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Squirrel Genius works in mysterious ways.
This character would be nothing more than The Ditz, except they have one area of expertise in which no one can beat them. When that skill or talent is needed, they suddenly switch gears from airheadedness to hypercompetency. Sometimes they don't even know that they're doing it.
Such a character who is well respected may become a Bunny-Ears Lawyer. An extreme form may border on The Rainman. Genius Ditz is closely related to Idiot Savant. Contrast with Cloud Cuckoolander.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
Comic Books
- Deadpool probably counts as one. Sure, he's certifiably insane, completely unpredictable, constantly breaks the fourth wall and never ever ever stops talking — ever — but when it comes to fighting, shooting, stabbing and generally causing mayhem, he's one of the best in the whole Marvel Universe.
- Several Donald Duck stories would have the titular duck discovering an previously inexpressed aptitude at some obscure field, like counting objects or instrument playing.
- He is also often shown to be quite a competent mechanic.
- He has kept that car running for quite some time.
- Modesty Blaise's lover Dr Pennyfeather, a bungling but surprisingly efficient doctor.
- In Doom Patrol, Flash Forward is The Smart Guy and a Deadpan Snarker who often shows a greater capacity for lateral or existential thought than his teammates. He's also a poor kid from rural Alabama who dropped out of school in the 7th grade.
Film
- Rocket Man. The titular character is a complete moron with anything that isn't related to aeronautics or astronautics. He's also pretty good at holding his breath.
- Ragetti in the Pirates Of The Caribbean series is illiterate and lacking in common sense, but behind that wooden eye lies the brain of a philosopher, scholar, and man who knows the original Scandinavian pronunciation of "Krakan".
- He's also the one who figures out how to free Calypso.
- Will was one of these in the first movie: though not a complete moron, he's pretty slow on the take and in way over his head. Until it's time for a sword fight, in which case, your ass is grass.
- Elle Woods of Legally Blonde maintained a 4.0 GPA (albeit as a fashion major), frequently came up with rather "creative" events for her sorority, and got a 179 on her LSATs. And while still a law student, she literally wore bunny ears to what she'd been told was a costume party. Her encyclopedic knowledge of hair care saved her first client from death. (Based On A True Story or something; the author of the original semi-autobiographical book admitted she picked Stanford Law School [the film relocated the story to Harvard] because it was close to her favorite national mall.)
- Cleverly played with in the film Fool's Gold with the character of dim heiress Gemma. The female lead has been (impatiently) coaching Gemma she is smarter than she acts, so when Gemma has a sudden brainwave as the heroes return to their yacht the audience naturally expects some amazing insight that will find the treasure they have been searching for while confirming Gemma is more than just an airhead. Actually it turns out to be that Gemma has only just realized that the name of her father's ship ('The Precious Gem') is, get this, similar to her name.
- The 2008 movie version of Get Smart casts Maxwell Smart as something like this in that; whilst he's notably clumsy and overconfident as a field agent, his abilities as an intelligence analyst are remarked upon by many characters as being the finest in the agency. They also come in useful in the field; his in-depth understanding of and empathy with a Punch Clock Villain enables Smart to give him some relationship advice — in return, the henchman spares Max and 99 and later tips Max off about a bomb in Los Angeles. Smart is also presented as being both surprisingly cunning and resourceful and a crack-shot, proving his usefulness to Agent 99.
- The Steve Martin reboot of The Pink Panther series portrays Inspector Clouseau as a clumsy Ted Baxter type prone to brilliant strokes of inspiration.
- Rebecca Woodward in the film version of Confessions of a Shopaholic, who is genuinely ditzy but (to her own surprise) proves brilliant at explaining prudent finance to lay people through shopping analogies.
Literature
- In Georgette Heyer's novel Cotillion, Freddy Standen is generally (if fondly) regarded as a complete idiot by most of his family. However, he has impeccable manners and his shrewd knowledge of social niceties make him extremely competent at dealing with the situations the heroine finds herself in. As she notes, Freddy may not have brains, but he does have address, which is far more useful.
- Fred Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, a long-time copper (who is in fact at the age he should have retired but has decided he doesn't want to) who is not very intelligent, but has peerless instincts as a Watchman.
- Brutha from Small Gods can't read or write, but has a perfect memory.
- Stanley from Going Postal appears to be raised by wolves (by peas, actually) but has a fanatical devotion to pins, and later, post stamps.
- Lofty of Monstrous Regiment silently shuns everything and everyone except one longtime friend, right up until there is a pressing need to have something burnt, blown up, or otherwise combusted.
- Mr. Tulip in The Truth is a hulking bruiser who could probably be outsmarted by Detritus on a warm day. He's so dumb, in fact, that his efforts to cultivate a drug habit have resulted in him snorting baking soda, washing powder, powdered chalk, etc. and never knowing the difference. He doesn't even swear properly; he just drops an "-ing" three times in the average sentence, and it's not a euphemism for anything. Show the man a work of art, however, and you'll suddenly have a giant, slurry-mouthed, red-nostriled expert on your hands.
- At the Super Hero School Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, one of the teachers in the Magical Arts department is Circe. No, not some superpowered woman using the codename "Circe". The Circe, who's thousands of years old. She's a brilliant mage with what seems like amazing precognitive and postcognitive powers... which, after thousands of years of this, make her wander around talking about stuff that has nothing to do with what's going on currently. "I told them not to leave the Book Depository unprotected, but..."
- A better example might be Solange, who is stupid enough to constantly get herself into jams that even her money can't buy her out of. But she's got a real flair for finding ways of using her mutant powers, even when the mutant power she's using is one she stole from someone else.
- Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter novels can't seem to cast even the simplest spell without a critical fumble... until he discovers that he's crazy skilled at Herbology.
- And of course, those badass levels he took around the 5th book helped a bit.
- Professor Sybill Trelawney is both this trope and its inverse: she is apparently utterly incompetent at Divination, her own field of study. However, upon occasion, she is capable of oracular predictions about the future, which, due to happening in a trance, she knows nothing about, and refuses to believe in when she is told what it was that she predicted.
- Ron is Book Dumb but amazing at... chess. At least he gets an Eigen Plot for it.
- Freddy Arbuthnot from the Lord Peter Wimsey novels is a classic Genius Ditz, whose talent is finance.
- Lord Peter himself comes across as this, though that is explicitly stated to be a coping strategy for the post-traumatic stress he acquired in the Great War.
- Julia Larwood of Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries is presented as a highly skilled tax barrister who, apart from regularly getting lost in the city she lives in, completely forgets to pay her own taxes.
Live Action TV
- Ricky in the Canadian comedy series Trailer Park Boys is an absolute moron most of the time, but whenever he and best friend Julian are at risk of being arrested by the police, he suddenly becomes a tactical genius, able to generate fake evidence and alibis that get them off the hook 99% of the time. Nevertheless, almost every season ends with the pair being arrested and sent to jail.
- Ricky's also an expert when it comes to growing marijuana and converting it to hashish. He and Julian make an effective team when it comes to dealing drugs — Julian handles the business side of the operation, while Ricky grows and harvests the dope crop.
- Waldo of Family Matters. After spending a couple seasons as The Ditz bordering on the Cloud Cuckoolander, he surprises everyone when he takes a home economics course and proves a natural genius as a chef. His mom is a lousy cook, so he had to fend for himself.
- Rom, from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, appears to be a total idiot for much of the time — until he reveals a hidden, and borderline savant-like, talent for engineering. His son Nog also proves himself to both have his uncle's business acumen and a knack for engineering as well.
- Fargo North, Decoder in The Electric Company is clumsy, egotistical, and obsessed with sandwiches. However, as his name implies, he is a great decoder... well, actually, sometimes he isn't even good at that. Sometimes he forgets where the period goes, for example (this is deliberately done so that the kids at home have a chance to figure it out themselves). Nevertheless, the rest of the characters always turn to him for all their decoding needs.
- Michael Scott, from the American version of The Office is childish, selfish, egotistical, deeply insecure and lonely, and an all around buffoon with no managerial skills whatsoever. He also demonstrates on occasion that he is a superb salesman who is roundly beloved by his clients, which is what got him promoted in the first place. (David Brent, his counterpart in the original UK series, lacks any such redeeming features).
- Carter from Hogans Heroes is enthusiastic but generally oblivious and he tends to get teased for his cluelessness — until they need something blown up.
- The (radio) newsreader in In The Red is invariably stoned and away with the fairies — right up to the second she goes on air, when she suddenly turns completely sane and professional.
- Shawn Spencer of Psych tends to be immature and goofy and annoys the heck out of everyone he works with... but they put up with him because underneath all the psychic hoopla, his Hyper Awareness makes him a brilliant detective.
- Likewise, Adrian Monk of Monk is normally unable to function in society due to his severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and fear of just about everything. However, once he sets foot in a crime scene, he can almost instantly solve the crime with the smallest or most overlooked pieces of evidence.
- May be Truth in Television to an extent. This troper's husband has OCD and is spookily good at finding things that are lost, for example. And finding bugs in programs. (Unfortunately the beneficial elements of OCD are what make it so hard to get rid of for good.)
- Monk's brother exhibits similar qualities: He has an extreme case of agoraphobia that prevents him from (nearly) ever leaving his house (as well as a related phobia that prevents him from entering the study of their father), but is evidently a highly skilled writer of technical manuals.
- London Tipton, of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, may be this when it comes to chess. However, since This Troper has only ever seen her play Maddie, it may be Maddie's incompetence.
- However in another episode she is able to alter a nurse's uniform into a ballroom dancing costume in a matter of minutes.
- Lord John Marbury from The West Wing is a specialist on India who is prone to great insight on the subject. Too bad that the rest of the time, he's a pompous airbag who can't even keep Leo's name straight. Then again, this may be more Obfuscating Stupidity (coupled with a mischievous desire to needle Leo — he also frequently claims to have mistaken Leo for the White House butler) than anything that belongs on this page. His persona does seem to radically shift when he gets serious, including getting people's names right, making it seem at least partly a strategy.
- Joey from Friends is dim, shallow and a fairly bad actor, but he has an amazing talent to attract girls. It helps that he's blandly pretty and can be quite earnest.
- Mr. Bean from Mr Bean on some occasions but most of the time he comes across as just The Ditz.
- Mr. Bean's Diary includes the character's school certificate on which, among others, the following marks are given:
Chemistry - 53% - He is inventive. As a result, form. SB is lucky to be alive.
Physics - 65% - Very encouraging. A boy died when co-operating with his lie-detector experiment, as you know, but neverthenless the exam results are excellent.
Geography - 54% - A suprisingly good result considering he only succeded in finding the classroom twice this term.
Art - 58% - He draws well, but has difficulty with nudes (looking at them).
and finally:
Mathematics - 94% - An obnoxious, self-satisfied, self-centred, shabby, dribbling, bone-idle, toadying cow-put of a pupil; his most revolting quality being that he is quite, quite brilliant.
- Kramer on Seinfeld is a prime example of the character whose life is a complete shambles (no job, no source of income, no sense of stability or direction, and no clue how or if his situation is ever going to change) and who would seem to be a perfect male incarnation of The Ditz (as he doesn't really appear to be concerned about any of the above), were it not for the fact that, as at least one major character has remarked, his "...whole life is a fantasy camp. People should plunk down $2000 to live like him for a week. Sleep, do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating... that's a fantasy camp." He might also be considered an example of an Idiot Savant.
- 3rd Rock from the Sun: while most if not all of the "Solomon family" members come across as partially or completely socially inept, this is in actuality because they are aliens living on Earth "undercover", and despite lacking a fundamental understanding of social interaction are in reality thousands or perhaps even millions of years more advanced than the humans around them.
- The exception would be Harry Solomon, played by French Stewart, who seems to be genuinely mentally challenged but is at the same time irresistibly attractive to human females and who repeatedly finds himself involved in intimate relationships without even having been trying (granted, this would probably be more of an unconscious talent than a skill were it not for the fact that Harry himself has commented — with pride — on his own promiscuity). Like Kramer from Seinfeld (see above), Harry might also be classified as an Idiot Savant.
- Then there's Donna Noble. One Word: Supertemp.
- Dean Winchester can turn a broken Walkman into a fully functional electromagnetic frequency (EMF) meter. He rebuilt his incredibly rare 1967 Chevy Impala after she was annihilated when a semi ran into her in the Season 1 finale. What can his book-smart, Stanford-educated, younger brother Sam do? Hotwire a car and drive it (and Dean can probably do that better than him).
- Constable Turnbull of Due South is eccentric even compared to Fraser (the Bunny Ears Lawyer series lead), is easily flustered, sometimes clearly isn't operating on the same wavelength as the rest of the cast, and doesn't perform very impressively at his actual job most of the time, but shows skill at cooking, art, and country music trivia.
- Doug from Scrubs. Bonus points because it's his inadequacy (in being a doctor) that makes him such a genius in the morgue at figuring out what killed patients.
- And there's also JD, who's a great doctor, but otherwise a complete idiot.
- Reese from Malcolm In The Middle is almost Too Dumb To Live, but an amazing cook. His brother Dewey is much less of an idiot, but his exceptional musical talent still stands out.
- Moss from The IT Crowd. He's great at computers, he's got a great memory... and yet, he's rather seriously lacking in common sense.
Video Games
- Goombella from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door talks like a Valley Girl, and seems to be every bit the cutesy airhead this would imply... but she also has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the game world and its inhabitants, further aided by a book that has facts on every enemy you face, no matter how obscure.
- Both Zell Dincht and Selphie Tilmitt come across as being not quite the brightest bulbs, or at least having very short attention spans, but the two of them turn out to be the most technologically savvy characters in the player's party and the designated pilots of the Cool Ship (after the party runs off with it courtesy of Selphie sitting down at the controls: "It just kind of took off!").
- Final Fantasy X's Rikku, often clumsy (More so in X-2), can mix items to create deadly weapons. And she's a talent thief.
- This is almost assuredly obfuscating stupidity, sense she's also a skilled mechanic and expresses pretty deep insight into matters on several occasions. Her brother, named oddly 'Brother', is a better example, as he's a total social inept, can barely speak the common language on the planet (granted, he didn't even know it til two years ago, but he's the only bilingual member of his people to have speaking problems), and oftentimes he just misses the point entirely, but he nearly singlehandedly excavated and repaired the airship he's letting you tool around in in the second game.
- Kang the Mad from Jade Empire is brilliant when it comes to making things fly and explode. In is his own words, "The things he flies tend to survive! The things he explodes... not so much." Go to him for anything else, and he's pretty well useless.
- Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island series has a fair share of wit and an uncanny ability to craft incredibly convoluted and improbable solutions to almost any problem he is faced with. He's also so ditzy he regularly makes other characters wonder how he can function in everyday life.
- He can also hold his breath for ten minutes. Which happens to come in handy on many occasions, given the man is a pirate.
- This troper would like to nominate Andy from Advance Wars, the only mechanical genius who doesn't know that there's more than one continent! Or what an airport is, apparently.
- It's more that, for the sake of the tutorial, they superglued an idiot ball to him. Unfortunately, perhaps they forgot to take it off him again for the rest of the game.
- In Kingdom Hearts, Goofy takes this role. He tends to be one of the more observant of the group, albeit speaking as if it's entirely obvious to everyone else. For example, he's the only one that picks up that Mulan is female at first.
- Alan Probe, the star of Amateur Surgeon. While he's an incredibly talented surgeon capable of performing complicated operations in mere minutes with the simplest of tools (like a pizza cutter and a stapler), and eventually became globally famous and wealthy because of his tremendous skill (with feats such as operating on a Captain Ersatz of Superman and somehow operating on a car that suddenly arrived from the past), the Distant Finale Christmas edition is quick to remind the player that he's still an utter moron.
- City of Villains has Dr. Aeon. He would be a serious threat, if he weren't so scatter-brained. As it is, he usually ends up fouling up his own plots. Plus, he gave us the Mission Editor. You have to like him for that.
- Touka of Utawarerumono is apparently an incredibly competent fighter who can run rings around Oboro and Kouro. She's also a rather goofy airhead who's even denser than Hakuoro and a little too eager to be a bodyguard.
- Arcueid of Tsukihime, even if nobody realizes until Shiki gets involved with her. She has no social skills due to her upbringing and Ciel is even astonished that she can actually speak. Apart from her super strength, Marble Phantasm and knowledge of the occult she's a Cloud Cuckoolander with no life experience. Actual intelligence is pretty difficult to pin down because of how, well, ditzy she is. If she's not killing vampires, she's somewhere between a hyperactive six-year-old and someone a year or three older than Shiki.
- Fire Emblem has Mia, an extreme Genki Girl who's so oblivious that she sincerely believes that a sickly Staff Dude is destined to be her rival and challenges him to duels on the spot. However, she's very talented with a sword, both in gameplay and in story, as she's allowed to stay with the hero's personal team permanently after the end of the story, and was one of the few teammates to be directly praised by him in the sequel.
- Well, there is a scene when she asks Ike to go all-out against her because she thinks this is a good training regimen: when Ike fights seriously, he slaughters armies and kills gods, but for Mia, this is just the kind of extra challenge she needs to stay in shape.
- Tess from Jak And Daxter seems like a typical Dumb Blonde... until you need a BFG. Then she'll whip out her newest model, regalling you with all its cool features.
- Utsuho Reuiji of the Touhou games fits this trope, especially in the fighting game Touhou Hisoutensoku. She's a literal birdbrain (a hell raven) who seems to forget what she was thinking after a few seconds and acts like a total airhead, yet she seems to have a vast knowledge of nuclear physics. She's been doing an excellent job of keeping the nuclear reactor that the Moriya shrine has set up from exploding, at least.
Webcomics
- The ferret, Mr Socks, from Commander Kitty
 is the ship's engineer. "He may talk like a babbling boob, but he's a scientific genius."
- Largo from Megatokyo is a pretty good example. He has, at best, a tenuous hold on reality, but he's a genius when it comes to assembling and programming computers.
- Ping also qualifies, being an incredibly complex artificial intelligence system, combat droid and medical diagnosis unit that has been programmed to be a dizzy Shallow Love Interest. The other characters continue to express surprise when she suddenly displays detailed knowledge of her internal make up, no matter how often it happens.
- Fighter in 8-Bit Theater often displays a childish stupidity of sorts as well as immense naivety. However he is at times capable of making comments and having thoughts that suggest a higher intellect than one would believe. And as his name suggests, he's a master of armed combat, capable of safely wielding ludicrous numbers of swords at once, including the normally impossible to wield swordchucks.
- Fighter was a genius for a few comics but then Black Mage stabbed him in the head. He actually managed to store his genius persona in a part of his brain, unfortunately he stored it next to the part that knows everything about swords. The problem being that he really, really, really likes swords.
- Similarly, Mega Man in Bob And George is an idiot most of the time, but when he's fighting a Robot Master (or even thinks he is), he comes up with effective winning strategies. This can be explained in that his functions are 1. defeat the robot master and 2. be an idiot, so he always does the second except when he can't since he has to do the first.
- Captain Kaff Tagon of Schlock Mercenary is a complete idiot regarding most things, misunderstanding matters social and scientific, and letting his greed get the better of him on numerous occasions. However, when it regards matters of the military or combat, he's at least highly competent, and perhaps a minor genius. The extensive differences between his aptitudes led to this memorable strip.
- Scarlett from Sequential Art is a ditz who has the amazing capability to build Death Rays. She's also easily distracted by watching the washing machine spin round and round and round, and anything shiny. She is part squirrel after all. Turns out she gets less ditzy and more genius when she's near her "sisters" Amber, Jade, and Violet.
- Celia from Order Of The Stick. She's come up with plans to unite the Azure City resistance, saved Haley from murderous rogues twice using only words and quick thinking, and even managed to win a complicated legal process while still a student well, it was rigged anyway, but none of the lawyers knew that and the opposition was nervous about her skill, but demonstrates that she lacks some ''very'' basic knowledge about humans here. (It's a good thing she didn't try anything exotic with Roy on their date...) Of course, Haley lampshades this.
- For that matter, Elan, who is so Genre Savvy that he could probably recite the entire rest of the comic's plot if he focused hard enough on it. Of course he can't, as Intelligence was most probably his dump stat...
- Several RPG-based comics seem to use a combination of Fighter and Gourry as a template: Hero of RPG World and Karn of Adventurers! come to mind.
- Mei Ling is portrayed this way in The Last Days Of Foxhound.
- Otacon is even worse, spending the entirety of the comic thinking the nuclear equipped walking death-mobile he's building is actually a missile defense system. All the while laughing at GI Fs of Penguins falling into water, believing everything his Corrupt Corporate Executive boss tells him, trying to rationalize the need for making a stealth missile for his pet project, playing with action figures on the job, and misplacing his instruction manual for the aforementioned Death-Mobile.
- This Troper always assumed that Otacon wasn't stupid, but so damn innocent that he couldn't comprehend that people could be that horrible. I mean come on, he thinks the president wouldn't risk the lives of so many people over some remains and money, and that the 'surprise' at the end of the project will be something nice. Even Wolf comments on the fact that if the whole world would be like him, it would be a beautiful place. Beautiful and stupid, but beautiful nonetheless.
- Jim from Darths And Droids acts like an idiot most of the time in his portrayal of Qui-Gon. As it turns out, he's taking a Ph.D. in Geophysics, and simply acts stupid because he roleplays in his downtime and "He likes to turn his brain off."
- Jo Starr from Cheer is a Cloudcuckoo Lander who talks to squirrels. She's also an absolute genius when it comes to analyzing motives and relationships.
- The Law of Purple: Lynnah comes off as this at first, though she proves to have a much more developed personality later on. Her genius ability to is be a Bad Ass Normal Action Girl. A more recently-introduced minor character, Kitty, seems to fit the trope much better, though she does get annoyed when her coworkers at NASA don't always take her seriously as a result.
- Molly in The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob is tremendously knowledgeable on a vast array of subjects. She's just less than a year old and has very little common sense. Combine this naivete with being a Gadgeteer Genius and wacky hijinks ensue.
Web Original
- Keiji Tanaka of Survival Of The Fittest is firmly established to be an utter moron within moments of his entry into V3. However, he has an almost unparalleled skill handling a sword (due to years of practice), to the point where he comes close to defeating an axe-wielding opponent with a broken sabre whilst bleeding to death.
- The new series version of Sir Schmoopy, in Unforgotten Realms. In particular, he is a strategic (and loophole-finding) genius, who has, for example, figured out a way to survive blowing himself into a billion pieces. On purpose.
- Homestar Runner is a bit of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, refers to the star on his trademark shirt as "a pointy duck" and his supreme honesty makes him somewhat naive, but he is the star (no pun intended) athlete on Coach Z's team.
Western Animation
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