tv shows within tv shows: an ocd thread for jaymc and nabisco

then, who, may i ask, starred in Evening Shade in the Friends universe, Tuomas? use your brain!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think Evening Shade was ever referred to in Friends, so it doesn't necessarily exist in the Friends universe. IMO the "actor paradox" is a paradox only when Series X mentions another, lets call it Series Y (or Movie Y), where one of the actors in Series X played another role, since that means Series Y exists as fiction within Series X, and the characters in Series X should notice that one of them looks exactly like the famous actor in Series Y. If all the other roles the actors of Series X have ever played should also be accounted for, regardless of whether they're actually mentioned in Series X, that would mean pretty much every series is full of paradoxes. I think we can safely assume that if Series Y/Movie Y is never mentioned in Series X, then it simply doesn't exist in Series X's universe

Similarly, any celebrity that isn't mentioned in series X can't be assumed to exist within its universe. So, for example, no one in Friends tells Rachel she looks like Jennifer Aniston, because in its universe there was no hit series called Friends that made an actor called Jennifer Aniston famous. (Though sometimes the writers can do meta gags based on this, for example the Fran Drescher scene in The Nanny that I mentioned upthread.)

best example of this was in Scrubs when Janitor's past as a cop in The Fugitive was revealed, using the actual footage from him in the movie

The world in classic TV is always on reset - I mean, it's not just the TV show that doesn't exist in its own world - the world of the tv show itself doesn't exist in its own world, not as anything but a static backdrop that is. It's like they all have memory wipes every week except for certain "developments".

Nobody ever seems to have said "you know, let's NOT invite Jessica Fletcher for the weekend, you ever notice somebody gets murdered every time she shows up?" Obviously a brilliant serial killer. Did anybody on "Law & Order" ever refer to a previous case, "say, this is just like that time when....we should probably check that out!" And those shows where celebrities are always dropping in, the characters should be shown later bragging and boring their co-workers "you'll never guess who I got trapped in an elevator with." "Let me guess, a pregnant lady?" yawns the co-worker - sad, really, these delusional people...

I'm also fond of sit-coms where the characters refuse obviously advantageous promotions and life developments just in order to stay in their miserable little traps.

Trapper John M.D.: Hey, wait! You look familiar.

Runner #122: I don't think so. You know Col. Potter?

xp actually, Law and Order did that a lot! there were recurring cases and criminals who got away in previous seasons, story developments on the cops/lawyers backgrounds lives sprinkled throughout seasons (like Lenny's daughter, Munch and Cragen showing up on multiple series, the various crossovers of the Dick Wolf-a-verse that they're doing now with Chicago Hope/Fire/SVU), but it was usually kept to a minimum in L&O - no more than a few minutes per episode, compared to half-soaps like NYPD Blue

I think I only saw a lot of the early Law & Order so I shouldn't have used that as an example. How about the guy who loses to Perry Mason all the time?

As X-Files goes on, even with certain continuing plot lines developing, it becomes hard to understand how Scully could maintain her baseline skepticism, episode after episode. The writers couldn't figure out how to develop her character, or more likely didn't care.

"you know, let's NOT invite Jessica Fletcher for the weekend, you ever notice somebody gets murdered every time she shows up?" Obviously a brilliant serial killer.

oh how I longed for this to be the big reveal at the series finale

best example of this was in Scrubs when Janitor's past as a cop in The Fugitive was revealed, using the actual footage from him in the movie

― Nhex, Wednesday, December 3, 2014 9:49 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did they also reveal that he was a major league baseball player in Rookie of the Year?

this opens a whole new can of paradox worms

also Friends was so huge that a 90s/00s universe in which Friends doesn't exist is entirely unknowable and we can't even be certain if the human race would still exist without it.

re 30 Rock, in the final episode it was revealed to have all taken place within the immortal Kenneth's imagination as he was listening to Liz Lemon's granddaughter explain the concept for 30 Rock to him in the future, so Aniston and Schwimmer appear in it because Kenneth is just peopling it with guest appearances by stars of his beloved NBC shows of the past in his imagination

obviously

also Friends was so huge that a 90s/00s universe in which Friends doesn't exist is entirely unknowable

It's not unknowable, you can see it for over 200 episodes in Friends!

It wasn't Kenneth's imagination at the end of 30 Rock.. it was confirming the "Kenneth is immortal" gag they'd sprinkled throughout the series!

it could be both! anyway it's one way to square the casting paradox circle is all...

i get perturbed when i watch the us version of the office, because i don't get how we're seeing the footage. unlike an ordinary tv show, in which there's a mystical 4th wall that lets us peer into a different reality, everything we see on the office was shot by cameramen who exist in that alternate reality. all the footage exists in that reality. we're also not seeing the actual documentary series that was shown in that reality, ported wholesale to our reality, since that was a single season deal.

david brent from the uk version also shows up on the us version, which means both shows share the same reality. and since the respective pilot shows depict identical events, everything that happened in slough in the beginning also happened in scranton, detail by detail, and was recorded and broadcast. but nobody in that world seems to have noticed.

I think you can easily explain that away when you know that all reality/documentary shows are partially scripted.

that would have to be fully scripted, d'artagnan. such a scandal in officeworld.

I'm willing to overlook the pilot paradox since they finally addressed that there was actually a documentary being shot and involved one of the cameramen (in a subplot that I hated, but he was involved nonetheless) in the final season. Otherwise, it would have rubbed me wrong for the rest of my life.

Conversation between Gilbert Gottfried and Scott Aukerman on last week's Comedy Bang Bang is relevant to this thread (start at 26:08):
https://soundcloud.com/comedybangbang/399-gilbert-gottfried-james-adomian-anthony-atamanuik

Scene in S2E2 of the Netflix show LOVE:

"So, if on Friends, Ross references Die Hard, that means in the Friends universe, Die Hard exists as a movie, right? So then later, Bruce Willis shows up as Ross's girlfriend's dad on the show Friends, how come all the friends aren't like, Holy shit, this guy looks like Bruce Willis from the movie Die Hard."

in the friends universe, the role of john mcclane in the movie die hard is portrayed by s. epatha merkson

http://www.hopeofthefuture.net/references/lastactionhero-lahp.gif

https://i.redd.it/abnaxbr06rqy.jpg

ideally, every character who meets tej should initially mistake him for ludacris and then he has to say "why does everyone keep saying that, i look nothing like that guy"

This is also very much what happened when Glenn Frey guest-starred in the Miami Vice episode, "Smuggler's Blues".

the GOTG universe is walking a VERY fine line having a protagonist obsessed with 80s pop culture and then filling the cast out with notable 80s actors

does kurt russell not exist? he turns into david hasselhoff, who does exist, but why doesn't star lord ask his dad why he looks like kurt russell? and i don't think he ever came into contact with stallone's character but they're making a PRETTY huge leap here. are you really suggesting sylvester stallone doesn't exist in the GOTG universe? does this not drastically change the foundation of who star lord is, as a child of the reagan/stallone 80s?

also why wasn't debbie harry in it, debbie harry should totally be in the next one

don't give them idears!

I'm sure in the Marvel universe Stallone's roles were played by Schwarzenegger, in a reversal of that Last Action Hero gag.

http://www.filmsinfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Last-Action-Hero-3.jpg

And Russell's roles were probably played by Patrick Swayze.

So, the Doctor Who serial 'Remembrance of the Daleks' is set in November 1963, in the days immediately preceding the very first Doctor Who serial 'An Unearthly Child'. A tv is on in one scene, which trails "This is BBC Television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc-" before being abruptly cut off.

There's also a bus in the background of the New Series 8 episode "Forest of the Night" with a poster advertising Series 8, but this is probably just a continuity error.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/chris-pratt-had-a-very-bad-idea-for-guardians-of-the-ga-1794818393

chris pratt had the same objection

germaine lusssier sounds like an idiot

lol someone made that point about a completely different article over the weekend

https://www.theawl.com/2017/08/forensics-franchises-and-fans

the grinder was great

I'd forgotten this thread. Obv Harry Morgan on MASH pre-Novaked Novak, by guest-starring as a jerk and coming on full-time as a lovable grandpa figure.

As my thoughts go deeper into this topic I remember an episode of Benson (bear with me here), in which René Auberjonois suffers an amnesic mental break in which he believes himself to be a black man. Robert Guillaume, as Benson, is trying to see if he can get Auberjonois's character back to earth. He asks R.A.'s character if he recognizes him (that is, R.G. as Benson). (Seriously, stay with me here.)

Auberjonois answers "yeah, Ben!" R.G. as Benson breathes a sigh of relief. Then R.A. adds, "Ben Vereen!"

This was only comprehensible - let alone funny - if you knew that Ben Vereen and Robert Guillaume looked somewhat like each other IRL. But the fourth-wall breakage was somewhat unusual in those days.

But then likewise, wouldn't Ben Vereen and "Benson" look alike as well? Where was the fourth wall broken?

I remember that episode too. Clayton even started wearing glasses on a chain and cardigans.

does the grinder ever confront the main characters' uncanny resemblances to actors fred savage or rob lowe OR acknowledge the divergence of a universe where these icons of the small screen do not exist

also does the awl always publish thesis papers for college pop culture classes, i have some shit i could sell

I came here specifically to see if anyone had noted the conversation from “Love” (which I just saw) and it feels appropriate that it was Jaymc who dropped it here nearly a year ago

Anyway who do we sue

(Also can someone get Leslie Grossman her own who show) (in which no one ever watched the various things she was a less-notable character in)

It occurs to me that there was a whole conversation on “Love” but like, I mean, “Love” presumably takes place in a universe where Chris Rock exists and yet everyone is just too chill to tell the character played by his brother “damn, dude, you bear a STRIKING resemblance to Chris Rock, you even talk and move your hands the same way”

So like it might not 100% want to pull threads

Oh, ha, I had no idea that that guy is Chris Rock's brother.

So, the Doctor Who serial 'Remembrance of the Daleks' is set in November 1963, in the days immediately preceding the very first Doctor Who serial 'An Unearthly Child'. A tv is on in one scene, which trails "This is BBC Television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc-" before being abruptly cut off.

― Mud... Jam... Failure... (aldo)

true who nerds will tell you that this clearly takes place in an alternate universe because in our universe, while the first episode of "doctor who" was printed as airing at 5:15 in the radio times, its broadcast was delayed by about ten minutes due to coverage of the kennedy assassination.

Oh man, if that guy WASN'T Chris Rock's brother ... he'd be facing a long line of casting directors saying "listen, your Chris Rock impression is really good, but this audition is for just a regular guy. STOP ACTING LIKE CHRIS ROCK"

(There is another Rock brother who acts but he seems less similar)

https://io9.gizmodo.com/infinity-war-puts-adam-wests-batman-in-the-marvel-cinem-1825657160

How the hell did he manage to completely misspell “Frasier” three times in one run-on sentence

on the bright side, not misspelled three different ways

Least it was just misspelled and not bad Grammar.