History Main / FramingDevice

* ''Series/{{Napoleon}}'': The series is framed as Napoleon relating his life history, from the Revolutionary Wars until his defeat in 1815, to Betsy Balcombe on St. Helena.

* The early [[HalloweenEpisode Treehouse of Horror episodes]] of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had them:
** The first one had Homer listening in on Bart and Lisa exchanging three scary stories in Bart's treehouse ([[ArtifactTitle hence the name of the series' Halloween episodes]]).
** The second one had Bart, Lisa, and Homer eating too much candy before bed, with the ThreeShorts themselves presented as prolonged {{Nightmare Sequence}}s. The last short appears to have ended with a return to the frame story, only to continue where the short left off by [[spoiler:revealing that Mr. Burns had his head grafted to Homer's body]]. Cue fake OnTheNext.
** The third one featured the family throwing a Halloween party, with Lisa, Grandpa, and Bart telling all the stories.
** The fourth episode is the last one to feature a framing device, with Bart presenting the stories in the manner of ''Series/NightGallery''.
:: Whatever plot the subsequent Halloween episodes had outside of the three stories is mostly confined to the {{Cold Opening}}s nowadays.
** The bulk of an episode containing several StoryWithinAStory cases turned out to be Bart telling Principal Skinner the reason he failed to turn in an assignment.

* ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged: Episode of Bardock'' reveals at the end that all of the events were part of a story told to Gohan by [[IdiotHero his father]] in [[AllJustADream a dream]]. The other movies that don't fall into canon are stated or implied at various times to be movies, written by Krillin, produced by Nappa, and watched on TV by Vegeta.

** In ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'''s fourth DLC, ''Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep'', is presented as the vault hunters sitting down at a table and playing a game of ''[[MagicAmpersand Bunkers & Badasses]]''. Just about every joke you could crack about this subject is made.

''"Man, do you remember that article we wrote about framing devices?"''\\

* Dan Simmons's ''Hyperion'' (first novel of the ''Literature/HyperionCantos'') is more or less explicitly based on Chaucer's ''Canterbury Tales'' [[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE]]!, down to the fact that the storytellers are on a pilgrimage. [[ShoutOut Literary allusions]] and [[GeniusBonus Genius Bonuses]] abound. As it turns out, the stories framed all shed light on the frame story, and the sequel ''The Fall of Hyperion'' picks up from the end of the frame story.

See WholeEpisodeFlashback, StorybookOpening, MythPrologue, HowWeGotHere, InterrogationFlashback and NostalgicNarrator for more specific examples. When framing devices are stacked on top of each other, they create a NestedStory. If a framing device is set up and is later forgotten by the end of the story, it becomes a ForgottenFramingDevice. If the existence of a framing device is used as a PlotTwist, we're dealing with a NestedStoryReveal. If a story alternates between a character's past and present but doesn't use a framing device, it's FlashbackBPlot. If the framing story is "I came across this story and decided to publish it", the author is invoking DirectLineToTheAuthor. If done badly, you might find ExpoSpeak.

* In ''LightNovel/AFoxsTale'', Marcus Minev, a historian, asks [[TheProtagonist Ember Wulf]] about her life. The story alternates between Marcus talking with Ember in the present, and Ember narrating the past.

** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS9E23TheBigMacQuestion]]" is framed by a series of [[ConfessionCam Confession Cams]] where Spike, Discord, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders recall to Applejack what happened when preparing for Big Mac and Sugar Bell's proposal.

** The device for ''Rad Chad's Revenge'' is about how the first movie's FinalGirl attends Chad's funeral, only for her and the other mourners to be abducted by a LooneyFan of Chad's into a ''Franchise/{{Saw}}''-style series of torture traps, with the in-universe movies holding the clues they need to survive.

* A particularly ingenious version of this is used in ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico,'' in an inversion of its ShowWithinAShow relationship with ''Anime/{{Gekiganger 3}}'' -- it airs as an episode of ''Gekiganger'' in which its characters are watching ''Nadesico.'' It manages to [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] the RecapEpisode when one of the ''Gekiganger'' characters complains that nothing new happens in them, and it's an excuse for the production company to take a break. The ''Gekiganger'' OVA meanwhile, has a framing device of the ''Nadesico'' cast, after the end of the series, watching the ''Gekiganger'' movie in a theater.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}!'' uses this both in the anime and the first of the LightNovels, though in different ways. The anime starts with the Vice President of the Daily Days and his young assistant trying to make sense the bizarre history of the last three years. The book starts with the ''conta è oro'' of the Martillo family [[spoiler:eventually revealed to be ''Firo'' rather than the assumed Maiza]] relaying the 1930 story to a Japanese tourist in the present.

* ''LightNovel/MonsterGirlDoctor'' Zero is a prequel novel that opens with Lime the SlimeGirl visiting the Litbeit Clinic only for her and Sapphee to have a series of conversations about their time in medical school.

* ''[[Film/Elvis2022 Elvis (2022)]]'': The movie is framed from the prespective of "Colonel" Tom Parker in 1997 as he lays dying in a Las Vegas hospital after suffering an accident at home.

* The original ''VideoGame/EscapeFromButcherBay'' opened with Riddick during his years on the ice planet he was hiding on at the start of ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick''. The Furyan woman in his visions tells him to remember his past, and what happened in Butcher Bay. Then the rest of the game begins, which is actually one long flashback. At the end Riddick awakens and is told of his destiny, and sees visions of the Necromongers. The framing story was dropped in the 2009 remake to better connect it to ''VideoGame/AssaultOnDarkAthena'', its immediate successor in the chronology.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'''s fourth DLC, ''Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep'', is presented as the vault hunters sitting down at a table and playing a game of ''[[MagicAmpersand Bunkers & Badasses]]''. Just about every joke you could crack about this subject is made.
** The story of ''Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' is set up as Athena being interrogated by Lilith about the events on Elpis and the [[StartOfDarkness rise of Handsome Jack]]. The NewGamePlus is her retelling the story to Tiny Tina, who tells her to "make it sound more difficult" and adds in her own commentary.
** ''Videogame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'' is told by the two protagonists Rhys and Fiona, who are being interrogated by a mysterious bandit. The two occasionally [[UnreliableNarrator make their own embellishments here and there]] and offer [[RashomonStyle their own differing perspectives on the story]].

* Many older horror comics have framing devices in which the comic has a "host" who welcomes the reader into their domain, and starts to tell this month's story. Creator/ECComics was best known for this, with their most famous being the Cryptkeeper. Creator/DCComics used the device a lot, with most of their hosts going on to become supporting characters in ''ComicBook/TheSandman''.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' itself used this a few times, most notably in the "World's End" arc, which featured a framing device of characters swapping stories in an InnBetweenTheWorlds. Often those stories are themselves framing devices for more stories. In places, it nests at least four framing devices deep.

* Film/SantaClausMeetsTheIceCreamBunny has a story of Santa telling a weird version of Thumbelina to schoolchildren. Like ''Merlin'' above, Rifftrax derived a RunningGag of “A reminder that Santa is telling this story to children” from the lousy effort.
-->'''Mike Nelson:''' And then the PA described how the witch continued to potter around for a while, not really doing much of anything.

* Film/SantaClaus!eetsTheIceCreamBunny has a story of Santa telling a weird version of Thumbelina to schoolchildren. Like ''Merlin'' above, Rifftrax derived a RunningGag of “A reminder that Santa is telling this story to children” from the lousy effort.

* The film ''Film/MerlinsShopOfMysticalWonders'' features an elderly man telling his grandson horror stories. This became especially surreal when the film got the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' treatment, since ''[=MST3K=]'' also uses a framing device (in this case, people held captive in a sadistic space-cinema), resulting in story within a framing device within a framing device!

* The last compilation movie for the ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' anime was framed as [[spoiler:Karma and Nagisa]], just the day before [[spoiler: the Class 3-E reunion seven years after the main story]], meeting up and talking to each other.

* ''Film/TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'' is the first example of this in film, and carries the interesting little twist that the story Francis is telling the old man on the bench is [[spoiler: [[AllJustADream a complete hallucination]]]].

* ''Film/IronMan3'' is framed as Tony recounting the events of the film from WhenItAllBegan to how it ended. [[spoiler: As TheStinger reveals, he was telling the story to [[Film/TheIncredibleHulk2008 Bruce Banner]] as if Banner were his therapist, but Banner says that he's NotThatKindOfDoctor.]]

* ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'' has a framing device of the Muppets watching the movie in a theater. At one point, [[spoiler: the film breaks, but the projectionist, the Swedish Chef, is able to fix it]].

* ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarezGunslinger''. The idea behind the game is that our hero is telling stories about his past as a BountyHunter to the other patrons in a bar. However, [[UnreliableNarrator our hero gets more and more drunk over the course of the game, and he starts exaggerating parts of his story, and eventually starts outright lying and making stuff up.]] [[spoiler: He isn't quite as drunk as he makes himself out to be, though, [[SecretTestOfCharacter and he has a reason to be lying.]]]] Interestingly, this actually affects the gameplay. Parts of the scenery and setting change as our hero points out things he didn't mention before, realizes that he isn't remembering what happened correctly, and, amusingly, when the other bar patrons misinterpret what he's saying or jump to conclusions about what happened next.

* ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' has ''three'' of these in the Grand Athenaeum, in which the player takes the place of the character who witnessed these events in the story. The stories are [[spoiler: How the Black Mage came to be]], how Cygnus became Empress, and the story of the Black Witch, a character who nearly laid waste to Ereve.

** The majority of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' is told in a HowWeGotHere format, with the Protagonist being interrogated by public prosecutor Sae Nijima about the events that started 6 months ago that led to the Protagonist and his friends becoming infamous [[PhantomThief Phantom Thieves]]. The story occasionally returns to the present day as Sae clarifies the Protagonist's story and leads him into the next part, Confidants are framed as Sae pressing the Protagonist to talk about the accomplices and skills that he must have had, and running out of time to complete the heist is framed as the Protagonist being too addled by the drugs used on him to properly remember events before being murdered by one of the conspirators he was fighting against. [[spoiler: When the story catches up to the present day, the device is dropped entirely.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' featured an episode told through Princess Carolyn's great-great-great granddaughter. She tells her class about Princess Carolyn's really bad day (such as her miscarriage and inability to conceive, firing Judah, and breaking up with her boyfriend), along with some "worldbuilding" side plots involving other characters. [[spoiler: At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the granddaughter is entirely fictional, and was made up by Princess Carolyn as a story to keep herself happy.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode "Rewriting History" has a story of Kim's great-grandmother (who vanished in disgrace at the start of the century), which is framed by Kim uncovering what really happened, while her ArchEnemy Dr. Drakken chases his own ancestor's involvement in the same events, piling up into GenerationXerox and ContrivedCoincidence [[spoiler: and ending as AllJustADream]].

* The anime for ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'' is set with the high priest of the local temple looking through the main character's memories with magic to see how she got here. It's not really necessary, but gives a hint to viewers about where the season will end and also gets to show off a popular supporting character ahead of schedule.