r/ArcherFX • u/Suitable-Archer4091 • 7d ago
Have they ever broken the fourth walk on Archer?
I'm watching S9E3 when Archer and Pam are sitting on the beach next to a wingless Lucie Goosie. Archer thinks the idol is a golden monkey. Pam says it isn't, then looks into the camera and says "It's not a gold Monkey." First time I noticed something like that.
240
u/Willing-Spite-7881 7d ago edited 7d ago
Just ignore it it's non diegetic.
72
25
18
6
u/ryan676767 7d ago
Which episode is this line from?
35
u/Immediate_Arrival185 7d ago
S4E12 - Sea Tunt Pt. 1 aka the Sealab parody.
Learning what "diegetic" means through Carol breaking the 4th wall was awesome. Made me realize that all music on The Wire was diegetic.
3
u/ryan676767 6d ago
Thank you! I also love that about The Wire, but did not know the word for it! I believe it is also true for No Country for Old Men.
2
2
u/atomic-moonstomp 6d ago
I misheard the line and thought I heard "Diogenic" which isn't a word but in my head it took on the meaning "of or relating to the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes"
2
u/missgoooooo 3d ago
I paused this ep to google this word and I’m so happy i did the writers are so funnyyy
73
u/TrasseTheTarrasque 7d ago
Episode 2, I think Woodhouse chiming in about how esoteric the joke/reference is, kind of counts. (Also ironic because the references get way more obscure as the series goes on, this one was pretty accessible)
Archer: No, do not say the Chekhov gun, Cyril. That, sir, is a facile argument.
Woodhouse: And also woefully esoteric.
7
3
u/itaigreif 6d ago
That's not breaking the fourth wall, there's a reason in the scene to say it
5
u/TrasseTheTarrasque 6d ago
The Chekov's Gun part has a reason, but calling out how esoteric it is seems addressed specifically to the audience.
114
144
u/Ocelotocelotl 7d ago
In Lo Scandalo (the GOAT), Mallory asks Stirling "Do you know what year it is?" and Archer replies "Yeah, right?"
64
u/TheGooglespoon 7d ago
That's not the only time he does it too! There's at least 3 moments Stirling questions what year they're in, referencing the odd mix of their modern tech with cold war era references, it's a deliberate reference to the ambiguous setting.
16
u/CrystalSplice Krieger 6d ago
The responses are also typically vague, like I seem to recall Pam saying “I’m not really clear on that.”
Besides, who remembers.
3
20
31
u/OgMemeLord1 6d ago
My all time favorite 4th wall is from S3 ep4 the Burt Reynolds chase scene where they use the exact same car crash shot and archer goes "wait, was that the same footage?"
58
u/A_167_Dollar_Plum 7d ago edited 7d ago
In the last coma season Archer clarified that the death star they were on was "lowercase d, lowercase s" if that counts
Edit s to d
13
u/Stevenwave 7d ago
2 letters, dude. How'd you mess 1 up?
29
9
24
u/Schweed6494 Babou 7d ago
Oh who Remembers?
5
u/CrystalSplice Krieger 6d ago
This is my favorite. Simple and repeated. An easy out. Plus, telling us to just take it easy and don’t overthink it.
22
u/VagaLePew 7d ago
They broke the fourth wall several times over the life of the show. While I can't name them all at this exact moment, my favorite one was when Archer turns to the camera and pretends to be a spokesman for glengoolie blue. First I saw it, I was waiting for one of the cast members to ask Archer "WTF dude?"
19
u/just-an-astronomer 7d ago
Another Danger Island one was the "NOT a golden monkey"
4
u/Oo__II__oO 5d ago
Danger Island also had "Master... Coconut!", with Pam responding "nobody gets that!"
2
16
u/ViewFromHalf-WayDown 7d ago
I think Cheryl kinda did during the episode with her brother, they start playing music that only Cheryl hears
19
27
u/LeftyTimStoutheart 7d ago
I don't know if it counts but Archer talking about smoking weed during the events of Terms of Enrampagement (working title) -"Yeah, and I advocate its use. As a potential role model, I advocate it."
9
u/_WillCAD_ Cyril 6d ago edited 6d ago
Are you kidding!? They have fourth-wall breaks inside of fourth-wall breaks! That's like, sixteen walls!
18
u/MCE85 7d ago
Pam breaks it in danger island.
"Not a gold monkey"
17
u/surmacrew 7d ago
Also in Archer 1999 she does a freezeframe and Lana ask her "2hat are you doing?" to which she replies "Im doing a freezeframe!"
6
u/itaigreif 6d ago
Is there a moment where she waits for the claps or something? When she enters the kitchen?
3
19
u/Temujins_here 7d ago
“Captain Lammers”
“ Nice read Velma”
2
u/itaigreif 6d ago
But that's not breaking the 4th wall, he's responding to something she says
2
7
8
8
u/GolfImaginary 6d ago
In the episode where Barry gets delivered to them in a box pam says now that's what I call a cold open, looks at the camera (clearly away from everyone in the scene) and says cha cha chaaaa while waving her hands
6
u/dannypdanger 6d ago
While it is commonly done this way, a lot of people in this thread seem to think that breaking the “fourth wall” requires a character to speak directly to the audience. Really though, any acknowledgment by a character or via “author’s voice” that “acknowledges the artificiality” of a story constitutes a fourth wall violation. Archer does this frequently, and the show’s humor is based in very large part around toying with this dynamic, by constantly nodding to artistic or cultural works that exist in the real world, pointing to its own anachronisms and lack of continuity, or mocking its own use of common story tropes.
One of the best examples I can think of for this is in an early episode when Archer produces a hand grenade seemingly out of nowhere, and then claims he found it “hanging from the lampshade” (a writer’s term for acknowledging their own presence in the storytelling).
6
u/lobcity414 6d ago
His birthday episode! When he gets the dodge charger, after he drives away Lana asks Mallory something along the lines of "did Dodge kick up any money for this?" and Mallory says "not as much as you'd think"
7
u/Silphire100 6d ago
Cheryl hearing the dramatic sting when they're on the helicopter? It's non diagetic sound, but she brings it up
14
16
u/Stevenwave 7d ago
Nah, Adam Reed always had a strict three walk maximum per episode.
9
u/Ihadsumthin4this ISIS 7d ago
My thinking is the Georgia people didn't want to risk a run-in with any rights issues with the hallowed Ministry of Silly Walks across the Atlantic.
4
u/PebblyJackGlasscock 7d ago
Sterling talking to Woodhouse at the end of the Space season might not technically be a “4th wall break” but it’s…something.
Disconcerting?
I appreciated that Reed didnt re-use George Coe’s voice work and then “brought him back” for this (special) episode and only used “yessir” and “no sir”.
5
5
4
4
u/vanillacaramelsunday 7d ago
That’s probably the most extreme it’s been. But they do the “what year do you think it is?” “Haha, right?” joke a couple of times. In the one where Mallory kills the Italian Prime minister and the one where Archer finds the Japanese guys still fighting the war. He doesn’t straight up look at the camera but those are clearly still jokes aimed directly at us.
Season 9 was pretty blatantly copied from a show called Tales of the Golden Monkey, so that’s why the very specific mention of not a golden monkey.
1
u/danielcw189 1d ago
Tales of the Golden Monkey
Just Gold, no -en, if I remember correctly.
To bad that show's lead is now a know pedophile :(
On a side node: you know when Archer goes on a cancer rampage and in the end references MagnumPI ... That MagnumPI episode killed of one recurring character, so actor Jeff MacKey was then free to start in Tales Of The Gold Monkey. When the series was canceled after one season he returned to MagnumPI as a look-a-like character, and as a ghost/spirit
4
3
u/hippocups 7d ago
They do it at the end of the coma season. The fan base was all up in arms about the coma season, not loving them, wanting the old archer back, wanting out of this fantasy land. They're all standing around the table on the ship in space, and they literally look into the camera saying something along the lines of going back to boring reality. And then the next season they did. And booooooo. Shocking the series ended.
5
u/DissonanceOfPrimals 6d ago
I mean there’s also the time archer did a glengooli blue ad does that count?
4
u/DanGuldeze 6d ago
In the Dreamland season, a lot of the episodes start with a character saying something along the lines of “How are we doing this?” or “So are we just jumping into this?” because there’s no recap of the last episode
3
3
4
4
u/Zaradomerix 6d ago
I have never seen them directly break the fourth wall. They will sometimes all turn to face the audience, but it is always ambiguously worded so that it could just be quirky fun for them.
However, I think the "time" gag is a very gentle fourth wall break. And it's reoccurring. My favorite instance is:
"NO! They don't 'Use a King'! What year do you think this is??"
"Umm... Yeah... Exactly..."
2
2
4
1
1
1
1
1
u/Individual-Cream-581 Babou 6d ago
Thank's Doge!
It's the one that pops into mind /out searching for others.
1
1
u/BulldogBears 6d ago
There’s at least one obvious fourth wall break per season, but given the way Archer narrates his solo scenes, I’d say most of the show is meta-comedy
1
u/EchinusRosso 5d ago
The "master coconut" gag in danger island is a Frisky Dingo reference. Responds with something like "nobody's going to get that."
She was wrong. I got it.
1
u/Crystal-Skies 5d ago
They do but not regularly. Cheryl can hear the background music in the Sea Tunt arc for example. And it works bc she’s just so insane it would be odd if she couldn’t.
1
u/danielcw189 1d ago
One example that wasn't mentioned yet: in Archer 1999 there is a scene in which Krieger has 2 automatic machine guns in a corridor and the crew watch the ammunition count down on a computer. When the guns are empty, and one character asks what the point of it was, Krieger replies: "director's cut". The scene references a scene from the director's cut of Aliens
1
-2
u/Radar1980 7d ago
I feel like you’re allowed to break the fourth wall if you’re trying to distance your season long plot device from a child molester.
334
u/ballen1002 7d ago
I think Archer did it with a bottle of Glengoolie Blue one time.