History Main / ShowWithinAShow

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/HomeAlone2 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_lwrqkd2tgg1qzvqzfo1_500.png]]]]

* ''Up Late with Miss Piggy'' on ''Series/TheMuppets''.

-->-- '''ExpositoryThemeTune''' for ''JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[note]]''The Itchy and Scratchy Show'' is actually a segment on ''The Krusty the Klown Show''. ''The Simpsons'' was once a segment on ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow''. So, technically, that makes it a Show Within a Show, within a former Show Within a Show. Or [[Film/{{Inception}} Showception]], for short.[[/note]]

-->-- '''ExpositoryThemeTune''' for ''JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[note]]''The Itchy and Scratchy Show'' is actually a segment on ''The Krusty the Klown Show''. ''The Simpsons'' was once a segment on ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow''. So, technically, that makes it a [[UpToEleven Show Within a Show, within a former Show Within a Show]]. Or [[Film/{{Inception}} Showception]], for short.[[/note]]

-->-- '''ExpositoryThemeTune''' for ''WesternAnimation/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[note]]''The Itchy and Scratchy Show'' is actually a segment on ''The Krusty the Klown Show''. ''The Simpsons'' was once a segment on ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow''. So, technically, that makes it a [[UpToEleven Show Within a Show, within a former Show Within a Show]]. Or [[Film/{{Inception}} Showception]], for short.[[/note]]

SuperTrope to GameWithinAGame, SchoolPlay and SoapWithinAShow. SisterTrope with FictionalDocument and FictionalVideoGame. Overlaps with SetBehindTheScenes.

* ShowWithinAShow/{{Webcomics}}

* ShowWithinAShow/WebComics

* The Music/Michael Jackson music video for "Thriller" opens with Michael Jackson on a movie date with Ola Ray...which features Michael Jackson and Ola Ray in the lead roles.

* In the bonus rounds of SonicTheHedgehogSpinball, Sonic operataes an actual pinball table. You can see his reflection in the glass, and his eyes even move as you play.

* ShowWithinAShow/AnimatedFilms
* ShowWithinAShow/LiveActionFilms

* ShowWithinAShow/{{Theater}}

-->-- '''ExpositoryThemeTune''' for ''WesternAnimation/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[note]]''The Itchy and Scratchy Show'' is actually a segment on ''The Krusty the Klown Show''. ''The Simpsons'' was once a segment on ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow''. So, technically, that makes it a [[UpToEleven Show Within A Show, within a former Show Within A Show]]. Or [[Film/{{Inception}} Showception]], for short.[[/note]]

Shows-within-a-show are [[StylisticSuck usually of low quality]]. This is intentional: the low quality of the show is part of the joke or the misery of the characters involved. As a general rule, the more central the Show Within A Show is to the actual show, the better -- or at least higher-gloss -- it will be. On the other hand, FinaglesLaw dictates that TheShowMustGoWrong, so don't expect to get through it without at least one catastrophe.

For the pre-television history of this trope, [[JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples once again]] we must go back to Creator/WilliamShakespeare, who featured plays within plays both in comedy -- ''The Most Lamentable Comedy, and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe'' within ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'', and ''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'' actually ''is'' one by means of a FramingDevice -- and in tragedy (''[[CatchTheConscience The Murder of Gonzago]]'' within ''{{Hamlet}}'').

SuperTrope to SchoolPlay and SoapWithinAShow. SisterTrope with FictionalDocument and FictionalVideoGame. Overlaps with SetBehindTheScenes.

* Mention is made of a popular holoseries in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' called [[ComicBook/JudgeDredd Arbitrator Foreboding]], a member of the Adeptus Arbites who hunts down mutants and heretic with relish and a very big gun.

* The former ''Ride/{{Disaster}}'' attraction at [[Ride/UniversalStudios Universal Studios Florida]] was based around the fictitious Disaster Studios, which created "films" such as "Apocageddon", "Das Schurke", "Baboon!", and "300 Knots Landing"; with their upcoming production being "Mutha Nature".

# The internal show, in either variety, [[PlotParallel is eerily similar to the real show.]]

*** The opening vignette of ''Technomancer]]'' has a police mage channel-surfing while on stakeout. What she finds are mostly news and commercials, but there's a trailer for a show where [[Series/TheXFiles FBI agents Cat Morrigan and Dara Skuld]] investigate rumours of TheFairFolk.
*** A ''Pyramid'' magazine article on combining ''Technomancer'' with ''GURPS Action'' has a worked example called ''El Paso Vice'', with an explanation that in the regular ''Technomancer'' verse it was a popular cop show in the 80s.