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Star Trekkin' across the universe...
Zapp: Captain's Log, stardate... uhh...
Kif: [sighs] April thirteenth!
Zapp: April thirteenth... point two.

A voiceover of the lead character talking out a journal or diary entry. At the beginning of the show, this is used to allow the main character to be Mr. Exposition, or to remind watchers of a Story Arc of which the current episode is a part.

Given that this usually supposed to be an official record of a commander's duties, there's some opportunity for humor when he experiences some embarrassing problems or has to make a difficult decision. In that situation, he often has to struggle to phrase his log recording in a way that could downplay it without getting into trouble for writing a false report.

In the beginning of the show, it's used to quickly establish exposition and the background of the story, and perhaps mention a Chekhov's Gun.

In the middle of the show, it's used to move slow plot points forward (usually things that you suspect were once scenes but were cut for time, budget and/or script pacing).

At the end of the show, it's used to sum up the plot and deliver a "Lesson of the Day" Speech.

One element of this trope that often goes unexplained is the question of when the character had the time to make all of these entries (always in present tense) while in the middle of said dangerous situations. Especially when he wouldn't plausibly have any down or quiet time, let alone access to a recording device. Is he keeping a log in his head?

If it's being used for exposition purposes when the viewpoint characters are Late to the Tragedy it probably fits better under Apocalyptic Log, but the two can overlap. Compare Private Eye Monologue, a similar narrative style typically used in Film Noir, and Recap by Audit, in which the description takes the form of financial report.

Has absolutely nothing to do with a Ninja Log.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Trope Namer 
  • Classic Star Trek uses this trope in virtually every episode, and the trope is named for it. Kirk would often dictate his log at the start of the show and after every commercial break. Sometimes this discarded all logic, as when he dictated about things he didn't know yet, or recorded his log when he was nowhere near a recording device. The Captain's Log was planned as the narrative device for the show by Robert Justman and Herb Solow as a quick way of orienting the viewer in situations that could have been confusing. Variations of the concept throughout the franchise include:
    • In the original series, in Season 2, there was at least one case when the log was played when Kirk was captive (with hands up etc.) so it was apparently recorded from memory.
    • In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Kirk tries to record his log into an electronic device... and the device malfunctions. "GOOD MORNING, CAPTAIN."
    • In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the log is actually a plot point. It's used in Kirk's trial with the Klingons, which leads to him figuring out who The Mole was since it was the only person who could have heard him making the recording.
    • Sometimes Kirk will forget that the plot device isn't a diary, and he's not supposed to put how sad and helpless he feels when (usually) Spock is in trouble. However this often involves a Personal Log which is presumably not part of the official Starfleet record.
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" takes place in an alternate timeline where the Federation has been at war with the Klingons for twenty years. Captain Picard gives his usual voiceover, but he's recording a "military log" and using "combat dates" rather than Stardates.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • Odo starts recording security logs in "Necessary Evil" at the request of Sisko. He gripes: "The reason for this exercise is beyond my comprehension, except perhaps that Humans have a compulsion to keep records and files — so many, in fact, that they have to invent new ways to store them microscopically. Otherwise, their records would overrun all known civilization. My own very adequate memory not being good enough for Starfleet, I am pleased to put my voice into this official record of this day. Everything's under control. End log." Right after this however, Odo finds himself investigating a murder mystery and his log entries become the equivalent of a Private Eye Monologue.
    • The episode "In the Pale Moonlight" uses the Captain's Log as a framing device for the story as Sisko recounts how the Romulans were convinced to join on the Feds side of the War. Since the story involves several serious crimes Sisko was party to and is struggling to live with, Sisko actually winds up destroying the logs.
    • When the Cardassians retake Deep Space Nine from the Federation, Gul Dukat actually makes some log entries of his own. This isn't too surprising, since Cardassians being obsessively thorough about records (to the point their military academies had filing instructors) was a frequent plot point.
  • Star Trek: Voyager:
    • "The Cloud" lampshades the franchise staple with something similar to Left the Background Music On. Janeway makes the usual episode-opening log entry as a voice-over monologue while on a stroll through the ship, ending with:
      Janeway (voice-over): ... I only wish I felt larger-than-life.
      Janeway (speaking aloud): Computer, delete last sentence.
    • In "Threshold" Chakotay and Tuvok witness the results of the hyper-evolved Paris and Janeway coming out of the hole they were hiding in and heading for the nearest swamp. Chakotay remarks that he's not entirely sure how he's going to enter all this into the log, and Tuvok tells him that he looks forward to reading those log entries.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise:
    • Archer is often shown dictating his starlogs in real-time rather than a simple voiceover, more so than the other captains. He also has a tendency to pause his recordings to discuss things with his dog, Porthos.
    • The Mirror Universe two-parter treats us to the villainous logs of Captains Forrest and Archer in turn.
  • On Star Trek: Discovery, all the log entries we get to hear (at least in season 1) are recorded by Michael Burnham, who isn't a captain (save for when she impersonated her Mirror Universe counterpart as captain of ISS Shenzhou). Future seasons include the logs of the other officers.
  • Star Trek: Prodigy started using these in the episode "Dreamcatcher", although it doesn't happen in every episode. Usually it's Dal, the self-appointed Captain, doing these but sometimes another character will do them.
  • Not only does the Captain keep an official log, but so do a number of officers — including the science officer, second officer, chief engineer, chief medical officer, and so on. Many people were shown to keep personal logs which may be in addition to their official logs. In both the Next Generation episode "Reunion" and the Deep Space Nine episode "Whispers", K'Ehleyr and Chief O'Brien respectively go through each log in turn for specific time frames trying to find out just what the hell is going on.
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds may take the cake in this regard, as seemingly everybody in the cast gets a turn at narrating a log at some point in the first season. From Captain Pike and Science Officer Spock it's expected due to their respective positions, but later Cadet Uhura gets to do a few. Even T'Pring gets in on the action, and she's not even a member of Starfleet (she works on Vulcan trying to rehabilitate criminals.)
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks continues the tradition of Captain's logs and logs from other Senior officers, but now also has logs from the lower ranking Junior officers who, as the name implies, are the main focus of the series.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Astra Lost in Space: Aries gives the brief overview of what's been going on as the group pass through and explore planets.
  • Midori's diary entries in Midori Days.
  • Arika's letters to her mysterious patron early in My-Otome.
  • Kamiyama's letters to his mother in Cromartie High School.
  • Baccano! 1711 - Whitesmile is separated by several interludes in the form of status reports sent by Victor to his employer, Lucrezia de Dormentaire. The thing is, he was also sleeping with her. And since he figured that Szilard and Carla would send more formal reports covering all the boring details anyways, he decided to personalize his own. Acquiring immortality shortly after the mission, he comes to regret this in 2002 when one of his underlings finds them in a dossier regarding the Lotto Valentino bombings.
    Inspector Jennifer: Would it be acceptable to begin my reports to you with 'Hey. How've you been? Feel any lonely 'cause I haven't written to you in so long'?
  • Magic Knight Rayearth: The Sega Saturn game has each of the three protagonists write illustrated diary entries about the towns they visit. Given that they're a Power Trio of fourteen-year-old girls (Hikaru as The Kirk, Umi as The McCoy, and Fuu as The Spock) they are subject to Unreliable Narrator and invoked Alternate Character Interpretation about their adventures and the people they meet. One of the villains also records one about how he's Surrounded by Idiots.

    Comic Books 

    Fan Works 
  • The Next Frontier spoofs the Trope Namer (or its local equivalent) in-universe with the Captain's Blog but nevertheless uses it straight as a Framing Device for exposition and world-building that pulls double-duty as a Fourth-Wall Mail Slot.
  • The lead character of Empath: The Luckiest Smurf occasionally begins the story with an entry in his personal journal, and in some stories updates his journal with things that took place in the story from his perspective.
  • The same thing also happens with the lead character of Hero: The Guardian Smurf.
  • Bait and Switch fics usually ignore this entirely, in keeping with the Mildly Military nature of Captain Kanril Eleya, but "Frostbite" opens with a classical Star Trek log entry from her executive officer Commander Tess Phohl.
    "First Officer’s Log, Stardate 87234.2. The Bajor has been on patrol in the Rolor Nebula north of Deep Space 9 for the last week. Twelve hours ago our long-range sensors detected a previously uncharted Class M world orbiting Alpha Quinque Fratres, a G 2 V yellow dwarf star, same as Sol or B’hava’el. Per standard protocol we’re now on approach to investigate."
  • Prodigal Son: How to Train your Dragon by Hiccup Haddock III.
  • Not surprisingly for a story that owes so much both to the trope namer and The Martian, The Westerosi uses this trope extensively; everything written from Captain Hasegawa's first-person POV is taken either from her literal Captain's Log or messages to and from Starfleet.
  • Rocketship Voyager. Captain Janeway verbally dictates her captain's log, but because she's in a 1950's Pulp Magazine sci-fi she has to splice and tape her log by hand rather than tell her computer to delete her last sentence when she does a Verbal Backspace. She also gives an ordinary date instead of a stardate, as humanity hasn't discovered Faster-Than-Light Travel yet.

    Film 
  • Avatar with Jake Sully's video logs.
  • The Bounty had both Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian keeping logs.
  • The Man Who Skied Down Everest: For this documentary about Yuichiro Miura's quest to climb up Mt. Everest so he could ski back down it, the narration is actually excerpts from Miura's diary, written as the expedition went along.
  • Once Upon a Time in Mexico featured an FBI agent who was constantly giving a running commentary on what he was doing into a concealed tape recorder, presumably to be used as a record of what he thinks is a semi-legitimate investigation into a drug lord.
    • If one assumes that he is the Hero of Another Story (as he is presented in the movie), then this could very well be the source of the narration if he were the star. As it is, he ends up spending much of the movie talking to himself and commenting on whatever foolish thing he is about to do.
  • Used by April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990).
  • Various entries in the Terminator franchise use this plot device to justify Sarah Connor's voice-over narration.
  • Watchmen has Rorschach's journal.
  • 12 to the Moon. A member of the crew (not The Captain) records the historic events of the first Moon landing as they happen; unfortunately as the audience can also see it happening, this becomes a Captain Obvious Log instead.
    [While being bombarded by meteors] "We are constantly being bombarded by falling rocks."
  • A different take on this occurs in Gravity. Despite being cut off from Mission Control, the protagonists continue to transmit to them (even asking permission for various actions) in case they or someone else can hear their transmissions and help in some way. This serves as a handy means of exposition for the audience, as well as providing dialogue when a protagonist is by themselves.
  • Tom Servo makes a few jokes about this trope in MST3K: The Movie
    "Captain's Log: a bunch of our ship fell off and no one likes me."
  • In Penguins of Madagascar, Skipper delivers one after the penguins are stranded at sea without food and water.
  • As Woman in the Moon is a silent movie, the audience is shown a close-up of the log being written, though it's still used for the same exposition reasons.
  • In Operation Petticoat, Captain Sherman makes a few log entries that only make sense to anyone privy to the bizarre circumstances of their voyage.
    "Sighted tanker; sank truck."
  • Captain Ron: Boat owner Martin starts a log of their adventures as they sail through the Caribbean doing up their old sailing yacht on the way, but his jealousy of Captain Ron's easy charm with his family leads to it becoming just a book of complaints about everything Ron does. After Ron saves them from the real life version of the pirates of the Caribbean, Martin starts a new log which is much less crabby and notes that the previous log mysteriously got destroyed by the pirates.
  • In Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lando Calrissian tries to record an entry on Kessel, but gets interrupted when their mission goes Off the Rails.
  • Given a Shout-Out by Toy Story: When Buzz first "lands", he begins recording, and says "stardate". He later gives a Vulcan Salute to Woody.

    Literature 
  • Averted in the Aubrey-Maturin books. Aubrey's log is referred to occasionally, along with the logs kept by the Sailing Master, the midshipmen (which Aubrey reviews as part if their training) and there is also a scene where Aubrey specifically refers to his log while appearing before a Navy Board, but the use of "Captains Log" as exposition never appears.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Taken a few steps further in one of the X-Wing Series novels, where Wraith Squadron captures an enemy ship where the Captain stores his Captain's Log in hologram form. We're talking hours of holo-footage here. There's so much of it that the Wraiths are able to use it cobble together a CGI Captain to mess around with the Big Bad of the novel in a rather delicious Indy Ploy. The sequence is a subtle Take That! to Star Trek, as the characters find the concept ridiculous and lambast it as an example of the captain's arrogance.
    • Mace Windu records a series of journal entries in the novel Shatterpoint, one of which includes commentary from Nick Rostu.
    • In Star Wars: Kenobi, Ben's meditations, addressed to his Spirit Advisor Qui-Gon—who has yet to answer—take the place of journal entries, sharing his thoughts on the book's events with the readers. Other than in these meditations, Ben is a Non P.O.V. Protagonist.
  • The first couple of paragraphs of The War of the Worlds form an opening narration that sets the scene, then goes above and beyond Foreshadowing only to explicitly lay out the premises of the story that is about to come, namely that we are about to witness an invasion, that the invaders will be from Mars, and that they will ultimately die, mentioned in reverse order.
  • Frequently used by John Wyndham, with several books opening with a description of what situation humanity will be in by the end of the book. In addition, since the books are often framed as an in-universe account by the main character, some entire books could be seen as fitting the trope. The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes are probably the two best examples.
  • Parodied in The Witches of Karres: Captain Pausert makes an entry about battling space pirates to explain some unauthorized target practice on a nearby asteroid.
  • The original Dracula uses this trope for exposition in one chapter, and somewhat unusually the result bears a passing resemblance to a genuine ship's log of the period; remarks about the increasingly weird goings-on aboard the ship initially take a back seat to everyday stuff like position, condition of the ship and provisions etc.
  • A bit over half of the text of The Martian is astronaut turned reluctant Martian colonist Mark Watney making these sorts of log entry, partly for posterity but also because it's that or talk to a volleyball or something.
  • The first chapter of Ravenor Returned has the titular Inquisitor writing a report for his superiors, summarizing the events of the previous book and explaining how he plans to continue his investigation.
  • Suspecting that something is very wrong with Captain Kirk in the Star Trek novel Ghost-Walker, Spock reviews Captain Kirk's official log and hacks into Kirk's private, personal log. He quickly realizes that the style changed drastically in Kirk's official log after the visit to Midgwis and made no entries at all to his personal log since leaving that world. While Kirk didn't make entries to his personal log every day the length of time since he had made an entry was unusual. This leads Spock to conclude that Kirk was not himself. (Later he would realize that Kirk's body had been taken over by a Midgwin and the "ghost" haunting the Enterprise was actually the disembodied spirit of Captain Kirk).

    Live-Action TV 
  • JD of Scrubs constantly talks in voice-over, a internal monologue, and so serving the same role as a Captain's Log. These voice-overs also serve as An Aesop and Double Aesop in, quite literally, every episode.
  • Agent Cooper's dictaphone notes to Diane (his never-seen secretary) on Twin Peaks serve a similar function.
  • Janeane Garofolo's character on Felicity, as the never-seen therapist sending dictated comments serves as both An Aesop and a Captain's Log in reverse.
  • And of course both Doogie Howser, M.D. and Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City summarizing their episodes, quandries and lessons into their computers. In Carrie's case, speaking out loud as she writes her column.
    • In Doogie's case, this continues in the reboot, but in an update, Doogie is not writing a journal for a study he's in, but is a teenaged influencer making a vlog.
  • Early seasons of The X-Files had Agent Scully writing reports to her superiors at the end of many of the Monster of the Week episodes. In the final seasons, after David Duchovny left the show, Scully read her journal entries as letters to the missing Mulder.
  • John-boy Walton of The Waltons kept a journal, and apparently couldn't write without moving his lips...
  • The early episodes of Red Dwarf often had the ship's AI, Holly, give a spoof captain's log, which (with one exception) were merely one-line gags with no relevance to the plot of the episode.
    • And again, in later episodes where a hologram from a hologram ship "beams" aboard Starbug and documents the surroundings into a Dictaphone, Lister whips out a cigarette packet and gives his own captain's log. They both trade witty banter discussing each other until Lister mentions having a holo-whip capable of causing pain to holograms which ends the scene. Lister also ate the cigarette for some reason.
  • On the pilot episode of Sliders, Quinn Mallory keeps a videotaped log, so that the audience can follow along with what he's doing. Later, Wade's handwritten diary is used for the occasional introductory voiceover.
  • Babylon 5 uses this fairly frequently, especially in the later seasons. In this case, not only Captain Sheridan keeps a log, but also Commander Ivanova and Doctor Franklin. Sometimes a distinction is made between their personal and professional logs, and occasionally other characters narrate in a similar way, though without the "Log" intro at the beginning of the voiceover. They are generally used to show the characters' thoughts and reactions in a way that couldn't be done through dialogue, and they additionally help with the intended feel that the show is a historical record of events long-past.
  • Quark parodies this, along with almost everything else from the original Star Trek.
  • Starhunter has a few of these, which is to be expected since it's a space exploration show. There's no stardates though, and he's a bit more of a Terse Talker than normal captains.
  • When 3rd Rock from the Sun did story arcs, Dick explained what happened last week with a Trek-style "High Commander's Log". Sally and Tommy later got into the act as well and, in fact, the first time Sally did this, she opened with "Lieutenant's Log; yes, I have one too."
  • The earlier episodes of Roswell began this way. It even became a Plot Point in one episode when Liz lost the journal and had to recover it before anyone discovered what she had written about the aliens.
  • The main character in The Invisible Man starts every episode with a famous quote, usually foreshadowing the episode's plot.
    • One episode had Darien narrating a flashback and starting it off with a quote, causing the listener to stop him ask him about his quoting.
  • Each First Wave episode starts with a fake Nostradamus quote, followed by the hero's exposition of what it could possibly mean. Sounds like he is reading from a journal.
  • Sheldon keeps a log on The Big Bang Theory, including stardate. With appropriately geeky attention to detail, the stardate is correct, working from 1987 (the first season of STTNG) as stardate 41000.
  • Good Luck Charlie: The titular baby's big sister Teddy is a recording a video diary with pearls of wisdom (mixed in with her own self-glorification) for her sister when Teddy (being a decade and a half older) is out on her own. It forms a substantial portion of the narrative.
  • The "Dear Dad' episodes of M*A*S*H used Hawkeye's letters home for the same purpose. Letters by Fr. Mulcahy, Radar, Klinger and Col. Potter were also used. Major Winchester taped nearly all his correspondence to his family, creating an actual (rather than mental) vocal narrative.
  • The title character's diary on Mr. Belvedere is the "end-of-the-episode" version.
  • The first few episodes of The Vampire Diaries begin and end with bits from Elena's diaries about dating Stefan (who's a vampire) and coping with life and stuff. These voice-overs were ditched at the same time the show became awesome.
  • The captain's log becomes a plot point in Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica (2003). After the Galactica encounters the Pegasus and Admiral Cain takes command of the fleet, she reorganizes the crews of both ships specifically in response to the picture of favoritism toward Apollo and Starbuck painted by Commander Adama's own words.
  • Michael Weston's voiceovers in Burn Notice function this way, as though he were teaching a class or writing a book on how to be a spy.
  • Blake's 7. In "Orac", Blake uses a Flight Log entry to fill in Avon and the audience on the previous episode's events. We never see any reference to this trope again, which is just as well because a Rebel Leader keeping a log of his activities would be a major Idiot Ball if the Liberator were captured, which it is on several occasions.
  • Used in the Title Sequence of Ark II to introduce the main characters.
  • Billy Ray Cyrus' Doc. Each episode ends with the titular character, NYC transplant Dr. Clint Cassidy, doing a voice-over monologue as he types out an email to his mentor back home in Montana about recent events and the life lessons learned from them.

    Music 
  • Back To The Ship follows the increasingly nonsensical Captain's Logs of Captain Kirk after he ingests way too much LSD. In particular, it does a great job of mocking the precisely numerical nature of the original logs:
    "Stardate 2 point... something, f*** it, I've taken too much LSD."
  • "Nosferatu" by Blue Öyster Cult combines this with Apocalyptic Log:
    The ship pulled in without a sound
    The faithful captain long since cold
    He kept his log 'til the bloody end
    Last entry read: "Rats in the hold
    My crew is dead, I fear the plague"

    Podcasts 
  • The Magnus Archives: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, introduces himself, explains his job and makes his excuses for the chaotic state of the archive at the beginning of the first episode.

    Radio 

    Video Games 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: In her search for her brother, Ann comes across voice messages left behind by Ryan detailing his search for N540 after receiving an anonymous tip.
  • Halo Wars plays this straight. In this case, though, it goes: Captain's Report, February 14, 2531. Just to be different.
  • The Neverwinter Nights 2 module "Dark Waters" has a parody of this trope as a dialogue option at the end of the first chapter, with the player commenting that he didn't bang any green skinned space babes on this particular voyage, and Daniel and Heather giving classic Spock/McCoy reactions.
  • Kazuma Ardygun from Super Robot Wars W keeps a diary that he writes on at the beginning of each chapter. When he can't update it, his sister Mihiro takes over for him.
  • Borderlands has many ECHO logs from a variety of characters, but the one that matches this trope best is the collection of logs made by General Knoxx. He tends to complain about the Admiral, his life on the planet, the Admiral, sponges, cupcakes, the Admiral and the Admiral.
  • The Curse of Monkey Island opens with Guybrush recounting the events of his adventure up to that point, while adrift in a bumper car.
  • Sonic Frontiers: The Egg Memos obtained by fishing and trading tokens with Big are audio logs created by Eggman, showing his perspective during the game's events.
  • Space Quest V: The Next Mutation: Roger Wilco begins with this, before escalating into an intense battle...that gets suddenly interrupted by Captain Quirk who tells Cadet Wilco to get out of the bridge simulator.
  • Battle Zone 1998: Missions start off with a spoken journal record of the Player CharacterGrizzly One detailing his thoughts and feelings about being in the Cold War gone hot. The sequel, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, likewise starts each mission off with a journal by the player character, John Cooke, showing his divided loyalties when stranded halfway across the universe god-knows-where.
  • Sunrider has Kayto Shields dictate entries for his captain’s log on several occasions.These entries usually indicate that the plot has jumped ahead a few days or weeks, and serve to bring the player up to speed on what’s happened since the last scene. He even prefaces them with the words "Captain’s log", in a shout out to the Trope Namer.
  • A Hat in Time: Hat Kid has a diary, but she's hidden it on her spaceship. It's under the pile of pillows in her bedroom. Use the Ice Hat to reach it. The diary will have messages based on the last level you played.
  • Pikmin (2001): At the end of every day, Olimar will make an entry in his log, the contents of which depending on his accomplishments and discoveries during the day. He may chronicle his observations about the characteristics of the different Pikmin types, describe the various hostile creatures encountered, reminisce and worry about his family back home, or even wax philosophical about the nature of the alien planet on which he's stranded.
  • Puyo Puyo Tetris: Tee regularly logs reports about what is currently happening to his partner O which go...somewhere, not even Tee is certain where or who they go to. It’s revealed later on that they go to Ex, the Keeper of Dimensions.

    Web Comics 
  • Star Something: Spoofed. The very first comic shows the lead character assigning a random number to the stardate (and wondering why anyone else would be listening as it's a private log), and later we see why exactly it's called a captain's log.
  • Both Sluggy Freelance and Starslip have modernised/spoofed this with the "Captain's Blog".
    • In Sluggy, it's also parodied with a different "Captain's log" (he's a rabbit; it's the wooden kind of log, which he scratches and bites as I guess rabbits do) and then right away in the same comic by having the "text" he appears to be writing actually be another character speaking out loud. Basically amounts to a triple subversion.
  • Darths & Droids gets a lot of mileage out of this trope in Episode 521; playing the trope dead straight while at the same time giving a Shout-Out to the Trope Namer and doing an in-character As You Know. And it wouldn't be Darths and Droids without the GM taking a dig at the players for going Off the Rails.
  • In Far from Home, the log of the scout ship Calvin.

    Web Original 
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In Episode 12, Krillin makes a log during the trip to Namek.
    Krillin: Krillin's log, Stardate... uhh, November 28th. We've been flying for two weeks now. Starting to feel very pent up. Not just from being trapped on the ship of course, but from Bulma walking around in nothing but her underwear! I would relieve this tension, but I have had no alone time because THE TOILET KEEPS SCREAMING AT ME!!
    Toilet: Scheißen sie auf meinem gesicht!translation
    Krillin: I'm not sure how much longer I can last.
    Bulma: Krillin, are you saying something?
    Krillin: Nothing! (sotto voce) Goddamn cocktease...
  • The Logs of the Starship "Sierra Nacho" is obviously entirely told through the Captain's Log. And everybody else's logs as well.
  • At the very beginning of Starship, we see the captain's log from the starship that crashed on the bug planet 18 years ago.
  • The video variant of this forms the framing story of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. He even answers viewer mail.
  • In Alice Isn't Dead, the story takes the form of the narrator, a long-haul trucker, recording audio diary entries/letters to her wife Alice in the cabin of her truck, while fleeing a Humanoid Abomination stalker.
  • The Youtuber "Captain Shack" of the channel 'The XP Gamers" Does a vlog series entitled "Captain's Vlog"
  • Mahu: In "Second Chance", the captain of humanity's first exploration mission out of their system makes use of one.

    Western Animation 
  • In The Transformers' three part pilot, Spike uses his diary at the end of each episode as a framing device, but this was never used again. The Transformers Ladybird Books however, borrowed this from the show and used it occasionally.
  • Played with in Family Guy when Peter "narrates" his life for some reason
  • The Pilot Movie of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command takes the homage further than its source material; having Buzz making log entries incessantly, to the point where he's about to be brainwashed by the bad guys and opts to record his final moments — and the bad guys lampshade it but write it off as Buzz being a control freak as usual. Too bad for them he wasn't recording, he was transmitting and calling in the Big Dang Heroes.
  • The Futurama episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space" parodies this over and over again. Zapp trying to use Star Trek's "Stardate", which is nonsense in the Futurama world, Leela giving up when she fails to find An Aesop in the episode, and then there's this exchange:
    Zapp: Captain's journal, stardate 3000.6.
    Kif: Who are you talking to, sir?
    Zapp: You! Aren't you getting this?
    Kif: (sighs)
    • A cut scene from "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" was also to have featured Zapp's voice over to the Captain's log... a literal fallen tree that he found in the jungle.
    • Beast with a Billion Backs adds "Stardate... The Year of the Tiger."
    • Fry does a "delivery boy's log" in Into The Wild Green Yonder where he mentions he became part of Leela and Farnsworth's environmental survey because he fell asleep on what he thought was the toilet.
  • Practically every episode of Doug, involves Doug writing the episode's events into his journal.
  • The Incredible Hulk (1996): Many of the episodes open with Bruce talking into his tape recorder as part of an audio diary.
    • Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.: This cartoon features A-Bomb (Rick Jones) using social media as a way to create good publicity for Hulk and his team. Each episode usually begins with A-Bomb explaining the episode's plot to his social media fans and ends with Hulk himself (Banner is now in control of Hulk's mind) explaining the Aesop of the episode to social media followers as well.
  • A short on I Am Weasel that featured Weasel and Baboon as a captain and first mate on a ship has Weasel doing the traditional approach with paper, and Baboon using an actual log. Eventually, Weasel runs out of paper and has to use Baboon's log.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! started every animated segment with Mario's "Plumber's Log", setting up the exposition.
  • Dexter's Laboratory had an episode in which in the first few minutes, Dexter does a voice-over starting with "Dexter's Log, stardate 1234.5". This was one of the show's many homages to Star Trek, but still...
  • Skipper from The Penguins of Madagascar keeps his log on a handheld tape recorder.
  • One of the space episodes of The Ren & Stimpy Show has Captain Ren reporting to his log (not that one) with a helmet that sends thoughts bulging down a wire into a computer.
  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle's letters to Princess Celestia on the lesson of the episode are like this. Granted, unlike most examples, this happens at the end of each episode, but the basic idea is the same.
    • In season four the main cast actually get a collective diary to track the aesop of the day.
  • In the direct-to-video episodes of 3-2-1 Penguins!, Captain Zidgel does this at the end of the episode. In the T.V. version, he does so at the beginning of the episode.
  • In the Justice League episode "Hereafter", Superman finds himself depowered under a red sun. His commlink is working, but he isn't getting audio. On the off chance that his teammates are getting audio on the other end, he describes his situation with occasional updates.
  • Steven Universe: Parodied in "Your Mother and Mine" and "Letters to Lars". Lars, stuck in space as the de facto captain of a ragtag bunch of rejected "off-color" Gems, tries to give a captain's log. However, he's not certain of the date due to not having a way to tell time in space (saying things like "Captain's Log... I think it's Friday"), and the former episode shows he's not really recording it but just monologuing out loud, and Rhodonite wonders if they should be writing it down.
  • Ready Jet Go!: A few episodes like "What's Up With Saturn's Rings?", "The Mindysphere", and "One Small Step" show Sean recording monologues into a tape recorder, which he calls "Astronaut's Logs"

    Real Life 
  • This trope and human spaceflight are well-glued together. Vostok 3KA carried an onboard tape recorder, and the pilot was issued a notebook (complete with Sigil Spam, yes). The process of journal-keeping was not without incidents, however.

 
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The First Captain's Log

The first filmed episode (the third aired) with Captain Kirk dictating a captain's log.

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