15 Funniest Times Movies Broke The Fourth Wall
4. Spaceballs
Blazing Saddles isn't the only time that Mel Brooks broke the fourth wall- it's a trope he uses in many of his films. Maybe the best use of breaking the fourth wall in any of his movies comes in one of his underrated gems, Spaceballs.
In the Muppet Movie, the band Electric Mayhem refer to the script to find their friends. The villains in Spaceballs use a VHS copy of the film Spaceballs to track down the location of Lone Star and his companions. The humor of the scene doesn't just come from using the film's final product in aiding their search for their enemies, but in the way it does so. The oafish Dark Helmet, his prime henchman Colonel Sanders and a Storm Trooper stooge sit in front of a small video monitor as they fast-forward and rewind to find themselves in the present moment on the screen. Instant cassettes!
As they speed through the movie, the audience gets to revisit Dark Helmet crashing during a ludicrous-speed launch and gets to re-live his embarrassment all over again. When they reach the present time, "now now", Dark Helmet turns back to the camera, then back at the monitor. When he waves his hand up and down, not only does the Spaceballs The Movie VHS show the character raising his arm, but the monitor onscreen in THAT monitor shows Dark Helmet also watching himself on an even smaller monitor. It's enough to make Charlie Kaufman weep.