History Main / KnownothingKnowItAll

* In ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', Sam the Eagle claims to value culture but in reality, he's a complete ignoramus with the arts. For instance, he didn't recognize the world-famous ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev in street clothes and thought Creator/WilliamShakespeare was a composer. He also tried to sing ([[UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} karaoke, cause it's a nice American activity, even!]]) "American Woman" in one of their Website/YouTube videos. When the machine told him it was by The Guess Who, he hazards, "Um, I don't know...John Philip Sousa?" before trailing off halfway through the third or fourth line, demanding to know who was responsible for the blatantly anti-American lyrics. And he ''really'' flips it when Kermit tells him The Guess Who is a ''Canadian'' band.
* Bill [=McNeal=] from ''Series/NewsRadio'' quite frequently. He once attributed the line, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" to the poet John Keats in 1776. Too bad that 1) that wasn't Keats, it was Robert Herrick, and 2) it wasn't written in 1776; in fact, neither man was alive then, Herrick having died in '''16'''74, and Keats not being born until 1795.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

** Also [[PointyHairedBoss Colonel Klink]], whose [[SmallNameBigEgo massive ego and delusions of grandeur]] constantly land him in hot water ([[PunchClockVillain though he's not a particularly awful person]]; he's [[EvenEvilHasStandards often horrified by the lengths his commanders and others in the Nazi regime are willing to go]], even confessing to Schultz once that he hates the entire Nazi system). He seemingly is ignorant of Hogan and the others' activities, but it's hinted more than a few times he actually does know about everything (most notably an episode where [[StateSec Major]] [[RabidCop Hochstetter]] arrives to find a resistance radio; as soon as Klink gets a chance, he tells Schultz to get to Hogan's barracks and turn off the radio]]), and is feigning ignorance for two reasons: 1, so he won't be suspected of aiding their activities and 2: it lets him get away with subtle insults against his Nazi higher-ups. There's even a good chance he was the mysterious British spy "Nimrod".

* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': Roz's arrogantly ignorant hipster friend Jen, who, among other things, wants to go to Vietnam on vacation because "Americans haven't heard of" the country, and that an art gallery mostly focused on paintings of ''landscapes'' is intended to "make us feel good" about American "imperialism".

* Mr. Thicknose in the eighth ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' film turns out to be this. Originally respected as the smartest resident of the Great Valley, having "been everywhere and seen everything", he soon confesses to the kids that he gets most of his knowledge from second-hand sources.

* ''Film/{{Zelig}}'', who has the uncommon ability to [[TheZelig blend in]] and [[MistakenForSpecialGuest be mistaken for someone important]], despite knowing [[FeigningIntelligence very little]], is somewhere between this and SeeminglyProfoundFool.

-->''So I asked him: "What's that creature there?" He answered, "It's a h'elk.",''

[[/folder]]

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/Opus100'': At the end of "Part 6. Biology", Dr Asimov describes when a radio talk show host had expected him to be an expert on brains because of his recent book, ''Literature/TheHumanBrain''. Asimov, however, refused, explaining that everything he knew (and more than he could remember) went into the book. The only thing he admitted to being an expert on? Sounding like an expert.

* In the Literature/{{Greyfriars}} stories, Billy Bunter lives and breathes this trope along with its accompanying trope, IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance, unless the plot requires him to (always temporarily) come to his senses.

* This trope is known in Japanese as ''shirakawa yofune'' (白河夜船 – night boat passing a white river), originating from a tale of a man who falsely brags that he's been to Kyoto. When someone else asks what he felt about "Shirakawa" (another name for Kyoto), the man, thinking it means a river, replies his boat passed it while he was asleep, revealing his lie instantly.[[note]]Another meaning of this idiom is to be so deeply asleep as to be unaware of anything.[[/note]]

* Brother Verber, from Joan Hess's Maggody mysteries, recites Bible phrases at the drop of a hat. As he's the inept product of a fly-by-night correspondence-course seminary, he constantly misquotes them, mistakes their verse numbers, and/or takes them so far out of context as to be irrelevant.
* Roongrat of ''Literature/MartyPants'' often spouts random "facts" that are, in fact, total garbage.
** In the second book, "Keep Your Paws Off!", it's revealed that [[spoiler:he inherited his trait from his mother]].

* Speaking of Nigel Bruce, his characterization of Dr. Watson in the ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' series with Creator/BasilRathbone bears the "Boobus Brittanicus" nickname. However, the original Dr. Watson also had moments. In "A Study in Scarlet", he unknowingly mocks an article he reads in a magazine to Sherlock Holmes . . . the article's author. In "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", he arrogantly ignores Holmes' request to describe a suspect's ear and fumbles the case so badly that Holmes has to go in person to save the situation. Watson similarly performs poorly in "The Case of the Solitary Cyclist". While generally responsible and competent in "The Hound of the Baskervilles", Watson begins by pridefully making a series of deductions on Dr. Mortimer with reference to his cane . . . all of which were incorrect, as pointed out by Holmes.
* The Creator/ShelSilverstein poem "Smart" deals with one of these, a young boy who is given a dollar by his father for being "his smartest son." He then proceeds to easily swindle a person into taking the dollar, in exchange for... two quarters. Because two is more than one, you see, and therefore he got the better end of the bargain. He then talks several other people into swapping the two quarters for three dimes, then four nickels, then five pennies, each time chortling at his intellect as he effortlessly walks away with more than what he started. When he shows the five pennies to his father and happily explains, all his father can do is [[StunnedSilence stare silently and shake his head.]] Obviously, he's just that proud of him!

* The character Jesse Honey, in Mark Helprin's ''Winter's Tale'', thinks he knows everything but is laughably incompetent, and [[TheNapoleon takes any critique as a shot at his diminutive height]]. It gets him another character, Hardesty Maratta, into trouble or injured several times, [[spoiler:and eventually gets Jesse killed]]. In fact, the entire episode serves mostly to illustrate that Hardesty (a UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veteran) is an ''extremely'' fortunate man. Another character, Juliet Paradise, is a self-proclaimed intellectual who is noted to believe that a goat is a male sheep.

* In the short story ''Everyday Use,'' Mama's daughter Dee is trying to immerse herself in her family's African culture, but repeatedly fails to understand its true meaning, or what it means to her family. She changes her name to "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo" to protest the oppression and cultural whitewashing of black Americans, ignoring Mama's protest that the name "Dee" is just as important to their family if not more, having been passed down through many generations. The title of the story comes from Dee/Wangero's reaction to Mama not giving her a particular handmade quilt to hang up, saying that it should go to her and not her sister Maggie because the latter would "probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use". Dee/Wangero only views the quilt as a kind of trophy, something to be used to display pride in her heritage, while Maggie learned to make quilts from their mother and even sewed some of her own quilts, showing a more in-depth understanding of their family's traditions that she doesn't flaunt or take unnecessary pride in.
* ''Literature/ThePragueCemetery''. The protagonist Simone Simonini consults several anti-Semitists for his forgeries and propaganda tracts who don't know any Jews at all, yet claim to be experts on their culture and {{Evil Plan}}s.
* ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'': This is the effect of the [[PunnyName Eye-Queue Vine]]. Anyone who holds one of the vines feels infinitely smarter and speak and act on that increased intelligence. But they generally just end up sounding like a pretentious twit and the effects usually wear off before they can [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime act on that "boosted" IQ]].

* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'': Ryan, during the first few seasons, seemed savvy and intelligent enough on business to outdo most of the characters, but in later seasons, however, it becomes clear he is this trope, having no skill at all as a salesman (he never managed to sell anything in the time he was promoted from intern) and when he manages to take over Jan's jobs, his administration is one mess after the other, with the site he so invested fumbling badly, but he hides it by using hip and technical terms that his subordinates don't quite get. [[spoiler:At the Season 4 finale, Ryan was arrested due to fraud, as he tried to record sales twice (as office sales and as websites sales) because his website was doing nothing.]]

*** One arc has him write a report about bats (which he based entirely on his idea that bats were bugs [[InsaneTrollLogic because they fly and are ugly and hairy]]) He boasts about how clever it was (writing it took fifteen minutes as opposed to Susie's report taking all evening) and how he'd get a good grade because he put it in a clear plastic binder. The moment where his whole class tells him that bats aren't bugs is the former page image for CriticalResearchFailure.

* [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]]. Beyond his tinfoil hat theories about the Jesuits founding communism as part of a centuries-long plot to get Russian gold, he even manages to get very basic facts wrong. Like claiming that Kaiser Wilhelm II was Catholic. Wilhelm and his ancestors had been Protestant - first Lutherans, then Calvinists, then ''Altpreussische Union'' (an amalgamation of the two) - for ca. 400 years.

* Patrick Bateman in ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' claims to be a [[PopCulturedBadass big music buff who knows all the best tunes.]] An actual music buff reading his recommendations would kindly describe them as "entry-level", with almost all his favorites being big '80s pop hits. He also rejects anything remotely experimental by his favorite bands and makes a number of outright errors (apparently, "[[Music/TheRollingStones You Can't Always Get What You Want]]" is by Music/TheBeatles). This is much in line with Bateman's desire to be seen as special, contrasting with his inability to do anything outside the box.

* ''Literature/WinnieThePooh'': Owl and Rabbit both think they know it all, but whenever they try to explain anything, it becomes obvious they're just making it up as they go along. Owl is an example of a dead subtrope that was common back then; a Victorian school graduate with surface knowledge and a lot of arrogance, and the fact that he is barely literate takes the trope UpToEleven. Still, at least he's not particularly egotistical about it - Rabbit, however...

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do]] with [[UsefulNotes/MillardFillmore a know-it-all]] from [[AtrociousAlias the Know-Nothing party]].

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/BakutenShootBeyblade'': Hiromi inserts herself into the protagonists' group by trying to lecture them on blading despite having never even picked up a beyblade before (and never does over the entire series either). Keep in mind the Bladebreakers are already the ''world champions'' by this point.
* Takashi Yamazaki from ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'' is always making up lies he claims to be facts. Interestingly enough, while most know he's lying both Sakura and Syaoran tend to believe him at first, before Chiharu breaks it to them that they're being lied to and [[{{Tsundere}} lays the smackdown on Yamazaki]] (Naoko and Rika are too saintly amused to say anything), though one or two times, he ''is'' right in his extravagant speeches.
* From ''Manga/DragonBall'', Krillin when he's a kid. He is knowledgeable about martial arts, but he likes to act like he knows more than he actually does. This is made worse that his training partner, Goku, is really naive and often defers to Krillin when something confuses him. He thankfully gets better as the series goes on.
* When an Alchemist in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' performs human transmutation, they come face to face with The Truth and a door symbolizing all they know. Which is why when [[spoiler:Father is dragged before Truth for his punishment]], his door is completely blank. For all his boasting and Godlike aspirations, he never learned or knew anything during ''centuries'' of existence.
* ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'':
** Wizard of the [[DecoyProtagonist Greenhorn Party]]. While Warrior and Fighter were more caught up in the excitement of being on their first adventure to pay attention to [[OnlySaneMan Priestess]] voicing her very reasonable concerns about how under-prepared they are, Wizard takes it a step further by criticizing Priestess for worrying. Naturally, things go to hell for her the moment the goblins arrive.
** Her brother, Wizard Boy, is also this. Nobody likes him because he acts like he's hot stuff and insists on bossing the other low-ranking adventurers around, despite being a magic school dropout and the only one without field experience. [[spoiler: He tries to usurp command from Priestess (who is Obsidian-rank and has a decent amount of field experience after being an adventurer for a year) leading a practice rookie mission twice, the second time leading the group into a troll's nest and putting everyone in danger]].
* In ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'', South Korea always claims he invented everything (well, almost everything. No one takes responsibility for condoms).
* Saori Takebe in ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' tells the girls on their Tankery team all about how to win over a guy. Then one of them innocently asks if she has a boyfriend, to which she becomes speechless since she never had one in the first place. The girls try to cheer her up anyway.
* Chiaki in ''Manga/LaidBackCamp''. She often tries to act cooler and more experienced than she really is. Despite her position as leader of the Outdoor Exploration Club, all of the others (even Nadeshiko) are more savvy about camping than she is.
* One episode of ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'' featured Sherlock Holmes III among a group of detectives hired to outsmart Lupin. In the original version, he was a cultured gentleman. The Geneon GagDub turned him into a total nitwit who is always either stating the obvious or completely ignorant of the obvious -- for instance, upon noticing an opulent dining fork, he proclaims it "a dining implement of some kind; a bit showy, whatever it is." Granted, the Holmes seen for most of the episode is actually Lupin in disguise, and when the man himself gets a chance to talk he seems pretty on the ball.
* Sawako Machida from ''Miss Bernard Said'' likes to present herself as a literary expert, but it's frequently shown that she hasn't even bothered to actually read the books she talks about.
* Sakura Haruno is a practical {{Deconstruction}} of this trope from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''. While she was one of the top students of the Academy (second only to Ino who'd become Kunoichi of the Year), she considered herself a lot stronger than the 'Dead-Last' Naruto Uzumaki since she equated 'knowing more about textbook things translates to real life'. During her first ''real'' mission in the Land of Waves, she realized Naruto was not only stronger than her but had pulled far ahead and during the Chunin Exams, she sacrificed the long hair she had grown meticulously so Sasuke would notice her in an attempt to save her teammates who were unconscious from the battle with Orochimaru. Sakura eventually becomes [[LadyOfWar Tsunade]]'s apprentice, TakesALevelInBadass in the first arc of Part II...and then has no truly memorable fights afterwards and is TheMedic on the sidelines at best. However, during the last stage of the WarArc [[spoiler: she can keep up with KCM Naruto ''and'' a Complete Susano'o EMS Sasuke...until she gets OvershadowedByAwesome rather quickly, and after realizing that she just CantCatchUp, she ultimately has to rely on her two teammates yet again.]]
%%* Onsokumaru in ''Manga/NinjaNonsense''.
* [[AnnoyingYoungerSibling Max]] from ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesRubyAndSapphire'' is a {{downplayed}} example -- he's BookSmart and can recite Pokémon facts and statistics from memory, but he has no practical experience to back up his boasting. For example, he chastises Ash for losing in a high-level battle tournament and claims that he could've done a better job, but later episodes demonstrate that Max's battle tactics suck -- such as the time he nearly loses a battle despite his Pokémon having a type advantage that he never bothers to take advantage of.
** Iris from the Best Wishes series tries to come off as smart and knowledgeable about the world because of her InferioritySuperiorityComplex. In reality, she knows next to nothing about the world, having grown up isolated and afraid of social interaction. The fans will [[NeverLiveItDown never forget]] the time she mistakes Charizard for a Dragon-type. (You would have made the same mistake, too, but you're not trying to become a Dragon Master!) This is made HilariousInHindsight come X&Y, which gives Charizard two Mega Evolutions... [[RightForTheWrongReasons one of which]] ''[[HilariousInHindsight is]]'' [[HilariousInHindsight a Dragon-type]].
* Satoshi Horio of ''Manga/ThePrinceOfTennis'' constantly brags to his fellow freshmen that he has "two years of experience" in tennis. In truth, he's a less than average player and more often than not fails to provide useful information during games, other than some basic rules, key words, and basic stuff.
* Autor from ''Anime/PrincessTutu'' fits this trope to a T...at least at first. He's an insufferable know-it-all who believes that he's a descendant of Drosselmeyer and also the absolute expert on the subject of his powers. He puts another character who wants to learn about his powers through a series of ridiculous 'training' exercises, including standing in the middle of a room for three days without eating or sleeping and only using "blue and black ink in a seven-to-three ratio". Eventually he's [[BreakTheHaughty humiliated]] when the character he's training proves to have much more power than him... if he ever had any power at all. In the end, it's slightly subverted, however--the character he "trained" is forced to go back to him for help because he actually ''is'' one of the best experts on Drosselmeyer.
* Umino Gurio in ''Franchise/SailorMoon'', ''academically'' smart, just very lacking in common sense.
* Hanamichi Sakuragi from ''Manga/SlamDunk'' is actually pretty stupid but always goes around saying "Ore wa tensai!" (I am a genius) and "Ore wa tensai baskettoman!" (I am a genius basketball man), both of which he only does to impress Haruko and, by extension, out of jealousy of Rukawa. While he ''does'' get good at basketball as the series goes on, he's still so BookDumb it hurts.
* In ''Anime/UmiMonogatari'', the Elder Turtle has shades of this; not only is he wrong about which priestess will fall into darkness, he doesn't comprehend what Sedna truly is and gives wrong information as a result.
* Whisper from ''Anime/YokaiWatch'' keeps on insisting he's incredibly knowledgeable on {{yokai}} when he uses a Wiki for help and gets facts wrong on his own. It later comes out that this trope is the kind of Yo-kai he is, with his power being spewing a gas that induces others to confidently state made-up facts to whoever's around, though that wasn't the case for the 1st game, and even then, he's still quite intelligent and capable in the rest of the games, even when he's using the Wiki more often than the 1st. Hell, he's usually the one to figure out any Yo-kai mischief nearby in ''all'' the games instead of [[AdaptationalWimp just bizarrely denying it like in the anime.]]
* Seto Kaiba from the English dub of ''Anime/YuGiOh'', mainly for being the token skeptic, continually denying magic despite his technology glitching and the impossible happening right in front of his eyes.
* ''Anime/ZombieLandSaga'': Kotaro Tatsumi, the producer of [[Characters/ZombieLandSagaFranchouchou Franchouchou]], pretends to know everything of value, until he is pressed further for information. He tries to leverage his superior knowledge of Saga against Ai, but completely buckles up when Ai presses him on a basic question:
-->'''Ai''': What's the population?\\
'''Kotaro''': That's easy. I'll tell you to the decimal!\\
'''Ai''': Great! Let's hear it!\\
''{{Beat}}''\\
'''Kotaro''': ''(Meekly)'' It's small...
[[/folder]]

* This is a character flaw of Horace Horsecollar in the ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse. Always quick with an answer for everything, but really not as smart as he thinks he is. In particular, Clarabelle Cow easily outsmarts him whenever they cross wits. Unfortunately, this [[TooCleverByHalf makes her think she's smarter than she really is]].

* ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'' has the second Inventor, who fully believes that using humans as an energy source is not just a valid solution to overpopulation and the energy crisis that the rest of the world is too weak to look at, but the only viable solution. However, as ''anyone'' who's ever heard of the plot holes cited with ''Film/TheMatrix'' will attest, humans (and all animals, really) take in more energy than they produce, so they wouldn't make for a very practical energy source. Not to mention overpopulation is an easily solvable problem that doesn't require sacrificing people but rather better sharing of resources instead of it being hoarded by a small but powerful minority.

* RJ the raccoon from the comic strip ''ComicStrip/OverTheHedge'' (not so much TheMovie) makes up explanations for everything to the gullible woodlanders (to the annoyance of Verne, who usually has the accurate answer but can't explain it in a way anyone will understand).
%%* Bucky Katt of the comic strip ''ComicStrip/GetFuzzy''.
* ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}''
** Lucy Van Pelt thinks that snow falls up, fir trees have fur on them, and that a chain line is so that climbers can all fall of mountains and die together instead of it having the exact opposite purpose (so that the climber falling doesn't fall to his death because the others are holding him up).
** Snoopy had some moments like this too. His rule of thumb whenever he got lost was that the moon is always over Hollywood.
** A variant is Peppermint Patty; she'll get a dumb idea from a complete misunderstanding about something, ignore all common sense advice as she pursues this fixation until she humiliates herself, and [[NeverMyFault typically blames the people who warned her for not stopping her]].
** Sally Brown. She's too lazy to do research for her homework, so she usually just makes things up. While she has no qualms about simply bluffing, she often does mistakes in good faith, based on what she's heard or what she thinks she's heard.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* In ''[[Fanfic/AlphaAndOmega Alpha and Omega Book 2: The Fallen]]'', Ritsuko claims Shinji doesn't know anything important about [[Franchise/MassEffect Councilor Tevos']] situation even though, given that Shinji's the only one who knows her species, he clearly knows more about Tevos than anyone else present. Though Ritsuko doesn't know that Shinji also has a medical doctorate from his mother's memories and has studied Asari physiology.
* BigBad of ''Fanfic/AngelOfTheBat'' The Seraphim really jerks back and forth on this. He is capable of quoting and is an active reference to obscure and unusual aspects of Christian history and mythology, but as Batman points out, he wasn’t even smart enough to use the singular aspect of his title, making it grammatically incorrect. (His title should be “The Seraph”, “The Seraphim” is plural.)
* Rachel Alucard uses this trope to insult General Ironwood in ''Fanfic/BlazBlueAlternativeRemnant''. When he questions if Ozpin believes that the students can win a war, Rachel laughs and points out that he ascended to his position in a time of peace, has never seen actual warfare, and when his kingdom's predecessor (Mantle) fought in the Great War, they ''lost''.
-->'''Rachel:''' General, you would be wise not to assume you have a better understanding of either warfare or this conflict than us. Unlike you, we've seen war. We've fought in war, ''(gestures to herself)'' both behind the scenes ''(gestures to Ozpin)'' and on the front lines, and unlike your kingdom, we've ''won'' wars. So please, do quit while you have some dignity and stop believing yourself to be the smartest man in the room.
* In ''[[Fanfic/Darkfire1220sChallenger Challenger]]'', Giselle from Vermillion's Pokémon Trainer Academy (aka the School of Hard Knocks) likes to think of herself as an expert at Pokémon, such as insisting one should put off their Pokémon's evolution as long as possible and proudly declaring that she's almost earned her seventh badge. Ash, who only has four badges, lampshades that holding off your Pokémon's evolution for too long is actually bad for their health. Giselle also insists theory is always the same in practice, especially when it comes to Pokémon, something even rookie trainers know is blatantly false.
* In ''Fanfic/CheshireMiraculousLadybug'', Max questions how Cheshire could fix the city from the damage of Akuma fights if her power is Destruction... despite the fact Cheshire ''did it'' several times.
* ''Fanfic/EscapeFromTheMoon'': In the sequel ''The Mare From the Moon'', Spliced mentions having had to deal with a few of these in her classes as a younger pony, including one student who, after failing a history exam, still insisted he was right and the textbook was wrong. Then there was the one who went as far as trying to change the historical records to match up with what he claimed was right, but was caught almost immediately.
* In almost every ''WebVideo/EscapeTheNight'' fan fic, Matt Haag becomes this. In canon, he's an InsufferableGenius and JerkassWoobie. In fanon, he's a HateSink JerkAss who's nothing more than a SmallNameBigEgo.
* In ''[[http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-26870-98/RubyPaladin+The+Bunny+Hutch.htm Hail to the King]]'', [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Maggie Walsh]] dismisses the claims of a giant monster being Godzilla "unlike her lesser educated colleagues" only for the President to show her a video of Godzilla fighting a giant monster and saying, "It's a 30 story lizard that breathes fire. That's Godzilla."
* Weiss in ''Fanfic/MyAbominableMonsterClassmatesCantBeThisCute'' is at best ''slightly'' more knowledgeable about humans than the other hybrids but acts like she's the local expert on humanity, such as assuming smuggle and snuggle are the same thing only spelled differently and believing that kissing is the act of biting each other's lips.
* In many ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' fanworks, Ritsuko Akagi insists that she knows what's going on when confronted by something outside her understanding, despite others having as much or even better knowledge than her. Such as Shinji turning into an [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Alicorn]] in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8296097/1/ Shinji's Nightmare]]''.
* Hermione is an odd example in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11689576/1/Raptor Raptor]]'' as she's normally an InsufferableGenius but becomes a complete moron whenever the subject of dinosaurs comes up. It takes her ''years'' to recognize that the creature hatched from Hagrid's egg and imprinted on Harry is a velociraptor and even when Film/JurassicPark is being built, she doesn't make the connection or understand why people are becoming more interested in dinosaurs. Though part of her problem comes from her insistence that dinosaurs are extinct and thus irrelevant.
* ''Fanfic/RecklessnessMiraculousLadybug'' has this as one of Alya's {{Fatal Flaw}}s: she's so convinced of her own brillance that she ignores anything others say to the contrary. Which leads to disaster when she [[ATragedyOfImpulsiveness impulsively decides]] to use a [[RealityWarpingIsNotAToy reality-altering Wish]] to learn Hawkmoth's SecretIdentity, without considering ''how'' the world might be altered [[JackassGenie to grant that knowledge to her]]. Sure, Marinette won't approve, but that's just because Marinette isn't as ''smart'' as her, and is ''way'' too needlessly cautious~!
* ''Fanfic/SeventhHorcrux'' draws a lot of humor from Voldemort being this. The writer explained it pretty simply: he was raised among Muggles but still got sorted into the house of all-Purebloods, and he believed that if he ever asked any questions about the magical world, it would "reveal" him as a possible Muggleborn and lead to social suicide. Hence, while he's fairly knowledgeable, he tends to act like he knows ''everything'' when he's actually just bullshitting and making EntertaininglyWrong guesses. For instance, he's convinced that "[[BlackMagic Dark Magic]]" means "a SecretArt usually kept to a single family"--after all, if you want to hide it from people, that means it's in the dark, and [[GoodPowersBadPeople plenty of spells that aren't considered Dark can be used for evil]]. And obviously, the reason people are horrified when he asks if they can teach him their Dark Magic is that they're offended by the invasion of privacy. Due to BelievingTheirOwnLies, it's very hard by the end to see what stuff he actually even realizes he doesn't know about.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* Theodore from ''[[VideoGame/{{Persona3}} Persona 3 Portable]]'' claims to know all about the human world, but it's fairly evident that he's clueless about [[NoSocialSkills human interaction in general]].
* Rinnosuke Morichika of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'', who's convinced that he knows far more than he actually does and [[CharacterFilibuster will talk at great length]] about it. The [[http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Curiosities_of_Lotus_Asia/Afterword afterword]] of Rinnosuke's own sidestory ''Literature/TouhouKourindouCuriositiesOfLotusAsia'' has [[WordOfGod ZUN himself]] noting that "Rinnosuke's supposed vast storage of knowledge comes almost entirely out of thin air. Indeed, he doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does."
* The aptly named Fact Sphere from ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', which repeatedly states various facts that while sometimes true, are more frequently partial truths or completely wrong. It also states various (Often egotistic) facts about itself:
--> [[BlatantLies The Fact Sphere is not defective.]] Its facts are wholly accurate and very interesting.
--> The Fact Sphere is always right.
--> The Fact Sphere is the most intelligent sphere.
* Mao in ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'' will frequently boast about having a 1.8 million E.Q (Evil Quotient), but is utterly clueless about simple concepts like love, truth, and friendship.
* ''VideoGame/DisgaeaDimension2'' gives us the Krichevskoy Group, a trio of monsters that claim to follow King Krichevskoy's will and want to dethrone Laharl because they believe he's an InadequateInheritor. However, they don't seem to have a grasp on what made Krichevskoy a great and charismatic Overlord and for all their disrespect towards Laharl, Laharl shows throughout the game that he acts far closer to Krichevskoy than the very demons who worship him.
* The Institute of ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' are all scientific knowledge, with zero ''practical'' knowledge of how to apply it. They seclude themselves underground, spending nearly two centuries going nowhere with boondoggle after boondoggle experiment, use their most impressive inventions [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots (the Synths)]] as slave labor and people snatchers, and waste time trying to crack experiments (the Forced Evolutionary Virus, intelligent machines, the use of teleportation) that previous game characters and factions already did better.
** To elaborate further, the Institute is narcissistic enough to think that everyone above-ground is beneath them (not literally of course) while the Shi over in California were able to develop a vine that absorbs radiation to make land more livable, make synthetic oil out of seaweed, and in 2242 were able to rediscover nuclear power and manufacture new reactors (without relying on [[PlotDevice pre-war technology]] like the Institute), accomplishing more than the Institute ever could in a much shorter span. Also, despite the Institute claiming to have the most advanced technology, their laser weapons are less powerful than ones developed pre-war.
** On the more humorous front, there's Moe Cronin in Diamond City, who sells "Swatters", his name for baseball bats. Only his idea of how baseball was played back before the Great War is more akin to a brutal gladiatorial battle to the death. Your protagonist, who actually knows how baseball was played back then due to having been frozen soon after the bombs fell, can call him on this.
* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', [[TheStoner Ryder]] constantly brags about being a genius, [[spoiler: even after he is about to be taken down due to his betrayal]], even though he has the intelligence of an 11th grader.
* The Narrator of ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'' thinks of himself as a creative genius who's doing things unheard of with storytelling. His actual story, as far as we can tell, is an incoherent mess that beats you over the head with its themes. The Narrator himself also loves [[HypocriticalHumor professing the value of choice]], yet the moment Stanley goes even slightly off the beaten path, he starts [[BigStupidDooDooHead dropping childish insults.]]
* Rafe Adler, the BigBad of ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'', is ultimately one of these. Despite his obsession with finding the fabled pirate city of Libertalia- and more importantly, the treasure of its founder Henry Avery- he doesn't know anything about Libertalia himself. When he and Nate are [[spoiler:in the burning hold of Avery's treasure ship,]] he can't even recognize Avery and his former friend Tew's skeletons, in contrast to Nadine, his mercenary sidekick that [[spoiler:he tried backstabbing a few moments ago]]. [[spoiler:This feeds into his InferioritySuperiorityComplex towards Nate, who's discovered countless more ancient civilisations and treasure, whereas Rafe has had everything handed to him since birth.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': The DS remake's party chat turns Borya into a bit of one, spouting off unbelievable to absurd "facts" about the various locations the party visits. Towards the end of the game, he admits to have never left Zamoksva in his life and was just making it up to sound smarter.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'':
** WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn talks on about how he knows so much, but it's mostly hot air.
** WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck at certain [[DependingOnTheWriter times]], however, he is the case of the SmallNameBigEgo variant.
* Starscream from ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' was always lecturing Megatron about tactics, and naturally, was nearly always wrong. The episode "War of the Dinobots", in which Starscream is suspicious about the instability of the meteorite's energy long before Megatron ever has a clue, is among the exceptions. (This makes a certain amount of sense since Starscream was a scientist originally).
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''
** Peggy Hill is convinced she's perfectly fluent in Spanish when she can't even speak it as well as some of the students she teaches. Early on, Peggy ''was'' very competent in Spanish, enough to where she got a job as a Spanish customer service representative. But {{Flanderization}} made Peggy's self-inflated ego into her defining character trait. This is taken to its logical extreme in "[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS6E3LupesRevenge Lupé's Revenge]]", in which Peggy accidentally takes a Mexican girl home after misunderstanding her. Peggy is arrested and tried for kidnapping. She's acquitted after Hank and her attorney get her to testify in Spanish, showing the judge that Peggy really does understand Spanish so poorly that the "kidnapping" had been a huge misunderstanding.
--->'''Judge:''' ''[In Spanish]'' Not guilty!\\
'''Peggy:''' Oh God! I'm going to jail!
*** Another running gag for Peggy is for her to take a very general or well-known fact and tack on, "In my opinion," such as, "The day after Thanksgiving is, in my opinion, one of the busiest shopping days of the year." Her [[StealingTheCredit tendency to take credit and boost her own ego]] eventually came back to bite her when Randy Travis plagiarizes a song she'd mailed to him, and everyone, including Hank, thought she was CryingWolf.
*** In another episode, while Hank and Bobby are out camping, Peggy runs around nosing her way into everyone's business and telling them how they're wrong or trying to show how much smarter she is. Ultimately this results in her going into a crime scene like she's a CowboyCop and getting escorted back to her car as she protests "But I'm on a roll!"
*** Notably, she's the only one to ''not'' know that Nancy has been cheating on Dale with John Redcorn, outside of Dale himself. When she does find out it's only because Hank essentially spells it out for her.
** Outside of Peggy, the Hills frequently run afoul of various "experts" who have more self-importance than any actual competence in their supposed field of expertise. It's often implied that the reason these people keep ending up in Arlen is [[ReassignedToAntarctica because they can't find work anywhere else]].
** Dale is much the same way, although not to as much of an extreme. It stems more from being a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} who believes his own lies about himself and his own competence. One of the most base jokes about his character is that even though he's convinced he's on the verge of uncovering various government conspiracies, he's too dim to realize his wife has been having a very public and obvious affair for more than ten years (although some episodes portray it more like full-blown denial).
* Master Shake of ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' insists he is right on everything, especially when Frylock gives a simpler and more rational explanation. This is probably due to Shake being a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} and a complete {{jerkass}} at the same time. Plus the near-critical mass amounts of ImplausibleDeniability he contains.
* Clyde Crashcup in ''WesternAnimation/TheAlvinShow'' is a definitive example, claiming to have invented inventions that already existed, or being the first to discover things already discovered.
** He's also quite wrong about the purpose of the thing he claims to invent. For instance, he claims soap is for eating.
-->'''Crashcup:''' It is palatable to the palate, delicate to the nostril, vitamin-enriched, and highly digestible. And as doctors once said, the proof of the soap is in the eating.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Though Lisa is very smart and knows stuff people don't already know, Homer and Lisa's argument at the dinner table in "Lisa the Vegetarian" has Homer calling his daughter a "barbecue-wrecking, [[TropeNamers/TheSimpsons know-nothing, know-it-all]]". She does have a moment of this in "[=MoneyBART=]". When Lisa becomes the manager of Bart's baseball team, she claims that there have been several women managers and lists some off like Terry Francona and Connie Mack. Nelson tells her that all of her examples are men, much to Lisa's shock.
** Homer also proves to know less than he boasts, particularly in the episode "Homer Goes to College," where he interrupts a professor's lecture on a proton accelerator; the teacher finally asks him to demonstrate because he ''must'' know so well how it works ...only for Homer to somehow cause a nuclear meltdown.
** Plenty of so-called "experts" in the series are this, but "Smooth" Jimmy Apollo, a sports commentator in the episode "Lisa the Greek" stands out. He's frequently brought on TV for his excellent skills at predicting the outcome of games. How good is his accuracy? He's right a whole ''52%'' of the time! Sometimes, he likes to break out "the Lock of the Week", a massive padlock, to demonstrate games he thinks are definitely going to go one way. The Lock of the Week ''also'' has a 52% accuracy rate.
* ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'' has Poe, who is a bit of an arrogant and pretentious blowhard who also tends to lie about having gone on fantastical adventures. Whenever someone else has a great idea, you can expect him to claim that [[GladIThoughtOfIt he either thought it up himself]] or at least say he was thinking the same thing.
-->'''Poe''': That was precisely what I was going to say myself.
** Inverted with Ruby herself. She isn't a genius, but she's often the first one to figure out how to fix whatever problem the group is having, holding back the solution to let one of her friends think it's their idea or come to the conclusion on their own.
* Patrick Star of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' once claimed that Wumbo is a real word. He also sagely details the symptoms of Mad Snail Disease. He also once insists that Spongebob is a zombie. [[spoiler:Needless to say, it's all a load of barnacles.]] [[note]]Incidentally, as part of a BrickJoke, it turns out [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike Wumbo might have been a real word]] in Bikini Bottom, but one which fell into such disuse, only an old man like Mermaid Man can remember it (how Patrick knows about it is never explained.) Then again, MM is senile.[[/note]]
* Brian from ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' especially in the later seasons when he insists he's right about everything and pushes his beliefs to get everyone to take his side, and takes credit for ideas that weren't his in the first place and other times using them as an excuse in order to get into a woman's pants, as Quagmire put it:
-->"...you pretend you're this deep guy who loves women for their souls when all you do is date bimbos. Yeah, I date women for their bodies, but ''[[AtLeastIAdmitIt at least I'm honest about it]]''. I don't buy them a copy of [[Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye "Catcher in the Rye"]] and then lecture them with some seventh-grade interpretation of how Holden Caulfield is some profound intellectual. He wasn't! He was a spoiled brat! And that's why you like him so much - he's ''you''!"
* Stan from ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' especially in The Most Adequate Christmas Ever, where he gets killed and fights his way up to God Himself in order to get brought back to life to save his family. As God points out, there's no better metaphor for "I know everything" than pointing a gun to God's head and insisting He's wrong.
** In National Treasure 4: Baby Franny: She's Doing Well: The Hole Story, Steve convinces Francine to prove her worth by solving one of the Millennium Prize Problems in mathematics. After an intense mathematics montage, Francine goes up to a professor at a college lecture and announces that she solved the Yang-Mills existence and mass gap problem. Her solution? The number 6. The professor informs her that the answer wouldn't be a number, but rather an entirely new concept in mathematics, and she frowns and walks away.
* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': Well-meaning and gregarious though he is, Mr. Thickley's assessment of his own expertise has absolutely no bearing on the reality of same. Also in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' canon: Wile E. Coyote (yes, he ''will'' speak sometimes; "Zip Zip Hooray" [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks the fourth wall]] on this one).
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}''
** Angelica always claims to know more than the babies and constantly fills their heads with false information. She frequently gives them wrong information intentionally, however, since she seems to get a strange kick out of tormenting them with her lies. Of course, more than once (like the chickenpox episode), something will happen that dupes Angelica into [[BelievingTheirOwnLies believing her own lies]].
** [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Dr. Lipschitz]] as well. He's apparently a famous child psychologist, whose books are read almost religiously by parents, Didi in particular... But in the one episode where he appears, he obviously has little to no experience when it comes to working with children. He even claims at the end of that episode that he'll have to revise all his works because of the experience.
* Cap'n K'nuckles from ''WesternAnimation/TheMarvelousMisadventuresOfFlapjack''. As an example, in "Careful What You Fish For" he convinces Flapjack that fish are a type of candy. After Flapjack licks the fish and says it doesn't taste like candy, K'nuckles 'explanation' is that this is because it's wild candy, not the store-bought stuff Flapjack is used to.
* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' has a regular spot called "Mr. Know-It-All" where Bullwinkle will attempt to demonstrate some skill for the audience, only to foul it up completely.
* Mayor [=McDaniels=] from ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' is well aware of the idiocy of the citizens, and looks down upon them for it. However, she rarely comes off as much smarter despite thinking she's a genius trapped in a town of morons. Indeed, she can often be just as dumb as the rest of them.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' episode "Dear John", it's revealed that Bucky, the host of a popular do-it-yourself show actually doesn't do the work himself, but delegates it to [[ActuallyThatsMyAssistant his assistant]], [[GenderBlenderName Al]]. Bucky is apparently more of [[ExactWords "a visionary and a dreamer"]] than a doer. (Plus, he looks great in a plaid shirt.) Also, he only seems to know how to create [[ToiletHumor bathrooms]].
-->'''Bucky''': Okay, where's my, uh, [[BuffySpeak smacky... hitty-poundy thing there?]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Bordertown}}'', J.C. is this trope all over. At one point, he quotes a Robert Frost poem, but after no one interrupts him after the first line, he's forced to admit he doesn't know the rest.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', this is one manifestation of Dermott Fictel's SmallNameBigEgo. He claims that Certs mints can be used to make napalm. He claims he can play the guitar, but always finds an excuse not to. He claims [[AssShove inserting a lighter into your rectum]] is the best defense against aliens -- and he actually does it. In most cases, he doesn't seem [[IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance Ignorant of His Own Ignorance]]; he's just desperate to impress.
* In ''WesternAnimation/LittlestPetShop2012'', one episode had a groundhog visit LPS and teach the others nonsense like "Tree frogs are made of wood", and everyone except Russell believes him. Russell even lampshades the trope by saying "He's a know-it-all who doesn't know anything!"
* ''WesternAnimation/RenAndStimpy'': Despite Ren being the self-proclaimed smart one in the group, it has been shown in many cases that Ren himself is an idiot.
* Zerk proves to be this in the ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'' episode "Asteroid Belt Space Race". After he learns just a little bit about asteroids from Sean and Sydney, he declares that he is an asteroid expert when he actually isn't.
* Downplayed in ''Oz Kids'' with Scarecrow Jr. While he can be dismissive of his teammates' opinions, he sometimes has been known to analyze a situation carefully.
* On ''WesternAnimation/CliffordsPuppyDays'', the bird Norville is full of suggestions and advice for Clifford, whom he refers to dotingly as "Little Red". Few of them are actually helpful.
* Princess Hildegard in ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst,'' best exemplified in the episode "The Princess Stays in the Picture". [[FreudianExcuse When she was younger]], all the kids laughed at her because she couldn't do a "princess twirl", so she decided at that moment that she would always know everything so no one would laugh at her again. She finally eases up, and this character trait is never brought to the forefront again.
* Mart Mattin from ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' has shades of this attitude, made clear when he boasts about how he and his crew just took out a Star Destroyer when the ship in question was a light transport. He then sees a light cruiser, mistakes ''that'' for a Star Destroyer, and thinks they can handle it as well -- except they don't, smashing his ego and leaving him in need of rescue. What's left of said ego is then fully squashed when a ''real'' Star Destroyer shows up.
* In the penultimate episode of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' Book 3, [[spoiler:a flashback reveals that Grace Monroe had no idea what the numbers of the train were supposed to do when she first met Simon. But instead of admitting she didn't have any idea (as her number was a 142 and Simon had 55) she decides to bluff and boast, "I ''totally'' know how the Train works!" Unfortunately this stubborness and refusal to admit she was wrong would eventually create the Apex...]]
* ''WesternAnimation/LetsGoLuna'':
** Senor Fabuloso in "Where's Luna?", where he tries to be an expert of the Jantar Mantar but fails. He later admits that he isn't an expert.
** Leo in "Turkish Delight", where he is too overconfident to follow directions and thinks he knows how to make Turkish delight, when he really doesn't.
[[/folder]]