Pleasantville/Fridge

Fridge Horror

• On Pleasantville, the two protagonists are Trapped in TV Land and teach the citizens of TV Land to be more real, implying that everyone in the eponymous town was a real person who just needed to be "fleshed out", so to speak. But to do so, they take the place of Bud and Mary Sue, the children from the TV Show. Mary Sue is literally Put on a Bus to a college that showed up when the world became, well, realized. But this doesn't solve the problem with Bud, since David went back to the real world... and even worse, it creates a new Fridge Horror: Jennifer/Mary Sue never returned to the real world. Surely someone would have noticed at some point?
  • I just assumed that the real Bud and Mary Sue were in the real world, and learned the same lessons from the other end.
• While the TV Repairman did let David keep the remote, who's to say that's the only remote. For all the audience knows, he probably has a spare in his truck. He was pretty mad when David and Jennifer changed Pleasantville and vowed to change it back. Odds are that he could potentially erase Jennifer in the process.

Fridge Logic

• Wow the mom is in color now! Great huh? Until you realize gaining color is usually associated with sex, her husband was still black and white
  • Gaining color was associated with Character Development. The husband gained color when he felt real love for the first time. With regards to sex, the mom said her husband "would never do that kind of thing" for her, meaning he is oblivious of sex as much as she was. Hence the bathtub scene and the tree bursting into flames.
• A rare in-universe example, all over the place with the show. Highlighted once they enter the show's world where the things never addressed in the show simply don't exist. There are no toilets, there's literally nothing outside of Pleasantville, and the residents don't even know what sex is. And of course, the entire world is actually monochromatic.
  • Out of universe: If there's nothing outside Pleasantville, where did the opposing basketball team come from? At the very least, without any roads leading out, how did they get in?
    • They're cross-town rivals.
    • Another explanation: they get in off-screen. The citizens know about the USA, they just don't need to go there.

Fridge Brilliance

• When Jennifer and David fight over the new remote, at the same time Bud and Mary Sue are fighting over Mary Sue's transistor radio. Meaning the TV repairman or some variation within the show, has given a device to Bud and Mary Sue, similar to the one he gave David and Jennifer.
• More Fridge Heartwarming, but out of all the people David as Bud talk to and get along with, his best interactions seem to stem from his interactions with Betty, George, Bill and Margaret. Which makes sense because they represent what he doesn't have in the real world. While he loves his real world mother, she's a mess due to her divorce and he uses the show to escape that. So naturally when he gets a taste of what it's like to be in what he considers a normal loving family, he appreciates it for all it's worth. He defends his TV mom with a passion that turns him color. While his Dad still stays monochrome and is part of the opposition, he doesn't hold it personally against him and they still get along. Even helping him understand his confused feelings. With Bill, he sees him at best an Uncle figure and helps him follow his dreams and passions regardless of how much trouble it put them both through. Then you have Margaret, who started out as a shallow love interest to Bud's friend Whitey. But when getting to know her, she's very sweet to David and tries to bring him out of his shell. In the real world, save for one friend, David had no other friends let alone a girlfriend, so naturally rather than be fearful of the risk it would do to his favorite show, he goes along with it. Turning him from a mere boy to a man within the hour. All these experiences even serve to help him try to mend his family life at home for the better.