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| 9 | [[quoteright:343:[[Series/AmericasDumbestCriminals https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/criminals.png]]]] |
| 10 | [[caption-width-right:343:[[FighterMageThief A balanced adventuring party.]][[note]]''But which is which!?''[[/note]]]] |
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| 15 | ->''"I did '''not''' rob a bank; if I had robbed a bank, everything would have been great... I '''tried''' to rob a bank is what happened, and they got me... I misspelled a note."'' |
| 16 | -->-- '''[[Creator/WoodyAllen Virgil Starkwell]]''', ''Film/TakeTheMoneyAndRun'' |
| 17 | |
| 18 | When it comes to committing crime, (un)fortunately, not everyone is an expert... or even a professional. A good caper usually takes the talent and skill of the likes of a ClassyCatBurglar or even a PhantomThief to pull off, and people either have a knack for that or don't. Those who can’t pull off anything on that scale may think smaller, plan a less rewarding crime with fewer risks involved. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | This trope is for those who fail even at that. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | Criminals in general are seldom the brightest of folks in the first place, but there's something about Stupid Crooks that always distinguishes them from the rest of the pack. Naturally, the very fact that they seek to commit acts of crime doesn't win them any favors or admiration from anyone, but [[DoWrongRight the fact that they can't even succeed at it]] doesn't do them any good, either. Knowing that, the escapades involving this type of criminal usually amount to one of the greatest forms of ComedicSociopathy one can find ''anywhere''. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | When a {{Jerkass}} fails at something, it's funny. When a Jerkass is also an idiot, it's even '''more''' so. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Most commonly, Stupid Crooks are low-level burglars and petty thieves; other times, they may be people who don't have criminal records or have never committed a crime before but are suddenly tempted to commit one for fast cash or some other small reward. No matter what though, these guys [[PlethoraOfMistakes always get]] ''[[PlethoraOfMistakes something]]'' [[PlethoraOfMistakes wrong]]. They use [[PaperThinDisguise Paper Thin Disguises]] (that don't work), they rob a store that they visit daily where all the employees would recognize them, they use their real names to communicate with each other, they do all of those things at once and more! Stupidity has no limits, and that has never been truer than in instances involving Stupid Crooks. |
| 27 | |
| 28 | On most occasions, FailureIsTheOnlyOption with the crook(s) either bungling a job that has low risk and is extremely petty (like taking candy from a baby) or one that comes with greater risk in a criminal field that they have no experience with. Stupid Crooks always get caught by the cops (even when PoliceAreUseless for anything else) or otherwise end up having [[LaserGuidedKarma a price to pay for their idiocy]]. In either instance, AmusingInjuries are very likely to occur. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | The few times when a crook manages to get away with anything, the matter usually comes down to a ContrivedCoincidence or two and a hefty dose of [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] that allows the crook to slip by when everyone else is preoccupied with a much larger mess that was made, especially true if the character isn't actually after any plot-crucial {{MacGuffin}}s and the character [[BitPartBadGuys only serves to advance other circumstances of a story]]; in the very rare event that a Stupid Crook ''does'' get away with a plot-crucial MacGuffin by the end of the story, expect this to feel like an AssPull. |
| 31 | |
| 32 | Often leads to MuggingTheMonster and BullyingADragon. A GoldfishPoopGang or a BumblingHenchmenDuo is often composed of these. WeaponForIntimidation can show up in a subverted fashion where brandishing an unusable weapon (i.e. an unloaded gun) [[DrawAggro draws aggro]] from people who can fight back with greater force. For one reason or another, such characters are usually TooDumbToLive. If any such character happens to draw sympathy from their failings, that character is also likely to be an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. |
| 33 | |
| 34 | TruthInTelevision, obviously, as shown by all too many real reports (or more recently, videos) featuring idiotic criminals failing in amusing ways. In RealLife, this is often exacerbated by drug abuse, which makes many criminals act even dumber than they are by default. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | See also: CutLexLuthorACheck, when someone with a habit of committing crimes could actually achieve fortune and success through more honest and legal means. A TerribleTrio can commonly evoke this trope (or, at least, the supporting characters can, if the leader is halfway competent). Often TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily is similar. Stupid Crooks can also be a type of HarmlessVillain. If the crook fails because he is foolishly self-confident rather than technically stupid, see TooCleverByHalf. This has nothing to do with ThePerfectCrime, though sometimes the Stupid Crooks '''think''' that they are committing one (and are generally hilariously wrong). |
| 37 | |
| 38 | Not directly related to StupidEvil, although overlap is possible. |
| 39 | |
| 40 | Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease |
| 41 | |
| 42 | ---- |
| 43 | !!Examples: |
| 44 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 45 | |
| 46 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 47 | * The burglars in the Brinks Home Security (later Broadview Security) commercials for some reason never check to see if the occupants of the house are away or asleep before breaking in. An especially painful example involves a burglar attempting to break in ''right after seeing the father enter the house''. |
| 48 | [[/folder]] |
| 49 | |
| 50 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 51 | * ''Anime/PatlaborTheTVSeries'': A lot of the criminals [=SV2=] go up against are really dumb, but the cake goes to the villains in "Save the Terrorists" who are a pair of bombers so inept that the reason that they are independent is because no serious eco-terrorist organization would take them. They end up setting off their own bomb prematurely and in the wrong place by accident and have to be rescued by the police. |
| 52 | [[/folder]] |
| 53 | |
| 54 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 55 | * "Rocket Scientist" in ''ComicBook/DetectiveComics'' #704. The story details the career of one of Gotham City's most incompetent crooks. His actions included once disguising himself by painting his face red (following an earlier mishap due to his choice of masks) only to collapse because the paint was toxic. Unusually, his terrible luck would up ''saving'' him from Batman, by dint of breaking a very, very deep fall... with a cart of used diapers. |
| 56 | * ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': |
| 57 | ** "The Forever Crimes", wherein a crook tries to escape from Dredd by making his way down a laundry chute, but it's [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/comics/2000adstrips/dredd/dredd03.shtml actually a garbage disposal.]] |
| 58 | ** One group of criminals once tried to break into a room at Rowdy Yates Block that was marked off as a RESTRICTED AREA, reasoning that something really important and valuable had to be inside. The reason why it's a restricted area: [[spoiler:It's Judge Dredd's apartment.]] |
| 59 | ** In yet another Dredd story, a criminal has plastic surgery to conceal his identity. Riding high in the knowledge that no one could possibly catch him now, he says hello to Judge Dredd himself. [[spoiler:Naturally, the Judges have voice-print identification on all known criminals.]] |
| 60 | * In one of ''ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks'' from ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' which featured two would-be art thieves with the "experienced" one teaching the novice that whatever paintings are the most heavily guarded are, [[LogicalFallacies logically]], the most valuable ones. They get ''really'' greedy when they see one that's immensely guarded and it turns out that [[CruelTwistEnding that painting is a living entity that eats whatever comes near it; the security measures were supposed to keep the painting away from people -- not the other way around]]. |
| 61 | * ''ComicBook/SinCity'' rarely has comic relief but when it does, it usually comes in the form of Shlubb and Klump who are bumbling criminals who do "dirty jobs" for the mob. |
| 62 | * The year-long ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' story arc had a series of interludes focusing on a character named "The Punk", who tried to steal supplies with an empty gun when EVERYONE knew that nobody had any ammo and his gun had to be empty. The last interlude was titled "The Punk and The Stranger", where The Punk tried to rob ComicBook/TheJoker [[TooDumbToLive with his empty gun]] after failing many robberies because everyone knew he had an empty gun. Three guesses on why this was the last "The Punk" story. |
| 63 | * In the third issue of the 2014 ''[[ComicBook/MsMarvel2014 Ms. Marvel]]'' series, Kamala stumbles across a robbery when going to talk to her friend Bruno who works at the Circle Q. It turns out that the robber is actually Bruno's brother Vick, [[{{Foreshadowing}} who earlier in the issue had been seen asking Bruno for money]]. Not only did Vick get the timing wrong, unaware that his brother Bruno would be working instead of Chatty Bob, but he could not even unload his gun properly, [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace accidentally shooting Kamala when she comes in to stop the robbery]]. |
| 64 | * ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'' has a fair share in the inexplicably high number of crooks that, for a reason or another, [[BullyingTheDragon willingly and knowingly decides to mess with the title character]]. Given he's called the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast King of Terror, Unstoppable Criminal, Murderer with a]] [[LatexPerfection Thousand Faces]], [[IHaveManyNames and many other equally scary names]] for a reason, the only reason a few have survived their debut was that [[CruelMercy Diabolik had reduced them to such a state that actually killing them would have been doing them a favor]]. |
| 65 | ** The story "Two Killers for Diabolik" features two desperate men who had started rumors hoping to get hired to kill a man, except neither of them has any criminal experience and [[MuggingTheMonster their target had been kidnapped and replaced by Diabolik]]. [[HilarityEnsues They spend most of the story being humiliated by the King of Terror]], before they annoy him enough he reveals himself. |
| 66 | * The ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse has the Beagle Boys. While they pose a danger from time to time, they are invariably idiots who, on one occasion, were caught by Scrooge's Money Bin. Not by Scrooge, his guards, or some traps -- ''the building'' (even Scrooge had trouble believing it at first and thought he had been hallucinating from lack of sleep until he noticed the one who knocked himself out on his bed lamp). |
| 67 | * ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': A newbie villain with the admittedly dangerous power of creating localized black holes attempts to mug and murder someone about ten feet from where a significant portion of the ComicBook/JusticeLeague ''and'' ComicBook/TeenTitans are eating and chatting. He gets captured almost instantly. |
| 68 | [[/folder]] |
| 69 | |
| 70 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 71 | * ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' has quite a few examples of incompetent crooks in various jokes, particularly the parody of ''Film/DogDayAfternoon'', which exaggerates Sonny's stupidity, particularly accidentally getting flowers out of the flower box that was supposed to conceal their guns, and spraying the cameras with deodorant. After revealing his status as a Vietnam vet, Sonny also proudly declares that "This is gonna be a smooth, efficient, well-oiled operation... [[AnalogyBackfire just the way us Americans handled the war in Vietnam!]]" before catching himself. |
| 72 | * In one ''ComicStrip/TheWizardOfId'' strip, Sir Rodney brings a criminal before the King: |
| 73 | -->'''Rodney:''' This idiot was making perfect counterfeit coins.\ |
| 74 | '''King:''' If they were perfect, why is he an idiot?\ |
| 75 | '''Rodney:''' He was making pennies. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 79 | * The kidnappers in ''Fanfic/PrincessCelestiaGetsMugged''. Even if Celestia wasn't a {{Physical God}}dess in disguise and [[PlayAlongPrisoner let herself be kidnapped]] ForTheLulz, they're more a threat to ''themselves'' than her. They realize too late that, after going through the trouble of coming up with code names to hide their identities, "Sunny Skies" has already seen them in full view for quite some time. Then, after being told of their captive's excellent memory, one of them says the exact location of the safe house they're planning to go to after getting their ransom. Then, to deliver the ransom note, one of them ''[[TooDumbToLive walks up to the castle door to hoof deliver it]]''. Needless to say, he's arrested on the spot. |
| 80 | * Five Thieves' Guild junior members receiving their initiation to Advanced Thiefcraft get the idea to strike at three women walking around Ankh-Morpork in Creator/AAPessimal's ''Fanfic/TheManyWorldsInterpretation''. Their teacher lampshades how they could not have chosen worse marks: one of them is one of [[MagnificentBastard Lord Vetinari]]'s [[PraetorianGuard Dark Clerks]], another is an Assassin and Watchwoman (prominently identifying herself as such), and the third, [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Penny from Pasadena]], is a part-time ActionGirl. To make things worse, Lord Vetinari likes to have ''words''[[note]]sarcastic words, with added sardony[[/note]] with people who inconvenience his Clerks, and Assassins are exempt from Thieves' Guild attentions. |
| 81 | * In ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/58529/the-ash The Ash]]'' the Flim Flam Bros. try to cash in on a disease outbreak by trying their SnakeOilSalesman routine and expect to get out with a slap on the wrist as always when they're caught, the problem is, as Twilight points out, they actually used the dust from the meteor causing the disease as an ingredient in their bogus cure, meaning they can get sent to jail for mass poisoning. |
| 82 | * ''Fanfic/MyHeroAcademiaUnchainedPredator'': When a street gang taking advantage of the chaos spots the Slayer, they instantly think he's a wannabe hero and try to [[MuggingTheMonster rob him]]. As Mera explains in Chapter 27, the street gang was [[CruelAndUnusualDeath viciously slaughtered]] by the Slayer. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 86 | * The villain of ''WesternAnimation/ToyStoryOfTerror'' is a motel manager who used his pet iguana to steal toys from kids who stayed at his motel and sell them on the internet. His plan actually worked pretty well, but at the end of the movie, Bonnie's mother catches him in the act and reports him to the police. Realistically, he's probably looking at a fine or community service, but when two troopers show up to talk to him, he steals and immediately crashes their squad car while trying to flee, so he's almost certainly looking at a long prison sentence. |
| 87 | [[/folder]] |
| 88 | |
| 89 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 90 | * Creator/TheCoenBrothers tend to include [[{{Criminals}} criminal characters]] in a lot of their stories, including a few bumbling crooks who usually, but not always, appear in their comedies. |
| 91 | ** ''Film/RaisingArizona'': |
| 92 | *** H.I.'s attempt to steal baby diapers [[WeaponForIntimidation with an unloaded gun]] becomes a lot more complicated when all the store clerks and police officers he runs into are packing heat and aren't afraid to use it. Lucky for his sake, they all seem to be graduates from The ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy. |
| 93 | *** Evelle and Gale are even worse. They leave Nathan, Jr. behind at not one but '''two''' of their own crime scenes, among other stupid mistakes. |
| 94 | ** ''Film/{{Fargo}}'' sees Jerry's scheme to stage his wife's kidnapping in order to swindle money from his wealthy father-in-law go horribly awry once the two criminals he hired for the job are pulled over by a state trooper shortly after the kidnapping, who ends up getting killed along with two witnesses, which only complicates things and calls more attention to their actions. Then more things happen that don't go according to plan, and more people die as a consequence of this, including [[spoiler: Jerry's wife.]] |
| 95 | ** ''Film/TheBigLebowski'': |
| 96 | *** The film begins with two thugs breaking into The Dude's apartment to rough him up demanding money (and pissing on his rug as an extra insult) after they manage to mistake him for a multi-millionaire [[OneSteveLimit with the same name]]. For extra irony points, they eventually arrive to fetch the Dude and tell him that they are not stupid. |
| 97 | *** The nihilists also try to get ransom money without actually having the person they're trying to get the ransom for (the Big Lebowski's TrophyWife Bunny). One of them allows his toe to be cut off in order to send the Big Lebowski a FingerInTheMail and pretend it's Bunny's (Walter looks at the toe and instantly figures out it's a man's a scene or two before we meet the nihilist who volunteered and his blood-soaked wrapped foot). |
| 98 | *** It eventually turns out that [[spoiler:the Big Lebowski]] isn't that smart either, [[spoiler: trying to cover up his attempt to steal money from his own charity when his daughter -- the ''real'' manager of the Lebowski fortune -- will find out what he did.]] |
| 99 | ** ''Film/TheLadykillers2004'' were certainly not the best of crooks, either. Even in [[Film/TheLadykillers1955 the original,]] for that matter. [[spoiler:How hard is it for them to kill a defenseless and utterly oblivious little old lady? [[SelfDisposingVillain Answer]]: ''[[EverybodyDiesEnding Very]]''.]] |
| 100 | ** ''Film/BurnAfterReading'' hinges on a very amateur foray into criminality by two gym employees who mistake a former CIA employee's CD that he accidentally left in his locker for "[[InsistentTerminology shit]]" worth blackmailing him over (the employee is also such a dumbass that he thinks it's valuable data and bloody hilarity ensues -- this is a literal IdiotPlot {{invoked}} by the Coens, with the OnlySaneMan even lampshading it in a "what the hell just happened?" fashion). |
| 101 | * Creator/GuyRitchie was a fan of this trope in his two earliest movies. |
| 102 | ** Every character in ''Film/LockStockAndTwoSmokingBarrels'' qualifies one way or another. The film's tagline is even "A Disgrace to Criminals Everywhere." However, special note has got to be given to Dean and Gary, who are instructed by Barry the Baptist to retrieve antique shotguns from an estate home and keep anything else they can carry for themselves. Even in a mansion decorated with numerous expensive antiques, they rationalize that "old" must mean "worthless". [[spoiler:And that's to say nothing about how they sold the guns Barry wanted them to get for quick cash, thinking they were too old for him to want anything to do with. The rest of their adventure follows them attempting to get the guns back, which do end up in the hands of the man who wants them without their help, but Dean and Gary don't know that...]] Even the way they are introduced lets you know they are stupid. Harry claims he doesn't care who Barry hires to steal the guns, "as long as they're not complete muppets." Cue DescriptionCut. |
| 103 | ** Sol, Vinny, and Tyrone from ''Film/{{Snatch}}''. Apparently, everything they do was inspired by stories of stupid criminals shared on late-night talk show monologues. While Avi isn't a criminal by profession, he qualifies as well, since he's trying to get his hands on the diamond, and he ends up mucking everything he gets involved with up as well. |
| 104 | ** ''Film/RockNRolla'' gives us a comedic and a dramatic example. The comedic example is Johnny Quid's druggie friends, who steal the priceless (both sentimentally and because it costs millions) painting Johnny is guarding in his pad when he's not looking and sell it in a hole-on-the-wall pub for fifty pounds. The dramatic example is Stella, who is so embroiled on being a FemmeFatale that she seemingly did not bothered to do just that tiny bit of extra recon of her target (Uri, a [[TheMafiya Russian gangster]]) to recognize that painting (or, for that matter, that getting it stolen is Uri's biggest BerserkButton) and so accepts the painting from One-Two and puts it right in her living room, where Uri finds it and kills her [[GoryDiscretionShot in a matter better off not seen by the audience]]. |
| 105 | * ''Film/TwelveHourShift'': Mandy, the nurse who procures organs for a trafficking ring, does not qualify, but her cousin Regina, who transports the organs, does. She kills a patient so she can have his kidney but does it in such a way that the police gets called. Then, she tries removing a kidney from a body despite not knowing anything about anatomy and has to resort to using ''her underwear'' to store the organ. |
| 106 | * ''Film/AlphaDog'': Kidnapping a 15-year old boy in broad daylight over a feud with his brother is stupid enough, but anyone in Johnny's gang thinking [[spoiler:murdering Zack]] would alleviate their situation and that they wouldn't get caught and eventually receive capital punishment for it is truly deserving of a Darwin Award. This is especially considering there are '''38 witnesses''' to this. Johnny is actually given an offer by his lawyer to possibly serve minimum jail time to return Zack safely and plead guilty, but chooses not to simply for not wanting to do ''any'' jail time at all. Even dumber for Johnny, his father (and likely the other family and maybe their lawyer) knows Johnny ordered [[spoiler:Zack killed, and his father pleads with him to call off the hit. Johnny refuses, claiming that Zack is probably already free because his gang are just a bunch of fuck ups.]] He seems to literally be putting faith in his criminal partners being idiots. |
| 107 | * ''Film/AmericanHistoryX'': Lamont is hesitant to tell Derek about how he got in prison because it was by robbing a TV store... [[DonutMessWithACop next to a donut shop]]. However, this leads into a darker reveal when Lamont tells Derek that the racist cops conspired to get him a very harsh sentence because the stolen TV that Lamont was holding accidentally fell on one of the officer's feet, and they wanted payback. |
| 108 | * ''Film/AmericanAnimals'': The film is a {{dramatization}} of a real crime in which four college students robbed a library of millions of dollars worth of rare books. TheCaper is a complete debacle, with the robbers screaming at each other, making numerous mistakes, and going completely off of ThePlan. Their worst offense comes later when two of them bring their stolen antiques to a legitimate antique dealer and provide their real cellphone number and email address. Another member of the crew immediately realizes that this will surely get them caught, which it does. |
| 109 | * Disney's film of ''Film/TheAppleDumplingGang'' makes things even stupider by casting Creator/DonKnotts and Tim Conway as the hapless crooks. How dumb are they? They get captured by a lawman who took pity on them and told them he couldn't hang them because he didn't have any rope, but if they came back tomorrow with some rope he'd take care of it. After they leave, the sheriff tells his deputy that if they're dumb enough to come back with a rope, he'll hang them for being TooDumbToLive. The only reason they didn't come back to be hanged was that ''they couldn't find any rope.'' Don Knotts noted in the commentary that they were "two men sharing an IQ (point), and it wasn't an even split." |
| 110 | -->'''Theodore''': The Lord poured your brains in with a teaspoon and someone juggled his arm! |
| 111 | * The three bumbling idiots in ''Film/BabysDayOut'' who try to kidnap a baby and hold him for ransom just can't seem to keep the baby from wandering off and getting into situations that get ''themselves'' hurt. |
| 112 | * J.D. and Billy from ''Film/{{Barbershop}}''. They steal an ATM from a convenience store and spend the rest of the day trying to break it open, oblivious to the fact that it has no money inside. |
| 113 | * ''Film/BeverlyHillsCopII'': The Alphabet Bandit heists are done with HandCannon pistols for the sake of additional intimidation. While TheDragon Karla Fry uses a recent-model Desert Eagle, one of the henchmen decided it was a good idea to use an Automag (an extremely rare pistol, with ammunition only available by means of cutting down ''rifle rounds'' -- meaning they need be custom-made to order by gunsmiths to collectors). As a result, this is extremely important evidence and the only reason it is disregarded is that the Chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department is a complete moron that orders (or rather bullies) his forces to follow the CriminalMindGames that the gang leaves behind (to sucker the cops into capturing their FallGuy), while Foley and his friends following this clue literally leads them to the BigBad's office within a single day. |
| 114 | * ''Film/BottleRocket'': The final robbery of the factory is a comedy of errors. No one wears masks or gloves, Dignon screws up the employees' lunch break schedule, Anthony and Bob don't stay at their lookout posts, and Kumar, the guy they brought along specifically to break into the safe, does not know how to break into the safe. |
| 115 | * ''Film/BulletTrain'': Lemon and Tangerine are both ruthless and skilled hitmen but are questionably competent at anything that doesn't involve murder. |
| 116 | ** Lemon makes the fatal mistake of keeping the BriefcaseFullOfMoney that he and Tangerine are escorting in the train's luggage compartment rather than on his person, letting it sit unguarded and easy to steal. Indeed, Ladybug does end up stealing it, and were it not for the Wolf intervening, would've easily left the train and escaped the Twins' clutches. |
| 117 | ** After the briefcase gets taken, Lemon and Tangerine get so caught up in bickering over it that they don't bother to check on [[spoiler:the Son, who they're supposed to be protecting, leading to the Hornet poisoning him]], they have difficulty telling if someone is dead or just unconscious, and even Tangerine, who provides exposition to Lemon about the White Death, completely fails to realize that they had ran afoul of him after they killed part of his gang in Bolivia. |
| 118 | * In the Creator/ChuckNorris movie ''Film/CodeOfSilence'', a pair of criminals try to hold up a bar they don't know is the local police precinct's hang-out place. The second they pull out their guns, about thirty off-duty officers present their own weapons. |
| 119 | * Although the crooks in ''Film/DiamondsOnWheels'' manage to pull off a successful ArmedBlag of a diamond transport, they spend the rest of the film being outwitted by a trio of teens who don't even realize they are being chased for most of the movie. |
| 120 | * Sonny in ''Film/DogDayAfternoon''. He robs a bank in broad daylight and waits until after the money shipment has left the bank (to be fair to him, it's indicated that he was mistaken about the time this was supposed to happen), doesn't wear a mask or gloves, only thinks to paint over the cameras part-way through (and is too short to reach most of them, anyway), announces to his hostages that he served in Vietnam and was a bank teller at one point in his life and uses his and his partners' real names (so even if it had gone as planned they would have been caught immediately), burns the traveler's cheque registry which alerts the bank's neighbors to something happening inside, doesn't take into account one of his partners' mental stability or the possibility of his other partner getting cold feet and leaving short-handed, doesn't look into the bank's floor plan and doesn't consider the possibility of a hostage situation or a stand-off with police. In fact, if he had arrived before the shipment left, he likely would have been shot by the armored car guards. |
| 121 | * ''Film/TheDoorman'': Borz is a particular example of this. While his connections helped Dubois find the man he was looking for, Borz repeatedly failed to follow other instructions that would have made the heist easier, ranging from not disabling the fire alarm during the theft to not making sure the building was empty (in defense of the last, Borz believed Dubois just needed to access the first floor while the only other family present were dining on the tenth). |
| 122 | * In the Italian movie ''Film/{{Fantozzi}} in Paradiso'', the eponymous protagonist and his friend Filini try to rob the internal bank of the 'Mega-Company' they used to work for before retiring. Not only do they need the help of the bank's director to pull it off in spite of their own imbecility, but they're later robbed of the loot by the Mega-Director of the Mega-Company, who noticed them prepare and ordered to let them pull it off to take the money himself (with the bank being refunded by the insurance). |
| 123 | * In ''Film/The51stState'', a mob thug kills a crooked chemist after misinterpreting his partner's request to "take care of him" and a DirtyCop accidentally kills the dude he's shaking down for a bribe. Additionally, it can be argued that [[spoiler: since Elmo's super-powerful designer drug is an elaborate placebo]], the entire criminal organization that bought it was backwards enough to fall for it. |
| 124 | * ''Film/FourLions'' centers around a group of five moronic Islamic Terrorists with less than five brain cells to share between themselves. |
| 125 | * ''Film/TheGangThatCouldntShootStraight'' are aptly named; they are ''terrible'' at [[TheMafia organised crime]], whether acting on orders from their mob boss Antonio "Baccala" Vestrummo or trying to kill him for demoting their leader, Kid Sally Palumbo, to personal chauffeur for his ineptitude. |
| 126 | ** The gang are tasked with organising a (rigged) bicycle race, with competitors from twelve countries, on a track on a military base. They discover ''as the race is about to begin'' that the track has an enormous gap in it because they couldn't move the motor pool, and the crowd riots when told the race must be postponed indefinitely. |
| 127 | ** After Kid Sally's demotion for the bicycle race fiasco, he and the gang decide to kill Baccala and his right-hand man, Water Buffalo. Their attempts lead to the deaths of ''four'' of their own members - two are run over by Water Buffalo when their attempt on his life fails thanks to their refusal to walk through a puddle in their expensive shoes, another is blown up by a stick of remotely activated dynamite that is accidentally set off by a police radio, and another electrocutes himself when he climbs a utility pole and raises a knife to throw at Baccala through his office window. |
| 128 | ** Having acquired a lion in the course of preparing for the bicycle race, the gang decide to use the animal to intimidate an assortment of local shopkeepers for a "protection" racket. At a butcher's, they decide to order ten pounds of steak for the lion. Inevitably, the money and the steak are put in identical bags, and the gang doesn't realise they've thrown the wrong bag into the lion's room until after he's eaten every dollar. |
| 129 | ** When Kid Sally tries to kill Baccala himself as he dines with fake priest Mario Trantino, everything that can go wrong does. The bodyguards wait a ridiculously long time to order the drinks they are planning to [[SlippingAMickey spike]], prompting the nervous bartender to order them to down them at gunpoint. The van they are using as cover sits outside the restaurant for so long that they are given a parking ticket. And the bullets for Kid Sally's gun barely fit into the chambers, so that when he charges into the restaurant and aims at Baccala's head, the gun blows up in his hand. |
| 130 | * ''Film/GoneInSixtySeconds2000'': Kip Raines and his young (and irresponsibly belligerent) thieving crew are all over this Trope. Kip's EstablishingCharacterMoment is breaking into a Porsche dealership in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard by smashing the front window with a brick and then racing like a madman back to the crew's hideout, acting surprised when that brings an awful lot of police attention to his contract with Raymond Calitri (which is gonna get him killed if he can't fulfill it). Later on in the film, the crew does at least four more stupid things: 1) they go get new keys to attempt a second Porsche heist from the very same man that gave them the keys for the first (not considering the possibility of the man being under police surveillance), 2) they steal a car that wasn't on the list just because they saw it as easy pickings (turns out that the car was a drug dealer's and had a load of cocaine on the back -- this almost gets them caught by Detective Overbeck, but thankfully it doesn't lead to something worse), 3) they leave the aforementioned Porsche keys lying around in a place where they end up eaten by the team's dog, and 4) they don't keep an eye on the location of the people that they are stealing from, leading to one of the thieves getting shot and forced to run away in plain sight of a TriggerHappy security guard. |
| 131 | * ''Film/HomeAlone'': |
| 132 | ** Both burglars from the [[Film/HomeAlone1 first]] [[Film/HomeAlone2LostInNewYork two]] movies are dense enough to qualify, but especially Marv. It was his idea to flood every house they rob as his way of leaving a CallingCard, and when Marv wants to make it clear to cops that he and his partner are the "Wet Bandits", one of his arresting officers makes an observation: |
| 133 | --->'''Police Officer:''' Hey, you know we've been looking for you two guys for a long time. Thanks for leaving the water running; now we know each and every house you guys have hit. |
| 134 | ** In ''Film/HomeAlone3'', the would-be burglars [[InformedAbility who are alleged veteran super-spies that have avoided capture by every kind of law enforcement organization in the world]], are all constantly curb-stomped by one kid and his house laden with booby traps, some of which have a ''very'' visible set-up (even if many use that as part of a BatmanGambit). |
| 135 | ** In ''Film/HomeAlone4TakingBackTheHouse'', in lieu of set booby traps, Kevin simply triggers the gadgets of his smart home at just the right time and lets the bad guys' bumbling do the rest. |
| 136 | * In ''Film/HowIBecameAGangster'' the protagonist/narrator laments that he is forced to commit a major heist with a crew of idiots. As the robbery takes place, he points out every single thing that the "mastermind" overlooked or was too lazy to do. The masks do not fit and the guns were obtained from a "friend of a friend" and might not even work. The protagonist considers himself to be an idiot for ever agreeing to participate in this farce and considers it pure luck that it succeeds. However, since their operational security was non-existent, the police quickly find out who was responsible and everyone involved goes to prison. When he is released from prison, the protagonist resolves to only commit crimes where he is in charge of the planning and makes sure that every one of his accomplices is a ConsummateProfessional. |
| 137 | * Ritchie's friend Creator/MatthewVaughn continued this trend in ''Film/LayerCake'' with The Duke and his "gang". They seem to think they're some sort of genius criminal operation, when in fact they're just a bunch of loudmouthed wannabe gangsters. They can't figure out the goddamn directions on a road map, [[TooDumbToLive they rip off the sort of people (Serbian war criminals turned regular criminals) who will gladly have them decapitated]], their heist is amateurish as all hell (including showing their faces and the girl in the gang accidentally discharging her weapon that kills one of the Serbs), and [[spoiler:most of them end up dead by pissing off their business partners as well.]] |
| 138 | * The Coward, the Goon, and the Seasoned Man, a popular Soviet comedic trio, are cast as these crooks in ''Film/OperationY''. |
| 139 | * Daniel, Adrian, and Paul in ''Film/PainAndGain''. The entire film's plot hinges on the main characters being complete idiots who make mistake after mistake in their gruesome kidnapping and extortion plan. Ed Du Bois alludes to it by name by noting that they were convicted of all the crimes they committed except the biggest one: being deeply stupid. |
| 140 | * ''Film/TheProducers''. In the original, after Max and Leo pull their SpringtimeForHitler, they decide to blow up the theater with a little help from Franz. They plant a bomb and begin laying a line of fuse. However, just then does Franz realize that he's not sure whether they're using a quick-burning fuse or a slow-burning one, so he lights the length of fuse ''that they've already primed for the bomb'' and then congratulates himself on his skillful determination that it is indeed the quick-burning fuse that wouldn't afford them enough time to leave the building. Naturally, they don't get out of the building before the bomb detonates. (They live though.) |
| 141 | * ''Film/PulpFiction'': Vincent Vega has two moments that are directly in relation to his job as a hitman and enforcer for Marcellus Wallace's criminal empire. Not only is he the TropeNamer for IJustShotMarvinInTheFace, but Vincent also [[spoiler:lowers his guard while he [[CentralTheme goes to the bathroom]] at Butch's apartment when he's supposed to be waiting to kill Butch if he shows up. Butch ''does'' show up, and, upon noticing Marcellus' gun sitting on the counter, picks it up and shoots Vincent dead after he steps out of the bathroom.]] It's quite likely this is a result of his heroin addiction taking its toll and being out of practice from the four years he spent in Amsterdam (WordOfGod says he ran a club for Marcellus), where he evidently indulged in heavy drug use. |
| 142 | * At the beginning of ''Film/RoboCop3'', a would-be hoodlum pulls out a gun and tries to pull a late-night hold-up... at a local [[DonutMessWithACop Doughnut Shop]]. Cue the dozen or more cops/customers whipping out their guns. |
| 143 | -->'''Clerk:''' What's it like being a rocket scientist? |
| 144 | * Creator/WoodyAllen movies: |
| 145 | ** Allen's character Virgil Starkwell from his {{Mockumentary}} film ''Film/TakeTheMoneyAndRun'' is shown to be pretty incompetent. His idea of sneaking a hidden camera into a bank to scout out a potential place to rob involved hiding the camera in ''a loaf of bread'' that he has to hold up to his face to take pictures, just as if it were an ordinary film camera. |
| 146 | ** Allen's later film ''Film/SmallTimeCrooks'' explores this again. Ray (Allen's character) and his wife Frenchy horribly botch their attempt to rob a bank by tunneling into it, but the bakery they open [[TheConvenientStoreNextDoor as a front for their criminal activities]] becomes legitimately successful. Even after the characters decide to [[FakeRealTurn pursue the more legal activity instead]], Ray ''still'' looks to commit thefts, and he's ''still'' totally unsuccessful. [[spoiler: However, Frenchy, is a bit more successful.]] |
| 147 | %% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * ''Any'' time ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' played a role where they were crooks, they fit the bill. |
| 148 | * ''Film/JackieBrown'': Louis turns out to be a monumentally stupid crook, which is probably why he spent so much time in prison. During TheCaper, he's visibly nervous, sweats profusely, gets lost in the mall, and loses his car in the parking lot. He [[spoiler:shoots his conspirator]] in the parking lot on impulse and manages to stall his car when driving away. |
| 149 | * ''Film/TheBigHit'': The entire plot hinges on a bunch of dumb hitmen working for a crime syndicate ransoming a rich girl without approval from their boss, only to find out that ''she's the boss's goddaughter'' and [[PapaWolf he wants blood]]. Also, even if he didn't find out, the girl's father was just going through a bankruptcy. Guys, research? |
| 150 | * ''Film/MegaTimeSquad'': The main character is a slack-jawed drug dealer for the would-be kingpin of a sleepy New Zealand town. All of the kingpin's flunkies are idiots. When the kingpin tries to have the main character executed for disloyalty, one flunky misses his shot from point black range and hits another flunky behind him in the eye with the ricochet. In the commotion, the main character escapes, prompting the kingpin to remark, "Well this is a bloody circus!" |
| 151 | * In ''Film/Scream2'', the killer's plan is so stupid that even his partner-in-crime mocks him for it. Specifically, he ''wanted'' to get caught so that he could have a [[IfItBleedsItLeads highly sensationalized trial]] in which he'd blame [[MurderSimulators violence in the media]] for warping his mind and making him a killer, thus earning himself a lighter sentence and the sympathy of MoralGuardians. [[spoiler:The other killer was counting on his stupidity, having recruited him as the FallGuy in her revenge scheme. After [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness taking him out]], she calls his motive a product of TheNineties and says that nobody would ever believe his story.]] |
| 152 | * In ''Film/ShortTime'', Burt finds out that "getting killed isn't as easy as it looks" because the criminals he pursues are simply too incompetent to kill him. |
| 153 | * The protagonists of ''Film/{{Villains}}'' are a subversion. While they’re easily distracted and seemingly incompetent, the two are actually quite crafty and the only thing keeping them from being truly effective criminals is that they’re too softhearted. |
| 154 | * In ''Film/WhiteMenCantJump'', the central characters challenge a basketball player named Raymond to a basketball game, but Raymond doesn't have enough money on him to meet the bet. To try to raise the cash, he retrieves a gun and a stocking mask from his car and robs a nearby convenience store. That plan fails when the proprietor immediately recognizes Raymond and doesn't believe for a second that he would try to kill him. Raymond backs down from the robbery and instead sells the store owner his gun to get the cash he needs. |
| 155 | * In ''Film/{{Zachariah}}'', the Crackers are a gang of pitifully inept WildWest bandits who get outrun by stagecoaches and fall over while trying to jump people. They don't start having success until Zachariah comes up with the idea for them to create a distraction by doing what they're good at - playing loud music - while he and Matthew commit the actual robbery. |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 159 | * The two robbers in ''Literature/TheAppleDumplingGang'' who are after the gold the children found certainly count, later [[TheFilmOfTheBook turned into a movie]], starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway as the robbers. |
| 160 | * The kidnappers in Creator/OHenry's short story "The Ransom of Red Chief". They're dumb enough to kidnap an obviously evil child, and he's such a terror that they end up having to pay his father to take him back. |
| 161 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 162 | ** Done-It-Duncan from ''Literature/MenAtArms'', an incompetent cut-purse who will confess to anything (including stealing fire from the gods) if it means he can [[GetIntoJailFree spend a night in the cells]] instead of out on the streets. Which, due to SuspiciouslySpecificDenial of how he did it and not someone else, leads to him being a decent informant that gets paid in spending the night in a cell. |
| 163 | ** The unlicensed crooks from ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' at one point try to rob ''[[MuggingTheMonster a bar full of watchmen]]'', and then they try to take one of the officers ([[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Sergeant Angua]]) hostage. |
| 164 | ** Played with in ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', when Rincewind becomes the object of a Thieves' Guild instructor's lecture on mugging techniques. The bumbling students can't even ''bop Rincewind on the head'' to their teacher's satisfaction, despite several tries and repeated demonstrations of the proper technique. |
| 165 | ** In ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', a thief performs an unlicensed theft from the Unseen University that leads to a dragon taking over. Unlicensed theft is bad enough in Ankh-Morpork because the ThievesGuild feels very strongly about people who break their rules. Making it worse, he stole from [[WizardingSchool an academy full of wizards]], who could easily destroy the world if they weren't distracted by the drama of being at a university. It doesn't help that the UU Librarian is [[KillerGorilla a vengeful orangutan]] who can use library shelves to travel through time. Finally, [[MagnificentBastard Lord Vetinari]], the ruler he helped depose, has the most advanced intelligence service on the disc with his own personal assassins. Just because the thief [[KarmaHoudini got away in the book]] doesn't mean he got very far. |
| 166 | ** In ''Literature/MakingMoney'', Owlswick Jenkins is a major counterfeiting genius, perfectly capable of creating forged stamps with a level of detail that shames the actual engravers employed by the Post Office and could have easily made a fortune off them. Unfortunately, he only thought of making ha'penny stamp sheets. |
| 167 | * Snake and Eddie in ''Literature/BigTrouble'', though they do get pretty far on blind determination, aren't bright enough to believe they've stolen a [[ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics Suitcase Nuke]], even when told that it's a bomb. |
| 168 | * Brandon Leeman in ''Literature/MayasNotebook'' gets ahold of a large bundle of forged money and the plates to make it. But instead of selling it as far away from him as he can, he spends it right away in Vegas where he lives and even uses it to bribe a CorruptCop to kill his {{mooks}}. Instead, the cop [[spoiler: (later revealed as the BigBad)]] has the mooks kill him. |
| 169 | * ''Literature/NaughtyNineTalesOfChristmasCrime'': Alvin "the Reptile" Erie and Diesel are a pair of "the pettiest of petty crooks" who have engaged in various failed or unprofitable robberies, pot deals, and counterfeit t-shirt schemes. The Reptile "aspired to be a Napoleon of crime" but "was, in sad reality, closer to a Custer," while Diesel dutifully and obliviously follows him into almost every new scheme regardless of how badly the last one went. |
| 170 | * In the ''Literature/WaysideSchool'' series, two robbers try to hold up Mrs. Jewls' class thinking they are holding up a bank. When it's pointed out to them that they're in a school, [[NeverLearnedToRead it's quickly revealed that they're illiterate.]] Todd ends up saving the day by giving them a spelling book and encouraging them to learn to read and write. |
| 171 | * The thieves in "Stop Thief!" from book 27 of ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries''. They drive a car they stole from the Ffarquhar station master, in the area it was stolen from, ''the day after they stole it''. Thomas easily recognizes the car and alerts his crew, who throw a message to the signalman, who calls the police and arranges a roadblock to catch the idiots (which he helps by shutting the gate of the level crossing). |
| 172 | * The Buffalo Brothers in ''Literature/{{Relativity}}.'' In their first appearance, they leave behind enough clues that the heroes immediately deduce that this trope is in play. |
| 173 | -->'''Sara:''' Let's assume they ''are'' stupid. Who do we know who's an idiot? |
| 174 | * Shows up among the lesser characters in a lot of works by Creator/ElmoreLeonard. Among a team of bad guys, there's bound to be one less-than-helpful partner whose idiocy turns ASimplePlan into a mess. |
| 175 | * Jim diGriz of ''Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat'' purposely got into jail so he could meet incarcerated criminal masterminds and absorb their wisdom. However, any single inmate there was an example of this trope, which, as Jim [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]], is the reason they were in jail in the first place. |
| 176 | * In [[Literature/TalesFromJabbasPalace "A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9"]], a company manufacturing illegal torture droids became exposed after a foolish worker mistakenly put their motivators (combination of power sources and [=CPUs=]) in a line of legal supervisor droids. |
| 177 | * ''Literature/TheElderEmpire'': The reason Calder and his father were caught when Calder was a child is that the criminal who they were dealing with (and planning to rob) filed a bill of sale for the ''stolen goods'' he was fencing. Absolutely everyone involved facepalmed at that. |
| 178 | [[/folder]] |
| 179 | |
| 180 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 181 | * Stupid Crooks are a very popular topic among late-night talk show hosts, especially [[Series/TheTonightShow Jay Leno]]. Whenever Jay does his "Headlines" segment, you can always expect at least one story about a dumb criminal to crop up. |
| 182 | * Criminals thinking up half-baked schemes that blow up in their faces are a common theme on ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie''. |
| 183 | ** "Greased Is The Word'': a recently paroled robber plans to stick up a jewelry store, but ends up entering the gun store next to it thanks to his stocking mask making it hard for him to see. When he pulls his gun and demands money from the clerk, everyone in the store opens fire and riddles him with bullets. |
| 184 | ** "Teller She's Dead'': The crooked bank teller working with the robber instructed the robber to turn on the fire suppression system after locking her in the vault to summon rescue workers. She didn't realize that the fire suppression system at that particular bank used carbon dioxide instead of sprinklers, and she suffocated to death. |
| 185 | ** "Pop Goes The Cholo": A pair of gangsters attempt to operate on their wounded comrade after knocking out the BackAlleyDoctor who was originally going to perform the surgery. They insert the tracheal tube into the esophagus instead of the trachea and fill the wounded man's stomach with air until it explodes. |
| 186 | ** "Doggie Style": A shoplifter fleeing from an angry clerk snatches a hot dog and tries to eat it quickly while running. He ends up choking to death. |
| 187 | * ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' |
| 188 | ** The "Non-Illegal Robbery" sketch is about a group of criminals who aren't even plotting anything that's criminal. |
| 189 | -->'''Michael Palin:''' We don't seem to be doing anyfink illegal.\ |
| 190 | '''Terry Jones:''' What do you mean?\ |
| 191 | '''Michael Palin:''' Well, we're ''paying'' for the watch.\ |
| 192 | '''Terry Jones:''' They wouldn't ''give'' it to us if we didn't ''pay'' for it! |
| 193 | ** The bank robber who held up a lingerie shop by mistake and ultimately made off with a pair of panties. |
| 194 | * The whole gimmick of Chespirito's characters ''El Chompiras Y El Peterete''. |
| 195 | * ''Series/WorldsDumbest'' is a [=TruTV=] documentary show featuring videos of different types of idiots. A lot of them are stupid criminals. |
| 196 | * ''Series/AmericasDumbestCriminals'' is a show about dumb criminals. |
| 197 | * ''Series/DeadLikeMe'': |
| 198 | ** In the pilot episode, one of George's first experiences with the reapers is with Mason at a bank, where we meet Bret, the hapless bank robber. Bret stumbles through a prepared announcement he wrote up before entering the bank and gets upstaged by one jealous wife of the bankers. However, he [[SubvertedTrope miraculously manages to get away with the bank's money.]] |
| 199 | ** Meanwhile, Mason is oftentimes the dumbest of the team of reapers and is the only one who looks to earn his money through theft and criminal misdeeds, while the others hold down jobs on the side. Usually, his stupidity and crimes are unrelated to the other, but one occasion stands out where, after previously giving away all of his possessions when he incorrectly assumed he was finally going to the afterlife, he was caught stealing tips left on tables at Der Waffle House, where the gang ''always'' meets and hangs out, and is immediately kicked out and barred from coming back to the diner by the group's usual waitress Kiffany. |
| 200 | ** Mason actually has a fairly high success rate with his stupid crimes because of the fact that he is undead. So while a normal stupid crook would end up dead or massively hurt, Mason merely ends up in a lot of pain until his undead body recovers. When his schemes get the other reapers angry at him, they treat him to a lot of pain so he learns his lesson. |
| 201 | * ''Series/TheWhitestKidsUKnow'' once did a skit about a group of would-be bank robbers who repeatedly fail the same criminal plot over and over for many different reasons, ranging from not being able to read the bank's blueprints, bringing friends from out of town along to the robbery, and posting plans to rob the bank on a blog (along with a hyperlink to the bank's website wherever the word "bank" is used). |
| 202 | * ''Series/{{Jam}}'': |
| 203 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6p5ORHRnXs#t=03m37s This sketch]] features a man holding up a convenience store in order to ''buy'' a pack of cigarettes. Apparently, the gun he points at the store clerk was to make sure that he got back change. The clerk tells the man with the gun that he doesn't need to pay for the cigarettes, and the man thinks of this as some sort of unexpected thrill. |
| 204 | ** Not to mention the guy who tries to hold up an off license with a gun hidden in his stomach which he fires... out through his own spine, killing himself and the man behind him in the queue. |
| 205 | ** Or ''another'' bungled convenience store hold-up where the would-be robber forgets to bring the axe he was meant to be threatening people with. |
| 206 | * Approximately a third of the appeal of ''Series/{{Justified}}'' is watching Raylan, a smart and competent lawman, running into these, such as perennial loser Dewey Crowe, and flattening them almost immediately. A third of it is him going up against genuinely dangerous crooks. The last third is probably [[SignatureHeadgear the hat]]. Although the series is pretty clear in its thesis that even the worst of the mouth-breathers that Raylan runs into are still ''dangerous people'' - they might not have thought their crime all the way through (or thought about it much at all) but they still pose a threat to everyone around them, at least partly ''because'' of their stupidity. |
| 207 | * ''Series/KnightRider'': |
| 208 | ** An episode dealing with car theft has a "false alarm" as two crooks attempt to steal the pimped-out K.I.T.T., and quickly prove not to be the professionals Michael is looking for: They're trying to break in using a Philips-head screwdriver instead of a flat one, and [[http://www.atylia.com/images/catalogue/porte-manteau-design-nova-noir-450.jpg this kind]] of coat hanger. |
| 209 | ** In many other episodes as well, K.I.T.T. confuses and scares the crap out of random bumbling petty criminals who try to steal/sabotage/damage him, more for the entertainment value than for anything related to the plot. |
| 210 | * "Liability" Finch from the ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' episode "The Thieving Mistake". There is a good reason why his nickname is "Liability". |
| 211 | * The pilot episode of ''Series/{{Turks}}'' opened with two crooks attempting to rob a cop bar. Leads to a moment when, as they are about to leave, someone calls out to them. They turn around and discover everyone in the bar, except for the bartender and the waitress, is holding a badge and a gun. |
| 212 | * A scene on ''Series/TheSketchShow'' has a group of counterfeiters who realize it's costing them more than 12 pounds to produce a usable 10 pound note. After a few suggestions for rectifying this, they decide to just start circulating actual 10 pound notes. |
| 213 | * The ''Series/EerieIndiana'' episode "The Hole in the Head Gang" focuses on the ghost of Grungy Bill, "The Worst Bank Robber East of the Mississippi" ("worst" as in "no good, incompetent"). According to Eerie legend, Bill was arrested twelve times (all for failed attempts to rob the Eerie Bank). When robbing the bank for the 13th time, he forgot to bring his gun and ended up getting killed by the sheriff's posse at the Eerie Mill, where, rumor has it, Grungy Bill's ghost can be spotted trying to look for his gun. The rumor proves to be true when Marshall and Simon uncover Grungy Bill's gun and his ghost returns to attempt to rob the Eerie Bank for the 14th time. This time, he's able to get away with stealing one of the [[BankToaster complimentary toasters the bank was giving away to anyone who opens a new bank account]]. Grungy Bill determines this to be a successful bank robbery and can finally rest in peace. |
| 214 | * Most of the criminals the detectives face in ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' tend to be mindbogglingly stupid and barely make an effort to hide their guilt. Notable examples include a drug dealer's bodyguard who decided to follow his boss's advice to not let anything stand in the way of protecting him by ''shooting through him'' when a rival dealer takes him hostage, a woman who confesses to murder to Felton apropos of nothing despite not even being a suspect, and a man who heads down to the police station to give a statement ''immediately after'' committing a murder. |
| 215 | --> '''Pembleton:''' Crime makes you stupid. |
| 216 | * ''Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway'': |
| 217 | ** It gave us this gem: "This is a stick-up! Does anyone have a gun that I could use?" |
| 218 | ** Ryan once was a series of dumb criminals on Party Quirks segment, with actions ranging from trying to rob a place by holding a gun to his own head, getting a tie stuck in a safe door, and handing a demand note on a personalized check (also handing in his license if there was "a problem"). |
| 219 | * On ''Series/TheWestWing'', when after a several-day manhunt, the criminals are actually caught when pulled over for a random traffic stop after a highway patrolman noticed a busted tail light: |
| 220 | -->'''FBI Agent Mike Casper:''' In thirteen years with the Bureau, I've discovered that there's no amount of money, manpower or knowledge that can equal the person you're looking for being stupid.\ |
| 221 | '''President Bartlett:''' We've always had some of the stupidest criminals in the world in America. I've always been very proud of that. |
| 222 | * An episode of ''Series/{{Grimm}}'' featured two kidnappers who left the following in the van they used to kidnap a woman: 1. her hair 2. chloroform and a rag with chloroform on it 3. ''the victim's purse, containing her wallet which had her driver's license in it''. A bit of a subversion, however, as all of this evidence was discovered after one of the kidnappers had already been tortured by a vigilante into confessing and who was then killed, while the other one was released from police custody by the vigilante while Hank and Nick were busy being shown the evidence, and was then himself killed by the vigilante. |
| 223 | * Bob Odenkirk plays a kidnapper on a ''Series/MrShow'' sketch, who tries sending a FingerInTheMail when demanding a ransom... AFTER he sends the parents back their son. And it wasn't the son's toe, it was his own. And the police manage to trace his location during his phone call when demanding the ransom. |
| 224 | * ''Series/HorribleHistories'' portrays Guy Fawkes and his band of conspirators as this. |
| 225 | * ''Series/AirCrashInvestigation'': The hijackers in "Ocean Landing," who think that their plane can make the trip to Australia since they read it in the in-flight magazines, and refuse to believe the captain when he says that the plane's tanks only had enough fuel for the much shorter scheduled flight to Kenya. (Unfortunately, they end up taking a number of innocent people with them.) |
| 226 | * The Dutch comedy show ''Series/{{Koefnoen}}'' had a series of sketches titled ''Poorly Organized Crime''. It featured a gang engaged in all manner of criminal enterprises and screwing them up every time. Examples include a diamond heist where they mix up the diamond and the fake they planned to leave in its place, making a ransom demand while having no plan on where and how the ransom should be delivered, or being tasked to steal a modern art piece titled "No title" and realizing there are several paintings without a title and not knowing which to steal. OncePerEpisode, one of their members would get killed by accident. |
| 227 | -->''"Oops."'' |
| 228 | * ''Series/Adam12'' has a few: |
| 229 | ** In one episode, a pair of drug dealers, knowing the narco detectives are close to finding them, try hiding their bags of high-grade heroin in the gas tank. One of the bags ruptures, turning their new automobile into TheAllegedCar in time for Reed and Malloy to happen by. |
| 230 | ** In another episode, a thief breaks into a synagogue and steals a typewriter--not realizing that it's only designed for typing in Hebrew. |
| 231 | ** There was also a drug dealer who tried to use a laundromat dryer to dry his pot. It wouldn't have worked anyway, even if a cop hadn't come in. |
| 232 | ** At LAX Airport, a thief picked the pocket of a Marine off to a tour of duty at Okinawa, but didn't ask where the Marine was coming or going, and certainly didn't count on him having already changed his money. |
| 233 | --->'''Malloy''': Last I checked, three hundred dollars in Japanese yen spends pretty tough in Chicago. |
| 234 | * Quite a few stupid crooks show up in the first season of ''Series/BetterCallSaul'', which is a given, considering that at this point, the not-yet-Saul, Jimmy [=McGill=], isn't involved with the major, high-rolling criminals he later handles in ''Series/BreakingBad'': |
| 235 | ** Jimmy's clients in the series premiere broke into a mortuary, cut the head off a corpse, and then had sex with it. On top of that, they made a video of the whole event. The prosecutor only needs to play the tape as his closing statement to get them sent to jail. |
| 236 | ** The first episode has two brothers who try to scam motorists [[StagedPedestrianAccident by throwing themselves in front of cars and faking injuries]]. First, they pull it off on Jimmy, whose [[TheAllegedCar beat-up Suzuki Esteem]] leaves so much to be desired that he very obviously doesn't have any money to be scammed out of. After being enlisted by Jimmy to stage one of their stunts on a client he's interested in obtaining, but without memorizing the description of the car, they instead end up targeting [[AxeCrazy Tuco Salamanca]]'s grandmother by accident. After following her, their cultural sensitivity and people-reading skills leave much to be desired. They make the mistake of calling Tuco's grandmother a "bizznatch" in front of Tuco, [[BerserkButton angering him]]. If it weren't for Jimmy managing to successfully talk Tuco down from killing them to just breaking a leg on each of them, their fates would have been anonymous, shallow graves in the wasteland. |
| 237 | ** The Kettlemans. After embezzling more than $1.6 million in county funds, they stage their own kidnapping and flee into the woods near their home with their children in tow. They clearly had no plan beyond that and things could have gone very tragically if Jimmy had not found them. On top of that, they did an awful job covering up the fact that they embezzled the money with tactics such as writing government checks to themselves to falsely claim it. Jimmy later lampshades this to Mike and tells him that he thought that criminals would be smarter than that. |
| 238 | ** After Nacho gets arrested for supposedly getting involved in the aforementioned "kidnapping", Nacho threatens Jimmy for supposedly ratting on him. Jimmy responds by pointing out all the elementary mistakes Nacho made, like using his own van in staking out the Kettlemans' house, getting spotted by a neighbor (in a clearly-marked Neighborhood Watch zone), and failing to clean the blood (from the skaters) from the back of his van, which gave the cops the probable cause to arrest him and start to dig into his activities. He essentially framed himself for a crime he had not yet committed. As Nacho becomes a recurring character for the rest of the series, he naturally [[TookALevelInBadass improves his criminal skills]]. |
| 239 | ** Mike's former client, Daniel Warmolt (the bald guy who works for a pharmaceutical company, the products of which he steals and sells to drug dealers), uses his ill-gotten gains to buy an expensive and very distinctive SUV. He invites Nacho inside this vehicle during a meet, which allows Nacho to find out his address and later break in and trash his place and take Daniel's stock, money, and anything else he fancies. Daniel then proceeds to ''call the police'', who easily find where he hides his money and begin a highly inconvenient investigation. |
| 240 | * ''Series/BreakingBad'': |
| 241 | ** Ted Beneke. He's been [[WhiteCollarCrime cooking his family company's books]] to keep it afloat after his bad business decisions led it to the edge of bankruptcy. When [[IntimidatingRevenueService the IRS]] inevitably comes knocking, he expects Skyler to magically make the problem go away. Skyler normally wouldn't care because she's not working for Ted anymore, but since her name is on some of the tax papers, the IRS will investigate her as well, potentially exposing her and Walt's criminal activities. She's able to buy him some time and gives him more than six hundred thousand dollars under the guise of an UnexpectedInheritance from a nonexistent distant LongLostRelative to pay off his debt. Not only is Ted dumb enough to take the inheritance story at face value, but he uses the money to buy a ''new Mercedes'' and re-open his failing company instead of paying off his debt. Saul sends two of his men to ''force'' Ted to pay off his debt; after signing the check, all he has to do is sit and wait until it clears, but instead, he tries to make a run for it, trips on his carpet, breaks his neck, and cripples himself. |
| 242 | ** Saul tries to convince Jesse to purchase a nail salon in order to launder his ill-gotten gains, but Jesse hates the prospect of having to do taxes and run a legal business despite being a criminal. He also gets upset that Gus is earning hundreds of millions every year while they're just given pocket change by comparison despite being the backbone of Gus's operation, even though Walt points out they're still going to be millionaires with Gus's "pocket change". Jesse nonetheless steals some of the excess meth they produce to try and sell it on his own. This gets Jesse (and by extension, Walt) into a ''lot'' of trouble later on, although for different reasons than Gus being upset Jesse is skimming his product... |
| 243 | ** Walt and Jesse have their moment early on when they try to steal barrels of the methylamine chemical that they need to make meth, and they struggle to get out in time thanks to carrying the barrel instead of rolling it. The people watching the security footage find the incident hilarious. |
| 244 | * Buster Brady from ''Series/MrsBrownsBoys'' is a complete moron who, along with Agnes' son Dermot, spent some time in jail for a prior offence. However, unlike Dermot, he has never learned his lesson and keeps trying to rope Dermot into a get-rich-quick scheme whenever he can. [[spoiler: He's even at it during his legitimate work, such as how he stole a €1,000 watch when he was working for Dermot's brother on a New Year's special, causing him to get fired.]] |
| 245 | * It's pretty much guaranteed one will show up in any given episode of ''Series/{{COPS}}''. Examples include a man who tried to run with his hands cuffed behind his back, a man who called the police because someone stole his marijuana, and a woman who called the police because her neighbor didn't use the money she gave said neighbor to buy her cocaine. |
| 246 | * British cop show ''Police Interceptors'' has had a few as well. One memorable example, that even the cops themselves lampshaded afterwards, involved a tip-off about three people in a car carrying drugs. When they find the car, there are only two people inside, and nowhere near as many drugs as they'd been told. The third person, carrying the majority of the drugs, had been in a nearby shop, and when she leaves the premises to see the others getting arrested for drug possession, what does she do? ''Walk right up to them and get herself arrested as well''. The cops share a good laugh about it afterwards. |
| 247 | * ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' has Jason Mendoza, [[spoiler:also known as Jianyu.]] Among other impulsive crimes, at one point he attempted to stage a burglary by hiding in an airtight safe and having his friend, Pillboi, enter a restaurant (unannounced) under the pretense of installing it; moreover, he assumed that a snorkel would allow him to breathe. [[spoiler:Needless to say, this is what sent him to the afterlife.]] Season 3 confirms that [[LikeFatherLikeSon this is inherited]]; Jason's father is -- if anything -- even more stupid and venal. |
| 248 | * A fun aspect of ''Series/GoodGirls'' is that, while Annie, Beth, and Ruby are usually intelligent women, they are so out of their league as criminals that it's laughable. |
| 249 | ** Annie doesn't cover up her distinctive back tattoo when robbing the grocery store where she works, causing the manager to realize who she is. |
| 250 | ** After being encouraged to "borrow" a car from the dealership where Beth's cheating husband works, Annie figures they can have it back and no one will know it's gone... until she realizes the car's computer has a memory of them driving it over the border and back. Annie also messes things up by syncing the car computer to her phone so she can listen to her songs, which could also lead right back to the trio. |
| 251 | ** Ruby threatens a guy with a gun, assuring Beth and Annie that it's not loaded. However, she's forgotten there's a round in the chamber and accidentally shoots the guy in the leg. |
| 252 | ** The girls decide to "outsource" by enlisting some neighbors into a "Secret Shopper" program to help launder the money. This leads to one guy getting $20,000 worth of merchandise stolen in the parking lot. Then, one woman starts taking some of the money for herself to make ends meet. Hearing of this, Rio clearly cannot believe these gals are doing a money-laundering operation ''within'' a money-laundering operation. |
| 253 | ** The gals keep committing what Rio says is the big mistake of a crook: As soon as they get a big windfall, they splurge on everything from a new car to expensive clothing and jewels, ignoring how odd it will seem for three once-struggling women to be able to afford all this. |
| 254 | ** Lampshaded when Annie chews Beth out for leaving DNA at a crime scene on being an "amateur mistake," and Beth retorts, "We ''are'' amateurs!" |
| 255 | * ''Series/TrueBlood'': Early in season 4, we see Bill [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQI80M8xgMM sentence a vampire to the True Death]] for feeding on another human, and makes clear the dude is getting executed for being a complete idiot. |
| 256 | * ''Series/TheWire'': |
| 257 | ** A double example occurs in the first episode, in which a pair of junkies attempt to pay for their hit with [[CounterfeitCash unconvincingly monochrome-photocopied money]] -- which the dealer obliviously accepts because it's slipped in among other, real bills. The dealer's boss is ''not'' pleased when he catches the mistake later. |
| 258 | ** In one episode, Major Colvin is going for a late-night cruise around the Western District in uniform and driving an unmarked police car while spotters announce his presence to everyone in earshot. In spite of the warnings, a kid named Justin tries to sell him drugs. Colvin lets out a bewildered "What?" The kid asks again, so Colvin turns up the volume on his police radio. When that doesn't work, he puts on his peaked cap, and the kid finally gets the message and backs off while his friends break out howling in laughter. |
| 259 | * ''Series/EscapeAtDannemora'': Throughout the miniseries, Matt is shown as a big shot in prison. However, the final two episodes reveal that he's a truly hopeless crook on the outside. In the FullEpisodeFlashback, he commits a heinous and thoroughly bungled robbery/murder that ultimately landed him in prison. During his escape, he immediately becomes TheLoad and holds his co-conspirator back during their flight to Canada. He panics as soon as the pair reach freedom, tries to hide in someone's yard and gets them noticed by the homeowner, ignores the advice to not drink straight from a river, repeatedly gets drunk on stolen booze, and starts firing on passing cars in a pathetic attempt to steal a ride. |
| 260 | * A sub-plot in ''Series/TheRookie2018'' involved main characters Tim Bradford and Lucy Chen meeting their doppelgangers, both of whom were low-level criminals attempting various petty schemes such as drug-smuggling or stealing from rich peoples’ homes. It says a great deal about the intelligence of their doppelgangers that even after learning they looked exactly like two police officers, neither party ever gave any sign that they ever thought of using that resemblance in some future scheme. |
| 261 | * ''Series/TheNanny'': The season 4 episode "The Bank Robbery" features one who takes Fran and Sylvia as hostages, but otherwise is so unprepared that he forgets to put on a mask and reveals his real name. When he finally makes a run for it, he takes Sylvia with him... and her appetite leads to him having to stop at a restaurant, where he's caught and arrested. |
| 262 | * ''Series/{{Fargo}}'': |
| 263 | ** ''Series/FargoSeasonOne'': Don Chumph attempts to blackmail Stavros Milos, even though he doesn't have any blackmail material. Chumph reasons that someone as rich as Stavros must have some skeletons in his closet. Malvo quickly hijacks his plan. He also inexplicably asks for an incredibly specific amount of money, the exact amount he calculates he'd need to found the business he wants to start. |
| 264 | ** ''Series/FargoSeasonThree'': Ray Stussy's attempt to have a dumbass criminal commit a crime against a family member, his brother Emmit Stussy, goes about as well as it did for [[Film/{{Fargo}} that other down-on-his-luck Minnesotan]]. And Maurice, the ex-con Ray hires to steal Emmit's stamp, really stands out: |
| 265 | ### Despite being on parole and having to perform a standard urine test, Maurice turns to drugs seemingly without even thinking about trying to trick the test. |
| 266 | ### While getting high and driving to the job, he loses the directions out the window, thus ends up going 75 miles out of the way to Eden ''Valley'' instead of Eden ''Prairie''. |
| 267 | ### He assaults the gas station clerk and tears a page out of the phone book so he can get the address (and later tells Ray he "covered his tracks"), which proves that what happens next wasn't random. |
| 268 | ### After getting to the wrong address, he [[spoiler:assumes a man in his late 70s or early 80s is Ray's brother just because the phone book identified him as "E. Stussy", and kills him]]. Then he brings Ray a set of normal stamps, which is not what he asked for even remotely. |
| 269 | ### He tries to blackmail his parole officer, which would involve turning ''himself'' in. |
| 270 | * ''Series/TooOldToDieYoung'': The cartel in LA hires a ProfessionalKiller to take out Damian, a local drug lord, for $6,000. The killer decides that Damian's security is too tight, so he subcontracts out to a local flunky, offering the man $2,000 to commit the deed. The flunky ''also'' decides that Damian's security is too tight, so he subcontracts to a third man, a clueless junky who accepts $200 and a baggie of cocaine. The junky kills the wrong man and gets gunned down in the process. |
| 271 | * A recurring bit on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' are sketches involving some truly idiotic crooks. Half the time, said sketches will show they get away with it because the cops are even dumber. |
| 272 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeTCTARJZm8 One sketch]] has a drug lord pulling a coup on his partner to become the boss. It quickly becomes clear he has absolutely no idea whatsoever how this operation works from prices (he's ready to sell a $30,000 bag for a hundred bucks) to even knowing the difference between cocaine and heroin. |
| 273 | ** Another [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3VRK8au3dU sketch]] has the crackerjack elite car heist team totally undone because the supposedly ace "I can drive anything" thief has no idea how to drive a stick-shift. |
| 274 | %% * ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit:'' "Townhouse Incident" Benson gets caught in a ''very'' poorly thought out home invasion. The leader of the group doing drugs doesn't exactly help. Possibly deconstructed in that their stupidity and instability just makes them more dangerous. |
| 275 | * On ''Series/FamilyLaw'', a veteran thief client begs Rex to help his son out of a robbery arrest as the kid is so dumb "he'll never survive prison." Rex looks into the lobby to see the kid honestly believing he can stuff a ten-pound statue under his shirt with no one noticing. The kid is accused of robbing a liquor store with a paper bag "disguise" which he kept lifting up to suck on a helium balloon to "alter" his voice and fled in his own car with a vanity license plate which he had reported stolen from himself. Incredibly, Rex is able to get the kid an acquittal by successfully convincing the jury that there's no way anyone could actually be this stupid. |
| 276 | * Some of the criminals profiled on ''Series/ForensicFiles'' commit some downright jaw-dropping blunders in their attempts to evade justice. |
| 277 | ** In "Muffled Cries", Jason Funk used his victim's credit card to make a purchase. He then proceeded to sign his name, allowing police to trace the card to him. |
| 278 | ** In "Transaction Failed", the killer and his daughter didn't even bother to hide their identity when they withdrew money from the victim's bank account. |
| 279 | ** In "Shattered Innocence", after shooting his father, Brian Vaughn called 911 and said the door to his father's room had been locked, and then told the operator his father was bleeding from the mouth, something he couldn't have known if he was locked out of the room. It gets worse for him. He told the neighbors as he was dropping off his little brother that he had already called 911. He then went home and called 911 ''twenty'' minutes later. Detectives believe he murdered his father ''after'' he told his neighbors that he heard a gunshot. He clearly DidntThinkThisThrough. |
| 280 | ** In "Frozen Assets", George Hansen tried to dispose of the evidence by tossing it into a river, only to have it hit the ice. As the victim's boyfriend noted, had he gone a few steps further before throwing, the bag would've landed in open water and sunk. |
| 281 | ** In "Freeze Framed", Stacey Castor attempted to pin the murders of her husbands on her daughter Ashley by tricking her into overdosing on sleeping pills, then writing a phony suicide note pinning the murders on her. Her plan backfired when detectives noticed that antifreeze was misspelled as "antifree", the same mispronunciation Stacey used in a police interview. Even better? She typed the note on a version of Microsoft Word that had a spell checker. One run of that spell checker would have caught the mistake. |
| 282 | ** In "Smoke in Your Eyes", the killer apparently thought it was a good idea to light up a cigarette ''[[TooDumbToLive while pouring gasoline to burn down an apartment]]''. Not only did he come close to killing himself, he also left his glasses at the scene, which later helped identify him. |
| 283 | ** In "Separation Anxiety", Tracey Frame used a customer's discount card in her own name while purchasing supplies to burn and dispose of a body ''in full view of a security camera'', an act that led investigators to piece together that she was the killer. |
| 284 | ** In "A Wrong Foot", there is a noticeable chuckle in narrator Peter Thomas' voice when he wonders why a burglar would intrude a house wearing gloves on his hands but nothing on his feet. As footprints are as unique as fingerprints, this totally defeated the purpose. |
| 285 | ** In "The Music Case", a young girl's murderer was being detained in prison.[[note]]He was in prison for theft, as it had not been determined yet if he was the murderer.[[/note]] His sister-in-law visited him in prison, knowing full well they're being recorded, and he told her, in Spanish, to do everything she could to pin the murder on his brother, amongst other incriminating statements. He apparently assumed none of the prison workers spoke Spanish, or figured nobody would bother hiring a translator. |
| 286 | ** In "Flower Power", Patrick Walsh, who had been stalking Pamela Sweeney for a long time beforehand, pulled a couple dumb moves after killing her, such as taking soda and candy from her kitchen, and leaving the wrappers inside his own vehicle. Surprisingly, according to [[https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1993/c9-92-522-2.html this official case report]], he did a few other ''incredibly dumb'' things immediately after the murder but were left out of the actual episode, possibly due to time constraints. To put it simply, the cops and investigators knew he was the murderer almost as soon as they arrived on the scene. |
| 287 | ** Michael Bryant from "Yes, In Deed" killed Edith Ann Haynes so he wouldn't have to pay her $25,000 for her old house, but he still ended up having to pay her estate. Apparently, he thought that her surviving relatives would simply let the matter go after she died. |
| 288 | ** In two separate episodes, the killer went back and murdered someone they'd assaulted in the past (in one case, rape, the other was robbery), apparently in the belief that the victim's death would end the case against them. Instead, they end up being convicted of the much more serious charge of murder. |
| 289 | ** In "Unmasked", during a blood test, Derrick Perry, a fellow criminal, switched wrist [=IDs=] with the main suspect, Chad Price. After a retest was taken, it's revealed Perry was supposed to be released the next day but got five years for the incident. |
| 290 | ** In the ''Forensic Files II'' episode "The Barn", Jay Brooks purchased a burner phone to lure his victim into an ambush. Before he put the plan into action, however, he called the burner phone with his own phone to test the voicemail, ensuring that the cops could link the phone to him. |
| 291 | * ''Series/WhiteHousePlumbers'': The main thrust of the miniseries is emphasizing what an incompetent mess the infamous criminal conspiracy was. The gang screws up their attempt to covertly surveil a political target by trashing his office. After getting back into the party's good graces with some blatant witness tampering, they fail in their first two attempts to break into the DNC headquarters, bungle their third attempt, and get caught in their fourth. |
| 292 | * ''Series/JudgeJudy'' had one memorable case where the plantiff was a woman suing two men suspected of stealing her purse and its contents ($50 in cash, some gift cards, a Bluetooth earpiece and a calculator). As plantiff is reading out the contents of her personal purse, one of the men [[TooDumbToLive blurts out]] [[INeverSaidItWasPoison "There was no earpiece in in there, ma'am"]], immediately confessing to their crime. The audience erupts into laughter and Judy herself compares the two men to Film/DumbAndDumber before judging in the plantiff's favour for $500. Quickest and easiest case ever. |
| 293 | [[/folder]] |
| 294 | |
| 295 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 296 | * The Music/{{Nickelback}} song "Get 'Em Up" is the story of a would-be bank robbery that gets foiled before it even starts because [[EpicFail the robbers forgot that it was Sunday and the bank was closed, meaning there was no one there to rob]], all while they [[SkewedPriorities spent more time]] picking out a [[CoolCar cool getaway car]] and practicing the lines (all lifted from heist movies) that they'd be yelling at their hostages than they did on actually planning the robbery. The cops promptly show up and bust them. Lines about the wannabe mastermind stealing his uncle's .44 and, after being arrested, calling his mother to tell her he won't be coming home also imply that he's either a dumb teenager or a BasementDweller. |
| 297 | * The aforementioned [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Beagle Boys]] have a song about them on the 1982 "Mousercise" album: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq91VWLOtPY Get the Money (Uncle Scrooge's Money)]]" that sums up their usual bumbling, and things get worse when the police arrive on the scene... |
| 298 | * Enzo Jannacci's song "Faceva il Palo" ("He Was the Lookout") is about a very skilled gang operating at the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortica Ortica]] whose lookout had lost an eye, had poor sight in the remaining one, and had even poorer hearing. [[ForegoneConclusion He completely fails to keep half of Milan's police force from passing in front of him and arresting the rest of the gang after a protracted fight]]... or even notice the others being arrested. |
| 299 | * The Narcocorrido song "La Suburban Dorada" revolves around two idiot members of TheCartel picking [[MetallicarSyndrome the most conspicuous car ever]] (the titular [[RiceBurner golden Chevrolet Suburban]]) to covertly transport drugs. Not only do they attract the attention of the police, when they encounter a DirtyCop who is willing to look the other way as long as they bribe him, [[TriggerHappy they gun him down instead and try to shoot their way through a blockade]]. The song ends with [[CopKillerManhunt a police alert that the criminals are now to be considered cop-killers]]. |
| 300 | [[/folder]] |
| 301 | |
| 302 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 303 | * [[Radio/TheNowShow Punt and Dennis]]'s "It's Been A Bad Week" often has 'dumb criminal' examples, usually stories either from [[OnlyInFlorida Florida or Germany]]. |
| 304 | * ''The John Boy and Billy Big Show'' has a recurring segment called "Dumb Crook News". |
| 305 | * ''Radio/TheRickyGervaisShow'': Ricky is scammed out of a quarter-million pounds by a fraudulent bank transfer for purchasing gold. The crooks (needing to impersonate him) show up with a fake passport using a cutout of [[Series/TheOfficeUK David Brent]] as the picture. |
| 306 | * The French history-themed nonfiction radio program ''Franck Ferrand Raconte'' has an episode about the Dalton Gang, in which the host struggles to contain his laughter as he describes the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Gang#Coffeyville_bank_robbery Coffeyville Bank Robbery]] -- an ambitious attempt to rob two banks on the same street at the same time in broad daylight that was poorly planned ahead of time (the mastermind of the plan, Bob Dalton, had not been in Coffeyville for several years and did not scout the area before drawing up his plan based on outdated memories of the townscape) and horribly botched, resulting in the violent deaths of all but one of the would-be robbers. |
| 307 | * ''Radio/JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme:'' One Storyteller sketch does a send-up of a crime noir, where the criminals are quite spectacularly bad at crime. It starts with a henchman throwing his gun through the detective's window and only ''then'' realizing he'd need it. Then they abduct the detective and give him the "you know too much" speech... except they put him on the case, investigating a place that doesn't even exist, and haven't even actually committed any actual crime in the first place. |
| 308 | [[/folder]] |
| 309 | |
| 310 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 311 | * ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'': |
| 312 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' has Mel, an ineffective would-be mugger that the player character can find in a random encounter. He demands that the player give all his/her money to him in a very unassertive tone, stammers, and otherwise shows himself to be nothing short of pathetic. If the player has a high enough Perception skill, he can notice that Mel's gun [[WeaponForIntimidation isn't even loaded]], otherwise it is quite easy to intimidate Mel into running away. If engaged in combat, Mel is a totally unarmed pushover. |
| 313 | ** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' gives us the Freeside Thugs; they seemingly do not understand the stupidity of luring someone in Power Armor and carrying a Machine Gun/Rocket Launcher/Orbital Death Ray into a "trap" they set, when all they have are pool cues and meat cleavers. |
| 314 | ** There are also Vikky and Vance, a pre-war petty-crime duo styling themselves as a Bonnie and Clyde-like duo, except not nearly as competent or famous (at least before their deaths, when they drove through a completely unrelated shootout). And then there are Pauline and Sammy, two extremely small-time crooks styling themselves after Vikky and Vance (thus copying two copies) who want to gain infamy by robbing all the casinos on The Strip. With Vance's never-fired gun. Against all of The Strip's combined security. All you need to give up is to [[ExplainExplainOhCrap get them to talk about their plan, upon which they soon spot the gaps in their logic]]. |
| 315 | ** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' continues this trend by having a man impersonating Preston Garvey trying to con people out of their caps. When you encounter him, he can be told off by saying that you personally know Preston or that you are the General of the Minutemen. |
| 316 | * Very early in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'', CJ's friend Ryder tries to rob a Pizza Stack where he is a regular customer. He wears a PaperThinDisguise that consists of taking his hat off and putting on a nearly transparent mask. The results are as expected. Also, turns out the clerk is [[MuggingTheMonster better armed than Ryder is]]. |
| 317 | -->'''Clerk:''' Ryder? [[OhNoNotAgain Not this again]]!\ |
| 318 | '''Ryder:''' [[ImplausibleDeniability It ain't me, foo]]'!\ |
| 319 | '''Clerk:''' No one else is that small. I feel sorry for your dad! |
| 320 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' carries on the tradition with Lamar, who's fittingly an {{Expy}} of Ryder. Most notable is when he kidnaps a Ballas gangster (who's known him since childhood) while wearing a PaperThinDisguise (which is seen through immediately) and then calls the Ballas to demand a ransom on his cell phone (which gives his position away to the police). This renders the whole caper moot, as he then has to get rid of the phone and let the victim go. And then in the next mission, Lamar goes to do a drug deal with ''that same gangster he previously kidnapped'' (who was, of course, setting up an ambush to kill him). |
| 321 | ** The player can do this as well. If you hold up a store with an empty gun, [[ItWorksBetterWithBullets and pull the trigger]], the clerk will hear the clicking, call you a wise guy, and gun you down. |
| 322 | ** On the way to the Paleto Bay heist, the protagonists (and their hired backup) reminisce over their first heists, and it turns out that Michael was the only one of the three who ''wasn't'' one of these at some point. Franklin's first job, planned out by Lamar, would have netted them a combined take of $2K, but a dye-packet went off and ruined both stacks. Even worse was Trevor's first job, which went very similar to Ryder's robbery of the Pizza Stack above, except he didn't get away with it and spent six months in jail because of it (and the only lesson Trevor got out of it was to LeaveNoWitnesses when Michael states that he should've learned never to rob a guy who can properly ID him). |
| 323 | ** The Ballas aren't much better. Posting a photo of their drugs and weapons on social media is how Trevor found out about a juicy target to send the online PlayerCharacter to rob during the 4th Heist. The photos were ''geotagged''! |
| 324 | * ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'': |
| 325 | ** One random encounter has you meet a group of bandits along the road dressed in obviously stolen Imperial gear, trying to squeeze "taxes" from you. The stupidity of this (besides [[BullyingADragon the obvious fact]] that you're practically a PhysicalGod, of course) is that chances are you're either a Stormcloak or -- better yet -- an ''actual Imperial officer''. |
| 326 | --->"I am in the legion and I am damn sure you are not!" |
| 327 | ** There's also a similar encounter with Thieves. Especially egregious if you are both a member of the Thieves' Guild and wearing the standard-issue armor. You can point out [[FailedASpotCheck this little oversight]] to them, or even better, if you're the Guildmaster, you can shake ''them'' down for having the gall to try and rob their own boss! |
| 328 | * In ''VideoGame/Yakuza4'', the pair of incompetent car thieves that Tanimura encounters in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5W-Y0mOQ_Y one of his sidequests]] first commit the same crime over and over in the exact same place, in broad daylight, surrounded by witnesses and cops on patrol. Then, they openly and loudly discuss their crimes (both past thefts and the one currently in progress) with Tanimura until he reveals to them that he's a cop, at which point they try to cover up everything they just said with [[ImplausibleDeniability a lame excuse]] and honestly believe that Tanimura is falling for it when he pretends to play along. When they finally realize that he's not buying it, they try to bribe him with [[DiggingYourselfDeeper the contents of a wallet they had stolen previously]], but then they remember that they spent most of the money in the wallet already and all they have left is pocket change. They [[ComicallySmallBribe try to bribe Tanimura with the change]] anyway, but by this point, Tanimura is fed up with them and is more or less forced to actually arrest them. [[spoiler:Their only saving grace is that they're so stupid that they accidentally LogicBomb themselves into wanting to reform themselves and become good citizens.]] |
| 329 | * ''Scary Robber Home Clash'' has Felix and Lester, two burglars who are blatant spoofs of Harry and Marv from ''Film/HomeAlone''. They sneak into a home belonging to a very rich family after the parents go on a Summer vacation and send their son Brian to Summer camp. Instead of looting the place right away as they should, they decide to spend the Summer at the house and enjoy the luxuries of it before finally looting and leaving. Brian sneaks out of camp and goes back home for his own way to spend the Summer, and decides to make the criminals suffer during their stay. The two prove to be so pathetic and incompetent that they easily put Harry and Marv to shame. To start, the first level has them failing to notice that Brian replaced the disk of the comedy film they picked out with the disk of a horror movie, despite the disk clearly not matching the cover of the film, and they get freaked out by the film. |
| 330 | [[/folder]] |
| 331 | |
| 332 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 333 | * ''Franchise/AceAttorney'': Though the franchise has its fair share of criminal masterminds, you're just as likely to go up against some real dumbasses who for some reason decided that ''appearing in court'' to lie badly about someone else doing it is the best way to get away with their crimes. |
| 334 | ** Frank Sahwit, the very first criminal of the series, is a stand-out example. He was a two-bit burglar who killed a woman who surprised him when he was robbing her home. Nobody saw it happen or knew he was there, and he could have easily cleaned off the murder weapon and ran away, but he just had to pin it on Larry Butz. This guy is the only witness you don't need to press; he'll talk himself into a hole as soon as he gets on the stand. |
| 335 | ** Redd White may be a good blackmailer, but he's an absolutely ''terrible'' murderer. When he shows up in court, he doesn't even seem to have bothered to make his testimony match the previous day of the trial and is happy to say things he really shouldn't have known. The only reason he gets as far as he does is because the prosecutor hand-holds him. |
| 336 | ** Richard Wellington, the tutorial villain in the second case. He [[CopKiller killed a police officer]] because he panicked about said officer searching his phone (the guy hadn't) and learning he was part of a con artist ring, left his phone at the scene, and when he assaulted Phoenix to get his phone back, he took the ''wrong phone'' and apparently never noticed that the phone he was wiping had a bunch of contacts he didn't recognize. And of course, he's a BadLiar. |
| 337 | ** Though they're not very important, we get to see an image of the robbers that Ron saved Desiree from in ''Trials and Tribulations''. One of them appears to be wearing a ''[[PaperThinDisguise clear plastic bag]]'' over their head to hide their face. |
| 338 | ** [[spoiler: Dahlia Hawthorne]] in ''Trials and Tribulations'' is the BigBad more out of sheer persistence (and help from a much better schemer) than actual criminal talent. Notably, this person doubles as the ''tutorial'' villain (and is as easy to expose as you'd think), and in their chronological first court case, they barely escaped by getting the one person who could provide crucial testimony to kill himself. Even when they're ''not'' murdering, they fail at criminal activities- their original crime was faking being kidnapped to steal a diamond, only for the kidnapping to go awry and the diamond to be lost in a notoriously dangerous river. |
| 339 | ** Furio Tigre may be intimidating, but his overcomplicated murder plot just ends up drawing in Phoenix to nail him, and he doesn't make it long in court before blithely falling for an INeverSaidItWasPoison gambit. |
| 340 | ** Florent L'Belle created an [[ComplexityAddiction overly complicated]] plot to steal a gold ingot (he's bankrupt because he keeps advertising products ''he won't sell'') that ultimately gets him convicted for a murder he committed in the process. Earlier that day, Phineas Filch was able to sneak into the chamber holding the ingot in 15 minutes on a whim, showing that Florent didn't need ''any'' of the other crimes to get the ingot. |
| 341 | ** Blaise Debeste from ''Investigations II'' may have somehow risen to a high rank as a prosecutor, but he's downright ''dumb'' when it comes to covering up his crimes. For example, he wears gloves when doing his criminal activities- gloves that he not only used to work on his oily bike, but have a unique look to them (there are letters on the fingertips, but one letter is partially worn), so Edgeworth can easily connect the imprints the gloves left to Blaise as easily as if Blaise had left ''actual'' fingerprints. |
| 342 | ** ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney'' has the Skulkin brothers, accomplices to the case 5 culprit who hinder him more than help him with their bumbling, [[BadLiar terrible lying skills]], and [[MinionWithAnFInEvil unwillingness to commit]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards outright treason]]. |
| 343 | * In ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'', Akira calls out Yakuza lackey Maruhashi on his stupidity when he tries to scout girls right in front of a police station, which is an [[EstablishingCharacterMoment early indicator]] that Maruhashi's not the brightest bulb in the box. |
| 344 | [[/folder]] |
| 345 | |
| 346 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 347 | * ''WebAnimation/EpithetErased'': Giovanni and his gang are lovely people but as dumb as stumps when it comes to actually committing crimes. They break into the museum at 7 PM, rather than their planned midnight, because Ben's mother wouldn't let him stay out that late, and said break-in is the loudest thing in the world and has no specific objective or exit strategy. Their theme song, "Great at Crime", [[BlatantLies doesn't exactly back up its title either]]. |
| 348 | -->''We might trigger an alarm, but we never come to harm, because before the cops can catch us, we can call my mom.'' |
| 349 | * ''WebAnimation/EtraChanSawIt'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-oQNKRHJIg&t=306s Akamatsu and Hiiragi]] attempt to steal Tachibana's car so that they can sell it. However, they did so in broad daylight on a busy street in a neighborhood without bothering to conceal their faces. Tachibana lampshades how lousy they are and even comments about how they wouldn't be able to sell it anyway as it isn't in any of their names. |
| 350 | [[/folder]] |
| 351 | |
| 352 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 353 | * "[[MeaningfulName Sloppy]] Joe" Basso and his hired goons from ''Webcomic/DeadWinter'', are definitely an example of this. Joe himself is an old, cranky, and possibly the "worst" hitman in the webcomic. Outsourcing his work to some dumb {{mooks}} that are easily dispatched by their target. And when he finally tries to do the deed himself, he didn't bother to be careful and watch his back, which allows Monday to get him by surprise and then finally finish him off. |
| 354 | * ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2017-08-21 The Comically Evil Guy.]] Granted he only existed so that Dan could kill someone off without feeling guilty, but that is an impressively stupid evil plan. |
| 355 | * ''Webcomic/TheGoodCrook'': Jackie always had aspirations of being a gangster. His first (and only) attempted robbery involves him threatening a diner with a gun, then changing his mind mere seconds later. He proceeds to apologize and try to explain himself, at which point an over-eager police officer tackles and arrests him. |
| 356 | * ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' |
| 357 | ** Sam Starfall has aspirations of being a renowned master thief but isn't always the brightest bulb in the box. Admittedly, some of his incompetence may be attributed to culture clash[[note]]he's from a Victorian-tech planet where theft is admired, and living on an interstellar age human planet[[/note]], such as his selling shares in a meat mine for ([[WorthlessYellowRocks worthless]] on Jean) [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff600/fv00553.htm diamonds]]. |
| 358 | ** [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/zu/ffkidnap.gif One of the pre-web strips]] has Helix taken by kidnappers, who start [[FingerInTheMail sending parts to Sam in the mail]]. And for some reason, they just ''keep on sending them'', until eventually, Sam has all of Helix's parts back and can reassemble him, good as new. |
| 359 | [[/folder]] |
| 360 | |
| 361 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 362 | * Several websites exist for the sole purpose of cataloging unusual crimes and stupid criminals. |
| 363 | ** [[http://www.dumbcriminals.com/ Dumb Criminals]], "Humiliating Dumb Crooks Since 1999" (website does not exist anymore) |
| 364 | ** [[http://www.clumsycrooks.com/ Clumsy Crooks]] |
| 365 | ** [[http://www.dumbcrooks.com/old-dumbcrooks-site/ Dumb Crooks]] (Last Update: June 2005) |
| 366 | ** [[http://www.electricferret.com/bozo/ Bozo Criminal of the Day]] still updates every weekday, except holidays |
| 367 | * Website/NotAlwaysRight has a few stories about stupid criminals in its database. |
| 368 | ** In [[https://notalwaysright.com/delivering-you-the-criminals/115325/ this]] ''Not Always Legal'' story, a burglar orders pizza to be delivered to the house he's broken into. The delivery person (who's delivered to that house before and knows who lives there) realizes what's going on and calls the cops. Two weeks later, the same burglar pulls the same stunt, gets the same delivery person, and gets arrested again. |
| 369 | ** [[https://notalwaysright.com/not-what-they-mean-when-they-say-to-hand-out-your-resume/116263/ This thief]] left his resume at the scene of the crime, which let the police track him down. As a bonus, the one who posted this story is the thief's ''mother'' telling us how stupid her son is for this. |
| 370 | ** [[https://notalwaysright.com/courting-disaster-2/117297/ This genius]] decided to threaten a prosecution witness in front of the other witnesses and the cops right before his trial. It went as well as you might expect. |
| 371 | * The Website/DarwinAwards also includes some. This being the Darwin Awards, most of the Stupid Crooks mentioned there manage to kill or injure themselves in the process of proving themselves worthy of that site and this trope. One of the very first deaths chronicled on the site, "Wrong Time Wrong Place", had a would-be robber attempt to rob a gun shop full of gun-toting customers... with several police officers standing right there. |
| 372 | * Most issues of [[http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/ News of the Weird]] have two or three entries under Least Competent Criminals. |
| 373 | * Website/{{Cracked}}'s [[http://www.cracked.com/megalist_11_2320.-matrix-defense/ The 20 Most Secretly Brilliant Stupid Criminals]]. Includes a perp who revealed that they were violating parole/jumping bail on social networking. |
| 374 | * These guys are so common on ''WebVideo/WhatTheFuckIsWrongWithYou'' that [[DoWrongRight "Tara Explains How to Be a Better Criminal"]] has turned into a RunningGag on the live show. |
| 375 | * In one Jade story of the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', two incompetent crooks attempt to commit a robbery in Dunwich, despite the fact that about ''six hundred'' superpowered teens are going to SuperheroSchool within walking distance from the town. |
| 376 | * In ''WebVideo/CounterMonkey'' episode "Shadowrun: The Code", the player characters of a ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' game go about a museum burglary the completely wrong way. Among other errors, when the alarm is triggered, they don't simply grab the artifact and run; instead, they turn it into a hostage situation where all hostages end up executed purely on account of "[[LeaveNoWitnesses They saw our faces]]." It ends with the horrified DM importing the [[GodzillaThreshold Cyber Psycho Squad]] from ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}}'' as a RockFallsEveryoneDies. |
| 377 | * All conspirators in ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' (except [[OnlySaneMan Ma Teng]]). They set themselves on fire, create incriminating paperwork for no good reason, and couldn't act more suspiciously if they tried. Naturally, they all get caught very fast. |
| 378 | [[/folder]] |
| 379 | |
| 380 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 381 | * Observed in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episode "[[Recap/RugratsS1E6RuthlessTommyMooseCountry Ruthless Tommy]]", where two bumbling criminals kidnap Tommy, mistakenly believing him to be the son of a billionaire after they mix up their ''real'' target's house address. Even then, [[PityTheKidnapper the one-year-old baby becomes too much for the two idiots to handle]] so quickly that they end up returning Tommy back to his parents before they even realized their son had been missing. However, as the crooks leave, their ransom note flies out of Stu's hands, and [[LaserGuidedKarma covers one of the crook's face, causing him to crash their car into a hydrant and send both of them flying headfirst into the back window of a police car]]. |
| 382 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 383 | ** In the episode "Dumbbell Indemnity", Moe spends so much money on things for his new girlfriend that he decides to come up with a plan with Homer to steal his car, have it destroyed, and collect the insurance money. Homer steals Moe's car and is supposed to leave it on the train tracks, but he gets sidetracked by a showing at a drive-in theater for a movie about a monkey who is president. Having missed the train, Homer decides to drive the car off a cliff in plain view of everyone, including the police, which gets himself arrested. |
| 384 | --->'''Moe:''' Homer, you moron.\ |
| 385 | '''Homer:''' Homer, you ''genius!'' |
| 386 | ** It's even better than that: when Homer first goes to steal the car, he finds that Snake is already on the job. So Homer pulls Snake from the car, throws him to the ground, and steals the car himself. |
| 387 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': |
| 388 | ** The Amoeba Boys. You can tell that these single-celled organisms aren't neurons. |
| 389 | ** There was one crook that tried to steal a cereal box with a diamond that he had stolen earlier in it from the girls. All of his attempts to steal from them were complete failures. |
| 390 | ** Then there was that criminal that tried to steal from the Powerpuff Girls' home. It went about as well as you would expect. At the end of the episode, he's intending to [[TooDumbToLive rob Mojo Jojo's house]]. |
| 391 | * ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'': |
| 392 | ** The Mooninites once stole their uncle's "check from the government for being crazy" so they can cash it on Earth and go on a shopping spree... except the "check" was actually a payment bill for home care which emits radiation when it's overdue, and it's two months overdue. When this is revealed, Err claims that he kept telling Ignignokt that the check was actually a bill on the way down to Earth, Err thought Ignignokt knew something about the bill he didn't. |
| 393 | ** That same episode begins with Igignokt spray-painting graffiti on a school, which Err quickly points out is just a rock. |
| 394 | ** Their first appearance saw them stealing whole assortments of electronics equipment. They also encouraged Meatwad to swallow an entire rack of [=DVDs=], believing he could then walk out of the store with it; Meatwad couldn't do this and tried to carry it instead, which sees him immediately trip the store's alarms while the Mooninites take the opportunity to escape. |
| 395 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Doing Time", [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick deliberately attempt to rob a bank in order to try and break Mrs. Puff out of jail from the inside. For masks, both characters [[StockingMask wore socks over their heads]], which covered their eyes and didn't allow them to see where they were going or who they were trying to hold up. The unintimidated bank teller treats the entire ordeal as a normal exchange, asking Spongebob for his name and ID (which he gladly hands over), pulling up his checking and savings accounts, and bluntly informing [=SpongeBob=] that he has no money in either account (either no thanks to Mr. Krabs or [=SpongeBob=] not even using that particular bank). |
| 396 | * Jake and Butch from ''WesternAnimation/MrBogus'' fit this trope to a T, as their attempts to pull off a crime job wind up getting foiled thanks to the efforts of Bogus. |
| 397 | * Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy from ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks''. They'll rob a bank and forget to ask for money, they try to get past a heavily secured area by going through the back door (without checking to see if there's security there too), and generally just run around guns a-blazing without any sense of purpose. They're just lucky that Ed's grandfather [[DirtyCop owns the police]] (and, to his utter annoyance, the places they keep robbing). |
| 398 | * The title characters of ''WesternAnimation/VictorAndHugo'', in which the premise of the show revolves around the pair's constantly botched crimes; the series is even subtitled ''Bunglers in Crime''. A typical exchange: |
| 399 | -->'''Victor:''' Did you remember to switch off the alarm, Hugo?\ |
| 400 | '''Hugo:''' Yes, my Victor. ''[Victor opens the safe]'' And no. ''[the alarm bells ring]'' Mainly no. |
| 401 | * The Enforcers from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' got increasingly dimwitted as {{Flanderization}} set in. And yet, if they can be believed, each held reasonably stable jobs before turning to crime, and one was even studying theoretical physics. |
| 402 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheHauntedPumpkinOfSleepyHollow'': Grunk and Leo are two bumbling thieves who steal the Sleepy Hollow manuscript and end up having to get it back after hiding it in a pumpkin. Both are quite stupid, especially [[DumbMuscle Grunk]]. Leo, [[ShorterMeansSmarter the short leader]], thinks he's smart, but he's only smart compared to his even dumber partner. They both mistook a Halloween zombie puppet for a real zombie. |
| 403 | * ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'': In "The Toy that Saved Christmas", the silly song "Oh Santa!" features a bank robber trying to rob a bank...mistaking Larry's house for one. |
| 404 | * ''WesternAnimation/CountDuckula'' has Gaston and Pierre, a pair of French bird-people who fancy themselves master criminals and aspiring jack-of-all-trades of crime, but who are repeatedly let down by their own incompetence and/or idiocy. Gaston, the leader, is smarter but arrogant and prone to missing out on minor but crucial details, whilst his minion Pierre is just plain stupid, with a tendency to forget his assigned role, fail to bring up things he's aware of, or blurt out things that he shouldn't. An absolutely telling example of their criminal schemes is one episode where they attempt to hijack a plane; aside from other minor bunglings, when they hold up the stewardess at gunpoint and order the plane flown to Niece in France, she actually stops panicking to confusedly point out that the plane they chose ''is already flying to Niece''. They were essentially prototypes for the {{Villain Protagonist}}s of Creator/CosgroveHall's subsequent series ''WesternAnimation/VictorAndHugo: Bunglers in Crime'', who are themselves examples of this trope. |
| 405 | * The ''WesternAnimation/MyAdventuresWithSuperman'' [[AdaptationalWimp version of Intergang]] consists of two siblings and their friend, none of whom wear masks or can reliably remember not to use their real names when committing crimes and are introduced with a member already locked up from a botched convenience store robbery. They luck into getting superweapons they don't know how to properly control and nearly cause disaster through their reckless and inept use of them. |
| 406 | [[/folder]] |
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