History Main / InteractiveNarrator

* The narrator, Rod Serling, in ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' wasn't usually noticed by the characters in the story; however, there were a few episodes where they interacted with him.

-->'''Powdered Toast Man:''' '''''[[BigShutUp SHUT UP!!!!!]]''''' ''If you ask one more stupid question, I'll tear your skin off!''

'''Josh:''' Oh... [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight Okay!]]

** It gets even worse in Episode 8, [[spoiler: where [[TheBadGuyWins Ultron-Infinite succeeds in his goal of wiping out all organic life in the universe]]. At first, [[AndThenWhat it leaves him without a purpose for his programming]]... until the power of the Infinity Stones allow him to not only notice the Watcher, but he also ''invades his sanctuary'', fights and defeats Uatu, and plans to use his sanctuary to wipe out all life in the multiverse. Now the Watcher's only hope is the aforementioned Strange Supreme, who forces him to verbally break his AlienNonInterferenceClause in order to help him.]]

* PlayedForDrama in ''WesternAnimation/WhatIf2021''. [[spoiler: The show's narrator is Uatu TheWatcher. He only talks to us, the audience, while no one in the universes he observes ever notices him as an actual character. At least until Episode 4, where [[FallenHero Doctor Strange Supreme]] notices Uatu and begs him to help save the universe from being destroyed ([[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom which he ended up instigating in the first place]]). While Uatu does confess that he would like to help and punish Strange for his actions, he declares that [[AGodIAmNot he's not a god]] and [[AlienNonInterferenceClause does not have the power (nor the incentive) to intervene]]. Thus, he leaves Stephen to live with his actions as [[ApocalypseHow/ClassX4 his entire universe is wiped out]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries'':
** The narrator is named Bob (his wife is Mrs. Bob, they have two kids), after his voice actor, Robert Stack. While he rarely interacts with the main characters, he is in competition with the Muses and frequently argues with them. Bob is apparently ''literally'' invisible, as he and his family appear in one episode wearing large souvenir hats.
** The Muses usually act as the chorus (in multiple sense of the word), so their minor interactions with characters (in both the movie and series) only occur during musical sequences and are [[MusicalWorldHypotheses presumably non-diegetic]]. However, they are the goddesses of the arts, so in an episode of the series about Hercules struggling to dance as part of a school play, the relevant muse steps out of the chorus to [[DivineIntervention assist him directly]].
* On two occasions on ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' have they acknowledged their narrator (who is referred to as "French Narrator"), when [=SpongeBob=] ran over him once, and another episode where Sandy calls him up for information on Neptune's Moon.

** In yet another episode, Freakazoid and the narrator start squabbling, and Freakazoid threatens to replace him "with the narrator from ''Earthworm Jim'' (also a fellow Kids WB show); this wouldn't have been a problem since the ''EWJ'' narrator voice, Creator//JeffBennett, was already in the cast (and in that very scene no less, voicing Cave Guy!).

* In one ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'' episode, the "storyteller" was enslaved by the resident evil pig. The problem was solved by [[spoiler:him developing Laryngitis, and Dave and his family hiring a new one (albeit one used to {{Space Opera}}s that briefly turned the show into one)]]
* In the AnimatedAdaptation of ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'', the characters often interact with the narrator. In one episode, the narrator was once held at gunpoint by the villains and forced to read lines they'd written.

* ''Theatre/RockyHorrorShow''. The Narrator often interacts with the cast, which is fair, since the audience ''always'' interacts with ''him'' and the cast.

* ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'': Kou, the little bat who serves as Kokoa's [[LivingWeapon Living]] MorphWeapon, was put into this role for the anime series. In the first season, he simply serves to make quips at the characters and [[CombatCommentator tell the audience]] how long it took for Inner Moka to beat up the bad guys, but the interactive part comes into play in [=Capu2=], when Kokoa is introduced; when he reveals his allegiance with Kokoa, Kurumu is surprised ("All along, I thought he was just [[BreakingTheFourthWall the narrator for the show!]]").

'''Rizzo:''' Well, hoity-toity, Mr. God-Like Smarty Pants.

* The narrator in ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'' (but not ''Kyatto Ninden Teyandee'') would break the FourthWall with the characters and engage in LampshadeHanging with them. He even had his family kidnapped by the Big Cheese, as part of a plan to finally defeat the cats. The same show once decimated the concept by having the narrator "accidentally" read the lines of the wrong episode.

** Also happens in ''Josh and the Big Wall'' - Bob wanders onto the set while explaining the backstory, prompting Joshua to ask who he is.

** Though Gonzo is physically present throughout the film, the main characters studiously ignore him, and he has no direct influence on the plot.

* ''Film/TheMuppetChristmasCarol'': The Great Gonzo narrates the story as Creator/CharlesDickens, mostly reciting ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' verbatim. But it wouldn't be a [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppets]] film without him and sidekick Rizzo the Rat getting up to all kinds of goofy shenanigans of their own on the side, like [[TheDoorSlamsYou Gonzo getting inadvertently hit in the face by Scrooge's front door when he's too slow to follow him inside]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/AnEpicComic'' has a narrator who hates when people break the comic's rating rules and extreme breaking of the fourth wall. The characters be mean to him for this and some outright torture him by causing significant visual damage to the fourth wall. [[spoiler: Who knew they were picking a fight with the author?]]
* The narrator of ''Webcomic/OneOverZero'' is quite explicitly the author, as well as the closest thing the comic has to a god figure. He gave his creations NoFourthWall, so he often converses with them and occasionally takes requests from them. (At one point, they go on strike and refuse to do anything until he stabilizes the comic's physics.)
* ''Webcomic/BooksDontWorkHere'' simply has a very talkative narrator who can't keep his nose on the other side of the 4th wall and out of his character's business. This trope will be used not-so-simple later when [[spoiler:it is done more complexly. Not enough spoiler for you? Well too bad you have to wait for chapter 4 like everyone else to actually meet the narrator in person.]]
* [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1192 This strip]] of ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics''.
* ''Webcomic/TheFourthWall'': The Creator regularly argues with the characters and comments on the situation. Turned UpToEleven in "Where in the World," where he actively guides Greg through the plot.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' takes this trope and runs with it. As a webcomic in the style of InteractiveFiction about a game that affects reality, narrators don't just describe a scene -- they also command or suggest the actions of the characters, and a few of the character are capable of talking back to them. On top of that, ''every single narrator'' is a character in the story, [[AuthorAvatar including the author himself]] and quite possibly the audience. This means that most narrators have narrators of their own when it time to focus on them. It's possibly the single most meta example of this trope ever.
* Roger Wilco's text box narrator follows this in ''Webcomic/Level30Psychiatry'' but even moreso than his home series where it has conversations with other characters.
* In ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', the Narrator is separate from the author, and speaks in orange boxes, which the characters can occasionally read. In one instance, he is as confused as the audience when we see Tagon and Brad killed and then alive, and in another, he tries to ''talk a character out of a HeroicSacrifice''. It is particularly jarring because the characters rarely show any other sign of MediumAwareness. The narrator later messes with the strip and brings back everyone who's died so far. When it's revealed as an AprilFools joke, the girlfriend of the aforementioned HeroicSacrifice is [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20020401.html understandably incensed]]:
--> '''Elf:''' Hey, everybody! It's open season on jerk narrators!
--> '''Narrator:''' Oops. That's my cue to leave!
** Even worse when you consider that the "lame-o Sci-Fantasy explanation" is EXACTLY what happens to her next boyfriend. [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-04-01 making the whole thing a five year]] BrickJoke.
* ''Webcomic/BobTheAngryFlower'', has a narrator intervention in the Crackening story-arc, [[http://angryflower.com/cracken02.html beginning with the line]]:
--> ...little realizing... the '''narrator''' has them exactly where he wants them!!!
* In ''Dungeon Crawlin' Fools'', the first print volume of ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', the heroes eventually get annoyed with the narrator (who turns out to actually be standing near them) and use him to distract the monster guarding the entrance to the dungeon.
* The very concept of an interactive narrator is parodied in [[http://www.ugmadness.net/#2006-07-03 this]] strip from the ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' webcomic ''Webcomic/UGMadness''.
* In ''[[Webcomic/NanohaGamerS Nanoha GamerS]]'' (read it [[http://check.animeblogger.net/nanoha-gamers-index/ here]]), one of the characters has, quote, "this weird yellow box thing that keeps following me around and making weird comments". He tends to get threatened with grievous bodily harm, especially by Teana.
* Characters in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' occasionally communicate with their narrator/author, but these asides do not seem to affect the plot at all. It's most common in non-canon strips like the annual appearance of the [[HalloweenEpisode Halloween Monster.]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'' had to deal with a downright nasty one of these in one story where Count Repugsive turned the whole world into an 8-bit world that worked like an old video game. It caused a caption to appear to prevent him from seeing information he needed, and then ''dropped'' the caption on him, costing him one of his three lives. (However, after he and the other heroes managed to save the day, the guy did the same thing to Repugsive; clearly he didn't play favorites.)
* The narrator of the ''WebComic/{{Insecticomics}}'' is actually one of the Vok, a race of reality-altering hyperevolved beings. In one comic, he narrated a "Meanwhile" scene change ''to his own scene''.
* In an early ''Webcomic/BrunoTheBandit'' strip the narrator became [[http://www.brunothebandit.com/d/19981111.html a bit flustered]] when Bruno was given a sex change as punishment.
* In [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=167 this]] ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' strip, Dan's narration goes completely off topic during the last panel prompting Elliot to yell at him to "get on with it".
** In [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=149 this]] EGS:NP strip, Susan has a conversation with Dan in his narrator role.
* Jay, the title character of ''Webcomic/TalesOfTheSkullKing'' is in constant communication with the Narrator.
* I, [[LemonyNarrator Nathaniel Blackfeather]], may be dead, but this is no excuse for you to ignore my granddaughter, ''Webcomic/PennyBlackfeather'', and her fabulous adventures. Numpty.
* Present only in Chapter 2, "Jinx", in ''Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom''. It's largely responsible for giving Item descriptions, but it does give Willa a bit of advice at one point.
* In ''Sword & Sarcasm,'' there is a race of invisible djinn that provide a narrative play-by-play of events as they witness them. This quickly gets very annoying for any characters cursed to actually ''hear'' them, while those who can't hear them assume the djinn to be merely a superstition.
[[/folder]]

* ''Radio/{{Dragnet}}'' had a notable example in the episode, 'The Big Ben.' Friday and his partner Ben Romero are on the trail of a pair of carjackers. [[spoiler: One of them ambushes Joe right before the commercial break. Afterwards Ben takes over both the investigation and narrative duties. Friday does not appear again until the end when Ben visits him in the hospital.]]

* In ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'', cartoonist Stephan Pastis frequently uses a LamePun as a punchline. Whenever he does this, the last panel features one or more of his characters confronting him at his desk and insulting or threatening him.

* Played with in ''FanFic/PinkieTales'', where only Pinkie herself regularly speaks to the narrator of the episode, though whether this is because she's actually the only one that can hear him/her or if the others can hear them, but are just staying in character isn't made completely clear.

* ''VisualNovel/PlumbersDontWearTies''. In the most stupid, embarrassing way.

* FanWebComic ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers Nanoha]] [[http://check.animeblogger.net/nanoha-gamers-index/ GamerS]]'' has, to quote one of the characters, "this weird yellow box thing that keeps following me around and making weird comments". He tends to get threatened with grievous bodily harm, especially by [[StraightMan Teana]].

* In one ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian'' episode, the "storyteller" was enslaved by the resident evil pig. The problem was solved by [[spoiler:Dave and his family hiring a new one.]]

* Many shows which utilize FakeInteractivity like ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues'' and ''WesternAnimation/DoraTheExplorer'' will have their hosts count as this, as they constantly interact with the viewer who is watching the show.

** The narrator is named Bob (his wife is Mrs. Bob, they have two kids). While he rarely interacts with the main characters, he is in competition with the Muses and frequently argues with them. Bob is apparently ''just'' an invisible Robert Stack, as he and his family appear in one episode wearing large souvenir hats.

* The Narrator from [[Literature/TheInterloperHomeCouldntBeFarther The Interloper: Home Couldn't Be Farther]] frequently interacts with the main character, Scott, acting as a voice in his head.

* ''WebAnimation/DrTran'' features an unfortunate five-year-old Asian child who argues with a narrator over whether or not he's the titular action hero.