Examples: Itchy & Scratchy from The Simpsons, The Scary Door from Futurama, or The Grand Inquisitor from Dostoevsky.
The Navidson Record from House of Leaves, although it’s questionable whether it is supposed to actually exist within the narrative.
30 Rock has quite a few good ones:
- M.I.L.F Island
- Bitch Hunter
- TGS
- The satirized version of NBC in the show (lots of ‘biting the hand’ humor)
Celebrity Homonym
OMG I would love for that to be a real show. It would have to be hosted by the actor who did it in the show; he was perfect.
“It’s always the other one. Let me see the card.”
“No! Never!”
Weirdly (or not, perhaps) MILF Island was turned into a real show (sort of) not once but twice. On The Cougar a 40-year-old woman was seeking a partner among male contestants who were all in their 20s. On the rather more disturbing MILF Manor a group of women between the ages of 40-60 stay in a villa seeking to pair up with a pool of younger bachelors, which turns out to be made entirely of the women’s sons. Wikipedia says in season 2 the ex-husbands were also added to the dating pool so the sons had to compete against their dads for the divorced moms.
Loved MILF Manor. As weird as it sounds, MILF Manor season 2 was actually pretty touching at times. Season 1 was cringe overload. Both were great
I only saw a promo for it once and was pretty grossed-out, but had to at least look up the Wikipedia. I don’t think I was the target audience, other than it reminding me of 30 Rock.
It’s absolutely ridiculous garbage. But if you are like me and into that shit, it’s great.
My god. That… that’s enough reality tv, thank you
John Oliver sometimes runs random out of context clips of MILF Manor and I’m not sure actually watching them in context would make them any less ridiculous.
Can’t forget The Rural Juror
Apparently I will forget you, Rural Juror. 😆 But I’m still glad I met you.
The Princess Bride is one of my favorite examples of this, especially because the “story within the story” is the main story, which is unusual.
The Never Ending Story too.
I was so disappointed when that ended
I’m still watching it. What are you talking about?!
Also, there is a second and apparently a third?
Yeah, talk about false advertisement!
When I was a kid I absolutely loved movies with this format. It was like I was learning the story along with the characters on screen, and it just made it feel more real. Like the story was so old and with enough truth to it that they made a movie just about people learning about said story. It let you feel like the caring, kind old narrator was your adoptive grandpa, and he was revealing to you some ancient, fantastical part of our history. One that you could imagine really happened, even if the story had some exaggerations. Those opening sequences where they show a big old, leather bound book opening up to the first chapter (e.g. The Sword in the Stone)? HOOK IT TO MY VEINS
This is a literary device called a “bookend narrative.” If you want more stories like that, there’s your search term.
Crash Nebula and The Crimson Chin from Fairly Oddparents are both great
“The Wall” in Solar Opposites. It’s arguably better than the main story.
The main story has really picked up since Dan Stevens took over the voice of Korvo. IMO, it was a huge improvement. Also, the wall story isn’t as compelling as it used to be.
yes and yes.
The lusty argonian maid
from morrowind :3 (and not skyrim >>:c)
Ballfondlers from Rick and Morty
Impotent Rage from GTA V
The Silver Shroud from Fallout 4
As far as other media within Rick & Morty, the Second Life-like “Roy” is something that I wish could exist. Immersive gameplay, accelerated time, tangible experiences, and endless possibilities.
Just throw a Mr. Meeseeks box at it, et voilà!
And assuming that human beings work on it imagine what skills and abilities you could acquire.
It’s kind of like the piccolo thing in Star Trek the next generation with picard. Like imagine playing a video game and then coming home and being a rockstar guitarist on par with Slash, or getting 50 years worth of meditation and monk training in before work on Monday on top of a second lifetime full of martial arts training.
Something like that would be so revolutionary it would dwarf any kind of nonlethal AI apocalypse in comparison.
It’s kind of like the piccolo thing in Star Trek the next generation with picard.
I highly doubt the resemblance was coincidental.
There’s already a company looking to do just that, although they are focused on using it as a replacement for prison. i.e. instead of serving time in prison, the tech implants traumatic memories into your brain that are related to the crime. It wouldn’t be a far leap to implant desirable memories, though I’m not sure it would actually help you do something like learn an instrument, as muscle memory isn’t something you can implant (maybe?).
HYPNOTOAD
This may not fit perfectly into the that category but i think it’s cool how Lazarus Jones exists in the media in some capacity in most of the GTA games. One of the best threads of continuity throughout the series.
The hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy
“Well, that about wraps it up for God” by Oolon Colluphid
If games count then all the radio stations in GTA
The Dick Van Dike show is a great one.
The Marvelous Misses Maisel
The game from the startreck like episode on BlackMirror and Sword Art Online! Both are arguably great.
The twilight zone episode about the podcast and the airplane is amazing too.
I seem to remember one of the GTA games (maybe San Andreas?) had a stand up set from I think Ricky Gervais as something that would play on the TVs.
“S.” by Doug Dorst is in itself a fake novel, where the “real” story takes place as handwritten notes in the margins to form the complete story, the fake novel itself just a prop. But reading the novel-within-a-novel-that-is-the-novel “Ship of Thesus” by itself is an interesting short surreal read.
