Surprise 4th wall breakage

[Velocity]

I paused The Flash (planning to hit the fridge) while Barry and Iris were talking at her house and noticed for the first time that they have the exact same dining room set that I've had for several years. Dining room table and chairs and china cabinet. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. Has anyone else had a similar experience of something familiar in the background that pulled you out of the story in movies or tv?

 

[trekkiedane]

It happens a lot in old American tv-shows and films that an interior is suppposed to give an air of sophistication and upper-class living -more often than not it was done (amongst other ways) by putting a Bang & Olufsen stereo system in the room...

I grew up believing all rich Americans had the same stereos that everyone I knew around here had.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sometimes the same set shows up on L&O-verse shows two or three times a season.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Happens to me every time I see the Batmobile - kind of takes away the mystery when you and the hero own the same kind of car.

 

[B.J.]

You drive a Lincoln Futura!?

But yes, I had the same thing happen watching The Expanse. It pulls me out even more because this is supposed to be several hundred years in the future, but I see something familiar. My posts from that thread:

Also, bit of a funny moment for me when they showed the puck shaped device that Alex was using to pilot the Rocinante. I have that exact same device sitting here on my desk! It's a SpaceExplorer by 3dconnexion that I use to manipulate models in 3D CAD programs. (They were possibly using the similar SpacePilot, I'd have to see it again to be sure.) I suppose it's fitting that they're using it to control a spacecraft!

Oh, and I found some pictures to go along with my earlier observation! I still think it's cool that I have one of these on my desk! (Spoiler tag only because of large images)

Spoiler: Roci controls / SpaceMouse

 

[matthunter]

Jim Slip's porn set has the same sofa as my house. OK it's IKEA so would be fairly common, but it still throws me that he's having more fun on it than I do on mine.

 

[Triskelion]

Yeah, in Mutant X they once broke into Genomex, and Jesse used a cushion-flip-lid device to hack into the system. Later in the third season, Mason Eckhart's henchman telekinetically snatched an information disc from the team and placed it in a cushion-flip-lid case. Both items were the travel alarm clock I kept on my nightstand.

 

[Jedi_Master]

The fact that apparently mobile devices went the way of the Edsel in the 24th century always makes me chuckle. My iPhone has more functionality than a tricorder.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I've actually noticed my parents' dining table and chairs in quite a few TV shows and movies. Of course I can't find a picture or think of an example at this moment...but I swear I have seen these chairs all over the place. They must have been very popular in the mid-90s.

 

[thestrangequark]

Yes, a few times actually, but mine are all weird little things.

I'm not really a fan of the show Friends, but I've seen a handful of episodes, and it always weirded me out that Joey and Chandler had one of my favorite childhood dolls, a clown puppet with a rotating head that had a smiley face on one side and a frowny face on the other in their apartment.

The only picture I could find where it was visible is in the background of this gif, with the blue and red outfit (the blue was stars) and orange yarn clown hair. Frowny face forward:

My mom had (still has) this cat mug that was in 10 Things I Hate About You:

When this episode of Doctor Who aired I had the same jacket as Rose:

This rug also pops up in Supernatural a lot.

As well as other shows either going for that retro '70s look or period pieces. I know it was more of a staple of the time period and less unique than the other ones, but it always throws me because we had that exact rug in those exact colors when I was a kid, and I actually have a ton of memories of playing on it, sitting and watching Cosmos, napping on it, etc. I have so many fond memories I wanted to buy one, but they are like $1000 and I can't even find one in the original color scheme

 

[scotpens]

I live in Los Angeles, so my entire city is basically one big filming location. When Conquest of the Planet of the Apes used the Century City complex for most of its exterior scenes, my mother's reaction was: "Is that supposed to look futuristic? Hell, that's where I go to work every day!"

As for familiar furniture, here's the briefing room set from The Cage. I had that exact same black spider-base chair.

 

[Redfern]

"Spider base"? Is that the term used to describe chairs and tables having "feet" like that?

I'm not debating it; I honestly didn't know.

Anyway, my real point is that I'm surprised any chairs from the early 60s had more than 4 "spider legs" (like the famous Burke model bridge seating). I thought the notion of 5 or 6 legs did not come into vogue until the 80s to better prevent tipping.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Finn]

I was watching one of those home renovation shows on HGTV the other side. They were going though a fixer-upper the hosts had just bought to be renovated. One of the rooms had the same (or very similar as the camera panned away quickly) wallpaper as our bathroom has.

 

[JWPlatt]

Finding things on screen in the possession of characters who live in the same universe and times with the same history as we do is not breaking the "fourth wall." If they were in an alternate universe and there was a sly reference to ours, maybe that is. Maybe.

Breaking the "fourth wall" is really about characters directly acknowledging the audience - furniture, not so much.

 

[JoeZhang]

Because I'm into Watches, I'm often pulled out of a show when I notice a character wearing the same watch I have on that day.

 

[thestrangequark]

Finding things on screen in the possession of characters who live in the same universe and times with the same history as we do is not breaking the "fourth wall." If they were in an alternate universe and there was a sly reference to ours, maybe that is. Maybe.

Breaking the "fourth wall" is really about characters directly acknowledging the audience - furniture, not so much.

Meh. Characters acknowledging the artificiality of their environment is one way to break the fourth wall, but the metaphor has evolved well beyond that and applies to anything that challenges the illusion of theatre, otherwise people wouldn't apply it to things like certain forms of satire (like genre self-awareness) and mockumentary. I think the OP is using the term correctly.

 

[farmkid]

When labs are featured in TV shows I often see the same model of lab equipment that I use regularly. There have been a couple of shows that I swear had sponsorship deals with certain manufacturers because I would see their centrifuges, pipettes, etc. all the time.

I was especially amused in an early episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when Fitz put something into an instrument to do some sciency thing. The instrument was an Ion Torrent Proton DNA Sequencer, but what he was doing had absolutely nothing to do with DNA.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Whenever I see a show with someone using a smartphone, I think, ZZOMMMMGGG, they have smartphones on TV too!
Yeah.

 

[scotpens]

Breaking the "fourth wall" is really about characters directly acknowledging the audience - furniture, not so much.

What about actors who have the personality of furniture?

 

[JWPlatt]

Like Horace Slughorn in Half-Blood Prince who turned into an armchair?