- 24: In Season 5, it's revealed that Charles Logan is not actually the President Buffoon that he played himself up as in Seasons 4 and 5, but in fact a full-blown President Evil. No one could have possibly expected that he, of all people, would actually prove himself as the most Worthy Opponent to JACK BAUER since Nina Myers, especially after how much he had played up his Obfuscating Stupidity previously. After his defeat in Season 5, he returns as a very competent ally in Season 6 who actually proves to be a key player in stopping the terrorist threat despite his limited screentime. Come Season 8, he's back to the villain side and is so good at manipulation that he pulls a Corrupt the Cutie on the new president despite his reputation as a scumbag still carrying over from his Season 5 actions.
- Babylon 5: Emperor Cartagia might be a decadent goofball party animal, but he's also a wildly unstable tyrant who might have you tortured to death on a whim and would cheerfully throw his entire homeworld under the bus to satisfy his delusions of godhood.
- Better Call Saul: Lalo Salamanca is a Laughably Evil Talkative Loon and Perpetual Smiler who rarely seems to take things seriously and whose various eccentricities can be very disarming compared to the more Ax-Crazy eccentricities of his family. He is also far and away the single most competent and dangerous member of his family and The Cartel at large, both physically capable and with a mind as sharp as they come. This is to the point of terrifying the normally unflappable Gus Fring when he realizes Lalo is coming for him.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: You honestly wouldn't consider Glory a threat, at least a major one, if you weren't aware of her strength or that she is a God in Human Form.
- Rick Castle of Castle fame is a fun-loving geek of a bestselling mystery author, prone to coming up with ludicrously outlandish theories on the murder of the week. Threaten Beckett, or worse his daughter Alexis, and you're done: he's shot three criminals and used the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on one of his daughter's kidnappers.
- "Hawk" from Cobra Kai. He struts around as a raging Small Name, Big Ego with a massive red mohawk, a huge tattoo on his back, and is clearly overcompensating for massive self-esteem issues and a lifetime of having been bullied for the scar on his lip. However, he's also taken to the rather savage titular form of karate like a fish to water and can deliver a very solid beatdown, can hold his own against entire groups of opponents by himself, is utterly ferocious in a fight, and is both strong and vicious enough to break a foe's arm with absolutely no effort and pummel a sparring partner so violently that even the jaded Tory was visibly shocked at what she'd seen.
- Doctor Who:
- The Doctor just wants to have a bit of fun. "There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes", they say. They've been accurately described as a "madman with a box", and no one with their dress sense (no matter how much it changes) could ever be taken seriously. They've also stopped more villainous plots and saved more lives than could possibly be counted, and is outright feared by some of the most evil beings in existence.
- As befitting an Evil Counterpart, The Master sometimes shows shades of this. The Anthony Ainley and John Simm incarnations especially loved to bust out the Evil Laugh and add some flair to their villainy, while the Michelle Gomez incarnation seemed to enjoy pop music (well, one song in particular), but there is a very good reason the Doctor continually regards the Master as their worst enemy.
- Nardole, introduced in "The Husbands of River Song" as The Ditz, and who later becomes the Doctor's "valet" of sorts, was solely comic relief until the end of "Oxygen", when he gives the Doctor a blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech for putting himself in life-threatening danger when he has a duty to be guarding the mysterious Vault underneath the University of Bristol. In addition to this, hints have been dropped that he has some kind of criminal past, and it's been revealed the ditzy behaviour from his debut episode was a case of Obfuscating Stupidity.
- The 60th Anniversary sees the return of The Celestial Toymaker after five decades and he wastes no time introducing his 'rules of play' to the whoinverse, his opening gambit convincing everyone on earth they are right about everything they think.
- Josh Nichols from Drake & Josh is a clumsy and overemotional Butt-Monkey, but when he is pushed to his limits, he can turn rather vicious. In one episode, he goes on an Unstoppable Rage when Drake causes him to miss his important chemistry exam.
- Farscape:
- Rygel is a deposed Hynerian (small, toad-like creatures) royal with an ego the size of a dwarf star and a tendency to either flee from battle or fart helium when pressed into a corner. He's also killed the man who spent years torturing him and then used his head on a stick as a jester's marotte, and tortured captive enemies to death for information. Then there's "Coup by Clam," where Rygel has officially had enough of a blackmailing poisoner's shit, and thus bites his nose off, then poisons him in such a way that he can't possibly cure himself.
- And also there's Chiana, who is normally a kooky, cute, sexy Lovable Rogue who prefers to flirt or trick her way out of trouble. Until she really feels there's no alternative to violence, in which case she'll burn people alive with flaming rocket fuel, or spray acid over them and leave them to die in agony.
- On Firefly, Wash is silly, geeky and plays with toy dinosaurs. He was supposed to get deadly serious when danger hit but Alan Tudyk just wasn’t compatible with it. However, there are still things that will make him serious and even a little threatening. Do not threaten Zoe or Serenity. Most people who threaten Zoe won’t survive long anyway, but Wash can still use a gun when he wants, like when Zoe says Niska will torture Mal for days. Wash was just tortured too and probably just wanted to pass out for a while. But he hauls himself to his feet.Wash Bastard’s not gonna get days. *accompanied by as close as he gets to a Death Glare*
- Barry Allen, the titular character of The Flash (2014), is an adorkable Pop-Cultured Badass who geeks out over zombie movies and Game of Thrones, quotes Star Trek along with a Vulcan salute to prove his identity to a friend, and is seldom short of a sarcastic quip. But if you even think about hurting his family, he will prove to you why it is a very bad idea to anger the most powerful superhero on Earth-1.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Judge Carl Robertson, Uncle Phil's old mentor, has become a Scatterbrained Senior. However, when Phil runs for Robertson's judicial seat, he reveals himself to be a ruthless politician: getting Will arrested for unpaid parking tickets note , and unleashes a brutal smear campaign on Uncle Phil. He actually ends up winning the election in a landslide...only for Will to tell him to drop dead, which causes him to have a fatal heart attack.Judge Robertson: (to Phil) Oh wake up, knucklehead. You're in the big leagues now. I may be old, I may be senile, and I haven't been able to find my car for the past half hour, but I can beat you in a political campaign any day. You're dead meat, Tiny.
- Phoebe Buffay from Friends may seem like a sweet Granola Girl with a kooky sense of humor, but she was tough enough to mug older boys when she was just a teen living on the street.
- Joey Tribbiani. All around Nice Guy with a great sense of humor, with a streak of Cloudcuckoolander. Mess with any of his sisters, and he won't be afraid to beat you up if necessary. Just ask Chandler.
- Walter Bishop from Fringe is a somewhat addled old man who constantly gets the name of his FBI overseer wrong, has an unquenchable taste for a different food each week, and often consumes drugs of his own making. In this context, it's somewhat hard to remember he was consigned to an asylum for years after a lab experiment that killed several of his assistants. And, when he's hooked up to the parts of his own brain, removed to destroy extremely sensitive knowledge, he shows how much of a righteous bastard he once was. He can also bring the fury in his current state — in "The Bishop Revival", he finds an ageless Nazi scientist has been using his father's research to design aerosolized poisons that target certain genetic markers. His response, in turn, is to design his own toxin, track the man down at a conference on peace and tolerance he'd been planning to target, and dispassionately cause him to asphyxiate in the middle of the gathering.
- Uncle Howee from The Haunting Hour episode of the same name. He's a wacky, over the top children's performer who acts alongside his puppet rabbit and clock man in a cartoony fashion. However, when his number one fan Cynthia is bullied by her big brother Jared while he babysits her and immediately tries ditching her to hang out with his friends, Uncle Howee leaves his fictional world and enters the real world where he uses his Reality Warper powers to punish Jared for his cruel behavior. It ends with our clownish children's performer dragging Jared back into his show, where the bully is turned into a lifeless puppet forced to entertain on his show forever.
- Alfie from House of Anubis may be the class clown, but he's no pushover, as he has proven to be a useful presence in Sibuna — and if he is serious about something, you better not stand in his way. He yelled at Fabian and Patricia when they wanted to have breakfast instead of rescuing the currently-trapped Amber, and then later was the one standing up against Sinner!Fabian — to the point of pressing Fabian's Berserk Button and getting away with it.
- Douglas from The IT Crowd may or may not have killed his first wife.
- The first season of Kevin Can F**k Himself has Kevin, while selfish, stupid and boorish, still seemingly a goofy guy who doesn't get how his It's All About Me and Attention Whore antics can affects others, especially wife, Allison. It's showcased by how Kevin sees the world as a classic sitcom, with him as the bumbling but loveable doofus. In Season 2, the mask comes off as Kevin flat-out states that he's deliberate in what he does and doesn't care as he gets away with it "because I'm funny." In the Grand Finale, we finally see Kevin in the "real" world where he's a complete sociopath ready to beat down Allison. By this point, everyone else has finally woken up to what kind of person he is to abandon him, leading to Kevin accidentally burning his house down with him in it.
- Rudy of Kickin' It is your standard Disnick Kid Com Adult Child Big Brother Mentor, unless something really bad is about to happen at which point the writers remember what a third-degree black belt karate instructor's supposed to be capable of.
- Parker from Leverage is the Cloudcuckoolander who appears in one scene dressed as a nun happily chomping down a bowl of kids cereal; she is also a master thief who becomes the eventual mastermind of the team. WordofGod says she's the second most dangerous team member.
- Merlin is the Plucky Comic Relief of the knights who is constantly abused for laughs, but beneath the joking exterior is an extremely dark Anti-Hero who's also a Person of Mass Destruction, bordering on Physical God by the end of the series. Arthur and most of Camelot are unaware of this. It's also a bad idea to threaten anyone he cares about!
- Officer Schnabelbach (River of Spouts, referring to his Motor Mouth) in the German crime series Morgen hör ich auf (loosely inspired by Breaking Bad) is introduced as yet another ineffectual police officer with fondness for smalltalk and charming women but his third appearance establishes him as the criminal police's Only Sane Man who found a hint to the protagonist's crimes and correctly suspects them.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
- The Mads are usually just Affably Evil Harmless Villains, but they all have their moments of genuine evilness.
- Professor Bobo usually sticks to the dumb, goofy circus gorilla archetype. He's still a gorilla, and any contest of strength is no contest at all for him. Observer makes the mistake of arm-wrestling him and Bobo almost literally mops the floor with the guy.
- The Nanny: Fran Fine may come off as nasal, big-haired, and desperate, but, people tend to forget she is also a hypermanipulative master of the Cool and Unusual Punishment, most often in the form of forced proximity with her overbearing mother. She's also skilled with Jewish guilt, and can reduce feelings of triumph to bitter sadness with a snap of her fingers. And when you mess with the Sheffield children, she will strike back hard.
- Tony DiNozzo from NCIS acts like an overgrown frat boy, and to some extent he is. However, much of it is Obfuscating Stupidity to keep the bad guys from realizing that he's a highly-trained agent who can ruin anybody's day if he's pissed-off enough.
- One of the one-shot characters in "Secrets", Clarence Tobett, is a thin, extremely nerdy-looking guy. He is also a Real-Life Superhero who works with reducing gang violence in the D.C. area, and he One Hit KOed an ex-marine-turned-hitman with a surprise uppercut when he attempted to attack Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva. Even Gibbs was impressed with that defensive move.
- Detective Deeks from NCIS: Los Angeles is the Plucky Comic Relief of the team — unless Kensi is in danger. Then he becomes a ruthless and deadly bastard.
- Power Rangers:
- In the original show, Squatt and Baboo didn't do much except go on errands and mess up while doing it. But in one episode they took initiative on their own and built their own monster, the result of which, a turtle-like creature named Shellshock, was a terror. He had a stoplight mounted atop his body that could cast a freeze ray from the red light and a speed ray with the green one and had a veritable Swiss army knife of weapons stored in his shell. The first battle was a disaster for the heroes; he froze most of them with his red beam and made Trini unable to stop running with his green one. (Even worse, this made her the only one able to look for the cure, which she managed, despite Rita making it even harder with a squad of Mooks getting in the way.)
- In the second season, some cases of Near-Villain Victory came at the hands of some pretty ridiculous Monsters of the Week.
- Beamcaster was a radio-themed monster who spoke like some weird DJ, but used Mind Control to entrance the whole city, and even hypnotized the entire team. To fight him, Zordon had to call up Rocky, Aisha, and Adam (who had not yet taken up the mantle) and get them to help, a prelude to the episode where Jason, Zach, and Trini, would Pass the Torch to them.
- Scatterbrain was even sillier-looking. Created by Lord Zedd from a kaleidoscope, he was a… guy with a really big kaleidoscope for a head. Still, his memory wiping power got the entire team, and this time, Bulk and Skull were the ones who got the heroes out of the mess, albeit by accident. (Sadly, they were affected slightly too, so although they were the heroes, they didn’t remember it.)
- When Rita teamed up with Zedd, they didn't do much better as a team then they did alone; with a few exceptions:
- In one episode, Rita tried to use a spell to turn Kat into her slave again, but missed. She hit a wall instead, creating a monster called the Brick Bully. He looked ridiculous, but it seemed this monster by misfire was pretty potent. His first battle with the heroes resulted in him turning all of them except Kat and Billy into bricks (or rather, reducing them in size and sealing them inside bricks) and while Billy tried to find a way to reverse the effect, he didn't just sit around. He started consuming bricks and cement, turning into a stronger monster. Billy had to confront him alone to prevent him from getting stronger, ultimately taking him down in his own Moment of Awesome. Still, it was a brutal fight.
- And that wasn't the last "monster by misfire" that resulted in a problem. During Power Rangers Zeo, Rita tried the same thing, but missed Kat again (clearly her aim hadn't improved) hitting her purse. (Ironically, a homemade one she didn't like.) The Impursonator was the result, and she was clearly the strongest monster Rita had ever created, despite looking relatively harmless. The Rangers couldn't scratch her, not with their handheld weapons or their Zords, her rubbery skin making her impossible to hurt. She became the first enemy to ever beat an Ultrazord, and the last for quite some time. Even worse, when King Mondo's monster appeared, she was able to hijack the Super Zeo Megazord and take it for a joyride! (Fortunately for the city as a whole, Mondo's monster had stolen the other Megazord — as it had been designed to do — and they decided to fight each other for a while.) Ultimately (after a two-parter) she combined with Mondo's monster, and was dispatched via the combined efforts of three Megazords working together.
- Lothor of Power Rangers Ninja Storm. He spends most of the series sitting on his throne and cracking meta-jokes while his henchmen fight the Rangers for him, but is still a dangerous opponent whenever he can be bothered.
- Likewise, his nieces, Marah and Kapri spend most of their time as a pair of scatter-brained dunces who their uncle openly calls a disgrace to the name of evil. However, they can be surprisingly effective in a fight, holding their own against the Rangers. In the last episodes, it comes out that they've been playing dumb all this time and when they reveal their smarts, become even more dangerous.
- Divatox of Power Rangers Turbo probably takes the cake. Screechy enough to make Rita sound like Beyonce, completely incompetent, and managed to Mind Wipe herself on one occasion. Then the season finale happened...
- Rito Revolto from season 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. A complete goofball who appears to be very stupid (who also manages to piss off Lord Zedd and at least annoy his sister Rita as well). You'd be forgiven if you forgot that he also destroyed not only 1 set of Ranger Powers, necessitating that they go to Ninjor, but also destroying those coins as well, which sets up the Zeo Quest plotline.
- On the side of the good guys: Jungle Fury's RJ Finn. Very laid back to the point that it's always awesome to see him kick Rinshi and monster rear.
- Shawn Spencer from Psych is a perfect example of this. A complete jester who never takes anything seriously and seems harmless enough...until his loved ones are put in harm's way. Then he will hunt you down until you're "behind bars or dead". Quoted from an episode where Shawn takes down the man who shoots his father.
- Sherlock's Jim Moriarty. Criminal mastermind. Also, one of his first lines was an Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? joke.
- Ironically, even though Sherlock's not Plucky Comic Relief he could count as well. Uh, let's see.....keeps a skull (weird), acts like a child and is a very intelligent detective. Oh, and he does VERY kooky things to solve cases.
- Piss him off by threatening his friend's life in front of him- and you're screwed.
- Mary seems to be sweet and goofy. She was an assassin from the CIA, and a very good one.
- Jack O'Neill of Stargate SG-1 likes to play dumb and joke around, but gets things DONE. He can be very ruthless when he has to and has alluded to having performed black ops in the past, doing what he describes "damned distasteful things" for the US Military. Also, his irreverence and jokes frequently annoy the Goa'uld and their Jaffa, who are infuriated because Jack doesn't take them seriously. This is, possibly, his intention, although it fails to work on Ba'al.
- Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation generally acts arrogant and snarky, but he's still a Reality Warper with god-like power and if you piss him off, he can and will use those powers to screw with you. Perhaps the best demonstration came from his single appearance in Deep Space Nine, after Sisko has demanded that Q leave the station:Sisko: Perhaps you and I should continue this discussion in private.Q: Excellent idea. (Everyone but the two of them vanishes) You were right! This is an excellent idea!Sisko: Sisko to ops. (There is no reply)Q: (quietly menacing) All gone.
- In "Q Who", Q introduces the Enterprise to the Borg simply to make the point that Starfleet isn't able to handle everything in the galaxy, and although he aquiesces in saving them, he still gives no fucks after all is said and done.Picard: I understand what you've done here, Q, but I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of eighteen members of my crew.
Q: If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed.
- In "Q Who", Q introduces the Enterprise to the Borg simply to make the point that Starfleet isn't able to handle everything in the galaxy, and although he aquiesces in saving them, he still gives no fucks after all is said and done.
- One of Ultraman Taro's most ridiculous foes was Live King, a big-bellied, duck-faced kaiju with grape-like things dangling around his neck, a jovial personality, and a "roar" consisting of hearty guffaws. As silly as he sounds, he was able to regenerate From a Single Cell so long as there was oxygen, which made him completely immortal on Earth; not to mention that his raw physical power meant Taro couldn't simply pick him up and carry him off to space for an easy kill. It got so bad that the Mother of Ultra had to intervene to help Taro subdue Live King and finally destroy him for good.
- Bunyo from Ultraman Leo proved to be even deadlier. This alien looked like a cartoonish Little Green Man from a low-budget B-Movie and acted like a buffoon, failing to impress even Commander Black, who hired him to kill Leo in the first place. However, Bunyo reveals himself to be completely Ax-Crazy and kills Ultraman Leo by hacking him to pieces with a saw with utmost glee. Only Ultraman King's intervention prevented Commander Black and Bunyo from taking over Earth afterwards, but even then Leo was challenged by the alien's Super Spit.
- Negan from The Walking Dead, much like his comic book counterpart, is the most odd person to ever enter the series since he is a random Cloudcuckoolander who cusses like there's no tomorrow, talks to his lucky bat, and puts on a goofy front, but he nonchalantly threatens Rick's Badass Crew into kneeling before him after he personally executes their friends Abraham and Glenn by beating them to death with his baseball bat covered in barbed wire.
- Carol, when she first gets to Alexandria acts like a sweet befuddled old lady to conceal from the Alexandrians that she is actually a bad-ass killer.
- Wednesday: Enid is not only nice, but often overly silly. However, that doesn't mean she is a push over. She tells off Wednesday when she goes too far repeatedly, can open a reinforced door without transforming, and flat out beats a Hyde in a fight when it threatens Wednesday.
- In Years and Years, grandma Muriel sums up the surreal and horrifying political circus with a monologue:
- Muriel: Beware those men; the jokers, the tricksters, and the clowns. They will laugh us into hell!
- In Yellowjackets, Jessica Roberts, a reporter (really, The Fixer), decides it would be a good idea to confront Misty, The Unfettered of the surviving team members. It ends up being a case of Mugging the Monster, if the monster wore kitty-prints.
Jessica: Hello, Misty. Tell me, how did your little road trip go?
Misty: I know when you look at me, you don't see someone you should be afraid of, but, uh... you're wrong.
