a little less page space was given t{{color|green|o}} the {{color|green|o}}ne st{{color|green|o}}ry and a little m{{color|green|o}}re t{{color|green|o}} the {{color|green|o}}ther st{{color|green|o}}ry, until at the middle {{color|green|o}}f the b{{color|green|oo}}k it's exactly 5{{color|green|0}}/5{{color|green|0}}. ({{color|gold|O}}h, and there's a hint t{{color|gold|o}} the f{{color|gold|o}}nt c{{color|gold|o}}l{{color|gold|o}}rs in this n{{color|gold|o}}vel. [[Captain Obvious|Did y]]{{color|green|o}}[[Captain Obvious|u catch it?]])
** Danielewski also wrote a book called ''The Fifty Year Sword'' in which he uses different colors of quotation marks to indicate different speakers.
* The web novel ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' is, of course, not content to mess only with [[Deconstruction|genre]] and [[Anachronic Order|storytelling]] conventions. The color and font of headers reflects the mood of a particular section; Chapter 5 is split into four subpages, presented in a random order that changes on refreshing the page, each written in first person from a different character's perspective; Shin's journal entry uses a monospace font; the title for Cobalt's entry is the periodic table cell for cobalt; and Chapter 7 is rendered entirely as an [[Interactive Fiction]] game with sprites, although the author has provided a text-only "walkthrough FAQ" version. Even in the "normal" chapters, the narration switches between first person, third person, diary entries, et cetera. The little divider graphics between sections of a chapter contain one-liners if you squint just right.
* "[[jPod]]" is a post modern novel by [[Douglas Coupland]]. Examples of this trope range from spending 16 pages listing prime numbers between 10,000 and 20,000, with one non-prime number added as a game, to random pop-up and spam emails repeated verbatim in the middle of a scene.
* The children's book ''[[The Monster at the End of This Book]]'' has ''[[Sesame Street]]'''s Grover going to greater and greater lengths to keep the reader from turning the page (as he's afraid of the titular monster at the end of the book). He tapes pages together, attempts to nail them down, builds a brick wall, all to no avail. (It's okay, though, as the monster at the end of the book turns out to be {{spoiler|himself}}.)
** ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20090501052254/http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000265.html homaged] this one.
** Another book, ''Oscar's Grouch Book'', has Oscar the Grouch trying to get the reader to stop reading and leave him alone, through a series of similar tricks.
* A mainstay of the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' novels. The most prominent example is the Footnoterphone, which enables Jurisfiction agents to communicate long-distance via the footnotes of the novels. Certain characters speak exclusively in "Olde English" or "Courier Bold," which are treated as foreign languages by the characters even though they are perfectly comprehensible to the readers.
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** In his later efforts (''Lisey's Story, [[The Dark Tower]]'' volumes 4-7), King experiments frequently with changing fonts and typefaces.
** His short story "Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a surgeon who is shipwrecked on a desert island. After he starts to go crazy and cut off parts of his own body [[I'm a Humanitarian|for food]], his entries become more erratic and nonsensical.
** Another example used in almost all his works is when a sentence abruptly stops followed by some italicised words in the lines below in brackets before the sentence continues. This is usually done for characters who are currently stressed, and the line usually shows the characters'
* The very ''title'' of a short story by F. Paul Wilson was written by placing the words "DAVID", "COPPE", and "RFIEL" over each other, creating an unpronounceable jumble. The word itself was capable of sounding like the correct answer of any question or proposal to anyone hearing it (though not to the person saying it).
* Alfred Bester:
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** In ''[[The Demolished Man]]'', telepathic communication is represented by creative typesetting, sentences that can be read up, down, left or right simultaneously, rebuses, fonts and other trickery. Bester seemed very fond of this sort of thing in general.
*** An example: Two of the characters in this book are named @kins (Atkins) and 1/4maine (Quartermaine).
** ''[[Babylon 5]]'' is full of [[Shout-Out
** Another occurs in the short story ''Fondly Fahrenheit'', about a schizophrenic mass murderer and his robot. At times the guy thinks of himself simply as himself, other times he thinks of himself as the robot, and then there's the times he thinks of them both as one person. All of this is accomplished by Bester constantly switching his use of pronouns.
* In the ''Turing Hopper'' series by Donna Andrews, different typefaces are used for third-person narration vs. Turing's first-person commentary.
* The 18th-century novel ''[[Tristram Shandy]]'' by Laurence Sterne includes such features as a black page when a character dies, and a blank one allowing the reader to sketch their vision of a female character's appearance.
* [[Older Than Print]]: An elegant example of this can be found in ''[[The Tale of Genji]]'', the seminal novel of Heian-era Japan, in which the 42nd chapter, "Vanished into Clouds", is left blank entirely after the
* [[Peter David]]'s ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''I, Q'', working from the point-of-view of Q during the apocalyptic end of the universe, uses a few of these tricks. Data raises his voice above all other noise by rapidly increasing his font size. And near the very end, Q, spitting in the face of death, writes the book up and stuffs it into a bottle which he then hurls into the whirlpool sucking up all existence. The last sentence is cut off halfway (as Q is screaming his defiance of fate), and then followed by not a few completely blank pages. And when you're finally wondering what the heck is up, you run across a few pages of laughter. Seems [[God]] was so amused by Q's defiance that she (God) decided to cancel [[The End]].
** Another ''[[Star Trek]]'' novel, ''Vendetta'' (also by [[Peter David]]), did this when a character reached Warp 10. She got stuck in a time loop, so naturally her one-page chapter began to repeat every few chapters, then every other chapter, then for several chapters in a row, until finally it stopped in mid-sentence ("just a few more seconds...") and the next chapter had the Next Generation crew musing about what her existence might be like now.
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* At one point, ''[[Interworld]]'' has the bottom quarter of a page go completely black, to symbolize the main character losing his memories.
* The text for "The Mouse's Tale" in ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' winds down the page and narrows to a point, resembling a mouse's ''tail''.
** In the beginning of the sequel, an illustration of Alice going Through the Looking-Glass is matched up on the other side of the leaf with an illustration of her arrival. The second of these
* Similarly, Karen Hesse's novel ''The Music of Dolphins'' is told by a young girl who was [[Raised by Wolves]] (or dolphins, as the case may be). At the beginning, the text is quite large and written in very simple sentences; as the narrator learns more English, the font size decreases and the breadth of vocabulary increases. {{spoiler|She eventually has a breakdown and goes back to the ocean, forcing the text to return to its original simplified state.}}
* ''[[The Athenian Murders]]'' by José Carlos Somoza played with this similarly to ''[[House of Leaves]]'', with an apparent ancient Greek mystery being the bulk of the book and various footnotes telling other stories. One set of footnotes is by the original translator who was rumoured to have been murdered in the same fashion as the characters in the text, and another set of rare footnotes apparently by the editors of the copy you are actually reading. Most of the footnotes are from the current translator who is driving himself crazy, convinced that there is a hidden message in the translated text, and becomes convinced that the characters in the text are interacting with him. {{spoiler|Eventually, it's revealed that both translators are fictional characters, and the entire book and all its footnotes was written by someone else. (Who, to make matters more confusing, wrote himself as one of the minor characters in the Greek mystery, making the translators characters created by someone in the text that they are translating.)}}
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* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'' consistently describes a certain radical book being said by characters either ''in italics'' or in a {{smallcaps|completely different font}}. It's even pointed out in the narrative text.
* As usual, William Gibson goes for broke; his poem "Agrippa -- A Book of the Dead" (about his dead father) was first released on an encrypted, uncopyable diskette ''that deleted itself as you read''. The book version was printed in photosensitive ink, disappearing after prolonged exposure to light.
** [[Science Marches On]]: Not only has Gibson published the text of the poem [https://web.archive.org/web/20131123072903/http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/source/agrippa.asp on his website], but those who wish to replicate the experience can watch [https://web.archive.org/web/20120329213059/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1974268544563666797 the poem run in a Mac emulation]. Hi-res scans of the book pages and additional details [http://agrippa.english.ucsb.edu/ can be found here.]
* This is sort of the entire point of most of the "dialogues" in ''Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid''.
* In the aftermath of {{spoiler|the rape}} in ''Self'', the text is split into two columns per page, presumably to be read at the same time. Sometimes one or both of the columns feature large amounts of blank space.
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* In Jonathan Safran Foer's ''[[Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close]]'' a father, writing to his dead son, mentions how he wishes he had an infinitely long book with which to write in, because he fears that at his current rate his words will start to slam into each other and become illegible. Farther along the letter the words do begin to get closer, then words start being printed on top of other words, and then the page is completely black.
** Another instance in the same book has the same father's firsthand account of the bombing of Dresden marked up by [[You Make Me Sic|red circles that highlight misplaced commas and misspelled words.]] {{spoiler|This is later hinted to be an interview he wrote for his son, who is said to 'correct' mistakes in the New York Times the same way.}}
** The young protagonist Oskar solicits advice from a randomly-chosen clerk at an art store, seeking guidance in his search for information about his father, who died in the Twin Towers; {{spoiler|later, the reader learns the entire episode is something of a red herring.}} The clerk mentions that when patrons scribble with a pen (in the store) to test it, often they write the name of a color, but rarely do they write in a different color than whichever word they're writing which names a color (such an act, she contends, would be psychologically unsettling). For example if you're testing a red pen you'd write "red" (all of this might help Oskar determine whether a slip of paper he'd earlier
* In ''[[Keepers Chronicles|Summon the Keeper]]'' by [[Tanya Huff]], when one of the mundane characters hears the voice of Hell for the first time and tries to explain it to the protagonist, she asks if it sounded like it was speaking in all capitals, which the author did.
* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', the characters have the ability to communicate via telepathy or 'thought-speak' while in an animal form (as well, the alien Ax uses it when in his normal, mouthless body as his standard form of communication), and dialogue in thought-speak is indicated by the use of the '<' and '>' symbols instead of quotation marks.
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* Walter Moers does these quite often. To name a few examples:
** In the ''13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear,'' the font changes when the titular character is having an encyclopaedia moment and grows when a giant spider is running after him.
** In the ''City of the Dreaming'' books, the main character is flipping through a book, and finds what he's looking for at the end of the right page. Both the character and the reader turn page, and BAM!
** A similar thing happens in ''Ensel and Grete''. Whenever the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|Author of the book]] disrupts the flow of the story to digress and talk about what he feels like, the font changes. At some place several pages of the word Brummli are written to terrorize the reader.
* Bram Stoker's ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'' is a series of letters between many of the characters. The reader is intended to interpret the novel as [[Epistolary Novel|a bound collection of letters]], and each includes headers with dates and signatures. It's very effective at drawing some readers in, especially since the viewpoints sufficiently show different characters' personalities, but it can also seem disjointed, since it switches around a lot and (usually) looks like normal fonts pretending to be letters.
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* Don Marquis' ''[[Archy and Mehitabel]]'', and other books in the series, are written from the perspective of Archy the cockroach, entirely in lowercase letters... because Archy can operate an old-fashioned typewriter by painstakingly hopping on the keys, but he can't hit shift at the same time! (Marquis would later [[Hand Wave]] reader queries about how Archy handled the carriage return.) The shift key got locked down for (part of) one poem, titled "CAPITALS AT LAST."
* In ''Still Life With Woodpecker'' the author alternates between writing a story and writing about himself writing the story. In the final chapter his typewriter breaks down and he is forced to finish in longhand.
* Elizabeth Bear's ''Blood and Iron'' has a relatively subtle one. For the majority of the book, every character uses third person narration. After one character {{spoiler|sells her soul}} her narration switches to first
* [[Iain M Banks]] ''loves'' these. In ''Complicity'', for example, one narrator's chapters are written in first person, while the other's are told in second person. Most infamously, about a third of his ''Fearsumm Enjinn'' is narrated by a dyslexic boy. Including the title.
* In ''[[Dune]]'', some words like "SPICE" and "VOICE" tend to be printed in capital block letters to give them a sort of mystical echo (see above for DEATH in the Discworld novels). However, there are no capital letters in the Hebrew language, so the Hebrew translation has these words printed in bold and in a larger typeface than the rest of the sentence. This method makes them even more creepy and resonant than the original, if at all possible.
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* In the [[Real Life]] "[http://www.purplehell.com/riddletools/bacon.htm Baconian Cipher]" (not actually a cipher, rather, a steganographic code), developed by Francis Bacon, two different typefaces ('''bold''', ''italic'', {{smallcaps|a different font}}, {{color|blue|a}} {{color|red|different}} {{color|green|font}} {{color|blue|colour}}, etc.) are utilised, one standing for the letter "A" and one standing for B, so that messages can be hidden within the fabric of some plaintext, i.e. literature, be it fictional or not. It has, therefore, been suggested by some that Bacon in fact might have hidden clues to the supposed "fact" he wrote [[Shakespeare]]'s plays by using this ciphe-er, steganographic code.
* In ''[[The Years of Rice and Salt]]'' by Kim Stanley Robinson, the format of the book changes to match the historical era each section is set in. At the beginning, chapters have [[In Which a Trope Is Described|elaborate descriptions]] and the prose is frequently interrupted by poetry. Gradually, the prose becomes more solid, the chapters shorten to just titles, then numbers, and then nothing but a blank spot between them and the next chapter.
* Text chats in ''[[Hench]]'' are presented in [[Speech Bubbles]], as if the reader was looking at the protagonist's smartphone.
* The literary journal ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'' is as much a vehicle for editor Dave Eggers to play with the magazine format as a collection of fiction. The format changes with each issue, from paperback to hardcover to a collection of smaller booklets containing individual stories. One of the more elaborate issues (#17) was published as a bundle of misdelivered mail, containing some stories in individual envelopes and some in the fictitious magazines that the fictitious intended recipient subscribed to. Sometimes stories take advantage of the flexibility of the format: "Heart Suit", in issue 16, was printed on a deck of oversized playing cards and readable in any shuffled order. On a smaller scale, Eggers will sometimes put long rambling asides in the copyright notice and other bits of [[Paratext]].▼
* In the book ''Color: A Natural History of the Palette'', author Victoria Finley describes an ''ukiyo-e'' print ([http://www.japaneseprints-london.com/ukiyoe/images/actors16.jpg likely this one]{{Dead link}}) that shows the famous [[Kabuki Theater|kabuki]] actor Onoe Kikugoro V portraying a ghost. [[Splash of Color|The brown spot on the ghost's head was once green malachite pigment]]; Finley theorizes that the artist deliberately used the corrosive mineral to illustrate the ghost's supernatural power and malevolence as it literally burned through the canvas.▼
== Live
* ''[['Allo 'Allo!
** And, of course, whenever a French character spoke "French" (ie, English with a bad French accent) to an English character who only spoke "English" (ie, English with over-the-top British accents and mannerisms), it was treated as being completely incomprehensible.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who
** Similarly, in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S32
*** Also done in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32
** In "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
** The Weeping Angels' schtick of freezing when anybody's watching is as creepy as it is largely because the camera apparently counts as somebody watching them-- even if all characters have their backs on an Angel, ''we'' don't get to see it move either. Until the episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
* Whenever a location is shown on ''[[Fringe]]'', the words hang there like they are part of the actual setting, sometimes with the camera avoiding the lettering as though it is actually there.
** And in an episode mostly set during the Eighties, those words (and the opening credits) were changed into a font style typical of the period.
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* One [[National Geographic]] special was about ninjas. It ended with a simulated comparison between ninja methods and modern military; a "VIP" was placed in a "hotel room" with two trained bodyguards-armed with laser pointer pistols. The "assault team" managed to get to the VIP in less than a minute. The "ninja" took nine hours, and used a disguise...as a member of the National Geographic film crew.
* In ''[[Farscape]]'', after John Crichton finally reached the absolute nadir of his progressing insanity, he would occasionally hum along with the show's score.
* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'': In the sketch about the Society for Putting Things On Top Of Other Things, the picture becomes conspicuously different whenever people step out of their room. "Gentlemen! I have bad news. [[Video Inside, Film Outside|This room is surrounded by film.]]" {{spoiler|Back then, [[Video Inside, Film Outside|studio scenes were shot on videotape, while outside shots were shot on film]].}}
* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' once had Stephen respond to the people who didn't broadcast his show in HD by putting his hands in the parts of the screen which is cut off in the standard definition broadcast {{spoiler|and sticking out the middle finger of each hand}}, after which he advises them to upgrade so that they can see it.
* In the Wayne's World skits on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', when Wayne and Garth want to do a dream sequence, they wave their arms and make "dream sequence" sound effects until the image fades. They do it to end the dream sequences too, but sometimes can't get particularly stubborn dream sequences to end when they want them to.
* ''[[It's Garry Shandling's Show]]'' is arguably the ur-example of all things [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]-related. Garry would talk
** ''[[The Jack Benny Show]]'' had similiar interaction, since Jack would start out on the stage and walk into the set after speaking with the audience. Including walking through the missing literal fourth wall so he could get hand something to someone who walked out the front door.
** ''[[The Burns and Allen Show]]'' started the same year (1950) and [[George Burns]] especially would talk to the camara and announcer. Also the commercials were built into the show itself and George would sometimes watch what Gracie was doing on their TV set.
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* A number of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' play with framing device by having Future!Ted openly alter what's happening either to censor it for his children or simply because he's forgotten the details.
== [[Music]] and [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* In the original double-sided record version of Ray Charles' "What'd I Say", voices came on protesting at the end of the first side, and on the beginning of the second side Ray calls out "All right!" before launching into the second half of the song.
* In the vinyl album version of the ''[[Monty Python]]'' sketch ''The Piranha Brothers'', the voice-over announcer for the skit is being menaced by one of Dinsdale's thugs, and told that the sketch has gone on too long. When he protests, the thug "scratches the record", ending the bit. We fade out to: "Aw! Sorry, squire! I've scratched the record -- -orry, squire! I've scratched the record! --" over and over. ''Infinitely'', as this part ran on an actual loop on the LP.
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* Autotune was first used to correct errors in pitch. Many modern musicians use it to deliberately distort their voice so it's obvious that they're using Autotune, as well as for aesthetic effect, even when they're fully capable of singing themselves. [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|Some people have expressed their distaste.]] It is also called a Vocoder when used to this effect.
=== Music Videos ===▼
▲== Music Videos ==
* The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZwMX6T5Jhk music video for Kanye West's "Love Lockdown"], if watched on a standard-definition TV or Youtube, is letterboxed. At about one minute in, a character in the video races towards the camera, then actually jumps ''out'' of the letterbox.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMH0e8kIZtE&ob=av3e Welcome To Heartbreak] was mistaken by many people, on first viewing, for a video with graphics errors.
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9YtJC-Kd8 The TV Show]"'s central conceit it that it's showing us a series of TV shows being viewed by two guys in a control booth. Then one falls asleep on a console, and elements from some of the shows start interacting with each other, the camera, and the producers. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewc1hixzYPY Madvillain - All Caps]. It's an animated comic
== New Media ==
▲* [http://www.youtube.com/wariolandshakeit2008 This] ''[[Wario Land]]: Shake'' [[YouTube]] video causes the entire page to shake-up.
▲* [[Cracked.com|Britanick]] plays with the convention of cross-cutting in tv & film in the video "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6xnR9kuYE
▲* The ''[[Due South]]'' fanfic ''[http://trickster.org/speranza/Scrabble.html Scrabble]'' has the story divided into two-to-three columns, representing the two narrators and, occasionally, the scrabble board they were playing with.
▲* The ''[[Firefly]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4099993/1/Forward Forward]'' invokes this when covering scenes from River's perspective to portray her chaotic and jumbled thoughts. Text is centered instead of left aligned, and a seemingly random mixure of italics, bolds, capitalizations, and underlinings are used. Coupled with a stream-of-consciousness narration that is liberally sprinkled with nonsequiters, random thoughts, and the sheer jumbled confusion that is River's brain, it makes for a ''very'' surreal and effective read.
▲* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100117070628/http://ihasahotdog.com/2009/05/18/funny-dog-pictures-weddy-bewwywub/ This] loldog.
▲** Or [http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/06/24/funny-pictures-o-hai-2/ this] lolcat.
▲* During his "[[Let's Play]]" of ''[[Eversion]]'', DeceasedCrab [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcTBp8gpNM starts sounding] {{spoiler|like someone is chipping away at his [[Sanity Meter]]. "'''[[Eversion (Darth Wiki)|Stop your cheery lies]]!'''" Even the ''video description'' descends into madness.}}
▲* ''[[Open Blue]]'' has [[Eldritch Abomination|Kukulu]], one of the [[Powers That Be]], as an admin account made to smite [[God Modding|godmodders]] and add unforseen elements to an RP thread. The account always posts with green text as opposed to the forum standard.
▲* In the beginning of the eleventh episode of The Escapist's home webseries ''Apocalypse Arcade'', the heroes meet a wizard who pretends he can stop time. After one of the heroes make a sigh of incredulity, the loading icon appears for a few seconds before being pushed aside by the incredulous protagonist.
▲* The web story ''Ted the Caver'' is presented as a caving log with dated daily entries, and as the story continues it gets progressively [[Cosmic Horror|weirder and scarier]], ending with the protagonist acting oddly and against all logic planning another trip to the cave, but he promises several times that as soon as he returns, he'll write up everything that happened on his final journey. He states it won't be more than a few days. This is, of course, the last entry, dated sometime in 2001. Clicking on the link for "Next Entry" brings the reader to a 404 error. (The ending is told in the lack of an ending!)
▲* [[Survival of the Fittest]] v4's [[Cloudcuckoolander|Maria Graham]] does this at one point, starting with a flashback where she and another character are having a conversation, with their lines in blue and orange respectively to clarify who's saying what. After the flashback, Maria's ''still'' talking and thinking in blue text until she finally goes "{{color|blue|Wait, why am I still thinking in blue?}}" and promptly stops.
▲* Whenever some sad sad person thinks they're being funny on a wiki or message board by using the tired joke of mentioning [[Candle Jack]] and then not fi
▲* The "Pokemon Black" creepypasta was [http://kotaku.com/5619302/creepy-pokemon-story-now-a-visual-novel-for-the-ds turned into a visual novel], playable on Nintendo DSes with homebrew-running devices. The last line is {{spoiler|"GHOST cursed you, [DS owner]!"<ref>It uses the name entered on the DS profile screen as the final word.</ref>}}
▲* In the [[Pokémon]] fanfic ''[[Ash's Return|Ashs Return]]'', Chapter 3 ("Parallel Process") uses three columns of text to represent [[Simultaneous Arcs|three simultaneous lines]] of action. [[Dynamic Entry|Until...]]
▲* Some moderators on forums are known for emboldening and changing the colour of their text to indicate seriousness (as in, keep-that-shit-up-and-you-get-banned serious).
▲* [[Zalgo|ZALGO!]] H͉͙̖͎́ͬ̿͟͠ͅȨ̶͚̺͈̬̏̑͊̄̓ͨͪ̚ ̻̬̂̎͒̂̌̕͟C̦̦͚̱̯͕̾͊̏ͦ͘͜O͕͕̟͇͎̩̞̅ͩ̚M̵̪͔̗̺ͯͭ̀E̢̟̙̗̰̬̲͕̘̍ͪͬ̌̏̑͜͢S̴̤̯̫ͩ̑̄̂̚͘͠.̭̞̠̟̘̪̉͒ͧͯ̾͆
== Newspaper Comics ==
* In ''[[Doonesbury]]'', Dan Quayle's word balloons frequently contained spelling errors, a reference to the infamous incident wherein he told school children that "potato" was spelled "potatoe".
* One of the earlier uses of this was in 1950s strip ''[[Pogo (comic strip)|Pogo]]'', which had one regular who spoke in gothic type to indicate his pomposity. Guests also often had their own font styles. Note that not only did ''Pogo'' [[Captain Obvious|not use computer fonts]], the wasn't typeset, either. Those baroque, elaborate word balloons were ''lettered by hand'', because [[Walt Kelly]] is [[Crazy Awesome]].
* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes
* ''[[FoxTrot]]'''s Bill Amend is somewhat fond of this too. One comic had Peter sitting in a chair, and his mother, Andy, apparently chewing him out. Oddly, her speech bubbles had tiny, unreadable text, despite the bubbles being normal size. The last panel is Andy ripping off his previously hidden earphones. "-'''and take off those stupid headphones!'''"
** One strip had Jason walking around and showing people how good he was at juggling knives. Everyone seems oddly unimpressed by this feat, and it isn't until the last panel that we see he ''isn't'' juggling at all. The knives have been taped to a piece of plexiglass, which he is just carrying around. Obvious to everyone in-universe, who would note that the knives aren't moving, but surprising to us.
* ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' is very fond of this. One Sunday comic strip featured Pig running to the end of the panel causing the color to go entirely off-base. Another series had the characters actually sit on top if their own panels.
** The adult male [[Too Dumb to Live|crocodiles]] also speak in mixed-case letters, while the smarter (female and child) crocodiles speak in capital letters.
** Don't forget [
** <s>[[Separated by a Common Language|Britpicking]]</s> [https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2018/08/10 Canadian spelling]".
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' once receives a convict serving prison time into his home. The prisoner complains about how cramped it is in Dilbert's house. The speech balloon of the prisoners complaint in this panel obscures Dilbert from view.
* [http://www.gocomics.com//nonsequitur/2011/07/31 This] ''[[Non Sequitur]]'' strip.
* [http://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2011/08/14 This] ''[[Frazz]]'' strip, in which the title character is ''literally'' painting the medium.
* ''[[Bloom County]]'' was also fond of this: for instance, on one occasion a dangling participle fell out of its speech bubble and whacked the speaker in the head.
▲== Print Media ==
▲* The literary journal ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'' is as much a vehicle for editor Dave Eggers to play with the magazine format as a collection of fiction. The format changes with each issue, from paperback to hardcover to a collection of smaller booklets containing individual stories. One of the more elaborate issues (#17) was published as a bundle of misdelivered mail, containing some stories in individual envelopes and some in the fictitious magazines that the fictitious intended recipient subscribed to. Sometimes stories take advantage of the flexibility of the format: "Heart Suit", in issue 16, was printed on a deck of oversized playing cards and readable in any shuffled order. On a smaller scale, Eggers will sometimes put long rambling asides in the copyright notice and other bits of [[Paratext]].
▲* In the book ''Color: A Natural History of the Palette'', author Victoria Finley describes an ''ukiyo-e'' print ([http://www.japaneseprints-london.com/ukiyoe/images/actors16.jpg likely this one]) that shows the famous [[Kabuki Theater|kabuki]] actor Onoe Kikugoro V portraying a ghost. [[Splash of Color|The brown spot on the ghost's head was once green malachite pigment]]; Finley theorizes that the artist deliberately used the corrosive mineral to illustrate the ghost's supernatural power and malevolence as it literally burned through the canvas.
== Radio ==
* ''[[I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue|Hamish And Dougal]]'' play with this ''a lot''. In one episode, the Laird turns over an explanation of everything strange that's been happening in that episode...in letter form. We hear Hamish and Dougal mutter as they read it, before exclaiming "Well, that all makes perfect sense!" Then there's the [[Running Gag]] that pops up whenever they get to a new location...
{{quote|
'''Hamish:''' ...why did you say that?
'''Dougal:''' Well...there might be blind people around here, not knowing where they are. }}
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the original Malkavian Clanbook for ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'', various pages throughout the book were altered, using mirrored text and other techniques. One of the most dramatic was a page talking about alternate food sources for some Malkavians. As it reached the end of the page it discussed a particular vampire who fed on
** What's even scarier, the Malkavian in question was supposed to eat not only words, but also ideas that these words represent. Cue the paragraph about the Word-Eater's diet not only blurring and falling apart under his hand, but at the same time degrading into gibberish ending with an orphaned line on the other page: "...and other butchers' aprons."
* Game supplements for ''[[Shadowrun]]'' are often presented in the form of in-character online documents, to which various deckers have appended their own commentary. Often their remarks contain plot-hooks for [[Game Master
* Used a lot in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. For example, in Time Spiral, the timeshifted cards are printed in the old card frame to show that they are from the past; in Planar Chaos, they are printed in an alternate version of the new frame to show that they are from an alternate universe (i.e., they are color-shifted versions of existing cards); and in Future Sight they are printed in a futuristic frame because they are previews of possible future sets. Also, there are numerous single-card examples in the Unglued and Unhinged joke sets:
** "Old Fogey" and "Blast from the Past" are both in the old card face. "Old Fogey" also says "summon" instead of "creature".
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** The [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldrazi]] get special colorless frames as well.
* The ''[[Dresden Files]]'' tabletop RPG rulebooks are... unique. They're presented as [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|a rough draft written by Billy the werewolf and handed over to Harry for perusal and correction]]. As a result, they're full of marginalia written by Harry (complaining about how Billy describes him, making bad pop culture references, and yelling at him to cut out top-secret White Council information), Bob (technical details about magical beings, plus a bunch of dirty jokes), and Billy himself (responding to the other two), who are differentiated by different typefaces, colors, and sizes of "handwriting." There's sticky notes all over the place, Harry occasionally uses it as scrap paper, the illustrations are taped in, and Billy dropped it in a puddle. And when Harry is being used as an example character, the fourth wall [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|is in danger of being tipped over]].
* Done with the rulebooks for ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]''. Player documents have security level Red, while gamemaster materials are classified Ultraviolet. Since the players' Troubleshooters start at Red level, they are technically guilty of treason if they read the higher-level rules. The GM is encouraged to terminate the PCs if they try to [[Munchkin|game the rules]], and players are
== Theater ==
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* ''A Man For All Seasons'' features the character The Common Man, who is dressed in a black body stocking and opens the play by ranting about the lousy character he's been given to play. Through various costume changes he then becomes a variety of small parts, allowing the play to avoid needing separate actors for all of them. The last is Thomas More's executioner.
* ''Picasso at the Lapin Agile'' opens with Albert Einstein ariving that the eponymous cafe, only to be told he's not supposed to be their yet because the cast has been listed in the program in order of appearance and two other characters are supposed to arrive before he does. Einstein leaves and later returns, acting as though the previous exchange never occurred.
* Given the difficulty in transferring [[Terry Pratchett]]'s famous footnotes to the page, the play adaptation of ''[[
* In the first published edition of the script of ''[[Lady in the Dark]]'', the musical [[Dream Sequence
== Video Games ==
* The vintage adventure game ''[[Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders]]'' represents the eponymous character's eponymous treatment by emptying his set of commands and having them gradually return as he recovers.
* ''Captain Blood'' represents the degenerative disease the main character quests to cure with an increasingly jittery mouse cursor.
* The DOS installation program of the first ''[[
** In the ''Red Alert'' games, the installer pretends to be a highly classified program that contains an intelligence briefing on the current situation. Your CD-key is called a "security clearance code" by the "secret program".
*** The setup process ''Red Alert 2'' pretends to have hacked into the Allied network, requiring you to use your CD-key to disable the security measures. The installation itself plays out as a slideshow briefing.
*** It also takes the liberty of informing you that a Navy SEAL team has been dispatched to your location.
** In ''Firestorm'', Nod's CABAL taccon AI [[
** In an interview with the developers, they said worked on the idea that you were a "telegeneral" leading your troops through communications links from a control
*** The actual interface shows up in ''Renegade'', and the idea of "battle commanders" comes up a few times throughout the series.
* ''The Rats'', a 1985 Spectrum horror strategy interspaced with scenes of text adventure (unfortunately written years before this concept became feasible), depicts the encroaching presence of rats by having teeth marks, claw marks and actual vermin appear on the screen, and being killed by a rat by having one {{smallcaps|TEAR THROUGH THE TEXT WINDOW AND LUNGE AT YOU }}
** ''The Prisoner'', a 1980 [[Edu Ware]] game upped the ante by having the game over scenario involve entering in a specific secret code at any point in the game. {{spoiler|This includes at least once scenario where the game apparently crashes to the operating system prompt and a recovery program asks for the line number of the crash... which just happens to be your secret number.}}
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'' and ''[[Mario Kart]]'' actually include items whose entire purpose is to block the players' view of the playfield. (which, incidentally, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|doesn't affect the AI at all...]])
** [[Adventure Game|Adventure games]] ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' II and ''Escape from [[Monkey Island]]'', as well as the Super Nintendo ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' sports game, each have a scene where a badly aimed projectile breaks the screen.
** So did ''Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga''. ...Except it was Bowser.
** The titular protagonist of the Danish-made ''Hugo'' TV game had a habit of knocking on the screen to get the viewer's attention.
** The fighting game based on ''[[
* ''[[
** In the remake, during the war chapter, the bullets litteraly break the fourth wall, as they make the screen as it was shot.
* ''[[Kane and Lynch|Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days]]'' is presented as if someone just decided to start filming right behind a madman with a gun. Brutal headshots (and nudity) get censored, [[Camera Abuse|the camera drops if you die, digital artifacts are everywhere]], a timestamp appears, and during one explosion in the demo, the frame rate drops incredibly, the camera gets almost entirely pixelated, and the fake camera man almost gets knocked off his feet.
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** Yet another puzzle in the same game involves producing a stream of air to set windmills spinning. {{spoiler|Blowing into the DS' microphone does the job}}.
* ''Twilight Princess'' gave important characters their own colored texts.
{{quote|
** As do the two Zelda games for the Nintendo 64. Navi from ''Ocarina of Time'' always spoke in blue, and some other characters had their own color.
*** In addition to that, important {{color|red|keywords}} in dialogue had a different colour to make sure the player noticed them.
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* The main menu for each ''[[Free Space]]'' space sim is a mock-up of the inside of the carrier the player character is stationed on. To play a mission, click on the ready room doors. The atmospheric impact well makes up for the fact that changing carriers in the plot means that the player won't even know where the exit button is.
** ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]'' also used that mechanic, but in 1990 on the SNES.
* The main menus of ''[[
** In ''X-Wing Alliance'', this "hangar menu" is more than just a menu styled like the
** In the pilot entry screen in ''X-Wing'', the computer will refuse to let you play if you enter "Vader" as your name, since the Alliance doesn't admit "known Imperial agents".
** Flight sims love to play with this trope, living up to their "simulation" status. For example, MircoProse's ''F-15 Strike Eagle III'''s main menu is a recreation of a hanger at the Nellis, NV air force base, with pilot selection being done by clicking on a locker, mission selection by clicking on a map or officer, and starting the mission by clicking on a plane just outside the hangar.
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* The Mojo stage of the Sega Genesis ''[[X-Men]]'' game gives the player a time limit to reach the end of the stage. Once there, the player receives a message that he needs to reset the computer core to escape the level. This puzzle is solved by hitting the Reset button on the Genesis.
* In [[Simon the Sorcerer]], you need to convicne four wizards posing as country bumpkins that you can see through their disguise. You do this by telling them that when the mouse pointer hovers over them, the infobox reads 'wizards'.
* In ''[[Simon the Sorcerer]] 3'', the last puzzle in the game involves getting a CD out of a computer which has no
* The 1985 wargame ''Theatre Europe'' simulates conventional WWIII. Accessing nuclear weapons requires a real-world phone call. [[That Other Wiki]]: "The telephone number connected the player to a recorded message, which started with the sound of air raid sirens and dramatically built up through various sounds of war to a huge explosion, followed by the sound of a crying baby. As this faded out, a voice stated "If this is really what you want... the code is 'Midnight Sun'"." Global thermonuclear war is a [http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/theatre_europe.html complete loss]; for single strategic missiles, the player has to remember to turn off automatic retaliation for nuclear attacks with equal or stronger force, a system that both sides use and which responds to retaliations. At the hardest difficulty level, it's impossible to win as the Warsaw Pact.
* In what's probably one of the most genuinely disturbing things in video games, there is a level of the ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'' game where you play as Mr Brown, the getaway driver who has been shot in the head; in the movie we cut directly to him crashing the car after several miles and shouting, "I'm blind!", to which Mr Orange informs him that he isn't blind, he just has blood in his eyes. In the ''game'', you have to drive Pink and White out of the jewelery store with your sight increasingly obscured by blood dripping down the screen, a narrowing field of vision, and eventually flickering between black and white, colour and sepia tone.
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* ''[[Furcadia]]'' advertisement: "This advertisement is in Finnish when you're not looking."
* Similar to the Stephen King example further up the page, Ron DeLite of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]: Trials and Tribulations'' occasionally trails off in his speech as the text fades to match the window's color. Throughout the series, characters have their text scroll faster when they're nervous or angry, indicating that they're speaking faster; two separate characters (Wendy Oldbag and Moe the Clown) have their text move so fast it's nigh-impossible to follow when they start rambling. When someone yells, their text shoots up in size.
* In ''[[No More Heroes]]'', when Travis gets a call on his cell phone, it comes through the Wii Remote's speaker instead of the TV's speakers. As such, the volume is (in theory) lower and thus you're holding the Wii Remote to your ear as Travis holds his cell phone to his. (In practice, the voice coming through the remote is surprisingly
** That's not even going into everything that happens once you finally make it to the final ranked battle. The poor, unfortunate fourth wall gets painted, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again, and then the pieces get repainted. It's the most divisive ending since the MGS2 Ending.
** Speaking of ''Metal Gear'', if you have a wireless headset registered to your [[
*** The latter two ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' games also allowed you to do this.
* The Humor NaviCustomizer Part in the ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' series has at least one joke in each game it appears it that paints the fourth wall, if not outright breaks it.
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* The [[Lilo and Stitch|Stitch]] summon in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' sticks and crawls on the surface of your TV screen... even when you're looking in ''first-person''. And during his [[Limit Break]], he stands on the command menu and licks it to restore your MP.
* Malkavian players in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' have an alternate, jumbled-up font for their alternate, jumbled-up dialogue options.
** The oddness continues in that news broadcasts on various TVs, which serve as background and interesting little recaps of your more public adventures in the game for other characters, take a more sinister turn for Malkavians. Not only does the news anchor speak directly to you, his descriptions of various stories are far more twisted and violent than
** There was a Malkavian Thin Blood on the beach in Santa Monica who offered to read your future. She actually did describe events that happened in the game (though they only make sense in retrospect), and if your character was Malkavian, your lines would add even more information. Also, if asked about how it all ends, she'd answer that it's not important whether you win or lose, it's if you bought the game that counts. Sadly, not enough people did...
*** Though to be fair, I think more people might have bought it if developer Troika wasn't justifiably infamous for releasing horrifically buggy and unfinished games with ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' being perhaps their worst offense.
* For a time in the early 1990s, it became almost ''de rigeur'' for platform games to make the player's avatar get bored and in some way address the player if not moved for some time. We have [[Idle Animation|a trope]] for those things.
* The classic [[Infocom]] text adventure ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' has a scenario whereby you cause a [[Temporal Paradox]], which, in typical ''HHGTTG'' style, destroys the universe in a most thorough fashion. The game explains in literary detail the havoc which ensues, ending with "The universe ceases to have ever exis"
* In ''[[Tales of Hearts]]'', the characters experience the [[Mysterious Waif]]'s guilt flashback to just before she had an inadvertent hand in Armageddon. Late in this flashback, another character tells her past self to come along and begin the project. Her text box simply says "Yes," but the voice actress screams out "No!" At this moment, the viewer-character separates from the flashback-character and enters the final stage of her [[Heroic BSOD]].
* Happens at least once in ''[[Super Robot Wars]] [[Original Generation]] 2''. Normally, when you begin a mission, there's a short text explanation of what's happening, then the mission's number and name appear on a blue background before fading out to reveal the map and begin the actual gameplay. However, on some important occasions, this screen doesn't appear, and instead these details flash up onto the screen after said important occasion has occured. When this happens during episode 30, immediately after having -EPISODE 30- DYGENGUARD- appear on the screen, the level boss yells out "What was that!? ...And what does "Episode 30" mean!?".
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* ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Conviction'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYmwR-sP4FQ uses] the rather cool technique of 'projecting' elements like mission objectives and backstory onto the surrounding environment. For example, as Sam approaches a mansion the words "Infiltrate the Mansion" appear on its facade like they're being beamed from a film projector.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'', the game's spritework is of higher quality than the original game; in general, everything is larger and, as a result, more detailed and more smoothly drawn. This is especially noticeable on people. Whenever the story calls for a flasback, (flashing back to the destruction of Mist, for example), the spritework reverts to the original squat style of ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. A copout to avoid remaking the scenes with new sprites? Not quite, as the style also reverts when flashing back to events not in the original, like Ceodore's birth.
* ''[[Wet]]'' is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action films of the 80s and early 90s, along with the drive-in movies and grindhouse films of earlier decades. As a constant reminder of this, it uses phony projector tricks similar to ''[[Grindhouse]]''
* This is the primary gimmick of the ''[[Viewtiful Joe]]'' series, except that the player controls them, and it's cinematic tropes that are used. Slow motion lets our hero dodge attacks and punch more dramatically (and punch bullets), zoom in temporarily stuns foes, mach speed lets him move very fast, Sylvia's Replay let's her attack for triple the damage(or triple the received damage, and sometimes Joe will smack foes so had they bounce off the screen.
* In ''[[Modern Warfare]]'', cutscenes before the start of a mission are presented as the networking and information system used by the protagonists' various orginizations displaying relevant information while important characters speak over it, although the presentation itself is a heavy dramatization of what anything like this in reality would be displaying, it takes up the entire screen and the characters speaking are never seen, as if they're standing right next to you, watching it just like you are. And then it's taken up a notch in ''Modern Warfare 2'' when one entire cutscene is, with no elements recognizable from the game itself, the {{spoiler|emergency broadcast system of Washington DC, telling you where to go for evacuation as the Russians invade the city.}}
* The main ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' games are masters of this trope: the [[Framing Story]] takes place near the end of [[The End of the World as We Know It|2012]], and you only play as the Assassins through accessing their genetic memories through a device called the Animus. The game uses this to [[Justified Trope|justify]] several standard video game tropes, most obviously why the HUD is laid out the way it
** The sequel takes it up a notch with the Animus 2.0, which adds several gameplay refinements and subtitles, which were absent in the first game. A note in the game's manual from Lucy is a reminder to fix the nasty bug in the Animus 1.0 software that [[Super Drowning Skills|prevented the ancestor from swimming]] (and indeed, Ezio is a very prolific swimmer), and a side conversation has Desmond thanking a member of his [[Mission Control]] for the subtitles.
* The ''[[Golden Sun]]'' games tend to avoid this, with the exception of the final battles in both games. Just as the fight starts the screen appears to ''shatter''.
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* In ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'', the game opens to a simple "Press Start" screen, with a busy street visible. When the player finally presses the start button, a huge explosion occurs, killing thousands and leaving a large chunk of an island a smoking crater - The explosion is actually caused by the main character using the device that gives him superpowers. ''Way to go, hero''.
* The ''[[Disgaea]]'' series is famous for [[Fourth Wall]] tomfoolery and this, down to cases of characters changing each other's names and hacking their titles. "Do you have some reason to believe you can defeat my father? Like... being level 100,000,000?"
* One stage in ''[[God Hand]]'' requires Gene to deflect cannonballs back at the ship firing them. How do you do that? Well, you have to hit the right button according to the four cannons that can fire... and incidentally the [[
* The old Cinemaware game ''[[Rocket Ranger]]'' introduces [[The Man Behind the Man]] by having it slash the victory screen in half.
** ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]'' also does that by having the boss make his entrance by ripping apart the victory screen (or if you continued, the character select screen) from behind as if it were paper. Likewise, the super move background is also papery --- slashing moves leave marks on it
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* In the iOS game ''The Heist'', you regularly recieve phone calls from the PC's partner in crime. During said calls, the game actually mimics the iPhone "incoming call" interface to give the illusion that you're recieving an actual phone call. The final call even has the partner using Facetime. However, this has the drawback of looking silly when you're playing on an iPod touch...
* The ''[[Paper Mario]]'' series in general gleefully demolishes the fourth wall at every opportunity, but there's one notable part in ''The Thousand-Year Door'' where a doppelganger [[Grand Theft Me|steals your identity and voice]], and you have to guess his name in order to get it back. If you already ''know'' his name {{spoiler|Doopliss}}, you would think that you could just enter it into the name-entry screen and [[Sequence Breaking|sequence break]] the chapter, but the doppelganger has ''removed one of the letters needed to spell his name in the screen and hidden it'' and you need to find the letter in a chest first before you can give the correct answer.
* The Mr. Saturns in ''[[
* ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)|Fahrenheit]]'' has a [[Press X to Not Die|quick-time event]] where the on-screen cues light up like a Christmas tree, and it becomes impossible to win. This represents the way the main character has panicked and is franctically hammering on a keypad. There's also a scene where the solution is to fail a series of quick-time events, since they're for making the main character shake off a horde of glowing hallucinatory spiders and he's being interrogated by the police.
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', the various starting menus and character creation scenes are invariably part of some in-universe computer system. Also, the [[Bullet Time]] effect in ''Mass Effect 3'', in addition to being used for standard action sequences like the shootout with Dr. Eva, pops up whenever Shepard suffers health damage or is stunned by attacks.
** Outside of the game, in quotations, discussions, and especially fanfic, the Reapers' [[Evil Sounds Deep|distinctive style of speech]] is generally rendered in either '''bold''' or {{smallcaps|smallcaps}} to emphasize their [[Eldritch Abomination|monstrous...ness]].
=== [[Visual Novels]] ===▼
▲== [[Visual Novels]] ==
* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' colours the screen red or fills the screen with static whenever the protagonist is badly wounded (or going through an epiphany). In the final route of the game, ''Heaven's Feel'', {{spoiler|the screen ''cracks'' whenever the protagonist uses his [[Deadly Upgrade]] which induces brain damage; the static becomes omnipresent, and certain words are whited out or simply ''not there'', as he slowly loses his precious memories and ability to recall events, providing a chilling and saddening effect.}}
* In ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'', {{color|red|red text}} is [[Language of Truth|always true]]. {{color|blue|Blue text}} is used to present theories that deny witches. {{spoiler|There's also gold text in the most recent game.}} [[The Anime of the Game]] shows this by making the screen take on the appropriate color tint and having the words fly around the speaker. Also, the title should technically be written as ''Umineko no {{color|red|Na}}ku Koro Ni''.
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* In ''[[CROSS†CHANNEL]]'', at one point Taichi flips Touko's skirt up expecting a [[Megaton Punch]]. When he doesn't get one, he decides to go one step further by pulling her panties down and quickly requesting that someone throw up a mosaic. And, of course, as per Japanese laws on [[H-game|H-Games]], it's already there since ''Cross Channel'' is a partially censored game.
* At one point in ''[[A Profile]]'', Masayuki questions his mother's use of a tilde in her sentence.
* In ''[[Ever 17]]'', the text box changes color depending on the current POV
** ''[[Remember 11]]'' has the same
== Web Comics ==
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** The priest of Loki figures out that the Thieves Guild has arrived to capture him and the heroes because the comic does a cutaway to them talking in the second-to-last panel of [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0602.html this strip].
** At one point, Haley reaches into the cast page to steal a diamond. {{spoiler|If the story was in any other medium, they wouldn't have been able to bring Roy back.}}
* ''[[Dominic Deegan]]: Oracle for Hire'' has used sequences that break the comic strip, once to symbolize a breakdown [https://web.archive.org/web/20140213101855/http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2005-05-02 of reality], other times [
* In ''[[Achewood]]'', Chucklebot (a robot, duh) speaks in a digital font. Blister, a ghost squirrel, speaks in unpunctuated block capitals. The most notable example, though, is Roast Beef, whose rambling speech is conveyed in a slightly smaller font with no commas.
* ''It's Walky!'' pulled a similar stunt [https://web.archive.org/web/20131011030811/http://www.itswalky.com/d/20031221.html here].
* As did ''[[Bob and George]]'', when the character representing the author [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/index.php?date=000913 apparently dies] and the comic pages fade from existence. Later, when the author is having a [[Creator Breakdown|nervous breakdown]], the comic [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/index.php?date=010701 literally starts falling apart].
** ''[[Bob and George]]'' also uses this to lampshade, subvert, and [[Double Subversion|Double Subvert]] [[Contractual Immortality]]. The characters Bob and George can't die because their names are in the title of the comic. When the plot calls for their (temporary) death, the title of the comic temporarily changes in order to allow it to happen.
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* Similar to the ''Bob And George'' example, in the ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' strip of ''[[Joe Loves Crappy Movies]]'', [[Author Avatar]] Joe makes a snide comment about George W. Bush and is promptly taken into custody. He is then replaced by a government agent called George that replaces Joe for several strips, interacting with his friends and then girlfriend (now wife) Yeoh (who, strangely enough, are unfazed by this). Bringing this into Fourth Wall Painting territory is the fact that the strip's title changed to "George Loves Crappy Movies" and the movie reviews that accompanied each strip were made as if they were written by George (with his own [[Strawman Political]] bias).
* [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=331 This] page of ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' uses the end-of-chapter symbol to censor a profanity, basically creating a [[Sound Effect Bleep]] [[Dissimile|without the sound effect]].
** In the ''Gunnerkrigg'' interim comic ''City Face'', the [[Shout Box]] below the comic doesn't display reader
** [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=678 This page.] Note the bright light that bleeds into the gaps between panels, and the way Antimony's hair flows out of the last panel as she re-enters the Ether.
** For scenes set in the Ether in general, there are no borders between panels, and the art simply bleeds off the page. And on [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=682 this page], Annie is in the Ether but interacting with the physical world; it's represented by her reaching into an inset panel.
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** [http://www.insecticons.com/insecticomics/v5/458.html And the narrator's one of the Vok.]
* ''[[Books Don't Work Here]]'' does this often. [http://booksdontworkhere.thecomicseries.com/comics/4/ here] is an example of [[Odd-Shaped Panel]], and here is where they play around with [[Flashback Effects]] [http://booksdontworkhere.thecomicseries.com/comics/69/ twice]
* In ''[[8-Bit Theater
** ''[[8-Bit Theater
** In addition, one of the many, many omnipotent abilities of Sarda includes being able to rearrange the speech bubbles of people he doesn't like, particularly [[Butt Monkey|Black Mage]].
* In ''Lick My Jesus'' (which is, unfortunately, no longer accessible), one strip was based around the idea that different fonts were different languages. One character admitted, "I'm sorry... I don't speak Garamond."
** Kinda like the old [[Britcom]] ''Allo, Allo'', in which different languages are represented by [[Just a Stupid Accent|different accents]]
* Used in the ''[[Asterix]]'' books where Viking speech has [[Punctuation Shaker|extra punctuation]], the Goths talk in [[wikipedia:Blackletter|Gothic script]] and the Egyptians talk in hieroglyphics.
* In a similarly defunct example, ''[http://cwcomics.comicgenesis.com/alt/thisis/ This is]'', a webcomic presented as a series of brief, tongue-in-cheek descriptions, had as its 404 page a picture and brief, tongue-in-cheek description of a 404 page. Sadly, it has since been replaced by the 404 page from the author's subsequent project, which is significantly less meta about itself.
* Apropos 404 not found: ''[[Loserz]]'' once used this as a gag. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20090924044453/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/index.php?comicID=57 this strip].
* The lizard man Draak in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' speaks his native tongue in an unreadable symbol font, rotated 90 degrees so that it runs in vertical columns. He also speaks English in a larger, more messy font than all the other characters. ([[Hulk Speak|Entirely monosyllabically]], though this is unrelated to his intelligence level, which is [[Genius Bruiser|actually quite high]].) [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/470.html Exemplified here].
* In ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'', the titular [[Anti-Hero]] was kidnapped, resulting in an [[All Up to You]] situation. As a result, the comic's panel borders changed to white and pink, the rescuer's colors. Taken even further with green panels matching a comic relief character's scenes.
* ''[[Shortpacked]]'' paints the fourth wall pretty effectively in [http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20050518.html this strip].
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' used to use different fonts for the (English) speech of different races of beings in the galaxy. Humans "spoke" in a Courier-like font, the AI entity Petey spoke in a font that filled empty space inside of letters with a dot, and the F'sherl-Ganni aliens spoke in a very "pointy" font. The author phased out this practice due to the difficulty that fans had with reading these exotic fonts, but not without a [https://web.archive.org/web/20100616070300/http://
* [http://www.ehtio.es/index.php?cont=122 This page] of Spanish webcomic ''¡Eh, tío!'' allegedly depicts an [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome|epic zombie battle]] involving [[Noodle Implements|a ballpoint pen and two chickens]]
* From ''[[Request Comics]]'': [http://www.requestcomics.com/comic/7.html "Anthropomorphic toasters are so harsh and uncaring, they speak in Courier."]
* In [http://www.viruscomix.com/page455.html this page] of ''[[Subnormality]]'', a ninja shuriken is essently made into an asterisk, which the characters use to read the note on the end of strip.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120513132011/http://geekinlove.com/la-caza-del-troll/ This page] of the Spanish webcomic ''[http://geekinlove.com/ GeekInLove]'' depicts the characters hunting a "archtypical" [[Troll|internet troll]], but he is smarter than the main characters thought and he breaks the strip and goes down to the comments area to escape. He is still chased by one of the heroes, who finally kills him in the comment entry box. The "comment area" is in fact a mockup, but it's very well done and the comments are perfectly synchronized with the action.
* [http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2008/10/08/ Here's an example] of
* [http://www.kdingo.net/champ/pics/main.php?g2_itemId=3930 This comic], while not part of a continual series, is a wonderful, if creepy and somewhat depressing example of
* Used occasionally in ''[[Xkcd]]'', such as in [http://xkcd.com/338/ this] strip, where speech balloons crossing the panel divisions are used to represent an interaction between present and future. Randall Munroe paints a nice [[Fourth Wall]], and doesn't want to see it broken.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160312181928/http://antagonist.swimtrunkstudio.com/archive_page.php?
* ''[[What Birds Know]]'' uses a [http://fribergthorelli.com/wbk/index.php/page-252/ backwards speech bubble] to show a seriously frakked up side effect of an alleged alternate dimension. The other characters can't understand the backwards speaker.
* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' does it, almost literally, in [https://web.archive.org/web/20090901195450/http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=10&issue=15 this strip]
* [http://countyoursheep.com/d/20091015.html This] ''[[Count Your Sheep]]'' comic.
* [http://www.out-at-home.com/archives/284 This strip] from ''Out At Home.''
* ''[[Homestuck]]'', like the other ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' stories, gives the readers the opportunity to influence what happens in the story by using the character specific suggestion boxes on [https://web.archive.org/web/20100709125021/http://www.mspaintadventures.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=42
** Also, you know the normally-unflappable [[Manipulative Bastard|Doc Scratch]] is pissed off when [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004163 even his text in the chatlogs] looks like it's about to go nuclear.
** At the end of the fifth act, Doc Scratch takes over as a first-person narrator for a while. (All of the story up to this point has been in second person.) To make his text easier to read, he rewrites the site's CSS to have a green background. The top of the page is also replaced with a wide shot of his home (which actively changes as he and his guests move around in it.)
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** Andrew used this trope [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4&p=001756 way back here] in ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'' as well. Instead of doing damage directly to the [[Final Boss]], PS ''attacks the HP bars themselves.''
** AD also uses one of his [[Stat Meters]] to beat up an enemy at one point.
* [http://www.explosm.net/comics/294/ Used] [http://www.explosm.net/comics/334/ repetitively] in ''[[Cyanide
* [http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/2411 This] ''[[Diesel Sweeties]]'' strip, where one of the characters laments that they're just standing around talking about ''[[Star Wars]]''
{{quote|
"This is nothing ''like'' a comic! You're a girl." }}
* In ''[[Zebra Girl]]'', spiky speech bubbles signify that the speaker is a demon.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' does this with speech balloons. Rectangles for machines, spikes for shouting, wavy edges for madness, dashes for whispers, icicles for hostility and icons for clank language. [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090527 A] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070131 few] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070718 examples].
* The webcomic ''Moo & Keo'' took this trope to a [https://web.archive.org/web/20111115155006/http://www.mookeo.com/archive/2008-07-04-49eb156/ more literal degree.]
* This is used in ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'' to show the reality-bending abilities (referred to in the strip titles as "[[Infinite Canvas]] [[Supernatural Martial Arts|Style]]") of a Sidereal [[Exalted]]. Examples include [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0222.html dodging by jumping into a different frame], [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0228.html using a chunk of the comic's gutter as a projectile], and [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0226.html abusing perspective to hit three enemies at once from twenty feet away].
** Also used by (also Fourth Wall breaking) fae in a mailcall filler strip. [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0153.html Leave space-time alone!]
* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1234#comic This] ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' strip subverts its normal format, for very [[Black Comedy]].
* ''[[A Moment of Peace]]'': Evi's falling text in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140912011838/http://www.amomentofpeace.net/index.php?num=11 Worry Circles].
* [http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2009/06/24 This strip] from ''[[Precocious (Webcomic)|Precocious]]'' is all about Chiller Font.
* Charles Bogle loves to do this in ''[[Hello, Cleveland!]]''. Examples range from Newt resting his hands on the edge of the panel to [[Frame Break|Newt removing the panel dividers]].
* ''[[The Dreamland Chronicles]]'': [https://web.archive.org/web/20120626061836/http://www.thedreamlandchronicles.com/the-dreamland-chronicles/chapter-08/page-495/ for dragontalk]
* ''[[Bob the Angry Flower]]'' is rescued from a hopeless situation by a friend who spots a text box narrating how his rescue attempt will fail. He shoots the letters clean off it and they escape.
* Used in ''[[All Over the House]]'' when Emily [http://www.alloverthehouse.net/2009/05/01/colourama-2/ let colour into the comic]{{Dead link}} for the first time. Tesrin complained that it burned her but Emily thought it "much nicer".
** [http://www.alloverthehouse.net/2011/03/22/recursive-search/ Done again] when hits on ''[[All Over the House]]'' skyrocketed because of people searching for a pornographic music video of the same name.
* ''[[Wapsi Square]]'': [http://wapsisquare.com/comic/is-irrelevant/ Dialog outside the bubbles]
* ''[[Pibgorn]]'' [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2003/06/12/ Colored fonts]
* ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'' [http://requiem.seraph-inn.com/viewcomic.php?page=60 Colored speech bubbles]
* In ''[[Memoria (2010 webcomic)|Memoria]]'' dialog balloons [http://memoria.valice.net/?p=326 such as here]; note [[Pink Girl, Blue Boy]] to tell Harriet and Matty apart.
* ''[[Derelict (webcomic)|Derelict]]'' [http://derelictcomic.com/?strip_id=20 Symbols, or an alien alphabet, in dialog]
* ''[[Bird Boy]]'': [https://web.archive.org/web/20111115104947/http://bird-boy.com/volume-1-page-5 Runic dialog]
* ''[[Rusty and Co.|Rusty and Co]]'' [http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-4-10/ Presumably counting]
* ''[[Footloose (webcomic)|Footloose]]'' [http://www.footloosecomic.com/footloose/pages.php?page=41 How to say "Uh oh"]{{Dead link}}
* ''[[Impure Blood]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20131027140535/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Chapter001/ib007.html Whisper in gray]
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130801221347/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Issue4PAGES/ib078.html And green bubbles for whoozy]
* ''[[Harry Potter Comics]]'' has the Necromancer speak in gray speech bubbles, and souls in the afterlife speak with partially transparent bubbles.
* Every character in ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'' speaks with a differently-coloured speech bubble.
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* ''[[Girls with Slingshots]]'' isn't usually [[Medium Awareness|Medium Aware]], but in [http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws-1315 this strip] Thea corrects the spelling in Hazel's [[Speech Bubble]].
* In ''[[The Mansion of E]]'', each species has its own dialogue-font, and a few feature colored speech-balloons as well.
== Web Animation ==
* On ''[[Homestar Runner]]'', the Strong Bad Email "virus" involves computer viruses not only infecting Strong Bad's computer, but apparently the Flash file for the cartoon itself, as reality starts falling apart in strange, interesting, and funny ways. This also created a [http://www.homestarrunner.com/main22.html Main Page] on the site based on the sbemail, though the "virus'd" components were just animations from scrolling over the buttons; the page is just as functional as the other Main Pages.
{{quote|
** Additionally, the site went down for a day or two, and they returned with an auto-loading animation featuring the same standard 404 page, and the characters walking on-screen to comment. "What happened to my website?"
** A few weeks after Email number 99 was released, typing in the URL http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail100.html (which follows the same format as the previous 99 emails) brought you (and still does) to a similar "page could not be displayed" page where Strong Bad berates the user for being impatient. Supposedly, this page was created to trip up users trying to view the 100th Strong Bad Email before it was officially released.
{{quote|
** Then the actual 100th Email itself plays with the fourth wall. Strong Bad says that this story must be shown "IN WIDESCREEN!" and the Flash window expands to do just that.
*** And Homestar himself appears behind the right side. He's pretty much always there, just usually he's [[Behind the Black]].
** In a similar way with the above, typing in the URL http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail200.html brought you (and still does) to a fake Firefox "address not found" page where the "[[Straw Fan|Deleteheads]]" camp out waiting for the 200th Strong Bad Email.
** Typing in an invalid URL on the site will bring up a "404'd" page in the style of Strong Bad's "Teen Girl Squad" comics. The title is a play on a [[Running Gag]] in Teen Girl Squad: injuries named with the object used to cause it, plus a "-'d" on the end (examples: {{spoiler|MSG'd, team manager'd... Strong Bad even [[Lampshade Hanging|LampshadeHanging'd]] it once: "Those Teen Girl Squad girls are sure gonna get something'd now!"}}) While this works with any URL that is not a valid file in the homestarrunner.com domain albeit not in a different directory (due to relative linking, pages such as [http://www.homestarrunner.com/stinkogame/ this one] will not load), the official URL is https://web.archive.org/web/20131030101138/http://www.homestarrunner.com/404error.html.
** In the 150th e-mail, "Alternate Universe", the style of talking changes depending on which universe Strong Bad is in at the moment. For example, in the Strong Badman comic, speech bubbles show up during speech, and in the storybook universe, everything anyone says is subtitled like a children's book.
*** Also in the Strong Badman comic, Strong Bad tells Strong Badman that his comic is getting boring, then ''jumped out of the panel and landed in a later one'', thus basically gaining the power of ''time travel''.
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*** The meta joke being that said arc is the one that follows the point where 4Kids ended the American dub of the original show.
* ''[[Naruto the Abridged Comedy Spoof Series Show]]'': "PILOT NO JUTSU!" gives us this exchange:
{{quote|
'''Iruka''': Oh, they're there to make the show look really cool. Everyne knows that widescreen is better than the original aspect ratio.
'''Naruto''': Oh, I thought that maybe they were there to hide the subtitles. }}
** Later in the same episode...
{{quote|
* ''[[The Defrosters]]''.
{{quote|
== Web Original ==
* ''[[Echo Chamber]]'', the [[TV Tropes]] webseries, is premised on this. It's about Tropers trying to make a vlog for [[TV Tropes]]. We can only see what [[Cloudcuckoolander|the cameraman, Zack]], films. Most of the action isn't in the vlog itself, and therefore [[The Ditz|Zack]] [[Throw It In|should really have turned the camera off]]. Zack is frequently [[Lampshade Hanging|given excuses]] to be present at times when, really, he shouldn't be there. He [[Your Door Was Open|hides in Tom's closet]] and tags along on a date with Tom, severely creeping out Tom's date.
== Western Animation ==
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** This was remade as a game on the DS, with similar "painting," including Daffy "ripping up the game code".
** It was also referenced on ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', when Homer badmouthed Matt Groening only to have a huge pencil eraser loom toward his head. The camera zooms out to reveal the pencil as a diegetic piece of an art installation that is on its way to being installated.
* In the [[Pilot]] episode of ''[[Wolverine and the X-Men]]'', the ellipsis between the explosion that starts the main intrigue and the "present moment" was symbolised by a fake television signal
* An episode of ''[[Chowder]]'' once had the title character playing around with a marker until he accidentally drew on the screen. Gazpacho then said he needed to clean that up, and kept telling the camera to move around until he could reach it, saying it was "too far" with a wide shot, and cleaned it up when he got a close-up. When Chowder said he missed one (the Cartoon Network screen bug), Gazpacho informed him he'd tried before and it doesn't come off.
** This become especially bizarre with re-runs after the network logo changed, as the old logo suddenly re-appears (along with the new one) when Gazpacho taps it, but disappears right after he said it wouldn't go away.
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** In one episode, Lisa directly looks at the fourth wall and asks if you can help her solve a riddle. It turns out that she actually asked Milhouse, and it was just shown from his perspective. (By the way, said episode seems to be spoofing [[Dan Brown|Dan Brown's novels]]. It would have been [[Crowning Moment of Funny|hilarious]] if Robert Langdon actually did something like this in one of the movie adaptions...)
** This was used earlier in "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part I)":
{{quote|
'''Wiggum:''' Yeah, I'll give it a shot, I mean, you know, it's my job, right? }}
** In ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'': Homer calls everyone watching The Itchy and Scratchy movie a "giant sucker" for "paying to see somthing they can watch at home for free" and starts pointing at a random theater audience member...only for the camera to swivel around so that Homer's finger is pointed directly at the fourth wall while he says "Especially YOU!"
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LqiC6LSPlQ once] had the usual promo for the Simpsons (8/7c) come on over the top of the regular cartoon, with Marge Simpson walking into frame. Suddenly, Quagmire walks into view and tackles her, ostensibly for sex. She fights him off, and he chases her around with his pants around his ankles. Eventually, she gives in, offscreen, and they both return to view and decide to head back to the Simpsons' for round two. The characters in the body of the cartoon ''actually stop talking'' to watch what's going on. The next scene is an exterior shot of the Simpson house. The audio indicates that Homer walks in on them, and gets shot by Quagmire in self-defense. Then he shoots Marge to keep her from calling the police. Then Bart walks in and gets shot. Then Lisa. He hesitates with Maggie. Then the show cuts right back to ''Family Guy'' like nothing ever happened.
** In a more recent episode, an [[Commercial Pop-Up|intrusive ad]] for ''[[24|Twenty Four]]''(Mondays on Fox) appeared at the bottom of the screen, and Stewie stopped the action for quite a while to notice and complain about it.
{{quote|
** Which kicked off a running joke in the same episode as fake live-action sitcom ads periodically showed up at the bottom of the screen, including "Shovin' Buddies" and "Slowly Rotating Black Man". The characters reacted to them each time.
** After Stewie's time machine rips a hole in the fabric of the universe and leaves Brian and Stewie floating in an endless void, a generic ''[[The Cleveland Show|ClevelandShow]]'' ad pops up, commented on by Stewie.
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** in ''[[The Emperor's New Groove]]'', Kuzco ''stops the film'' to draw on the fourth wall and whine about how the movie isn't focusing on him.
* As the world falls into chaos in the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' episode "The Return of Harmony: Part 2", a pony is shown running along the top and left edges of the screen.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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== Repeatedly used in this very wiki ==
* Several [[Self-Demonstrating Article
** [[All Blue Entry]]
** [[All Red Entry (Darth Wiki)|All Red Entry]]
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** [[Speech Bubbles]]
** [[Candle Jack]] most defi
* This site (and other wikis, for that matter) itself when it comes to links. [[
* On many websites, including this wiki, some posters seem use spoiler tags for hiding words that should not be said, written, or seen for some superstitious reason, such as the Tetragrammaton, or the name of [[The Scottish Play]], or less seriously, a potentially [[Flame War]] fueling forum post, as if the whiteness would make them partially unwritten.
* [[The Scrappy]] and other [[Your Mileage May Vary]] tropes are helpfully highlighed with a solid red bullet.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Meta Concepts]]
[[Category:Metafiction Demanded This Index]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Painting the Medium]]
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