Breaking the Fourth Wall

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Kay_Cee

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I love it when movies and television shows break the fourth wall. Burns and Allen may have been the first to do it on TV. Groucho Marx occasionally did it in the Marx Brothers movies.

More recently, Moonlighting and now Limitless have broken the fourth wall.

Does anybody know of any other movies or TV shows that do this? 🙂
 
The movie Alfie, the main character narrates the whole story to us, the audience.
 
George of the Jungle. The audience is addressed by both the narrator and George. Very funny! 😃

Almost forgot Support Your Local Sheriff. At the end Jack Elam (who is adorable in this movie) addresses the audience. Don’t bother with the poorly disguised remake, Support Your Local Gunfighter.
 
House Of Cards-Kevin Spacey’s character frequently breaks the wall.
 
Recent episode of Doctor Who (“Heaven Sent”). The Doctor was talking to himself to resolve a problem, turned to camera and said something like “I’m nothing without an audience” (!)
 
andrewstx said:
What is a fourth wall. I have no idea.
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“Breaking the fourth wall” is when, in a fictional film/TV program/theater production, one of the characters says or does something aimed at the audience directly rather than interacting with the other characters. The expression comes from e.g. the theater where a set on stage may have three walls with the audience taking the place of the imagined fourth wall. Hence breaking the fourth wall means addressing the audience directly and “breaking out” of the fiction into reality.
 
Shakespeare often broke the 4th wall - I think in comedies more than dramas. I watched Joss Whelan’s Much Ado About Nothing not long ago and I’m pretty sure there were some comments to the audience (short term memory has suffered with age :(). On a different note, seeing it done in modern dress/sets made the cruelty of some of the characters much more obvious.

Years ago I saw The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (wonderful title, is it not? :)). I don’t know if it was part of the original play, but the performance I saw had some of the “inmates” at barred windows under the stage. Any time a member of the audience walked near them they would grab at their legs and make noises. Very effective!
 
Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I remember a cold open before the credits, Will is sitting on the couch, and after some dialogue, he says to the camera, “If we’re so rich —”, camera pans up past studio walls to the lights, “— how come we ain’t got no roof?”

Loony Tunes. Did it all the time. Bugs Bunny saying, “Of course, you know this means war.” Elmer Fudd saying, “Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits!” In one cartoon, Yosemite Sam is banging on a door, yelling, “Open it! Open the door!” He looks out the screen, and says, “You’ll notice I didn’t say, ‘Richard’.”
 
The final episode of Happy Days; Chachi and Joannie are married by Fr. Del Vecchio (Al Molinaro) and at the final scene Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley looks at the camera and says…
“Thank you all for being part of our family.”
then raising his glass, says “To happy days.”
 
Three’s Company: Stanley Roper (Norman Fell) would turn to the camera and give an ear to ear grin when he got a good zinger at Helen’s (Audra Lindley) expense. Sometimes he would look directly in the camera and laugh out loud.
 
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