Breaking the fourth wall

[stevezodiac]

I've always had a mild fascination with this concept and only found out there was a name for it a few months ago. One of the most obvious examples is the film Alfie where Michael Caine addresses the camera (and thereby us the audience) throughout the film. Oliver Hardy would often glance at the camera with a disdainful look whenever Stan did something stupid. Groucho Marx would sometimes make asides to the camera. Anyway what sparked this post was a cartoon by Steve Bright in today's Sun which you can see here (helped by the fact the subject is actually comic characters). Are there any examples of comic characters acknowledging the readers directly?



Incidentally in one of the Hancock's Half Hour radio shows Tony Hancock - distracted by a woman's really loud laugh in the audience - broke off from the script to say "Madam, please".

[booksandcomics]

The Dandy would often show the Dandy artists' hands coming into the picture which always put a smile on my face! Can't find an example at the moment though.....

[stevezodiac]

I'm more concerned with tv, film and comic characters acknowledging their audience. I've just remembered that Bob Hope made asides to the camera in the Road films. And I used to watch a tv series in the 60s called Mickey Dunne who was based on Alfie I think and spoke to the camera, I have the single of the theme tune by Vince Hill.

[matrix]

'Gypsy Rose' did, in her 'tales of mystery and magic!'.

[paw broon]

The example that sprang to mind right away, as I was reading an issue last night, is The Mysterious Traveller. You can read issues here and this is one of them:-
http://furycomics.com/viewer/9/Tales_Of ... /?i=1&m=S9
There are other examples of this but these characters are narrators rather than part of the story.

[Greenman]

There used to be a story Bobby of the Blues in Scorer i think. One Christmas as the say down to eat at the last frame Bobby turned his head out to readers and wished all the readers a happy Cristmas

[Dunder Ed]

Wasnt there a DCT character called Hugh something and he always spoke to the reader.

[Tin Can Tommy]

There was a shortlived strip in the Beano in the 1950s called Big Hugh and You. Which involved a character called Hugh talking to the reader.

[Dunder Ed]

Thats the one Tommy, thanks. Much like Steve I am also fairly interested in this concept. A good programme for this concept is Phineas and Ferb, almost every episode they say something funny to the audiences or the fact they are only a cartoon.

[Tin Can Tommy]

Has anyone here seen the Screwy Squirrel Warner Bros cartoons? The fourth wall is frequently broken in that, they are also excellent cartoons with a very over the top main character.

Also Characters in comics reading their own comics.

Dunder Ed when referring to my name in short I prefer to be called Tin Can as Tommy isnt my first name and I just named myself after an obscure Beano character that I like. Asking people to refer to me as Tin Can instead of Tommy was my signature a while back but I changed it after I got bored of it and I thought it had served it's purpose. I may have to change it back now.

[Digifiend]

Tin Can Tommy may not be that well known, but there's a lot of more obscure material in their history - it was the original back page story, and therefore Beano's counterpart to Bamboo Town from the Dandy.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Back page of the final Buster. The readers are addressed when talking about what's under Buster's cap.

[Dunder Ed]

Oh how i Wish i had that last Buster
OK Tin Can Tommy, will do.

[stevezodiac]

I remember a Laurel and Hardy short where, for a scene change, Stan grabs the side of the screen and pulls it across like a shutter revealing the next scene. And there is a famous Warner Brothers cartoon where, during a chase (possibly Bugs Bunny) the character goes off the edge of the film and you see all those perforations that keep it in the projector. (I have a feeling that instance may have been mentioned within these forums a long time ago).

Re that last line - i've always wondered - does the full stop go inside or outside the brackets?

[blaing]

the cartoon in fact, the MGM Droopy cartoon "Dumb Hounded" and the 1946 re-working of the idea of a prisoner escaping and being pursued by the dogs (I. E. Droopy) "Northwest Hounded Police"

[NP]

Incidentally in one of the Hancock's Half Hour radio shows Tony Hancock - distracted by a woman's really loud laugh in the audience - broke off from the script to say "Madam, please".

That was 'The Income Tax Demand'. The woman was actually his then-secretary, Freddie Ross, who he married a few years later. She can be heard in other HHH but was kept well away from the mic.s.