Idiot Ball/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

* Despite being relatively sane, [[Hypercompetent Sidekick|Slinkman]] of ''[[Camp Lazlo]]'' likes to carry the Idiot Ball around a lot.

* In the ''[[Sonic Sat AM]]'' animated series, Antoine would occasionally be used for this. The mini-episode Fed Up with Antoine was the most blatant example of this trope.

** In one episode, Lisa is no less smart than she usually is, but she's ''feeling'' like an idiot because a new girl in class, Alison, has proven to be better than her at everything. Visiting Alison's house, Lisa attempts to play an anagram game with Alison's father but fails miserably. Taking her to be a simpleton, Alison's father hands Lisa a red rubber ball, saying "this is a ball. Perhaps you'd like to bounce it."

** "Pranksta Rap". The plot revolves around Bart faking his own kidnapping and gives rise to two idiot ball moments. Bart handwrites the ransom note. Marge fails to recognise her own son's handwriting.

** Also, once Obi-Wan and Anakin ''were'' drugged, they seemed to magically forget that Jedi have poison-neutralizing powers.

** The entire clone army seems to be equipped with standard issue idiot balls. While it is reasonable for the droids to not really have any sort of care for self-preservation, the clones will often completely ignore cover and tactics to charge enemies head-on.

* Every character in the original ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon]]'' would carry the ball when the plot required. A stand-out moment includes a scene in the series' third episode, when, left to their own devices in April's apartment, the turtles suddenly become retards: Leonardo begins throwing tubes of lipstick at a painting, calling it "target practice"; Raph interprets "insert capful of Shampoo into tub" as referring to an actual baseball cap; Donny starts fiddling with April's answering machine with no regard as to her privacy; and Mikey proves incapable of making instant pizza which he had no permission to touch. April is understandably furious.

* ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'': Optimus Prime gets whacked ''hard'' in the face with this in the episode "Heavy Metal War". He's been fighting Megatron for centuries, long enough to know which powers Megatron does and doesn't have...and yet he doesn't realise that Megatron cheated during a one-on-one battle until Teletraan-1 spells it out for him. Even though Megatron uses powers that he has ''never used before.''