History Main / TheBlindLeadingTheBlind

* Depressingly played with in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke''. SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker refuses Batman's offer to rehabilitate him and responds with a joke pointing out the absurdity of one crazy person trying to help another crazy person. [[ActuallyPrettyFunny Then both of them start laughing maniacally.]]

** When [[FakeRelationship Jaune and Weiss have to pretend to date because of her sister Winter]], Jaune is smart enough to know he has no idea what he's doing. Weiss acts like she does, but it turns out her ideas of romance come from courtship books and are at least a couple hundred years old. Yang offers to help, but it quickly becomes clear that she doesn't really know what she's doing either; her only real dates have been with Jaune, which weren't exactly normal. Ren and Nora have never been on any dates (despite Nora's best efforts), Blake's only boyfriend was a terrorist and their dates involved far too many explosions, and Pyrrha's only experience with romance is creepy fan mail. It turns out ''[[TheBabyOfTheBunch Ruby]]'' is the only one who has been on a real date. This leads Weiss to realize that they need to go with {{Adorkable}} PuppyLove rather than faking an epic romance.

* Timon and Pumbaa in ''Disney/TheLionKing''. Timon acts as the intelligent one, he's not. Pumbaa listens to him, he shouldn't.
* In ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'', Scuttle the seagull acted like an expert on human culture despite knowing next to nothing, which resulted in Ariel trying to style her hair with a fork while eating dinner with Prince Eric and blowing into a smoking pipe as if it were a musical instrument.
* ''Disney/WreckItRalph'' has the title character teaching Vanellope von Schweetz how to drive. Ralph ''clearly'' has no idea what he's doing.

* Twoflower hands control of a FlyingBroomstick to Rincewind in ''Discworld/TheLightFantastic''. This proves to be a mistake.

-->-- ''Literature/TheBible'', [[TropeNamer Matthew 15:14]]

* In ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'', Captain Holt counsels Rosa on how to break up with her boyfriend (who happens to be his nephew) in a way which will effectively take into account his emotions. Both of these characters are TheStoic with a limited grasp of exactly how emotions work. Needless to say, it doesn't work out as planned.

'''Holt:''' So I had Kevin go through out break-up talk, and we are apparently both "sociopaths"...

* ''Fanfic/WhiteSheep'':

'''Holtz:''' So I had Kevin go through out break-up talk, and we are apparently both "sociopaths"...

''[later, Holt comes back from talking with his husband.]''

'''Holt:''' ''[sincere]'' I think that went very well!

* [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]] tried to teach Apu all about America for Apu's citizenship test. (Example: the 13 stripes on the flag are for good luck.) Afterwards, Apu was so tired and confused he didn't remember anything Homer taught him. Lisa happily declared him ready for the test. Which he passed.

* [[WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill Peggy Hill]] once led her Spanish class to Mexico for a day-trip. Pity Peggy speaks unspeakably bad Spanish, likely worse than that of some of her students, and it was no surprise when she led them to a butcher's shop thinking it was a carnival (the Spanish word for "butcher" being ''carnicero'').

* On the updated version of ''Series/TheHollywoodSquares'' with Tom Bergeron as host, Gilbert Gottfried would often claim to be an expert in the question's particular field, then provide a humorously inaccurate answer. Just picking him and saying "I disagree" before his answer was even uttered would have likely been a viable strategy. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozEIsWWngJo You Fool!]]

* ''Series/TheColbertReport'': Stephen the character lives this trope. It is especially highlighted in the ''Stephen's sound advice'' segments where he gives advice that is anything but sound.

KOCHANSKI: You're * sure* you know what you're doing?\\

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Any time Calvin asks Hobbes for help with his arithmetic.[[http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/01/05/ This]] is a good example.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': Emil, who was educated by private tutors that apparently failed to teach him anything practical, gets a DVD mixed up with a record. Sigrun, who didn't get an education at all, trusts Emil's knowledge and decides that the [=DVD=]s are more worthwile brining back than the old books they were sent to get. Mikkel does recognize them, knows that they are far too old to be readable, and throws them all away the next day, baffling Sigrun and suggesting she disregard any wisdom shared by Emil in the future.

* Combined with CheatersNeverProsper in [[https://notalwaysright.com/ignorance-versus-stupidity/
this]] ''[[WebsiteNotAlwaysRightSisterSites Not Always Learning'' story. As the teacher says, ignorance is not knowing the answers to a test. Stupidity is copying one's answers off the ignorant person.

* In 1014, the First Bulgarian Empire suffered a major defeat by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, who sent 15,000 Bulgarian [=POWs=] marching back to their Emperor, Samuil, blinded and chained to each other, with 1 in every 100 left with one eye to lead the way. Samuil had a heart attack when he saw his mutilated army and died on the spot.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', there's Doctor Zoidberg. He knows nothing about medicine for humans. Never ask him anything about what's wrong with you. He doesn't even know anything about psychology, generally using his own life to explain your own issues.
-->'''Zoidberg:''' "Here's the problem right here! There's a skull embedded in your head!"
** There's a reason for this though - [[spoiler: [[NotThatKindOfDoctor His doctorate is in ''art history''.]]]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'', "The Big Leblooski", Mac, after being thrown off Madame Foster's bowling team for sucking, seeks help from an imaginary friend called Bowling Paul, who he assumes is an expert bowler because a) he has a ton of bowling trophies and b) ...his name's Bowling Paul and he has a head shaped like a pin. As it turns out, Paul's odd zen approach to bowling is entirely useless, and the trophies were actually won by his creator.
** Judging by his creator's deadpan reaction to the ten-pound ball rocketing around his bowling alley, this isn't the first time Bowling Paul has tried to help out some poor bowling-deficient soul, either.

** In the "pilot" episode where [=SpongeBob=] meets Sandy for the first time, [=SpongeBob=] goes to Patrick for advice about the mysterious concept of "air". Patrick claims she means "putting on airs", or fancy talk. His advice is to go to Sandy's and 'When In Doubt, Pinky Out'. This causes [=SpongeBob=], an aquatic animal, to slowly dry out in Sandy's "treedome". Patrick enters at one point, and the duo ends up completely drying out, but Sandy saves them with water-filled helmets (which become standard attire when visiting her). So, not only is Patrick's advice misguided, it's even dangerous.

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* Given a dark twist in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', much like everything else in the GrimDark setting. It might explain why the imperium is such a CrapSackWorld.

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* Patrick often gives ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' this kind of misguided advice:
** In the 'pilot' episode where Spongebob meets Sandy for the first time, Spongebob goes to Patrick for advice about the mysterious concept of 'air'. Patrick claims she means 'putting on airs', or fancy talk. His advice is to go to Sandy's and 'When In Doubt, Pinky Out'. This causes Spongebob, an aquatic animal, to slowly dry out in Sandy's 'treedome'. Patrick enters at one point, and the duo end up completely drying out, but Sandy saves them with water-filled helmets (which become standard attire when visiting her). So, not only is Patrick's advice misguided, it's even dangerous.

** "Your Shoe's Untied", where Patrick buys shoes, but doesn't know how to tie them. [=SpongeBob=] tries to teach him how, but realizes he's never learned himself.

** In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', it's shown that despite being the KeeperOfForbiddenKnowledge Wan Shi Tong is reliant on his fox aides to gather knowledge of the human world, who somehow came to the idea that the radio was operated by tiny men inside machines. When he realizes his mistake, he gives a stern glare at one of his foxes, who bows it's head in shame.

** This also led to the first of many cases that point to Peggy being at least slightly deluded. After getting arrested for accidentally kidnapping a girl and taking her back to Texas (Yeah) Peggy refuses to admit she had a misunderstanding due to language. To reiterate, she thought the police officer who was interrogating her and promising to lock her up and have rats eat her face was planning to give her an award AND she naturally assumed that her lawyer in her trial was asking to go out and buy a hat when he called her to testify.

-->'''Shake''': Do what you do best: Act stupid and follow me!
-->'''Meatwad''': {{beat}} Okay!
* Nearly every episode of ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' involves the two titular characters doing this. Butthead is marginally more intelligent than Beavis but it's not saying much.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "City Sushi" [[spoiler:Butters receives therapy from a doctor with Multiple Personality Disorder, who only seems to be a competent therapist when in his normal persona.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/HomeMovies'' It's revealed that Coach [=McGuirk=] is tutoring Brendan in history. Most of the lessons he gives are mostly [[ConspiracyTheorist conspiracy theories,]] and [[CriticalResearchFailure completely inaccurate information such as Nixon giving the Gettysburg Address.]] Consequently, when Brendan makes a movie featuring several historical figure, all the information is faulty, and worse, he's flunking history in school.

* Practically any time anyone asks for advice in ''Series/WillAndGrace''. After Grace's advice backfired for Will she once claimed "Most of the time I'm just talkin outta my ass." In an earlier episode, Grace is GenreSavvy enough to ask Karen for advice and do the opposite of what she said.