Trapped in TV Land: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A group of characters, often a mix of heroes and villains, are trapped by some form of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] inside the world of literature, video games or the like, but most often, television. Either they must learn to cope with their newfound environment until some way can be found to escape, or they will jump from channel to channel, hitting a multitude of clichéd worlds and thin parodies.

This plot can sometimes be connected to its opposites, the [[Refugee From TV Land]] and [[Welcome to The Real World]]. See also: [[Dream Land]], with which this sometimes overlaps; [[Portal Book]] Type 1, where characters getted trapped in Book Land; and [[Fisher Kingdom]], as the channels change the visitors. Compare and contrast [[Intrepid Fictioneer]], for when the travel is deliberate. Frequently paired with a [["Reading Is Cool" Aesop]] (provided it's "Trapped in Literature Land").

 

 

It's an unspoken rule that, somewhere in the universe, there is a show similar to ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''.

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* While not in a television per se, the 2nd part of the 1993 ''[[Time Bokan]]'' OVA has Dorombo Gang of Yatterman enter a sewer and find a world entirely populated by Tatsunoko characters. While attempting to cause havok and expect Yatterman to show up, they don't count on the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Casshern, Hurricane Polymar and Tekkaman arriving and trouncing them. Oh, and there's the obligatory Speed Racer cameo too.

* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' movie 6, "The Phantom of Baker Street". traps the main characters in a virtual reality game controlled by a rogue AI, and featuring [[Jack the Ripper]].

 

* The off-beat comic book series ''[[The Invisibles]]'' had an appropriately weird example where King Mob and Boy get caught in the mindscape of the Marquis de Sade (yes, really) during an attempt to pull him out of the past that goes somewhat pear-shaped. They end up having to witness the entirety of ''120 Days of Sodom'', which King Mob treats as a sick joke.

* A mid-1980's ''[[Superman]]'' Annual had a secondary story in which Superman artist Curt Swan fell asleep while drawing a comic and woke up in Metropolis. It was ''All Just a Dream'', except that Curt found two bullets in his hand from when Superman stopped a crook.

* The [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]] miniseries ''Fantastic Four: True Story'' does this in a homage to the ''Thursday Next'' books (see the Literature section below).

* One storyline in ''[[Justice League of America]]'' involved the evil Queen of Fables trapping the League in a book of old fairy tales (the original bloody ones) and forcing them to live through the stories.

* This is the power of ''[[Supreme]]'' baddie the Televillain - entering into a TV show's fictional world and drawing others into it as he pleases. And, of course, changing the channel to whatever premise fits his need. In one outing he killed Monica on an episode of ''[[Friends]]'' to prove he wasn't kidding around.

* Ellie Dee gets transported into a video game in one issue of ''[[Cherry Comics]]'', where she has to [[Win to Exit]].

 

* In ''[[The Blue Dragon]]'' series, the two primary protagonists (Demex in the first, Josh in the second) get sent to the [[The Legend of Spyro]] universe.

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4505478/1 Kyle-091]'' is about a Halo fanboy ending up (via [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|sending himself there with Forerunner tech]]) on the ONI medical station orbiting Reach in the early stages of the Spartan program. Since he knows what's going to happen in the future, the ONI would've been after him had it not for Mendez and Halsey covering up the incident by giving him Spartan enhancements and sneaking him into the program. The sequel [[Refugee From TV Land|turns this around]] by the Covenant trying to invoke a [[Grandfather Paradox]].

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6930195/1/My_Little_Brony_Reality_vs_Fantasy My Little Brony: Reality VS Fantasy]'' (a ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' fanfic) is about a brony who ends up in Equestria. The Equestrian natives are understandably freaked out, and he's forced to go live with Zecora and Apple Bloom. His arrival, however, is just in time for him to witness one of the great laws of Equestrian apocrypha: that which states that all shall go to shit. In this case, a mad scientist wants to get rid of the ponies, but it turns out that [[Doctor Who|the (ponyfied) Doctor]] and his companion [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Derpy]] [[Funny Background Event|Hooves]] are watching.

* ''[[Sleeping with the Girls]]'' is all about this, fused with semi-uncontrolled reality hopping. Before you ask, no, there's no sex, the title's just like that. A guy who is an anime fan in real life is, for unknown reasons, being teleported to the side of eight of his favorite anime characters. The problem? He is transported the instant he falls asleep, and the characters he likes are a) always asleep when he teleports to them, and b) they tend to run in the [[Tsundere]] category. One of the most realistic takes on a self-insert, he nearly dies several times because they can throw punches he can't survive, not to mention that he almost never gets enough sleep. He's cycling through eight separate worlds, each one one of his favorite anime/manga. Currently in the middle of its second of what the author claims is a three-volume story. See the trope page for more details.

* ''[[Mass Vexations]],'' is probably one of THE examples of Trapped in TV Land done right. Another self-insert story, it shows Art, a quirky college guy, suddenly transported to the world of Mass Effect. He doesn't gain super-powers, and it shows how a fan of the game could realistically interact with a fictional world, while trying to hide that he knows pretty much every single outcome from when he arrives (near the beginning of [[ME 1]]) to the end of [[Mass Effect 2]].

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Mary Poppins]]'', Mary, Burt, and the children jump into a chalk pavement picture.

* ''[[The Icicle Thief]]''

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[976-EVIL]]'', seeking to frame the female lead, traps one of her friends inside a television program. It doesn't seem so bad at first, as she finds herself amongst the ending of ''[[It's a Wonderful Life|Its a Wonderful Life]]''. Then the movie is mashed up with ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'' which is playing at the next channel and she is killed by the [[Creepy Child]] from it.

* Anyone murdered by the killer in ''Midnight Movie'' becomes trapped in the black and white [[Hillbilly Horrors]] film he originates from.

* In ''Delirious'', a soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character [[Author Powers|inside his own show]].

 

== Literature ==

* Jasper Fforde's ''[[Thursday Next]]'' novels concern an invention called the "Prose Portal" which allows people to enter works of fiction. Later novels reveal a whole world of fiction, in which characters in books are like actors, and must "[[Animated Actors|act out]]" the events of a story every time it is read.

* One of the first examples (if not ''the'' first), from 1940: ''[[Typewriter in the Sky]]'' by [[L. Ron Hubbard]], a [[Deconstruction]] of swashbucklers with the main character having "fallen into" the role of the [[Designated Villain]].

* There's a [[Robert Bloch]] story (found in the anthology ''Hollywood Nightmare'', edited by Peter Haining) about a woman who, after watching so many tv-horror-marathons that her brain melts (more or less), finds herself taking a walking tour of RKO Horror and the Universal Monsters canon. [[Hilarity Does Not Ensue]].

* The humor book ''[[How to Survive a Horror Movie]]'' tells how to recognize if you've become a victim of this trope, and how to stay alive once you're there.

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel ''The Crooked World'' sees the TARDIS crew trapped on a cartoon planet populated by thinly-veiled parodies of [[Scooby Doo]], ''[[The Perils of Penelope Pitstop]]'', ''[[Wacky Races]]'', [[Tom and Jerry]], ''[[Looney Tunes]]'', and others. The Doctor's interference means that for the behavior of those parodies, [[Reality Ensues]].

* ''Ms Wiz Goes Live'' has Ms Wiz take Caroline and her little sister inside the TV. In a variation they go to an actual TV studio where the sister causes uproar on a talk show, Ms Wiz reads her own version of the news and Caroline does a guest spot on a drama. The book ends with a producer calling the house to see if Caroline wants a bigger role.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'' has a small subplot when Earl was in a coma, in which Earl was in the only place he felt happy; 'TV Land'. A few episodes detailed his life in a fifty's television sitcom, while is friends tried to get him out of a coma. The older he got in the sitcom, the closer he was to dying in real life.

* In the finale of ''[[The Famous Jett Jackson]]'', Jett actually switches places with Silverstone, the character he plays in the [[Show Within a Show]].

* At the end of an episode of ''[[Clarissa Explains It All]]'', Clarissa fakes this happening to her as part of a [[Zany Scheme]] to get revenge on her brother.

* ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'' had an ''excellent'' two-parter based around this concept with the [[Big Bad]] and the [[Monster of the Week]] splitting up the rangers and sending them through [[The Western|westerns,]] [[Samurai|Samurai films]], [[Wuxia|Martial Arts Epics]], [[Nature Hero|Jungle Hero serials]], [[The Musical|Musicals]], and even a [[Mad Max]] parody!

* ''[[Weird Science (TV series)|Weird Science]]'' had the boys explicitly thrown into a slasher movie and a soap opera, as well as into alternate universes modeled on ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' and [[James Bond]] movies.

* ''[[That's So Raven]]'' has an episode in which Raven has a dream that she and her friends are in various TV shows and movies (such as ''[[I Love Lucy]]'', ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', etc.)

* This is the plot of an episode of ''[[Lexx]]'' in which the heroes are plopped onto a literal "TV world," where they mysteriously transported onto the set of a show and are "rated" on their performance in whatever TV show they land in. High ratings lead to "primetime," whereas low ratings lead to gradually more degrading roles, ending with {{spoiler|being decapitated on a snuff show and having one's head added to the mostly offscreen "audience"}}.

** The episode "Charmed Noir" has Paige and Brody sucked into a 1930's ''[[Maltese Falcon]]'' spoof while investigating the murder of a teacher at the Magic School. Also, outsiders could write plot twists which were incorporated into the narrative.

* Happens to the Twist kids in the ''[[Round the Twist]]'' episode "TV or Not TV".

 

== Theme Parks ==

 

== Videogames ==

* This is where the main characters in ''[[Persona 4]]'' fight.

* This is part of ''[[Raving Rabbids]] TV Party'': the Rabbids get sucked into [[Rayman]]'s TV set, and in the single-player mode they set out to annoy him into busting up the set and letting the Rabbids out.

** Aladdin was the hero of the ''[[Arabian Nights]]'' now?

*** [[Small Reference Pools|As far as most people know, yes.]]

* In ''[[Mickey Mouse|Disney's Magical Quest 3]]'', Huey, Dewey and Louie are pulled into Storybook Land by King Pete. Mickey and [[Donald Duck]], with the assistance of the Guardian Fairy have to rescue the trio by entering the book and defeat the evil ruler.

* The sequel to the casual game ''Azada'' features puzzles embedded in books of fairy tales and of various literary classics.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', which KP has been accused of ripping off

*** Isn't sending Kim Possible into ''Alias'' like sending [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy Summers]] into ''[[Hellboy]]''?

*** "Eric, you bastard, you better not be a warlock or else I'll kick your sorry ass!"

** ''[[ER]]''

*** The name of the product in question was Zinthos, one of Raven's Magic words. It was also said to be blue (The color of raven's outfit) and the side effects includeing what happens when she loses control of her emotions, such as extra eyes.

** A Barney-esque [[Edutainment Show]]

* ''[[Futurama]]'' did it with classic (and handily public-domain) ''books'' in one episode: ''Tom Sawyer'', ''Moby Dick'' and ''Pride and Prejudice''.

* One [[Three Shorts|mini-episode]] of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' featured this plot, involving him mostly travelling through various commercials; at the end, it was [[All Just a Dream]] ([[Or Was It a Dream?|although he kept the scarf of the shopping channel]]...). Another episode featured a variant on this, where Garfield woke up to find he was in the [[No Fourth Wall|wrong cartoon]], an odd cross between ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' and ''[[Transformers]]''; eventually, he was shot into a forest of ''Bambi''-esque forest animals, and ran off into the distance, shouting that [[Tastes Like Diabetes|he wanted the giant robots back.]]

* A segment of one of ''[[The Simpsons]]''' "[[Halloween Episode|Treehouse of Horrors]]" episodes used this plot, with Bart and Lisa sucked into ''The Itchy & Scratchy Show''. At one point they changed channels, appearing in a ''live action'' snippet of ''[[Live With Regis And Kathie Lee]]''.

** Also worth mentioning is an episode where the trope gets inverted, as Homer is transported into the third dimension.

** And the [[Hypocritical Humor]] of having Chief Wiggum mock [[The Ahnold|Rainier Wolfcastle]] for an obvious parody of ''[[Last Action Hero]].''

{{quote|'''Chief Wiggum''': "Magic ticket ''my ass'', McBain" }}

** Some of the shows parodied in "Channel Chasers" include ''[[Fat Albert]]'', ''[[Blue's Clues]]'', ''[[Sesame Street]]'', ''[[Scooby Doo]]'', ''[[The Jetsons]]'' ''[[Rugrats]]'', ''[[Jonny Quest]]'', ''[[Batman]]'', and ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''; however the episode was more centered on a parody show named "Maho Mushi", which was a hybrid of ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' and ''[[Pokémon]]''.

*** Don't forget a [[The Simpsons]] pardoy, complete with Blackboard Gag:

* The 70s ''[[Superfriends]]'' did it at least twice, in one episode the Legion of Doom put them into random fairy tales, in the other Mr Mxylpic puts them in "The Wizard of Oz" with Aquaman as the Scarecrow, Supes as the Tinman and Wonder Woman as the Cowardly Lion.

* The final season of the [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'' added the capability to travel into TV shows, movies, and literature to the guys' time-travelling phone booth, leading to a series of cheap thinly-veiled pop-culture parodies. (This was also used once in the following live-action [[Recycled: the Series]], see the "Live Action TV" section)

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Otherworld Tropes]]

[[Category:Metafiction Demanded This Index]]

[[Category:Plots]]