History Main / TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket

There are people in this world who take incompetence to an art form. You know who we're talking about; people who cannot be trusted to use scissors, cut themselves to ribbons when they try to use a potato peeler, and cannot even use a blanket without help. How can such utterly incompetent people make a living in this world?

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' played with this. Joey Tribbiani is a struggling actor, and once accepts a role in an infomercial in which he portrays "Kevin", a guy who has trouble with milk cartons that are "flingin'-flangin' hard to open" (he rips one open while trying, spraying milk all over the place). But with the Milk Master 2000, he has no trouble. "Now I can have milk every day!" (Rachel is later shown using one) In another episode, Joey laments that his fellow cast members in a play tease him about the infomercial by asking him to open milk cartons... and making fun of him when he really can't do it.

Sometimes goes hand-in-hand with ThePowerOfCheese, which is people acting incredibly stupid due to desire for the product being advertised instead of as a "demonstration" of a competitor. Related to BrandX, CableSatelliteMudslinging, and SideBySideDemonstration. May be used to cover up a NeverNeedsSharpening flaw. Basically DisastrousDemonstration invoked for marketing purposes. Compare DeceptivelySimpleDemonstration, where the product is being used in a way that looks harder than it really is. It doesn't help that with few exceptions infomercial products are low-quality exmples of their product type being pushed at a markup.

Let's face it, this could be TruthInTelevision for some products and indeed, some users. In fact, many of these products were invented specifically for the elderly and physically disabled, people who legitimately ''could'' have problems with some of these tasks. The "being too incompetent to use it" factor usually arises when the item is marketed to a general audience (needed in order to secure a big enough market to make the product profitable) and it becomes necessary to convince able-bodied people that ''they'' can't live without these products. Thus the actors playing the part of the incompetent are smiling young actors lacking the physical and mental disorders of people who'd actually benefit from the product.

** One episode features [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRntutn8udw Mayostard]], a bottled mayonnaise-and-mustard combo, and goes to absurd lengths to suggest that getting sandwich spreads from two different bottles is an unbearable waste of time and effort.[[note]]Estimated time savings: 5 minutes over 30 years[[/note]] Then a competing product, Mustardayonnaise, enters the picture. Then the post-credits gag introduces [[SerialEscalation Mustmayostardayonnaise]], because having to apply Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise is such an enormous time sink, it will cause you to miss your daughter growing up, graduating college, and then [[MindScrew growing older than you and dying.]][[note]]Warning: Mayostard will expire before mustardayonnaise[[/note]]

** Repeated in strip [[http://xkcd.com/1715/ Household Tips]].

* ''Website/TheOnion'': "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93M9ww5G1y8 How To Wax Your Floors Without Slipping, Severing Your Spine]]"

* WebVideo/MikeJ has an entire series of these, dubbed ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF8aArFtKPU&list=PL19DFlTh4hRukKzdaIzJ5Kg9Zw8qAh0CQ Infomercialism]]''. Some items of note:

* ''WebVideo/{{Jacksfilms}}'' parodies the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huo7h53G0IM Trope Namer]] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBL0RUJx7-I this clip]].

There are people in this world who take incompetence to an art form. You know who we're talking about; [[MajorMinorInconvenience people who cannot be trusted to use scissors, cut themselves to ribbons when they try to use a potato peeler, and cannot even use a blanket without help]]. How can such utterly incompetent people make a living in this world?

** One episode features [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRntutn8udw Mayostard]], a bottled mayonnaise-and-mustard combo, and goes to absurd lengths to suggest that getting sandwich spreads from two different bottles is an unbearable waste of time and effort.[[note]]Estimated time savings: 5 minutes over 30 years[[/note]] Then a competing product, Mustardayonnaise, enters the picture. Then the post-credits gag introduces [[SerialEscalation Mustmayostardayonnaise]], because having to apply Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise is such an enormous {{time sink}}, it will cause you to miss your daughter growing up, graduating college, and then [[MindScrew growing older than you and dying.]][[note]]Warning: Mayostard will expire before mustardayonnaise[[/note]]

##First, he tries holding the axe by the axe blade itself, hitting the handle against the side of the tree and pretty much looking like a complete idiot. This is also idiotic in the fact that you could cut your hands easily.

##Now that he's read up how to properly operate an axe, he goes on a tree cutting spree with his small axe. This works out well... on small trees at least, and some trees that take no more than three or four swings. But when he gets to a very big tree at least five feet in diameter, his option is to swing repeatedly at the tree despite being fully aware that it won't fall with one swing. Cut to several hours later, and the tree is just balancing precariously on a small amount of bark like someone just took a giant bite out of it. That's when Kirk hears a scream from the cottage at the bottom of the hill he's standing on. As he's going down to investigate the noise, the tree gives way. A person wanting to take down a redwood tree that large would likely drill explosive charges into the sides and detonate them.
## Something also says that he didn't have any permit to do tree clearing.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' has mocked this many times. A good example would be the episode "Timmy 2000" when Chef tries to introduce a drug-free way to get the children to listen without Ritalin. The result is a program known as "Be Quiet or I'll Pop You in the Mouth Again."

** One episode features [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRntutn8udw Mayostard]], a bottled mayonnaise-and-mustard combo, and goes to absurd lengths to suggest that getting sandwich spreads from two different bottles is an unbearable waste of time and effort. Then a competing product, Mustardayonnaise, enters the picture. Then the post-credits gag introduces [[SerialEscalation Mustmayostardayonnaise]], because having to apply Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise is such an enormous time sink, it will cause you to miss your daughter growing up, graduating college, and then [[MindScrew growing older than you and dying.]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abYKKrCkF-c A Day in the Life of DarkSydePhil,]] a skit by WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} fans, parodies [[LetsPlay/TheKingOfHate Phil's]] inability to perform basic actions in games as well as his tendency to blame said games for his own incompetence by applying the same thing to real life actions such as starting up a car, unlocking an [=iPad=] or even eating pasta with a fork.

* Charlie's ad for "Kitten Mittens" in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' does this pretty amazingly. Charlie advertises them as being able to keep your cat from "constantly stompin' around, driving you crazy." To show this off, he shows a cat lightly springing across a table, while behind it, he reacts as if he's hearing nails on chalkboard and loud crashing sound effects play. Overlapping with DisastrousDemonstration, when he shows off how quiet the cat is while wearing Kitten Mittens, it actually ''is'' stomping around and making audible noise.

* Charlie's ad for "Kitten Mittens" in ''ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' does this pretty amazingly. Charlie advertises them as being able to keep your cat from "constantly stompin' around, driving you crazy." To show this off, he shows a cat lightly springing across a table, while behind it, he reacts as if he's hearing nails on chalkboard and loud crashing sound effects play. Overlapping with DisastrousDemonstration, when he shows off how quiet the cat is while wearing Kitten Mittens, it actually ''is'' stomping around and making audible noise.

A popular format is to have the narrator say "stop wasting your time with conventional blankets", and showing a big red X or "no" slash over a [[DeliberatelyMonochrome typically monochrome]] and/or heavily desaturated video of someone apparently having a lot of trouble with it, or someone tossing it down and shaking their heads melodramatically. Bonus points if these conventional products cost thousands less in the long run. Expect BadBadActing to be used to [[ThatMakesMeFeelAngry demonstrate frustration.]] Often the ''same person'' becomes dramatically more competent when they switch to the product being advertised — the idea is presumably "even a moron could use our product", but often [[BrokenAesop comes across]] as "only a moron would ''need'' our product".

[[CastTheExpert By appearing in commercials]]!

A popular format is to have the narrator say "stop wasting your time with conventional blankets", and showing a big red X or "no" slash over a [[DeliberatelyMonochrome typically monochrome]] and/or heavily desaturated video of someone apparently having a lot of trouble with it, or someone tossing it down and shaking their heads melodramatically. Bonus points if these conventional products cost thousands less in the long run. Expect BadBadActing to be used to [[ThatMakesMeFeelAngry demonstrate frustration.]] Often the ''same person'' becomes dramatically more competent when they switch to the product being advertised -- the idea is presumably "even a moron could use our product", but often [[BrokenAesop comes across]] as "only a moron would ''need'' our product".

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Slackerz}}'' provided the page image.

Let's face it, this could be TruthInTelevision for some products and indeed, some users. In fact, many of these products were invented specifically for the elderly and physically disabled, people who legitimately ''could'' have problems with some of these tasks. The "being too incompetent to use it" factor usually arises when the item is marketed to a general audience (needed in order to secure a big enough market to make the product profitable) and it becomes necessary to convince able-bodied people that ''they'' can't live without these products. Thus the actors playing the part of the incompetent are smiling young people who clearly have no physical or mental disorders whatsoever (or at least, you wouldn't ''think'' they had any until you saw this advert...).

* Website/BuzzFeed features [[http://www.buzzfeed.com/julianbrand/40-gifs-of-stupid-infomercial-people-6eof 38 GIFs of Stupid Infomercial People.]]

* Made fun of in [[http://www.theslackerz.com/index.php?nav=Comic&Page=111 this]] ''Webcomic/{{Slackerz}}'' comic.

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'' played with this. Character Joey Tribbiani is a struggling actor, and once accepts a role in an infomercial in which he portrays "Kevin", a guy who has trouble with milk cartons that are "flingin'-flangin' hard to open" (he rips one open while trying, spraying milk all over the place). But with the Milk Master 2000, he has no trouble. "Now I can have milk every day!" (Rachel is later shown using one) In another episode, Joey laments that his fellow cast members in a play tease him about the infomercial by asking him to open milk cartons... and making fun of him when he really can't do it.

** One episode features Mayostard, a bottled mayonnaise-and-mustard combo, and goes to absurd lengths to suggest that getting sandwich spreads from two different bottles is an unbearable waste of time and effort. Then a competing product, Mustardayonnaise, enters the picture. Then the post-credits gag introduces [[SerialEscalation Mustmayostardayonnaise]], because having to apply Mayostard and Mustardayonnaise is such an enormous time sink, it will cause you to miss your daughter growing up, graduating college, and then [[MindScrew growing older than you and dying.]]

* Website/{{BuzzFeed}} features [[http://www.buzzfeed.com/julianbrand/40-gifs-of-stupid-infomercial-people-6eof 38 GIFs of Stupid Infomercial People.]]
* Adding "Thanks, Obama!" to gif examples of these has become [[{{Memes/Politics}} a political meme]], due to a ([[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment real or perceived]]) tendency for Republicans to blame ''everything'' on him.

* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' combines this with AchievementsInIgnorance with the gas-pumping minigame. Failing the minigame by overfilling a customer's car somehow causes Travis to spontaneously ''burst into flames'' from sheer incompetence.

* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' combines this with AchievementsInIgnorance with the gas-pumping minigame. Failing the minigame by overfilling a customer's car somehow causes Travis to ''burst into flames'' from sheer incompetence.

* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' combines this with AchievementsInIgnorance with the gas-pumping minigame. Failing the minigame by overfilling a customer's car somehow causes Travis to ''burst into flames.''