Seemingly-Profound Fool: Difference between revisions

* [[John Candy]] played exactly this character in ''[[Who's Harry Crumb?]]''. Harry (Candy) is almost in [[The Simpsons (animation)|Ralph Wiggum's]] league. He was sent in by the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] because the executive wanted to send the worst possible detective in the world. Eventually, some characters do catch on to Crumb's stupidity, but by the end are wondering if it was [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]. It {{spoiler|probably was not.}}

* The driving concept of the comedy ''[[The Man With One Red Shoe]]'', in which a clueless musician (played by Pierre Richard in the original frenchFrench film and [[Tom Hanks]] in the americanAmerican remake) gets mistaken for a powerful and highly competent spy. Everything he says and does for the rest of the movie is spied, filmed, analyzed and dissected by real government counterintelligence agents who become more and more convinced of his [[Informed Attribute|so-called cunning]] when he is in fact none of those things.

* Subverted twice in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel "''[[Discworld/Interesting Times"|Interesting Times]]'', when Rincewind is claimed as the Great Wizzard, who will lead the Red Army to victory. Firstly, because Rincewind ''does'' understand the question and knows he doesn't have the answer, but can't convince anyone of this; and second, because the leader of the Red Army knows this as well, but thinks they need a symbol. And, of course, [[Double Subversion|double-subverted]] when he does, though a combination of chance and cowardly cunning.

* In a book of Jewish Jokes there is this joke. An antisemiticanti-Semitic priest was in charge of a town, and challenged the Jews of the town to a sign language debate with him, with a catch: if the person they pick to debate loses, all the Jews must leave. No one volunteers for the debate except a poor fool. At the debate, the priest draws a big circle in the air. The fool stamps on the ground. The priest holds up three fingers. The fool shakes his head and holds up one. The priest takes out bread and wine. The fool begins to eat an apple. The priest then declares that the fool had won the debate. The priest's explanation: "The circle meant that God was everywhere in the world. The stamp on the ground meant God was not in Hell. The three fingers represented the Trinity. Holding up one finger meant that God was one and indivisible. The bread and wine represented the blood and flesh of Jesus, but when he reminded me of the original sin, I knew he had won." The ''fool's'' explanation, on the other hand: "The priest pointed far away, meaning that all the Jews must leave. I stamped on the ground, to say that we're staying right here. The three fingers meant that we had three days to get out. The one finger meant that not one of us was leaving. Then, I guess he gave up, since he took out his lunch, so I took out mine."