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The banjo is a weapon. Question him.
Some may never live, but the crazy never die.
—Hunter S. Thompson
"You're drawn to my eccentric charm."
Someone who is Crazy Awesome is someone who's nucking futs, in an amusing way, and is effective at what he does because of that craziness. In real life he'd get fired from whatever job he has/would have, or even arrested — at the very least, the things he does just plain wouldn't work. But somehow, he manages to be both effective and a character that the audience likes or even loves.
What separates this character from being a plain old Cloud Cuckoolander, Bunny Ears Lawyer and the like is that it is because of his extravagant madness that the Crazy Awesome can both function in the work and have such appeal.
For example: let's say The Chosen One's best friend, Ed Smith, wears a traffic cone on his head. Said traffic cone is spray painted metallic purple and has a grinning chimpanzee's face painted on the front. And Ed insists that you call it Sheldon. Yet despite this, Ed is very loyal to The Chosen One and can hold his own against the army of Mooks. So far, he seems like your average Bunny Ears Lawyer, right? The traffic cone is an eccentric trait if there ever was one, but it's not necessarily why he's liked by the audience. Now suppose about ten episodes into the series, the Big Bad decides to drop a bomb on the Hero's city, and only Ed can do something to stop it. If Ed were to catch the bomb in his hand then kick it back to the Big Bad's jet, thus destroying them both, he's still not Crazy Awesome, he's a Badass Bunny Ears Lawyer.
If, instead, Ed pushes an inconspicuous button on the underside of Sheldon's base, and a jack-in-the-box chicken head springs out of the top and shoots Frickin Laser Beams out of its eyes that disintegrate both the bomb and the jet in the space of five seconds, then Ed Smith (and Sheldon) has become Crazy Awesome.
In other words, it is because of Ed's quirkiness that he is an effective cast member. He literally would not be as effective (or, indeed, the same character) without the eccentricities. There can't be one without the other.
On average, every other action the Crazy Awesome does is cool, awesome, and/or funny, over-the-top, or a combination thereof. The Heroic Sociopath is a Crazy Awesome whose 'crazy' is being a complete psychopath. A Large Ham is a verbal Crazy Awesome. As previously mentioned, a character that can "work" without the quirks ( but still wouldn't be the same) is a Bunny Ears Lawyer. If he's just crazy, he's a Cloudcuckoolander.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Boss in Mazinkaiser. When he's on the screen it's almost guaranteed to be pure win, whether it's awesome or hilarious. This is, interestingly enough, a complete reversal of his role in the original ''Mazinger Z', which essentially amounts to "be useless, annoy Kouji, and annoy the audience".
- Anime Tenchou from Lucky Star. Several times over.
- Kogarashi from Kamen No Maid Guy. His reaction to everything is badass, over the top, and liable to get him arrested. All the while, he does this in a maid dress.
- Katsura and Elizabeth the Giant Duck-Thing in Gintama.
- Every aspect of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Kamina invokes this intentionally.
- Bleach gives us Kenpachi, who seems to think that charging forward without any regard for his own safety is much better than having some fancy game breaking power. As it turns out, he's right.
- Actually, Kenpachi does have a fancy game breaking power. What is it you ask? He
uses Kendo holds his sword with two hands.
- Ichijou from Pani Poni Dash. See
 for yourself.
- Guu; even her her laugh is Crazy Awesome.
- Sekirei gives us Minaka, Mad Scientist and Corrupt Corporate Executive though he may be, you WILL consider his every move crazy awesome.
- Great Psycho Onizuka. Holy shit, in real life he'd so get fired, arrested, beaten up by a mob and thrown into jail in whatever order and number. Actually reaches Jerkass Stu levels through the sheer amount of nonsense and abuse most of the other characters are willing to let him put them through.
- Haruko, of FLCL, who uses her Rickenbacker bass alternately as a music instrument, a motorized cudgel, a grenade launcher, a flying surfboard, and a weapon of mass destruction- oh, and in the first episode she reprograms a robot with it. To top it all off, she tends to put on fan-service-y disguises and at one point cuts down a wall of bullets aimed at her using only a straight razor. For the second-to-last fight, she shows up on her flying guitar in a bunny suit, armed with a slingshot she pulled from another character's forehead. The enemy is a giant hand in a trench coat, and each finger is armed with a weapon she can fit into. She takes this on with a slingshot. That is all you need to know about FLCL.
- Note: The slingshot is made from a very small guitar.
- Note on the note: FLCL uses guitars as something of a metaphor. The geeky loner-y main character gets a guitar pulled from his head as well. It's huge enough that it gives the female techs at the definitely-not-NERV secret underground base massive nosebleeds.
- Not that the techs have a visual of the scene, mind you, but the audio certainly has multiple "interpretations" as to what's being pulled from where.
- Naruto has the eight-tailed beast host, who goes by the name "Killer Bee". He looks like someone straight out of the Wu-Tang Clan, raps in the middle of battle, uses seven swords at once (holding them in such places as his armpit and between his neck and shoulder but not in either of his hands) which he uses by spinning around like a buzz saw, and transforms into a giant bull with octopus tentacles. Despite how weird that sounds, he was able to utterly rip Sasuke a new one. Then he later faked being captured by transforming into a severed tentacle and the actual tentacle into himself. This wasn't discovered until the Akatsuki were busy sealing what they thought was his tailed-beast ("...it's a tentacle"), making Sasuke and the entirety of Akatsuki looks like a bunch of idiots. Then we found out he also threw the fight against Sasuke in the first place as part of his plan to get away from his village and go on vacation. Oh, and he nearly boom-headshots Kisame with a pencil that'd he'd been using to write lyrics.
- Haruhi Suzumiya seems to border on this from time to time.
- She DEFINITELY crosses the line whenever she meets the computer science club. He challenges her to a 'duel' in a computer game, and she doesn't hear the 'computer game' part, and is outside the room. She introduces herself with a Dynamic Entry! Both feet first.
- Jack Rakan from Mahou Sensei Negima. His entire fighting style seems to be based on Rule Of Cool and Beyond The Impossible. Feats include summoning a building sized sword, accidentally blowing up a mountain, and defeating his opponents by stealing their panties. Then there's the supersonic sword-surfing, and his method of escaping a barrier dimension...
- "Rakan-For-The-Hell-Of-It Right Hand Punch!"
- Don't forget his final attack in the Tournament match, RAKAN IMPACT! - clearly a reference to Gurren Lagann.
- In celebration of my first kiss with ojou-sama technique he demonstrates to Setsuna because she gets too modest about her sword talent.
- A bit of Fridge Brilliance occurs when you realize that this is Jack Rakan: At some point in the future, he is going to use that ability, and he will yell that name at the top of his lungs when he does.
- The series as a whole can qualify, to be honest. In no other series does nobody bat an eye when two people at a high society ball sit down to have a high-stakes armwrestling match that leaves a crater in the floor, immediately followed by an aged-up ten-year-old snogging a Robot Girl so hard it breaks the laws of reality to give her a SOUL. From magical kissing. And then there's the Fantasy Kitchen Sink, which is played for all the awesome possible. If the Crazy Awesome of Negima can be traced to a single person, that person is Ken Akamatsu.
- Crona from Soul Eater. His (her?) weapon of choice is an enormous shrieking black puppet made of congealed blood that erupts out of her back and can turn into a sword. Also his/her eyes are always, always moving.
- Stein might be another example (but not the last). He's actually more effective in battle when he gives up his reasoning that holds back his insanity (fear, authority..that's it). 'Might' because Stein at his most insane is not exactly funny. He is when he's just being the eccentric teacher, though.
- In Getter Robo, how does the giant robot Texas Mack and its pilot Jack King move a giant UFO away from a city, so that its explosion won't kill everyone? This being a Super Robot show, you'd clearly use a Kamehame Hadoken attack to do the trick, right? Not so for Jack King, who has his giant robot ride a giant robot horse controlled by his dog, and then pulls the UFO with a lasso while shouting: "COME ON, SWEET UFO!"
- The pilots in New Getter Robo are Crazy Awesome incarnate. By the end of the series they've become so crazy, powerful and, well, badass, the only logical step for the series to go in was for them to fight the four Buddhist Kings. Something they gladly do, with one of them acting completely berserk in the process.
- Maybe it's more accurate to say that everything and anything in Getter Robo is Crazy Awesome, even the epic sideburns.
- This is true, it's even brought up by the characters in the series that most of the Humongous Mecha pilots seem to be completely nuts.
- Isaac, Miria and Claire from Baccano!, though on entirely different ends of the spectrum. Isaac and Miria are successful mostly on the basis that their heists are just so bizarre (such as stealing the entrance of a museum while dressed as mummies, then posing for pictures) that they end up getting away with it. Claire, on the other hand, just crosses the murderously batshit / badass line so many times that we can't place him anywhere but here.
- Isamu Dyson. Good God, Isamu Dyson.
- Bobobo Bobo Bobo. The entire cast (sans Beauty) could fit under this heading, but the main trio of Bobobo, Don Patch, and Jelly Jiggler get top honors for being practitioners of an actual fighting style whose main purpose is to utterly bewilder the enemy into submission. It really says something when you have two characters merge into a Magical Girl and beat the enemy by singing, and you accept it because it's still not as crazy as the time Bobobo pulled Yami Yugi out of his afro.
- Juzo Kabuto from Shin Mazinger is one of the most awesome Mad Scientists around, performing many ridiculous stunts and generally being Crazy Prepared in the most bizarre ways. The highlight of this was when he snapped his grandson (a Humongous Mecha pilot) out of a Heroic BSOD by surfing a rocket punch through the air and jumping off it into the cockpit.
- Siegfried in Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple - which needs a shorter title incidentally - who can only have his crazy awesome status described by the fact that since his martial arts form is essentially unique, he could not find a master to teach him more. So he decided to imitate a spinning stone that Tibetan monks use... for forty days straight. Spinning. Also sings constantly, will stop fighting to write music and can use his loud voice as an attack while singing. Despite this, Kenichi's masters describe him as a genius with abilities that are already nearly at the master level.
- Master Fuurinji also has his moments, like entering a tournament intended for teenagers as "Mysterious Teenager Garyu X" by putting a mask on and changing nothing else about his appearance. He also took on a fully armed combat force by throwing their own soldiers back at them.
- Some of the stuff Shigure does also counts. Like defeating a squad of assassins with a ribbon, or disarming all the members of a gang of delinquents in one hit... with a spoon.
- Trigun: Most of the Gung-Ho Guns fit this, as well as Knives. Some people say Legato too. Vash himself, at first, before things start going to hell and he's slowly broken down into a Badass Angster.
- Osaka. Knife. No other words need be said.
- Kuroshisuji's Grelle Sutcliffe, anyone?
- Holy hell yes! He's nuttier and fruitier than any fruitcake and he made a CHAINSAW in Victorian England as his scythe. Add in the love for demons and you've got a recipe for this very trope!
- Alucard from Hellsing - The crazy part can't be argued; entire pages of the manga are his posturing and maniacal laughter. His typical fighting strategy is to invite his opponent to kill him, let them do it, and then come back to finish them off. He also enjoys impaling his opponents. Preferably with their own weapons. In fact, there are quite a few characters in this that could qualify.
- Prussia. Full stop.
- No, full throttle.
- His ego could choke a horse, he has no friends, he's a boundlessly ambitious psychotic punk who delights in mischief, and yet caves at the sight of cute things.
- Alex Louis Armstrong, The Strongarm Alchemist, straddles the line between this and Bunny Ears Lawyer.
- Drosselmeyer in Princess Tutu. His character design is surreal, and he's first introduced to the audience and the main character as an ominous, booming voice, then materializing upside-down in front of her bit-by-bit in a Cheshire Cat fashion. As the series goes on, it becomes QUITE clear that he's absolutely off his nut, and quite enjoying the tragedy playing out in the story. And then, as the series nears its end, it's revealed that while dead, he exists in a netherworld filled with gears and mocking puppets he controls, has been pulling the strings of everyone in the hopes of making the story have a Shoot The Shaggy Dog ending, and when his hands were cut off before his death, wrote the story controlling the town with his own blood using the stumps of his arms. And he finds the whole thing hilarious.
- Before Cerebus Syndrome strolled into town, Goku had this as his super power, turning Rock Paper Scissors into an attack, acting like a monkey in the middle of battle, and defeating Monster Carrot by putting him on the moon.
- In the Pokemon anime (games too to an extent, but definitely in the anime), Byron, Hot Blooded, fossil-loving, hole-digging leader of Canalave City gym. He was voiced by DAN GREEN, for crying out loud.
Comic Books
- Next Wave's Aaron Stack. "My robot brain needs beer."
- Deadpool's insanity was the key in defeating Taskmaster in hand-to-hand combat. No small feat, considering that TM's powers allow him to copy and second-guess anyone's fighting style, including Captain America, Daredevil, and pretty much any fighter in the Marvel Universe. Deadpool, though, is so crazy he doesn't have a recognizable fighting style. His insanity also makes him near-impossible to mind-read or mind-control, and he was once the only person who could save humanity by a combination of this and his willingness to kick Captain America in the crotch to do so.
- For the record, he defeated Taskmaster by being as random as possible. Instead of attacking Taskmaster directly, as Taskmaster was expecting, he broke into a dance routine. Not just any dance, the Macarena!
- Rorschach of Watchmen generally switched between crazy and awesome, but occasionally both at the same time, such as when he ambushed a guy by hiding in his fridge, and ambushed him again by hiding near the fridge and jumping out when the guy reads the note in the fridge saying to turn around.
"No. You do not understand. None of you understand. I am not locked up in here with you. You are locked up in here with me."
- The quote counts, but the first examples are only crazy since he was ambushing an innocent man.
- It was a full grown man inside of a fridge for what we can assume was possibly hours just waiting... no. That's CRAZY AWESOME!!!
- Quinton Zempfester, the wizard from Thieves And Kings, acts like an utter Cloud Cuckoo Lander 90% of the time. This is the remaining 10%.
- The Joker, especially in "The Long Halloween" which involves the Joker attempting to steal Christmas.
- Spider Jerusalem. After beating the snot out of a thinly-veiled grown-up Charlie Brown to get to a source of information, he throws another of her bodyguards out a barroom window... and onto snoopy. Whose corpse he claims as his dinner.
- Snowflame from New Guardians #2 is a supervillain whose powers come from snorting massive amounts of cocaine, worships cocaine, and is basically the religious leader of a cult that also worships cocaine.
- Slapstick, the living cartoon, at least before Marvel's Civil War turned him all Darker And Edgier. Defeats a rampaging vigilante at the mall by kissing him on the lips. Foils a five-year-old Mad Scientist with a spanking. Stops a rampaging irradiated nuclear bum (no, that's not a typo) with a cup of coffee. And tops it all off by dumping a bucket of water on Ghost Rider's flaming head.◊
Fanfiction
- Adelleh the undead priestess from this Looking For Group fic. At one point she actually convinces the other characters to throw themselves off a cliff, thereby saving their lives from an angry ghost!
- Shinji And Warhammer40k. Too many examples to name, with mighty Shinji being only the most prominent.
Film
- The Joker
- Captain Jack Sparrow, who, by the third movie is certifiably off his rocker, if only there were someone to certify him. Jack's hallucinations gave him most of his good ideas in the film.
- Lampshaded in the third movie..
Lord Beckett: "You're mad."
Capt. Sparrow: "Thank goodness for that, because if I wasn't, this'd probably never work."
- The other captain of the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa, is pretty Crazy Awesome himself. For example, in the third film, he intentionally gets his own ship hopelessly lost in order to find the "World's End"... and does so, followed by sailing it off the edge of the planet into the Netherworld, while laughing like a maniac, with an "arr" or two thrown in just for giggles.
- Tommy Lee Jones as Two-face.
- Ace Ventura. Textbook to a tee.
- By the same token, almost every Jim Carey character.
- Darryl Revok. "Yes, I have something." SPLAT!
- I aM TorGo. I taKe cArE oF thE pLacE wHiLe ThE MaSter iS aWay.
- Any character in Kung Pow, but in particular The Chosen One ("You killed my family, and I don't like that kind of thing!"), Master Tang ("Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata, hiding with the candy, hoping the kids won't break through with the stick!") and Betty ("Ngggg!"). Also, The Cow.
- The movie's true Crazy Awesome moment is when the love interest tries to comfort Chosen One by, amongst other things, putting salt and mercury on his bloodied hands and lighting them on fire before asking him to rub it in her hair to which he replies "You just get stranger and stranger and stranger." The next days, his hands are somehow tough enough to remove the metal caps from the dummies he was practicing on and he declares "You have helped me reach the next level, and I was beginning to think you were just a sadistic psycho-bitch" to which she replies "Aiyaiyaiyaiyaiy"
- Pick a Rajnikanth movie. Any Rajnikanth movie. He makes Chuck Norris look feeble.
- Sergeant Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon. Any version. "We're back, we're bad, you're black, I'm mad."
- 'WHO'S LAUGHING NOW? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!!!
- The new incarnation of James T. Kirk. He cheats The Kobayashi Maru, convinces his best friend to sneak him on board the Federation flagship whilst grounded for cheating said test, gets himself promoted to first officer, provokes Spock into abandoning his post as acting captain, and then throws approximately eight billion lives into the hands of one questionably sober but undeniably brilliant engineer. And then he saves Earth. And then he jumps from Cadet to Captain of that same Federation flagship within, at most, two years, meaning he is at least a half-decade younger than his TOS counterpart - who was also the youngest Captain in Starfleet history. Yeesh. Refuge In Audacity much? But hey - he did better.
- Staff Sergeant William James in The Hurt Locker does things like shedding his protective gear before disarming a car bomb ("If I'm gonna die, I want to die comfortable.") and keeping bomb parts as souvenirs, but nevertheless gets the job done.
- Good unholy Christ, Tallahassee. Virtually anything he does is freakin' awesome.
- Ironically, even though Tallahassee is pretty much the patron saint of this trope, he only becomes Crazy Awesome after the Zombie Apocalypse. Prior to that, the movie's flashbacks show him being a normal, fully functional member of society.
- Truly disaster brings out the best in all of us.
Literature
- Steerpike, depending upon your interpretation.
- Dirk Gently. There aren't many people who, when they read about an accident being ruled an act of god, take the time and energy to correctly identify which god did it. (It was Thor.) There are fewer still who would then take their insurance agency to task over it, pointing out that an "act of god" in the constitutionally protestant UK must legally refer to the Christian god. Since his house was destroyed by Thor, Dirk insists that the insurance company has to pay out.
- Wraith Squadron, from the Star Wars Expanded Universe, practically exists to come up with and implement Crazy Awesome Zany Schemes. Practically nothing? Wedge says that's half the idea when he's trying to sell Ackbar on the scheme! He was just a LITTLE too right.
- So, when the squadron is on its way to the rendezvous and gets taken out of hyperspace and disabled by a very, very fancy mine, and is left hanging over a planet attempting repairs but aware that there's no hyperdrive, no long-range communications, and an enemy ship is on the way to see what the mine got... what happens?
- What happens is that you put your Gamorrean pilot in a torn-out smuggling compartment with thrusters, a two-meter laser cannon, and an astromech strapped on, you put him out in space with the most damaged X-Wing which is repeating a plea for help recorded by your ex-child actor, and you wait. When the enemy ship jumps into the system and veers over to the damaged X-Wing, your Gamorrean pilot engages thrusters, steers by the astromech, enters the ship's hangar, aims the laser cannon - which was taken off one of the X-Wings - and fires straight up, blasting the captain into the ceiling. Then your pilot forces everyone on the enemy ship to surrender and invites the rest of the squadron on board, at which point it is discovered that in the confusion no one sent out a distress signal, which means the enemy does not know that this ship has been captured, and then things get interesting.
- Mad-eye Moody. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! [[Spoiler:that was really Barty Crouch Jr. But then, since he had milked the real Moody of every single eccentric quality and was going out of his way to act like him, it may or may not count]].
- Bloody Stupid Johnson from Discworld. His Organ in the UU, to wit: "One foot kicked the 'Afterburner' lever and the other spun the valve of the nitrous oxide cylinder."
- He builds ornamental fountains that can be used as artillery pieces and managed to invent a sorting machine that ripped a hole in time. Doing so because he needed a way to change pi to 3 so the calculations would be easier when building said sorting machine.
- More directly, is it okay if they're Crazy Awesome at being scary and evil? Mister Teatime from Discworld.
- DonQuixote thinks he's a knight. And fights windmills. He thought they were giants.
- Psmith from the series of novel by PG Wodehouse has a highly eccentric approach to problems that always seems to ultimately succeed. When advertising his services in the paper, he offers to undertake any service, including assassinating someone's aunt. It's highly unlikely he would have undertaken such a deed, being a Christie Time gentleman despite his eccentricity, but nevertheless...
- Harry Dresden: this just says it all right here. He's done a considerable amount of crazy crap that very-nearly makes him an -embodiment- of this trope. The climaxes of the books especially fall into this trope:
- Storm Front: After using an elevator as a blunt instrument to squish a scorpion the size of a car while handcuffed to someone, he drives halfway across the state and has an epic magic duel that involves, among other things, the power of an entire thunderstorm getting thrown into a guy's living room, people dangling over a pit with more of the huge-ass scorpions, and lots and lots of general firey destruction. And then he gets rescued by an Inspector Javert who hates his guts.
- Grave Peril: Harry collapses a vampire's mansion by waking up every single lingering spirit as a ghost. After he purposely let himself almost die to get ghostly backup. While accompanied by a newly Action Girl-ified Vampire Refugee who could very easily kill him. And while he's dying of amanita poisoning.
- Harry doesn't almost die, he DIES for a second or two, with enough strong emotions that, after he is given CPR, he and his ghost are there in the same place, and they proceed to kick ass.
- Proven Guilty: Harry, Thomas, Murphy, and Charity Carpenter storm the castle of one of the queens of Faerie to rescue a Charity's goth daughter from a bunch of nasty critters that take on the forms of movie monsters. And, of course, Harry manages to blow a huge hole in the building. But this time it was even more awesome.
- White Night: Harry and Carlos barge in on the entire White Court and challenge the books villains to a duel. It's epic enough all by itself, but eventually one of them figures out the wizards are going to beat the crap out of him and summons uberghouls Of Doom. Then they get bailed out by their own backup, consisting of a mafia boss and a large number of his minions, Murphy, and Thomas. In the end, Harry and Lara are the only guys on their side who couldn't get out before Marcone's bombs went off and collapsed the place- and Harry manages to get out of there by making out with the succubus. Yeah.
- Small Favor: An assassin from the Summer Court comes after Harry. He gets away by asking him for a doughnut.
- Dead Beat: Zombie dinosaur.
- "Turn Coat":Goes to an island with a very ancient and powerful Genius Loci, and makes the Island his sanctum. How? "I punched it in the nose. Now we're friends."
- Great uncle Ebbitt from The Seventh Tower definitely comes under this. Not only is he willing to attempt feats of magic and crazy stunts that even Milla would think twice about and has the competence to pull them off, he actively enjoys them. He doesn't just play the trope but actively enjoys it. Its half lampshaded, half a plot point later on in the book.
- John and Dave from John Dies At The End. Nothing quite exemplifies this like the first time they save the world: while "disguised" as Elton John (John thinks Elton John is a band, by the way), they ward off the apocalypse just long enough for Albert Marconi to foil the demons' plans. How? By beating monsters to death with a folding chair while making constant, godawful chair puns and playing the worst song ever made. It works.
Live Action TV
- Adrian Monk is arguably the paradigm for this type. His obsessive/compulsive disorder got him booted from the SFPD and makes it difficult for him to get through his day-to-day life, but it also aids him immeasurably in solving cases. As Monk himself often acknowledges, "It's a gift... and a curse."
- "Reverend Jim" Ignatowski from Taxi.
- The Doctor.
Sarah Jane: You're serious, aren't you?
The Doctor: About what I do, yes. Not necessarily the way I do it.
- As befitting his role as the Doctor's Evil Counterpart, the Master possesses a fair share of this trope as well.
- Mr Bean, seriously, dressing while driving (with his feet!) a car, foiling a car thief by taking his steering wheel with him to a picnic, winning a dog show with a teddy bear? And that just a couple of episodes...
- Charlie Crews, the ex-con police detective in Life. Justified in that his settlement with the LAPD for being framed and imprisoned for twelve years before being proved innocent included (in addition to substantial financial recompense) the restoration of his position as LAPD detective... for as long as he wants it. He's got very expensive lawyers keeping him on the job, no matter how Crazy his Awesome might get.
- Spike of Buffy The Vampire Slayer especially in his pre-ensouled Large Ham days.
- Drusilla! She was totally Crazy Awesome. She rants like a loony... but those rants are real psychic predictions if you pay careful attention. She takes on a Slayer by giving her the hairy eyeball and it works. It works so well Dru ends up being the only vampire to really kill a Slayer (except for flashbacks).
- Hooch from Scrubs is one of the more popular minor characters due to him being very Axe Crazy.
Hooch: Who the hell... put bouillon cubes in the shower head!?! Huh? Hm, did you do it? Hm? Did you? If it happens again, I will wait in my S.U.V., blast me some speed-metal - 5.1 surround sound, heavy on the bass - and someone... will be getting...mowed...down.
- Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear. In the show's various challenges (convert a vehicle to be amphibious and drive it across a body of water; buy a cheap two-wheel-drive car and cross Botswana), he inevitably goes for more flash, more speed, and more power. As a result, he always seems to achieve magnificent success or equally magnificent Epic Failure.
- Q, from Star Trek The Next Generation has the magnificent bastard thing down to a tee, and he certainly has his moments of crazy awesome throughout the series run, too. (Instigating the end of the universe via Picard? Totally counts as awesome).
- Les Nesman from both WKRP TV series. He has an "office" - actually just part of the office floor. But "one day" he will get walls, and he has put down tape strips to mark the future walls and door. He even insists that people knock before entering. Les feels so strongly about this that in the first series, when the only woman on Earth who would sleep with him decides to remove the tape, he kicks her out of his life. In an episode of the second series, Les has vital information in his desk, but he has "locked" the "door" to his "office" and taken the key. With Les not even in the room, the other characters admit that the "locked door" is an obstacle, but one of them tries to pick the "lock" with a credit card. And he fails.
- A big part of what makes Firefly's River Tam such an endearing character is how her quirky insanity is combined with her playful, childish innocence and mischief-making. Well, that and the fact that she's both a tiny bundle of sympathy-inducing, mentally traumatized child and is somewhat destructive when she gets in the mood.
- On the other side of the coin is Jubal Early, who manages to combine crazed, philosophical rambling with a keen understanding of psychology to manipulate the entire crew while seeming utterly insane.
- And, rather fittingly, River ends up blowing him out of the water at his own game.
- Kramer from Seinfeld somehow manages to be the most successful character in the series despite not doing anything approaching reasonable. When he advises others to do things the way he would, they inevitably fail to inject enough Awesome into their Crazy.
- Sylar is a completely insane serial killer, but he's so nonchalant about everything and can be quite funny when the writers aren't filling him with Wangst. He's the only character who actually enjoys his powers and he's hilarious when he takes on a fake identity (usually just for fun).
- Dr. K from Power Rangers RPM, who has twice taken out The Dragon using a violin, and is so forced and unnatural in social situations that it goes past awkward, past being simply funny, and into pure awesome. One of the two violinnings was with an amplifier to create a sonic weapon, and once was by using the violin to remotely control the base's ventilation system. She also keeps a laser cannon in the refrigerator (ready to fire the moment the door is opened), has created an experimental clothes-destroying weapon, and once blackmailed the person who is ostensibly her superior with the threat of her maybe kinda possibly having worked on an undetectable chemical that causes a case of diarrhea "1000 times worse than the worst recorded case of dysentery". If it was anyone else, it would sound ridiculous and be seen as a harmless joke. With her, he caved instantly.
- The Mythbusters made a lead balloon. And it flew.
- I see your lead balloon and raise you a fully functional duct tape cannon.
Tabletop Games
- Pretty much every popular Ork, and half the popular characters period, in Warhammer 40000. Crazy and awesome are both plentiful in this setting, but Orks really excel at combining the two.
- Mr. Welch is the embodiment of Crazy Awesome.
182. No figuring out the plot and killing the actual villain five minutes into the adventure.
337. Even if the rules allow it, I cannot control 20,000 pigeons and use them as flying piranha.
598. Any adventure that ends up with my character being worshipped as an orc god was just a dream. Retroactively if need be.
680. My axe doesn't go off accidentally when I'm cleaning it.
806. My character cannot have a noticeable impact, positive or negative, on a town's population.
1273. Any character that makes a seasoned Rifts player flinch is vetoed, and shall never be spoken of again.
1317. My character will refrain from appearing with Hitler in any history books. Especially if I’m chasing him with a wheat thresher.
1411. Despite what the rules say, bobsledding through the Vatican is much harder than it looks.
- Most successful games of Genius The Transgression
Theater
- Brian Le Petit, the principal clown in Cirque Du Soleil's Mystere. He looks out for number one - even if others get hurt in the process. He tries to photograph the whole audience. He loves to trick and embarrass people, be it by posing as an usher or locking a man in a crate so he can woo the date left behind in the audience with a candlelit picnic. And he picks on the emcee like nobody's business, be it tricking him into stepping off a high ledge or threatening his crotch with a chainsaw, for no reason besides the guy being a touch pompous. According to the backstory, he isn't a part of the show at all, but some random Screwy Squirrel who somehow got into the theater. On top of all this, he is played by a performer who is in his mid-seventies, whose makeup is not particularly clownish beyond Einstein Hair, and whose costume is a nice suit a few sizes too large (accessorized, naturally, with matching black-and-white sneakers). And audiences love every minute of him.
Video Games
- Not so sure about the first two games, but Fallout 3 is a great example. Running around in an old western duster while wearing an authentic ancient samurai helmet, with a giant hulking super mutant with a laser minigun, and making radioactive zombies explode into tiny little giblets by chucking teddy bears and mutilated organs at them. All while listening to retro '50's music. The whole damn game is Crowning moment of crazy awesome.
- Once again, The Joker, with special mention to Batman Arkham Asylum. Ridiculous thematic weapons? Check. Sauntering, acrobatic brawl maneuvers? Check. Bomb threats to keep the GCPD from entering? Check. Finding out said bombs consisting of marzipan and kittens? Check.
- Clearing out a room of armed guards without any of Batmans gadgets, just by strolling up to them and snapping their necks? Check, and gets the player in on the Crazy Awesome in an epic way at the same time. And then, of course, knocking guards unconscious in hand to hand combat by kicking them in the crotch.
- Batman does not snap their necks. He asphyxiates them into unconsciousness. Please note Batman kills no one in the game.
- This troper thinks the other troper still meant the Joker.
- All of the characters of Team Fortress 2.
- "Gentlemen."
- "You call that breaking my spine?"
- "The answer: use a gun. And if that don't work? Use more gun."
- "Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
- BONK "That was a mercy kill! You live in a... camper van!"
- "MRHH HRHRHRHRHRHRHRR!!!"
- "Oooh, they're gonna hafta glue you back together. In HELL!"
- "CRY SOME MOOORE!!"
- "I am ze Ubermensch"
- "Vhat vas that, sandvich? Kill them all? Good idea!"
- Some of the background characters, too. Saxton Hale (head of Mann Co - "We sell products and get in fights") in particular. One letter from him that has been seen out there can be, depending on which boxes are ticked, either "thank you for your submitted product idea, we'll get back to you" or "you bastard, you tried to steal from me, I'm going to hunt you down and beat you to death with my own bare hands."
- A number of the assassins in No More Heroes.
- Travis Touchdown: A socially oblivious otaku and complete loser that happens to be surprisingly skilled at killing people with a Beam Katana, is quite thoroughly Made Of Iron, and can stop time by faking opponents out.
- Destroyman: A dirtbag mailman that cosplays as a superhero that convinces Travis to turn his back on him, get zapped by his joy buzzer to the brink of death, has machine guns in his nipples, and a laser codpiece. And he likes announcing his attacks.
- Letz Shake: Singaporean punk rocker with a Brain In A Jar-earthquake maker and has the honor of the most spectacular if not enraging death in the game
- Harvey Moseiwitsch Volodarskii: He's a stage magician, for starters. A stage magician that you fight in the middle of a live performance, while he summons pigeons to attack you, flips the screen upside-down (not that it helps him much) and getting out of his instant-death attack involves a Houdini-esque escape trick.
- Speed Buster: A deaf little old lady with a shopping cart... that turns into a (roughly) fifty-foot long Wave Motion Gun. And her BGM is called "Mach 13 Elephant Explosion".
- Bad Girl: Her being listed here would depend on whether it's possible to be a Complete Monster and Crazy Awesome, but regardless... in her spare time she chugs beer and beats gimps in S&M get-up with a baseball bat...in a tutu. She'll also spit booze on to the bat to light it on fire halfway through the fight. Be careful when she goes down.
- Dark Star: Giant Dragon Beam Katana, for starters. Story-wise and metafictionally speaking, the only reason he exists is to set the player up for a Mind Screw as he, by revealing his face, convinces Travis that he's his killed-in-front-of-Travis'-eyes-dead father... only he's not, which ought to qualify for something—if not crazy-awesomeness then a defining moment in Suda51-ism.
- While the game itself is a perfect example of this trope, Grim Fandango simply have too many distinctly awesome elements that deserve a mention. The demon Glottis has a mindbogglingly huge enthusiasm for driving really fast. So when Manny Calavera, an unsuccessful Reaper and the game's protagonist, is in need of a driver to take him to the Land of the Living after his rival gave his usual driver the day off, he desperately persuades Glottis to become his new driver. Glottis begins his career as a driver by sending Manny to get the boss' approval to make "slight alterations" to Manny's company car. It all goes downhill from there.Beholdthe awesome.
- Max from Sam and Max. For example:
Sam: You're such an adorable urchin, Max.
- Minamimoto from The World Ends With You: his final attack a big ass-nuke is activated by reciting pi to 150 decimal places!
- President Michael Wilson of the GREAT United States of America!!! Screw Democratic or Republican, this guy runs on the Badass party ticket.
- Even he's likely to be outcrazied by President Howard Ackerman of Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3 running on the Attack Dolphin party with the slogan of "Screw 'Em All". His immigration policy? Attack Dogs! Those without health insurance? He'll donate a pint of his blood a week to render your immune system indestructible! Special Interests? None! He's too busy serving the Dirty Communists a steaming platter of shame with a side order of suck it! Vote for him if you want to live! (Bonus points for being a Japanese Cyborg.)
- Sheogorath!
"I once dug a pit and filled it with clouds... or was it clowns... come to think of it, it began to smell... must have been clowns. Clouds don't smell, they taste of butter. And tears."
- Albert Wesker from the Resident Evil games is a perfect example of these: his master plan involved getting stabbed through the chest so that he could regenerate into a glowing red-eyed version of himself with super strength that shows up in Code: Veronica and kicks the game's main baddie around just because he can. Of course, in the end even his super strength proves ineffective against the big bad, so he turns to the main character and says "Chris, as my finest soldier, I'm going to leave this one to you!" and jumps out a window.
- Minsc from the Baldurs Gate series. Especially in the second game, as his already-tenuous grip on sanity seems to slip further and Jim Cummings really throws himself into the role. This is, after all, a character who believes in solving problems with swords, thinks "shirking" is a painful sharp thing you do to people who would steal nuts from squirrels, and gets most of his inspiration from a hamster.
- A miniature giant space hamster no less.
- Drei from Phantom Of Inferno starts off as a sweet, somewhat bratty little girl but the Not As You Know Them after the timeskip is made of this. Stepping out in front of big gangsters and daring them to shoot her, sniping items off the belts of her targets from atop a motorcycle, walking down the streets of Tokyo in a rage and trying to pick fights with random youths despite not knowing a word of Japanese, having sex with the main character in the middle of a gunfight...
- Princess Sapphire Rhodonite is gloriously off her nut, and that's why we love her. Take her idea for "opening up Mao's heart," for example...
Almaz: Princess!? What's the chainsaw for?
- Kefka is comparable to The Joker IN FINAL FANTASY!
- Dissidia actually lets Kefka speak, and if anything, he's even more Crazy Awesome in the cutscenes. In addition, his style of fighting is bizarre (to say the least: all of his attacks are unexpected by virtue of not working the way you think they will) and he doesn't run around as much as he frolics.
- "One of us is not serious enough."
- Mole Mania. All of it. By the time you realize you play a mole that's delivering suplexes, along with the fact you're beating people to death with cabbages, the game stops being just plain crazy and starts being full blown amazing.
- Half Life 2 gives us Father Grigori, who could have left Ravenholm at any time but stayed so he could save all the headcrab zombies by killing them so that they can be saved. The fact that he managed to survive so long speaks for itself.
- Miror B. from Pokemon Colosseum and XD. Disco dude with enormous pokeball-colored afro and this for a battle theme.
- Whether by extension or (considering they came first) because of...Ludicolo is definitely part of this trope. A pineapple duck with a rain-collecting hat...that dances. I am not making this up.
- Darkstalkers presents Lilith, Morrigan's incomplete clone. Her super consists of using the same bats that make up her clothes and sending all of them out in a whirlwind attack with the usual consequence. Her other unique super is her turning into a Playboy Bunny and tossing out a top hat which on contact, sets up a stage with the hapless enemy as the star, and playing a dancing mini-game that deals more damage to them the better you do. You also inflict them with more elemental attacks, and a perfect super can even be a One Hit Kill Finishing Move.
- In The Sims 3, you can give your Sims the "Insane" trait, which lets them to do all sorts of hilariously ridiculous things, like fishing in swimming pools (and actually catching fish this way!).
- With Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 on this list, how can we forget GLaDOS from Portal, who reassures you that The Weighted Companion Cube "will never threaten to stab you, and, in fact, cannot speak" and "is probably incapable of feeling much pain"
- Henry Hatsworth In The Puzzling Adventure stars a awesomely British Adventurer Archaeologist who summons a Steampunk Humongous Mecha via the Power of Teatime. His dialogue consists of classic British cliches such as "Good show!" or "Poppycock!".
- Dwarf Fortress. The whole freaking thing.
- Adventure Mode takes it Up To Eleven...even the rules are Crazy Awesome, such as armour-piercing throwing sand and the use of entire skeletons as melee weapons.
- Anything and everything by Tim Schafer.
- Bayonetta. A Meganekko Porn Star Librarian/Witch who uses high heel guns and an outfit made of her hair she can use to attack with? What more can you ask for?
- Bioware is good at creating Crazy Awesome characters.
- Baldurs Gate. Minsc, and his Miniature Giant Space Hamster, Boo.
Minsc: Butt kicking for goodness!
Minsc: I grow tired of shouting battle cries when fighting this mage. Boo will finish his eyeballs once and for all, so he does not rise again! Evil, meet my sword! SWORD, MEET EVIL!!
Minsc: What? Boo is outraged! See his fury! It's small, so look close. Trust me, it's there.
Minsc: Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!
- Knights Of The Old Republic. HK-47.
HK-47: Statement: It's just...you have all these squishy parts, master. And all that water. How the constant sloshing doesn't drive you mad, I have no idea.
HK-47: My master had quite the collection of tortured individuals that seemed unable to confront their basic personality conflicts. Let me cite some specific examples. Mockery: (as Carth's voice) 'Oh, master, I do not trust you! I cannot trust you or anyone ever again!' Mockery: (as Bastila] 'Oh, master, I love you, but I hate all you stand for, but I think we should go press our slimy, mucus-covered lips together in the cargo hold!' Such pheromone-driven human responses never cease to decrease the charge in my capacitors and make me wish I could press a blaster pistol to my behavior core and pull the trigger.
- Jade Empire. Black Whirlwind, to whom killing is like drinking wine.
Black Whirlwind: These Lotus Assassins really aren't all that tough; they're just trained well. I've seen men a lot tougher than this run scared from a fight, but not these guys. They're like well-trained dogs, and just as dangerous... though they smell slightly better, and I'm willing to bet they wouldn't taste as good over a plate of rice. Damn it, now I'm getting hungry... and thirsty. Let's get this finished so I can get something to drink.
- Two words: Tytree. Crowe. Imagine Kamina with the happiness, optimism and Hot Blooded-ness turned Up To Eleven, meaning that he never gets depressed and is the only character who has the balls required to give Veigue a much-needed What The Hell Hero speech. And if that still doesn't convince you, then bare his fighting style in mind: martial arts in conjunction with an arm-mounted crossbow. And one of his Mystic Artes involves him turning his crossbow into a BIG FRICKIN' WAVE-MOTION GUN! Made OUT OF LIGHTNING!
- Tales Of Hearts took this one step further and gave Hisui two arm-mounted crossbows.
- Barkley Shut Up And Jam Gaiden. The game itself. Period. The premise is so silly it has to be seen to be believed but somehow the game makes it immensely awesome.
Web Comics
- The characters in Penny Arcade both often have Crazy Awesome moments. In fact, Gabe is given that exact title in this comic.
- Tedd of El Goonish Shive. Observe.
- Eddie from Emergency Exit.
- Richard from Looking For Group has a number of Crazy Awesome moments, mostly since he makes the most jokes and pop culture references. He's also a
HeroicSociopath.
- Riff from Sluggy Freelance. His insane inventions malfunction about as often as they work and are usually used for incredibly mundane activities, but they're just so awesome. A paintball gun that drowns the enemy team in paint. The "Gworg" monster. A voice-activated, toast making laser. A catapult that launches "censorizing black bars" to block a female assassin's "distracting nudity."
- The seemingly normal toaster that shoots toast over a dozen feet into the air through walls. He once tried to sell it to a hardware company, but when the CEO tried to try the "Leggo My Eggo" trick fingers were lost. Then he suggested selling it to the military.
- Largo, Dom, and Ed from Megatokyo. Actually the whole series could be crazy awesome, but those three look crazy even to the other inhabitants.
- This troper found a particularly good example today, in which Largo decapitates a zombie... with a giant carrot... from the seat of a three-wheeled muffin cart.
- Any of the major Sparks from Girl Genius probably qualify for this. One memorable quote: "What kind of sparks are you guys? Not one death ray among the lot of you!"
- Jayden and Crusader's resident mad scientist Smic is known for his crazy awesome moments including, but not limited to, harnessing the power of sunspots to fill the house with pizza, firing a cannon using cream as gun powder and defeating an alkaline super-monster using his bare hands. He is also extremely British.
- Dude Guy in the Nsider comic Shy Guy Tale was regarded by fans as the most awesome thing ever. This was lampshaded in one comic by Dude Guy poofing away a would-be attacker, and replying "I'm just that awesome" when asked how he did it.
- In Wilys Defense gives us the one and only Freeze Man! To name a few things, his first line in the comic is "Hello, ground! Nice to see you again!", he's hilariously violent for the sole reason that he's just plain insane, Satan lives in his head, he constantly refers to himself as "Batman", and he's aware that he's both in a TV show and a webcomic.
Heat Man: Alright. As a token of my awesomeness, I'm going to give you twenty seconds to answer my questions. 1) Who in the name of ME are you? 2) In what way are you NOT a complete Me-damn fairy? And most importantly... 3) Why are you not on your knees and bowing before my greatness? You have twenty seconds, lower being! Get a-answerin'.
Freeze Man: Oi oi, just twenty? That seems like a very low amount of time to be "a-answerin'" your inqiries. 1) The name I am known by is BATMAN. 2) I don't say ' HEY! LISTEN!' every 3.1415 seconds! 3) Probably because I have a limited amount of poses, and so I don't have a 'bow down before your greatness' pose.
- Katarakis from Starslip. He tried to take over the world with art, visited the formation of the universe, and destroyed the timeline and the site itself with a spork.
- Both Killroy and Brandon in Killroy And Tina, which is probably why they get along so well.
- Elan of The Order Of The Stick, as demonstrated in the arc starting here.
- Also Belkar, from the very beginning. Sexy shoeless god of war indeed...
- Jim of Darths And Droids with his Mind Screw plan for freeing Anakin in episode 1.
- In Schlock Mercenary, we have Corporal Pibald, a soldier who's either completely insane or a very good actor. Oh, and he makes high explosives in his cabin.
- Path To Greater Good has Burk. He would like you to know that he is "The Future".
Bandit Leader: "THAT DOESN'T EVEN MEAN ANYTHING!"
- Dan Mc Ninja, the Doctor's father from The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja, who at one point lit himself on fire because ninjas can't catch you when you're on fire. Frans Rayner also gets points for testing out that theory by lighting two of his mooks on fire.
Minion: You're not trying to catch them, sir?
- Try Doctor Mc Ninja himself, as well as his whole family, his sidekick, his mentor the Ben Franklin clone, Dracula, the Mayor, his college superhero team and his motorcycle. The only person who isn't crazy awesome is his ex-girlfriend.
- Having noticed his own reputation for creating such characters, the author finally said "screw it" and created King Radical. He's a king of the "cereal mascot" variety from an alternate universe called the Radical Land who became the leader of the Cumberland *
Population: 21,518 mafia after sealing away the evil unicorn king Sparklelord. He routinely rides his motorcycle over alligator pits, has trumpeters on skateboards announcing his presence, and eats only fresh, locally produced organics, prepared simply and with passion.
- How about Joe Chaos, from Another Gaming Comic? He's notorious for holding onto anything - anything, including cursed items - and using it against the DM later, such as using the slightly-broken rules for choking to give himself time against a poison attack with a cursed Necklace of Choking. On top of all the rest, he's also Crazy Prepared, ridiculously intelligent, and recieved Training From Hell in the art of playing Dungeons And Dragons. His nickname comes from the time he used a cursed Gauntlet of Rust to completely negate a kyton - a demon that attacks with metal chains. Joe's name isn't even Joe. It's Irving.
- Dave's Bro from the MS Paint Adventure Homestuck. He's STRIFEing his katana wielding brother by ninja-ing around so fast he can't be seen. What is he using to strife? Li'l Cal
- The unnamed character wearing a hat from XKCD.
Web Original
- Void Dogs has Regan Bard, a resident of Cloud Cuckooland who is also a Crazy Prepared Bad Ass berserker who can turn almost anything into a bomb.
- Gavin becomes quite literally Crazy Awesome towards the end of KateModern. Becoming a Fourth Wall Observer is definitely part of it, as is a certain scene involving a pen.
- In the League Of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions Mr. Absurd, once when escaping through a portable hole he reached back through the hole, grabbed the edge & pulled the hole through the hole so they couldn't be followed.
- Jade Sinclair, aka Generator, of the Whateley Universe. What has she not done? She has defeated opponents with her flying Hello Kitty compact. She once defeated a guy in power armor who was holding her hostage by impaling herself on his knife. She took over part of a Syndicate hardsite by making everyone think she had turned dead thugs into zombies. She let a Mad Scientist experiment on her, including he cut her foot off! And she let him do it. She got better. When she shouted, "People! I am not crazy! And the voice in my head agrees with me!" her friends laughed, because it's exactly true. Is there something more crazy and awesome than just Crazy Awesome?
- This troper nominates Jericho. he's a blind devisor who purposefully makes his devises malfunction just for fun... and wears an assortment of clothes specifically designed to clash with EVERYTHING in EXISTENCE. Did we mention his best friends are a veloci raptor kid and and a Naga mage? and a golem girl?
- This same troper also nominates the newly arrived Thorn, who manipulates ectoplasm... which lets him do just about anything. When he makes an apology, he makes an apology...
“WHAT can I ever do to assuage your pain?” He rummaged around in his golf bag, producing a large red squid, a model of the Eiffel Tower, an inflated life raft, a bat that flew off, a huge lambent blue diamond, the Maltese Falcon, the Holy Grail, Aladdin’s lamp, a green lantern, a sword that might have been Excalibur, a sled with ‘Rosebud’ painted on it, and he finished off by pulling the Ark of the Covenant out with great effort. “Ah!” He dug deep into the bag and pulled out two perfect white roses. He handed the roses to the twins. When the girls took the flowers, they erupted into a glorious shower of glittering white butterflies that wafted up and disappeared. “A moment of whimsy, in the hopes that it might lighten your heavy hearts.”
He straightened up and adjusted the fit of his Edwardian clothes, which were back to *ahem!* ‘normal’. “A gentleman never wittingly gives offense. But fear not, I have learned my lesson, and I shall strive to never repeat my odious blunder. In the future, I will deport myself with grace, decorum and refinement.”
And then he roller-skated off.
- The protagonist of the "Dad's Home" series by Sakupen. For starters, he can pull a multitude of weapons from the back of his throat. He is also capable of destroying an entire mall within minutes, fighting off nearly the entire police force, destroying several expensive objects and robots, and escaping all blame thanks to the sheer awesomeness of his actions. No, I do not mean he simply escapes. He literally stupifies everyone to the point where they don't even care that he went on a rampage.
- Also, his head catches on fire. Seriously, what's up with that?
Western Animation
- The Justice League Unlimited version of The Question is a conspiracy nut who mutters teen pop songs under his breath while breaking into government facilities, interrogates a man with boy band music, hits people with computer monitors after he's done hacking, and runs over Parademons in his car. Upon being interrogated:
Interrogator: Tell me what you know!
The Question: The plastic caps on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
- Vinnie from Biker Mice From Mars comes across as this.
- Coop (and sometimes Jamie) on Megas XLR. I can think of no other description for a man that destroyed an alien mothership by teleporting a slushie into it. Actually, the whole show is Crazy Awesome. The fact that it's a show about a giant robot car should tip you off.
- Only Ms. Frizzle could get away with putting children in mortal danger on the inside of a magical school bus. And this is why she is better than you.
- Freakazoid is pretty much the Anthropomorphic Personification of Crazy Awesome. He's got a Freakmobile, the ability to travel through Cyberspace, and can turn into lightning, but prefers to get around by throwing up his arms and making whooshing noises. He's got super strength, but will more often than not defeat his opponents by confusing them into submission or whining at them until they run away. As the theme song puts it:
He drives the villains crazy, 'cause he's a lunatic!
- In the one-shot Jonny Quest spoof, Toby Danger, the Race Bannon expy Dash O'Pepper certainly qualifies, down to his perfect impression of Mike Road. "JUST LET ME THROW A BARREL AT IT!"
- The Mask, both in the animation and the original films. If it's not funny, he won't pull it off to beat the Villain of the Week.
- Genie from Aladdin.
- Stork of Storm Hawks. In an episode when the Condor is laid low and being invaded, Stork holes up in the cockpit - which the villains manage to break into anyway. Cue Stork activating innumerable traps, as he mutters about the rest of the Storm Hawks laughing at him for putting defenses in an area of the ship boarding parties won't reach. All of them, incidentally, work without a hitch. Crazy Awesome.
- Although it doesn't always result in success, eponymous Invader Zim invokes this trope on numerous occasions, such as flattening a city with a water balloon, altering the past with rubber piggies, and setting a giant hamster loose in the city to create havoc.
- GIR also fits this trope - heck, pretty much the entire cast does. Not so much Db. Definitely Gaz though.
- Wreck-Gar dares to be stupid.
- The Joker, because he can't be mentioned enough times. "I should've picked the fat guy."
- Don't forget The Joker.
- King Bumi - there is no end to his crazy awesome shenanigans.
Aang: Bumi, you're a mad genius!
- Red Hood. Considering he's an alternate (good) version of the Joker, it stands to reason that he'd also be crazy awesome, and he definitely is. He laughs maniacally while being tortured, saying, "Oooh, tickles!"
- Jade from Jackie Chan Adventures. She is the epitome of the trope. I mean, she replicated herself several thousand times to beat Po Kung the Mountain Demon; She uses Stealth Hi Bye in every episode, along with Off Screen Teleportation.She tears a page out of the Book of History for crying out loud!!!
- Izzy from Total Drama Island is definitely crazy, and definitely awesome.
- Many of the Looney Tunes.
- Screwy Squirrel
Truth In Television
- Joshua Norton, AKA the "Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico" was celebrated in the mid-to-late 1800s as one of these by the people of San Francisco, and is generally considered the patron saint of lovable crazies everywhere. The residents of San Fracisco treated "Norton I" as if he really were an Emperor, and some 30,000 people attended his funeral. Heck, we have even put him on the Crowning Moment Of Awesome page!
- His funeral was also marked by a total eclipse of the sun.
- He shows up in fiction on occasion - including a memorable appearance in Sandman where he gets the better of no lesser a personage than Desire of the Endless through his unique brand of crazy. "His madness... His madness keeps him sane." describes it rather well.
- He also appears in several of Christopher Moore's novels, including A Dirty Job and Bloodsucking Fiends.
- Richard Garriott, the game designer behind the Ultima series. His house is a D&D style castle, he insists on being called 'Lord British', and he's been into space.
- Werner Herzog once ate his own shoe as part of a bet to encourage another filmmaker to finish his documentary. He stood down an actor who was shooting at the crew. He pulled Joaquin Phoenix out of a crashed car. His reaction to being shot at by a sniper with an air rifle? "It's not a significant bullet." ! He also met a principal actor in Strotzec while on a roadtrip to dig up Ed Gein's mother's grave. Also also, he thinks chickens are the devil.
- Lt. Colonel Jack Churchill, who fought in WWII with a longbow and claymore, while carrying his bagpipes. When he was eventually captured, he pretty much just walked out, and kept walking until he reached allies. When the war was over, he simply expressed disappointment, citing that he could have kept going for 20 years.
- On the same note, Walter Cowan, 1871-1956. British admiral who first served as a gunboat commander in Queen Victoria's time. He then commanded a battlecruiser in World War One. It is said that he spent his leave in the trenches and cried when the war ended. In WW 2, he helped train the Commandos and was captured in Africa, attacking an Italian tank solely with his revolver. On being repatriated out of mercy, he rejoined and fought again in Italy in 1944.
- Hunter S Thompson.
- The Molasses Gang was a gang from New York during the 1870s. They would ask the owner of the shop to fill their hat with molasses (saying it was a bet to see how much would fit). When the hat was full the gangster would shove the hat onto the shop owner and take what they wanted with no resistance. Also Refuge In Audacity, they were able to do it for six years because nobody took them seriously.
- Mark Cuban took a desire to follow Indiana Hoosier basketball from Dallas and turned it into a multi-billion dollar internet business. Then he got out of that business just before the bubble burst. Then he lives out every sports fan's dream by buying his favorite team just because he doesn't like how it's being run. Within a couple of years he turns the Dallas Mavericks from the NBA laughingstock to a contender. Oh, and he's still willing to act like a die-hard fan in the stands even though the league can fine him for his remarks.
- So long as he stays the hell out of the film industry, the guy seems to be doing alright for a nutcase.
- The Who
- Most notably Keith Moon, who embodied the "crazy drummer" stereotype.
- And you know what? Weird Al Yankovic. This is a guy who writes songs about bologna and Star Wars, turns popular music into polka songs on every album and once made a movie where Michael Richards blasted a kid in the face with a firehose. He's had ten gold albums, six platinums, three grammys, nine nominations and has outlasted many of the ''real'' artists he's parodied.
- And provides the voice for the aforementioned Wreck-Gar.
- Wrong. Eric Idle provides the voice of Wreck-Gar.
- Not a correction, but a clarification: Eric Idle voiced Wreck-Gar in Transformers: The Movie (1986), whereas Weird Al voiced him in the Transformers: Animated series.
- Josh Siegartel is a perfect example of someone who is Crazy Awesome. He would go into battle at the top of a tank screaming out with his own weapon "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!"◊ or give people the encouraging advice that "It could be worse, it could be on fire!" His dream pet would be a spider the size of a large dog, and act like a puppy. Sometimes he slips into talking like his Dungeons & Dragons character, Prof, using one way synonyms and choosing to use the perfect tense. And instead of using a car or normal vehicle, he will ride around in a a gelatinous cube, that when touched can poison you! Sounds like a fun thing to ride around in.
- Singer, model and actress Grace Jones fits this trope from beginning to end. She's well-known for playing May Day in the 007 movie A View To A Kill, in which her character jumped off the Eiffel Tower in a parachute. Most awesomely, this is something she'd probably do in real life. If you're skeptic about this, just check out this picture◊, used as cover art for her album Island Life, or this picture◊, or watch this video. Or search for anything related to her. She's just that awesome. Oh, by the way, she's 61.
- Philippe Petit, tightrope walker.
- If Top Gear is to be believed, Finnish drivers are fucking crazy! (Though, admittedly, crazy by necessity.) Yet that is exactly why they're such good racing drivers.
- John "Doc" Holliday was once an ordinary dentist from Georgia. Then he contracted tuberculosis. He headed out west, believing the dry climate would be good for him and, no longer fearing death, became a card player and a gunfighter. So Yeah.
- Bjork and Tori Amos are both eccentric in different ways, and that's what makes them crazy awesome.
- Pink. Alecia Moore == Crazy Awesome, especially in concert. She did a world concert tour for her "I'm Not Dead" album, and at every venue sang "Fingers" while doing a 'Cirque de Soleil' act forty feet above an ''unpadded'' stage. With no net if she fell. Even real Cirque de Soleil performers don't perform songs at the same time! This tour, she's singing a song and simultaneously doing a trapeze act that starts with her being lifted into the air blindfolded.
- Mr. T. The man legally changed his name to Mr. T so people would have to call him "mister".
- Van Canto is an a cappella band. A heavy metal a cappella band.
- French climber Alain Robert climbs tall buildings as a hobby, including most of the world's tallest high rises. Without any safety whatsoever. He's regularly arrested as a result of his antics. The most incredible thing is : the man suffers from permanent vertigo. A condition he got as a teenager, by falling from a height of 15 meters and surviving. Twice in the same year.
- Skippy, of Skippy's List: The 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army.
48. I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.
58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we’ve all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid.
72. May not wear gimp mask while on duty.
100. Claymore mines are not filled with yummy candy, and it is wrong to tell new soldiers that they are.
Close Truth In Television
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