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Lord Percy: The fashion today is towards the tiny.
Blackadder: In that case you have the most fashionable brain in London.
"Aren't you happy, Flonne? We finally found somebody dumber than you!"
You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field full of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance.
— Edward Flaherty
The Ditz is a character whose defining characteristic is profound stupidity. Female ditzes tend to be sweet and naive, male ditzes tend to be oafish but lovable. The Ditz is written to appear unintentionally funny. In drama series, he or she provides comic relief.
The person is not a true Ditz unless you are left wondering how someone this stupid could possibly hope to function in modern society. The other characters can also share this view (see Who Would Be Stupid Enough). Unlike The Fool, The Ditz is seldom in any real danger, and luck probably couldn't save him if he or she ever were.
As Wash on Firefly once asked of Jayne (who had ditzy moments but was more of a big dumb tough guy), "How did your brain master human speech? I'm just so curious."
A good looking Ditz (of either sex) might be The Brainless Beauty. An independently wealthy Ditz is an Upper Class Twit. An exceptionally clumsy Ditz is a Dojikko.
A more competent Ditz will often become The Fool. A Ditz who is too moronically optimistic to notice their own hardship is classified as the Pollyanna. Taken to its extreme, the Ditz can devolve into a Cloud Cuckoolander or a Ralph Wiggum.
One reason you can find The Ditz on so many TV shows is that it gives the audience someone to feel superior to. No matter how stupid you might be, you are smarter than The Ditz.
See also Genius Ditz, Obfuscating Stupidity, Dumb Blonde, and The Klutz.
Can overlap with You Suck, but isn't the same thing.
Examples
Anime
- In the image above we have Millefeuille Sakuraba, from Galaxy Angel — the perfect example of The Ditz if there ever was one.
- Floe from Simoun.
- Mihoshi, in the various Tenchi Muyo television series (Flanderized from a Bunny Ears Lawyer/Genius Ditz in the OVAs).
- The title character (and arguably most of the cast) of Excel Saga.
- Kousaka from Genshiken isn't quite as dimwitted as some; his ditz qualifications comes mostly from his utter lack of a filter between his thoughts and his mouth.
- Brutally lampshaded in Elfen Lied. Director Kurama's ditzy secretary, Kisaragi, is decapitated by Lucy in the first 10 minutes of the show. She's literally Too Dumb To Live.
- Joshua Lundgren in Gun X Sword straddles the line between ditz and Cloudcuckoolander. He once looked for Wendy by heading into every women's restroom in a train station, not understanding why the women were screaming until he got arrested for it.
- Kujyou Himeka from Kamichama Karin.
- Yayoi of Koi Koi 7 (the pink-haired one, not the one with the eyepatch.) When standing in the middle of a heated battle with the shots missing her, her only response is "Fireworks!"
- Mahiro Muto from Busou Renkin, after spending time early on as a distressed damsel.
- Isaac and Miria the Bonnie And Clyde pair from Baccano!.
- The characters of Cromartie High School tend to pass the Idiot Ball around quite a bit, but Hayashida is particularly stupid. The Other Wiki describes him as "dumber than a gorilla"—which, considering a gorilla is actually part of the cast, is proven true in the show.
- In his defense, the gorilla is pretty much the smartest member of the class. Yeah. It's that kind of series.
- Himeko from Pani Poni Dash. She's so dumb, she faints upon SEEING English letters, since her brain can't take it.
- These
 ? I think you mean Latin letters.
- Gourry Gabriev in The Slayers.
- Minori from Toradora, described by one erudite forum member as "a 1-inch deep ball of happy idiot".
- Minori is much, much intelligent than she appears. She's quite possibly the smartest character in the entire anime.
- Italy from Axis Powers Hetalia; the name of the series is even a portmanteau of the Japanese words for "hopeless" and "Italy". America is more of the 'lovable/obnoxious oaf' kind.
- Touta Matsuda from Death Note. Most of the time, anyway.
- Misa Misa. She shows some instances of cleverness throughout the show, but whenever she gives up the Death Note, she loses at least 50 IQ points.
- Is Misa a ditz? I always thought that the point behind Misa was that she was far cleverer than she made herself out to be. Also, her greatest intelligent contribution to the series- effectively capturing Higuchi- was when she'd lost her memory of the Death Note. Although, yes, she did know of it.
- Misa is depicted as more than moderately intelligent, but liable to making decisions based on emotion rather than logic. Unfortunately, this is something that all the female characters in the series suffer from, to one extent or another.
- Misa seems like a ditz, but most of that is really Obfuscating Stupidity. In that respect, she actually did better than Light, because everyone could tell Light was smart enough to be Kira.
- Sidoh, the Shinigami, is a particularly sweet example.
- Rino Rando from Best Student Council. Most of the smarts seem to have been given to her snarky hand puppet Pucchan.
- And while we're on the subject of ditzy high school heroines, Tenma Tsukamoto from School Rumble. When you're the lead character of a Love Dodecahedron series, it just sorta comes naturally.
- Usagi "Dumpling Head" Tsukino from Sailor Moon.
- Patty from Soul Eater, who yanks this trope Up To Eleven and to extreme lengths beyond. Her usual reaction to EVERYTHING is to laugh hysterically, slap people and rush straight into very obvious traps. If there are people that consider her anything less than the very literal personification of this trope, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the universe and its population. It's that bad.
- One more thing: she's a ditz with a gun and, apparently, wicked martial arts skills.
- Lizlet, A.K.A. the Teacup Maid, of Omamori Himari.
- Ash from Pokemon, at least intially. He was just plain stupid: Ash: "Hey, that Mankey just stole my hat! *Screams and climbs up a tree after it, while the others just stare at him*" He's gotten a lot better since then.
- So Team Rocket seems to have become cursed to this position ever since.
- Not to mention May and Dawn when they first started as trainers — May was a bit less competent because she didn't really want to train Pokemon, which was before the anime introduced Contests. This even passed on her starter Torchic, who Took A Level In Badass and evolved into Combusken in the middle of Hoenn, eliminating this trait.
- Kanako from Maria Holic is marvelously dumb. She flunked nearly all her exams and, when given notes that "even an idiot could understand" by Sachi, she fails to comprehend even that. She's so single-minded in her pursuit of finding girl-love that she's dim in just about everything else.
- Including the fact that liking girls makes her a lesbian.
- Luffy from One Piece easily falls into this trope. From recognizing mixed animals by their least dominant feature to chalking up anything beyond his comprehension (ie most everything!) as "mystery" things, Luffy is easily the most gullible and air-headed Shounen heroes.
- An extremely ditzy Re-Coder shows up in Code: Breaker. When asked how many people she killed, she says "One, two, three... Ten, I guess, because I have ten fingers! But I'm not in a counting mood, so now I'll kill you painfully!" Notably, she never lapses into a Slasher Smile but remains cheerful and perky throughout.
- Lala of To Love Ru usually acts like this.
- Mahou Sensei Negima has Genki Girl Makie filling this position. Konoka can also act ditzy, but it's almost certainly an act.
- Joshua in Chrono Crusade after he is brainwashed.
- Actually, so is Rosette in the beginning.
- Nai is a boy version of this from Karneval, although he's really a cute little animal. Yogi is more of the "lovable oaf" kind when he's not being serious, which is often.
- The main lead of Angel Densetsu has his moments (it's more a combination of Nice Guy, The Klutz and Selective Obliviousness actually), but then we have the most fearsome and brutal of the Shadowy seven: Hishida Haruka! Yep, she's The Ditz, and The Klutz, and almost a Pollyanna ... she's also the living embodiement of Schrodinger Fu, and she's not even aware of all the destruction she's spreading around.
Comic Books
Real Life
- Not quite unheard of; remember Dan Quayle? Aside from the misspelling of "potato", some of his quotes from The Other Wiki are definitely in territory.
Film
- Tom Hanks plays the Ditz extremely well. A fine example is the main character in Forrest Gump.
- Forrest Gump is really more of The Fool.
- Gracie Allen's Alter Ego Acting personality.
- Babs from the Nick Park movie Chicken Run.
- Jane Horrocks is not unfamiliar with this kind of role. Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous, anyone?
- Cher Horowitz in Clueless... kind of. She's certainly no genius level intellect, and is definitely more than a little naive and 'clueless', but she's savvy enough when she needs to be and has enough wits about her to 'negotiate' her grades with most of her teachers.
- Mr Bean in Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and Mr Bean's Holiday. Also Johnny English to some extent.
- Virtually every character played by famed comedian Lou Costello of the Abbot and Costello comedy duo is a textbook example of this trope. Occasionally he will even lampshade HIMSELF such as when one of his characters in the film "Who Dunnit" turns on a radio and hears "Who's on First?" (one of Abbot and Costello's most famous routines) and immediately turns it off, remarking how stupid the "short, chubby guy" (actually Costello himself) is.
- Bullshot. Rosemary Fenton, Damsel In Distress and daughter of an Absent Minded Professor with a dangerous habit of knocking over equipment in Daddy's lab.
Bullshot: "I see. You intend taking on the Most Dangerous Man in Europe by yourself do you? Have you given a moment's thought as to what you intend using for brains?"
Rosemary: "How dare you! I've done pretty well without brains so far!"
Literature
- Lydia, Kitty, and Mrs. Bennett in Pride And Prejudice, making this Older Than Radio.
- At the Super Hero School Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, one example is the minor character Bubble. Someone comments to herself, "She has a bubble all right. Between her ears." Another good example is the egocentric, villainous Solange, who isn't smart enough to be an effective villain. She uses her powers to absorb an ethereal protagonist and steal said character's powers; she gets run through the Humiliation Conga for her efforts.
- Raziel from Lamb The Gospel According To Biff. The titular protagonist theorizes that he's the origin of dumb blonde jokes.
- Volatilus, the sweet but not too bright little dispatch dragon from the Temeraire books.
Live Action TV
- Edith Bunker from All In The Family was one of these a lot of the time.
- Mrs. Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell, from Gilligans Island.
- Vera from Alice.
- Bull Shannon from Night Court.
- Matthew Brock from News Radio.
- Lowell from Wings.
- Tony Banta from Taxi.
- Coach Ernie Pantuso from Cheers. His replacement on the show, Woody Boyd, was even more of one.
- Phoebe and Joey from Friends (by the end, at least).
- Joey's ditziness especially shines through in the subject of geography - at various points in the series he has thought that the Netherlands was where Peter Pan lives, described Chandler's "going to Yemen" ruse for getting rid of Janice as clever because "it almost sounds like a real place", and gone to the bank to try changing dollars into "Vermont money".
- Ted and Georgette from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
- Monroe from Too Close For Comfort.
- J.D. from Scrubs is an interesting case. Despite being a talented and well educated doctor, he delves into extreme ditz-hood when dealing with certain subjects, including sports (he thinks basketballs come "three to a can" and that Arnold Palmer is famous only for inventing a drink), politics (does not know the difference between a senator and a congressman, and knows Dick Cheney only as "the bald assistant president who has all the heart attacks") and geography (mistakes Austria for Australia and New England for New Zealand).
- There's a couple of issues of Young Justice, set in 'Australia', where the artist apparently made the same mistake (there ain't no mountains like that in Sydney, bub!). And The Simpsons lampshaded it.
- Lucy Moran and Deputy Andy Brennan from Twin Peaks.
- Debralee Scott, in any of her Game Show appearances of the 1970s and early 1980s.
- Dougal from Father Ted (in the UK, a Channel4ID had him forgetting what channel he was promoting).
- Alice from The Vicar Of Dibley.
- Kelso, from That 70s Show.
- Rose, from The Golden Girls.
- A beautiful Double Subversion of this trope occurred in the pilot of Golden Palace, a short-lived and otherwise unremarkable spinoff of The Golden Girls. Rose, confronted by a robber at the front desk of the hotel the girls are running, is too ditzy to even realize that she's being robbed. The robber eventually leaves, with nothing, in frustration. The trope is subverted as Rose immediately calls the police, providing a detailed description of the robber, where he's headed, what kind of car he's driving, etc., ending with "Who is this? Oh, just someone who's not quite as dumb as she appears," much to the delight of the audience. The subversion itself is then subverted as we hear Rose's next line into the phone: "Oh, this is four one one?"
- Bridget Hennesey, from Eight Simple Rules.
- Christmas Noelle "Chrissy" Snow (Suzanne Somers' archetypal role) from Threes Company.
- Kelly Bundy of Married With Children was eventually Flanderized into a brainless trollop who hadn't enough mental capacity to remember her homework and the members of her own family at the same time.
- Her analogue on the horrid MWC knockoff Unhappily Ever After, Tiffany Malloy, was a subversion, being a genius and a Deadpan Snarker, besides looking hot. A virgin to boot. At least one time, she gained an intellectual rival who was blonde, hotter, and spoke in a baby-doll voice.
- Maria from WWE is a good example of a ditz, though this was subverted in the "Trial of Eric Bischoff" episode of WWE Raw, by Maria making a particularly more-intelligent-than-usual speech about Bischoff's failings as a general manager. In a later appearance, Bischoff accused Maria of pretending to be "stupid and sweet" in order to win the fans' favor, which, if true, would make this an example of Obfuscating Stupidity.
- That token black kid on Hip Hop Harry, affectionately nicknamed "Stupid Scott" by Joel McHale of The Soup. Despite being roughly around the age of 12, he expresses the cognitive skills of a 6-year-old and has to have explained to him (by the smarter Asian girl) things like how to fill up a bathtub or why its not a good idea to feed ice cream and hot dogs to a pet gerbil. The program goes out of its way to make viewer wonder how on earth he manages to cross streets on the way home.
- Susan Meyer from Desperate Housewives started out as the Ditz, but it was largely limited to being a horrible cook and having a tendency to trip over things. This has since been Flanderized to the point where she occasionally just seems mentally disabled, such as her being so desperate to get the new neighbors to like her that she kidnapped their dog planning to heroically "find" it later. It...didn't work out very well.
- Susan's mother Sophie is far ditzier than her daughter, especially when it comes to men, coming across as an aged Brainless Beauty. Susan's daughter Julie on the other hand is smart and mature. If this family trend continues Julie's daughter might be the next Marilyn vos Savant.
- Dean Winchester, from Supernatural, is like this for pretty much anything that doesn't relate to hunting, his family or his car. Most of the time it's adorable but sometimes he can come off as an annoying brainless beauty.
- Mr Bean, although sometimes he can be quite bright.
- Edmund Blackadder in the first season of Black Adder, but in series 2 he became the Deadpan Snarker he is known as in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons. Baldrick also fits this to some extent as well as being well... The trope namer for The Baldrick.
- Hank in Corner Gas is The Ditz, sometimes straying towards Ralph Wiggum.
- Waldo Geraldo Faldo, Eddie Winslow's friend from Family Matters.
- Two Words: Tommy Dawkins
- Pippa in Dead Set.
- Neil in The Inbetweeners. It sort of works to his advantage because it stops him from realizing just how wrong everything keeps going for him.
- Peter Tork's character in The Monkees. Also The Fool.
- Gretel from Knightmare
- London Tipton from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. She may be one of the most idiotic girls on TV. Hilariously so, but still.
- Vinton Harper from Mama's Family
- Brittany from Glee. Recipes are confusing and a ballad is a male duck.
Music
Video Games
- A very common character in Nippon Ichi Video Games: Examples include Flonne and Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth! in Disgaea, Trenia in Makai Kingdom, Taro in Disgaea 2, and Danette and Levin in Soul Nomad And The World Eaters. Most of them are used as a foil for the resident Deadpan Snarker.
- Danette and Levin may suffer from an unfortunate Racial Hat, but Levin acknowledges Danette as the Ditz, and Danette acknowledges herself as the ditz!
- Arcueid, she of Tsukihime and Melty Blood fame, comes off quite ditzy, being a centuries-old vampire princess not used to the societal norms of the human world. Watch out, because she can kill you before you can blink, even before her Superpowered Evil Side kicks in.
- Cirno in Touhou. In particular, the manual for Phantasmagoria of Flower View has a screenshot with numbers pointing out items of note (i.e. 1. Player Character, 2. Score, etc.); Cirno was labelled 9. Baka.
- Since then Cirno has been nicknamed "Nine-ball" or simply "⑨".
- Fanon has turned Cirno's ditziness to 11.
- Lucia in Shadow Hearts Covenant is described by her own teacher Carla as "slow".
- Both Lloyd and Colette of Tales Of Symphonia both qualify quite well for the title of The Ditz. A great example is a skit conversation between the two and Regal when Colette asks how Lloyd memorized every single Dwarven Vow (of which there are at least 108).
Lloyd: Since I was a child, I memorized one before each meal and was tested on it. And if I couldn't say it, I didn't get to eat.
Colette: Oh, I see.... There must have been Dwarven Vow memory ingredients in the food.
Lloyd: Huh? R...really?
Colette: I wonder if I can memorize all the Dwarven Vows if I eat Dirk's cooking.
Regal: No, Colette, that's not it. Lloyd's desire for food temporarily strengthened his memory.
Colette: Oh... So Dirk's food has powers like an Exsphere to increase people's abilities.
Lloyd: I see!
Regal: ...Why does the topic of conversation go out the window when talking to Colette?
- Taken to further extremes in Dawn of the New World:
Tenebrae: Am I really that much of a stick in the mud?
Emil: I can't believe he's still thinking about that.
Colette: I honestly don't see any mud on you. But what's wrong with getting mud on you anyway? Everyone gets a little dirty now and again.
Marta: I don't think he meant that sort of mud.
Colette: Well then, what sort of mud did he mean?
Emil: No, listen. There was never any mud to begin with.
Colette: Oh! So was it more of a muck? Or maybe a slime?
Tenebrae: So now I'm slimy?
Colette: I have to say, I prefer mud to slime myself. It's easier to clean.
Tenebrae: Well, it would depend on where the slime came from.
Emil: Yeah, but think about your fur. Slime would stick to it, while mud would just wash off, no problem.
Marta: Someone, anyone, please make it stop!
- One of the female cheerleaders in Osu Tatakae Ouendan, Aoi Kanda (the pink haired Meganekko), is completely clumsy when it comes to anything outside cheerleading, whether it's failure to make a meal for sale, failure making a pottery, dropping foods on floor (or not chewing it properly), spacing out on class, and the list goes on, see the bottom of the page.
- Surprisingly, NOT Goofy from Kingdom Hearts. Despite him easily qualifying for this in the comics and TV-shorts/shows, he's pretty smart in KH, except for occasionally confusing similar words.
- Several characters in the Phoenix Wright series, such as Maya Fey, Ini Miney, Ema Skye, and Trucy Wright. Ini's faking it, though...and that's not all...
- Minori in Brass Restoration is a perfect example.
- Sarrie from Star Ocean:The Last Hope is the living, breathing embodiment of this trope. Just how bad is it? She wakes up on a sacrificial alter, in a room with greenish light...and simply says "Good Morning!" She then remembers that "guests" came in through her window, and she was going to serve them tea...
- Aino Heart from Arcana Heart is this trope turned up to Eleven. She's a combination of this and Love Freak.
- Taokaka from Blaz Blue. While she's incredibly energetic, she often forgets things that are told to her just seconds after the fact.
- Shion Uzuki from the Xenosaga series, in particular the first episode.
- Viki from the Suikoden series.
- Pete Wheeler from the Backyard Sports series.
Web Animation
Webcomics
- Raven from Questionable Content. She has her moments, which makes some people think she's smarter than she looks.
- T-Rex in Dinosaur Comics is another male example, as well as a giant green dinosaur example. He worries about being racist against taxi drivers, and makes good-natured attempts to use pretty much every school of philosophical thought in recorded history to justify the things he does every day (mainly stomping on people and things).
- Monette started out this way in Something Positive. She got better.
- Cube from the Stick Figure Comic Stickman And Cube can be a bit ditzy.
- Elan from Order Of The Stick is a definitive version...though it was toned down a bit after literally Took A Level In Badass.
- Crystal, the goth assassin. Uncommon in so far that she has neither the good attitude nor the good looks most ditzes have. If she wasn't The Rival of Haley Starshine (which lets her gain a level everytime Haley gets one, for the Dungeons And Dragons rules), she'd probably still be at 0th level.
- The Monster in the Darkness could also qualify.
- Kiki from Sluggy Freelance is a combination Ditz/Genki Girl cranked up to eleven.
- Kia from Fletcher Apts.
- Duchess Letita of A Magical Roommate is very ditzy, although whether it's due to her stupidity or just her strange viewpoint is somewhat debatable.
Western Animation
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