Trapped in TV Land: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A group of characters, often a mix of heroes and villains, are trapped by some form of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] inside the world of literature, video games or the like, but most often, television. Either they must learn to cope with their newfound environment until some way can be found to escape, or they will jump from channel to channel, hitting a multitude of clichéd worlds and thin parodies.

 

It's an unspoken rule that, somewhere in the universe, there is a show similar to ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* While not in a television per se, the 2nd part of the 1993 ''[[Time Bokan]]'' OVA has Dorombo Gang of Yatterman enter a sewer and find a world entirely populated by Tatsunoko characters. While attempting to cause havok and expect Yatterman to show up, they don't count on the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, Casshern, Hurricane Polymar and Tekkaman arriving and trouncing them. Oh, and there's the obligatory Speed Racer cameo too.

* Episode 26 of ''[[Ghost Sweeper Mikami]]'' features a haunted video game which is an expy of ''[[Dragon Quest]]''. Yokoshima and Okinu get trapped in it while Mikami uses her spiritual powers to participate in it from outside.

* ''[[Detective Conan]]'' movie 6, "The Phantom of Baker Street". traps the main characters in a virtual reality game controlled by a rogue AI, and featuring [[Jack the Ripper]].

 

== Comic Books ==

* Ellie Dee gets transported into a video game in one issue of ''[[Cherry Comics]]'', where she has to [[Win to Exit]].

 

* In ''[[The Blue Dragon]]'' series, the two primary protagonists (Demex in the first, Josh in the second) get sent to the [[The Legend of Spyro]] universe.

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4505478/1 Kyle-091]'' is about a Halo fanboy ending up (via [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|sending himself there with Forerunner tech]]) on the ONI medical station orbiting Reach in the early stages of the Spartan program. Since he knows what's going to happen in the future, the ONI would've been after him had it not for Mendez and Halsey covering up the incident by giving him Spartan enhancements and sneaking him into the program. The sequel [[Refugee From TV Land|turns this around]] by the Covenant trying to invoke a [[Grandfather Paradox]].

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6930195/1/My_Little_Brony_Reality_vs_Fantasy My Little Brony: Reality VS Fantasy]'' (a ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' fanfic) is about a brony who ends up in Equestria. The Equestrian natives are understandably freaked out, and he's forced to go live with Zecora and Apple Bloom. His arrival, however, is just in time for him to witness one of the great laws of Equestrian apocrypha: that which states that all shall go to shit. In this case, a mad scientist wants to get rid of the ponies, but it turns out that [[Doctor Who|the (ponyfied) Doctor]] and his companion [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Derpy]] [[Funny Background Event|Hooves]] are watching.

* ''[[Sleeping with the Girls]]'' is all about this, fused with semi-uncontrolled reality hopping. Before you ask, no, there's no sex, the title's just like that. A guy who is an anime fan in real life is, for unknown reasons, being teleported to the side of eight of his favorite anime characters. The problem? He is transported the instant he falls asleep, and the characters he likes are a) always asleep when he teleports to them, and b) they tend to run in the [[Tsundere]] category. One of the most realistic takes on a self-insert, he nearly dies several times because they can throw punches he can't survive, not to mention that he almost never gets enough sleep. He's cycling through eight separate worlds, each one one of his favorite anime/manga. Currently in the middle of its second of what the author claims is a three-volume story. See the trope page for more details.

* ''[[Mass Vexations]],'' is probably one of THE examples of Trapped in TV Land done right. Another self-insert story, it shows Art, a quirky college guy, suddenly transported to the world of Mass Effect. He doesn't gain super-powers, and it shows how a fan of the game could realistically interact with a fictional world, while trying to hide that he knows pretty much every single outcome from when he arrives (near the beginning of [[ME 1]]) to the end of [[Mass Effect 2]].

 

== Film ==

* In ''Delirious'', a soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character [[Author Powers|inside his own show]].

* ''Deep in the Valley'', a [[Porn with Plot]] where two friends get trapped in a porno, and find it's not all fun and games, as there is a [[Yandere]] and a cop after them.

 

== Literature ==

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel ''The Crooked World'' sees the TARDIS crew trapped on a cartoon planet populated by thinly-veiled parodies of [[Scooby Doo]], ''[[The Perils of Penelope Pitstop]]'', ''[[Wacky Races]]'', [[Tom and Jerry]], ''[[Looney Tunes]]'', and others. The Doctor's interference means that for the behavior of those parodies, [[Reality Ensues]].

* ''Ms Wiz Goes Live'' has Ms Wiz take Caroline and her little sister inside the TV. In a variation they go to an actual TV studio where the sister causes uproar on a talk show, Ms Wiz reads her own version of the news and Caroline does a guest spot on a drama. The book ends with a producer calling the house to see if Caroline wants a bigger role.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** The episode "Charmed Noir" has Paige and Brody sucked into a 1930's ''[[Maltese Falcon]]'' spoof while investigating the murder of a teacher at the Magic School. Also, outsiders could write plot twists which were incorporated into the narrative.

* Happens to the Twist kids in the ''[[Round the Twist]]'' episode "TV or Not TV".

 

== Theme Parks ==

 

== Videogames ==

** Aladdin was the hero of the ''[[Arabian Nights]]'' now?

*** [[Small Reference Pools|As far as most people know, yes.]]

* ''[[Cool Spot|Spot Goes To Hollywood]]'' has the titular 7 Up mascot exploring levels based on movies.

* In ''[[Mickey Mouse|Disney's Magical Quest 3]]'', Huey, Dewey and Louie are pulled into Storybook Land by King Pete. Mickey and [[Donald Duck]], with the assistance of the Guardian Fairy have to rescue the trio by entering the book and defeat the evil ruler.

* The sequel to the casual game ''Azada'' features puzzles embedded in books of fairy tales and of various literary classics.

 

== Western Animation ==

** A [[Looney Tunes]] spoof with Beast Boy as Wile E. Coyote chasing after Control Freak acting like Roadrunner.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' did it with classic (and handily public-domain) ''books'' in one episode: ''Tom Sawyer'', ''Moby Dick'' and ''Pride and Prejudice''.

* One [[Three Shorts|mini-episode]] of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' featured this plot, involving him mostly travelling through various commercials; at the end, it was [[All Just a Dream]] ([[Or Was It a Dream?|although he kept the scarf of the shopping channel]]...). Another episode featured a variant on this, where Garfield woke up to find he was in the [[No Fourth Wall|wrong cartoon]], an odd cross between ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' and ''[[Transformers]]''; eventually, he was shot into a forest of ''Bambi''-esque forest animals, and ran off into the distance, shouting that [[Tastes Like Diabetes|he wanted the giant robots back.]]

* A segment of one of ''[[The Simpsons]]''' "[[Halloween Episode|Treehouse of Horrors]]" episodes used this plot, with Bart and Lisa sucked into ''The Itchy & Scratchy Show''. At one point they changed channels, appearing in a ''live action'' snippet of ''[[Live With Regis And Kathie Lee]]''.

** Also worth mentioning is an episode where the trope gets inverted, as Homer is transported into the third dimension.

** And the [[Hypocritical Humor]] of having Chief Wiggum mock [[The Ahnold|Rainier Wolfcastle]] for an obvious parody of ''[[Last Action Hero]].''

{{quote|'''Chief Wiggum''': "Magic ticket ''my ass'', McBain" }}

** Some of the shows parodied in "Channel Chasers" include ''[[Fat Albert]]'', ''[[Blue's Clues]]'', ''[[Sesame Street]]'', ''[[Scooby Doo]]'', ''[[The Jetsons]]'' ''[[Rugrats]]'', ''[[Jonny Quest]]'', ''[[Batman]]'', and ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''; however the episode was more centered on a parody show named "Maho Mushi", which was a hybrid of ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' and ''[[Pokémon]]''.

*** Don't forget a [[The Simpsons]] pardoy, complete with Blackboard Gag:

* The 70s ''[[Superfriends]]'' did it at least twice, in one episode the Legion of Doom put them into random fairy tales, in the other Mr Mxylpic puts them in "The Wizard of Oz" with Aquaman as the Scarecrow, Supes as the Tinman and Wonder Woman as the Cowardly Lion.

* The final season of the [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'' added the capability to travel into TV shows, movies, and literature to the guys' time-travelling phone booth, leading to a series of cheap thinly-veiled pop-culture parodies. (This was also used once in the following live-action [[Recycled: the Series]], see the "Live Action TV" section)

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Otherworld Tropes]]

[[Category:Metafiction Demanded This Index]]

[[Category:Plots]]