"Oh, I can't stand any more of this, Smart! I have four times the intelligence you have, yet time after time now for the last ten years, you've managed to ruin my most brilliant schemes with your cunning stupidity!"
— Leadside, Get Smart
- Pretty much every hero in the Arrowverse qualifies. They're extremely prone to trusting the Obviously Evil, rejecting help when they really need it, and generally making things worse. The Legends in particular proudly self-identify as screw-ups.
- Dollhouse: FBI agent Paul Ballard, who constantly ignores proper procedure, shares sensitive case information with his neighbour, and charges into dangerous situations without preparation or backup. This behaviour got him assigned to the Dollhouse case, and before long it also gets him fired.
- Get Smart: The ironically named Maxwell Smart is entirely this trope, especially when he tries to be clever and fails spectacularly.
- Giant Saver: Dakong, the Fire Guardnote of the Giant Savers, fits the trope to a T. He loves fighting, and is quite good at it, but has the maturity and mental skills of a middle-schooler. This is somewhat fitting, as he's intentionally modeled after Sun Wukong, the Monkey King in Journey to the West.
- Heroes: A dramatic example of an Idiot Hero can be found in Peter Petrelli. He's technically the most powerful character in the show, but the writers have accidentally made him Too Powerful to Live. However, this is balanced out by his naïvete and overly trusting nature, which ends up getting him and others into a lot of trouble. For example, in Season 2, Knight Templar Adam tricks him into releasing a virus that could wipe out mankind (though Peter isn't aware of it) and despite many characters (including people he is close to) telling him that Adam is evil, he refuses to believe them simply because he just cannot fathom the idea of Adam being evil, simply because Adam helped him. This is somewhat justified in-character, as his powers seem to be directly connected to his extremely strong empathy. Hiro acts similar, in that he is an enormously powerful character who acts bizarre because of his childlike nature. In Season 1, we see a version of his character who has matured and Taken a Level in Badass, and it's one of the best plot points.
- iCarly: When Spencer is part of a scheme or sub-plot, he acts in this way.
- Iron Fist (2017): Danny Rand definitely counts. His naïvete, lack of self-preservation and inability to foresee the consequences of his actions causes many troubles for him and other characters.
- Kamen Rider:
- Shinji Kido, the protagonist of Kamen Rider Ryuki is belittled as a buffoon by almost the entire the cast. This is mostly justified as the results of him acting without thought or realizing the consequences of his actions, and often beginning from him inciting a cycle of insults with how he derides others after a bad first impression. Shinji's intentions throughout the series are to stop the fighting, rather than to enjoy or gain some imagined 'prize' from the fabled wish the show's rider war revolved around. However, he does not succeed as each of the Riders die one by one, including himself, alongside hundreds of thousands of bystanders. The irony of the series being that the majority of the deaths in the show are a direct consequence of Shinji repeatedly making the EXACT WRONG DECISION, and (as confirmed by series writers Yasuko Kobayashi and Toshiki Inoue) had he not gotten involved, the war would have concluded far earlier, with a far smaller body count.
- Gentaro Kisaragi, the eponymous Kamen Rider Fourze; he readily admits to being an idiot and gets ludicrously bad marks on tests (the best we've ever seen him accomplish is a 51). Unlike many of his brothers and sisters on this page, however, he already is Messianic Archetype, with the self-stated goal of befriending everybody, even former Monsters of the Week. In his later appearance during the crossover movie with Kamen Rider Wizard, we see that Gentaro has somehow managed to become a teacher during the Time Skip. The real shocker is he isn't bad at his job, either.
- Madan Senki Ryukendo: Kenji, who manages to live only because he has dumb luck and
far too much power. - Earl and Randy in My Name Is Earl. Earl is really Book Dumb, and Randy is an extreme Manchild.
- Parks and Recreation: Andrew Maxwell Dwyer. Let's see — can't do his own laundry, can't talk about tampons without giggling, thought that Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon were the same place, is completely Sarcasm-Blind, and generally speaking, anytime someone asks him to do anything, another character will almost always have to go with him. Yet Andy is such a lovable goofball that you can't help but, well, love him.
- Revolution: Charlie is this to the point of irritating Miles a lot. In Episode 2, she convinced Miles to spare the bounty hunter Jacob, only for Jacob to sell them out to the Monroe militia. In Episode 5, she tried following Tom Neville, got caught by him, and Miles had to rescue her as well as make the mission of rescuing Danny harder. This deconstructed, because the trope is played straight and a number of realistic consequences occur. Fortunately, Charlie is becoming smarter, as of Episode 6.
- Scrubs: J.D. is Book Dumb in anything that has nothing to do with medicine.
- Super Sentai:
- Dan in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.
- All of the heroes in Gekisou Sentai Carranger.
- Kenta Date in Denji Sentai Megaranger.
- Kai Ozu in Mahou Sentai Magiranger.
- Jan Kando in Juken Sentai Gekiranger.
- Sosuke Esumi in Engine Sentai Go-onger.
- Takaharu Igasaki in Shuriken Sentai Ninninger.
- Lucky in Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger.
- Kaito Goshikida in Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger
- Mirai in Ultraman Mebius. He's extremely naive and doesn't know too much about Earth. At one point, he questions whether popcorn is food.
- Wellington Paranormal: Even Officer Minogue's stoic partner O'Leary can't help but roll her eyes sometimes at his inane commentary, observations, and lack of common sense.
