History Main / UncleTomfoolery

A black, primarily male comic relief character who makes the audience laugh by displaying the traits of a racist stereotype of black men. He'll usually be [[MilesGloriosus boastful out of danger]] (but a cringing wreck in the face of it), goofy, loud, annoying, and ultimately incompetent. These characteristics also serve to show the (usually white) protagonists as calm, brave, and adept. Female examples, when they do exist, are likely to adhere to ratchet or "strong, in'a'pen'ant woman who don't need no man" stereotypes, where the core characterization is largely the same: loud, boorish, buffoonish, obnoxious, and overly "extra" and prone to overreactions and long-winded boasting, though she is generally more likely to be at least somewhat competent.

[[caption-width-right:310:Merciless, unrelenting foolery... in space!]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', where "[[MeaningfulName Token Black]]" is well-off, book smart, talks in a standard American accent, and plays [[StraightMan the straight man]] to a lot of the other characters' jokes (especially the racist Cartman).

'''Token''': ...I don't know how to play bass.\\

'''Token''': *angry* I'm getting sick of your stereotypes.\\

'''Token''': *picks up guitar and instantly is able to play a series of complicated riffs* Goddamnit.

* Creator/WillSmith as Agent J to a small extent, but he played this role only in the first ''Film/MenInBlack'' after the first film Agent J takes his job more seriously

->'''Blue:''' ''(singing)'' [[Music/MarvinGaye Ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough! Ain't–]] \\
'''Julius:''' Blue, shut up. I don't wanna see all your smilin', shufflin', or hear all your minstrly-show singin' on this bus.

** In the parody of ''Series/{{Roots}}'', Bill, Tim and Graham are sold as slaves to the BBC, so they deliberately muck up their auditions so they won't be selected for anything. The producer then tells them that just makes them perfect for one particular role. Cue the trio in blackface for ''Series/TheBlackAndWhiteMinstrelShow''.

-->'''Tim:''' Bopo, bring me the morning paper!\\

* ''Series/TheGoodies''. All black people have left South Africa for Britain, so the authorities institute the [[{{Pun}} Apart-height]] policy. As the shortest member of the group, Bill is now a second-class citizen, and is given a 'rehearsal leaflet' on how to act.

This is a trope with a long history in Hollywood movies as far back as the [[TheRoaringTwenties '20s]]; in the very early days, it was often played by a white actor in {{blackface}}. No mystery or old-dark-house movie was complete without the stock character of the cringing black servant or chauffeur who was extremely superstitious ("Boss! Spooks!"). This stereotype was so popular that actors like Lincoln "Stepin Fetchit" Perry even made whole careers out of the role. This in turn was a shamelessly racist adaptation of the old melodrama and theatre trope of the incompetent domestic servant, and more generally of darkies from minstrel shows.

* Spoofed in the comic ''Professor Thintwhistle and his Incredible Fying Aether Flyer,'' a ''Heavy Metal'' serialized AffectionateParody of Victorian adventure stories that is filled to the brim with DeliberateValuesDissonance, nowhere more than the Professor's manservant Jefferson Jackson Clay. Clay is an old-timey minstrel show stereotype, complete with lots of "Oh lawdy, I'se so skeered!" style dialogue and is constantly insulted, abused and talked down to by the Professor, his apprentice Herkimer and even the narrator! [[spoiler: [[ObfuscatingStupidity It's all an act.]] He's really an EvilGenius who plots to take over the ship...[[TheBadGuyWins and does.]]]]

* Creator/EddieGriffin plays this role opposite Orlando Jones (who fills the strait-laced role, though he's ''also'' black) in ''Double Take''. They then [[PersonalitySwap trade identities]], which leads to them parodying each others' archetypes,[[spoiler: before it turns out that Griffin's character is actually an FBI agent and his "wacky black guy" persona was a cover]].

* ''Film/DjangoUnchained'' not only averts this trope with Django himself, but also [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructs]] it with Stephen, who is first introduced in a somewhat comical fashion as being {{Large Ham}}mily incredulous at Django being on a horse and being treated as a guest at the big house, and then spends most of dinner parroting his master (the BigBad of the film). However, he is considerably more observant and intelligent than the BigBad and when he is alone with the black slaves he becomes extremely sinister, suggesting that the Uncle Tomfoolery is his deliberately being sufficiently non-threatening to the whites that he is allowed to keep his position of power within the household and act as his master's [[TheDragon dragon]]. [[spoiler: He is also, at the very least, a DragonAscendant; he not only outlives his master but also gets dramatically killed while shouting curses in the film's violent climax, further suggesting that he is more of a BigBad than his [[TheFool Fool]] of a master.]]

* ''Anime/AfroSamurai'' has Creator/SamuelLJackson playing both TheStoic eponymous {{Samurai}} (something he's usually known for) and the very mouthy, comic relief sidekick Ninja Ninja.

* Creator/OrlandoJones averts this in ''Film/{{Evolution}}''. They also lampshade it several times during the movie.

* The Black Baron (stop starin') in ''VideoGame/MadWorld''. He's a black pimp who constantly spits out slang, has an ostentatious grill and [[TheyKilledKennyAgain keeps getting murdered in death traps (played for laughs)]] while going "Aw hell nawh!". [[spoiler:And he's not even black, he uses blackface]]. And to further prove ''Madworld'''s [[CrossesTheLineTwice double line-crossing]], the Baron's (black) voice actor would later become one of the aforementioned ''Transformers'' twins in the same year. Guess which character the Internet criticized.

* Barret Wallace from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' played this role at times, with the ridiculous slang and the occasionally buffoonery. He would often swing back and forth between Uncle Tomfoolery, ScaryBlackMan and AngryBlackMan depending on the situation, when [[ADayInTheLimelight the plot spotlight wasn't on him]].

* ''Series/GoodTimes'': J.J. Evans, the show's BreakoutCharacter. Jimmie Walker played the part so well that the character of J.J. soon overshadowed the show's original premise (an African-American family living in a low-income housing apartment trying to improve their economic situation but always failing, due to poor luck or other circumstances), and many began criticizing the show for presenting J.J. as a stereotypical black – i.e., a buffon; the critics included Walker's castmates, John Amos and Esther Rolle, and [[McLeaned it led to Amos' firing]] and [[PutOnABus Rolle's]] [[TheBusCameBack temporary departure]].

* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'': "ALL ABOARD THE COLE TRAIN, BABY! That's Augustus Cole, in case you were wondering. Taken UpToEleven in the second game when he cuts off the Locust Queen during one of her speeches (still qualifies as a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}}).

* In ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' some people accuse the Alien Jar Jar Binks of resembling black caricatures in minstrel shows and early American cinema, highlighting his Jamaican accent, clumsiness, naivety and shuffling gait, and being cowardly all typical traits of minstrel characters. It does not help physically, he has large nostrils and his "lips" make up half of his face, both traits commonly exaggerated in black caricatures also his large floppy ears have been compared to dreadlocks. Jar-Jar's first lines in the series, "Me-sa your humble servant," call slavery and domestic servitude to mind.

* Twinkie in ''Film/TheFastAndTheFuriousTokyoDrift''. Rome and Tej start out with shades of this in ''Film/TwoFastTwoFurious'' and pretty much run with it for the rest of the series..

* Zack from the ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive'' franchise. Wherever he goes, Zack often makes commotion and creates scenes. With his cheerful ways, clownish antics, and sometimes weird behavior, Zack is often a source of comic relief in the series.

'''Julius:''' Blue, shut up. I don't wanna see all your smilin', shufflin', hear all your minstrly-show singin' on this bus.

->''"As much as I love to see Creator/RichardRoundtree getting work, there's no getting around it: the old junk-man who can produce anything you need because it '{{fell off the back of a truck}}' has got to be the most uncomfortable cliché in the entire film."''
-->-- [[http://comicsalliance.com/comicsalliance-reviews-steel-1997-part-one/ Chris Sims on]] ''{{Film/Steel}}''

* Bobby, the American Buddhist Monk from ''Manga/BinbogamiGa'', is not only a lecher, but also selfish and lazy, refusing to help the other protagonists until they bribe him with women.

* Mr.Popo from ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', the manservant of Kami-sama, has black skin, big wide lips, a comic relief personality, and wears a turban and baggy clothes. He's ''probably'' a genie, but that doesn't make him any less of a blackface character, especially with the way he talks in short, simplistic sentences and refers to himself in third person. The English manga releases changed the artwork to make his lips more subtle and smaller, while an airing of ''Dragon Ball Z Kai'' on Creator/TheCW's Toonzai block re-colored his skin to be blue instead (of course, this was a block run by '''[[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids]]''', so that wasn't the [[EditedForSyndication only thing]] they changed).

* Spoofed in the comic ''Professor Thintwhistle and his Incredible Fying Aether Flyer,'' a ''Heavy Metal'' serialized AffectionateParody of Victorian adventure stories that is filled to the brim with DeliberateValuesDissonance, nowhere more than the Professor's manservant Jefferson Jackson Clay. Clay is an old-timey minstrel show s
tereotype, complete with lots of "Oh lawdy, I'se so skeered!" style dialogue and is constantly insulted, abused and talked down to by the Professor, his apprentice Herkimer and even the narrator! [[spoiler: [[ObfuscatingStupidity It's all an act.]] He's really an EvilGenius who plots to take over the ship...[[TheBadGuyWins and does.]]]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
* Mushu the dragon from ''Westernanimation/{{Mulan}}'', voiced by Creator/EddieMurphy.
* The unflattering character of Sunflower from ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' which is a rare female example, was willing and happy servant to the other centaur lasses eventually led to her being [[UnPerson completely edited out of the film]], although the original untouched footage can still be found circulating online.
* Donkey from ''Westernanimation/{{Shrek}} '', another animated character that is voiced by Eddie Murphy that supports this trope.Even though Donkey is a {{TalkingAnimal}} he is the only character in the Shrek series who has an African American accent and has many traits of an Uncle Tomfoolery character especially with him being cowardly and rather annoying alongside of being the {{PluckyComicRelief}} of the Shrek film series.
* Oscar the protagonists of ''Westernanimation/{{SharkTale}} '', voiced by Creator/WillSmith displays stereotypical traits of a Black American male in a comical way despite being a fish addition to being a cowardly goofyball.
* Shenzi one of the hyenas in''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}}'',
voiced by Creator/WhoopiGoldberg is a gender inverted characterization of this trope she the only character in the film that has an African American accent despite many characters being voiced by African Americans in that film.Addition to her accent many critics mentioned her character reminded them of minstrel characters and the reason behind that was her being goofy and slightly annoying and slightly incompetent.Despite those personality traits in the film she is shown to be {{Smarterthantheylook}} at times. Her affiliates in the {{TerribleTrio}} could be categorized fitting this trope as well especially Banzai but he has Mexican American accent and could be categorized into the{{EthnicScrappy}} characterization.



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* Shenzi one of the hyenas in''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}}''

* Shenzi one of the Hyenas in''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}}''

* Shenzi one of the Hyenas in
''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}}''

* Shenzi one of the Hyenas included in

''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}} ''

''Westernanimation/{{TheLionKing}}’’

* Shenzi one of the Hyenas in the {{TerribleTrio}} in