Extroverted Nerd

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(Redirected from The Urkel)
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"Hi, I'm Tucker. Don't let the PDA, glasses, and lack of muscles fool ya. I'm a stud."

Danny Fenton (imitating his friend), Danny Phantom

The Extroverted Nerd is a young teenage nerd (almost Always Male), who dresses and behaves very awkwardly. Unlike nerds in real life (or nerds who star in their shows) he is completely oblivious to his nerdly nature, and is a Casanova Wannabe who goes after girls without any fear of rejection. In fact, he doesn't take "no" for an answer. Usually serves as the stooge to the main character.

Many nerd characters in shows with laugh tracks are like this. The TV Genius is a less annoying example. Although, whether or not an Extroverted Nerd actually has high intelligence is optional.

Often combined with the TV Genius, and usually a victim of Hollywood Dress Code. Contrast with Hollywood Nerd. Compare Small Name, Big Ego.

Examples of Extroverted Nerd include:

Anime and Manga

  • Kensuke in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Ox Ford in Soul Eater is a serious nerd, but also a badass fighter, which often makes him overlook his own nerdliness and think he's as cool as the cool kids.
  • Bleach: Kon, and Keigo Asano. Sort of.
  • Umino of Sailor Moon.

Film

  • Twilight : Eric.
  • McLovin in Superbad. He starts out that way but by the end of the movie he has sex with a girl and stages himself getting arrested to appear like a Badass.
  • Booger from Revenge of the Nerds. (Using a somewhat broader definition of "nerd" than you see in more recent media—he's more of a slob—but the non-nerd characters in the movie do consider him a nerd.) Has few (or no) social graces, and is a total extravert who utterly fails to understand why people find him repulsive, unlike the more vanilla nerds of the rest of the cast.
  • Farmer Ted in Sixteen Candles.
  • The film Superstar has a rare a female example, Mary Katherine Gallagher, a totally unselfconscious extravert and show-off who really has no clue that she's a total nerd.

Live-Action TV

  • Family Matters: Steve Urkel, the former Trope Namer. Steve actually does know he's a nerd, he's just usually proud of it or at least puts on a brave face when others pick on him. Only Laura is finally able to shame him into trying to change, which leads to his genetically altered clone. Later on in the series, when she does agree to date him he starts dressing slightly less nerdy, but is still just as proud to be one. By the end of the series, Laura had finally accepted Steve for who he is and even fell in love with him.
  • Saved by the Bell: Samuel "Screech" Powers. Also pretty much anyone in the school classed as a "nerd," actively portrayed as if they are an entire race all to themselves to be derided by our heroes. The worst part was the the "heroes" were usually considered as being rather nice to the nerds.
  • Irwin "Skippy" Handelman in Family Ties. Unusual in that Skippy was even less intelligent than Mallory Keaton. Alex P. Keaton, on the other hand, is portrayed as more that of the Hollywood Nerd.
  • Cookie in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.
  • Rare female example: Quinn in Zoey 101.
  • Ron Yuma in Naturally, Sadie.
  • Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory. Howard actually knows he's a nerd, but chooses to ignore this and act like he's cool in the hopes that people (especially women) will be fooled. He fits this trope so well he could perfectly be the Trope Codifier for younger viewers.
  • Rico from Hannah Montana.
  • Lawrence "Larry" Tudgeman III (a.k.a. "Tudge") from Lizzie McGuire,also a subversion, as he was apparently a nice, normal guy outside school.
  • Penelope Taynt in The Amanda Show, please. Also a stalker, who may or may not have been a Stalker with a Crush.
  • Reality show example: Richard Rubin on the first season of Beauty and the Geek. (Most of the other "geeks" were more closer to Hollywood Nerd.)
  • The Latest Buzz: Cody Herman (who calls himself "the Her Man").
  • Moss in The IT Crowd, although his character is arguably more aware of his nerdiness than most of the characters attributed to this trope.
  • Robbie from Victorious. Sikowitz even tells him "Way to go, Urkel!" in Locked Up.
  • Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report is the God-King of this trope.

Music

  • The singer in Five Iron Frenzy's song "You Can't Handle This".

Music Videos

  • The main character in the music video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "White and Nerdy".
  • Waldo from Van Halen's video for "Hot for Teacher".
  • Patrick Stump (and to a lesser extent the rest of the band) in Fall Out Boy's "Dance Dance".

Professional Wrestling

  • Jameson (or Jamison) Winger, in the World Wrestling Federation, who was originally a nerdy, socially-challenged Ed McMahon-style sidekick for the short-lived "Bobby Heenan Show" segment of "WWF Prime Time Wrestling". He later became a recurring character (in the same mold) on WWF television, and even served as a sidekick for the Bushwhackers tag team. Bears a striking resemblance to Andy Kindler (of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame), although Kindler swears it was not him, and has even gone as far as to claim it was _another_ Andy Kindler.
  • The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) had Zelda the Nerd.

Web Comics

  • Flash in Boy Meets Boy starts out as an incredibly nerdy Man Child. Then he decides he wants to date, and finds someone to teach him about women. And he picks... Fox. Results are predictable.
  • Out at Home has Eddie, the nerdy nine-year-old with a massive crush on seventeen-year-old Penny, who he has tried to seduce several times. The results are, well, expected.

Web Original

  • Whateley Universe character Peeper, of the Super-Hero School Whateley Academy. He hits on every hot girl on campus, to the point of out-and-out harassment. He thinks he's awesome. He's the best-known broadcaster on WARS (the Whateley Area Radio Station) and he broadcasts the school Combat Finals. Girls avoid him like the plague, especially once word gets around that his only superpower lets him look through people's clothing.

Western Animation

  • Roger from The Life and Times of Juniper Lee.
  • Irwin, from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy qualifies, though he tries to be "cool" despite it.
  • Upchuck in Daria, though considering that the stars of the show are all fairly nerdy outcasts in someway, his appearance is less jarring.
  • Steve Smith in American Dad is a textbook example.
  • Neil Goldman in Family Guy, though the only girl he ever tried to get was Meg Griffin, but it's still played straight. Neil Goldman is hideous and a total nerd, but he's also a major show-off, and cannot understand why Meg doesn't fall for him.
  • Tucker Foley from Danny Phantom as the quote above classifies in full. He even looks like Urkel!
  • Milhouse Van Houten of The Simpsons, with the Intelligence Optional setting.
  • Total Drama Island
    • Cody. According to his official online bio, he fails to recognize his own geekiness because he legitimately is cooler than any of his friends (who make up the Albert Einstein Fan Club at his preppy private school).
    • Harold is even dorkier. Interestingly, he seems to acquire the "lady's man" aspect of the trope not long after Cody loses it (or at least, sets it solely on Gwen).
  • Recess: Vince's older brother is pretty much a blatant reference to Urkel. In an interesting twist, though, he knows he's a geek—it's jockish Vince who's in the dark.
  • Kevin French from Mission Hill in his "Grubermeister" persona in the episode The Douchebag Aspect.