Wraparound (film and television media)

Wraparound, wraparound segment, or wraparound program (also styled wrap-around) is a term in film and television for short connecting media that either form a frame story (often around an anthology’s individual parts), hosts context for the primary media, or serves to package or bridge longer media using interstitials.

Framing device

Main article: Frame story

In narrative media, a wraparound (sometimes "wraparound tale")^[1][2] can be a narrative container that opens, links, and/or closes one or more stories. For example:

• Portmanteau films, particularly with a story within a story that connects otherwise standalone segments. For example, The V/H/S franchise
• Clip shows commonly employ a wraparound narrative, functioning as the episode’s flashback framing device
• Small changes for localized narrative; for instance Fraggle Rock was designed with modular human-world wraparound segments that could be re-shot with local casts, sets, and context; international versions replaced the U.S. wraparounds featuring Doc and his dog Sprocket with locally produced inserts such as a lighthouse keeper in the U.K. and a retired baker in France.^[3][4] Wraparound content is limited scope, in contrast to hybrid off-market splicing or recombination which fundamentally changes the narrative in important ways, as with Power Rangers and Robotech.

Interstitial programming

Main article: Interstitial television show

In broadcast theory, wraparound can also refer to interstitial; the “bits in between” programs (promos, trailers, idents, etc.), that are not diegetic story frames inside a program.^[5][6]

A wraparound can be brief non-narrative hosted or thematic interstitials that surround or bridge longer programming blocks. An example would be The Twilight Zone series creator Rod Serling’s on-camera introductions and closing narrations that bookend each episode, or sports and news outlets use wraparounds for studio shows that bookend live events.^[7][8][9] Short hosted bridges are also used to repackage films for alternate formats like cable and pay-per-view, with new content recorded by a host to introduce or contextualize the features.^[10] Wraparounds can additionally describe discussion blocks around a film or special.^[11]