Ask Lemmy

The lusty argonian maid

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite examples of this, especially because the "story within the story" is the main story, which is unusual.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fake old movie that plays in Home Alone. "I'm gonna give you till the count of 10 to get your ugly yeller no good keester off my property before I pump your guts full of lead! One... Two... Ten!" 🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫

Community has Inspector Spacetime and the Kickpuncher movie series.

30 Rock has quite a few good ones:

• M.I.L.F Island
• Bitch Hunter
• TGS
• The satirized version of NBC in the show (lots of 'biting the hand' humor)

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

by Douglas Adams is a book about a book called "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

Wormhole X-Treme! from Stargate SG-1

Tool Time in Home Improvement

"Sick, Sad World" from Daria

Interdimensional Cable from Rick and Morty is outrageous. GTA's radio stations (VCPR was the best) and TV shows are often really funny. The Pißwasser beer commercial from IV always gets me.

Control: Threshold Kids

and Bitch Hunter from 30 Rock

The "I'd buy that for a dollar!" guy from Robocop.

Tropic Thunder movie previews

Ballfondlers from Rick and Morty

Impotent Rage from GTA V

The Silver Shroud from Fallout 4

“Scary door” from Futurama

It’s a play on the twilight zone and it’s quite something.

“A casino where I’m always winning? This must be heaven!” “A casino where I always win… I must actually be… IN HELL!”

“No Mr. smith. You’re not in heaven or hell. You’re on an airplane!”

“Help! There’s a gremlin destroying the plane! You’ve gotta believe me!”

“Why should I believe you?! You’re Hitler!”

For those interested: The Scary Door

"The Wall" in Solar Opposites. It's arguably better than the main story.

The Adventures of Captain Proton from Star Trek: Voyager!

"Ya Heard? With Perd!" in parks and recreation.

The book House of Leaves is presented as a documentary within a book within a book. Really fun read, too

If games count then all the radio stations in GTA

“Invitation to Love”, the soap opera within the show “Twin Peaks”.

McBain in The Simpsons is a classic.

This video stitches the movie together somewhat.

https://youtu.be/BzjfrdcN1Z8?si=G84IdUwMkfPKDm3w

The lore books in The Elder Scrolls series, hands-down.

There is an entire universe of conflicting knowledge, personal bias, and unreliable narrators that leave Tamriel's history feeling very real, and very open to interpretation. The fun of it is piecing together the truth somewhere in the middle. But I'll die on the hill that the Arcturian Heresy is absolute horseshit written by a madman, and comparable to the scribbles of a paranoid schizophrenic on an anti-vax forum. Anyone who references that volume in regards to Tiber Septim and the forming of the empire is an impressionable dweeb.

Three Dog, the radio DJ for "Galaxy News Radio" within Fallout 3, was one of the best parts of the game.

The Fallout series has lots of other media within media too, like the Grognak the Barbarian comic series or Cat's Paw magazine.

the Wall in Solar Opposites.

Teen Girl Squad!

HYPNOTOAD

Threshold Kids in the Video game control it was a kids TV series to teach kids in the game about the FBC it was kinda bonkers

I haven't finished the book, but I have to give it to the "Navidson record" in "House of leaves".

House of leaves is a book about a guy who finds a manuscript about a movie that doesn't exist. So there are multiple layers on the narrative, from near to far you have:

• The editor who's editing the book
• The writer of the book (Johnny) who tells his story and what he finds in the manuscript
• The person who wrote the manuscript (Zampano) and his views on the movie
• The documentary "The Navidson record" which the manuscript is describing. Filmed by Navidson (who's, as far as Johnny can tell, a fictional character in a fictional movie that never existed)

The reason why I have to give it to that particular piece of media within media is that everyone else in the book is a pain in the ass that feels that you have to drag yourself to in order to get to the next chapter of the Navidson record. So in a way it's a fictional media within a fictional media that's better than the fictional media it belongs to.

And in case you haven't heard of house of leaves, I'll leave you with a page from the book:

Here's a website about those kinds of fake shows

https://nestflix.fun/

Homer’s Odyssey.

Most modern adaptations present the stories Odysseus tells while visiting the Phaeacians as if they were the actual plot—but Homer’s audience would have known Odysseus as a notorious liar and trickster and wouldn’t necessarily have regarded his stories as true even within the context of the frame narrative. Homer’s epic focuses as much on the parallel stories of Telemachus and Penelope—I read the underlying story as their struggle to untangle Odysseus from his own web of deceptions and fantasies and bring him back to reality.

This is not exactly what you're asking for (media inside media), but it's really close in spirit (nested narratives), and I really like it: a book written in Portuguese in the XIX century, called Noite na Taverna (Night in the Tavern).

The book has an overarching story of friends telling each other stories in a tavern, over booze; with all those nested stories being about love, despair, and death (it has a strong gothic vibe).

And, as each character tells the others a story, there's always that fishy smell that the story might be actually bullshit; and other characters do raise some doubts about its in-universe veracity (like Bertram does to Solfieri). And you, as the reader, do the same - but in no moment you question the veracity of the overarching story, and you feel like you're inside the tavern alongside the drunkards.

So it's a lot like the author is toying with your suspension of disbelief - redirecting it from the overarching story to the nested stories, and as you doubt the later you get even more immersed into the former.

If I must use an example of media within media, then my choice would be "The Book" within Orwell's 1984. I think that it's a great piece because it shows Orwell's views on politics and society, while still serving narrative and worldbuilding purpose - for Winston it's a material proof of the Inner Party's bullshit, for O'Brien it's a tool of the Inner Party to sniff out dissidence. (Note: 1984 is extremely misrepresented nowadays, I'm aware, but I still like it.)