The Fourth Wall

"The Fourth Wall" is the ninth episode of the third season of Teen Titans Go!, and the one-hundred-thirteenth overall episode of the series.

Summary[]

Control Freak informs the Titans that they are on a TV show he created and demands they earn him an award.

Plot[]

The episode starts out with Cyborg getting the Titans pumped up for TV night. everyone is sitting on the couch as Beast Boy turns on the TV. He starts flipping through some boring-looking channels until he gets to one with Control Freak on it. Robin says to change it, but Control Freak somehow stays on every channel. Raven and Starfire are getting annoyed at his interrupting on TV Night, but Control Freak says he's got the perfect show to watch. He turns on Teen Titans GO!, and the Titans realize it's them on the catchy theme song. They wonder why they are on a program, but Control Freak points out that they are a show. He tells them how he turned their everyday lives into a show, and now millions of people are watching them. All five Titans walk up to the fourth wall, and they start calling the viewers creeps (hey...) for watching their personal business. Control Freak tells them to stop antagonizing the audience. Robin, on the other hand, takes advantage of the camera and shows off some of his sweet muscles.

Robin then turns his attention back to Control Freak and demands the reason; he says it was to win awards and publicity, but it's just a bunch of junk. Starfire inquires why, and he points out that all they make is dooky jokes. Beast Boy also points out that they make toot ones to, and he lets one rip to humor us. Control Freak says that's just low brow humor, and Cyborg lowers his eyebrows in agreement. He brings up the acting, with the constant screaming, but Starfire explains that's just the way they are, shouting it of course. But the main problem is the animation, and Control Freak zooms out to show them some footage of cheap movements by Cyborg and Beast Boy. Robin fake sympathizes, stating that they don't care about him never winning a trophy. Control Freak threatens that if they don't shape up, he'll REBOOT them. Cyborg figures he's just bluffing, but he says he's done it already, with the original Teen Titans. He shows them some clips of the cartoon, and they all admire how cool looking and amazing they were back then. When the compilation ends, they're mad, asking why there was no sixth season or why Control Freak decided to cancel it. He agrees it was a poor idea, but rebooting Teen Titans GO! won't be! He demands that the Titans shape up, or they'll find themselves rebooted into a new show.

Robin starts going off about how this is very important, but he notices Beast Boy has gone off and started performing his "underpants dance" to the fourth wall. Raven is disgusted at his twerking and smashes him into the screen with her giant fist. Robin gets back to business with improving the show. Beast Boy chimes in that maybe they could keep tooting and telling dooky jokes, but Robin points out that that doesn't win any awards (but Beast Boy brings up that it does bring in the toilet paper). No, what they need is some smart people, civilized comedy. Everyone starts preparing for their new leaf: Starfire puts on elegant gloves, Beast Boy dresses himself with a bowtie, Cyborg wears a top hat, and Raven manages to raise her eyes, in a fancy way.

In the backyard, Cyborg tells Starfire a really lame joke about elections in a British accent. Beast Boy pulls a joke about pears on Raven, and then Robin rides up with a fancy getup on a horse, complimenting everybody's puns. He checks Cyborg's eyebrows with a scanner, with a positive "high eyebrows" result.

Next up, Robin wants to test the Titans' ability to act. He hands them lines about Mary taking a few ducks to the park. Cyborg fails at putting any sadness into it, so he deserved the tomato splattered in his face. Starfire just reads hers crazily, not with rage, and Raven's line is read about as emotionless as she always sounds. Beast Boy is booed offstage before even finishing a word. With a dazzling, dramatic performance, Robin shows the other Titans how its done on center stage, with heartfelt words of ducks eating bread crumbs (finished off with a powerful teardrop).

The last problem to be addressed is their animation. Raven brings a bunch of zombies back to life from under the floor, but Robin explains that's reanimation, so Raven makes em' just sink back down slowly. Robin says animation is people working hard day and night to bring life into drawings, which, notified by how awfully his words match up to his mouth, they are doing a bad job. Starfire says that maybe it's because of the poor budget, but Robin backfires with no excuses, and he turns to the cartoon operators. He commands them to change up a few factors and click some new resolution styles with their computer, Robin and the Titans have been given a new chubby, small-facial-features style. And with that, the Titans are all ready to make a great episode!

It (wow, an episode inside of an episode!) opens up at the Tower, with the new animation configuration. Cyborg, with his British accent, passionately asks for some rhubarb pie. Star jokes with his request in a manly tone, thinking it's the number π. Beast Boy and Raven compliment this joke in newly refined voices, and then Beast Boy proceeds to toot, but this time plays a jazzy song on a trumpet. Robin in a dignified speech commends the Titans for their civilized manner, stating they'll a gold trophy in no time. Control Freak reappears on the monitor, also congratulating them. Starfire wonders if he'll reboot them after all, but Control Freak says there's no need to- they've already done that themselves! Raven and Robin realize this and say he won't get away with this treacherous act, but it turns out he can; it only takes one press of a button to officially reboot them. Robin starts to say that the Titans should be true to themselves though, so he orders everyone to start tooting.

Starfire farts so hard that Silkie is blown away a little. Control Freak is disgusted at the low brow humor, but he's even more sickened when all the Titans point their butts at him and fart out a song. This act of low down humor brings them back to their original state, but Control Freak is about to hit the remote. However, the Titans are about to go down proud of who they are, immature low brows. This supposedly touches Control Freak's heart, but it turns out he was just kidding. As he moves in to reboot them, Robin figures that if "The Fourth Wall" between them an the audience is broken, he can't do so. Beast Boy as a ram head butts the screen, followed by kicks from Robin and punches from the others. The screen is cracked and goes black, ruining Control Freak's scheme and closing the episode.

Characters[]

Beast Boy
Cyborg
Raven
Robin
Starfire
Control Freak
Silkie
Slade (cameo in flashback, archive footage)
Terra (cameo in flashback, archive footage)
Pelican

Song[]

Underpants Dance

Trivia[]

It's claimed that Control Freak was the reason that the original series was cancelled.
TV Guides confused this episode's title with "40%, 40%, 20%".
This episode was scheduled for October 1, 2015, but was pulled up. This episode was scheduled again for October 21, 2015, but was pulled down 1 day after.
When the Titans change their designs, there is a folder titled "Season 3" in the Adobe Flash CS6-esque software where the following are listed: "Cat's Fancy", "Leg Day", "Dignity of Teeth", "Croissant", "Spice Game", "I'm the Sauce","Accept the Next Proposition You Hear", "Hey You, Don't Forget about Me in Your Memory", "Night Begins to Shine" ("40%, 40%, 20%"), "Grube's Fairytales", "The Fourth Wall", and "Scary Figure Dance".
This episode is most likely a satire of how people criticize Teen Titans Go! to being inferior to the original series.
- Because of this, many viewers dislike this episode, similar to "Let's Get Serious", "The Return of Slade", "Wally T", and "The Chaff" because they view it as a "hater" episode.

Continuity[]

During the animation failure scene, music from "I Love Pie" in "Pie Bros" is played in the background.
This is the third "hater" episode in Teen Titans Go!, the others being "Let's Get Serious", "The Return of Slade", "Wally T", and "The Chaff".
The "Dawn of Just Us" poster is seen again from "Let's Get Serious
The exercise program is seen again from "Lazy Sunday".
The sock puppet show is seen yet again.
This is the fourth time that footage from the original series is shown. The first three times were in "Más y Menos", "Dreams", and "The Mask".
Raven is seen unhooded for the twenty-fifth time, in the archive footages from the original series.
The show references the title theme and the dancing Titans from the theme song.

References[]

The term "fourth wall" is used to describe the imaginary wall between the audience and the stage members which separates them from each other.
The original 2003 series appears with clips of the various episodes. Some episodes shown include "Apprentice, Part 2", "Divide and Conquer", "Terra", "Titans East, Part 2", "The End, Part 3", "Date with Destiny", "Revved Up", and "Things Change".
When the Titans break the fourth wall by smashing the screen when the episode ends, it is similar to the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Allergy", when Darwin also breaks the fourth wall by sneezing onto the screen, destroying it at the end of the episode.
The Titans manage to get the animation turned into a 60s animation.
The animated scene is a parody of the animation software Adobe Flash CS6.

Errors[]

When Raven says "Zinthos," her extra eyes look like eyebrows that are the same shape as Starfire's.
When Robin says that the animators are doing a terrible job, his mouth is not in sync.
In one scene with Cyborg, Beast Boy and the girls are watching the 2003 Teen Titans series, during the truck-out only the characters were adjusted and the crew forgot to move the background with them.^[1]