Tuesday, January 10, 2012

WHAT A PISSER: NYMag presents an abbreviated history of fourth-wall breaking:

11 comments:

  1. Very abbreviated. Groucho Marx was doing it on stage in the 1920s (and in the later film versions of those plays), and, even if you restrict it to TV, George Burns did it in the 1950s.

    Burns was way ahead of his time in this sort of meta-reference: if he wanted to spy on what Gracie was doing, he'd turn on his own tv show. When they replaced the actor who played the next-door neighbor, they didn't hide it: "The other guy wanted too much money, so now this guy is playing our next-door neighbor."

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  2. Joseph Finn8:52 AM

    Love the use of the device in High Fidelity; the whole "freeze" thing rarely works well for me, so I like when the scene is continuing as the breaking is happening.

    However, there's an interesting use of the freeze and then stepping out of the story as if it was a painting in Pirates of Silicon Valley (I think I set this right so it'll play right before that scene):


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TWyLOKjlAKA#t=2877s" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100" height="100

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  3. Fred App9:33 AM

    How can you do a compilation of fourth-wall breaking and not include "It's Garry Shandling's Show." Hell, even the opening theme of that show broke the fourth wall.

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  4. Marsha9:58 AM

    And how can you do this without showing a single clip of Moonlighting? There's time for Zach frickin' Morris, but not David Addison?

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  5. Nigel from Cameroon12:31 PM

    That new Showtime show really sucked

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  6. lisased12:52 PM

    Thank you for watching it for me. I was tempted by Kristen Bell and Jean-Ralphio, but now I don't have to.

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  7. Jordan3:01 PM

    Whither Hope and Crosby?

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  8. Or Bugs Bunny.  "Ain't I a stinker?"

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  9. Joseph Finn7:02 PM

    Is it breaking the fourth wall when the wall starts out as broken?

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