Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Difference between revisions

* The eponymous group in ''[[Kelly's Heroes|Kellys Heroes]]'', led by a [[Military Maverick]] on a mission to go behind enemy lines and recover some Nazi gold... without telling their superiors.

* The titular heroes in ''[[Mystery Men]]'' certainly qualify. The Shoveler's legendary [[Rousing Speech|sandwich speech]] even calls it out:

* The core protagonists of ''[[Star Wars]]'' are a ragtag bunch of misfits [[In Space]]. Farmboy Luke, princess Leia, retired Jedi Ben, smuggler Han, fuzzball Chewie, prissy C3P0, and spunky R2D2.

* In ''[[Vertical Limit]]'', the crew assembled to go rescue the stranded climbers looks like this from the outside. A half-crazy mountain man, two slacker brothers, a woman mostly in it for the money… Subverted in that they’re all actually experienced climbers who know what they’re doing, and are crazy enough/desperate enough to mount what even they admit is a suicide mission.

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': The entire subculture of [[The Hunter|hunters]]. They're all just a bunch of emotionally scarred people who make it their (non-paying) job to hunt and kill supernatural beings, most likely because someone they were close to was killed by one. Considering how rampant these paranormal attacks seem to be, you'd think the government would set up a [[The Men in Black|secret agency]] to fight them. But no, it's left entirely up to these people, who will break as many laws and [[Walking the Earth|wander the earth]] as much as they have to in order to get the job done, with no thanks or pay to show for it?

** From ''The Song Remains The Same'', with Heaven and Hell both threatening to destroy the earth and the apocalypse underway:

'''Dean:''' Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. }}

* [[Stargate SG-1|SG-1]]: Fitting the [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]] mold. Teal'c is an alien defector, Jack breaks protocol every chance he can, and Daniel's going native on Abydos didn't endear him to the military and his general obsession with non-standard archaeological ideas makes him more than a bit quirky. Even Sam is presented as not seeming to relate to a lot of people outside the band and rather obsessive when it comes to Gate technology and physics. She's in two male-dominated fields, the military and science, and seems to have a psychological need to prove herself because of it ("Me? Tense? I'm not tense!"). Of the later additions, Jonas Quinn was responsible for his predecessor's death, Vala MalDoran is a criminal, and Cam Mitchell gets a lot of flack for being a newbie 'commander' who can't actually give any of his team orders. Probably not quite the sanest group you could send through a Stargate, but they do save the world every other week, so they keep their jobs.

* The Major Crimes Unit in ''[[The Wire]]'' plays this trope straight.

* Each season of ''[[Prison Break]]'' has a new band of criminals. Michael [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] it in season four:

* The Rottaran in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]] ''Soldiers of the Empire'' . A Klingon Bird of Prey that is down on it's luck, plagued by a series of defeats is led by Martok, Worf, and Dax to a victory.

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' uses this. At the end of season 1 a group containing a cheerleader, a male nurse, a cop, an internet stripper, a boy genius, a politician, a Japanese Otaku, his sidekick, an escaped con and the professor are all present

* The Five in ''[[Sanctuary]]'' were this, including an immortal scientist specializing in strange creatures, a genius keeping himself alive with a machine, an invisible thief, an electrical vampire/InsufferableGenius, and teleporting [[Jack the Ripper]]. The Sanctuary team itself could be considered this with the above-mentioned immortal scientist, her daughter (and {{spoiler|[[Jack the Ripper]]}}'s) with anger-management issues, a quirky forensic psychiatrist disliked by his own colleagues, a Neanderthal, and a <s>werewolf</s> [[Our Werewolves Are Different|HAP]]. After the death of {{spoiler|Helen's daughter}}, the team "acquires" a professional thief and smuggler.

* ''[[Primeval]]''. Lester is well aware that he's in charge of a Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits and would gladly fire the lot of them and bring in professionals instead, were he not such a fundamentally decent chap.

* The [[Warehouse 13]] team could certainly apply: two former Secret Service agents (one of whom gets psychic hunches), a disgraced former NSA analyst who was convicted of treason, an aura-reading B&B operator, a former mental patient and [[Teen Genius]], an [[Anti-Villain]] female HG Wells, and a gay ATF agent who's a living lie detector. Not to mention their boss, who is a mysterious teleporting and apparently immortal woman.

* The central study group characters of ''[[Community]]'' are a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] disbarred lawyer; an ex-anarchist high school dropout; a [[Meta Guy]] who sees everything as tropes; a high school jock-turned-goofball nerd; a recovering alcoholic Evangelical Christian housewife; a unpopular girl-turned-hottie who had a mental breakdown; a conniving, somewhat racist old man with [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]; and a crazed Chinese ex-professor who lied about knowing his subject. It's hard to find a group this crazy and yet a coherent whole.

* [[Pibgorn]] [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2008/04/16/ A love-struck idiot, a homicidal digital maiden, and a omnipotent clueless succubus]

* ''Mindflayed'' even [http://mindflayed.0nyx.com/comic037.jpg had it discussed]:

''' Lomylith''': That would be the definition of the word "adventurers", flayer. }}

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4279 Tangerine looks to be ready to form one.]

** The Planet Express crew in general; the main delivery crew is a goofball from the 20th century (Now known as 'The Stupid Ages'), a selfish robot who spends his time drinking booze and making wisecracks, and a social outcast cyclops who tries to be professional, maybe a little too much. The rest of the company is a century-and-a-half-old mad scientist, a Jamaican paper-pusher who likes to limbo and fill out forms, a ditzy chinese girl from Mars, and a lobster alien who lacks neither social graces or an accurate idea of what the human body is, despite being the company doctor.

* The ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch parodying ''[[Armageddon]]'', where the leader was chosen by call-in votes. The winner was [[Harrison Ford]], who protests "I'm just an actor! I'm 62 years old!" but everyone expects him to act like a movie hero. [[Aerosmith]] fill the remaining slots on the team because the mission needs a cool theme song. They die trying to land.

'''Senator''': Oh, that's something of a myth. }}

* ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades|G.I. Joe Renegades]]'' invokes this hard in the first episodes, with the team only ''tolerating'' each-other for the mission, and getting much worse for a bit until the end of the second episode when they're able to come together to stop a threat. They're still at odds for the next few episodes, but gradually seem to come together as everyone gets to know each-other.

* The ThunderCats, both [[Thundercats|the original series]] and [[Thundercats 2011|the 2011 reboot]], were survivors of a great catastrophe (in the original series, it was the destruction of their home planet Thundera while in the reboot, it was the destruction of the kingdom Thundera). The original group consists of a young inexperienced prince with a great destiny, an old soldier, an [[Action Girl]], a scientist (original series)/arrogant prince (reboot), two [[Tagalong Kid|Tagalong Kids]], and the [[Team Pet]].

* ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'' episode "War of the Worlds" Part 2 had the group get all the help they could for the Season finale. When their best efforts fail, you get the following:

'''Darkstar''': Twice. But just at this moment, I don't see how. }}

* In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us" [[Vladimir Putin]] notes the reactivation of a Cold War sleeper spy would be an embarrassment equal to, "[[Stripes|our 1981 failed Czechoslovakian occupation outpost which was penetrated by]] [[Bill Murray]], [[Stripes|Harold Ramis, and their ragtag band of misfit soldiers who didn't even graduate.]]"

* The 2011 Arizona Diamondbacks were branded this by the media. While the 2001 World Series team feature a group of proven veterans, the 2011 team featured only Justin Upton as the only star. But coming off a miserable 2010 they managed to grab two pitchers for players of lesser value. They also featured [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|a pitcher that throws a baseball like a tomahawk]] and the player with the most tattoos in the majors. They managed to unseat the 2010 Giants as division champions, against them no less before losing in the first round of the playoffs.

* [[Reddit]] and [[Image Boards|4chan's /v/ board]] had a competition in ''[[Starsiege: Tribes|Tribes: Ascend]]''. Team Reddit was a well-coordinated, heavily practiced team with high-end computers; Team 4chan was a hastily-gathered team of /v/irgins run by a [[Furry Fandom|furry]] with a tripcode and a Brazilian sniper with 140 ping playing on toasters. 4chan won 3-2.

* The army of [[Chad]] counts as this in the [[wikipedia:Toyota War|Toyota War]] it fought against [[Libya]] in the late 1980s. Chad's army was a cobbled-together alliance of rebel and government forces who until very recently had been at each others' throats, was outnumbered and outgunned by their Libyan opponents, and was so underequipped that it had to use Toyota transport trucks to ferry its troops. Despite this, they still managed to win against the Libyans, in no small part because [[Muammar Gaddafi]] was a cross between a [[Modern Major-General]] and a [[General Failure]].

* The British Army lives and dies by this trope. One of the first modern armies, the New Model Army was a complete subversion (English, but the framework for the British army was laid here), made up primarily of professional soldiers who had been fighting against the Royalists...until they were only able to fill about two thirds of places. After which, the Army lowered it's standards. From then on, to about 1914, the Army was been considered the second service to the far more prestigious and skilled Navy, taking on colossal numbers of thieves, rapists, murderers and arsonists, then moving on to those who have failed their [[GCS Es]]. This trope was so prevalent during the Napoleonic Era that the Duke of Wellington noted how wonderful it was to make so much of them. This applies less to other armies as they tended to still take Peasant Levies, meaning the men were required to serve whatever their profession, or have a very elite air and esprit de corps (the French, up until 1812).