We don't normally watch TV to watch other people watching TV, but when the satire is sharp or the allegory strong, the fictional shows within some of our favorite shows and movies can be funnier, more extreme, or even more transformative than any that would possibly exist or be greenlit in reality. Beavis and Butt-Head's reactions to generic TV shows and music videos comment both on what the messages are in the medium and how they're received by the target audience, and the holographic entertainment watched by Wookiees in "The Star Wars Holiday Special" tell us that TV under the rule of the Empire is insanely terrible.

Sometimes we're quite envious of what the fictional characters get to see. Even if some of the shows in their universe might seem odd to us, they look like they would work

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