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Meta-reference, a meta-fiction technique, is a situation in a form of media whereby fictional characters display an awareness that they are in a film, television show or book. Sometimes it may even just be a form of editing or film-making technique that comments on the programme/film/book itself. It is also sometimes known as "Breaking the Fourth Wall", in reference to the theatrical tradition of playing as if there was no audience, as if a wall existed between them and the actors.

Early uses of meta-reference

Meta-reference can be traced back to traditional asides to the audience in theatrical productions, a feature of dramatic presentation which dates back at least to the time of Aristophanes, who in his comedy "The Frogs", has a place where, in the underworld, the following dialogue takes place;

Dionysus - But tell me, did you see the parricides / And perjured folk he mentioned?
Xanthias - Didn't you?
Dionsyus - Poseidon, yes. Why look! (points to the audience) I see them now.

These asides are an early form of the technique of "breaking the fourth wall", of which meta-reference is a major form. Several of Shakespeare's plays begin or end with references to the actors and the play itself, most famously A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which Puck concludes with a speech which includes the lines:

If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended
That you have but slumber'd here while these visions did appear.

The oldest use of meta-reference in cinema is possibly in the Marx Brothers' movie Animal Crackers, in which at one point Groucho speaks directly to the camera, saying, "Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."

The long-running 1950s and 1960s radio comedy series The Goons frequently made use of meta-reference. In one episode, for example, Eccles reported that he never appeared in a scene with Moriarty because both characters were played by the same actor. The series' announcer, Wallace Greenslade and musicians Max Geldray and Ray Ellington were occasionally called upon to act as minor characters, and their efforts were often derided on air by the other characters.

The oldest meta-references in television are probably in the comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus, which prominently featured them. Meta-references in Flying Circus include:

  • a group of people lost in a jungle, who are rescued when they realize someone is filming them
  • characters who think the sketch they are playing is silly and decide to stop
  • a TV host, who experiences repeatedly shown film clips as déjà vu
  • a group of inquisitors who are in a hurry, because the credits are rolling and the show is about to end

Other examples

Examples in television

  • In the Animaniacs cartoon, "Slappy Goes Walnuts", after Skippy tells Slappy that it's not a cartoon it's real life, she looks at the camera and says, "Don't tell 'em. He might crack."

  • In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Once More, with Feeling", the main character says of another character, "* in trouble; must be Tuesday." This is a reference to the fact that all throughout the show's run, the episodes were aired on Tuesdays. Also in this episode, Buffy looks directly at the camera and invites the viewers to "sing along"

  • In the Darkwing Duck episode "Comic Book Capers", the protagonist's civilian self, Drake Mallard, tries to write a biography of his secret heroic alter ego in the form of a comic book, without success. In disgust, he leaves and says to his companion, "Let's see if we can sell this epic to Disney. Maybe they'll make a TV series out of it!"

  • In the Doctor Who serial, Remembrance of the Daleks, an announcer says "This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc—", but is cut off by a scene change before completing the title.

  • Ed, Edd, n Eddy has meta references as well. Exempli Gratia,:
    • In "Know-It-All Ed", Edd tells Eddy his "25 cents or 25 days in the pokey" line is from the "wrong cartoon".
    • In "Key to My Ed", after tripping over a napping Johnny, Eddy complains "Does this guy sleep through the whole show?"
    • In "Cry Ed", as he chases Eddy around, Edd complains "I've lost about ten pounds this season!"
    • In "Momma's Little Ed", Eddy apologizes to Edd for posting up "sticky notes of the Apocalypse", blaming it on Ed and Kevin, and Edd points out "Kevin wasn't in this show, Eddy."
    • In "For Your Ed Only", Kevin is perplexed by Eddy and Edd's use of "hasta la vista" and "c'est la vie", and declares "This show needs subtitles."
    • At the end of Act 1 of "If It Smells Like an Ed", Ed says "I should have all the feeling back in my feet after this word from our sponsors, Double-D." Edd, who is stuck hauling a chunk of sidewalk that Ed had been carrying, then says "Curse broadcast commercialism!"
    • In "Ed Overboard", when asked to be sworn in as a temporary member of the Urban Rangers, Eddy quips "I'd swear, but Standards won't let me."
    • In "Hands Across Ed", at the auditions, after banishing Rolf after his disconcerting dance of the hairless otter, Eddy whispers to Edd, "No budget for subtitles!"
    • In "Robin Ed", after finding out that Eddy has been selling boxes of junk to the kids, Edd says "That's what we do on every show, but not like this!" as he complains about Eddy sinking to a new low.
    • In "Who's Minding The Ed" Eddy gets angry when Edd suggests helping Ed again and shouts out "how about MY obligation about having YOU on my back for this whole stinking show?!"
    • In "The Good Ol' Ed", after Eddy finds the "Canadian squirt gun" from "Know-It-All Ed", Ed says "Funny, it was, as though it were only second season."
    • Also, in the same episode, when Ed starts reminiscing about the beginning of the episode, Eddy hits him over the head with a fish and shouts "I hate clip shows!", and again thwaps him over the head with the fish and says "STOP IT! No more remembering!"
    • In "Stuck In Ed", after Edd reminds Eddy that he'd taught Jimmy (who is trying to help think up a scam) everything he knows, Eddy asks "Didn't we win an Emmy for that episode?" Edd then replies "Hardly."
    • At the end of "Here's Mud In Your Ed", after Eddy falls for Rolf's "money-tree" scam a second time, Edd turns to the camera and says, "An iris-in would be appropriate, don't you think?", cueing the end of the cartoon. After the iris-in occurs, his voice says, "Thank you!"
    • Near the end of "Boom Boom Out Goes the Ed", Ed finds Edd's hat, with no sign of Edd, and assumes the worst, while Eddy protests "But it's the end of the show, Ed!"
    • In "Knock Knock Who's Ed" when the Eds failed trying to get in Ed's house, Edd says,"We can go to our house". Eddy replies, "What and Ruin the plot?"

  • The anime Excel Saga is an experiment in parody, breaking the fourth wall, and meta-reference. Excel comments directly to the audience, and the director Nabeshin makes several appearances.

  • In The Fairly OddParents episode "Wish Fixers", a TV advertisement for the episode's namesake shows a list of various bad wishes, all of which Timmy Turner wished for in previous episodes.

  • The anime FLCL features several examples, most notably being near the beginning of the first episode. The camera cuts to the inside of a trailer with the characters fanning themselves and discussing the scene that was just interrupted.

  • The Fresh Prince of Bel Air features several excellent examples. In one pre-credit sequence, Will asks the father, Phillip, why, if they're so rich, has their house not got ceilings, at which point the camera reveals the set, lighting apparatus and studio. In another episode when returning back to Philadelphia, Will recognizes one of the bullies from the title sequence and comments that it is the big guy who is spinning him over his head in the opening credits. At one point Will describes himself as being from 'west Philadelphia, born and raised', thus quoting the lyrics from the opening credits rap.

  • Futurama features an episode in which, faced with the prospect of risking her and Fry's lives to save Bender, Leela exclaims, "It's not an easy decision. If only we had two or three minutes to think about it!" The show then breaks for commercials.

  • In one episode of The Monkees, a comment that "we seem to have passed this place before" is met with "Don't worry — they're filming this on a small set".

  • In Moonlighting, the lead characters would sometimes directly address the audience. On one occasion the characters of David and Maddie were shown to be aware they were characters in a series and that it was the season finale; they then attempted to thwart the expectation there would be a big finish.

  • At the beginning of the ¡Mucha Lucha! episode "The Magnificent Three", when the main characters are watching a movie, at one point The Flea complains, "Why do they always cut to a word on the screen instead of showing the action?" This references a common occurrence on the show.

  • The Nanny frequently referred to other television roles of its cast members, including scenes where they watched those roles on TV and offered their critiques of the performance. In one episode Fran Drescher appeared as her This Is Spinal Tap character Bobbi Fleckman. Another episode featured a temperamental child star who acted in a sitcom about a nanny with an impossibly outlandish and expensive wardrobe. One episode also featured a false wedding between the two lead characters after which Drescher's character addresses the audience to admit "Oh I just threw that one in for you guys".

  • At the end of every episode of Police Squad starring Leslie Nielsen, main characters in the last scene would know the show was about to end, and would stop in whatever pose they were in while the credits rolled. Often, they in the process of pouring a cup of coffee when they froze, and so the coffee continued to run onto the floor. Other characters would be unaware of this however and would continue going about their business in the background, or when they realized what was going on (after not getting a response from the frozen characters), would assume their own pose for the remainder of the credits.

  • One episode of Roseanne features characters realizing that "something like this seems to happen every week" and that in the summer it seems to happen again. Also, several veiled references were made to the recasting of the part of Becky Conner.

  • In the anime Samurai Pizza Cats, characters would frequently make references to the fact that they were cartoon characters and that they were following a script. The voice-over narrator would sometimes converse with the rest of the characters.

  • In one episode of Scrubs, Dr. Cox, instead of the usual "Barbie," referred to Dr. Reid as "Becky #2," a reference to Sarah Chalke playing the character of Rebecca 'Becky' Conner-Healy in Roseanne.
    • A sub-plot of one episode revealed that the Janitor (Neil Flynn) was actually an actor when he was spotted in The Fugitive playing on TV.

  • The Simpsons features meta-references frequently, and the Usenet group alt.tv.simpsons features a Meta reference watch for each episode. A classic example is when Homer Simpson — in the style of a Road Runner cartoon — gets stuck in a hole in the ground of a narrow ledge jutting from the edge of a tall cliff. Homer declares "If this were a cartoon, this cliff would break off now." After a pause for comic effect, it does, but not till after some time passes in the show (goes from day to night). The show frequently self-criticises with this technique, often featuring Bart watching the television and announcing his gripe with the current programming, which is descriptive of the present episode itself ("They just make an episode out of footage from previous episodes and pretend it's new"; "I smell another cheap cartoon crossover"; "There's no one watching us").

  • South Park has also featured several meta-references:
    • In "Quest for Ratings", the main characters run an amateur news show as a school project, but when ratings drop they decide to make news stories up. During a brainstorming session, Eric Cartman suggests a storyline feature 'Crab People'. This is immediately derided as a ludicrous and implausible idea for a television show. 'Crab People' were themselves featured in a previous South Park episode.
    • In "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000", while Cartman is hanging by a pole, he asks Stan, Kyle and Kenny to push him further left, but then corrects himself: "No, camera left, camera left!"
    • In the episode "Proper Condom Use", the character Chef speaks about the dangers of having sex ed be taught by a "complete pervert," as the camera pans to Mr. Garrison. Garrison then says, "Hey, why'd you pan to me?"
    • In the episode "It Hits the Fan", it is discovered that only gay characters are allowed to say "fag" without being bleeped. Several of the characters say the word and are bleeped, but when Jimbo says it he is not. They tease him about being gay.
    • In the episode "The Return of Chef", during an exposé sequence about the "Super Adventure Club," the words "This is what Super Adventure Club members actually believe" are flashed, similar to how the words "This is what Scientologists actually believe" were flashed in the episode "Trapped in the Closet", effectively parodying a parody.
    • In the episode "Cartoon Wars", Cartman explains why his jokes are better than Family Guy, effectively saying why (from the creator's perspective) South Park is better than Family Guy.

  • A fan-favorite episode of Stargate SG-1, titled "Wormhole X-Treme", is full of meta-reference, as the plot in part revolves around an alien from a previous episode taking part in the creation of a TV show blatantly based on his previous experience with the SG-1 team. The episode's main story (there's a "making of" featurette at the end) ends with a joke about "walkaway" lines - as the two characters walk away from the camera.
    • The episode "Citizen Joe" uses meta-reference, too. In it, it is revealed a normal citizen has a shared mind with O'Neil, and as such has been writing down everything he experiences - co-incidentally in the form of the episodes we have watched. "Joe", thinking he is just being imaginative when writing them, makes comments such as "the more recent episodes are lacking in character depth and story-driven plots, I'll admit..." and in doing so reflects actual fan opinions on the show itself.
    • In the episode "Chimera", Carter hums the Stargate SG-1 theme song while in the elevator.

  • One episode of Yes Dear features short sequences where, at the urging of his wife, the main character, Greg, redecorates furniture in a way humorously inconvenient to the viewers. First, he faces the sofa and chairs away from the camera (thus forcing characters to face away from the camera when they sit) and then later he hangs a framed picture in front of the camera (apparently believing he is hanging it on an actual wall). During both attempts Greg's wife Kim and the other family members comment that the changes do not feel right. When Greg angrily asks why they look at the camera and say "I don't know".

  • There are several examples of this in The Young Ones One being that of the landlord Alexei, who turns to the camera and drops his faux-European accent and reverts to his natural British accent and addresses the audience.

  • Dukes of Hazzard has a character dedicated to breaking the forth wall: The Balladeer (played by Waylon Jennnings). Apart from acting as just a narrator to explain details that would otherwise be left out of the episode, the Balladeer commonly addressed the audience with such types of quotes as "Don't you just hate it when Daisy's in trouble?", "Don't look at me... I don't know how this'll turn out, either.", or "Don't go to get popcorn just yet..." when the action is paused for commercial breaks. Once, he even said "Now, for those of you out there with long memories, when was the first time you saw the General chasing a police car?", in referance to the show's pilot episode.

  • In the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Gee Whiz", several references are made to the fact that certain things are unacceptable according to Standards and Practices. Frylock explains to Meatwad that he can't say the name of a certain religious figure, because of standards and practices. Meatwad asks what that means, and Frylock shows a video clip where a man explains the concept by shooting a nun with a shotgun. When her head explodes and blood flies everywhere, he explains that this is "not OK." He then shoots the nun over again, only this time her head pops like a baloon and a rainbow pours out of it. This is considered to be "OK." Ironically, when the camera pans to show the nun's body on the ground, while the rainbow is still coming out of her neck, there is blood on the ground around it.

  • In one episode of Boy Meets World, Corey laments that he has to be in two places at once. Shawn suggests that he could run back and forth between the two places like Fred in The Flinstones. Corey says that that's a TV show, and this is real life, but Shawn just replies, "Trust me, it's the same thing."

Examples in audio

CATHERWOOD: Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
NICK: No, allow me to introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
CATHERWOOD: Well, maybe you should pick up your cues faster.
NICK: Are those my cues over there?
CATHERWOOD: Yes, and you'd better get them out of the cellophane before they scorch. to cellophane being crumpled to make a fire sound effect

At other points, characters make reference to the sound effects being applied to their voices, compare their places in the script after losing track of what's happening or inform others of the correct way to end a flashback scene. ("All I do is fade my voice out like this...")

Examples in cinema

  • Many movies have a narration role deliberately to break down the barrier between the action of the plot and the audience. These range from the introductory asides of American Beauty to the role of the narrator as a major character in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  • The John Carpenter film In the Mouth of Madness depicts Sam Neill's character as a fraud investigator pursuing a horror book-in-progress for a publisher but finds that the border between reality and fantasy is progressively collapsing as more people read extracts. It turns out that the movie is of the self-same book being written, so the movie becomes closer and closer to a full meta-reference. At the end, the book - and the breakdown of the border - is complete, Neill is insane, and he finds himself in a cinema watching himself eating popcorn on the screen. The last scene shows an exterior wall of the cinema bearing a promotional poster for the movie within itself, complete with the list of actors' and crew's real names.

  • The film Adaptation., in which the writer Charlie Kaufman writes himself into his own movie. The movie itself is a story about the writing of the movie. And in turn, when in the movie his brother takes over writing the in-movie movie, the film itself abruptly changes in tone.

  • In the Woody Allen film Annie Hall, Woody Allen interrupts an argument about Marshall McLuhan to introduce McLuhan himself, commenting to the cinema audience that he wishes arguments in real life could be as easily solved.

  • In Natural Born Killers, whilst editing a programme, television presenter Wayne Gale argues that it is okay to have segments repeated within the same show, claiming "Repetition works!" The piece of dialogue is immediately looped, so we hear him say "Repetition works!" a few seconds later.

  • In Mel Brooks's 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles, Bart's character, while traveling through the desert, meets the orchestra who plays his theme music, and much of the final act is set in the Warner Brothers back lot, ending with many of the lead actors watching the film in a local cinema. In his 1987 movie Spaceballs, the villains watch a video of the movie to find out where the heroes have gone, and become slightly confused when they end up briefly watching themselves watching themselves on video. In his 1993 film Men In Tights the characters pull out their own scripts in order to check a plot point. In the 2005 remake of The Producers, when Leo Bloom walks away from Ulla, she asks him "Why Bloom go so far camera right?"

  • In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Pee-wee spends most of the movie chasing down his missing bicycle, finally finding it being used in a Warner Brothers movie. He attempts to steal the bike from the studio, in another back lot chase reminiscent of that found in Blazing Saddles. At the end, the Warner Brothers execs are so moved by his story that they make a meta-film version of the events of the film, with Pee-wee recast into the James Bond archetype. Pee-wee watches the movie and laughs at his own ridiculous cameo.

  • A similar thing occurs in Chicken Little, where at the characters end up watching a rather changed version of their own adventures.

  • In The New Batch, a film reviewer (Leonard Maltin) holds up a copy of the original Gremlins movie and denounces it as ridiculous and stupid, his rant cut short when Gremlins proceed to mock him in the background, the Gremlins then pouncing on him and attacking.

  • The Monkees' movie Head was an extended experiment in meta-reference, with many of the features in the movie referring back to the fact that nothing in it was real.

  • In Top Secret!, during a dialogue, Hillary exclaims, "It all sounds like some bad movie". This is followed by a long awkward pause as the characters look at the camera. The movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back repeats the same gimmick multiple times.

  • In The NeverEnding Story, a dual-layered meta reference is made, as the characters in Fantasia (especially toward the end) frequently reference their own status as imaginary beings being read about in a book "right now."

  • Dot the i is an independent film about a love triangle, however it turns out that the love triangle was set up by one of the love triangle's participants, who is an independent film director intent on making a film about a love triangle without his girlfriend knowing it.

  • In the opening scene of Charlie's Angels based on the TV series of the same name, two characters are watching an in-flight movie (TJ Hooker the movie), and one comments "Another movie remake from an old TV show."

  • In Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Cartman criticizes the 'Terrence & Phillip' movie suggesting that "The animation's all crappy," which is immediately followed by a few, dialogue free, seconds of characters walking along in South Park's 'crappy' animation style. The creators have stated in interview that 'Terrence & Phillip' is meant to be South Park.

  • In Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the entire movie is a re-enactment of a script that is supposedly being written as the film progresses. Ultimately, the story is resolved by the reluctant actress, Heather Langenkamp, playing her role in the script.

  • In Monty Python and the Holy Grail
    • The narrator, played by Michael Palin, runs through a list of the knights who decide to follow King Arthur before concluding with a picture of a baby in knight's clothing and calling him "The aptly-named Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" (it is in fact Michael Palin's baby son William).
    • Several drawn out speeches are interrupted by characters from future, as yet unrevealed, scenes extolling them to "Get on with it!"
    • One character is referred to simply as "The old man from scene 24."
    • Several characters are impressed by the appearance of Camelot, until one points out that "It's only a model."
    • Several characters are saved from certain death at the hands of a horrible beast by virtue of the animator suffering a heart-attack.
    • A historian appears several times and comments on what is happening in the film (although had he not been murdered by one of the characters, this could have been considered to be narrative, rather than meta-reference.) The police are seen several times, in pursuit of the murderer.
    • A medieval battle is interrupted by the arrival of modern day policemen, one of whom tells the cameraman to stop filming and puts his hand over the lens.

  • The opening scene of Freddy vs. Jason involves Freddy relating his prediciment and solution to the audience. Later, after he fails to kill a teenager who fell asleep, he turns to the camera and says "Not strong enough yet... I'll let Jason have some more fun...". At the end of the movie, his severed head smiles and winks at the camera.

Examples in theatrical drama

  • There are many instances of meta-reference in theatrical drama, most notable of which is perhaps Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, in which a leading role is played by the stage manager.

  • Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth is likewise filled with meta-references. Notably, the actor playing Henry Antrobus breaks character in the final act, and spstarts speaking of his (scripted) past as a "real" person. This leads to a dialogue with other characters speaking out of character.

  • The musical Into the Woods also features an outside narrator character. The character relates and comments on the plot, unnoticed by the other "internal" characters, until Act II Scene 2, wherein some characters not only realize his existence, but clearly resent him for not having to exist within the confines of the story. The Narrator defends himself by claiming that "I tell the story, I'm not part of it." The other characters soon tell him that they don't approve of the way he's been telling it, and threaten his life. The Narrator makes a desperate plea, stating that they'll never know how their stories end without his help, and will be "lost . . . in a world of chaos." He's then murdered by a giant, leaving the rest of the characters free to find their own way through their stories.

  • In Shakespeare's Hamlet III, scene II, Hamlet recites "A whole one, I./For thou dost know, O Damon dear,/This realm dismantled was/Of Jove himself; and now reigns here/A very, very—pajock!" Horatio responds: "You might have rhymed." In this, Horatio acknowledges the poetic structure of the play's dialog.

Examples in written media

  • Perhaps the earliest example in written media occurs in Part Two of Don Quixote. Another author had written a spurious Part Two, and Cervantes not only inserted in the authentic Part Two a reference to that, but had his characters kidnap a character from the spurious book. Again, the unnamed Duchess whose court Don Quixote and Sancho Panza visit in part Two refers to them as characters from Part One.

  • Perhaps the best known is Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder. In this introspective, philosophical, historical novel, the protagonist, Sophie, and her philosophy tutor realise that they are part of a novel. They aspire to escape.

  • In Robert Anton Wilson's surreal Schrödinger's Cat trilogy, a character named Dr. Dashwood tries to explain to someone that humans are primates, but none of us consciously realize this. He argues "If I were to write a novel...and mentioned on every one of the first hundred pages that all of us are primates, we would find it funny or satirical. Even stranger, if I stopped mentioning it for about two hundred pages, the readers would all forget it quickly, and be startled if I mentioned it again on page 515." In the first hundred pages of the Schrödinger's Cat trilogy humans are constantly referred to as 'primates', and Dr. Dashwood's above quote is indeed on page 515.

  • Stephen King's Dark Tower books are supreme examples of meta-reference: not only does King himself appear as a prominent character in later volumes, but characters and themes from his many other novels are woven in and out of the main plot. In many Stephen King novels the characters are often portrayed as thinking, "If this was a novel, clichéd would happen," after which something less clichéd and more in character with the real world will happen.

  • In Georges Perec's lipogrammatic novel A Void, the book itself is mentioned, and at the same point in Gilbert Adair's translation, Adair himself is named as the translator.

  • In the first volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, the narrator's inspiration to write stems from memories of childhood triggered by his tasting a petite madeleine (a type of small sponge cake) dipped in tea. In the final volume he says "If it is accepted that the author and the main character of this book are one and the same, then my name is Marcel, but this is not necessarily true." Also in the final volume, the narrator begins to write his book, which mimics Proust setting out to write In Search of Lost Time itself.

  • In Amos Oz's novel The Same Sea, Oz himself is a character who meets and interacts with the other characters.

  • In the newspaper comic Pearls Before Swine, by Stephan Pastis, the characters often comment on their own strip. In one instance, Pig told an enormously long story only to set up a lame Rolling Stones pun, to which Rat replied, "Who writes this $&#!?" A more recent example came after a lengthy set up to an Elvis pun when Rat said "Sometimes I hate being in this strip."

  • In weekly children's comic, The Beano, the characters sometimes actually read The Beano. Some even turn to their own strip and comment how funny they are that week.

  • In Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series of novels, the author sometimes appears as a character and provides key clues.

  • Quite a bit of the humour in the manga Sgt. Frog is meta-referential. In the second chapter, Fuyuki worries about his mother's reaction to finding Keroro in the house, and imagines her as a beserk Eva-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion, which promps Natsumi to quip "That visual might have been a bit exaggerated". A few chapters later, Keroro buys an issue of Shonen Ace, the magazine that originally published Sgt. Frog, and reads a comic similar to his own called "Baron Frog". Needless to say, the sergeant is not impressed by his depiction as a bumbling, easily-distracted idiot. ("This 'Baron Keroro' is a buffoon!")

  • Terry Pratchett makes good use of meta-reference in his Discworld novels, as almost all of them contain plentiful jokes about tropes and clichés that pop up in the books due to what Pratchett calls "narrative causality". One example is the discussion in Guards! Guards! between Corporal Nobbs, Constable Carrot, and Sergeant Colon on how million-to-one chances always pay off.

  • In JRR Tolkien's trilogy Lord of the Rings Frodo and Sam have a discussion about whether their story will ever be written into a book. They jest that Sam may be known as "Samwise the brave". There are also other references towards the end of the book where Frodo passes the book on to Sam to finish the last chapters. Similar references are also seen in The Hobbit which is written as though it were written by Bilbo.

  • Notably, Michael Ende's The Neverending Story features probably the most ambitious use of metafiction in children's literature. Halfway through reading a novel titled "The Neverending Story," Bastian reads of The Old Man of Wandering Mountain, a kind of meta-character and stand-in for the author. The Old Man starts reading his book aloud from the beginning, which Bastian doesn't recognise because rather than starting from the beginning of Bastian's (internal) version of "The Neverending Story," The Old Man begins with the frametale -- that is, he starts reciting page 1 of the (external) The Neverending Story. This starts a recursive loop that Bastian can only break by breaching the fourth wall of his (internal) version of "The Neverending Story" and entering into the world inside his book.

  • The detective story writer Edmund Crispin frequently engages in self-reference. In one book, his sleuth Gervase Fen and a companion have to decide whether to take a left or right turn. Fen suggests that they turn left, adding "After all, Gollancz are publishing this book", (a reference to the publisher's well-known left-wing politics). At another point, when asked what he is doing he says that he is inventing titles for Crispin.

  • In the comic Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez, during an introspective session the protagonist notes, "We begin to speak in badly constructed, melodramatic prose! OH, RAGING HORROR! Make this stop!"

  • In the Deadpool comic series, the main character Deadpool seems to be aware that he is a comic book character. He has made references to the "little yellow boxes" he talks in (unlike many comics, all of Deadpool's speech bubbles are yellow instead of the traditional white).

  • Author Douglas Coupland appears as a character in his most recent novel, jPod. The protagonist trades his laptops to Coupland in exchange for a ride, and later a position at his start-up firm. Coupland is of course using the contents of the laptops as the basis of a novel.

Examples in interactive entertainment

  • In LeChuck's Revenge, the main character, Guybrush Threepwood encounters a payphone in the middle of the jungle on Dinky Island. He can use this to call the LucasArts technical support helpline, where he tells them "I'm stuck in the jungle on Dinky Island" and asks for assistance. At another point, one of his options to remind a group of characters of who he is involves saying "You tried to sell me the minutes of a PTA meeting in the last game, claiming it was a map"

  • In The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush encounters Mort the Gravedigger, a fellow who owns a massive collection of cheap pulp novels. When asked, "Why are you wasting all your money on this bad fiction?", Mort replies "At least my bad fiction doesn't require $1000 worth of hardware", a not-so-subtle jab at the high system requirements of many modern games.

  • In Escape from Monkey Island, Guybrush asks a dart player in the SCUMM Bar if he can hit "that guy over there", and the dart player ends up throwing a dart at the screen, apparently putting a hole in the monitor.

  • One of the endings of Chrono Trigger allows the player to talk to the game's staff.

  • In the controversial game Postal², the player's character is employed by "Running With Scissors", the company that created Postal². You can meet, interact with (or shoot, if you are so inclined) the computer personifications of the game's own creators.

  • Towards the end of Max Payne the eponymous main character hallucinates and has the horrifying realization that he is merely a character in a video game with no free will. He concludes this by finally noticing the mysterious statistics he sees floating incessantly around his body (a reference to the HUD) and the way he feels as if someone else (i.e. the player) is controlling his actions.

  • In the adventure game Simon the Sorcerer, Simon has to talk to a group of wizards. He greets them, asking if they are wizards, but they reply "Oh no we ain't". Simon has various replies available to argue that they are wizards, but the only one that works is "But when I move the cursor over you, it says 'wizards'."

  • In Hit & Run, Marge complains about how violent video games are becoming, when blowing up cars, running over pedestrians, and kicking random people are constant throughout the game.

  • In many of the Pokémon games for the Nintendo Game Boy system, you can meet the game developers in the upper floors of some large building, usually a hotel. In nearly all of the Pokémon games to date, the developers were near the top of the Celadon City hotel; in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, they were elsewhere.

  • In the Hideo Kojima game Snatcher, the main character has difficulty hearing a noise, another character suggests that he turns up the volume on the TV. A massive explosion follows in short order.

  • The Metal Gear Solid series, also by Kojima, features many meta-references. In the first Metal Gear Solid, the Colonel tells Solid Snake he can look at the back of the CD case that the game came in to get Meryl Silverburgh's radio frequency (an action that the player, not Snake, must do). In the battle with Psycho Mantis, Mantis urges the player to put the controller on the floor, to demonstrate that he can move it with his mental powers (which he does by activating the controller's rumble feature). Near the end of Sons of Liberty the Colonel tries to convince Raiden to "turn the game console off". The Colonel later chastises the player for "sitting too close to the TV", then accuses them of using cheat codes. Later in the game, Snake tells the player to keep fighting, no matter what. Soon thereafter, the game sporadically shows the game over screen, even though the game is still continuing. The game over screen is an attempt to distract players.

  • In Conker's Bad Fur Day, before the second stage of the fight with the Haybot, some ominous music kicks in, and Conker comments "I don't like the sound of that music..." Later, just as a vicious alien is about to attack Conker, the game apparently freezes. After a moment, Conker begins to move, exclaiming surprise at the fact that the game has such a significant glitch in it. He calls out to the game's programmer, who responds by typing on the screen. Conker asks the programmer to provide him with some weapons to aid in his battle with the alien. In return, Conker promises not tell anyone about this critical bug in the game. Conker's Bad Fur Day is in part a parody of video games in general. It contains many other meta-references.

  • At the beginning of Super Mario RPG, when Toad asks Mario why Princess Peach isn't around, he gets no response. Toad then says, "Mario, what's with the silent treatment? You're not saying anything," a reference to the fact that in some video games, especially RPGs, the main character never speaks.

  • In SimCity 2000, a newspaper article refers to students "playing the role of mayor in a simulation that puts country planning in their hands," and wondering if the city is "just a simulation" and if they are "just residents in a computer."

  • In the demo version of Warcraft II, the foot soldiers, when clicked repeatedly, make comments such as "In the retail version, I am much funnier".

  • Towards the end of Custom Robo the main character finds the game's developers inside his apartment.

  • Space Quest, an early adventure game series produced by Sierra, features frequent meta-references in its textual messages and plot. Space Quest IV, featuring time travelling, assigns a game number and subtitle to each time. For one example, at the end of the opening sequence, main character Roger Wilco jumps through a time rift, landing on a deserted street. The narrator says, "Casually glancing at the status bar, you happen to notice that you're in Space Quest XII." Also, Space Quest III ends with an encounter with the Two Guys from Andromeda, representations of the game's creators who are taken to Earth where they are given jobs at Sierra.

  • In EarthBound, there are several meta-references, including a building reserved for the "making of Earthbound 2", and one of the characters asks for the player's name. At the very end of the game, Paula's prayers are answered by the player.

  • In The Thousand-Year Door, there are a few meta-references to grab the player's attention, i. e. "You, in front of the TV screen! Pay attention!" Also, during chapter 4, Goombella tells Mario (whose identity was stolen by Doopliss, making him unrecognizable) that before "Mario" (Doopliss) became the way he was right now, he did not talk, thing that RPG heroes commonly "do".

  • The Super Robot Wars series features a number of meta-references as a tip of the hat to eagle-eyed players. One popular example is the voice actor jokes slipped into most games in the series, which make reference to the actors playing the characters as well as other characters they are famous for playing (references to Sailor Moon are especially common). Additionally, if the player quits in the middle of the game, he gets humorous dialogues between the characters that break the fourth wall; one notable example has the cast of Ideon discussing the title machine's power to reset the universe, and wonder if they've been using it every time the game itself is reset. However, the biggest example of meta-reference comes in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, which brings in machines from Sega's Virtual On series. When questioned about their pilots, the Virtualoids claim to be AI-controlled, but it is heavily implied that their pilots are people playing the Virtual On games. Topping it all off, the Virtualoids (or rather, their pilots) are shown to be aware that Super Robot Wars itself is a video game that they themselves are in, and comment that they don't have the heart to reveal this information to the rest of the characters.

See also

External links

drama | Narratology

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Meta-reference".

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