Animated Actors

GHdgsyawe!! What do you mean we're already describing the trope?!

Haruko: Those slow motion scenes are really tough, huh?
Mamimi: Yeah, you have to hold your breath until they cut.
Haruko: You can get cramps from that, you know?
Naota: What? I thought it was a special effect! You're doing the slow motion?

— FLCL

An animated episode is in full swing. The action suddenly stops, the characters step out of character, and address an unseen figure. The view pulls back to reveal the action is taking place on an animated TV soundstage. Usually punctuated by a heated exchange between the animated director and the character.

This is a specific type of fourth wall joke.

Many times, the "actors" who play the characters are very different from the characters themselves. Often, the dumb, inarticulate comedy relief will turn out to be a posh Shakespearean ac-tor. A large, imposing character may take off his head, revealing himself to be a normal-looking guy wearing a costume. The Big Bad may turn out to be a total sweetheart when not in character. If not, the character's "actor" will be exactly the same or very similar to their on screen portrayal, if perhaps with a little more real-world common sense coming from not being a part of the action.

Many times, the character's name will stay the same, but occasionally the crew will call them by the voice-actor's name.

Also used as a method of Lampshade Hanging, as the character will often complain about some trite or hackneyed element of the scene, and refuse to proceed. There's also the popular gag of having them mess up their lines or goof off, though obviously these Animated Outtakes took just as much work to write, voice, draw and animate as the rest of the show.

This can be a throw-away gag, or it can be the plot of an entire episode.

If the animated characters are interacting with live action humans / people, it's the Roger Rabbit Effect.

If taken to a whole dimension, where characters in a writer's portfolio are reused across whole works (sometimes with different roles) like how a "real" actor/actress would, it becomes a Reused Character Design.

Not to be confused with Ink-Suit Actor, an animated character who looks like the voice actor. Nor to be confused with someone who acts in an animated manner.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Films — Animated
• Video Games
• Webcomics
• Western Animation

Other examples:

Advertising

• Mint brand Tic Tac released a "blooper reel" to supplement a 2013 ad campaign in continental Europe.

Comic Books

• In the anthology series Batman: Black and White, a story by Neil Gaiman and Simon Bisley called "A Black & White World" shown Batman and the Joker working on a movie-like set, reading over their lines and commenting on the corniness of the dialogue, as well as the general way characters in comic books are treated and/or mistreated; the Joker comments that he never gets big dramatic splash panels like Batman, while Batman retorts that he is the one who gets to make all the big speeches. Oddly enough, Lobo is their director.
• A variation turns up in one issue of Astro City, where a device that brings movie creatures into the "real" world of the comic accidentally pulls in cartoon lion Loony Leo along with the movie monster the villain was aiming for. Leo helps the hero defeat the villain, and the hero convinces the audience to believe in him and prevent him from fading away. Leo then spent a few years as an actor before his career hit the skids.
• Used sometimes in Cherry Comics. Perhaps most strikingly seen in "Cherry Gets it in the End (and Mom Does Too!)" from Cherry #12, where Cherry starts to undo the zipper on her boyfriend's pants so that she can perform fellatio on him. All of the sudden, a male voice yells "CUT!" and the panel pans out to show Cherry and her friend on a set and surrounded by a film crew. The director states that there has been a couple of script changes, much to Cherry's confusion.
• Muppet Classics, being a comic where the characters of The Muppets acted out famous stories, predictably had some instances of characters acknowledging that they were actors.
  • Muppet Robin Hood has Kermit play Robin Hood and his nephew Robin play a character named Squirt. Robin points out how confusing it would have been if he went by his regular name in the same story where his uncle is playing a character named Robin.
  • Muppet Snow White is the most explicit about the Muppets merely playing the characters and not actually being them and even has Miss Piggy (portraying the Evil Queen) get Link Hogthrob to play Snow White's father just so she could divorce him and marry Kermit's role as the Prince.
• Three Fingers is a story of the golden age of animation with several Disney and Warner Bros pastiches used as Animated Actors and being subjected to Fantastic Racism. In a dark twist, they also perform mysterious rituals to ensure their "toon movies" are popular. It seemingly works.
• Brazilian comic book series Monica's Gang uses this with frequency, in which the characters regularly acknowledge they are part of a comic book and even interact with the artists, the writers, and even the readers. Depending on the Writer, they can be complete actors following a script, or, more commonly, characters that know their stories are famous comic books, but otherwise, continue to act just like as themselves. A source of humour in the series also is the main characters referring to their friends as secondary characters and complaining about tropes in their stories out loud.
  • Bidu (Blue)'s stories, about the life of the dog of one of the characters, take this metalanguage up to eleven, with several of his stories centering around Blue and his friends being actors trying to make stories for the comic book and facing many production problems, with one of the characters even being solely a stage manager. Bugu, in specific, is an obnoxious fan always trying to participate in the story.

Comic Strips

• Repeatedly used in Dykes to Watch Out For. In an early two-part series, the characters threaten a walkout to gain creative control of the strip. The trope that they are actors in the comic's world is used several more times. The book The Indelible Alison Bechdel featured a long sequence in which the characters are portrayed as both actors and as the staff and managers of DTWOF Inc., with author Bechdel portrayed as a "staff writer" chained in the basement and humoured in her 'harmless delusion' that she creates the strip.
• Bloom County sometimes used this — on at least one occasion the strip came to a screeching halt mid-panel because Opus hadn't received that day's script; and in one storyline all the "actors" went on strike.
• Ink Pen: Based around a temp agency for Animated Actors.
• Madam & Eve likes this trope.
  • One series of strips (starting here) had Mother Anderson evicted from the comic after she lost an online poll. She ends up looking for work through the Acme Cartoon Employment Agency, then tries a stint as Batman's sidekick.◊
  • Another story arc has Gwen and Abigail subpoenaed by a commission investigating racism in comics. When they are accused of using the comic to perpetuate the "lazy maid" stereotype, Eve defends them by pointing out◊ that the strip also depicts white madams as insensitive boors who spend all their time watching soap operas and drinking gin.

Fan Works

• Some authors of anime fanfiction have employed this trope by by providing "outtakes" from their story, or by suggesting that the characters of various cancelled or completed series are now unemployed and are taking jobs in fan-written stories in order to make ends meet. (See here for some classic examples of both.)
• At least one author has written a series whose entire focus is on this sort of thing.
• Trimatter's In The Lunchroom uses this device to comment tellingly on Adaptation Decay and the evolution of fanon in fan fiction.
• Similarly to Trimatter's story, Clell 65619's Harry Potter and the Read Through mixes this and Meta Fic, as the cast of the Harry Potter novels critique the new fanfic script they've just been handed.
• This untitled alternate ending to the infamous Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles) calls upon this trope for the purpose of safely explaining away the events of the original story (as well as to comfort the many disturbed readers of Cupcakes further by using the opportunity to argue that the original story was all in good fun).
• In fact, this trope is quite common in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan fiction and fan art. The fact that several of the writers and animators have well known ponysonas (one of whom actually appeared in an episode) only makes it easier.
• The Doorstopper Animaniacs fanfiction Family, by the 'Middle Warner Sibling', takes place in this universe, as we follow the Warner siblings from their poverty-stricken beginnings to how they were hired by Warner Bros. for their respective parts and beyond.
• Subverted in Haunted Mansion and the Hatbox Ghost stories by having the ghosts of the "Haunted Mansion" ride being real ghosts, and the backstories given being real, but the ride itself being the ghosts (who made a deal with the Walt Disney Company) showing themselves and knowing that this is a ride (while in Real Life, the Haunted Mansion ride is supposed to simulate a visit in a "real" haunted house, and the fact that the Haunted Mansion is located in a theme park is just ignored and left to Willing Suspension of Disbelief).
• Constable Frozen is a blog that specifies in surreal photo edits of Frozen (2013). They did one of these. Curiously, Olaf and Sven are still CGI.
• There exists a genre in fanfiction where a writer will take an animated show and create a series of fake bloopers and behind-the-scenes stuff for it, treating the characters as actual actors. More often than not, hijinks ensue. Examples include From the Top (for Voltron: Legendary Defender), CUT! (for Detentionaire), and Phineas and Ferb: Take Two! (for...well, guess).
• This AU of Steven Universe: Future, although the Gems are still, well, Gems.
• A common type of Alternate Universe Fic is the Actor AU, where fanartists draw key scenes from a series as if they were filmed on a soundstage and show some behind-the-scenes interviews from the "actors". Rarely do these AUs go beyond the making-of, though.
• The Palcomix "Spoils of War" comics (essentially putting the cast of Candy♡Candy through the closest thing you can get to Nazisplotation in a series set during the First World War) open each chapter with a two-page prologue showing the characters reacting very badly to the script... and being forced to admit that, what with the original series being in copyright hell for the past few decades, this is the only work they can get.
  • The one shot "Friends Will be Friends" expands on this even more with the Sailor Guardians mentioning that they, the aforementioned cast of Candy♡Candy along with the characters from Sonic the Hedgehog, the Norns and the cast of Digimon can still get work because their designs are unique enough and have enough character depth that fans still pleasure themselves to them whereas the cast of Magic Knight Rayearth are barely remembered (Though that may have changed with the release of a certain game) and Usagi has no idea what happened to the cast The Vision of Escaflowne.
• The ending of Olive's Last Partner reveals most every character in the story to be one of these, although none of the characters are animated in-show. Olive and Otto watch Oscar be filmed for his interview video, and later on, they film scenes from the PBS Kids version of the ending credits as well as an "Odd Squad Needs You" commercial alongside Oprah. In addition, there are also mentions of Olive providing voiceover for the "Odd Moments in History" segments, Oscar recording the Training Videos (and helping Oksana with Headquarters tour videos), and Oscar and O'Connor sending in the Odd Reports they had filmed previously, among a couple other things.
• Toonatopia: The Animation Initiation presents its characters like this. Lazlo, Raj and Clam are shown rehearsing their lines for upcoming episodes.
• The NSFW fan comic Behind the Scenes has Pepé Le Pew and Penelope having a date at home after finishing their latest short, and complaining that they cannot go out as a couple in public due to the need to maintain their image.

Literature

• Gene Wolfe's story "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" has an non-animated example. The characters of the titular pulp adventure book begin appearing to the protagonist in the real world, and the book's villain assures him that here in the real world he and the other characters aren't really heroes or villains, but merely like actors:
  You see ... [the hero] and I are a bit like wrestlers; under various guises we put on our show again and again—but only under the spotlight.
• The Thursday Next books go back and forth; sometimes Thursday enters a book and the events are actually happening, but more often it's all a show put on for the readers.
• In Armageddon 3: The Remake by Robert Rankin, Rex is horrified to discover that the barman of the Tomorrowman Tavern has gone Small Name, Big Ego since his appearance in the first book, which followed a long career of being killed off in horror, western and war novels. It's mentioned that it's hard for proper fictional characters to get work; too many authors just put thinly-disguised friends and relatives in the decent roles, and if you complain, you get the correction fluid.

Live-Action TV

• In the episode "Nasty" of The Young Ones, Alexei Sayle, during his monologue (which usually broke the fourth wall anyway), mentions that the other actors probably talk about him behind his back. Cut to backstage, where the other four are playing cards, still in costume but not in character:
  Adrian Edmonson (Vyvyan): I hate him.
  Nigel Planer (Neil): He drinks like a fish.
  Rik Mayall (Rick): Yes, he's got no talent.
  Christopher Ryan (Mike): Alexei who?
• Power Rangers RPM:
  • In one extremely strange episode, the action is paused to take viewers behind the scenes into the making of an episode - but everybody is (sort of) still in character. One segment involves Scott and Tenaya 7 practicing their moves and explicitly stating that they do this so neither of them get hurt. Scott might not want to hurt Tenaya cause he's The Hero, but in character, she would kill him.
  • It becomes particularly amusing during the blooper reel when Olivia Tennet's ridiculously thick Kiwi accent comes through when she mutters "So close!" after flubbing some lines for her character Dr. K.
• The Late Show with David Letterman: Dave has interviewed Beavis And Butthead (and punched Beavis). Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson and Optimus Prime have presented Top Ten Lists live on stage.
• In promoting both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the team at WETA have had the primary CG characters of both respective trilogies, Gollum and Smaug, make hysterical one-shot television appearances. Gollum appeared at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards to accept his own trophy and go off on a foul-mouthed tirade, Smaug appeared on The Colbert Report for an interview the week before the release of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, discussing his conservative views and his annoyances with having to do motion capture.
• A Whammy on Press Your Luck has him in a celebrity's fold-out chair saying now that he's a star he needs make-up. He gets a powderpuff canister right in the face.
• During the behind-the-scenes special for Walking with Dinosaurs, the dinosaurs are shown with Medium Awareness, with one short clip showing the T. rex having its colours painted on with mock paint buckets and "spare parts", another with an animator sculpting a raptor from the living animal and asking it to stand still. A Utahraptor even shows up in the credits as a Classically-Trained Extra
  Utahraptor: Hmm... Who did I find it most difficult to work with? Animators, definitely animators. You know, chase this dinosaur, chase that dinosaur, you'd swear we couldn't act. It's so degrading!

Music

• Evillious Chronicles: A variant. In most other media the characters are modeled after the Vocaloid they're based on and nothing is made of it. But in the credits of the franchise's songs said Vocaloids are credited as having played the role, with others who didn't show up credited for things like makeup and lighting.

Puppet Shows

• Very common in The Muppets productions.
  • The Jim Henson Hour episode that ran the original Dog City included a "Making Of" segment which revealed, amongst other things, that the stunts were done by cats in dog costumes.
  • In The Muppet Christmas Carol has some fun with this as everyone except Rizzo (who's playing himself) is portarying a character from the original novel. This includes Gonzo who's narrating in-character as Charles Dickens, much to Rizzo's confusion. In one scene Sam the Eagle, playing young Scrooge's schoolmaster, fluffs a line forcing "Dickens" to whisper the correct phrasing in his ear.
• Speaking of Jim Henson, Netflix's official YouTube channel released a "blooper reel" for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance which features several of the puppets acting like human actors between takes, and engaging in such antics as bullying the director and trying to shoo a pigeon off the set.
  skekSil (in a posh "luvvie" voice): Eric, I'm acting.
• Even Yoda is not immune, as shown in a hidden blooper reel on The Phantom Menace DVD.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 doesn't do this in the show itself, but various advertisements and promo shorts would feature Tom Servo and Crow giving interviews or press conferences, and implied that they're playing fictionalized versions of themselves in the show.
• An episode of Dinosaurs dedicated to everyone acting really strange after finding a mysterious "plant" ended with shooting concluding and Robbie walking off set to deliver a PSA... about how if people talked about these things in real life, they wouldn't have to do these PSAs.

Radio

• The Goon Show did this sort of thing on radio, with characters frequently commenting on the story, insulting the announcer and generally drawing attention to the fact that they are on stage recording a radio show. Furthermore, as Roger Wilmut points out in his book The Goon Show Companion, the characters often make remarks to each other in character which make it clear that they are already acquainted. In other words, the actors are playing characters who are themselves playing characters.
  • In one episode, "The Phantom Head-Shaver of Brighton" was revealed to be...Wallace Greenslade, the narrator.
• To some extent this was also imitated by later shows like Round the Horne, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and The Burkiss Way.
• This was combined with The Danza on Hello Cheeky. The actors played personas of themselves (thus John Junkin was a serious professional, Barry Cryer a lovable swine, Tim Brooke-Taylor a naive snob and Denis King a ditzy egotist), and these personas were treated as the real actors, who played every character of every sketch. The writing credits were the same in-universe as well, which meant that some episodes included jokes about characters shirking their duties.
  Barry: We present our play of the week. It's called 'Krunggeqwertyuiop', because I was drunk when I typed it.
• The Space Gypsy Adventures featured this on occasion, with the characters complaining about the set to the narrator.

Theme Parks

• Both The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera and Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast at Universal Studios featured this as a part of their storylines, with the respective animated characters actually being actors.

Toys

• LEGO Studios featured many sets based on filming scenes from famous movies of the time, like Spider-Man and Jurassic Park III, although with Steven Spielberg included as the director and original LEGO Adventurers characters replacing the JP actors. The Adventurers Johnny Thunder, Pippin Reed and Rex the Tyrannosaurus rex also appeared in their own sets. The web game Backlot, based in this line, was all about helping Johnny and Steven get their movie done, and even had a BIONICLE character, Takua, making a Crossover Cameo in the cafeteria, where his real name was revealed to be George.

Web Animation

• Episode 10 of Bowser's Kingdom is an episode where Geno hosts a interview show with the cast from said series.
• Duma Ragu: In SIMON VÁLASZOL (SIMON ANSWERS) his audience asks what program he uses for the animation. He gets confused what they mean by this.
• Every now and then it's suggested that this is what's going on behind the scenes on Etra chan saw it!, but that doesn't really explain the child versions of the characters who sometimes appear. Nor the fact that occasionally multiple versions of the same characters at different ages will appear in the same story.
• Played with in episode 3 of Girl-chan in Paradise; Kenstar accidentally says someone else's line and remarks on it and Green Guy is enraged about being killed off, but it's clear that the voice actors, not the characters, are the ones who are talking.
• Piemations did a sketch called "Meet the Amazing Tracer" where the titular Overwatch character meets the Doctor from Doctor Who. When he tells her his name, Tracer naturally responds with "Doctor Who?" Cut to the scriptwriter looking at the gag he's just written, and shaking his head in disgust.
• Homestar Runner's characters have a high degree of Medium Awareness and sometimes seem to be actors.
  • "The King of Town" and "In Search of the Yello Dello" have DVD Commentary tracks by the characters, implying that the events are fictional and that they were acting (albeit As Themselves).
  • There are many Show Within a Show segments, including Teen Girl Squad, Dangeresque and Sweet Cuppin' Cakes. Some of the characters in these are clearly portrayed or voice-acted by members of the main cast of (animated) characters.
  • In the Strong Bad Email "original," not only are the characters implied to be actors but Strong Bad claims they are frequently replaced. He reminisces about the "original Bubs," a clearly-different animated character playing the "role" of Bubs. However by the end of the toon, Bubs arrives and claims Strong Bad is lying and that he is the original, one-and-only Bubs.
  • Missy Palmer, who voices Marzipan, has revealed that her Alternate Character Interpretation is that the characters are a Universal-Adaptor Cast playing various roles.
  • Homestar is occasionally portrayed as a celebrity in-universe, and some shorts show him being used as endorsement for drinks, hosting a recurring game show, and even starring in a long-running email series like Strong Bad's.
• Done in most of the Red vs. Blue PSAs, which traditionally start with:
  Hi. I'm [character], from the popular web series, Red vs. Blue.
  And I'm [character], from the same show.

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