The
Comedic Hero is a less-than-competent protagonist who nevertheless succeeds despite his best efforts. He might have dumb luck on his side, or a
Hypercompetent Sidekick might be watching his back with or without his knowledge.
The Fool is a specific variant of this character type. Might be a
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. For the superhero version, see
Super Zeroes. For a goof who is more competent than people would like to admit see
Let's Get Dangerous
Examples
Anime
Comic Books
- Numerous from the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, including but not limited to:
- The original Red Tornado, a hefty housewife who crossdresses as a superhero with a cooking pot over her head and beats up gangsters.
- Johnny Thunder, a hopeless twit who has an all-powerful genie at his command and doesn't even know it.
- Super-Hip, aka Tadwaller Jutefruce, Bob Hope's nerdy nephew who turns into a super-powered mod crooner whenever he gets angry. His battle-cry? "Bleck to Lawrence Welk!"
- Angel and the Ape: She's a private eye with brains and beauty to spare. He's a comic-book artist who happens to be a talking gorilla. They Fight Crime!
- Stanley and his Monster, a little boy who pals around with a demon who was kicked out of Hell for being too darn nice.
- Zayne Carrick, main character of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (no, not that one, I'm talking about the comic series) started out as this, a walking catastrophe who couldn't even hold onto one lowlife criminal once captured (my apologies to Gryph). However, after the first story-arc, he settled into a more heroic mold, and his proneness to accidental carnage degenerated to an Informed Attribute.
- He also becomes smarter (he outsmarts and derails the plans of a mad scientist, a corrupt corporate executive, and a deranged Sith wannabe), and when he fights his former teachers he actually does fairly well (when he fights Raana Tey they're pretty evenly matched for most of the fight).
- Bananaman of The Dandy
Film
Literature
Live-Action TV
- Maxwell Smart, Get Smart
- Chespirito's El Chapulín Colorado
- The Greatest American Hero
- NBC's Captain Nice, and CBS's Mr. Terrific, two very short-run (half season) series which tried to ride the "camp superhero" wave started by the Adam West Batman series.
Western Animation
Video Games
