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Flowers for Algernon Syndrome: Difference between revisions
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** Bonus: Because of his invulnerability, they had to perform the surgery with an industrial strength oil drill.
** Double Bonus: He refused anesthesia for the operation.
* The newspaper comic ''Tank McNamara'' did a riff on this trope. Tank gets zapped by one of [[Mad Scientist|Dr. Tzapp]]'s experimental machines, and it cures his fumblemouth. Before long, Tank starts fancying himself an incisive critic, and the show's ratings plummet because nobody wants to listen to that. Eventually one of the other characters re-zaps him and he turns into his lovable, fumblemouthed self again.
* Another newspaper comic, ''[[Heart of the City]]'', has done this a couple of times, usually with Dean. One arc had him becoming a popular jerk, and a more recent one has him becoming "mature." In most cases, Heart tries to snap him out of it.
* A storyline in ''[[The Muppet Show Comic Book]]'' featured Animal taking pills to become calmer. Unfortunately, his drumming ability suffered (because [[All Drummers Are Animals]]), and the Electric Mayhem had to replace him until he stopped taking the tablets.
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** The movie tells a true story, and is based off a book of the same name by the Neurologist, Dr Oliver Sacks. http://www.oliversacks.com/books/awakenings/
* Disney's ''[[wikipedia:The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes|The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes]]'' (1969). A computer student has the knowledge and abilities of a computer downloaded into his brain, leading to multiple problems and opportunities. By the end of the movie he's lost everything he gained and is normal again.
* ''Rookie of the Year''. A kid gains a Major League caliber pitching arm from an accident. Another accident sees him lose that ability in his last game and have to bluff his way through the final inning.
* ''[[The Lawnmower Man]]''. A modern adaptation of the [[Flowers for Algernon]] story: a retarded gardener, Jobe Smith, is raised to super-human intelligence with the use of medication and virtual reality with unintended consequences. Incidentally, it has SFA to do with the [[Stephen King]] story of the same title.
** The Aesop is hardly conclusive here. His life arguably becomes much better, and it isn't until the government starts changing the drugs around that he goes crazy, only to be restored back to his original state at the end of the second movie to save the world.
** Actually, it's hinted that Jobe would have inevitably gone crazy from the medication he was given initially, as it was a milder version of the one that Dr. Angelo had made for the government. When they switched the drugs, it simply sped up the process.
* ''[[Limitless]]'' features a drug that enhances your intelligence, but only temporarily. Long term usage causes addiction, and mixing with alcohol and/or taking too much makes you lose complete control of yourself. If you stop after becoming addicted, your body becames incredibly frail, most people die from it. The protagonist's ex ended up looking like a meth addict. At the end, the protagonist {{spoiler|figures out a way to wean himself off the drug while keeping the effects. Or maybe he was lying about the weaning himself off it part, it's left ambiguous.}}
* In ''[[Ernest P. Worrell|Ernest]] Goes to School'', our hero's usual mutton-headedness was cured with the help of a [[It Runs on Nonsensoleum|Subatomic Brain-Accelerator]] invented by a couple of rather overqualified high school teachers. True to form, Smart Ernest was a complete [[Jerkass|jerk]], and his friends were happy when the effect wore off just in time for him to take his exit exams the old-fashioned way.
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* ''[[Flowers for Algernon]]'' is the [[Trope Namer]]. Both the film and the book imply that, as Algernon died after his intelligence degraded, Charlie doesn't have long to live either.
** One of the alternate trope names, "[[The Algernon Gordon Effect]]", was an in-universe thesis describing this trope.
* In ''Understand'' by Ted Chiang is about a man who has been through an accident that destroyed a lot of his brain cells. He gets a new & experimental "hormone K treatment". Not only does the treatment rejuvenate the killed cells, but also creates far more dendrites (connections between neurons, the "thinking cells" of brain). After getting cured, he is enrolled into further drug trial programs, & gets more shots of "hormone K".
** but also frustrates him in that he needs to create a whole new language just conceptualize his thoughts.
* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', Tobias overstays his morph as a hawk and ends up [[Shapeshifter Mode Lock|stuck that way]] for a considerably long time. Later, a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] known as the Ellimist restores his morphing power and allows him to morph into his own human form, with the same rules as earlier. Though he could return to human form permanently, he chooses not to, both because he wants to stay in the war and because he actually prefers his hawk form.
** This is actually a subversion of the trope though since Tobias wants to stay in his altered form, not his original one.
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** The inverse (converse?) occurs in another episode when a brilliant man deliberately takes a combination of drugs that limit his brilliance in order to make himself happier. [[Unfortunate Implications|And making him able to connect, and therefore love, his girlfriend.]]
*** [[Invoked Trope|Invoked, I think.]]
* In ''[[Forever Knight]]'', Natalie uses vampire blood to increase a mentally challenged teenager's intelligence.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' has O'Neill become the repository for a cache of Ancient knowledge, but ultimately having his brain overstuffed proved bad for him.
** Twice.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', Belkar is normally a psychotic mass murderer, but in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0058.html one strip], Varsuvius uses a spell to increase his Wisdom, at which point he realizes the error of his ways and vows nonviolence. This lasts for all of about 15 seconds before the spell is dismissed.
* [[The Ditz|Fighter]] of ''[[8-Bit Theater
** Also happens ''twice'' (albeit ''very'' briefly) to [[Axe Crazy|Black Mage]], in both the [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/05/31/episode-289-a-change-of-heart/ Marsh Cave] and the [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/10/18/episode-613-mirror-master/ Castle of Ordeals]. On the first occasion, he was thinking about his polar opposite, White Mage, and realized that perhaps he should [[Heel Face Turn|change his murderous, spiteful way of life]] and become a better person. This goes down the drain the second his thoughts are interrupted by anger at another of Fighter's stupid statements.
** In the Castle, each member of the team got faced with the manifestation of their worst sin. The whole Castle is a place for the chosen warriors to defeat their own bad side and become the pure and good heroes they are supposed to be. The problem is, Black Mage [[Evil Feels Good|loves being evil]]. So much, in fact, that where all other sins look like monsters, his are represented by ''himself''. He kills the clone and achieves purity... but is revealed to have set up a magic spell beforehand that would channel all the residual evil energy back into himself, [[Status Quo Is God|thus keeping him as he was]].
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* Mort from ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' once had his [[Foot Focus|foot fetish]] cured, only to get it back (which was actually necessary to save King Julien).
** Inverted when the penguins lowered their intelligence to Mort's level so they could be [[Disability Immunity|too stupid to feel pain]]. They returned to their smart old selves (well, maybe a bit of an overstatement for Rico) later in the episode.
* ''[[Beverly Hills Teens]]'', "Rad to Worse": Chester uses one of his inventions to make Radley more intelligent so he can finish his homework. However, this also makes him a condescending jerk. The gang attacks him with a wave machine to revive his love of surfing and turn him back to normal.
* ''[[Rugrats]]'', "Smell of Success": A copy of [[Flowers for Algernon]], except with Chuckie having his severe allergies temporarily cured gaining his sense of smell, only for the cure to wear off. Came complete with Chuckie befriending the white lab mouse as homage.
** More bonus points in that, if I recall correctly, the rat was called (at least by Chuckie) Algernon.
* ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'', "Dumber Days" reveals that Meatwad's brain was actually a cat toy with a little bell in it. Carl manages to procure a brain (later revealed to be Steve's, assistant to Doctor Weird) for Meatwad, which Frylock {{spoiler|doesn't use the actual brain}} shoves into Meatwad's body. Meatwad begins to take up reading, goes to the library, and becomes smart, going to the library and reading books from the Hardy Boys to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, while his meat body begins to grow to tremendous size (which he attributes to thermal expansion). When Frylock finds that Meatwad is squandering his super intelligence on $5 car rides (in which a now psychic Meatwad can make the car spin around and flip in the air with his mind), {{spoiler|Frylock removes Meatwad's brain, showing that it was just his old brain}} [[The Magic Was Inside You All Along|with some glitter and macaroni glued to it]]. Meatwad gradually shrinks back down to his old, dumb self (and Carl's car smashes into the ground, the child safe.)
* ''[[Futurama]]'' did this no less than three times:
** In "The Cyber House Rules" Leela gets a second eye surgically installed. She goes back to one, after seeing that the person she's been dating (and who gave her the operation) treats a kid with three ears differently from other kids. In this case, it had been established earlier in the episode that having one eye wasn't really a problem since it didn't stop Leela from being successful and accomplished...it just made her look odd (and the second eye was merely cosmetic, she still had no depth perception). Going back down to one eye was actually [[Character Development]] for her to accept that fact.
** In "Parasites Lost" Fry accidentally ingests parasitic worms that make him super-strong and super-intelligent. He gets rid of the worms because he wants Leela to love him for who he really is. This also turned into [[Character Development]] because Fry finally learned how he felt about Leela and spent the rest of the series trying to better himself normally.
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{{quote|'''Moe''': "Here's what I don't understand. When that set fell on my face, how did I get my old face back? Shouldn't I have gotten some third face that was different. It don't make no -* End Credits Abruptly start* }}
** Yet again when Marge goes in for some kind of surgery and awakens to find that the doctor has mistakenly given her breast implants.
** And when Lisa got Willie to be a gentleman.
*** Perhaps the only character change that has stuck is Barney's sobriety.
* ''[[DuckTales]]'':
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** Another episode inverted this trope when Jimmy made himself stupid because everyone got tired of his [[Insufferable Genius]] tendencies. However, a meteor threatens to destroy Retroville shortly and they needed Jimmy's smarts to save Retroville. (Which, ironically, happened because of his genius earlier in the episode, not that anyone knew that.)
* In the ''[[Frisky Dingo]]'' episode "Flowers for Nearl," Xander Crews' retarded twin brother is turned into a mastermind through an injection of "brain chemical." When he is fatally shot ([[Lampshade Hanging|because the plot was getting to complicated]],) he reverts to his old speech pattern for his last half-second of life.
* In an episode of ''[[South Park]]'', Mr. Garrison gets a rhinoplasty having David Hasselhoff's face. He becomes a male model and pursue women. Until women are chasing him and wants his old face back.
* In an episode of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'', The Brain makes Pinky smart with a machine so he would stop making the world domination plans fail. Pinky proceeds to appoint flaws in all of the upcoming plans, angering his friend. This causes Pinky to get sad at his intelligence, and Brain to make calculations proving the duo only works with one of the two being dumb. Brain then uses the machine to make himself a dimwit... and shortly later Pinky does the same.
{{quote|'''Pinky''': What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?
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* In the ''[[Maryoku Yummy]]'' episode "Shika's Wish," Shika wishes that Maryoku would follow the rules for a change, and since they live in a magical land, the wish comes true, turning Maryoku into an absolute stickler for the rules. So much so, in fact, that she takes on Shika's role as Chief Officer of Rules and Regulations and begins making even more restrictive rules than he ever did. Finally, Shika wishes that he never made that wish in the first place, and everything goes back to normal.
* ''[[Stunt Dawgs]]'': The Stunt Scabs' resident [[Hollywood Cyborg]]/[[The Ditz]] Half-a-Mind has an accident which causes him to become so smart, he starts calling himself "Mind-and-a-Half".
* ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'': a chimpanzee (named Charlie) becomes superintelligent after having been blasted into space. He slowly reverts over the course of the episode, but still ends up Director of NASA in the end.
* One episode of ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'': ''[[The Series]]'' had Lilo and Stitch encounter a wish-granting experiment they named "Wishy-Washy". After catching (or actually, wishing they captured it) they used it to make laid-back, surfer David the smartest man on earth after Lilo misinterprets Nami's preference for smart men. Although he is now intelligent enough to reach a few moments of being ''[[The Omniscient]]'' ( when Gantu wishes to have possession of Wishy-Washy and disappears, David shows up and asks Lilo if he can help, since his intelligence allows him to know that something has been going on) he is unable to speak properly with Nami due to his ''[[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]'' and is not at all happy with his intelligence. In the end Lilo uses up the experiment's last wish to put everything back to normal again, restoring his average mind.
* Grounder is exposed to this in ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', after accidentally installing a chip that made him super intelligent during his repairs in 'Grounder the Genius'. His normal dumb-sounding voice takes on a much more intellectual tone, and becomes a much more threatening villain than Robotnik could ever have hoped to be.
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* In one episode of ''[[Dinosaucers]]'', one of the villains, Quackpot, is accidentally hit by an "Allegiance Reversal" Ray, and briefly becoming friends with the good guys; before the end of the episode, Quackpot witnesses the wear off of the effects on a previous test subject and warns Allo that he will soon become his enemy again.
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has the episode "[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E19 Putting Your Hoof Down|Putting Your Hoof Down]]", where Fluttershy goes to a seminar hosted by a minotaur named Iron Will so she can learn to be assertive, and remembering his motivational phrases becomes a mean spirited troublemaker not unlike her inverted form 18 episodes back. It's only after she looks at her own reflection that she comes to her senses, after which she boards herself up in her own home but comes out to stand up to Iron Will when he comes for his payment saying she won't pay him because she's not satisfied with the results, which is apparently a first for Iron Will.
* In an episode of ''[[Invader Zim]]'', Zim reprograms GIR into duty-mode, in order to be more obedient. However, after hijacking a police car, Zim orders him to stay at the base out of fear of being exposed. Shortly afterwards GIR goes on a rampage, stealing information from the library, attacking people, and trying to kill Zim. It's only with the help of a [[It Makes Sense in Context|police officer with a squid's brain shooting ink at GIR]] that Zim is able to stop him and restore his original personality.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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