cartoons which "break the 4th wall"?

[Zorak Masaki]

What are some cartoons that acknowledge the fact they theyre a cartoon show? I know of:
Animaniacs
Tiny Toons
Excel Saga
FLCL
Garfield and Friends
Histeria
any others?

[GagaMan]

A lot of the older cartoon characters knew they wer in a cartoon, and often would even talk to the animator, such as Daffy Duck (See "Duck Amuck") and Bosko the Talk Ink kid.

[Conekiller]

it doens't bother me when goofy shows do it like Freekazoid or Animaniacs. But for the most part it really kills the mood for me when cartoon characters become "self aware"

I stopped watching 80's Ninja Turtles when the turtles started breaking the 4th wall all the time (IE: "didn't we do this in ep. 14?")

[LordTerminal]

I believe there was that one Earthworm Jim episode.

"Are they believing? Some of them, the rest are just changing the channel."

[Jave]

I stopped watching 80's Ninja Turtles when the turtles started breaking the 4th wall all the time (IE: "didn't we do this in ep. 14?")Haha. Or "I wasn't talking to you, I meant the kids in their houses".

[Fan of Sponge]

Ed, Edd, n Eddy know that they are a cartoon...sometimes. One reference came from Mama's Little Ed where Eddy blamed Kevin for all the strange sticky notes. Edd replied to Eddy saying that Kevin wasn't in this episode. However, in Urban Ed, Ed dropped an anvil and Eddy told him that this isn't a cartoon. Sounds like Edd only knows that they are in a cartoon show.

[Mr Cat Dog]

The Simpsons have done it occassionally, or at least made references to being in a cartoon, but the Looney Tunes really know they're in a cartoon with the amount of knowledge htey have of people "changing the channel" and other stuff like that.

[Classic Speedy]

Duckman broke the 4th Wall in an episode where they have to save Ajax (forget which one). They come back from the second act break and Duckman, Cornfed, and Berniece are lazily sitting on the couch, smoking, and making small talk. Then they're interrupted by the director, who positions them for the start of the third act.

Also, the episode "Clip Job" was one big 4th wall joke, what with Duckman's entire life being videotaped off TV by a madman TV critic, and Duckman is baffled as to how he got the clips. The icing on the cake was the end line (paraphrased), "Charles, Mambo, that's despicable! What kind of sleazy Hollywood writer would be so strapped for ideas that they create a morally bankrupt clip show?" Then they look at the camera. :D

[J. B. Warner]

I seem to recall "Pokémon" did it a few times in the first season, primarily in Team Rocket scenes...

JAMES: Drat! We wasted this whole episode rooting for the good guys!

JESSIE: Meowth, you don't have a nose!
MEOWTH: Huh?...Oh yeah, the cartoonists never gave me a nose.

JAMES: Why didn't we just do this before?
JESSIE: We have to fill a half-hour.

[CyberCubed]

The original TMNT cartoon did this a few times.

In one episode Shredder says after the next commercial he'll carry out his plan. In another ep Krang shows Shredder a new device, and Shredder explains the device in detail. Krang says "You don't have to explain it to me, I'm the one who invented it!" and Shredder replies "I wasn't explaining it to you, I was explaining it to them" while pointing towards the TV screen.

Raph also says in an episode that they couldn't afford subtitles, when a Japanese warrior was speaking.

[Beat]

The Simpsons tore the 4th wall down when they had CGI Homer walking around in San Fransico.

Any comedy show is more likely to bust it down.

[ktoriyama]

Ed, Edd, n Eddy know that they are a cartoon...sometimes. One reference came from Mama's Little Ed where Eddy blamed Kevin for all the strange sticky notes. Edd replied to Eddy saying that Kevin wasn't in this episode. However, in Urban Ed, Ed dropped an anvil and Eddy told him that this isn't a cartoon. Sounds like Edd only knows that they are in a cartoon show.I dunno episode can have several meanings, saga, act, sequence, or etc. I am not too sure about the Eds.

Would this include games, such as Viewtiful Joe, which was actually about characters in a movie who knew they were in a movie but not in a game. Would that be a fifth wall? and what are the first 3 wall if you don't mind me asking.

[Gokou Ruri]

They're walls to a TV, usually. Left, right, back, and the 4th one, forward (the TV screen)

[Ben]

Fourth wall is a theatrical term and its origins have nothing to do with television. The first three walls are the three physical walls of an interior theatrical set in a proscenium theater. Televisions, by the way, have five walls plus the bottom because they're cubes. Traditional theatrical sets have no ceiling, so that's why there are three other walls.

[Matt-a-Tastic]

In the movie "The Man With Two Brains" theres a bit were the forigen police man comes up to the speeder and says something foreign thats subtitled, the speeder replies in English and the police says "ah you speak english" then turns to look above the screen and says "You can turn of the subtitles now"

Also in Smash Bros bash against the screen sometimes when they get hit to far upwards

Also Dojo bashes into the screen in the opening credits of Xiaolin Showdown.

Also in the Simpsons, in the that episode were Homer becomes an artist, he sees something about Matt Groening (cant rember what it was) and says "Matt Greoning... pfff, what a crappy artist" and then he starts getting rubbed out :anime:

[HellCat]

The Mask did it alot, such as in the first Kablamus ep-

"I'm here to stop your rampage, pal!" "Oh no no, I don't think the children would like that" ".......Ohh, riiiiiight, the children!" *Mask turns to camera* "Look, I know ya there kids but this guy is obviously a few screws short, know what I mean?"

The Zako Zako Hour from SDGF could also count. Although technically the hosts are addressing a bunch of their fellow Zakos, it's pretty clear the segment is aimed at the viewer (especially when mid-series they become semi-fugitives and present the ZZH from behind a bush :p )

Disney's Mighty Ducks also used the joke alot, very close in style to how TMNT used it "Captured twice in one episode...that's gotta be a record", "Finally, it's over...." "Yeah...are we renewed for a second season?", etc

[Mr Cat Dog]

Also Dojo bashes into the screen in the opening credits of Xiaolin Also in the Simpsons, in the that episode were Homer becomes an artist, he sees something about Matt Groening (cant rember what it was) and says "Matt Greoning... pfff, what a crappy artist" and then he starts getting rubbed out :anime:That only half counts, as it was just a really large pencil being put into its place in the museum. Although to Homer Simpson that's all he'll realise about the 4th wall :D

[ZephyrSamba]

I dunno episode can have several meanings, saga, act, sequence, or etc. I am not too sure about the Eds.
Hmm, I dunno, I think there are plenty of instances where EEnE breaks down the forth wall - Edd's "An original scene transition, interesting!" comment in One Plus One = Ed ... Eddy's "Oh yeah, didn't we win an Emmy for that episode?" comment in Stuck in Ed ... The way Wilfred the pig "pulled" in the background for the next scene in Stiff Upper Ed or Ed's "End of first sequence and fade to black!" line in An Ed in a Bush ... Kevin's "This show needs subtitles" line in For Your Eds Only ... Eddy's "Who writes this guy's lines?" comment about Edd or his comment about Ed's "poorly-drawn fingers" in Brother, Can You Spare an Ed - ack, okay, I'm done - sorry, I sort of got on a roll there =) At any rate, like Fan of Sponge said they don't do it all -that- often but nonetheless it does come up from time to time ...

[Invader Z]

Bonus Stage: It has an ep about the show being cancelled, Fist World has it "buffer" over Phil's power and cause Joel to be discombobulated, and another has them have to permenantly kill someone (Realizing they die and come back.) to introduce a new character.

Homestar Runner: It's confusing... sometimes they know their in a flash cartoon, but otherscause them to be dumbfounded. Just check the wiki, as they have all types of crazy crap about this (On Homestar, anyway) there.

[Yash]

The original Shaman King did it in a few eps, example:

Anatel: I explained all the details at the press conference for this episode.
Anna: To think you'd make the TV show your property, you're pretty good.
Ryu: My lady has acknowledged him!

[Spike Mcdougal]

How can you guys neglect Freakazoid? They did it alot

[Jave]

I believe there was one in EE&E where Eddy said something like "Of course we can do that! This is A.K.A. Cartoon!"

[Duke]

Duel Masters, of course. Tons upon tons of 4th wall breaking. At least 3 or 4 per episode.

[Rover_Wow]

Two more examples:
PPG, the one with chilli and the big match, and Blossom references the match to the ep with the big jar.
Timone's "Not in front of the kids" comment.

[Gokou Ruri]

Fourth wall is a theatrical term and its origins have nothing to do with television. The first three walls are the three physical walls of an interior theatrical set in a proscenium theater. Televisions, by the way, have five walls plus the bottom because they're cubes. Traditional theatrical sets have no ceiling, so that's why there are three other
He asked what it meant, not where it originated. And cubes have 4 walls, a ceiline, and a floor ;)

[Dark Fact]

How about Samurai Pizza Cats? They break that wall every chance they get! :D

Rocky & Bullwinkle also broke the 4th wall. Boris Badenov tends to use it sometimes. ;)

[Ben]

He asked what it meant, not where it originated.

Let's review what he asked, shall we?


What are the first 3 wall if you don't mind me asking.

So he did not, in fact, ask what the term meant, he asked what the other three walls are. And they're not in your television. If they were, the characters on TV shows would treat the plastic confines of the television box as physical barriers.


And cubes have 4 walls, a ceiline, and a floor ;)

If you're going to be picky televisions don't have any walls. They have sides, a bottom, and a top.

[Michael24]

I remember a few times in FAMILY GUY. "15 Minutes of Shame," where Peter says something and Chris exclaims, "The fourth wall! You're breakin' the fourth wall!" and another where Peter bad-mounths television networks. Lois says, "Peter, maybe you shouldn't say anything bad about the networks," and Peter replies, "Oh, what, are they gonna cut our budget?" I think there were a couple more, but I can't remember what they were at the moment.

[J. B. Warner]

Rocky & Bullwinkle also broke the 4th wall. Boris Badenov tends to use it sometimes. ;)
And they weren't shy about it either...

BULLWINKLE: (hic) H20-NH3-C2H5-PDQ-U235-and-a-pinch-of-salt.
ROCKY: What was that?
BULLWINKLE: I got the hiccups! Must be that banana I ate about four episodes back.

[Scythemantis]

A lot of those lines come off as not "officially" happening in the show, esspecially when it's done very rarely in a series.

But I'm surprised noone mentioned Taz-Mania. They did it EVERY episode...it was a great deal of the show's humor. That is, their attempt at humor. I never found it funny, just annoying, even when I was young.

[Paul_Cousins]

"Darkwing Duck"; Darkwing and Megavolt not only broke the '4th Wall', but they jump through it. And it was a good episode to boot. :cool:

[Dudley]

The 90's Casper cartoon did it often.
Pokemon 2000: Team Rocket did it at the end.

Sonic X, in the first episode:
Driver: Hey you're not supposed to be standing on top of the car! THat's reckless! What will the cildren think!
Sonic:Kids, don't try this at home.

or something like that.

George of the Jungle:
"WHy does he have to do it?"
"Because it's his show."

[LKK]

In the Reviving Yakumo episode of Shinzo, Binka tells the audience that despite how they are currently behaving, Mushra, Sago, and Kutal really do work together to form the ultimate hero Mushrambo. In the 32 episodes of the series, this is the only time a character addresses the audience, so it really stands out.

[Ultra Mike]

Bonus Stage: It has an ep about the show being cancelled, Fist World has it "buffer" over Phil's power and cause Joel to be discombobulated, and another has them have to permenantly kill someone (Realizing they die and come back.) to introduce a new character.
Bonus Stage dosen't just break the 4th wall. It EXISTS in the 4th wall. How else could it so self-aware about itself?

I'm also surprised no one really mentioned Duck Dodgers yet, which broke the 4th wall a lot (like in "Invcitus Inspectus" when Dodgers remakred he should of gotten Speedy Gonzales as a side kick or in "Pet Peeved" when Cadet said to Dodgers "You don't even watch this show, do you?") among various other refrences.

[Duke]

I'm also surprised no one really mentioned Duck Dodgers yet, which broke the 4th wall a lot (like in "Invcitus Inspectus" when Dodgers remakred he should of gotten Speedy Gonzales as a side kick or in "Pet Peeved" when Cadet said to Dodgers "You don't even watch this show, do you?") among various other refrences.
Technically, Dodgers doesn't say that stuff, Daffy Duck (who plays Duck Dodgers) says that stuff.

[Howard Fein]

Tex Avery at WB and MGM, and most of the other WB directors indulged freely in fourth-wall breaking. Other studios did it as well:

Heckle and Jeckle did it a lot as well, with frequent proclamations "My, my! Things happen quickly in a cartoon, don't they?"

Quite a few Popeye cartoons hinged on a benefactor in the theatre audience throwing him a can of spinach at the crucial time if he couldn't get his hands on one himself. In one cheapo made-for-TV short, it's established that the writers "took away his spinach", which leads to predictable results.

In one early :woody: short, unable to find any food, he addresses the audience: "Could somebody go in the lobby and get me a candy bar?" In possibly the same short, a title card makes reference to a "hungry kitty cat". The rather mangy feline that appears introduces himself to the audience as "that hungry kitty you just read about."

In one episode of the DFE theatrical INSPECTOR, the title character orders the animator (at gunpoint) to put the villian he's been pursuing throughout the cartoon in jail. An animated hand immediately draws bars in front of the villian, effectively ending the short. From the same studio's TIJUANA TOADS series, the fatter one asks the animator to draw him with a muscular physique. The Ant of the ANT & AARDVARK series cautions the kids in the audience to go get a snack to as not to see "all the violence" that will soon happen.

(This is echoed more than twenty years later on FREAKOZOID! Just before Freak's about to vanquish a villian, Cosgrove steps in front of the camera and advises the kids to go get more cereal because the upcoming fight scene is pretty gruesome. For a few seconds, there's a PLEASE STAND BY screen adorned with a still shot of Freak under some elevator music. We rejoin the scene with Freak triumphantly standing over the villian, who's tied and bound with cartoon stars going around his head.)

Jay Ward pretty much cornered the market on fourth-wall breaking in early TV animation, as did the crew behind the original WB series in the nineties. Some of the writers (Tom Ruegger, Earl Kress, Charles Howell IV, Gordon Bressack) from TINY TOONS, ANIMANIACS, FREAKAZOID, HYSTERIA et al cut their teeth in the mid-late eighties on H-B's YOGI'S TREASURE HUNT, POUND PUPPIES, 13 GHOSTS and A PUP NAMED SCOOBY-DOO. Each series is scripted with a heavier level of satire than most H-B series since the early, Mike Maltese days. When Nosemarie says a presumably naughty word, a CENSORED sticker covers her mouth and the word is replaced by cuckoo clock sounds; afterwards, she apologizes. A PUP NAMED is regularly interrupted by a sham newscaster solemenly intoning "You have just seen a very important clue. Thank you." In several instances, Daphne debunks Fred's declaration that Red Herring did it because "he's not even in this episode." Most memorably, a 13 GHOSTS scene with a fire-breathing dragon is interrupted by Ms. Cutitout of Network Standards & Practices who objects to such a violent scenario.:D

The Avery sensibility made a welcome return in 1990's TOM & JERRY KIDS- not in the completely unnecessary title segment, but the supporting :droopy: segments. During a typical Western chase, :wolfie: interrupts throwing bullets and yelling "Bang! Bang" to explain "The censors won't let us fire guns anymore." Similar moments occur throughout this and the very few Screwy Squirrel revival shorts made for this franchise.

[Ultra Mike]

Technically, Dodgers doesn't say that stuff, Daffy Duck (who plays Duck Dodgers) says that stuff.
That's like saying though that whenever say Joey from Friends is saying a line, it's really Matt LeBlanc who says the line. Which means although that is true, DODGERS is his name on his show, not Daffy. I mean, no one on the show has even hinted that his name is Daffy, so he is Dodgers.

Oh, and if we're counting webtoons, Robotbox And Cactus (one week the creator of the show was fired) and Waterman (with lines like "We can't end the episode with you feeling depressed") have broke the 4th wall as well.

[Duke]

That's like saying though that whenever say Joey from Friends is saying a line, it's really Matt LeBlanc who says the line. Which means although that is true, DODGERS is his name on his show, not Daffy. I mean, no one on the show has even hinted that his name is Daffy, so he is Dodgers.The Opening credits say "Starring Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers," "Porky Pig as Eager Young Space Cadet," etc. The producers, writers, and voice cast also point this out many times in interviews and the like.

[Jave]

Most of the Dexter's Lab bumpers were 4th-wall breakers. Including "Don't run with scissors" and "Fruit Popsickles".

[Planeteer]

One time I was watching an episode of Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Cap says, "The following scenes may not be suitable for adults! Childish discretion advised."

Another time was on Reboot. Dot (who looked like Elvira) and Enzo (who was a zombie) were in a game that parodied Evil Dead. Enzo talked about how gory this game was, and Dot complained, "Who plays these horrible games?" Then they both turned to the camera as if to say, "Well?!"

[Dark Fact]

Another time was on Reboot. Dot (who looked like Elvira) and Enzo (who was a zombie) were in a game that parodied Evil Dead. Enzo talked about how gory this game was, and Dot complained, "Who plays these horrible games?" Then they both turned to the camera as if to say, "Well?!"

I just thought they were disgusted at the whole FPS game craze and just wanted to scowl at the audience....probably wanting them to be ashamed of themselves. :shrug:

[RonDrakenfan17]

There's more references that Ed, Edd n Eddy know that they are a cartoon in an episode known as "Here's Mud in your eye" It goes something like this;


Ed: Even I am not that dumb, Double D.
Edd: An iris in would be appropriate. (Iris in on Eddy and his planting spot) Thank you.

Me: I so it sounds like they know about them being a cartoon show that's for sure lol.

[ktoriyama]

Fom my understanding, let's say that a cartoon character is watching a cartoon, a cartoon inside a cartoon. case in point there use to be an old on show on CN with a Chinese guy who kept a pet goldfish, who liked mimes, and played a triangle, and his hair had an odd spike in the middle. My memory is really faded. He and everyone on that show use to watch this live action show about a Count. Now the Count use seemed aware that he was a show, ofcourse as it was one of those kids shows where the viewer is expected to interact with the show, like Dora the explorer. So in a way it broke the fourth wall. Now at time it seemed that the Count in his show not only realised he was a show, but also that he was a show within a show, hence breaking a theoretical fifth wall, ya get me or am I being too obscure. And now that I remember it, I never realised that.

[Jave]

In the Teen Titans episode "Transformation", after Starfire gets exposed in her monster looks, she pictures everyone laughing at her, including "the kids in their houses".

[AnimatedSnow47]

"Tokyo Pig" did this constantly, especially with the Weatherlady. It was one reason that I loved that cartoon so much.

"Dave the Barbarian" also does this quite a bit--and to wonderful effect.

"The Emperor's New Groove" did it when the Llama came out to remind us that the film was about him, not the villager, proceeding to write all over the movie and stop the film.

I love breaking the fourth wall--in serious shows, it helps to break the tension and in comedic shows it's awesomely fun and clever--so it's always good! :anime: Only puns are better in my sense-of-humor book.

[90'sCartoonMan]

How can you guys neglect Freakazoid? They did it alot
Freakazoid had one of the biggest I've ever seen. He, Wakko, and the Brain actually hunted down Steven Spielberg in one episode to ask him what show he liked the best (and of course, Spielberg didn't know who they were).

The short-lived Clerks series broke the fourth wall when they answered "letters from the viewers" and also addressed complaints at a comic book convention.

Then there's the Reboot recap song, where Mike The TV acknowledges that season 3 may confuse some viewers, so it's summed up in a musical.

[Viceroy]

Every episode of The Popples featured a scene in which the Popples addressed the kids watching at home.

[Rover_Wow]

"Dave the Barbarian" also does this quite a bit--and to wonderful effect.

Last Langdale show (Weekenders) did this a lot too. Usually w/ Tino, sometimes the others get into the mix.