When on a comedy the characters make jokes at the expense of the studio or network funding their movie or TV show. In the US, the favorite target out of the Big Four Networks seems to be FOX, although all networks are Acceptable Targets at some point or another. This trope would also fit those moments when an embittered author, or one cynical of the morality of the publishing industry, inserts into his work a thinly disguised slap to the face of the publishing house that is keeping him in work, albeit for not entirely satisfactory royalties or advance payments.