Idiot Houdini: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Frank:''' God, I've had to work hard every day of my life, and what do I have to show for it? This briefcase, and this haircut! And what do you have to show for your lifetime of sloth and ignorance?

'''Homer:''' What?

'''Frank:''' You're a fraud. A-- a total fraud. (walks out, pokes his head back round the doorway, and speaks to Marge and the kids) It was nice meeting you.|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', "Homer's Enemy"}}

 

* Nearly everyone in the Bluth family on ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' falls into this trope. Gob, Lindsey, Buster and their mother all live high-class lifestyles despite the fact that none of them have any useful skills or even common sense. [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]]. We find out in the first episode that the family patriarch is similarly idiotic: The only thing he ever actually seemed to do effectively was break the law in order to steal company money, to the point that the viewer is genuinely surprised he wasn't arrested much sooner.

** Later we meet prosecutor Maggie Lizer, who's a successful lawyer in spite of the fact that she's spent several years doing a [[Blind Mistake|very, very poor imitation]] of a blind person. The only rational explanation for how she wasn't found out sooner is that she's never met anyone who had seen a real blind person before. And even when Michael tries to expose her she [[Karma Houdini|wriggles out of it]] because she had temporarily lost her sight, when she should have been disbarred.

* Ashley Abbott on ''[[Young And The Restless]]'' falls into this pattern chronically. Her characters arcs tends to follow a simple pattern. Make an extremely poor decision. Then, get mad at other characters when they point out why what she's doing is a bad idea. When she finally realizes how stupid she's been, she then gets mad at other characters for offering advice and decides to deal with her problems by going it alone. Rinse and repeat.

** This doesn't even get into her ability to screw up other people's plans simply by being involved in them. On one occasion, while speaking with Abbott arch-nemesis Victor Newman, she gets a phone call from her brother Jack about an important business deal. So, naturally, she excuses herself so she can talk about it without Victor over-hearing. Which room does she go to? The nursery. [[What an Idiot!|She left Victor in the living room with the baby monitor.]] It's hard to miss the fact that, in a show where many of the main characters are business executives, Ashley stands alone as the one whose business sense is clearly an [[Informed Ability]].

== Western Animation ==

 

** This aspect of his character was deconstructed in the eighth-season episode "Homer's Enemy" featuring Frank Grimes, an orphan who had to struggle and work hard all his life just to reach the lower middle class. He is perplexed and disturbed by how successful Homer is despite the fact that he's incompetent at nearly everything. Grimes finally snaps when, after tricking Homer into entering a future nuclear plant model contest for children, the crowd cheers and applauds Homer when he wins the competition by building a scale model with minor efficiency tweaks and stripes going down the towers.

*** Of course, it is worth noting that Homer is also one of the show's prime [[Butt Monkey]]s. He can get away with his stupidity, but only [[Depending on the Writer|when the plot calls for it]], other times fate punishes him ''dearly'' such as in ''[[The Simpsons Movie]]'', where his actions got the town domed in and everyone goes up to his house with [[Torches and Pitchforks]] {{spoiler|and his family ''leave him''}}.