Idiot Ball: Difference between revisions

A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an [[Idiot Plot]]. Temporary (or permanent) [[Genre Blindness]] is often a cause of this trope.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, this provokes a [[What an Idiot!]] response from the audience. However, sometimes, the purpose is to ''help'' the audience. Sometimes, the holder of the idiot ball asks the dumb question to allow a certain amount of exposition to occur that wouldn't organically be talked about, but needs to be stated for the audience.

* ''[[Thumbelina]]''. Every time she gets kidnapped, she keeps letting the kidnappers take advantage of her. She could be excused since she's lived a sheltered life, but common sense should have stepped in at some point and while she does eventually stand up for herself, it's not until the last ten minutes of the movie. Yeah...

* ''[[Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers]]'' has Mickey getting this temporarily when confronting Pete about his wrongdoing. He stands tall and alone against someone much bigger and stronger than he is instead of making a strategic retreat to get Goofy (who he doesn't know has been captured) or some other reinforcements.

* In ''[[Rugrats Go Wild]]'', Spike seems to be pretty clever for a dog. He spends a musical number dodging and humiliating a huge leopard... but then he stupidly mentions that there's a group of lost, helpless infants somewhere on the island, and the leopard immediately goes looking for them to eat them.

 

* Both versions of ''[[The Time Machine]]'' involve their protagonists holding Idiot Balls at different times. In the original, the protagonist falls asleep at the wheel, finds himself in a cave and reasons that he has to keep going forward in time until the cave is no longer there. Later, he gets out of a dome by going back to his own time, moving the time machine into his backyard and then going back to the future. Why didn't he think of that in the cave? In the remake, the protagonist can't figure out why he can't save his girlfriend even though any viewer who's ever seen a time travel movie can. [[Genre Blindness]] doesn't cut it.

** And by the way, the reason is because {{spoiler|he invented the time machine for the purpose of saving her, so if she never died, he never had a reason to invent the time machine and therefore couldn't have saved her in the first place}}.

* [[Roger Ebert]] also ponders this during his review of ''[[Paranormal Activity]] 2'':

{{quote|"The movie numbers the days as they tick away, and along about Day #12 I'm thinking, why are these people still here? The screening I attended was treated to a surprise appearance by three stars of that cable show about Chicago's Paranormal Detectives. These are real Chicago detectives. If the Sloats lived in Chicago, they'd have a SWAT team out there by Day #7."}}

** And again, back up to the bridge, into Troi's hands. [[Women Drivers|Woman Driver jokes]] aside... seriously: Wouldn't it make sense to fly ''away'' from the planet with its looming gravity pull as well as the other half of the ship counting down to explode? The only plausible explanation is that the saucer section didn't have enough power to escape the gravity well or that it was damaged in the main hull's explosion. This one in particular is a hilarious Idiot Ball hand-off because Troi's incompetence doesn't even BEGIN with her it begins with Riker (again!) shouting, "DEANNA! TAKE THE HELM!" Okay so... [[Flat What|what?]] Riker, who has been stated to be one of the best pilots ''in Starfleet'', is commanding the Ship's ''Counselor'' to fly the goddamned ship? The therapist? Who failed her officer's exams ''how many times?'' Her? Piloting the Federation flagship in the middle of a freaking crisis situation? ... ''Really?!''

*** Her first maneuver? Turn all the main weapons away from the enemy, and turn the engineering section toward the enemy. Deanna's crap piloting killed the ''Enterprise''-D.

** The Duras sisters are none too bright either. They agree to turn over Geordi and give the ''Enterprise'' Soran's location on the planet because Picard promised to take Geordi's place after talking with Soran. With Picard on the planet surface and Geordi safe aboard, Riker could easily have ordered Picard beamed back up and obliterated Soran's launch site from orbit. Meanwhile the sisters hang around, having lost their only bargaining chip, apparently so they can destroy the Enterprise rather than allow it to get blown up when the star goes nova.

* Most of the trapped characters in the ''[[Saw]]'' movies. One very small point in their defense is that people might not mentally be at their best when they're about to die.

* The ''[[Big Bad]]'' in ''[[Gamer]]''. He's a tech genius and pretty media savvy, but makes two mistakes so laughable... First, the end reveals that {{spoiler|he has the ability to take control of the Hero at anytime, he neglects to do this anytime during the film when it would be most advantageous to do so... like taking control for a split-second while the hero is playing ''Slayers'', something he could easily do and make it look like a normal death in the game. Instead, he just hires a goon to kill him in game. Then he waits to usurp control of the hero until he is in the same room with him, and the hero has a weapon! Idiot ball indeed.}} Secondly, for someone so tech and media savvy to fall for the oldest trick in the book, having his villainous monologue broadcast to the world, is so pathetic that it doesn't bear a second thought.

* In the first ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' movie, while Grant and Ellie are holding back a velociraptor, a gun that was knocked out of Grant's hands and is just barely out of their reach. Lex is meanwhile hacking into the security system, and Tim, not doing anything else, decides to just stand off to the side cheering her on instead of picking up Grant's gun.

*** Also from the second film is Sarah, a scientist who disregards every piece of common sense in existence in regards to interacting with wildlife, and Nick, who sabotages the hunting party's every step regardless of the cost in lives. Both are responsible for every death on the island.

** What makes it even worse is that the [[Too Dumb to Live|blithering idiocy]] of this plan is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] not just by Conner, BUT ALSO BY THE TWO DUMBASS [[The Spoony Experiment|INSANO]] REJECTS HE SENT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488120/ Fracture] (2007) - The fact that there'll be a 'fracture' in the villain's otherwise great plan is well foreshadowed not only with the title, but also with a rather complicated prop. Will it be the planting of a gun? Or an unexpected friend to the DA judge? Maybe the DA will take justice in his own hands...? Well... {{spoiler|he just admits everything upfront in a BBG monologue, not suspecting that the man of law might be wearing a wire. Can't blame him though - the cash was on some kind of digital sound recorder, maybe like the one built into his cell phone.}}

* ''[[Zombieland]]'': In a zombie-infected world, [[Bill Murray]] chooses to frighten armed strangers while dressed as a zombie. He announces his plan to Woody Harrelson, who also thinks it's a good idea. It doesn't go well. To be fair, they were high at the time.

* In ''Reste Avec Moi'', a elderly man is being beaten to death with a pipe in a case of road rage. The man's adult daughter and a group of big burly men just stand there and gape, leaving the daughter's husband to run over and stop the attack - which results in his losing control and nearly beating the attacker to death (for which he is arrested).

* Justified in noir film ''Where Danger Lives'' to explain why the hero runs off with [[The Vamp]]: he has a bad concussion and isn't thinking straight.

* In ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'', Kirk enabled his ship to be damaged and many of his crew lost when he ignored regulations dictating a defensive posture with shields up when being approached by a non-communicative ship.

* ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' : The vain Queen Cassiopeia had the nerve to proclaim that her daughter, Andromeda, was more beautiful than the city's patron goddess, Thetis ... and she did this inside of ''Thetis's own temple,'' no less. In typical form for the Greek gods, Thetis does not take kindly to the insult, and as punishment, she demands that Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken, or else the entire city would be destroyed.

** Also, at the beginning of the film, the arrogant and vengeful King Acrisius of Argos condemns his own daughter, Danae, and her infant child, Perseus - ''who happens to be the son of Zeus, the leader of the gods'' - to the sea. It never seems to occur to Acrisius that Zeus just ''might'' be a little P.O.'ed by this. (Zeus commanded Poseidon to unleash the Kraken on Argos, destroying the entire kingdom. Acrisius may not have noticed, however, since he was busy being crushed to death by Zeus's hand.)

** This is actually directly addressed in the novels. The Europeans of the time viewed the Domination as a barbarian (nonwhite) nation with a thin veneer of civilized (white) rulers, certainly not a threat to the masters of the universe in Paris, Berlin, Rome, etc. And hey, who had they conquered up to that point? Some spear-chuckers in Africa, ragheads in the mideast, buncha Chinese out in the Orient, and the Turks? Nobody important or formidable, right? Racist and stupid, sure, but that's not even remotely unusual. Even in the real world, the Nazis and the Japanese military had convinced themselves that a 'mongrel' country like the USA could never be a real threat, despite the reality of the economic, industrial, and military situation.

*** Interestingly enough, the Draka themselves begin to fall victim to this same attitude, referring to the Alliance as "feral humans" even before their genetic engineering programs really got going. {{spoiler|They still won the Final War, but it's clear they weren't expecting to take the casualties they did in the process.}}

*** For the Europeans to view the Draka as harmless requires them to ignore an empire which controls all of Africa and the Middle East, has the world's largest GDP, possesses the most technologically advanced military in the world (as demonstrated in multiple wars Europeans were involved in), and a displays a tendency to kill hundreds of thousands of revolting slaves. Ignoring a entity like that when it's just across the Mediterranean is flat-out insane.

* Herodotus tells of a king named Croesus who consults an oracle to determine whether or not he should attack an enemy's kingdom. The oracle says that if he attacks, "a great kingdom will be destroyed," at which point Croesus commits his army and ends up losing his capital city and being enslaved. He could've just asked which kingdom would be destroyed, but that's not nearly as fun, is it?

** Corron was mostly distracted by Tycho being on the planet and dumb luck on a planet of billions(Maybe trillions) that the one criminal with a grudge finds him. The real ball comes from Corron who 'cop instinct' just won't let him stop believing Tycho was a traitor despite the fact if he was brained wash Issard could have used him at any time in the countless missions to to take Imperial Center.

* ''[[Sylvester And The Magic Pebble]]'': Sylvester would like to add that this page makes him [[Be Careful What You Wish For|wish he was a rock]]. On the other hand, he ''was'' about to be eaten by a lion and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

** Stephen Mallory, confronted by local detective Bennett about the mysterious disappearance of Matthew Hamilton, husband of Mallory's former girlfriend Felicity, immediately charges off to see Felicity. This despite the fact that Mallory is automatically the ''prime suspect'', since he is still obviously obsessed with Felicity.

** In the course of evading Bennett, Mallory {{spoiler|runs over Bennett's foot with his car.}} This does not make Mallory more popular with the local constabulary.

** An Eleventh Doctor book called "Hunter's Moon" has Rory, probably the most level-headed one between him, Eleven and Amy, gambling away the TARDIS and getting himself kidnapped to a place where humans are hunted.

* ''[[Digital Fortress]]'', where a half dozen computer scientists and mathematicians spend six pages scratching their heads before realizing that the word {{spoiler|PRIME}} in a password could refer to {{spoiler|Prime Numbers instead of Prime Ribs}}.

** Not quite a case of the [[Idiot Ball]]- she had no idea who mentioned the affair or why she was being brought in to the trial- if it was Abigail, then John was standing accused and telling the truth could get him locked up or hanged; if it was John (and it was), then it was a desperate attempt to end the madness by exposing the lead accuser as a liar and a slut and undermining her credibility. The judge has her dragged in and refuses to let her so much as look at her husband, or anyone else, never mind tell her what this was all about. She gambled that it was Abigail (since this was the best-case scenario; if it was John he was damned either way), and the gamble failed. But a [[Witch Hunt]] is pretty damn stressful at the best of times, when you aren't pregnant and you and your friends and husband aren't facing the noose because the whole town has gone mad.

*** For the record, in [[Real Life]] this particular subplot ''never happened''. Not least because Abigail was ''12'', and John Proctor was not [[Daniel Day Lewis]].

** Also the one where Chandler believes Monica wants plastic surgery.

** Perhaps half, if not more, of ''Friends'' episodes center on someone grabbing the Idiot Ball and making a hash out of situations that should be very simple. Ross and Rachel spent ten years playing Idiot Ball hot potato.

* Every episode of ''[[Three's Company]]''.

** ''[[Friends]]'' even had a [[Take That]] against the show in one episode, when they're all watching the show and Chandler says something to the effect of "Oh, this is the episode of ''Three's Company'' where there's some sort of misunderstanding." Phoebe replies "Then I've already seen this one," and switches the TV off. On the other hand, if it's constantly in play it's not the idiot ball: they may be just idiots in general.

* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' had a good deal of this for [[Those Wacky Nazis]].

* Every episode of ''[[Bewitched]]''.

** The invasion force consisted of [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|a mere 2,000 soldiers]]. Pacifists or not, that's a very pathetic number.

*** Sela also held an idiot ball in "Redemption Part 2." where she was supplying the House of Duras during the Klingon Civil War. The Federation decided to make an anti-cloak net by having some [[Applied Phlebotinum]] beams between a fleet of ships, resulting in a standoff. Not once does Sela or the crew of any of the other ships think that maybe, since [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|Space is big and all]], [[Space Is an Ocean|that she could just fly AROUND the net]].

** There's also Tasha Yar in "Datalore". [[Idiot Plot|The rest of the crew didn't do much better]], but special mention must go to the chief of security for failing to recognize that a perfect twin of the second officer might possibly represent a security risk.

** Then there's Deanna Troi in "Disaster". Regardless of whether you like or dislike the character, one has to admit that for a Starfleet lieutenant commander to have to be ''told'' what happens when the warp core breaches (answer: the ship explodes!) is sheer idiot ball.

** It was Riker's turn to hold the Idiot Ball in "Samaritan Snare." Riker sends LaForge over to a Pakled ship (the crew of which seems exceptionally slow) to do some requested repairs. Worf objects to sending them the Enterprise's chief engineer, but Riker blows it off. Troi tells him directly that she's suspicious and feels that LaForge is in danger. Riker blows if off again. Then Geordi gets captured because Worf and Troi were right and Riker ignored them. Scriptwriter Dennis Russell Bailey, who wrote the screenplay for "Tin Man" in the following season said, "The point at which we became serious about trying to write a script for the show was about five minutes after watching 'Samaritan Snare,' which in my personal opinion was the most abysmal piece of Star Trek ever filmed. My objections to it were that it always resorted to idiot plotting to make the story work, and that offended me a great deal worse than some of the awful shows which were done on the original series. I thought the way in which it was plotted and the way it was dealt with was an insult to the intelligence of the people who watched the show and the actors and characters in the show. None of the plot could have happened if all of the characters hadn't suddenly became morons that week."

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'''s Captain Janeway practically ''is'' an Idiot Ball, and the members of her crew toss her around for exercise in each episode. In one episode, Janeway contracts a fatal illness that gets suppressed on a certain planet, and the crew is faced with a choice... leave her on a planet where she can comfortably live the rest of her life, or make a deal with the Vidiians, a race with a documented history of hijacking star ships and harvesting the organs of everyone inside. One unusually rational member of the crew makes it clear that negotiating with the Vidiians is a recipe for disaster, only to be ignored with the expected results. Winning decisions like this are made throughout the series, making you wonder if the HoloDoc is there to remind them to breathe every five seconds.

** Perhaps it was Idiot Dodgeball?

* Let's face it ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has so many of these that it'd be easier to point out when they [[Smart Ball|AREN'T being stupid]].

* The entire ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' cast in the episode "Intervention." No one wonders why Buffy's acting oddly and using highly unusual speech patterns only ''three'' episodes (to be fair, the time that passed between episodes is unknown) after a robot with identical behavior and mannerisms showed up, and everybody could immediately tell it was a robot then, despite next to zero hints.

** Lampshaded in the very same episode, when Buffy herself walks in the house and comes face to face with her duplicate. The other characters are stunned and bewildered, to which Buffy (having heard all of two sentences from the Buffybot) responds:

** Of honorable mention is his decision in Little Lamb Village to take the Traveling mirror, which had already shown a penchant for disappearing and being hard to track down, and ''{{spoiler|hide it on the only movable object in the barn.}}''

** We'd have to nominate the Midas Touch incident -- mostly because by that time he'd been in the Nine Kingdoms long enough to know it ran on fairy-tale tropes, AND was warned by Wolf, who was actually native to the area, to forget it, but accepted the spell anyway, and managed to turn one of his friends to gold. Wolf later remarked, [[Lampshade Hanging|"It was almost... predictable."]]

* Why, ''[[Supernatural]]''? Why on earth would Sam and Dean even let Bela see the Colt, let alone leave her alone with it? They know she can easily unlock the safe and they certainly know that she can't be trusted.

** They must have got it from their father. What was he thinking? Meg and her brother were obviously going to test the Colt out and they would obviously want to tear him and his sons apart when they found out that it was a fake.

** The whole show has always been driven by idiot balls, from the beginning. The deals with the crossroads demon are the most irritating, but, also, a lot of their problems with the law would have resolved themselves if they'd just taken proper precautions and cleaned their crime scenes.

*** As of Season 6, the idiot balls now seem to be superglued to the Winchester brothers' hands. Most of their wangst--and the survival of so many individuals--could have been prevented if not for their incredibly dumb decisions.

* Generally inverted on ''[[Reno 911]]''... During every sketch, one of the idiotic policemen seems to be handed the [[Smart Ball]], demonstrating an inconsistent amount of skill and intuition in dealing with the idiot criminal or idiot partner. This could be [[Handwaved]] by the necessity of the comedic [[Straight Man]].

** The Smart Ball seemed to go to all the bit-characters, making them practically [[Mary Sue]] perfect in order to make the regular actors look idiotic... and more annoyingly than ordinary [[Mary Sue]] characters, since it would usually end up with the regular characters being injured or humiliated in some way, but they were also center-stage while the bit-characters were barely visible.

*** Not leaving Teyla unconscious until they're clear of Atlantis by stunning her repeatedly or even restraining while she’s awake so she can't, say, take her mission-critical baby and flee from your grasp at the first opportunity.

*** Leaving two dozen or so stunned humans (including [[The Big Guy]] Ronon) in an unmonitored room with an accessible door panel and a single guard posted at the other side of the door. There's nothing preventing them from having just one or two guys stationed in the room armed with stunners so they can knock them back down again if any of them wakes up. [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|Or just killing them while they're lying immobile on the floor]].

*** After his plan went completely awry and having no hopes of survival anymore, [[Bond Villain Stupidity|failing to kill John Sheppard in a last act of spite right when he has him dangling off the top of Atlantis' main tower]].

** In Stargate Atlantis "Sanctuary", every member of Shepard's team has the Idiot Ball with the exception of McKay, who is ignored and castigated throughout the episode. Even Dr. Weir is holding the Idiot Ball in this one, as she, just like Shepard, Teyla, Ford and everyone but McKay, ignore what is before them, from the obvious lies and contradictions in the initial story told by the Ancient, to an Ancient lying through her teeth throughout the episode, to an Ancient allowing and facilitating her own worship as a false goddess. It was frustrating for the audience to sit through what amounted to a 42 minute group of Idiot Balls, wondering why they didn't see what was before them and wondering why McKay, of all the characters, was the only one who was actually seeing clearly.

** His crowning moment at the end of season 2 involves {{spoiler|giving a suicidal Cylon he wants to keep alive a nuke that she didn't know existed, much less asked for. Oh, and she has religious problems with actually committing suicide, but she's been abused by humans, she's now hiding on a human ship, and dying while fighting humans seems to be no problem}}. The results are predictable.

** {{spoiler|Baltar pushes her to have sex with him. ''Only a few months after she was gang-raped and beaten repeatedly.'' She must have blown up the ship}} because being pushed into sex with her only friend finally broke her sanity.

** Cottle is usually immune, but when he gets hit, he gets hit badly: such as {{spoiler|participating in the lie about Hera not surviving her birth. As if there wouldn't be consequences once Helo and Athena discovered the truth! It seems like he's picking up the ball again when he refuses to even listen to evidence that a colleague might be hurting a historically persecuted ethnic group, but he demonstrates some off-screen competency by actually going to check up on the patient files and autopsy on his own, coming to the conclusion that something actually is up.}}

** Tom Zarek and Lieutenant Gaeta also get this during their attempted coup. So, they are in control of ''Galactica's'' CIC, have Admiral Adama and the humanoid Cylons in custody, but Lee and Starbuck are still at large, there are unsecured/unguarded areas of the ship, and Laura Roslin is on the Rebel Basestar (which might be beat up, but still has its weapons). So, what do they do instead of consolidating their hold on ''Galactica'' and the fleet? They spend two hours putting Adama on trial for "betraying humanity and providing aide to the enemy", taking a break to [[Moral Event Horizon|murder the entire Quorum of Twelve]]. At least Zarek was genre savvy enough to know that Adama was a liability as long as he was alive. Gaeta was the one who pushed to have him stand trial.

** "Skin Deep" -- Every doctor managed to miss the fact that their patient had {{spoiler|no uterus}} and didn't notice {{spoiler|the pair of undecended testes in "her" abdomen}} despite numerous ultrasounds and scans.

*** She only had the one ultrasound as far as I can recall - Wilson mucked it up thinking her ovaries were simply undersized and wouldn't be looking for a uterus when he was searching for ovarian cancer. When they got a proper scan, that's when the problem reared its ugly head

** Foreman {{spoiler|fired Thirteen, because her working as his subordinate would break them up.}} There is no way she would dump you after that, genius! Say it with me.

** Also applies for at least 50% of the patients... as an example, I cite the parents who didn't mention that their son was adopted (thus invalidating his medical history) because "he didn't need to know."

*** [[Truth in Television]] unfortunately. What's important to the patient is usually not what's important to the doctor. In the given case, they gave the medical history of the birth mother and to not want to share that is understandable, given that they saw themselves as his parents in every way except biologically. Would have been simpler had they admitted it, but the scenario in the show is (for that little part at least) fairly realistic.

* One episode of ''[[Bones]]'' has Temperance convinced it is outright irrational to think her book could be connected to the series of murders that mirror ''exactly'' the ones she wrote about.

** That's not really fair. Brennan later admitted that she knew they were connected, but she didn't want to believe it because that would make her responsible for the murders. She wasn't stupid, she was just feeling guilty.

** It would help. How much, we won't know, considering how the Others are cryptic (and in the case of Ben, [[Consummate Liar|outright liars]]) in their conversations.

** The whole "Nuke the Swan" plot line in the last few episodes of Season 5. The A-Team are convinced that setting off the nuke will prevent the Incident. Ten minutes before they're going to do it, the resident [[Deadpan Snarker]] Miles asks if they ever considered that the nuke might ''cause'' the Incident. The silence leads to Miles to mentally facepalm and say, "I'm glad you all thought this through." {{spoiler|And by the way, it does.}}

* In ''[[Naeturvaktin]]'', the two employees miss several obvious opportunities to get Georg, their bullying boss, fired. Instead, they grab the idiot ball at the crucial moments so the series can run to its conclusion.

* ''[[Little House on the Prairie (TV series)|Little House On the Prairie]]'' has a few of these.

* In ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' detectives often show abysmal timing in escorting their jittery, easily disturbed witnesses out of the building at the ''exact same time through the exact same door'' the violent rapist/abusive boyfriend/evil family member is being brought in.

* Peter from ''[[Fringe]]'' is meant to be a genius, with an insanely high IQ and perception {{spoiler|enough to realize that he's from another universe. He's also known Olivia for over 2 years now.}} At the end of last season, he and Olivia finally admitted their feelings, to some extent anyway. {{spoiler|Then the two Olivias, the one from the parallel world and the one from our world, switched, and he somehow hasn't noticed even though a) he's noticed how different she is, b) he's surrounded by cases of imposters from Over There, and c) he's spending so much time with her that they've slept together.}} Even Peter's actor admits he's gotten the Idiot Ball this season. When a reckoning came around, {{spoiler|Olivia chewed him out for it, and their relationship was somewhat rocky thereafter, until they finally go together.}}

* In season 6 of ''[[The Office]],'' Jim takes the Idiot Ball and runs with it. Jim is often the voice of reason, or at least the one able to point out when someone is being foolish. However, when {{spoiler|he accepts a management job}} he suddenly becomes irrational and does stupid things like {{spoiler|sharing management responsibilities with Michael}} and {{spoiler|giving an unfair raise to the sales staff.}} Why he suddenly becomes an idiot after six years of relative sanity is unclear. To be fair, Jim was promoted with zero management experience, and was initially more concerned with keeping everyone happy than doing the best job he can do; the joke being that despite years of poking fun at Michael's, erm, erratic management skills, it was very easy for Jim to fall into that trap as well.

** Plus, the raises to the sales staff issue is only unfair if you know absolutely nothing about how business works. The problem was that, due to Dunder Mifflin's decline, there wasn't enough money to give raises to everyone, and Jim makes the ''completely valid'' point that keeping the sales staff happy is important if Dunder Mifflin plans to dig themselves out of the hole they're in; this is actually a very common occurrence in business, and is a lose/lose situation no matter ''what'' you try. Jim's main mistakes were actually believing that the people of the office might actually have the decency to be even ''remotely'' mature about it, and then giving in to their petty whining.

* ''[[LazyTown]]'s'' Robbie Rotten has one goal and one goal only: Get rid of Sportacus and return the town to its original lazy state. So when he gets his hands on a genie's lamp, what '''doesn't''' he wish for? Sportacus to disappear!

** Admittedly, Robbie eventually ''did'' use his final wish to get rid of Sportacus, but by that point, the genie was so sick of him he got rid of Robbie instead!

* After the first season, [[Blackadder]] [[Growing the Beard|got a major upgrade]] and became the snarky, [[Genre Savvy]] [[Only Sane Man]] that everyone knows and loves. This didn't stop him being handed a major [[Idiot Ball]] in the Series 2 episode "Bells", where he cannot figure out that "Bob", his manservant, is really a girl. (She doesn't make any effort to disguise her face or voice -- it is obvious to every viewer from the moment Bob appears onscreen.) They have a rather sweet courtship anyway -- which ''in itself'' was an [[Out-of-Character Moment]] for him.

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' has many, especially the episodes with time travel. Some examples:

** In "Escape Clause", Walter Bedeker is given immortality and is unable to feel pain. Instead of setting out to have a long and happy life, he defrauds several businesses and confesses to killing his wife, which he didn't do. In court, he works to get himself convicted so he could try out the electric chair, but is then given life in prison instead, although it's not explained what he would have done after going to the electric chair. It is at this point that he uses the "Escape Clause" which causes his own death rather than face life in prison. At this point, he has apparently forgotten that in addition to being ageless, he is also invulnerable. How easy would it then be to escape from prison if he doesn't have to fear injury or death? He could wait for an opportunity and make a break for the barbed wire or electrified fence and just climb over it. What are guard dogs or gunshots to someone who is invulnerable? In the very least, he could wait it out.

* In ''[[Community]]'' episodes [[Community/Recap/S1 E17 Physical Education|Physical Education]] Señor Chang comments on this when everybody, including Annie, forgets to check the front cover of a schoolbook to see who owned it last. (She blames Britta's pronunciation of the word "bagel" as "baggel", saying it was distracting.)

'''Lois:''' Yes! You said, "Lois, I'm Super---"

'''Clark:''' Lois, I'm super late for my appointment. }}

 

 

** Then again, Samson is established as not the sharpest knife in the drawer to begin with.

** Abraham is traveling through Egypt with his [[World's Most Beautiful Woman|lovely wife, Sarah]] in tow. He fears that the Egyptians would [[Murder the Hypotenuse|kill him and take her away]] because of her beauty. So, what does he do? He stuffs her [[Girl in a Box|into a box]]. He didn't stop to think that ''maybe, just maybe'' that box would, you know, have to pass through customs. Then when she is discovered, he tells them that [[She Is Not My Girlfriend|she's only his sister]], which results in Sarah being taken into the Pharaoh's harem. The ''real'' icing on the cake? This happens [[Aesop Amnesia|twice!]]

* Probably not the only case in [[Greek Mythology]], but the biggest: Rhea fooled her husband Kronos from devouring little baby Zeus by giving him a stone in diapers. To be fair, she did get him drunk first.

** "Orpheus, you vanquished every obstacle in your path and made us weep, you love your girl so much. She can come back to the living world, just don't look back, okay ?" "Derp!"

*** There is a catch to this though. There are two different animations, one is her [[Playing Possum]] and the other animation is the real deal. She is open for attack should the latter occur.

* Many characters from "[[Starcraft II]]" have a white-knuckle grip on the idiot ball.

** Also, Raynor finds out that {{spoiler|Tychus}} has a killswitch transponder, but instead of ditching him as a liability or somehow neutralizing the transponder, he displays his impressive knack for leadership by just passively wondering what has {{spoiler|Tychus}} gotten himself into.

* ''[[Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe]]'' gives essentially the whole cast bar a few the Idiot Ball for essentially the whole plot. Even when they weren't hopped up on interdimensional [[Unstoppable Rage]], the characters did a bang up job of not trusting eachother and, at times, straight up not noticing clues that maybe the other fighters from the other universes are possibly going through the same thing they are. As a result, massive [[Let's You and Him Fight]]. It doesn't help that whenever anyone starts to wonder whether they weren't fighting enemies, someone would suddenly appear going through said Rage and attack, though even then the symptoms of the rage are obvious (they recognize it when it affects each other, for instance). This mainly just hinders them from doing anything relatively productive, and, ironically, the only person doing anything towards fixing things is {{spoiler|Lex Luthor}}. Meanwhile, the only other people who aren't held back either use it to {{spoiler|go on a spree of destruction (Joker being Joker, really)}}, or loses opportunities to figure things out once they arrive ( {{spoiler|Batman}}). Superman, [[The Messiah|being Superman]], is the only other one who remains optimistic and friendly despite aggression from everyone.

* Genevieve Aristide has the Idiot Ball permanently glued to her hands in both [[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]] games. In the first game, as a multitude of phone messages reveal, multiple experts dealing with Alma Wade and Paxton Fettel advised Aristide ''not'' to reopen the Vault in a hope of restarting Project: Origin, and they were ignored. Subsequently, the team sent in disappeared and Alma began reaching out to Paxton again. Then, multiple people noticed certain unexplained indicators in Paxton Fettel that he was building towards another [[Noodle Incident|synchronicity event]], and that the results of such would be exponentially more catastrophic than the original one. Aristide and possibly others in charge completely ignore their warnings, and Fettel is psychically directed by Alma to send his army of telepathically linked clone soldiers to start conducting mass murders. In the second game, Snakefist, ''another expert,'' repeatedly tells Aristide that Alma cannot be contained and that the only option is to try to kill her. Aristide again disregards advice from people who know a lot more than her and tries to continue doing things her way. Everything is her fault, and she still [[Karma Houdini|has yet to pay for her crimes]].

* In ''[[Okami]]'', the priestess Rao asks Amaterasu to find the Fox Rods for her, as they are the only way to stop the Water Dragon that's been terrorizing Ryoshima Coast. When she does find them, {{spoiler|it's revealed that they are the exact opposite of that, and that Rao was lying through her teeth.}} When Amaterasu meets Rao next, she... {{spoiler|gives the Fox Rods to her}}?! [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]!

* In ''[[Portal 2]]'', Wheatley is ''literally'' an Idiot Ball. {{spoiler|1=And an example of the trope too; in a desperate attempt to keep GLaDOS under control, Aperture Science engineers created Wheatley for the sole purpose of making him the best moron in existence. When attached to GLaDOS he dampened her intelligence by supplying a constant stream of bad ideas.}}

** He does manage to come up with a good idea or two now and then, but even when he does ([[G La DOS]] comments on the success of {{spoiler|the trap in "The Part Where He Kills You}}) he still manages to hold the idiot ball (if he {{spoiler|just wanted to kill you, why bother with such an elaborate death trap? His plan would have worked much better if he'd simply made the spike-plates move quicker and killed you as soon as you landed, or at least plugged up the Conversion Gel.}})

** [[Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones|Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones]] offers us a fantasic display of the Idiot Ball, no matter which route you take. {{spoiler|In Eirika's route, after learning that her childhood friend Lyon is beyond redemption from the Demon King, ''and'' seeing evidence of his possession right in front of her, she ''still'' goes off alone after him and hands him the Sacred Stone. And is subsequently surprised when he crushes it. At least Ephraim's only moment of stupidity is running off alone after a dangerous [[Black Mage]] and gets the Sacred Stone stolen from him after being immobilized.}}

* In ''[[The Reconstruction]]'', after {{spoiler|the Watchers are killed}} and the party decides to wait for someone to show up and tell them what to do, the only attempt {{spoiler|Tezkhra}} ([[Optional Party Member|if you have him in your party]]) makes to stop them from {{spoiler|trancing out}} is saying that they should tell him if they "feel anything unusual". Even though he knows that {{spoiler|emitter radiation, which they're currently being exposed to, causes trancing if people sit around and do nothing, which is ''exactly what they said they would do''}}. He should at least have done something to {{spoiler|keep ''himself'' from trancing}}... But despite all this, he just goes along with them and sits there like an idiot.

* A literal, just for visual pun example: In ''Vattroller X'', the only way to beat opponents is to turn them into balls and then knock them into a pit. A special attack lets characters turn into ball monsters which are vulnerable to falling. [[Artificial Stupidity|The CPU kills itself frequently while using the more powerful version of it.]]

* In [[Kingdom Hearts II]] the villains need [[The Hero]] (and specifically [[The Hero]], mind you) to take out [[The Heartless]] to restore the titular [[MacGuffin]]. Thing is, he was already ''doing'' that. They completely shot themselves in the foot by even exposing their existence to him, let alone pushing his [[Berserk Button]] to try and blackmail him. If they'd just quietly let him do his hero thing, or even ''asked'' for his help (since their grand goal wasn't all that villainous to begin with), they probably could have gotten out of the game with at least half of the members still alive. (The ones in [[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories]], not so much). This is especially annoying, because them showing up and taunting him convinces him right away that they're evil, and considers specifically ''not'' killing [[The Heartless]] to prevent them from getting what they want.

* ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' ends up with several scenes where characters pick up an Idiot Ball. An especially sad case is with Keeper Marethari, who suposedly is one of the sanest and wisest characters of the series, which is not especially known for its level headed cast. Her apprentice Merrill wants to restore a broken magic mirror, to learn about ancient elven magic, but she only warns her that it is dangerous and will end badly if she doesn't stop, trying repeatedly to persuade her for ten years. While Merrill was very set on her goal and accepted exile from her clan, there was no need not to tell her {{spoiler|that the imprisoned demon who gave Merrill advice on restoring the Mirror would use it to escape. While she thought she could handle the demons influence and was willing to risk her own life, she would never willingly let it escape and slaughter countless innocents. In the end, Marethari sacrifices herself to destroy the demon before Merrill can release it, which causes the rest of her clan to blame her for the keepers death, and she's either forced to kill the clan in self defense or be permanently exiled.}}

* ''[[Carmen Sandiego]]'' has plenty of these. ACME apparently has a battery powered translator. Seems reasonable, except they never learned to provide you with backups or a charger considering you're traveling around the world.

 

 

** "Aaron" and "Erin" are homophonous in many regions in North America. Erin is an androgynous name, also.

* A rather in-character Idiot Ball is given to Jade in ''Jade 6'', when she helps with a rather... dangerous-sounding deal. Thing is, she said she'd help, the person really needs it, it SHOULD all go okay, right? (She's shown ALMOST catching herself, but she keeps slipping back.) Partially caused by a massive Hero Ball, as well.

** The ''entire plot of the comic'' is based off of people '''refusing to let go of''' the Idiot Ball (usually Jim, but everyone gets a turn). Not to mention the entire point of the comic is to explain the large amount of Idiot Balls in the prequels (see above).

* In ''[[The Dreamer]]'' at the end of issue #10, Alexander offers to take Beatrice to safety to Washington's headquarters, but Beatrice stays put with Alan and Nathan. Alan is supposed to take Beatrice to Washington for interrogation about what happened when she was with Howe - and Alexander could easily have taken her to Washington himself!

** Made worse by the fact that present day Demona says she remembers the whole incident (well, Goliath's talk after she got knocked out), but if she remembers that, it's pretty odd to think she'd have forgotten meeting herself and seeing her other self's defeat. So if she already had memories of her plan failing, why go through with it? It reeks of Dr. Manhattan style pre-destination.

** The aforementioned PALES in comparison with the sheer idiocy Demona displays in "Hunter's Moon". Goliath and Co. break in when she's about to deliver the fatal blow against humankind and unleash the enchanted virus lethal to all sentient beings (Gargoyles will be protected by a magical figurine she has on her table). Not only does Demona start monologuing, in the worst Bond Villainesque manner possible, but she actually POINTS at the figurine as if asking Goliath to smash the thing. He obliges.

* ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'', specifically when Grod thought turning Batman into a 400 pound gorilla would ensure his total victory.

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]''

* The same goes for ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', where in most episodes it's Timmy's idiocy that gets the plot moving.

* This very web page is referenced and linked to in [http://news.toonzone.net/article.php?ID=22845 Ed Liu's Toon Zone review] of ''[[The Flintstones]]'' [[Sequelitis|sequel series]] ''[[The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show|The Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show]]''. To wit:

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''

** Iroh, usually [[The Obi-Wan]], [[Retired Badass]] and [[The Caretaker]] in one, once almost killed himself by drinking tea made of the leaves of a perceived delicious tea plant that wasn't (well, he and Zuko desperate for food at the time). Followed by a small [[Find the Cure]] plot. (Though this may have been a bit of character exposition, meant to demonstrate exactly how much Iroh enjoys his tea.) However, this also could have been a [[Batman Gambit]] on his part. As up until then Zuko refused to go to a village for help, and Iroh did this to make him decide to go.

** Katara, who before had been hiding out of sight, deciding to step out and into the crazed Azula's line of vision just as Zuko has taunted her to shoot him with lightning. This is just so Zuko is knocked out of the fight protecting Katara so she can defeat Azula.

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

* ''[[The Simpsons]]''

** 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."

* In a ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode, you have rebelling young twin heroes, one of whom can turn into different animals, real or not, and the other can turn into water. When these two heroes (and other young, misguided heroes) try to blow up the base they live in after [[The Reveal|the]] [[Cloning Blues|reveal]], a group of Justice Leaguers tries to stop them. The twins attack a member of the Justice League by drowning him in a room filled with water and have a ''T. rex'', obviously not an aquatic creature, attack said hero, underwater. Again, this happened ''underwater.'' Who's the Justice Leaguer they fought? {{spoiler|Aquaman.}} Though the characters were in the middle of a mental breakdown, so thinking clearly was not exactly something to be expected. If they're inspired, as it seems likely, by the [[Wonder Twins]] of ''[[Superfriends]]'', then one could say they keep pretty true to the original characters.

* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' hands Robin a huge idiot ball at the end of "Trust". After spending an episode fighting against a shapeshifter who had both shown that she could mimic both the appearance and voice of anyone, cannot replicate powers, and loses her structural integrity when she's exposed to strong heat. What does Robin do after a fight where the result isn't clear? Immediately trust the Not!Hot Spot, and handed over a spare communication device - which allowed The Brotherhood of Evil to track down every. single. superhero. that the Titans gave the com device to. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice Job Breaking It Robin]]. This makes it worse since Robin is supposed to be the smart, suspicious one.

* Episode 12 of ''[[Sym-Bionic Titan]]'' has some [[Idiot Ball]] moments when you consider two things: One, why didn't Lance and the others consider stomping and or obliterating the [[Playing Possum|supposedly dead]] [[Monster of the Week]]'s body just to be safe. Two, wouldn't it have occurred to Ilana and Lance by now that Octus isn't a normal robot considering his build and powers? It's made clear early on that everyone on the show occasionally picks up the ball for the plot (episode 4, anybody?).

* ''[[The Animals of Farthing Wood]]'': Weasel conveniently forgets Fox's message for Adder to kill Scarface and mixes it up as simply killing a blue fox, despite she being the one who suggests they get Adder to kill Scarface.

** Twilight ''did'' notice that her friends were acting strangely. The fact that she didn't suspect of Discord's influence (at first at least) is probably due to the fact that she couldn't imagine him cheating on the rules ''he'' sets up for the game by [[Mind Rape|Mind Raping]] all of them (which he didn't (well, partially), with the exception of Fluttershy and maybe Rainbow Dash too). It also sure helps that the maze was '''very''' big (as seen in some scenes), so they probably travelled separeted for some hours at least, which maybe made Twilight think that they acted like that because of stress and fear, rather than Discord's influence. As for Spike, he maybe was tslking about how grumpy they were looking, not necessarly the color.

** Many of the episodes hinge on one or more of the cast picking up the [[Idiot Ball]]. Among the ones that stand out are [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1 E4 Applebuck Season|Applebuck Season]], [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1 E22 A Bird in The Hoof|A Bird in the Hoof]], [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1 E20 Green Isn't Your Color|Green Isn't Your Color]], [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E3 Lesson Zero|Lesson Zero]] and [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E4 Luna Eclipsed|Luna Eclipsed]].

 

 

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[[Category:Idiot Ball]]