Crazy Enough to Work: Difference between revisions

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Why?

Because it's [[Crazy Enough to Work]], that's why. Sometimes characters will even credit it ''to'' it being crazy (enough to work). A possible example would be something along the lines of "What about patching up the nuclear reactor with a pack of gum and peeing on the fire from the top of the reactor? That's so crazy, it just might work!"

Because it's '''Crazy Enough to Work''', that's why. Sometimes characters will even credit it ''to'' it being crazy (enough to work). A possible example would be something along the lines of "What about patching up the nuclear reactor with a pack of gum and peeing on the fire from the top of the reactor? That's so crazy, it just might work!"

While [[The Hero|heroes]] of every genre will come up with these, expect a lot of them from [[Badass Unintentional~~|Badass Unintentionals~~]], since they lack the knowledge, strength, and sometimes even the courage to come up with a better idea.

While [[The Hero|heroes]] of every genre will come up with these, expect a lot of them from [[Badass Unintentional]]s, since they lack the knowledge, strength, and sometimes even the courage to come up with a better idea.

[[Lampshaded]] frequently enough that it's become a [[Stock Phrase]] of the [[Genre Savvy]].

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== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': If smashing a small robot into a big robots head, almost impaling the pilot of the big robot (who, by the way, was the one who thought of this) in the process is not [[Crazy Enough to Work]], then nothing is. Oh, and they also run a walking, nonflying battleship up a mountain and jump through the air for a good half a mile just to get a chance to ''kick'' an [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]. This universe runs on [[Rule of Cool]], so it was destined to succeed.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'': If smashing a small robot into a big robots head, almost impaling the pilot of the big robot (who, by the way, was the one who thought of this) in the process is not Crazy Enough to Work, then nothing is. Oh, and they also run a walking, nonflying battleship up a mountain and jump through the air for a good half a mile just to get a chance to ''kick'' an [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]. This universe runs on [[Rule of Cool]], so it was destined to succeed.

** And when the flying kick only scratches the side of the [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]? They at once make the captain fling the wheel over in the most exaggerated way possible, turning the flying kick into a flying ''roundhouse'' kick that of course succeeds.

** Everything that happens in Gurren-Lagann is too crazy to work. And yet it does...

* ''[[Bleach]]'': In episode 135, we see Matsumoto, with Kon by her side, saving the life of a girl that was about to drown when falling in the water after her plushie. How? By removing Kon from his plushie body and tossing him in the mouth of her plushie, to get ~~Kon--as~~ the ~~plushie--to~~ go save the girl instead of, say, going in there herself. She offered a weak rationale ''ex post facto'', and simply let the [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarity ensue]].

* ''[[Bleach]]'': In episode 135, we see Matsumoto, with Kon by her side, saving the life of a girl that was about to drown when falling in the water after her plushie. How? By removing Kon from his plushie body and tossing him in the mouth of her plushie, to get Kon—as the plushie—to go save the girl instead of, say, going in there herself. She offered a weak rationale ''ex post facto'', and simply let the [[Hilarity Ensues|hilarity ensue]].

* In the early episodes of ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' when their torpedo ship is cornered by an attack chopper the 2 badasses and the tech nerd onboard were getting ready to kiss their asses goodbye when the timid loser businessman they had taken hostage comes up with a plan to charge the copter head-on and use a shipwreck as a ramp to launch them high enough that they can hit it with a torpedo. It works, of course.

* In ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'', sometimes when Sena or Monta comes up with an implausible or just plain ridiculous strategy, Hiruma will tell them something like "That plan's completely stupid! ...Let's do it!"

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* Most of [[Cool Old Guy|Uncle]] [[Crazy Awesome|Ebbitt's]] plans in ''[[The Seventh Tower]]''.

* The majority of plans crafted by the ''[[Codex Alera]]'s'' hero, Tavi of Calderon, hinge on this. So much so, in fact, that his lover is able to correctly reason Tavi's chosen location for the series [[Final Battle]] by thinking of a place that only a lunatic would willingly enter.

** You want examples? Of course you do! Take, for instance, his role in the defense of the Elinarch. Due to a lot of things going wrong at once, he ended up in command of a single, inexperienced legion (about 7,000 soldiers) who had to [[You Shall Not Pass|hold a bridge]] against an army of more than 50,000 Canim: centuries-old, enormous, [[Big Badass Wolf|and incredibly dangerous]] [[Wolf Man|wolfmen]]. First, to stop them from crossing the river anywhere else, he had all the butchers in the camp and the towns at either end of the Elinarch throw buckets of blood into the river to attract [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|sharks]]. Any Canim trying to swim across quickly learned the error of their ways. He also went out to try to negotiate with the leaders. By himself. He proceeded to use his knowledge of their culture to laugh in the face of an [[Evil Sorcerer]] and exploit a division in their leadership. Then he sat for an hour and [[Smart People Play Chess|played chess]] with [[The Strategist|Nasaug]] during a truce to let them remove their dead from the field<ref>Tavi won</ref>, in order to buy time for his men to set up his next tactic: sawdust and fire furies planted in every building on the Canim side of the bridge, which he then had his only [[Playing with Fire|Knight Ignus]] [[Stuff Blowing Up|blow up]] while the Canim were trying to move through them. He'd made sure they were all ''in'' the buildings by having everyone in the legion hold tiny firecraftings over the main square so the stones were superheated and anyone trying to step on them would get fried. And the battle ended when he had his [[Blow You Away|Knights Aeris]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|bend the air to form a quarter-mile-wide magnifying glass, concentrating the sunlight into a]] [[Death Ray]]. The general consensus among the characters seems to be that Tavi is [[Crazy Awesome|completely insane]].

** You want examples? Of course you do! Take, for instance, his role in the defense of the Elinarch. Due to a lot of things going wrong at once, he ended up in command of a single, inexperienced legion (about 7,000 soldiers) who had to [[You Shall Not Pass|hold a bridge]] against an army of more than 50,000 Canim: centuries-old, enormous, [[Big Badass Wolf|and incredibly dangerous]] [[Wolf Man|wolfmen]]. First, to stop them from crossing the river anywhere else, he had all the butchers in the camp and the towns at either end of the Elinarch throw buckets of blood into the river to attract [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks|sharks]]. Any Canim trying to swim across quickly learned the error of their ways. He also went out to try to negotiate with the leaders. By himself. He proceeded to use his knowledge of their culture to laugh in the face of an [[Evil Sorcerer]] and exploit a division in their leadership. Then he sat for an hour and [[Smart People Play Chess|played chess]] with [[The Strategist|Nasaug]] during a truce to let them remove their dead from the field,<ref>Tavi won</ref> in order to buy time for his men to set up his next tactic: sawdust and fire furies planted in every building on the Canim side of the bridge, which he then had his only [[Playing with Fire|Knight Ignus]] [[Stuff Blowing Up|blow up]] while the Canim were trying to move through them. He'd made sure they were all ''in'' the buildings by having everyone in the legion hold tiny firecraftings over the main square so the stones were superheated and anyone trying to step on them would get fried. And the battle ended when he had his [[Blow You Away|Knights Aeris]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|bend the air to form a quarter-mile-wide magnifying glass, concentrating the sunlight into a]] [[Death Ray]]. The general consensus among the characters seems to be that Tavi is [[Crazy Awesome|completely insane]].

{{quote|Ehren: "This plan is nuts... you're nuts... *looks around* I'm going to need some pants.}}

** And that thing mentioned above about going into the most suicidal place he could think of? His plan was to {{spoiler|piss off the [[Eldritch Abomination]]-like Great Furies Garados and Thana and use them against the Vord Queen. It only really works when she tries to claim the furies and he has the even crazier idea of cutting her connection and letting them go free to wreak random destruction. They are ''very'' pissed about the attempt to control them, and Thana, an enormous, sentient thunderstorm, pretty much literally chews the Vord Queen up and spits her out.}}

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** There are [[Rule of Funny|reasons]] [[Rule of Cool|why]] [[The Power of Rock|it]] [[Chekhov's Gun|works]].

* ''[[Farscape]]'': See John. See John have a fight with a large empire. See John strap a nuclear bomb to his chest and walk into their headquarters as a diversion. See John Win.

* A fair number of ''[[Star Trek]]'' adventures feature somebody coming up with plans that are [[Crazy Enough to Work]]. Scotty especially had a habit of making stuff work that simply defied the laws of physics.

* A fair number of ''[[Star Trek]]'' adventures feature somebody coming up with plans that are Crazy Enough to Work. Scotty especially had a habit of making stuff work that simply defied the laws of physics.

** Subverted for some darn reason, later, in which we learn that sometimes Scotty exaggerated the time limits to make himself look awesome.

* Played with in ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''. Former Maquis, who made up a lot of the crew, had to make do with next to nothing a lot, so they came up with ways to do the mission that'd make regular Federation officers protest like mad. Janeway was smart enough to let her Maquis people do their thing when needed, but even then it didn't always work.

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** Nintendo has a tradition for being nontraditional. Gamepads instead of joysticks, twin-screen portables, autostereoscopic 3D, motion-sensitive controls standard, the list doesn't end here. While many of their innovations took hold and were accepted by the mainstream for being different, others didn't fly so well because other and more mainstream innovations (like CD and later DVD game media) managed to overshadow Nintendo's efforts. Like any company, Nintendo both hits and misses.

* Played with in ''[[Left 4 Dead 2]]''. Coach comes up with an idea to start up a band's pyrotechnics in order to call for a helicopter. After hearing this, Nick drops this line.

{{quote|'''Nick:''' [[Team Dad|Coach]], [[Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard|that has got to be the stupidest idea]] ~~[[Crazy Enough to Work|~~I have ever agreed with]].}}

{{quote|'''Nick:''' [[Team Dad|Coach]], [[Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard|that has got to be the stupidest idea]] I have ever agreed with.}}

* In ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' this is intentionally [[Invoked Trope|invoked]] when Brave Vesperia formulates the best way to {{spoiler|destroy the Adephagos by using Spirits and the removal of blastia from the world, something that would be all but impossible. However, it works, and the world is saved.}}

* This is how the UberCharge system in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' came to life, as revealed in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc "Meet the Medic"].

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* Razor of the ''[[Swat Kats]]'' seems to come up with these very nearly [[Once an Episode]].

* In an episode of ''[[Futurama]]'', the Planet Express crew and the Globetrotters are trying to solve the problem of "time skips" that jump everyone in the Universe forward in time, leaving them with no memory of what went on in the interim. At one point, Hermes Conrad says, "Say, I'm no physicist, but I think I know how to stop the skipping. We'll just--" after which time skips, everyone but Hermes is nude and in a conga line (Hermes is in a Hawaiian shirt, playing a steel drum) and Hermes cries, "I don't know how this was supposed to work!"

** Of course, most of the (often successful) plans in ''Futurama'' ~~-- especially~~ if they're by [[Mad Scientist|Farnsworth]] or [[The Fool|Fry]] ~~-- are~~ usually [[Crazy Enough to Work]].

** Of course, most of the (often successful) plans in ''Futurama''—especially if they're by [[Mad Scientist|Farnsworth]] or [[The Fool|Fry]]—are usually Crazy Enough to Work.

* Parodied in ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'':

{{quote|'''Carl''': Johnny, I have a plan.

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* Many variants on this are attributed to Niels Bohr, notably to Wolfgang Pauli, on Pauli's nonlinear field theory: "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."

** Reputedly, when Lee Smolin was running around proposing that black holes give birth to new universes, Murray Gell-Mann said, "Smolin? Is he that young guy with all the crazy ideas? He may not be wrong."

* A relatively new chess opening, dubbed the Halloween, is a perfect example of this trope. [[wikipedia:Halloween Gambit|1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?!]] The faces of people who've seen this ~~opening -- right~~ before they were flattened by [[Zerg Rush|a march of pawns]] ~~-- is~~ something to be seen.

* A relatively new chess opening, dubbed the Halloween, is a perfect example of this trope. [[wikipedia:Halloween Gambit|1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?!]] The faces of people who've seen this opening—right before they were flattened by [[Zerg Rush|a march of pawns]]—is something to be seen.

* Back when legalized racism was rampant in the USA, no shortage of people were trying to find ways of eradicating it. You wouldn't have thought that simply ''not'' taking the bus would make a difference. Martin Luther King and those who worked with him proved otherwise.

* After [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]], stores refused to sell video game consoles and people were wary of video games. So what did Nintendo do? They packed in the Robotic Operating Buddy (which was a piece of garbage that worked with two games) so they could tell stores it was a toy, and they made it a front-loader so it resembled a VCR more than a gaming console. Today, Nintendo is one of the richest companies in the world.

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** That may or may not be the point of the Steely Eyed Missile Men; create unusual and ingenious solutions to unexpected problems under tight deadlines. Besides which, while the vague ''concept'' may be "just crazy enough to work", there's a helluva lot of effort put into making sure that everything is within the bounds of reality.

* Hannibal's conquering of Italy in 218 BC. The Romans never expected ''anyone'' to be crazy enough to march over the Alps, and certainly not for it to work. He did lose half of his army and most of his war elephants doing it, but he Rome on the run for nearly 15 years.

* Taking a page from the [[Steely Eyed Missile Men]], a number of folks in commercial aviation likewise summon [[The Determinator|crazy calm resolve]] to combat problems that arise. A most recent example, something, probably geese, gets caught in the engines of your loaded Airbus and blows them out. You can't circle back to the airport you left and you won't make the closest alternative. What do you do? ~~[[Crazy Enough to Work|~~Why, you just land the thing in the Hudson River.]] [[The Captain|Captain Chesley Sullenberger]] and the [[Badass Crew|crew of]] [[wikipedia:US Airways Flight 1549|US Airways Flight 1549]] did it.

* Taking a page from the [[Steely Eyed Missile Men]], a number of folks in commercial aviation likewise summon [[The Determinator|crazy calm resolve]] to combat problems that arise. A most recent example, something, probably geese, gets caught in the engines of your loaded Airbus and blows them out. You can't circle back to the airport you left and you won't make the closest alternative. What do you do? Why, you just land the thing in the Hudson River. [[The Captain|Captain Chesley Sullenberger]] and the [[Badass Crew|crew of]] [[wikipedia:US Airways Flight 1549|US Airways Flight 1549]] did it.

** With the help of the US Coast Guard a [[wikipedia:Pan Am Flight 6|similar feat was pulled 52 years earlier]] in the '''middle of the Pacific Ocean'''. And like the above, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|all survived]].

* Operation Desert Storm. US tanks drove through featureless, utterly unnavigable desert relying on barely proven GPS to catch the Republican Guard by surprise. (But fortunately we went slow enough to ensure we were detected before we could actually use that surprise.)