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

speaking of "Seinfeld"...this is kind of an inversion of what the thread's about, but it always struck me as crazy how one of Kathy Griffin's first big TV appearances was on 2 episodes of "Seinfeld," first as a woman who has a bad experience with Jerry, then in the next episode she's in has a hit one-woman-show called "Jerry Seinfeld Is The Devil" and basically gets a cable special and becomes famous for talking shit about Jerry. now IRL, Kathy Griffin is famous for talking shit about celebrities she's met, and has a bit in one of her Bravo specials about how Jerry Seinfeld is a dick, but she never mentions or seems to notice the irony of the situation.

Boy Meets World also had a heavy-handed meta episode where the main character's brother becomes and actor and gets cast in a show called "Kid Gets Acquainted With Universe" and all the rest of the cast is the cast of BMW with different names acting like horrible caricatures of themselves.

Eerie Indiana had some 90s kid meta too:

In this self-referential episode, Marshall finds a screenplay in the mail and suddenly finds himself behind the scenes of Eerie, Indiana where his friends and family are the actors and actresses on the show and everyone refers to him as Omri Katz.

how many twilight zone episodes are there? are they worth downloading or should i just read the wiki synopsis-eses.

― hoy orbison (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, November 9, 2010 9:20 AM Bookmark

Lots of episodes. I'd read the wikis unless you've got a lot of TIME on your hands.

i do kinda. bordering on abed these days.

ha i couldn't parse that because I thought you were comparing yourself to Community character Abed

I haven't watched the 80s Twilight Zones in awhile, so I'm not sure how they hold up. They freaked me out as a 12-year-old.

The 00s ones are pretty bad. There's even one where Katherine Heigel goes back in time to - you guessed it - try to kill Baby Hitler.

She catches him watching an episode of "Grey's Anatomy", so it's really fucked up.

i was comparing myself to abed from community.

Twilight Zone is so worth watching.

oh, then I thought you were saying that you had so little to do that you were basically abed (i.e. in bed, like "asea")

I guess this is why capital letters were invented

Zack in Saved By The Bell could not only break the Fourth Wall but stop reality at will. This raises questions about the nature of Zack's existence. Is he a character, an actor, a first-person narrator, or...a deity? He extended the point further years later by guesting on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote "his" show Raising The Bar and explain why he used the stage name Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

In a fourth season episode, "The Monster at the End of This Book," the leads of Supernatural discover that someone has used visions of their lives as the inspiration for a series of horror novels. The books have the same titles as past episodes, and the writer's current manuscript is about what is happening to them right then.

* The title being a reference to a very Post Modern Sesame Street (!) book.
* When the Winchester research the books online, Dean is irked by fan criticism, intrigued by the "Deangirls" and "Samgirls"...and horrified by the slash fans.
"They do know we're brothers, right?"
"That doesn't seem to matter."

That meta stuff on Supernatural was pretty clever in the larger context of the show and that season's big story arc. (My wife kinda begged me into watching this show with her.)

even if i do like gilmore girls, i just can't find myself wanting to watch sn. the marty sue article on tvtropes also blew my mind and now makes me want to change my whole nanowrimo

also noticed they don't have an article on kayfabe or breaking kayfabe or 'breaking' kayfabe etc. in their sports storyline bit - may write to them if i get really bored.

Zack in Saved By The Bell could not only break the Fourth Wall but stop reality at will. This raises questions about the nature of Zack's existence. Is he a character, an actor, a first-person narrator, or...a deity? He extended the point further years later by guesting on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote "his" show Raising The Bar and explain why he used the stage name Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

Something I've definitely given thought to --what is the nature of Zach on Saved by the Bell? He not only could stop reality at will but he also could dress up like a woman and -- despite appearing exactly like Zach to his entire audience -- fool the entire cast of the show. Borrowing a plotline from Fallout 3, I'd like to suggest that Zach is actually both a character and the figure running a broad simulation where he gets to live in high school forever (and then college, but that college was essentially high school with the word college slapped on so idk, ymmv). Also of interest to scholars are the episodes where the team goes to Hawaii (iirc? the Bahamas maybe?) and Zach falls in love with the future Carrie Heffernan.

Something I've definitely given thought to --what is the nature of Zach on Saved by the Bell?

this is a thread to embrace such thoughts and not to mock, goole

Zach's always felt like kind of a Ferris Bueller ripoff and I feel like both of their addressing the camera works the same way -- for the most part it's just kind of a playfully elastic way to let them narrate their own story or provide their POV in a way that isn't voiceover but isn't really meant as part of the show's reality, just what's going on in their head. and there's an added layer of a Fonzie-type thing, they're so cool that they can stop time for a second and quip about what's going on.

also noticed they don't have an article on kayfabe or breaking kayfabe or 'breaking' kayfabe etc. in their sports storyline bit

That's because it listed under the category "professional wrestling", here's a direct link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kayfabe

oooh never saw that

One of maybe three Supernatural episodes I saw had the bros interacting with the writer of that very episode trying to direct the turn of events. I couldn't work out if this was supposed to be way-post-shark-jump or kinda cool.

* The title being a reference to a very Post Modern Sesame Street (!) book.

this book is awesome btw.

Zach's always felt like kind of a Ferris Bueller ripoff and I feel like both of their addressing the camera works the same way -- for the most part it's just kind of a playfully elastic way to let them narrate their own story or provide their POV in a way that isn't voiceover but isn't really meant as part of the show's reality, just what's going on in their head. and there's an added layer of a Fonzie-type thing, they're so cool that they can stop time for a second and quip about what's going on.

totally had this hate-crush on zach for all of the above.

In the movie Empire Records, there's a poster for Dazed and Confused taped to the cash register in the store. Renee Zellweger was in both movies.

One of maybe three Supernatural episodes I saw had the bros interacting with the writer of that very episode trying to direct the turn of events. I couldn't work out if this was supposed to be way-post-shark-jump or kinda cool.

omg yeah seriously - that show's pretty flawed but i thought they pulled this off remarkably well.

spoiler: the brothers become the protagonists of a book series called "Supernatural" which are written by a guy who turns out to be a prophet. in the last season, it's implied that the prophet is in fact God dictating events.

The books becomes immensely popular within the show's universe itself - at one point, the bros attend a Supernatural convention where they're mistaken for cosplay fanboys haha. Also there's the scene where they encounter Sam/Dean slashfic...

lol me not reading anything above the last bookmark.

rory cochrane is also in dazed + confused and empire records!

(xxpost)

i don't think renee zellweger is in dazed & confused, are you thinking of joey lauren adams?

just sayin is otm though

In 'Dirty Harry', Eastwood's character is walking down a street and in the distance there's a cinema showing 'Play Misty For Me'.

naw she was in there n/a

http://eighties.weebly.com/uploads/7/4/6/1/746191/5882261.jpg

I loved the Cosby Show but I hated that they sometimes did this shit too.

like B.B. King was on an episode playing fictitious famous blues musician "Riley Jackson", yet Cliff was also once surprised on his birthday with a private performance by Lena Horne, who was playing herself.

I guess it's cuz they actually made "Riley Jackson" a character who did more than play his instrument, while Lena just appeared for the performance, but WHY COULDN'T HE BE B.B. KING!!!

here's also something I don't get.

Doug Heffernan from King of Queens and Ray Barone from the godawful Everybody Loves Raymond were supposed to be friends, and occasionally made cameos on each others' shows.

However, in a 1998 episode, Kevin James (aka Doug Heffernan) played a completely different character, Kevin Daniels, for SIX fucking episodes, who was a Mets announcer.

He appeared as Doug in three episodes, all of which occurred less than a year after he'd just played Kevin Daniels.

This bothered me a lot until I realized I was giving more thought than deserved to two of the shittiest sitcoms in recent history.

One thing I love about those crossovers is that the King of Queens writers write Raymond's character so differently than the writers of Everybody Loves Raymond. He's so unfamiliar, but he's supposed to be this well known figure from a different sitcom.

Zvookster I'm pretty sure that pic's of joey Lauren adams

oh i think you're right, but well she's in there somewhere

She's uncredited in Dazed and Confused. Which means it's possible that it's not Zellweger at all, but Zellweger's Empire Records character, and that's why the poster is in the store.

Did I just blow your mind?

http://www.moviemuser.co.uk/MovieImages/MAD-Dazed-and-confused/daz-renee-wellweger.jpg

i'm not convinced that's her

except then her character in Empire Records would have to be in her late 30s

I think Zellweger is the second girl who walks by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo4kDrWBa6c

I watched Kick-Ass last night, and the movie's characters exist in a world where one of them can quote Jack Nicholson's Joker from the Tim Burton Batman, but none of them recognize Nicolas Cage.

xp

also jetpacks

nic cage was in batman?

that would be the shittiest Batman ever

who the hell wants to see a coked out looking batman w/ bugeyes

who the hell wants to see a coked out looking batman w/ bugeyes

REALISM

last night I went to the movies and saw a trailer for Cedar Rapids, which includes a scene of the actor who played Clay Davis on The Wire making a reference to Omar from The Wire.

except then her character in Empire Records would have to be in her late 30s

I'm not suggesting that Empire Records and Dazed and Confused are in the same fictional universe. I'm suggesting that the extra in Dazed and Confused was *played by* "Gina" -- who, let's remember, wants to be a rock star and would probably jump at the chance to be in a movie.