Series / World's Dumbest...

And it all starts...now!

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World's Dumbest: Why Does This Always Happen?

— Michael Loftus' proposed slogan for the show.

truTV Presents: World's Dumbest... (formerly titled The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest...) is a program on truTV, "highlighting" the world's dumbest criminals, drivers, brawlers, animal encounters, etc., with celebrity commentary. Produced by Meetinghouse Productions originally for The Smoking Gun, a site profiling known criminals and many celebrities such as Danny Bonaduce and Leif Garrett, who also were regular emcees on the show. Other emcees include Bryan Callen, Frank Stallone, Tonya Harding, Judy Gold, Todd Bridges, Brad Loekle, Gary Busey, Ted Jessup, Nick DiPaolo, Daisy Gardner, Chelsea Peretti, John Enos, Chuck Nice, Roger Lodge, Loni Love, Daniel Baldwin, Mike Trainor, Kevin and Tom McCaffrey, Jaime Andrews, Marianne Sierk, Michael Loftus, Mike Britt, Brendan Walsh, Greg Wilson, Billy Kimball, Chris Fairbanks, Rachel Feinstein, and Jamie Lee. In 2013, the series experienced an overhaul, letting go a number of the aforementioned emcees, and bringing in new additions to the roster, including Amanda Landry, Mike O'Gorman, and Gilbert Gottfried.

As aforementioned, the show was formerly known as The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest... until truTV assumed control over it starting with its tenth season in 2011. All previous episodes have been retroactively rebranded under the truTV title.

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truTV and TV Tropes Presents: World's Dumbest Tropes

#-G

• '80s Hair: When Danny Bonaduce narrates the animated rendition of the time he punched a transvestite hooker, he mentions that it took place back when mullets were still popular.
• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range:
  • One of the explanations given for how a little girl in one clip is able to squeeze into a claw game bin via the prize drop chute, grab what she wants, and get back out the same way.
  • In one "World's Dumbest Partiers" episode, we meet a man who is called a "medical freak," because he has the ability to move his Adam's apple around to allow him to drink beer upside down.
  • One episode had a guy who could twist his head 180 degrees, which he does to shock people.
• Absent-Minded Professor: Played with with Tonya, as she has a recurring Show Within the Show segment, "Physics 101 with Professor Tonya Harding", but otherwise comes off as a dumb blonde; she even draws attention to it in one episode:
  "I'm not real book smart. I'm blonde smart!"
• Accidental Aesop: Suggested In-Universe when a wannabe rapper's video has him taking a drag on a blunt. He then coughs and collapses:
  Brad Loekle: This is the best anti-drug video ever.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services: In one clip, the cops pull over a drunk driver and approach him with "Hey, Bob." It turns out that the cops know him because he's the mayor.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: One clip features mystics from India who spend their lives building up a tolerance for cobra venom. They then hold a competition to see who can take the most bites before conking out.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • One clip shows a mother who apparently didn't think she had enough room for a plastic drawer unit in her trunk. As such, she put the item in the back seats, and made her kids ride in the trunk.
  • In another clip, a careless father stuck his baby daughter on a jet ski and let it take off.
  • There is one clip where a father gets so drunk in a strip club, he forgot where he parked his big purple semi truck, where his son was alone.
  • Another clip shows a pair of very young children who go into a candy store and attempt to walk out with some candy. It is later discovered that they evidently managed to get out of the house without either of their parents noticing. Mike B pokes fun at the parents, commenting:
    Mike B. "I'm sorry officer— they said they was goin' out to get cigarettes. They didn't say nothin' about stealin'!"
  • The number one clip of "World's Dumbest Motorheads 6" features a man who decided to let his nine-year-old daughter drive him home since he'd had too much to drink. They pull into a gas station, and not only does he tell the attendant everything, while being recorded by the gas station's surveillance camera, he actually seems proud of himself. Eventually, a bystander calls police and the father is arrested for child abuse. Admittedly, being able to drive at nine years old is an impressive feat. However, it only worsens the case, as it implies that this wasn't the first time this happened.
  • One of the biggest examples of this is in the first episode of "World's Dumbest Criminals" where a grandmother is shoplifting and uses her granddaughter to help her:
  Tonya: What type of a person would use a little child like that? I mean, get a life.
• An Aesop: Given every so often. However, it tends to be an odd, crude, or very narrow Aesop due to the nature of the show:
  Brad: Any time your penis touches pavement, it's time to rethink your life.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • They did one once of the reality show Blind Date complete with Roger hosting.
  • During a clip featuring a security guard stealing from his place of employment, they played a small portion of a song parodying the Cops theme:
    "Rent-a-cops, rent-a-cops! They never do... they never do what you pay them to do!"
  • They did one of Most Shocking/Daring involving a clip where a man in a monkey costume slaps someone's burger out of their hands. They even managed to get the narrator of that show to drop plenty of over-the-top melodrama and puns.
  • One time that was "Do You Think You Can Dance", hosted by Todd, with Chuck, Tonya, Leif, Mike T., and Roger as the judges.
  • During an episode of "Drivers," Todd pulls another one of theses with Todd Bridges's Amazingly Amazin' Race, in which throughout the show, the other commentators compete for a huge lump sum of his estate. Danny and Kevin McCaffrey compete in a bread truck, Brad and Mike B. drive through the ice-slick roads of Turkey, Roger and Ted get stuck in a truck accident in an Irish truck parade, Mike T. and Daniel stop to watch a cop arrest a drunk driver, Chelsea and Chris Strait make little time via a dogsled, and finally Jaime and Leif cross the finish line, only to learn Todd isn't going to give them any money, just a lesson in teamwork and determination (that they're pretty much pointless).
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Chuck Nice trying to stop the powers that be from showing a particularly disturbing clip of fat guys doing (un)sexy dancing:
  Chuck: Please, producers, I'm begging you, don't show this clip. (gets struck by lightning)
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: This is usually the most common reason people are featured on the show.
• All Women Are Lustful:
  • Daisy is quick to point out interest in a hunky, good-looking guy featured in a clip, expresses disappointment and annoyance when a man's private parts are blurred out or censored, and has also commented on collecting and avidly watching porn.
  • With Marianne Sierk, it doesn't even have to be a good-looking guy. In one case, the target of her affection wasn't even human. In her own words:
    "That puppet could get some ass!".
• Always Someone Better:
  • Frank gives this one to Jessie Cantrell when she makes a crack about Russians:
    Frank: Jessie, I'm the original, because I really don't like anybody, I don't like Russians, I don't like Chinese, I don't like the French, I don't like Italians... you're behind, so you're never gonna catch up.
    Jessie: [gives Frank a Death Glare]
  • A viewer once took to Twitter, asking the show if they were ever going to get a better Baldwin brother; Daniel's response:
    Daniel: Let me tell ya something... Grey Gardens got nominated for 17 Emmys... 30 Rock got nominated for 22, Alec won. Billy? Billy's wife makes all the money, she's a big singer-songwriter! And Stephen? Stephen's a faggot, he wouldn't do this show, and we wouldn't have him! I rest my case.
• Ambiguously Gay: Played with in a "Criminals" episode. The episode features a clip, where a guy breaks into a porn shop and steals a sex toy shaped like the genitals of a female porn star. Judy holds the (pixelated) toy, and says:
  "This, this is what he stole. I would've given it to you for free."
• Anachronism Stew: Kevin McCaffrey points this out in a clip featuring a fight between two nerds.
  Kevin: I love how the one guy is dressed all medieval and the other one's like "Inspector Gadget with nunchuks". Very consistent wardrobe choices for this film.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Tonya on a school dropout who's about to take a wood plank to his own noggin in "Thrillseekers 5":
  "If this guy is a motivational speaker, I'm like… the niece of the Pope." (cue halo)
• Apathetic Citizens: In one "Driver/Motorheads" episode, a clip is shown with police pursuing a motorcyclist in Southern California, with the chase ending when the suspect crashes on the side of the bus, and has to be taken to a hospital to treat his injuries before taking him to jail. When interviewing the bus driver, the cast calls him out on his nonchalant reaction, as if what just happened wasn't a big deal.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • In "World's Dumbest Motorheads 8", an elderly school bus driver is seen on camera smoking a cigarette and sipping on a soda with one hand, and driving the bus with the other, which causes her to lose control of the bus, plow over the center divide, and collide with a car in oncoming traffic. When police arrive, the bus driver is charged with reckless driving, driving without a seat belt, and smoking on a school bus.
  • Kevin McCaffrey on a man who had committed multiple crimes and was fleeing police:
    "As if stealing a car and aggravated robbery weren't bad enough, I didn't see him signalling for those lane changes, either. Now he's really fucked."
  • A man who had stolen a Krispy Kreme truck was arrested and charged with shoplifting, auto theft, running from police, hit and run, drunk driving, driving on a suspended license, and wasting a bunch of perfectly good doughnuts.
  • Jaime often invokes this whenever see a particular rough-looking perp is arrested and charge with a variety of different felonies; she will usually add, "And he was also charged with creeping me out!" Or, "Being really scary-looking!" Or anything along those lines.
  • In "Outlaws 8," a man disputes the fact that he has been taken to the police station without being officially placed under arrest:
    Suspect: Y'all ain't never tell me I was under arrest! Nobody read me my rights! [to the only female officer in the room] Bitch, that's synthetic in yo hair!
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • This is played straight with a drunk driver, and Played for Laughs with the cast in a "Partiers" clip of a drunk driver being pulled over, but claiming he has a defect in his knee:
    Drunk: The placenta is torn.
    Brad: Wow. We need to get you to a hospital. You're going to have a baby.
    Marianne: Everyone knows only girls have babies in their knees.
  • In the same clip, the drunk corrects himself and says the problem is his "plaselta", which he claims is the membrane that separates the knee cap from the "knee brain."
    Mike T.: Makes sense to me! Knee brain right under the knee cap. (Mimes putting on a hat) Got it!
  • Finally, the drunk feels the officer's questions are inappropriate, and requests to call his lawyer.
    Kevin: (as lawyer) Dude, I would love to help you out, but my knee just went into labor. I'm literally pushing as we speak.
• The Art of Bra Removal: One clip features a competition where guys have to unlatch the most bras one-handed. Chuck Nice took part in it.
• Art Shift: "Daredevils 6" has a few clips from the '70s; the accompanying commentaries from Kevin, Brad, Chuck, and Judy are made to look like they're from that decade (while also putting them in period costumes).
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Clips from other countries are sometimes accompanied by the commentators pretending to speak the country's language (or at least faking the accent). Spanish is fairly common, as is Russian.
  Brian Callen: (pretending to be Russian) Do svedonia, fat Amerikanski!
• As the Good Book Says...: Danny invokes this in a clip from a "Brawlers" episode, in which we see him exchanging barbs with another obscure has been entertainer known as "The Reverend" before they hit the boxing ring. The Reverend smacks Danny on one cheek, to which he asks The Reverend if he's ever read The Bible. He claims he never has before offering his other cheek to be smacked:
  Daniel: Who knew Danny Bonaduce was a Biblical scholar?
• Ascended Extra:
  • With his introduction in Season 11, Chris Fairbanks made very sparse and occasional appearances on the show. He would be featured prominently in every episode from Season 14 onward.
  • Rachel Feinstein and Jamie Lee, both of whom were introduced in Season 13.
  • Mike T., to a lesser extent. His appearances in earlier seasons were far more limited, which became more and more frequent in later seasons.
  • Leif himself in Season 15, in large part due to the parody of Brad Pitt's Chanel commercial he did.
• Assumed Win: A few clips feature races where the leader assumes that he's going to win, but ends up sabotaging himself and losing.
  • One race-car driver enters the home stretch with a commanding lead. He starts celebrating...and loses control, spins out, crashes into the wall, bounces off, and comes to a stop inches from the finish line. He ends up pushing his car across the line after everyone else has passed him, finishing dead last.
  • A roller derby racer starts celebrating his upcoming win...and fails to notice the guy behind him catching up and passing him just in time to win. Mr. Second Place then becomes a Sore Loser and gets himself disqualified.
• Awesome, but Impractical: One episode of "Criminals" features a woman on hidden camera in a car, soliciting a hitman, who's really an undercover police officer, to kill her husband. Instead of simply busting her right there, the police use at least a whole day to stage a fake murder and present the charade to the woman. They go through all the trouble of showing her pictures of the "assassination," bringing her into the station, and then breaking down everything that supposedly happened. Perhaps surprisingly, no one on the cast mentioned the fact that all of this may have been overkill.^note They probably did approach him with the intention of cutting off her scheme right then and there. However, when they ask the husband why she wants him dead, he explains that he had things happen to him to get him into an unprecedented amount of trouble. The crux (before the hit) was being pulled over by cops following an anonymous tip and being arrested after they found drugs in his car. He had never had any history with drugs, and he never found out who made the call.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Played straight (sort of) during a clip featuring a Juken Sentai Gekiranger stage show in Japan. One of the actors of the Gekirangers, GekiRed to be specific, falls hard after an acrobatic flip and is unable to continue the choreography. As the "bad guy" ad-libs due to the botch, it appears, if one ignores the fact that it wasn't supposed to happen, that the bad guy has won:
  Wes Denning: Get up, Red Man! Mommy! Why won't he get up and fight?
  John Enos: Evil wins! Yes, yes!
  Chuck Nice: The moral here is the good guy doesn't always win. Those are the lessons you learn when you live in a post-apocalyptic Japan.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • In an episode of "Drivers", a clip shows a couple being pulled over for speeding. When the officer approaches the vehicle, the man claims that his wife is going into labor, while she wails and screams from the passenger seat. The cast make remarks about, "That old trick again," and continue doing so throughout the clip, despite the fact that it ends with an ambulance arriving, and the woman actually does give birth to a baby.
  • In another clip, a cop pulls a young driver over and starts questioning him. Some random drunk then stumbles onto the scene and falls onto the car:
    Tom O'Riordan: Who is this guy?
    Brad: Where did he even come from?
  • One clip shows a car wash employee named Chris Truax fighting off a robber and calling the police. When the cops show up...they arrest Chris Truax. (Nick DiPaolo: [Beat] You're kiddin' me.) Turns out they had an arrest warrant for Truax.
• Barely Missed Cushion: At least one clip features someone jumping from a roof onto something like a mattress or a pickup truck — and with the latter, the truck might be moving. Guess how well that goes...
• Bawdy Song: One that's heard in a few clips is "Get your tits out for the lads!"
  Kevin McCaffrey: Is that a Gershwin?
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man:
  • During an episode of "Partiers", the viewers are introduced to a woman on a cruise named Celeste. She has a major thing for her karaoke instructor, about whom we know nothing, other than the fact that his name is Denilla. Celeste makes no bones about it and doesn't beat around the bush— she wants to have sex with Denilla, and would do so whenever and wherever he wants. She also wants to "molest" him and lets him know in advance that she's not above "licking balls." She ends the video by showing the camera her naked ass, hoping Denilla will watch it and like what he sees. We never find out if he does.
  • Loni occasionally will offer tips in trying to bribe an officer, or get on a cop's good side (or any man, really):
  "Do what I always do: use sex."
• Beach Episode: This happens whenever they show a clip of someone on the beach.
• Berserk Button:
  • Mike T. once commented that "It's always a little funnier when a fat guy falls down." Then, as seen during the outtakes, one of the offscreen crew members said, "Oh, really? Could you fall for us?" Mike T. responded with a Flat "What" and then went on an angry rant about how he should leave, and the person who said that can stay there and talk about how fat he is.
  • During a clip of a nerdy redhead who painted himself white, John Enos asks if that's what redheads normally look like. Cut to Danny Bonaduce with steam coming out of his ears.
• Big Eater:
  • Mike T. likes to talk or think about food, as does Loni.
  • One clip featured a woman breaking into a candy store, and stealing so much fudge that she experiences a sugar high, and continues eating massive amounts of fudge before checking into a hotel, and getting arrested shortly thereafter.
  • Another clip featured a huge hillbilly who visited an all-you-can eat fish buffet, where he chows down on more than twenty pieces of fish, of which the restaurant refused to serve him anymore; after he's escorted from the restaurant, he returns the very next day to protest, accusing the restaurant of false advertising:
    Mike T.: (deadpan) You called 911 for this, you fat fuck?
    Chelsea: You know who the real victim is here? The fish.
• The Big Guy:
  • Mike T. is possibly this personified for this show. Brad, while certainly not morbidly obese, is a little on the chunky side as well, and occasionally pokes fun at himself, usually making references to Chunk from The Goonies.
  • On the female end of the spectrum - Loni.
• Bilingual Bonus: During a skit in which Judy Gold plays a weather reporter for a Spanish news station, she's introduced as "Judy Oro," oro being the Spanish word for gold.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Between Mike Trainor and Crystal the Monkey from The Hangover Part II:
  Mike: The thing about girls in L.A. is that...you know what, why don't we let our guest handle this. What do you think about this chick?
  Crystal: (chittering)
  Mike: (laughing) That's awesome! You are hilarious, Party Monkey! We are hangin' out!
• Black Comedy: Being more lighthearted than shows such as Most Shocking or Unsolved Mysteries, World's Dumbest usually avoids this. However, during a presentation of an invention that's simply a robot designed to console a person who's dying with loving words ("I am here for you," etc.), Judy wondered what the invention would be like if it "told the truth."
  Robot voice: I'm sorry your husband couldn't be here, but that's what you get when you die during March Madness.
  Robot voice: Knock, knock. Who's dying? You. Joke complete.
  Robot voice: Spoiler alert. You die at the end of this sentence.
• Black Comedy Rape: Played for Laughs in the context of a Mexican man who was gored by a bull whose horns somehow managed to snag and completely remove his pants and underwear:
  Mike T.: It's one thing to get gored by a bull, but to be molested! [holding a small figurine in stereotypical Mexican clothing] Show us on the doll where the bull touched you!
• Blatant Lies: Many, many drunks claim that they haven't been drinking. One guy even says "I ain't that fucked up" right before he falls over.
  Kevin: Oh, you weren't drinking? Okay, where were you having a stroke at?
• Booze Flamethrower: One idiot tries this as a party trick. He ends up setting his own hair on fire.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Chelsea claimed, of a man who botched a cliff dive, "All this guy wants is love... and I'm the girl to give it to him. Oh, wait— I forgot my New Year's resolution. Nevermind." Then, superimposed on the screen next to her is a list of "Chelsea's New Year's Resolutions": Don't date idiots, make more friends, recycle more, stop killing hobos.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Considering this is a celebrity commentary show, there's really No Fourth Wall; however, on a few specific occasions, this cast does actually play this straight, such as:
  Roger: Hey, watch the language, mister! This ain't Springer, this is the Smoking Gun, very classy around here!
  Judy: (responding to a guy exclaiming the video he shot of his friend is going on YouTube) You know what else it's going on? World's Dumbest..., 'cause you're an idiot!!!
  Nick: I'm waitin' till they give me my own show on truTV!
  Chuck: (responding to a man using a small hatchet to chop through bulletproof, tempered glass to rob a bank) Hey, our show's only an hour long...
• Brick Break: Attempted by a wannabe martial artist at a karate show. After three tries, he succeeds in breaking exactly one brick.
• Brief Accent Imitation:
  • Anytime the dialogue has a voice-over dubbed for a clip. Often, if the clip is from a foreign country, an appropriate accent for the culture is dubbed. However, most of the time, the voice actor seems to almost always rely on a Speedy Gonzales-esque accent for just about anyone the clip is focused on.
  • Chuck Nice mockingly imitates a guy who talks about women "spending ze monies" in an accent that nobody can identify:
    Chuck: "Spending ze monies"? What kind of accent is that?
• Broken Aesop: One clip in the "Holidays" episode features an anti-smoking parade in which several people carry a giant fake cigarette in what is supposed to be a mock funeral. One commentator points out, however, that it looks more like they're worshiping the cigarette.
• Buffy Speak: During the outtakes of one episode, Ali Landry referred to the dance done by Leif in a clip from the '70s as the "sassy, hip-shakey thing."
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • One episode of "Brawlers" shows a man and his girlfriend getting off the elevator in a hotel. Another man, waiting to board the elevator, makes a move on the girl, which probably went somewhat similarly to this Chuck quip:
    Chuck: Hey, want some of my mardi gras beads? 'Cause I'm drunk and you're beautiful, and I cannot see that your boyfriend is very large.
  • Wes Dening astutely opined, of a beachgoer in an argument with a bigger man, that it's "Not wise to accuse someone who looks like The Thing of being 'all talk.'"
  • A good deal of episodes end up having someone attack or doing something illegal in front of a person who's a black belt/martial arts instructor/former Marine/etc. Guess who comes out on top pretty much every time?
• Butt-Monkey:
  • There must be an unspoken motto on this show - "When in doubt, make fun of Leif Garrett." Leif even lampshaded it once by flat out asking "Why does everyone always pick on me?"
  • Tonya seems to be Brad Loekle's personal butt monkey, and before that, Judy's.
  • Since around Season 13, Brad himself seemed to become almost everybody's personal butt monkey, especially to Danny, Bryan and John.
  • Frank seems to think this of himself; he's certain the show features clips from Russia for nothing other than the sole purpose to irritate him, but also, when Judy once implied that "Macho Italian Men" are Not So Above It All, Frank then adds, "I'm gonna quit this fuckin' show, then you all won't have anyone to pick on anymore."
  • In terms of physical abuse, Danny Bonnaduce was the one most likely to ill-advisedly re-enact various record-breaking attempts and/or stunts.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes":
  • Mike T. on a man who dislocated his shoulder attempting to re-enact a fight scene from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon:
    Mike T: Small price to pay for fame. And by "small," I mean "big," and by "fame," I mean "humiliation."
  • An amateur stuntman calling himself "Captain Awesome" devises a stunt that ends badly, he suffers broken bones after being hit by his friend's truck, said truck then gets burned after the fireworks go off, and they almost burn down a house:
    Mike T: Don't worry your insurance will cover this, on opposite day, so you're fucked.
  • Jaime on a yearly mud racing competition known as "Tough Mudder":
    Jaime: That sounds fun in a way that I don't mean...
  • After a young man crashes his father's new car while fooling around in the driver's seat (with the car started), the cameraman claims that he's "probably erasing this film."
    Mike T: And by "erase it," I mean "send it to truTV to see what Danny Bonaduce thinks of it."
  • In an "Inventions" episode, the infomercial for the Flavor Funnel features a rather large man pumping butter into his bag of popcorn, of which the announcer/inventor says, "Whatever you do, don't be like this guy we caught on camera."
    Kevin: And by, "Caught on camera," we mean, "Blatantly staged in a movie theater."
• Cactus Cushion: One idiot decides to investigate why he's never seen anyone jump onto a cactus. He discovers the very painful reason in short order.
• Call-Back: Several clips also feature clips from previous misadventures, highlighting similarities between them or suggesting that the current mishap won't go any better than the others did.
• Camp Gay: A few of the cast members are openly gay, most notably Brad and Judy, but then we also have some who fall into the Camp Straight category who, despite being straight, often give out gay vibes in their commentary.
• Canon Discontinuity: They regularly comment on how they've never shown a clip of someone successfully stealing an ATM on the show. This is despite the fact that there have been at least two videos of ATMs being successfully stolen, one involving a large group of people working together, and the other featuring a man loading an ATM into his car via a forklift, though he did fail to steal a second ATM.
• Captain Obvious: There are moments where the cast members aren't really making jokes at the videos, and tend to just be narrating what's going on, as if we, the viewers, can't figure it out ourselves. This was very prevalent in the early episodes where there were less gags and jabs at the people on the video and each other.
• Car Meets House:
  • Several bad drivers end up plowing into various buildings such as houses, restaurants, offices, convenience stores, etc.:
    Nick DiPaolo: Excuse me, waiter? There's a minivan in my soup.
  • In one unique instance, a car hits a house that just fell off a flatbed truck, making it a rare example of it not being the driver's fault.
• Catchphrase:
  • During "World's Dumbest Brawlers", expect to hear someone in the clips scream "YOU GOT KNOCKED THE FUCK OUT!" at least once.
  • Bryan has a habit of calling incompetent people in the clips "Dr./Captain No-Help".
  • Brendan used "One punch and down!" as a catchphrase during at least two episodes of "Brawlers", which would eventually be used again in a Season 14 episode he calls it back on as well.
  • Todd did the same thing, his catchphrase being "In your face!"
  • Tonya repeats three lines very often: "Hello?" (as in "Hello, what were you thinking?"), "Wham bam, thank you ma'am," and "I mean, oh my GOD..."
  • Judy often uses "Hello?" as well, though she usually delivers it with a lot more bite and snark than Tonya does.
• Caught with Your Pants Down:
  • Invoked in some clips where whoever is shooting the video gets so excited behind the camera, the cast imply that the person is really enjoying themselves more than they should. One clip in particular of a group of friends jumping off a small cliff into a lake, the final guy about to jump is introduced by the cameraman as, "175 pounds of sexy muscle!" Cut to Michael imitating the videographer by gushing over said 175 pounds of sexy muscle, followed by miming jerking off, to which he apparently catches a bystander's attention:
    Michael: Uh, I'm just encouraging him.
  • In an "Inventions" episode, where a device can be used to cut hot dogs into figures with smiley faces, some of the cast insist they don't need help playing with their wieners.
  • In another "Inventions" episode, we have The Man-Bib, a bib made specifically for men to keep from making a mess. The cast cannot believe it.
  • The guy who called 911 because he wanted the dispatcher to help him jerk off.
  • There's a clip featuring a tortoise and a shoe. It has to be seen to be believed.
• Celebrity Star:
  • "World's Dumbest Bracket Showdown" featured "special celebrity guest commentator Charles Barkley".
  • TV pitchman Anthony Sullivan regularly drops by for the "Inventions" episodes.
  • Vincent Pastore appears in two different episodes, once in an "Inventions" episode to hawk a cologne designed for married men to mask the smell of their mistresses, and another episode where he interrupts the casts' commentaries throughout to intimidate them, starting when they make fun of his commercial for a glorified rubber band called a "Broccoli Wad".:
    Vincent Pastore: (in commercial) Wise guys don't carry that wallet. Wise guys don't carry that briefcase.
    Kevin McCaffrey: You know what else wise guys don't do, is talk about being wise guys in public.
    Vincent: (in person) Hey, kid...what do you know about wise guys?
    Kevin: ("Oh, Crap!" face) Uh...nothing. I-I don't know anyth—I don't know anything. I was just joking...I was...just playing...
    Vincent: I'm just [bleep]ing with you.
  • "World's Dumbest Partiers 19" featured "special celebrity guest" Crystal the Monkey from The Hangover: Part II. He and Mike T. become friends, and "Party Monkey," as Mike T. named him, uses a handgun to coerce Danny into claiming that a monkey in a featured clip did nothing wrong.
  • Alan Thicke drops by in "World's Dumbest Drivers 13" to give the cast lessons in safe driving. Natasha Leggero is the only one in class who takes the lessons seriously; in fact, Thicke kicks Nick out of class for continually and intentionally giving the wrong answers. He's also appeared in a couple of other episodes.
• Character Tic:
  • Kevin often shrugs his arms while commenting on the stupidity in the videos.
  • Danny points at the camera a lot. He also likes to break things with his head any chance he gets.
  • Gary likes to look directly into the camera and act all philosophical, as if the clip we just watched has An Aesop to it.
  • Brad likes to take his clothes off. A lot.
  • Daisy has a tendency to glance off to the side frequently whenever she comments.
  • Chelsea tends to look up and to her left (sometimes her right, unless it's a case of the editing team flipping the picture horizontally) when she's trying to think of something. Her eyes are about as big as an anime character's, so it's easy to notice.
• Christmas Songs:
  • One clip features a mother/daughter duo lifelessly singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain". The mother looks like she's only half-awake, while her daughter clearly looks like she would rather be anywhere else.
  • Another clip has a woman singing her own song "Excuse My Christmas". She's horribly off-key, and the poor quality of the animated background is mercilessly mocked by the commentators.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Sort of. During Season 1, the show not only featured comedians and actors as commentators, but also real life judges, cops, private investigators, and security guards for the "Dumbest Criminals" episodes. Throughout Season 2, they were progressively phased out and later completely gone by Season 3. Every now and again, Ron Kuby makes a random appearance, but that's about it. Most of these dropped commentators appear on another truTV franchise, Disorder in the Court.
• Clip Show: "World's Dumbest Bracket Showdown" was essentially a "best of" special, with extra episode-specific commentary by Charles Barkley.
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Of the main cast members, Gary probably qualifies. Tonya, too, as well as Leif.
  • Other cast members have their moments even though they wouldn't qualify overall. Chelsea Peretti, for example, noticed in one episode how often off-duty police officers are featured on the show doing something heroic and suggested that all cops should be off-duty.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: In one episode of "World's Dumbest Drivers", there is a clip where a five-year-old child takes a ride in his grandmother's pickup truck. Gary's the only one to point out that the real dumb person was the one who left the truck unlocked to begin with, not the child who was just following his instincts and curiosity.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship: Branded logos on the cast and clip subjects' clothes, as well as in the background of the clips, are usually censored with an awkward, badly-synced blur.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Frequently by people shown in the video clips. And Judy.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • "Motorheads"/"Drivers", "Daredevils"/"Thrillseekers", and to an extent, "Partiers", are all based almost completely on this. Many cast members even express disappointment if no one in a given clip ends up hurt.
  • Taken another step upward in "World's Dumbest Daredevils 8", where a man rides around in a rhino effortlessly for quite some time, to the point that the cast becomes rather bored that nothing is happening; finally, the driver wipes out, and flips his rhino several times, which perks the cast up. Kevin even remarks, "Oh good, I thought no one was gonna almost die for a second!"
  • In "World's Dumbest Pranksters", two parents play an April Fools' on their little boy by presenting him a small round cake he has trouble cutting into. When it's revealed that it's actually a roll of toilet paper covered in frosting and sprinkles, the boy bursts into tears. Not only do the parents take pleasure in the outcome of the prank, but the cast really enjoys the boy's misfortune and even mock him:
    Jaime: I can't wait to have my own children... to torture!
    Ted: That's what you get for acing that test, you little nerd!
    Michael: [as the boy's father] Your mother and I just took a big shit on all your hopes and dreams... now eat it... eat it!
  • Mike T. had the following to say about a clip in which a young girl (most likely 5-8 years old) was hit by a toy pony when her father (for some reason) threw it in her direction while goofing around:
    Mike T: The first time we made fun of a kid getting hurt on this show, I felt pretty bad, but now that part of me has died. It's fine, though; this show is important. Someone has to keep Leif Garrett off the streets.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  Jaime: Come on, if a rock is considered a, "dangerous missile," then Frank Stallone is a "funny comedian."
  Frank: Thank you.
• Compensating for Something: Apparently, Judy believes that every man with an even somewhat expensive car has a small penis.
• Construction Vehicle Rampage: Some "Criminals", "Drivers" and "Motorheads" fall into this category such as Marvin Heemeyer's bulldozer, the man who drove a large tractor through a cemetery and the man who used a forklift to stop a car thief from escaping.
• Content Warnings: If certain "Daredevils" or "Thrillseekers" episodes feature especially violent stunts that result in people being severely injured, the beginning of the show, as well as halfway through the hour, will feature a viewer discretion advisory asking viewers not to try these stunts themselves.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: During a clip of a drunk guy mutilating and immolating a teddy bear, Chuck Nice covers the eyes of his own teddy bear.
• Crazy Enough to Work:
  • Subverted by Kevin McCaffrey regarding a maid who was caught:
    Kevin: Stealing from a detective in his own house? That's so dumb it might actually work... oh, it didn't? Okay, nevermind.
  • In the very next clip of the same episode, a thief breaks into a drug store by busting through the wall with his car. When he goes to leave through the front door, he sees the police before they see him, so he hides in the ceiling's ventilation system. The show's producers add voiceovers of the investigating officers claiming to hear something in the ceiling, but dismissing it, as "that's too stupid— no one would be that dumb." This is then subverted when he falls through the ceiling before the police leave.
• Creepy Child: In a "Performers" episode, a mother dresses as a clown for her kid's birthday party, though a mishap on her part accidentally starts a fire in the room; while she and a bunch of the kids naturally begin to panic, one little boy stands off in the background and seemingly giggles uncontrollably over the entire incident. The cast is deeply creeped out by this, with Brad even suggesting this kid is Damien Thorn.
• Creepy Physical: For one series of clips, Ted Jessup plays a doctor who gives such physicals to women.
• Creepy Uncle: Likely to be mentioned in any clip with someone who's introduced as an uncle, or in an episode of "Hillbillies." Chelsea also once commented that "I miss camping with my very aggressive uncles... I'll explain another time."
• Crossover:
  • Lou and Sonia Pizarro from Operation Repo once dropped in to offer some commentary of their own.
  • Some of the cast members from this show, including Godfrey, Rachel, and Kevin, among others, popped up on one of truTV's other clip showcase series, Upload With Shaquille O'Neal.
• Crowd Surfing: Many failed attempts are featured, most of them because there wasn't enough of a crowd for anybody to surf on.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Is shown occasionally such as the 78-year-old man vs. a 20-something pickpocket. Said 78-year-old man was a former Marine, iron worker, and Golden Gloves boxer.
• Dare to Be Badass: Many people featured on the show are seen doing things for no other reason than to prove how tough, brave, etc. they are. The phrase "Go big or go home" is used more than once as a rallying cry of sorts. In Kevin McCaffrey's words, however:
  Kevin: When people give me the choice of going big or going home, I pretty much always go home. It's way better. I have video games there.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Kevin, Chelsea, Brad, Chuck and Billy are pretty much this 100% of the time.
  • In one clip, police officers ask a man pulled over for drunk driving if he is aware of the time. Without skipping a beat, he responds with "half-past monkey's ass, a quarter to his balls."
  • In another clip, a police officer is shown during a traffic stop where he's pulled over a middle-aged woman for speeding. Said woman attempted to talk her way out of the ticket by telling the police officer she thought pretty girls were never issued tickets. In a split second, the police officer responded with, "Oh, so you thought we didn't give pretty girls tickets? You're right, we don't — sign here." Even the professional comedians on the show were impressed.
• Demoted to Extra: Starting in Season 15, Danny, Todd, Frank and Tonya were featured less and less to the point that one or more of them may only got in one comment/joke during the entire hour. In a reverse to it, Leif became something of an Ascended Extra during Season 15 as well near the end. While Judy was Promoted to Opening Titles during Season 15, her appearances were lessened during the majority of the season as well as the retool.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • One of the volumes is called "World's Dumbest Dummies".
  • Billy makes this remark of a snowboarder crashing onto a road cut in the snow-covered mountain:
    Billy: When you hit asphalt at that speed, it is like hitting solid asphalt. Think about it.
  • In one sketch, Judy Gold plays the owner of the "Fragile Really Fragile Glass Christmas Ornament Store Where Everything is Fragile" store.
  • From an infomercial for the Ace Power Rider:
    Customer: My wife always used to turn away, it would upset me very much, and I would stay out late. Now, things have changed. Hahaha, it's funny. Why? I can't tell you. It's funny. Anyway, she is a different person now. It's really funny.
  • Rachel Feinstein on an officer telling another officer why he was arresting her:
    Rachel: Why don't you shut your goddamn mouth? I don't need the law tellin' me about the law! That's redundant!
  • From "World's Dumbest Holidays", a clip of a community hunting a leprechaun in Alabama includes an excitable fellow exclaiming about witnessing the alleged man in green:
    Bystander: To me, it looked like a leprechaun to me!
  • Chris Fairbanks, impersonating a dumb partier who, along with others, is daring a friend to stick a knife into a plugged-in toaster:
    Chris: No, I'm just making a toast montage... of toast.
  • One "...Brawlers" episodes, a clip was shown in which a bunch of trouble makers got into a fist fight with, and being thrown out by, the security personnel:
    "Russian" Narrator: In the end, thugs were thrown out of Siberian department store, and were exiled... to Siberia!
• Destroy the Security Camera: One clip features a toddler who keeps breaking out of his crib, to the point that his mother puts a camera on a nearby table to film this. After he escapes again, he immediately goes to the table and knocks over the camera. Brad Loekle points out how he's smarter than all the criminals who completely ignore the cameras.
  Brad: Even the toddler knows to take out the security camera. What's wrong with the rest of these people?
• Didn't See That Coming: Used often by the commentators for laughs whenever a dumb stunt ends exactly how you would expect.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Happens to many a criminal who break into stores by falling through the ceiling, and then have no way of getting out of the store via the same method. This is sometimes subverted when a thief actually finds a way to build a makeshift ladder (or use an actual ladder) to climb back up through the ceiling to freedom, or breaks through the door/a window from the inside. But mostly, they end up trying this exact strategy and falling back to the floor below, adding injury to insult.
  • One duo in "Criminals 5" attempted to rob a muffler shop only to find out that the cash register was empty and the safe could only be accessed by the shop's boss, who wasn't due to arrive for several hours since the store had just opened. As such, they came up with an idea— leave a phone number so the shop can call them when the boss arrives, so they can presumably come back later to steal the money. As if it needs to be said, when they were called back to the shop, plain-clothes police officers were waiting, and they were booked.
  • This is exemplified in #19 of "Brawlers 12" during a clip where a man runs onto a Romanian soccer field to punch a player from the rival team doing a penalty kick. He gets in a punch to the back of the player's head, but them promptly gets beaten up by the player's teammates.
  Brian Callen: (as the puncher) Oh, right. The rest of the team. Didn't really think about that.
  [Rolls around on the ground getting kicked by the players]
• Dissonant Serenity:
  • On occasion, some of the cast will expressing finding a certain bungling act from a clip to be rather relaxing when played in a continuous loop.
  • In one clip of a southern gentleman who politely robs a convenience store, Chelsea considers the way the man says "Regi-shure"^note "register" to be soothing enough to lull her to sleep when it's repeated over and over again.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Pretty much how most of the commentators reacted to Miss Hannah Minx in "Performers 13".
  The Greg Wilson: I know she's talking about her kuchi, but I can't stop looking at those boobies.
• The Ditz:
  • Tonya is occasionally this.
  • Loni. For example, she calls Finnish people "Finlands," ends a message to the people of China with "Konnichiwa," and incorrectly claims that she doesn't have genitals. She also once referred to Italy as a third-world country.
• Dodgy Toupee: One of the featured "Inventions" is a visor that makes the wearer look like he has a tribble on his head.
• Does Not Like Men:
  • Chelsea often makes snide remarks about how stupid men are when the clip calls for it. She's also, by her own admission, "Almost always on board with watching a guy cry," and she expressed disappointment that a dumb driver in one clip was a woman and not a man.
  • Judy is openly gay, which causes many of the cast to assume she hates men.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: One "Brawlers" clip a guy shoots from his apartment balcony at a brawl taking place on the street below, where the brawlers in question are attacking each other with baseball bats, and as the brawl escalates, the guy taping the action his heard exclaiming, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in such an excitable, yet breathy manner, that it sounds like the scene is giving him an orgasm.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: A few clips involve athletes and racers about to win a competition who start showboating and end up sabotaging themselves.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Danny and Judy are chronic offenders of this.
• Don't Try This at Home:
  • This warning is frequently used in the "Daredevils/Thrillseekers" episodes, for obvious reasons.
  • Whenever Danny tries to act like a daredevil.
  • One man, before eating the world's hottest pepper (three of them, no less) as a test of endurance, warns the viewer: "Don't try this at home... I'm a trained black ass professional." It doesn't end well.
• Door Dumb: A lot of people on the "Criminals" lists end up falling into this category, either forgetting to push instead of pulling and vice versa, or in one case, ending up banging their heads on a glass door.
• Double Standard:
  • Danny invokes this in a "Criminals" episode featuring a clip of a cat that prowls throughout the neighborhood stealing neighbors' articles of clothing, including underwear and other unmentionables:
    Danny: So when Jack steals a pair of panties, it's adorable, but when I do it, it's harassment?
  • On more than one occasion, Loni notes how verbally belligerent white suspects act towards police, claiming that black suspects would be treated differently if they did the same thing.
  • Usually, if an animal that has to be apprehended is featured, an African American cast member, usually Todd Bridges, will note that "If that was a black guy, they'd have shot him by now".
• Dramatic Slip: Chuck, on a man who attempted to outrun the police for several minutes, before finally getting caught after tripping and falling:
  Chuck: I watched yo whole chase, man! Then you gon' fall like a B-movie horror queen!
• Dreadful Musician:
  • Several clips are music videos of people who have no business singing. In some cases, like with the guy who sings "This Is My Fucking Single", the commentators can't even make out the lyrics.
  • The girl who sings "Wilder" (Gnesa) is apparently so bad that her music can be used for audial torture:
    Mike O'Gorman: Okay! I'll tell you where the missile codes are! Just please stop playing that song!
  • The guy who sings "The Star-Spangled Banner", starting with a terrible basso profundo before switching to an even worse attempt at a falsetto for no good reason.
  • A Polish guy sings "The Star-Spangled Banner". He completely mangles the lyrics.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty:
  • As part of a clip featuring U.S. soldiers jumping bikes while stationed in Iraq, with one soldier wiping out, Michael plays a parody of this character (complete with a Southern accent):
    Michael: For your injuries sustained in the face of grave gnarliness, we present you with this Purple Heart! And we will now double our efforts to make sure the men and women of our fighting forces have awesome cool places for their wicked sweet jumps. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!
  • Mike Britt does this shtick for a clip of British soldiers dancing in their tighty-whitey briefs:
    Mike: Now let's see you maggots dance!
• Drop-In Character:
  • Jared Logan in Season 13.
  • Timmy Williams in Season 15 (and Put on a Bus due to the overhaul).
  • The retool in the middle of Season 15 brings Gilbert Gottfried, Amanda Landry and Mike O'Gorman, all of whom were already Promoted to Opening Titles.
    • Amanda and Mike O'G had even already been inserted into the World's Dumbest App commercial, having replaced Mike T and Chuck Nice, respectively.
• Dude, Not Funny!: invoked When a retired football player jokes about naming his dog after his hated rival and kicking the shit out of said dog. The audience is not amused. Neither are the commentators.
• Dumb Blonde:
  • All the commenters accuse Tonya of being this.
  • This applies to several of the women shown in clips.
  • Amanda seems to have replaced Tonya in this department, but ultimately subverts it.
  • In "World's Dumbest Motorheads 8," a man and his very attractive wife are shown taking a road trip. He films himself asking her a simple question— if you're traveling at a constant speed of 80 miles per hour, how long will it take you to go 80 miles? Not only does she struggle to a degree that's almost impossible for an adult, but she starts off by attempting to calculate how long it takes her to run a mile. He then tells her to think about the phrase "miles per hour," yet she remains as confused as when the question was first posed. When he eventually tells her that it would take an hour, she claims he's wrong on the grounds that, if you were driving 60 MPH, it would take you 30 minutes to go 60 miles. Even Tonya has nothing on this lady.
• Dumb Muscle: Expect this most of the time if they show a clip of a guy with a muscular physique or a bodybuilder.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Watching earlier seasons can be a disorienting experience for those who are more accustomed to the later ones. The absence of featured fixtures (starting from roughly Season 10) such as Mike B., Jaime, Marianne, and Brendan, among others, is noticeable.
  • Earlier seasons feature much darker graphics.
  • In a number of earlier episodes, Brad is without his familiar goatee and he didn't completely shave his head.
  • Daisy had much darker hair, and used to squint a lot in her earliest appearances.
  • The very first episodes featured much more subdued and generally serious commentary, even from the narrator, in the same vein as Disorder in the Court and other Court TV crime shows. The show even featured a number of legal representiatives as members of the cast. This was phased out very quickly as it grew in popularity.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way: An ultimatum often offered to criminal suspects by police. Being that this show is about stupid lawbreakers, most of the clips feature the perp choosing the hard way, and paying for it in the form of body slams, pepper spray, shots from a taser gun, and other painful means of apprehension. As one officer who was featured on the show said, the police force essentially abides by this rule, regarding resistant criminals:
  "You can do it voluntarily, or you can do it involuntarily, but the end result is you're gonna do it."
• Embarrassing Ad Gig: One clip from "Performers 12" has Leif Garrett in his younger days doing a dance number in a potato sticks commercial. Danny Bonaduce reassures him that others have done their own embarrassing commercials; cut to Bonaduce in a fake ad for an aphrodisiac called "Tiger Penis".
• Embarrassing Nickname: Brad will occasionally call Judy "Sasquatch". Or "Jew-bacca".
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Quite a number of tattoos result in a person ending up on the show.
  • One number one crook made the mistake of tattooing his name and birth year on his neck. When he robbed a bait car, he made it very easy for cops to find him.
  • One old woman holds the world record for having the most tattoos covering her body, including her vagina.
  • The number one clip in "Hillbillies 2" had a tattoo of his ex-wife's name removed with an air blast sander. There's a twist to this story, though. Two weeks later, he remarried her. Only to divorce her again.
• Epic Fail:
  • Of course this show thrives on it. One example is a robber who put a clear plastic bag over his head, using it as a mask.
  • One clip shows two men attempting to set off a "soda bomb." Not only does it take them numerous tries to actually get it to go off, but when it does, it hits the man holding the camera as if someone had aimed it at him.
  • In San Francisco, a man tried to steal a bicycle, and was stopped by several other bystanders. During the (minor) scuffle, he dropped the key to his bike lock. The police seized it and told him that he could pick it up any time he wanted, if he comes to the police station:
    Mike T: He stole negative one bike. That's World's Dumbest material right there!
  • In one episode of "Performers," a young Philadelphia man attempts to bench press more weight than he ever has before. Not only is he unable to complete one press, but because he doesn't have a spotter, someone standing behind him to help if something goes wrong, he's now trapped underneath all the weight he was trying to lift. He frees himself eventually, but not before frantically calling for his father and then his mother. Neither one shows up to help him.
• Ethical Slut: Marianne has apparently had tons of sex (with no signs pointing to a change occurring any time soon) and isn't even close to being ashamed of it. This is lampshaded when footage of an inflatable-tie commercial was shown, with the announcer wording the instructions on how to use it as "Bite the base and blow."
  Marianne: [smiling] Now these are directions I can follow!
• Et Tu, Brute?: One clip in an episode of "Outlaws" features a sting that involves using a fake prize giveaway to lure criminals into being arrested. The man in this particular clip thinks he's won tickets to a big-time college football game, and couldn't be happier. When he's told he's being placed under arrest instead, his smile turns into a picture of pure sadness that perfectly symbolized the anguish of betrayal. "Sir... sir?" He looked like he was ready to burst into tears.
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped:
  • In a "World's Smartest Inventions" episode, Mike B. complains that the narration of a Japanese commercial doesn't match the subtitles:
    Announcer: Sand storms come from the other side of the sea. Hitting Japan on the sun.
    Subtitles: Sand storms come from the other side of the sea. It hits Japan on the sun.
  • Happens with the show's own subtitles on occasion. A misspelled word, an extra/missing word, or a word that wasn't even spoken can be caught if one pays close attention. For example, one clip features a man bad-mouthing cops for setting up a sting disguised as a free raffle contest. The subtitles read "Y'all pack as dirty as fuck," but it sounds as if he's saying "Y'all crackas dirty as fuck."
  • In a "Pranksters" episode, Bryan makes fun of an elderly British choir singer who starts to seemingly serenade a fake alien that had landed on her property; Bryan sings, "You're my alien, you're so cute, you're so white with your black eyes," those closed captions seem to think Bryan sang "Wise" instead of "White."
  • The most blatant example is in the first "Daredevils" episode where a man in a mascot costume is so hard to understand that the subtitles simply translate him as "Inaudible nonsense."
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • For a clip of an Indian holy man who rolls to Pakistan to lobby for peace:
    Billy Kimball: I'm sorry, but this is this man's religion, and I'm not making fun of it.
    Todd Bridges: Damn! I'm dizzy as hell!
    Billy: No, no, no, Todd Bridges. Don't go there.
  • Throughout "Thrillseekers 7", Brendan Walsh plays "The Daredevil" and eggs on several risk-takers — until he learns that one of them has a kid, at which point he leaves in disgust.
• Everything Is Racist:
  • Upon being introduced to Wiarton, Ontario's Groundhog Day mascot: Willy, the albino groundhog:
    Chuck: Damn, what's up in Canada? Even the groundhogs gotta be white?
  • Mike B. loves to play with this any chance he gets; one example in an episode of "Performers" features a clip of a black bear who escaped a zoo and scared a local woman:
    Mike B: Awwwwww... now why the bear gotta be black? I'm playin', this whole shit is stupid.
  • An episode of "Outlaws" features a clip of thugs ransacking an Apple store, and having trouble fleeing the scene, and eventually being apprehended by the police. An insert of Mike B. is added of him standing there, holding tablets and iPhones:
    Mike B: Oh, 'cause I'm black, I stole this.
  • In two other clips, Mike B. objects to the names of two people: "Blackaman" and Kelly Crosby Heyniger.
  • In a "Partiers" episode, we see a group of pals hanging around, getting their buddy to down as many drinks as he can in one minute; their buddy, who is Asian, goes by the nickname "Chopsticks", to which Chuck remarks:
    Chuck: That'd be like me hanging out with a bunch of my friends who call me Blackie. "Hey, Blackie, why don't you do some shots?" "Man, [bleep] you!"
  • "World's Dumbest Brawlers 12" is full of these moments:
    • First we're treated to a clip of an undercover cop (who is black) confronting a shoplifter (white). To top it all off, when backup finally arrives, the cops actually proceed to place the black undercover cop under arrest:
      John: Wait... the white guy is the shoplifter?
      Todd: Oh, here we go again. Another day full of racism.
      Brad: I love how all the bystanders are giving color commentary. (Beat) Can I say color commentary?
    • Another clip shows a drunk guy having lost his keys, trying to break into his car with a newspaper machine, only to realize, a half-hour later, that it's not his car:
      John: Hey, it's not his fault, all black cars look alike.
      Mike B: What?!
  • A clip during an episode of "Outlaws" featured a group of people, mostly white, accosting a driver in a parked car. The driver hit the gas, breaking the legs of one of the people in the group. She was the only one who got hurt. And she was black:
    Todd: The black person gets hurt first. What is this, every movie ever?
  • The homemade music video from Average Home Boy, who raps about not living in boxes, not being raised on the streets, not being black, and not doing drugs, all in the first two lines. Mike B. and Loni are not impressed.
  • Loni inverts this during a clips of some Canadian buddies having a watermelon eating contest:
    Loni: A watermelon eating contest, and no black people? Really? (flips the bird)
  • Hilariously averted and inverted in "World's Dumbest Performers 13", featuring a new hard-beat (as in gunshots) video from the rapper Gil, who sheds some spotlight on his crew: "I got my white nigga. I got my Mexican nigga. On the camera, I got my Asian nigga." Danny is impressed with this being the most ethnically diverse rap video he's ever seen, but Judy points out the exclusion of a Jewish nigga.
  • One clip features a man who is pulled over for drunk driving, and is instructed to recite the alphabet, but after saying a few letters of the alphabet in English, he starts to recite the Greek alphabet; the officer asks him to try again, and recite only, "The normal alphabet."
    Kevin: "The normal alphabet"? What, are we getting racist with our alphabets now?
  • Brad Loekle on a "hoodie pillow" that claims to provide "Coocoonification":
    Brad: "Coocoonification" is not a word... and it sounds mildly racist.
  • The time when a guy is attacked by a black panther (a literal black-furred felid, just to be clear):
    Jamie Lee: (as a little girl) Mommy, are all Black Panthers that angry?
    Mike B.: (as panther) Shut the [bleep] up, little girl!
  • Perhaps one of the biggest moments of these is in one episode of World's Dumbest Outlaws where a black man who robbed a store turned out to be a white man who wore a very convincing prosthetic mask.
    Todd Bridges: They arrested him but they still beat up a random black dude just to be safe.
• Eyebrow Waggle: Dustin Diamond does this for the camera during the Hilarious Outtakes of an early episode.
• Face Plant: It's practically impossible to get through one episode without some poor schmuck falling victim to this:
  Chelsea: Hey, you might wanna get your buddy to water that face plant. [Rimshot]
• Fan Disservice:
  • Anytime Brad just suddenly pops up with his clothes off... which is quite frequently, yet catches you off guard.
  • Occasionally, Mike T. will lose his shirt, which is something a self-respecting big guy doesn't usually do. He even lampshades it during a clip of a large man who gets into a swimming pool without taking his shirt off:
    Mike T.: Swimming with your shirt on. [gestures towards his own body] Popular look for the big guys.
  • Both of them Got Volunteered for a demonstration with a guy named Manel Torres who developed "spray-on" clothing. He is not amused at working with them instead of some sexy female models.
    Torres: You know, I get invited here in New York to spray two gorgeous models, and here, what I'm having is I'm having these two guys, and—
    Mike T.: Yeah, well, I'm not fuckin' thrilled about this either, so why don't we just—
    Brad: (walks in) What did you say?! (To Mike T.) Hold on a sec, (to Torres) did you just call me fat?!
• Fat Comic Relief: The cast tends to poke fun at anyone in a clip who appears to be even moderately overweight:
  Brendan: You can't walk around being a big fat guy like that, and not expect people to try and make you fall every once in a while.
  Nick: [on a motorcyclist named "Bubba" who was attempting to set a "fat man" world record for longest motorcycle jump] I love when fat people fall down. There's nothin' funnier!
• Feathered Fiend: Parodied as one of the criminals in a "Criminals" episode was literally just a seagull that walked into a convenience store, snatched a bag of chips and left. Pretty much every commentator praised the little bird as the smartest criminal of the bunch.
• Finger Gun: In an episode of "Outlaws", a man places his hand on the inside of his jacket as he attempts to rob a convenience store, telling the clerk he has a loaded firearm. The clerk doesn't call his bluff, and the crook gets the money. On the way out, he taunts the clerk by pulling his hand out from underneath his jacket, as if to say (as Brad put it) "Na-na-na-na-na-na, I don't have a gun!" Upon seeing this, the customers promptly kick his ass.
• Five-Finger Fillet: One girl tries this — and, unsurprisingly, jabs one of her fingers.
• Flat "What": Brad gives John one, when a clip features a chubby guy having taken his shirt off:
  John: Whoa, dude, put your shirt back on, you're makin' Brad look good!
  Brad: What?
• Flipping the Table: One guy does this after losing at a Rock–Paper–Scissors tournament, which of course is Serious Business.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: A few variations:
  • "Follow the bouncing tire" is used for a clip where a tire comes off a semi and hits another vehicle in the windshield.
  • There's "Follow the bouncing fish" for a singing fishmonger in London.
• Football Hooligans: A few instances, including one where a girl gets physically assaulted when she won't show her breasts. Fortunately, a more levelheaded guy comes to her rescue.
• Foregone Conclusion: No matter how promising a clip may appear, it will inevitably lead to something embarrassing and/or painful for the subject. As Chuck put it, regarding a BMX biker:
  Chuck: Man, this guy's pretty good! It's a shame you know he's on this show because he's about to experience a monumental failure.
• Former Child Star: Danny, Todd, Leif, and Dustin all qualify.
• Framing Device: Several episodes, starting in Season 13, utilize this, particularly "Performers" volumes. Some examples are as follows:
  • "World's Dumbest Performers 12" has Brad and Judy channel surfing in bed, and almost everything they end up watching are the clips featured in the countdown.
  • "World's Dumbest Performers 13" has "The 13th Annual Performies", an award show hosted by a barefoot Brendan, in which a few of the so-called performers in the clips are nominated for a Perfomie in various different odd categories.
  • "World's Dumbest Partiers 19" features Chuck and Kevin as Drunk Hunters: Party Animal Squad, as they spend a majority of the show tranquilizing particularly destructive or intoxicated partiers, capturing, and at the end of the show, relocating them into their native environment (Florida). Leif also ends up being one of them; this could be an in-universe explanation of his being Put on a Bus.
  • "World's Dumbest Brawlers 11" features Billy taking Frank on a trip to Russia in an attempt to open his eyes beyond the stereotypes that put the Russian on the top of Frank's most-hated foreigners list. With each ensuing clip of something dumb happening in Russia, the two slowly start to switch outlooks to the point that in the end, Frank is, indeed, more open-minded towards Russians, while Billy feels disappointed with what he's seen, and wants nothing more than to leave Russia behind.
• Free Wheel:
  • In one segment, for no discernible reason, a wheel bounces off a truck (subverted by the fact the vehicle didn't crash or explode) and hit a car's windshield, leading the gang to sing along with the "bouncing tire".
  • In another one, a tire bounces into a gas station and knocks over some guy who's refueling his car.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • Happens sometimes, including an instance during which a truck fell through the ice of a frozen lake and flipped over. The owner and his friends try to pull it out with a makeshift tow rope attached to a tractor. The truck folds in half and basically breaks into two pieces. You have to see it to believe it:
    Kevin: It's bad when falling into an icy pond isn't even the worst thing that happens to your truck that day.
  • One clip features a man who is allowing his friend to slap him as hard as he can. The slap knocks the man unconscious, and his "friends" carry his lifeless body into their van and drive off:
    Mike T.: The only thing worse than getting knocked unconscious is getting knocked unconscious and then dragged into a mysterious van. Double thumbs-down!
• Funny Background Event:
  • Often happens whenever Gary Busey drops an Ice-Cream Koan; other cast members make faces behind his back.
  • In an "Inventions" clip, we see a crappy improv troupe steal their roommate's drink from their refrigerator, and one of the players in the back of the group shot is wearing a huge, fake mustache... and none of the commentators even notice this!
  • In a Partiers episode, we see a clip of a woman on a subway, who falls asleep before eating her hot dog, drops it, wakes up, picks it up, brushes it off, eats, and shrugs the whole thing off. However, in the background, we see two women constantly glancing over in her direction, and after she takes a bite out of the hot dog, one of them buries her face into her hand, and shakes her head.
  • In another Partiers episode, a weatherman provides live coverage of a hurricane while behind him, several guys run around in their skivvies. This is then followed by Brendan Walsh scolding people who act this way while behind him, John Enos dances in his undies and moons the camera.
• Funny Fan Voice: Mike Trainor sometimes uses a fan to make his ROBOT VOICE. ROBOT VOICE.
• Gangsta Style: Expect to see this at least once during an episode of "Criminals/Outlaws."
• Gasshole: You will hear at least one commentator burp (mostly Danny) in most episodes of World's Dumbest Partiers. Danny burps in a few other episodes not involving parties, such as an episode of Drivers, Performers, and Inventions. The commentators also tend to burp in general during the outtakes. There are also some clips that is mostly nothing but burping. A few of them are:
  • Guinness World Record holder Paul Hunn tried to break his own record for the world's loudest burp (Record Breakers).
  • A woman tried to break the record of the loudest burp done by a woman (Record Breakers).
  • A reporter at a Brazilian music festival couldn't stop burping during his report (Partiers).
• Genius Ditz:
  • Tonya. She says a few things of questionable intelligence/logic (and gets picked on by her castmates for it), but she knows a lot about cars and motor vehicles in general.
  • Loni Love, despite her demeanor on the show, has a degree in engineering.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Many amateur "daredevil" attempts end with the performer hurt and humiliated despite, sometimes, taking precautions.
• Good Bad Girl:
  • A number of women on the cast fall into this at least once in a while, most notably Jaime, Marianne, and sometimes Chelsea. They don't dress or act like cheap whores, but they (especially Marianne) are not afraid to say they'd love to get it on with a hot guy in a featured clip (nor is the openly gay Brad), or that they've had lots of sex in the past (this is more so Marianne's M.O.). Marianne even brags that she had sex with Jaime' ex-boyfriend.
  • In an episode of "Partiers," several clips were based around a bachelorette party thrown for Christina Pazsitzky by Jaime and Marianne. They travel to at least four different locations, and Marianne tries to have sex with a guy at every single one:
    Christina: (on a man who somehow locked himself in a restroom stall) That guy can't even get out of the bathroom...
    Marianne: As long as he can get out of them drawers, we good to go! [dances]
    [Christina and Jaime give Marianne a "What the hell?" look]
    Jaime: [whispers] You're gross.
  • An episode of "Motorheads" features a recurring theme of two couples on a road trip— Marianne/Billy and John/Loni. Marianne is said to have had sex with a hitchhiker (Danny) that the group picks up ("I can't believe you had sex with that drifter!"), she shows interest in a pudgy Russian wearing nothing but his underwear at the scene of an accident, and it's implied that an auto mechanic gave the four a discount on the repairs to their car because Marianne had sex with him, too.
  • The other panelists even comment on it sometimes:
    Jaime: [on a boxer who got knocked out in the first round] Jeez, Marianne doesn't even go down that fast...
    Marianne: Actually, Jaime, I go down faster. Just ask your ex-boyfriend.
  • Jaime Andrews on a beer-pouring robot:

    Jaime: Uh... that robot gives more head than Marianne... when she bartends!

  • Judging from Marianne's MySpace page, Twitter feed, and other social media profiles, it's apparent that she's not shy about sharing some of past sexcapades.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!
  • From "World's Smartest Inventions": "Get the fork out of here!"
  • A woman who created a fork made specifically for feeding dogs claimed that her invention is "Forking awesome." Brad responded with "Fork you, you forkin' fork-face."
  • One clip featured a young man falling down a set of stairs in a shopping cart. His reaction after the crash is "Aw, freak..."
    Marianne: [mocking him] "Freak! Dang! Aw, poopycocks!" ... you just bashed your face in. You deserve a little "fuck."
  • Kevin reprimanded a man for his language, after a remark that he "completely borked" the opening of his "How To" video.
  • After a ship crashes into a dock, the woman filming the incident says "Oh my gosh!" Gilbert Gottfried comments that it would have been acceptable to say "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"
• Gratuitous Spanish: The cast provides Spanish commentary for a clip of Carnival in Panama. (And then Bonaduce screws up by referring to the Panamanians as "Panamahos".)
• Gretzky Has the Ball:
  • In an episode of "Thrillseekers" in which a snowmobile racer landed his 400-pound vehicle on top of another racer after a jump:
    Kevin: I don't know too much about snowmobile racing, but that should be a foul. That dude should get free throws or something.
  • One episode features a bar in Wisconsin, where the patrons are watching a pro basketball game.
    Daisy: [as one of the patrons] Touchdown! ... are the Milwaukee Bucks a football team?
• Groin Attack: Plenty of nut-shots can be found throughout many of the clips, especially in the Daredevils and Thrillseekers episodes.
  • In "World's Dumbest Record Breakers 6," an Englishman tries to set a record for the most nut-shots. Just watching is painful.
  • Clip #14 from "Brawlers 13" featured a group of guys from Canada playing a game of "Rock, Paper, Balls"—which is basically Rock-Paper-Scissors except the contestants are blindfolded with pillowcases, and the loser receives a nutshot from the host.
  • One clip from "Thrillseekers 8" has a guy take a Halloween-themed nut-shot machine to the extreme—by swinging a pumpkin suspended from underneath a stepladder right in his nuts. When the pumpkin successfully hits his nether region on the second try, not only do the usual results occur, but the stepladder also falls on the man's face, resulting in a broken nose, severed lip and two broken teeth.
• Guys are Slobs: One has to wonder if Ted ever does laundry.

H-M

• HA HA HA—No: Dan Cummins, on a dog who suddenly crashed into a woman riding a sled (tied to a pickup truck):
  Dan: Wish I had a dog that fetched women. I got a lot of room in my basement! Hahahaha — [abruptly stops, stares blankly at camera]
• Hair-Trigger Temper:
  • Judy. Plus, most of the criminals and brawlers shown in the video clips.
  • Pretty much the whole point of World's Dumbest Meltdowns.
  • World's Dumbest Brawlers counts too, as it seems the smallest thing is always what starts most of the brawls.
• Half Way Plot Switch: The basic premise used to be commenting on police and surveillance footage of criminals bumbling their acts of crime, or making stupid and otherwise poor moves in the process. Over the years, the focus has shifted more from criminals to the point that the last few seasons of the show rarely, if ever, focused on dumb criminals.
• Happy Dance: One guy gets high on gasoline and performs what Leif calls a "happy gasoline dance".
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Every episode of World's Dumbest Partiers has at least one example.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Frank and Judy.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Brad is not only unashamed of being gay, but is so comfortable in his own skin that many of his jokes involve mentioning his homosexuality in a comedic light:
  "I know the song 'Hungry Eyes'... because I am a homosexual."
  "If you listen close, you can hear the cop say 'I just got rear-ended at University Place.' You, too? [wink]"
  "That was the gayest thing I've ever seen... and I do stuff with dudes."
• Heartbreak and Ice Cream: John and Kevin invoke this once. In a clip of teen girls robbing a convenience store in Australia, they discover the cashier already deposited the cash for the evening, so in lieu of cash, the girls head straight for the ice cream cooler. John asks if all of their boyfriends broke up with them at the same time, while Kevin also adds that after pulling their heist, the girls will probably celebrate by watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": There's an invention that's designed to make seats belts more comfortable for people's chests. It's called the "Tiddy Bear". Yeah. Chuck Nice puts it best:
  "Best thing about the Tiddy Bear? The name!"
• The Help Helping Themselves: One clip shows a housekeeper caught on camera stealing from her client... who's a police detective.
  Kevin: Stealing from a detective? That's so dumb, it might actually work! Oh, wait, it didn't? Never mind.
• Hilarious Out Takes: Earlier seasons included these during the end titles.
• Hipster: During a clip featuring a party in a laundromat, Kevin imitates one of the dancers as a hipster:
  Kevin: This is great and all, but I was into laundry way before it was cool...
• Hollywood Atheist: Jaime Andrews on a pastor who got injured while riding a motorcycle in his church, but recovered:
  Jaime: He has since recovered from the injuries or religion...?
• Hollywood Heart Attack: Several idiots try to get out of trouble (usually with the police) by faking a heart attack. They're usually so blatant that anyone can tell it's BS, and the commentators will invariably mock them with Sanford and Son references.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Leif once berated a drug dealer clip.
  • Tonya lectures people for lack of humanity. Those are just a couple of examples.
  • Mike T., on the obese hillbilly who was kicked out of the all-you-can-eat fish buffet:
    Mike T.: You called 911 for this, you fat fuck?
  • One clip features a man attempting to rob a bait car is easily identified, not only because he unknowingly keeps showing his face to the camera, but he's got his name and birthdate tattooed on his neck. Danny comments that people who tattoo their personal information on themselves should feel ashamed, and are probably an embarrassment to their family as well...
  Danny: [rolls up sleeves to reveal his family's names tattooed on his shoulders] Like my daughter, Isabella; and my son, Dante; and possibly my wife, Amy.
• Hypocrite:
  • The cast regularly berates the people in the clips for not putting the camera down to help an injured friend, but will also berate them if they do exactly that, usually claiming that continuing to record is imperative, no matter what, since the show needs the footage. However, if a person manages to continue recording and properly help a friend, someone on the cast usually gives them credit for it.
  • Frank uses any footage of this show that comes from Russia (or neighboring countries) to prove how stupid foreigners (usually Russians) are, despite the fact that the majority of the footage on the show is of Americans.
  • During a "Dumb Criminals" episode, cast members will often make fun of the fact that a person in a featured clip attempted to rob the same establishment twice wearing the same clothing, citing the obvious idiocy in doing so. However, if a person robs the same place twice wearing different clothes each time, someone on the cast usually calls him/her stupid for thinking that a wardrobe change would be enough to escape arrest.
  • One clip features two roommates fighting because one thinks the other ate his food, and that the offender refuses to apologizes. Mike Britt plays a third roommate watching the fight, cheering on "Rick" (the one whose food was allegedly eaten):
    Mike B.: [while eating a bag of chips clearly labeled "RICK'S CHIPS"] Yeah! Get him, Rick! That's some shameful stuff— you don't eat nobody food! You know that lasagna you had in the refrigerator? He ate it!
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture:
  • The commentators do this for some of the more gruesome injuries, such as any where there are bones sticking out at odd angles, as well as anything else that gets anyone too squeamish to watch.
    Kevin: (re a girl who sews her name into her tongue) All right, I can't watch this. This is too gross. (leaves)
  • One video shows a bike jumper crashing while one of his buddies says "...And I'm not even looking at it!"
    Chuck Nice: When you make your buddies go "I can't look!", that's when you know you have screwed up.
• I Will Show You X!: Kevin McCaffrey discusses such a thing in "Criminals 20" when a man who got stuck in the window of a Russian news kiosk trying to steal cigarettes says this line to the cops about to take him in.
  Officer: Don't struggle.
  Thief: I'll show you struggling...
  Kevin: He actually says to the officers "Struggling? I'll show you struggling!". It's like, nooo, [footage of the thief's dumb ass stuck in the window] we saw you struggling. That's actually why we're here.
• Ice-Cream Koan: Gary Busey will sometimes drop what he thinks are a few words of wisdom.
  "The injuries to your physical self, they can be minor; but the injuries to your soul, your spirit, your heart, and your identity can be forever lasting."
• I Was Quite a Looker:
  • Comments are occasionally made about how nice-looking Tonya was when she was younger.
  • Leif:
    • Played with when people comment on how Leif used to be "such a pretty girl".
    • Ali, who's made a few special guest appearances on the show (and who was a former Miss USA), made some very approving comments on Leif's physical appearance back when he was a teen idol.
  • Danny lampshades this while watching a clip of him performing mixed martial arts from the early '90s, and remarking, "Wow... I'm pretty handsome!" Jaime is impressed with his "flowing locks", while Bryan also admits that he thinks he's sexy.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: One idiot criminal films himself committing a series of crimes, including multiple thefts and chopping drugs with his probation officer's business card. After getting arrested, he says, "I'm not dumb. I'm really smart." Yeah, keep telling yourself that...
• Impaled Palm: At least two clips feature a magician facing at least two overturned plastic cups, one of which is hiding a sharp object, and trying to slap the cup that doesn't have grievous injury waiting beneath. Guess how well it goes.
• Implausible Deniability:
  • The "Duct-Tape Bandit", who denies it even after the cops pulled the duct tape off his face (which must've hurt like hell).
    "Do I look like a duct-tape bandit?"
  • Played for adorableness with a little boy who denies eating a container of sprinkles, even though his face is covered with sprinkles.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Whenever a clip features one or more cute animals, Kevin sets aside his usual deadpan snarking to gush over the cuteness overload of the clip. He even plays this straight in an "Inventions" episode, where he expresses his disinterest in an invention itself, and would rather have all of the cute little animals that were featured in the clip.
• Improbably Predictable: Mike T. always knows each "Inventions" episode will include at least one product that the informercial will convince you to buy for your RV.
  Mike T.: It's not an Inventions show until somebody tells me to buy something for the RV they assume I have!
• Incest Subtext: During "World's Smartest Inventions 8", while the cast comments on slippers called "Hot Booties" (that are featured in an infomercial with Taylor Baldwin):
  Daniel: Taylor Baldwin has a hot booty. She's a relative, but not that close... if you know what I mean. [wink]
• Incredibly Lame Pun:
  • Danny is the most prone to these, although everybody indulges now and then. Always accompanied by a rimshot.
    Mike T: (on a group of Turkish criminals who were arrested for stealing sheep) I'm glad these guys are no longer on the lam. Wool just have to see how much time they get. These jokes are probably starting to annoy ewe... and I'm spelling "ewe" E-W-E.
  • And for the love of God, do not let the cast get their hands on a clip with a deer in it. You'll hear everything from "Oh, dear!" to "He just wanted a couple bucks" to "The deer was looking for some dough (doe)."
  • And steer clear of clips featuring bovines. They will milk those for all they're worth.
  • Then there was the clip of the lemon truck that overturned...
  • If anyone in a clip fails at a stunt (somewhat of a common theme), and they say "I'm good!" afterwards (as in "I'm okay, I'm not hurt"), you better believe someone on the panel will reply with something along the lines of "No, you're not good."
• In Memoriam: In-Universe — "Motorheads 8" features a dedication to various vehicles that were destroyed throughout the show's history.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • One man went on a tirade full of insane troll logic after being pulled over for suspicion of DUI. He claims that "I understand I been driving under the motherfucking influence, but I understand that I wasn't also driving" and that if the officer wanted him to take the field sobriety test, that she had to do the test as well.
    Bryan: ... what?
  • Brought up in "World's Dumbest Brawlers 13":
    Gary: When you get slapped and knocked out, guess who wins? The guy that got knocked out! Ha HA!
  • From the clips, one drunk pulled over for driving on the wrong side of the road is so blitzed he tries to claim he is tired. Because he worked 130-150 hours... in one day.
    Tom O'Riordan: That's a long day! I thought I had long days.
  • From World's Dumbest Brawlers 10:
    Chuck: I think that's the way rap battles work. Like, when a guy punches you in the face, you win.
• Insistent Terminology: Tonya, of all people, plays this straight on occasion:
  Tonya: Wives don't fart, we toot.
  Tonya: Women don't fight, we brawl.
• Ironic Echo Cut: During an episode of World's Dumbest Drivers, a clip from an automobile festival in the United Arab Emirates is shown, and the setting is very, very, brown and looks like a stereotypical middle-eastern landscape. Chelsea and Mike T. make the following comments:
  Chelsea: You can't get me to make a culturally ignorant remark! I refuse to do it!
  Mike T: [with a middle-eastern headdress photoshopped onto his head] Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Bring your wife, as long as she's completely covered, down to the big pile of dirt, and watch a jeep blow up by accident!
• Irony: Many times throughout the series, though in one episode Michael Loftus clearly pointed it out:
  • Refering to Snapple's failed attempt at making the world's biggest popsicle after it melted in the hot New York summer.
    Michael Loftus: The biggest irony is that the perfect time to set this up is in the middle of winter, but who wants a popsicle then? Nobody.
• It's Snowing Cocaine: Two words: "cocaine blizzard", spoken during at least one clip of criminals tossing out bags of coke while being chased by the cops.
• It's the Best Whatever, Ever!: In one of the "Competitions" episodes, the #1 entry comes from a game show in which women perform a balancing stunt while a camera provides a clear view of their cleavage. Chuck Nice expresses his feelings with excited clapping and squealing before proclaiming, "It's the best show ever!"
• Jerkass: Frank's become the mainstay staple of this trope in later seasons. Jo Koy in earlier seasons, too, to an extent, as he didn't hesitate to look down on or to be absolutely cruel to those on the countdown who deserved it. Judy can come across as this as well, even with her commentary, but in truth it's because she does not like people.
• Jerkass Ball: Most everyone has picked up this ball at one point in the show but Jo Koy, Judy, Brad, Nick and Frank are the biggest offenders. Bryan and Chuck tend to do this when they're more annoyed or heated on some of the dumb ones on the countdown, making them rare cases.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • One of Frank's postscripts, where he rants about women with tattoos and body piercings.
  • Some of the criminals who protest police action have logical cases. One man was arrested for making a false 911 call— a sandwich shop had taken his money and kept the sandwiches he ordered because he said they weren't made the way he wanted. If they kept the money and the sandwiches, that's technically theft.
• Just Keep Driving: One "Drivers" clip shows a guy hitting a pedestrian so hard his shoes go flying. When the cops then pull the driver over, he's apparently too drunk to realize that he just hit someone. This is then "reenacted" with Mike Trainor running over Alan Thicke.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Lampshaded in an episode of, "Outlaws". One clip shows a bicyclist who was the victim of a hit-and-run accident, and was left seriously injured, with two broken legs. As emergency personnel tend to him, a police dashcam records a trio of hoodlums arriving at the scene, and actually stealing his bike while everybody is preoccupied.
  • In a more literal sense, a clip shows a pair of elderly men who were rival football players in the CFL, and still hold a grudge against each other to this day. One of them held it to such an extent that he tells the people attending a CFL luncheon that he had a dog he named after his rival, "And I kicked the shit out of that dog every day." After he says that, someone's cellphone can be heard ringing, to which Roger remarks, "I think that's PETA on line one!"
• Kids Are Cruel: One episode features a man reporting the weather on a snowy street in England. He moves the broadcast to an area in which children are playing. Big mistake. The kids pummel him relentlessly with snowballs during what was a live taping, all while the anchorpeople at the news studio laugh, apparently finding the whole situation hilarious.
• Kids Driving Cars: A few clips have children taking cars on joyrides. On one of those clips, Gary Busey chastises the car's owner for leaving the doors unlocked, allowing a kid to take it.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: The Worlds Dumbest... Performers series will include numerous low budget commercials that feature shoddy camera work, bad acting, noticeable Chroma Key use, and will sometimes stray into What Were They Selling Again? territory.
  • Here is a sample that takes it to ridiculous levels.
• Knife-Throwing Act: Featured in one clip. It almost goes flawlessly until the final few seconds when one of the knives grazes the poor girl in the head.
• The Lad-ette:
  • Tonya drinks lots of beer (and hates wine), loves monster trucks and motorcycles (and knows a LOT about motor vehicles in general), hunts wild animals as a hobby, and has appeared on celebrity boxing more than once. Additionally, on a show riddled with former convicted/unconvicted felons, she's the only female amongst them. Subverted, however, when it's revealed that she took part in a bikini photo shoot during her car-racing days, and actually looked pretty damn good.
  • Jessica Golden has a very manly way of speaking, and is not exactly the most feminine-looking woman ever.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude:
  • Various cast members regularly poke fun at Judy for her height (she's 6'3''), and for not being a smoking hot model like Ali Landry. Judy is openly gay, and this probably only makes her even more prone to these jokes.
  • In one episode during the end titles, Judy walks in on Brad's commentary, and we can see the top of her head nearly reaches the top of the door frame. Likewise, in another episode, she walks in on Nick's commentary (off camera), to which Nick exclaims, "Whoa! Look at this - a 6'8'' Jew!" Normally, given Nick's likeliness to exaggerate numbers, it'd play to his Signature Style but it becomes an Embarrassing Nickname later on when she goes Big "SHUT UP!" AND Jerkass Ball on him due to him accidently interrupting her commentary in a later episode.
  • In another episode, Brad and Judy play two people attending a play, and Judy tells Brad to stop talking on his cell phone (all part of the scene). Brad tells the person he's talking to, "On nothing, just some giant Sasquatch is telling me to be quiet."
  • "Judy, if you looked any more like a tranny, Bonaduce would try and punch you."
• Lampshade Hanging: Whenever someone says something to the effect of a clip going viral, a commentator will often respond with something like, "You know where else it's going? World's Dumbest!"
• Laser-Guided Karma: One clip during an episode of "Brawlers" featured a man at a racing event who was picking on another guy, the latter of whom seemed to just be minding his own business (and clearly didn't want to fight). His friend comes to his aid, however, and the bully catches a beatdown. Once he was done getting his ass kicked, he actually cried in front of everyone in attendance (and even desperately tries to save face after the fact; it doesn't work). Pretty much every cast member who commented on the clip was glad that the guy got his comeuppance.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Used at least twice.
  Billy: When I want to impress a girl, I just reach into my pants and pull out my enormous... wallet.
  Chelsea: If I was a guy, I would not get naked like that unless I had an enormous, ENORMOUS... amount of confidence.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: The series was already clearly starting to run out of ideas towards the later seasons, especially with the introduction of more scripted segments and speedrunning the episode list with barely any commentary, but the Retool in the middle of season fifteen completely took away any lingering sense of the original premise, dropping almost all of the classic commentators and not focusing on any dumb criminals, which was where the series got its popularity in the first place.
• Le Film Artistique: For a Russian man performing multiple keg lifts during a New Years Eve party, Michael Loftus imagines it as a black and white European art film called The Keg of Destiny.
  "The keg is life, and we lift and we lift. It's a sad time. Santa's here! Oh, let's have champagne."
• Leg Focus
  • The examples are infrequent, but they are there. Marianne regularly wears hot pants and miniskirts, but it's only if she's used in a skit or super-imposed into a clip in full-bodied shots that we see this.
  • This also happened with Jaime once when she's inside a plastic bubble while wearing a bathing suit.
  • A clip example involves two teen girls brawling while wearing short shorts, which Chelsea comments it's a good idea to wear them to give people more bang for their buck.
  • A rare male example includes a clip where a man is pulled over for drunk driving, and is wearing unusually short (for men) shorts; Brad and Chelsea like what they see.
• Lemony Narrator: Chip makes just as many quips as the on-screen comedians, and since he's just a voice he has to go extra hard on the performance to get the point across.
• Le Parkour: Often featured on this show, including several attempts at Roofhopping. The fact that they end up on this show tells you how successful they are.
• Lethally Stupid: Many, many people from the clips shown, especially during "Daredevils/Thrillseekers," and "Partiers" (the latter usually in part due to alcohol). One particular instance features a man attempting to play a harmless practical joke involving a lit match and a gasoline pump. It doesn't end well... for him. The man's friend and the friend's girlfriend escape unharmed, as does their infant child. The jokester ends up the only one burned after the van went up in flames-- he had second-degree burns on 20% of his body.
• Lightbulb Joke: Referenced, but the joke isn't told outright. The creators of one product featured on "Smartest Inventions" boast that if a person can change a light bulb, they can install the product.
  Marianne: What about me? I'm Polish...
• Lighter and Softer: The show is like a softer version of Most Daring/Shocking, as the latter tends to feature very serious clips, such as people being murdered in cold blood.
• Limited Wardrobe:
  • Jamie Lee (she of Last Comic Standing fame and also from MTV's Girl Code) appears to wear the exact same outfit with almost every appearance on this show.
  • Rachel seems to like wearing the same tight, sleeveless top, showing off her toned arms and accentuating her figure. And "same shirt" is no understatement. It looks as if she owns multiple shirts that are all exactly the same, just in different colors.
  • Many robbers featured on "Outlaws/Criminals" are shown robbing the same establishment twice, or two separate establishments in one day. One man in Washington robbed a convenience store twice in a week, wearing the same shirt.
    Kevin: He robbed the same store, twice, a week apart, wearing the same shirt. Dude, change your fucking shirt! Steal a shirt from somewhere! Do that!
• Literal-Minded: John Enos is, "The Literal Dog Whisperer".
  John: (Grabs his Japanese Chin, and whispers to it) Hey, get over here, and we'll have a little talk. No more chewing up Mommy's shoe's, you got it? Don't do that.
• "London, England" Syndrome: One clip features the "Redneck Olympics" which take place in Athens, Georgia. They draw a direct comparison to Athens, Greece, the site of the original Olympics.
• Long Runner: The show lasted for 16 seasons, though to justify the show's longevity, many cable shows such as this will usually crank out about two or even three seasons per year, and the number of episodes per cable show season tend to vary greatly, usually 10-13 most commonly, but can be as little as 5, or as many as 24. If this were a regular network show (which some of the cast have expressed their wishes for), its run (2008-2014) would be very less impressive.
• Loners Are Freaks: Chelsea comments, on more than one occasion, how she is grateful to have no friends, which helps her avoid bad situations like those featured in the clips.
• Looks Like Jesus: In one Criminals clip about illegal desert dumping, a criminal is arrested, and in his court video, he appears to be a middle-aged/elderly man with shagy gray hair, and a full beard.
  Billy: Oh my God! They arrested Jesus!
• Losing Horns: Frequently used (sometimes by the commentators themselves) to punctuate an amusing Epic Fail. Wah-wah-wah-waaaaahhhhhh.
• Luck-Based Mission: At least two clips in the series feature "Cowboy Pinball," in which contestants at a rodeo stand in small circles made in the dirt, and wait to see which of them is the last man standing when a wild bull is released (if the bull gores you and/or if you leave your circle, you are eliminated). The announcers tend to make it seem as if you have to be brave to win, but really, it's all about hoping the bull goes after you last. Even if you stand your ground in your circle as the bull charges at you, there's a 100% chance the bull will knock you out of it.
• Made of Iron: Pretty much the only reason why some of these idiots can get hit by vehicles and other large objects, fall off cliffs and buildings, and endure other such calamities and not end up dead. Special mention goes to the little boy who gets sideswiped by a car and walks it off!
• Major Injury Underreaction: In one episode of "Daredevils," a young man falls backwards off of his skateboard while attempting a rail slide. When he lands, he attempts to break his fall with his arms, but his left arm breaks on impact. The severity of the injury is apparent by the sound of the bone shattering and the fact that one can clearly see that "he can high-five his elbow," according to Brendan. The skater, however, doesn't scream in pain or even utter an "Oh, my God!" He looks at his arm and says to his friends, "Dude, I broke my arm. Look how gnarly it is." Numerous members of the cast were impressed/shocked at how stoic he was.
• Masochist's Meal: At least two clips feature someone eating an absurdly hot chili pepper (sometimes more than one), and videotaping himself doing so. It usually ends in pain, screaming, regret, more pain, and a desperate plea for milk.
• Mega Meal Challenge: One clip features a guy eating as many oyster as he can. Crosses into Squick when he vomits into a trash can...and then scoops up the vomit and swallows it.
• Memetic Mutation: invoked They show several clips that have garnered meme status, including Latarian "Smoking With Cigarettes" Milton and Bubb "Whoo Whoo" Rubb.
  • "Ya don't want ya dog to choke on a fork? PUT THE FOOD IN A BOWL!!!"
  • Daisy made an LOLCats reference in the episode entitled "World's Dumbest Heroes."
  • In another episode, a guy pranks his roommate with the "hand trapped in the disposal" joke, once he reveals to the freaked out roommate that it was joke, the prankster falls on the ground laughing.
    Marianne: Wow! That's the first time I've actually seen someone ROFLOL-ing' in real life.
• Midair Collision: It occasionally provides a Downplayed example of two skydivers colliding. Each time it happens, the commentators point out that they had the entire damn sky to play around in and shouldn't have collided.
  Melinda: Is there a place with more elbow room than the sky?
  Kevin: Go anywhere! Take a left! Take a right! Go anywhere except on my head.
• Mind Your Step: Mike Trainor, on a coach of a Finnish football team who fell down the steps of the airplane back to Finland, having had too much to drink on the flight:
  Mike T.: Oh, watch that last step. It's identical to all the other ones.
• Minnesota Nice: Pointed out by Brad when a criminal in Minnesota runs into City Hall to hide from the cops (and fails).
  Brad: That's how nice Minnesotans are. When they've committed a crime, they'll turn themselves in.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: In "World's Dumbest Performers 13", Brad implies that kids should be worried about Mr. McFeely.
  Brad: You're scared of the bear, but the creepy old guy doesn't worry you?
• Momma's Boy:
  • During "World's Dumbest Outlaws 9," a young man attempts to rob a convenience store until his mother walks in, takes the (plastic) gun away from him, and verbally berates him before forcing him to pay for the Doritos he brought to the counter.
  • Another clip features a boxer who's clearly losing so far in the bout until his mother enters the ring and beats his opponent with her shoe. Somehow, because the other boxer had to get medical attention for the gash on his face from her high heels, the woman's son actually won the match.
  • One clip shows a teenager trying out a skateboard stunt, only for it to go wrong, and result in him breaking his wrist with a very loud and audible snap; he then, understandably, starts wailing for his buddies to call his mom, and even at one point sobs, "I want mommy". Mike T. comments that his wanting his mom is alright for now, considering the circumstances, but once he's healed, he'll never live it down.
    • Averted in a similar clip, another teenager tries to master a skating ramp, only to fall and break his ankle, to which he quickly yells out to his friend to go get his dad. In fact, when the kid is wheeled into the hospital, he actually mouths off at his mother to open the door for him.
• Mood Whiplash: There is one cute clip of a cat swiping at a dog from the safety of a jar. During the end credits, the cast is told that the cat had died a few years later, and the cast's faces turn from the usual smirking to gasping sadness. Except for Mike T, who said "Oh. Good!"
  • In some of the earlier episodes, the show shared footage with Most Shocking. This could happen if you saw something that was taken as dead-serious in Most Shocking being spoofed and laughed at in World's Dumbest, or vice versa.
• Mooning: One clip shows a group of people who get together to moon a train.
• Mr. Fanservice: This qualifies if certain male commentators (John and possibly Danny) have their shirt off.
  • John Enos has tendency to show off and bounce his pecs.
  • Chuck Nice appears to be a subversion. He looks to be in very good physical shape, but he almost never shows off his body (one of the only times is when he rolls up his sleeve to show the viewer a tattoo on his arm, and one can see that his biceps muscle is pretty toned).
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Marianne dancing around in a really tight, short-sleeved, lowcut top, a mini skirt, and boots.
    • In another episode, Marianne is once again wearing a tight, lowcut top, but this time, she actually cups her hands under her breasts, and starts bouncing them for the camera.
  • Jaime inside a giant plastic bubble, while wearing a leopard print bathing suit.
  • Amanda, introduced in mid-Season 15, damn near personifies this trope perfectly. During just her first appearance on the show, she appeared in two commercials— one was for the "World's Dumbest" smartphone app (replacing Mike Trainor in the beginning). The other commercial was a new one in which she urged fans to follow the show on Twitter and tweet comments, on the grounds that, if they do, "[She] might just tweet [them] back. wink" She also has a tendency to wear nothing less revealing than a tank top, and it took her about three episodes to tease taking her top off.
  • And then there's Miss Hannah Minx, from one of the "Performers" clips, for her buxom figure that even Judy Gold silently approved.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Mike Trainor on a stuntman named "Blackaman" who shows his abdominal strength by allowing himself to be run over with a (mediocre) car as he lays on the ground:
  Mike T.: One of Blackaman's greatest powers... [dramatically] knowing a guy with a car he can borrow!!!
• My Nayme Is: Tonya Harding, Jaime Andrews^note "Jaime" is a Hispanic name, usually pronounced "Hi-me" (with a harsh accent on the H), and is actually equivilant to the name "James" in English.

N-T

• Name McAdjective:
  • During "World's Dumbest Record Breakers 3," Brad uses the name "Titsy Boobenheimer" to refer to Sheyla Hershey, a woman who attempted to break the record for largest augmented breasts.
  • In an episode of "Drivers," the narrator refers to a Russian man pulled over for DUI as "Ivan Drunkovich."
• National Stereotypes:
  • The show uses a lot of footage from non-U.S. countries, so naturally, stereotypes (sometimes extreme) run rampant, such as Kevin claiming that murder is legal in Australia, and Frank's overall xenophobia, which is usually targeted at Russia. The cast tends to poke fun at Europe in general, either for country-specific stereotypes (British food/teeth) or just for being backwards culturally (mostly third-world countries):
    Michael: See that girl on the swing? (off-screen voice: Hmm?) I'm going to roofie her later. (Really?) Is legal! (No...) Yes! (Yes?) Is Slovakia! (Ah!)
  • Averted by Mike T. during an episode of "Motorheads," which featured a motorcross rally in France:
    Mike T: (using a French accent) It is a beautiful French day to do things not normally associated with our country, is it not?
• Nerds Are Virgins: Pretty much all of the cast thinks this whenever a clip is shown that takes place at a fan convention. Given that most of the cast are middle-aged comedians, they probably aren't aware there's a lot more hitting going on at those things than they may realize or that a lot of the people who attend are in relationships.
• Never Bareheaded: Leif, who has lost a lot of his hair (compared to the long hair he had when he was younger), almost always wears a hat, bandana, or some kind of garment on his head. He even lampshaded this in one episode, telling Brad that the footage of him from a 1970s Japanese potato stick commercial was filmed "Before I grew the bandana."
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Quite a few idiots think that sticking their appendages in a croc's mouth is a smashing idea. As Kevin points out, "That's where the food goes." Clearly, the crocs agree.
• Never Trust a Title:
  • While it holds true almost all the time for other iterations (Partiers, Drivers/Motorheads, Criminals/Outlaws, Daredevils/Thrillseekers, etc.), "World's Dumbest Performers" tends to feature people who aren't really doing something dumb... just making an embarrassing mistake that could happen to anyone.
  • In addition, many "pranksters" featured on the titular episodes aren't really pranking people as much as they're just physically assaulting them when they least expect it.
    Brad: A prank is when you "trick" someone. Not when you wait for them to turn around and sucker punch them with a medicine ball!
    Danny: This isn't so much a prank as it is... whimsical domestic abuse.
• Nice Jewish Boy: 24-year-old Felix Goldstein is shown robbing a bank... but not before first politely standing in line, ski mask and all. Possibly subverted, as he's never confirmed as Jewish (but Judy does comment that his last name sounds Jewish).
• Nixon Mask: John Enos wears one to help introduce a series of clips of criminals wearing incredibly stupid "masks" (one of them uses his hands to cover his face, making them pretty useless for the actual robbery).
• Nobody Can Die:
  • None of the individuals in the clips end up dead as a result of their actions in the clip, but with one exception, from way back in the first episode, it was never mentioned that the person died.
  • When a stunt pilot crashed upside down (on fire!), Judy, Chelsea, and Billy held a vigil, only for the trope to be averted as she walked away without a scratch.
  • One of the earlier episodes features a clip that seems remininscent of the movie Weekend at Bernie's, where a guy drags behind him a dead person in an office chair, with sunglasses on his face.
• Nonindicative Name:
  • Mike T., on a clip of a woman who attempted to stop a crime at a shopping mall:
    Mike T: Her last name was "Lawless," and she hated crime. That would be like if your last name was "Trainor," and you weren't crazy about physical fitness.
  • Mike T. again, on a woman named Bernadette Music, who called 911 because she couldn't get a man. Hearing her talk is less than pleasant.
    Mike T: You would think, last name "Music," her voice might not make me wanna kill myself. And yet, here we are!
• Non Sequitur: Lampshaded when someone gets knocked out after ruining a game of beer pong and one of his buddies says "Looks like a bad day in Bosnia."
  Kevin: How did Bosnia get name-dropped in all of this? I think they've got their own problems. Let's leave them alone.
• Noodle Incident: Jonny McGovern, on a man who attempted to smuggle a power tool from a hardware store by hiding it in a... sensitive area.
  Jonny: Don't put a saw down your pants right near your wiener! I... I did that once. It wasn't good...
• Nose Shove: Some of the idiots have filmed themselves shoving various objects up their noses, sometimes to set some kind of record. And then Danny Bonaduce has to try it for himself.
• Not Helping Your Case: One "Partiers" episode included a video of a bunch of people in Santa costumes in New Zealand protesting a local ordinance that would restrict the sale of alcohol during the days leading to Christmas as away to curb alcoholic behavior. They protested by getting drunk, and engaging in Alcohol-Induced Stupidity. The motion passed, since the "protest" just proved the point the government was trying make.
• Not So Above It All: Happens to Frank on one occasion. In a clip "World's Dumbest Pranksters 2", a woman tapes her daughter-in-law's reaction to finding a cornish game hen stuffed in the Thanksgiving turkey she's carving; the daughter-in-law freaks out at the thought of having cooked a pregnant turkey, until it's revealed to her it's a payback prank, and that turkeys don't get pregnant, they lay eggs. Frank admits that he would have fallen for the prank too, because it didn't occur to him that turkeys lay eggs.
• Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: Happens during a rehearsal for a play in one clip. Fortunately, the guy who was shot doesn't die. How the prop gun got switched for a real one is never explained.
• Not-So-Innocent Whistle: One clip of a stunt gone wrong ends with one of the participants doing the "whistling walk-away", as lampshaded.
• Obvious Stunt Double: In an episode of "World's Dumbest Partiers", John and Loni watch "their" wedding video (a couple's wedding video with their faces plastered over the bride and groom) involving an accident with the bride and groom crashing into each other on a zipline. Loni comments, "Good thing I used that white woman as my stunt double!"
• Off Bridge, onto Vehicle: One idiot attempts a stunt where he BASE-jumps from a bridge into a raft being pulled by a motorboat. He misses the raft and splashes into the river. (The commentators point out that he parachuted in the direction opposite to the boat, so even if he'd hit the raft, he wouldn't have stayed in. Had he gone in the same direction as the boat, he might've succeeded.)
• Odd Job Gods: In "World's Dumbest Motorheads 6", we're introduced to Wheelios, Greek god of motorcycle trickery.
• Older Than They Look:
  • In one clip, a cop arrests a young man for DUI; during the ride, the young man starts up some, "Meaningless, hallow ass-kissing", and when the cop asks what he does, he tells him he's the governor's campaign manager.
    Mike T: You're his campaign manager? Why are you twelve?
  • For the cast, when Brendan first started appearing on the show, his hair and beard were considerably gray, which probably, understandably, prompted him to start coloring them dark brown shortly afterwards.
• Once an Episode: In the first few episodes of Season 15: "A Postscript with Frank Stallone".
• One-Hit Kill: Sometimes shown in World's Dumbest Brawlers or Partiers, where a person gets knocked out in one hit.
  Brendan Walsh: One punch and down!
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Mike Britt, Mike Trainor, Michael Loftus, and Mike O'Gorman.
    • In fact, watching the show in closed captions, the former two are identified as "Mike B." and "Mike T.", respectively.
    • Also unintentionally lampshaded in "World's Dumbest Dummies", where Mike T. and Michael do a spoof of morning drive radio show Mike and Mike.
  • Occasionally, Kevin McCaffrey and Tom McCaffery.
  • Likewise, occasionally Jaime Andrews, Jamie Kaler, and Jamie Lee.
  • Chris Strait, Chris Fairbanks, and Chris Williams.
  • Dan Cummins, Daniel Baldwin, and Danny Bonaduce.
  • In clips featuring women from Russia, inevitably one of them women is refered to as Sveltlana.
  • This happens to Chuck Nice on two occasions, but not with other cast members: in an "Inventions" episode, little TV pitchman Chuck Mango makes a guest appearance throughout the episode; in a "Partiers" episode, a guy has his friends punch him to see if any of them can knock him out - at one point he keeps saying, "I want Chuck next," to which Chuck Nice actually responds, "Really? Really, tough guy?!"
  • In "Holidays," one clip features a guy named Kevin who is a real grump at a family gathering, so much so that he locks himself in the bathroom while his older sisters tease him, and later shoves his elderly mother to the floor while they compete at DanceDanceRevolution; the clip ends with Kevin McCaffrey as a fortune teller predicting the other Kevin's future.
    "I predict a future full of problems with women for Kevin."
• Only in Florida: At least one of the things on each episode takes place in Florida. The narrator even acknowledges this during one episode.
  • Also, it seems like each episode features one or a few clips that take place in Wisconsin.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In one of the "Redumbocity" segments from "World's Dumbest Performers 12", The Didgeri (Mike T. as an Australian comedian) "dies", though after an epi-pen resuscitates him, his accent is gone, and is even pointed out.
• Opposite Day: Occurs at least twice.
  • Once when Mike T. comments (on an incident in which a woman attempted to make a fraudulent slip-and-fall claim in a supermarket) "There's healthy people falling down, people in wheelchairs rising to their feet! It's like the Bermuda Triangle in there!"
  • And another when Mike T., again, comments that bananas are attacking gorillas and clerks are robbing customers. He asks "What is this, opposite day?" Then, a fantasy sequence starts, in which the show is called "World's Smartest Law-Abiders." During the sequence, Frank compliments a Russian for being "great at crossing the street" and Tonya makes a profoundly intelligent statement using a couple of big words. The fantasy sequence ends, and Mike T. remarks "Oh, man! I don't like opposite day!"
  • In yet another episode, a clip shows "Captain Awesome," an amateur daredevil performing a stunt that was supposed to be a truck, with a mattress tied to the bumper, hitting him while fireworks went off. He suffered broken bones, the fireworks set fire to the truck, destroying it, and they almost set a house on fire:
    Mike Trainor: Don't worry, I'm sure your insurance will cove this, on opposite day, so you're fucked!
• Ornamental Weapon: Many suspects in the "Criminals/Outlaws" episodes, whether through ignorance, bravery, apathy, or intelligence, will call the bluff of an armed police officer with his gun pointed at the suspect. Sometimes the suspect will even brandish his/her own weapon (and in at least one clip, the inverse occurred— an off-duty cop brandished his weapon at a criminal attempting to rob a store, who already had his gun in his hands). No cop on the show ever shoots anyone with an actual firearm (always just rubber bullets or tasers), so the criminals may be on to something.
  Ron: (on a woman who emerged from her car pointing a cell phone at an armed officer as if it were a gun) 99 times out of 100... that will get you dead.
• Outside Ride: Featured once with people in India holding on to a train as part of their morning commute.
• Parrot Expo-WHAT?: Danny Bonaduce's reaction to an instructional video on "How to Give Your Possum a Proper Pedicure":
  "Give your what a proper what?"
• Pec Flex:
  • Expect this trope from John if he has his shirt off, because he does this 5 times in separate episodes, except in the first World's Dumbest Lovers, where he does this twice (The clip was about a guy who broke into a sex store and stole a mannequin and some clothes. In the middle of the clip, the man's shirt came off when stealing the stuff.).
    John: Didn't this guy have a shirt on, and then like... (Snaps his fingers, then his own shirt disappears) ...suddenly it just disappeared? What the fuck is with that? [Starts bouncing his pecs]
    [a little later into the clip]
    John: [still bouncing his pecs] If you have sex with a mannequin, you wake up with a fucking splinter. ....It's not pretty.
  • The third time was in World's Dumbest Partiers 18 (The clip in question was about a night club in a laundromat.).
    John: I'll make you my specialty drink. It's called a "Lint Trap", 'cause you're gonna have to empty yourself out after you have a few of these, you know what I'm saying? Eh? (Bounces his pecs)
  • The fourth time was in "World's Smartest Inventions 6" (the invention was about sauna pants).
  • The fifth time was in "World's Smartest Inventions 10" (the invention was about the Asahi Robocco BeerBot).
    John (as a shirtless bartender): Man, this fucking new guy, he's taking all of my tips! He doesn't even do this! (Bounces his pecs) What the fuck?!
  • In World's Dumbest Performers 12, Kevin wonders why the man in the center stage of the pageant is hanging around bouncing his pecs, and asks who's enjoying that.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word:
  • In response to a clip of a drunk uncle trying to climb up a stack of cardboard boxes, Danny explains, "There are so many drunk uncles in my family that we've actually condensed the word down to, 'Drunkle'." Afterwards, the show uses this word anytime a clip features somebody's uncle being completely wasted.
  • In a clip where a bunch of drunk partiers build a little pyramid out of their empty beer cans, Chelsea takes pride in inventing a new word: Beeramid.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: When looking at the "Dog Fork" On Smartest Inventions 7, there are three styles. A blue rhinestone for boys, a pink rhinestone for girls, and a diamond variant.

  Brad: So what's the diamond for? [Tranny] dogs? ^note "Tranny" was censored but you can still read his lips.

• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: One clip features two midgets boxing. The smaller one kicks the larger one's ass big time.
• Piss-Take Rap: Numerous instances, including "Taxi Dave" (a rapping cab driver from Sacramento), another man who's literally a rapping real-estate agent, and a guy who literally urinates on himself during a rap battle (making the name of this trope oddly appropriate). In case you're wondering, pretty much every terrible rapper featured in the show's clips is white.
• Pluralses: Mike T., on a man who berated the parents of a pee-wee football league for fighting in the stands (the man claimed that "It's not our game, it's the kidses' game"):
  Mike T: Man, this is s'posed to be the kidses' game. Why can't anyone think of the kidses when they do these thingses?
• Pocket Dial: One episode has a clip of a man butt-dialing the police while he and a friend are in the middle of a drug deal.
• Police Are Useless: You don't see it often, but this does occasionally turn up in the episodes about dumb criminals.
  • The most notorious example involved three police cars chasing a fugitive, the fugitive turns his getaway car around, goes in circles for several moments, and the cops...follow suit.
  • A different clip featured a police officer pulling into a McDonald's drive-thru with a criminal in his backseat. The criminal bails as the cop is waiting for his food, and gets away.
  • Another clip showed the blatant cheating in an Indian college, as well as the cops who were there to watch for cheaters getting bribed by the families of the teachers.
  • At least three clips feature a cop getting his car stolen by a suspected criminal. Though to be fair one of them involved the man managing to slip out of his cuffs, through the divider, and find the keys.
• Police Code for Everything: Kevin comments on one clip where the police have a code for when a guy drunk-drives himself to jail.
  "You guys are thorough."
• Political Overcorrectness: Brad was once bleeped for saying "Arab", even though the criminal viewed in the present clip was Arab. Brad was also once bleeped for "faggot", even though Brad himself is gay. Guess he doesn't have N-Word Privileges.
  • Ironically, in an Outlaws clip of a man robbing a cigarette shop in the U.K., the voice-over actor keeps exclaiming, "Fags! Fags! Fags! Fags!" Which is actually a slang term for cigarettes in the U.K.
• P.O.V. Cam: We're treated to this from time to time; some specific examples are as follows:
  • An "Inventions" episodes features the Hat Cam, which is a baseball cap with a built-in camera. Various different cast members try it out, and as such, we're treated to Frank in the men's room, preparing for filming; Brendan and Leif meeting each other, and Brendan (on his first day at Meetinghouse Productions) assuming Leif is, "The New Guy," while Leif informs him that he's the new guy; and an unknown woman riding Danny.
  • A "Motorheads" clip features a group of bikers riding through the mountains in North Carolina, each of them wearing helmet cams - on the front and back of their helmets.
    Mike T.: It's like I always say, "Never leave the house with less than two helmet cams!
    • One of the bikers wipes out on a dangerous curve, and falls down the hillside; we're even treated to his wipeout and his attempts to climb back up to the road.
      Danny: This is like Blair Witch for motorcyclists.
  • Another "Motorheads" clip is from a vlogger who records rides he takes on his motorcycle throughout his neighborhood, including an occasion where he accidentally crashes into the back of a UPS truck that has slowed to a stop.
    Mike T.: "Oh, man! These videos are gonna be great to watch later!" Says no one.
• Prank Call:
  • In one "Performers" episode the host of a local access TV show is holding a debate on gun control and asks viewers to call in and give their opinion on the subject. Most of the calls taken are people cussing him out or delivering some very vulgar "yo' mama" jokes.
  • In another "Performers" episode a preacher hosting a public access show reads some inspiring e-mails and reads several lines of the first one before he's told that he's reading the theme song of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The next e-mail, he fails to pick up on what the references to a man named Ben Kenobi or a Universal Force are about.
• Prank Gone Too Far: One good example (#5, Pranksters 4) is when a girl takes a plate of strawberries that looks like it has whipped cream (but is actually shaving cream). She takes one taste, spews it out, and makes a mad dash for the kitchen sink. In tears.
  Mother: Was it worth it for your video to make her feel like that?
  Brother: Well worth it. Well worth it.
• Prison Rape: Being that this series started exclusively as "World's Dumbest Criminals," this is joked about frequently.
  Chelsea: (on a pair of criminals who were arrested for stealing breast pumps) I'd like to see how this plays out in prison. They're like 'What are you in for? Oh, really? That's what you do? Please drop your soap immediately.'
• The Problem with Pen Island: One "Inventions" episode features a product called "Stashitware". Notice what the letters in the middle spell? In case you don't get it: it's called "Stashitware". Apparently, nobody on the show caught it, and neither did the censors.
• Product Placement: Subverted in "Dumbest Employees", where a clip features a guy who brought marijuana with him to work - at McDonald's. We, as viewers, pretty much know it's McDonald's, as Happy Meals are frequently mentioned throughout the segment, not to mention we can see the golden arches on the Happy Meal boxes; however, whenever the cast actually mention McDonald's by name in their commentary, they get bleeped.
• Promoted to Opening Titles:
  • Judy Gold and Bryan Callen for "World's Dumbest Performers 14".
  • Judy for a majority of Season 15.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Nick and Roger at the end of Season 13.
  • Wes Dening at the end of Season 14.
  • Daniel, Chris S., and Jessie Cantrell as of Season 15.
  • Danny, Leif, Tonya, Todd, Chuck, Frank, Chelsea and Marianne (or, in other words, 90% of the original cast) as of the mid-Season 15 Retool.
  • Loni and Billy at the end of Season 15.
  • In-universe, some of the cast will occasionally express missing Brad... even though he was still on the show.
• Quizzical Tilt:
  • During an episode of "Performers," a man making a survival video states that drinking one's own urine is a healthy form of sustenance if necessary. He then tells the viewer "I've never drank my own urine. Never had to, and I don't have to now." At that point, he actually drinks a cup of his own urine, stating that he would never tell the viewer to do something he wouldn't do himself. Chelsea is so confused, she gives three quizzical head tilts in the span of about ten seconds.
  • Brad and Judy both do this when watching a clip of an elderly lady and her daughter singing gospel music (rather poorly) on a late-night public access show.
  • In an "Inventions" episode, Mike B. and Judy do this in response to the DVD instructions of the ThermoSoles.
• A Rare Sentence: "Hey, Elmo, what's your problem, man?" For context, a man dressed in an Elmo costume suddenly shouts that he works for crime boss John Gotti and starts ranting about Jews, prompting some passer-by to ask this question.
  Mike B.: Now there's something you thought you'd never hear.
• Ramp Jump: Courtesy of many daredevils who think they can imitate The Dukes of Hazzard. One particular Epic Fail involves a guy who tries to jump a mile-wide river in a rocket car. His car starts to disintegrate after one second of air time, and he only makes it 500 feet — less than 10% of his objective.
• Raw Eggs Make You Stronger: One guy tries to drink a dozen raw eggs like Rocky did — and vomits them up. Danny Bonaduce then decides to do this himself — and doesn't vomit.
• Read the Fine Print: In-universe. Bryan presents one sequence of clips during "World's Dumbest Lovers 3" as "Vlad, professional photographer." He claims to provide "Premium results without headache or complication" as the words "PREMIUM PHOTOS!" are superimposed on the screen. At the bottom of the screen, in smaller print, the viewer is warned that (verbatim) "photos" may not be premium.
• Real Joke Name: "World's Dumbest Drivers 2" features a clip of a man who is arrested for a slew of crimes, including shoplifting and auto theft, whose name is revealed to be "Warren G. Whitelightning."^note Thunder crashes Whether or not he was born with this name is not revealed.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Have you seen something really bizarre in the news lately, whether it's local, national, or international? Well, starting with Season 14, expect to see that news coverage on this show at any given moment; almost all of the clips featured on every episode since Season 15 are this.
  • Leif's 2010 drug arrest was worked into a sketch parodying the incident.
  • The cast members, and once or twice Danny himself, will never let us forget that he was arrested for punching out a transvestite hooker way back in 1991. It was even made into an animated sketch in "Brawlers 13", with Danny himself narrating.
• Recurring Character:
  • Amongst all the commentators that appear regularly on this show, there are some whose appearances are limited at best, yet those appearances span over a number of seasons. This would definitely apply to Gary, but could also apply to Jimmy McMillan.
  • Pitchman Anthony Sullivan sometimes shows up to pretend that he's hawking some new product, especially in the "Inventions" episodes.
  • Also applies to some of the subjects in the featured clips, which is sometimes lampshaded by the panelists:
    Mike T: [on Ashrita Furman, a man who has been featured trying to break numerous obscure world records] This asshole AGAIN?! He's on this show more than I am!
    • Rachael Starr, whose webvideos of various different "daring" stunts she tries to accomplish get featured on "Performers" episodes from time to time.
    • And then there's "The Horse", who's made at least two appearances doing dumb stunts. Jamie Andrews even points this out the second time.
    • And that Australian guy who has (1) hung four six-packs of beer from his testicles, (2) had a cinder block broken over his head, and (3) electrocuted a hot dog via his nipples.
• Recycled Premise: Following the show's 2014 cancellation, Meetinghouse Productions WAS set to do a show called Chuckler, but at this point it's heavily averted as Chuckler is mainly on YouTube with its own segments. The show seems to have a bit of a Spiritual Successor called Almost Genius that's now on truTV, but it features Chris Fairbanks as one of the co-hosts.
• Rescue Sex: Implied in a homemade porno when a geeky guy saves a Hungarian girl from a ridiculously fake python (according to Marianne, the faux snake is the best actor in the video) and then offers to show her another "snake".
  Mike Trainor: Spoiler alert: it's his penis!
• Retail Riot: Quite a few shopping fights are shown, especially in the "Shoppers" episode.
• Retool:
  • Beginning in the middle of Season 15 the main four (Danny, Leif, Tonya and Todd) and roughly 90 percent of the original panel of commentators were replaced by new ones with about ten more that appeared in Season 16, resulting in Jared Logan and Mike O'Gorman essentially being the main faces of the rest of Seasons 15 and 16.
  • Season 15's remaining half also introduced several short, variously-themed clips that are separate from the actual countdown, such as "That's Nuts," showing a short clip of men (and once a woman) suffering groin-based damage, and also segments called Wait For It, Holy $#!@, That's Gonna Leave A Mark, An Old Drunk Guy Trying To Walk, and How Not To Drive A Bike Off A Truck. Gilbert Gottfried introduced a new one in Season 16 called Missed It By That Much. Another new segment was a recap at the halfway point of each episode delivered by one of the cast members, entitled "What We've Learned So Far".
• Revenge:
  • A major plot point of numerous clips, including one during which a man buried a neighbor's car in snow using his snowblower... because she stole his snow shovel. It took the woman four hours to dig her car out.
  • One woman attempted to pay a woman back for repossessing her car by setting the repo agent's car on fire. The car bursts into flames as intended... but so does the vandal. As Chelsea says:
    Chelsea: You know what they say: "Revenge is a dish best served on fire." Oh, wait. That's bananas flambé. Nevermind.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Inverted in the animated short where Danny talks about his fight with a prostitute:
  "This is 1991! 20 dollars is still a lot of money."
• Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: There's a parody of Goofus and Gallant with two criminals: one who does things the wrong way (Doofus) and one who does things the right way (Valiant).
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The story of Marvin Heemeyer and his homemade tank. Believing the town cost him his job and livelihood, Heemeyer created this monstrosity by taking a bulldozer and fitting it with armor plating and machine guns before going on a rampage and destroying thirteen buildings, all of which were owned by people he had some kind of dispute with, including the town hall, the bank and his old business. His story ended with him killing himself after the bulldozer got stuck in rubble.
• Rule of Three: Averted and lampshaded when a skateboarder tries a trick three times, and on the fourth attempt, is hit by a van.
  Todd: Most people would say "Three strikes and you're out." Lucky for us, this guy's not most people.
• Running Gag:
  • In the World's Smartest Inventions episodes, with every product that involves cats, Billy will mention that he wants it and doesn't even own a cat.
  • Speaking of cats, Mike T. hates them. A lot. He also hates marriage (as does Chelsea).
  • Many episodes feature little skits in which John and Loni play lovers. Brad and Judy also get paired up several times (the joke being that they're both openly gay).
  • In some episodes, there will be a running gag that is used frequently through the duration of an episode, usually related to one of the early clips of the countdown.
  • Almost every single fricken thing that comes out of Tonya's mouth is met with other cast members (most commonly Judy) either rolling their eyes, raising an eyebrow, shaking their heads, or just wearing confused looks on their faces.
  • Whenever Frank starts bashing other countries, be prepared for the American flag to wave behind him, and in some cases, his comments will be accompanied by patriotic music.
• Safety Gear Is Cowardly:
  • Lampshaded numerous times whenever some idiot neglects to wear a helmet, padding, or whatever else would lessen a severe injury.
    Mike Trainor: (as a cyclist who performs a jump without safety gear) Helmets? What are those?
  • On the other hand, inverted when a motorcyclist gets into a crash while wearing safety gear. His helmet sustains considerable damage, but his head doesn't.
    "Always wear your gear."
• Sanity Slippage:
  • One clip showed a baseball player suddenly acting as if he were in a war zone. Even pretending to throw objects at people as if he were throwing hand grenades.
  • Another showed a police officer pulling over a woman for speeding. At first, she is cooperative and friendly to the officer. Then the officer asks her an innocent question, only for her to suddenly start screaming "you don't talk back to me" and trying to physically assault said officer with repeated kicks to the the groin.
• Sarcasm Mode: Almost everyone on the cast is guilty of this at time. Judy, however, is by far the most frequent offender.
• Say My Name: From an "Inventions" episode, Brendan has two Imagine Spots as to what the Kwik Sip and the Go Plate will do to the paper cup and table industries, respectively.
  Paper Cup Industry
  Ted: People, I'm sorry to say, that after seventy years, we will be shutting down the paper cup factory.
  Daniel: What? Why?
  Ted: Because of a new invention called the Kwik Sip. It turns your faucet into a fountain.
  Daniel: [pulls out a wallet with a photo of his "family" ^note And his wife and two kids have Ted's face, for some reason] I guess Kwik Sip doesn't care about my family...
  Ted: I'm afraid not.
  Daniel Baldwin: KWIK SIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!
  Table Industry
  Ted: I'm sorry people, we're shutting down production.
  Daniel: What?! Don't tell me people don't use tables anymore!
  Ted: No, now they just put all their food on Go plates.
  Daniel: GO PLAAAAAAAAAAATES!!!
• Screams Like a Little Girl: An amateur skier after crashing into a tree.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Beautifully defied in this clip.
  Woman: I thought you didn't give pretty girls tickets.
  Officer: You didn't think we gave pretty girls tickets? You're absolutely right, we don't. Sign here.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Several children walk out on a religious puppet show for it being boring and lackluster.
  • Sometimes a commentator will bail on a clip that's too disturbing to watch, such as Kevin McCaffrey refusing to watch a girl sew her name into her tongue.
• Self-Deprecation: The cast members insult themselves, one another and the show itself, as much as they do the dumb people shown on this program.
  Mike T: (on a domesticated cat who attacked a balloon that looked like it) No one wants to see a fat, bloated version of themselves comin' at them. That's why I stay away from mirrors.
  • During the outtakes of one episode, John and Todd play out a humorous reenactment of Leif's arrest for possession of black tar heroin (Todd as the cop, John as Leif). After Todd handcuffs "Leif," he remarks "Who do you think you are, Todd Bridges?! Get yo ass outta here!"
  • Danny does this to himself quite a bit, indirectly remarking that he has a small penis.
• Separated by a Common Language: One clip from England features a woman who says that she's "chuffed". None of the commentators (pretty much all American) seem to know that "chuffed" means "happy".
• Serious Business: Cake.
  Brad: Don't fuck with cake! Cake didn't do anything but love you when your parents didn't!
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • "Criminals 8" featured a shockingly articulate DWI suspect.
    Suspect: Am I a liar to you? Have I been an obstreperous asshole? I haven't been.
    Chuck: If you are sober enough to use the word obstreperous and use it correctly, which he did, I say let him go.
  • During one clip, a man is arrested for DUI and angrily hurls insult after insult at the officer, eventually claiming that he looks like a "morphodite." Brad comments "I don't know what that means, and I have a college degree."
• Sex Goddess:
  • Marianne. She once even implied that she slept with Jaime's ex.
  • Karrine Steffans has also made numerous appearances on the show, although her "exploits" were never mentioned by anyone, not even herself.
  • In one episode of World's Smartest Inventions, Jaime wondered if a featured breathing apparatus would help her give better blow jobs. She quickly scoffed at the thought, proclaiming "I couldn't possibly give better blow jobs."
  • On two different occasions, John has remarked that Marianne and Jaime can't even seem to keep their legs closed.
• Sexophone: Used for Soundtrack Dissonance when it's played over a scene that's very much not sexy.
• Sex Sells:
  • Try to pretend that Karinne and Ali made it onto the show, in the early seasons, because they're funny and witty. Go ahead.
  • The commercial for The Little Dolphin Easy-Pushing Mop from an "Inventions" episode, featuring a number of women of different cultures, each scantily-clad in white lingerie, and each demonstrating the mop speaking in a slow and seductive voice. They had heavy accents and it was somewhat difficult to understand them. John excitedly claimed he'd buy one even though he had no idea what they were saying. Brad and Chelsea also commented:
    Brad: Wow... cleaning's never been so dirty.
    Chelsea: If this is an ad for an international prostitution ring... they nailed it.
  • truTV could not possibly make it any more obvious that this is almost the sole reason Amanda is part of the cast. As far as what airs on the show, she probably just does something sexually provocative without saying anything more than she actually comments on the clips.
  • One early episode of "Criminals" brings in porn star Kelli McCarty as a guest commentator; narrator Chip makes it a special point to bring up her being a former Miss U.S.A., a former model, and even shows a clip from one of her adult movies. Danny then flat-out asks the producers, "So do you guys ever hire anybody you actually think are funny?"
• Shaped Like Itself: Daisy, on a woman who feigned being hit by a car and called 911, desperately claiming a need for immediate medical help:
  Daisy: "What are my injuries?" They are the injuries you would get if someone hit you with a vehicle!
• Shapeshifter:
  • Not a literal shape shifter, but Michael noticeably changes his appearance from time to time◊.
  • Judy has gone through a number of hairstyle changes over the years, and depending on how intense the lighting is (causing her to look either rather fair-skinned, or really tanned), she can almost look like a different person.
  • Marianne, meanwhile, appears to change colors more often than a chameleon. It's not an exaggeration to say that her skin tone has been everywhere from yellow to orange to pink to peach, and maybe some others (a couple of which don't occur naturally in any part of the world).
• Share the Male Pain:
  • It's frequent for male commentators to be shown wincing, cupping themselves, or otherwise expressing this trope in response to clips showing groin injuries (self-inflicted or otherwise), and not unusual for female commentators to at least verbally express sympathy pains of their own. For example. The first guy to comment even lampshades the trope directly.
    Judy Gold: I don't have balls, and my balls hurt.
    Loni Love: That hurt and I'm a GIRL!
  • And a female version when a woman decides to break open a melon with her own "melon".
    Jamie Lee: OWWW! Boob sympathy! Owww!
• Ship Tease: While Loni and John are perhaps the most obvious example, with Brad and Judy close behind (though in their case, it's more to poke fun at them being gay), other cast members seem to be shipped frequently for certain sketches. On at least two different occasions Billy and Marianne have been paired as a married couple (though Billy frequently expresses his discomfort with Marianne having had sex with other men); similarly in later seasons, Mike T. and Jamie Lee are paired as a couple; Brendan and Jaime are shown as a couple on occasion; and curiously enough, Michael is often paired with... himself.
• Shirtless Scene:
  • Most of the time it'll be either be Danny or Brad, but a few other male commentators do it a few times as well. Frank only did this once (somewhat), and it was the whole episode of World's Dumbest Brawlers 10. If John has his shirt off, expect him to bounce his pecs.
  • Some men in World's Dumbest Partiers or Brawlers will usually take or have their shirt off.
  • You will also see any man shirtless if a clip is in the New Jersey Bikes and Babes Festival or on a beach.
    • Just expect this trope if they show a clip and a guy has his shirt off.
• Shock Collar: One clip features a guy using one on himself. Naturally, Danny Bonaduce follows suit.
• Shout-Out:
  • The opening sequence and titles for "World's Dumbest Performers 14" was done in the style of Saturday Night Live.
  • Brad quotes an old Hefty brand garbage bags commercial:
    "Hefty hefty hefty! Wimpy wimpy wimpy!"
  • John showed off his brony pride by wearing a t-shirt of his ponysona in some of the episodes.
  • In the episode World's Dumbest: TV Shows, Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende was featured two times.
  • In a Hillbilly clip, a hillbilly concludes his outdoor hot tub video by quoting Red Green's signature Catchphrase, "If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
  • In the Hilarious Outtakes of one episode, Chelsea positions a blow-up doll to imitates Macaulay Culkin's iconic Home Alone poster face, and even says, "Oh no, my parents left me home for the holidays!"
  • Mike T. on a father who terrified his children by dressing up as St. Nick and showing up at the door:
    Mike T.: One, two, Santa's coming for you!
  • One "Brawlers" episode featured a clip titled "Super Mario." The video featured a guy who accused his friend, Mario, of stealing some cash and starts beating him up. When one of their other friends says "get him Mario," Mario gets his Heroic Second Wind and puts the other guy in a headlock. When the first guy tries to restart the fight, they tussle for a minute, until Mario ends it with a single hit to the other guy's face.
• Show Within a Show:
  • In "World's Dumbest Performers 12", we're treated to "Redumocity", hosted by Sum Guy (Mike T. dressed like a skateboarder), who plays dumb clips for his "Pizanel" including Nice-T (Chuck spoofing Ice-T), Jenny Eastside (Jessie as a dumb blonde), and The Didgiri (Mike T. in a dual role as a Australian comedian). Judy even comments, "This is, like, my new favorite show!"
  • Once, Mike T. shares a clip from his new show he says will be his golden ticket off of World's Dumbest...; cue a clip from The Fresh Prince of Baltimore, starring Mike T. as White Will Smith, and Chuck as Uncle Phil.
    Mike T.: (enters looking like a Rummage Sale Reject) What's uuuuuuuup?
    Audience cheers
    Mike T.: Hey Uncle Phil! Can I borrow the keys to the car tonight? 'Cause you know when you look this good, you can't be on no bus!
    Audience laughs
    Chuck: You crashed the car last time.
    Audience oohs
    Mike T.: Now you know the airbags work!
    Audience laughs
    Chuck: (Shakes head) What am I gonna do with you, White Will Smith?
    Mike T.: Gimme a hug?
    Audience awws while the two share a hug, allowing Mike T. to slip his hand into Chuck's back pocket, and swipe his keys, as the audience laughs and cheers
  • In response to a clip of a female reporter dropping her pants for a soccer champion, hoping he'll autograph her ass reminds Brendan of his webseries, What If I Show You My Ass?, where he offers to show people his ass.
    Brendan: Hey man, those mini muffins look good, can I have one?
    John: No!
    Brendan: What if I show you my ass?
    John: Okay, but just one.
• Sick and Wrong: An already un-sexy dance by a very un-sexy woman falls straight into this category with four words from the cameraman: "You're doing great, Mom."
  Danny Bonaduce: It's his mom?!
  Brad Loekle: No! NO!
  Michael Loftus: Oh! I need to wash!
• Signature Style: Most of the commentators have unique ways of telling jokes they'll often fall back on, considering most are comedians.
  • Todd often acts out the ridiculous stunts that happen, Bonaduce will drop either incredibly lame or actually pretty funny puns, Tonya will try to explain what happened in her own twisted logic, while flanked by confused reaction shots of the other commentators; Michael will use ridiculous sound effects, Frank will swear a lot and bash other countries, and so on.
    • Michael Loftus lampshaded Bonaduce's puns during one clip in which a man bought a meat smoker and found an amputated human leg inside.
      Michael: How much did the smoker cost him? An arm and a leg! BOOYAH! Sit down, Bonaduce! [cut to Danny laughing hysterically]
  • Kevin McCaffery has used the phrase "What kind of [noun(s)] are you [verb]ing?" more than once.
  • Nick also tends to exaggerate, especially when numbers are involved, such as claiming that someone was driving 500 miles an hour, or that a robber was stopped by an elderly man "in his late hundreds."
  • Brad will either use pop cultural references or insult one of his fellow commentators.
  • Almost every cast member impersonates a racial/age/etc. stereotype at one point or another, but Rachel does it so much that an entire show can go by without the viewer hearing her actual voice. She seems to favor impersonating Russians and stereotypical New York Jews.
  • Gary Busey will sometimes drop an Ice-Cream Koan while the other commentators make faces behind his back.
• Silver Bullet: Brad, on a suspected criminal taking a TASER shot to the chest and not slowing down at all:
  Brad: If I tase you and you don't feel it, I'm not just gonna shoot you next. I'm gonna shoot you with a silver bullet.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot:
  • Judy and Frank. Actually, Judy's habit of swearing seems more natural as she does it only when she's pissed off (which seems to be most of the time). Frank on the other hand seems to swear every other second, while saying the most innocuous of sentences.
  • One episode of "Brawlers" features a clip of a little boy, no more than three or four-years-old, who swears like a sailor at his siblings, and his mother; every other phrase out of his mouth is, "Fuck you!"
    Mike B.: Who the fuck is raising that child?! This is some bullshit!
    Danny: I don't have my contacts in, is that Joe Pesci?
  • Exaggerated in one clip from “Partiers 1”, which showed a drunken bride that had been arrested, and she swears like a sailor at the cops. Seriously, every other word she says is bleeped out.
• Sketch Show:
  • While not an actual sketch show, this show does include a number of recurring segments, including "911 Center" (with a random cast member listening to a dumb 911 call), "Physics 101 with Professor Tonya Harding" (Tonya using clips to deliver scientific lectures), WDUM News (various castmembers ranging from Billy, Kevin, and Chelsea are anchors; Jaime, Marianne, and Brendan are usually field reporters; Ted is almost always the news editor), "Instant Replay" (Roger on an ESPN-esque sports show, offering blow-by-blow details of a sports or competition related clip), among others.
  • Starting with Season 14, the show has been utilizing such sketches, among others, more and more to the point that it's almost as if the producers are trying to turn this into a sketch show.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • In one episode of "Motorheads", a driver on the run from police loses control of his car and slams through the window of a diner. Kevin plays a patron who's having a meal in a booth next to said window.
    Kevin: Excuse me, waiter? Yeah, I ordered this steak medium rare— this is clearly medium well. [Beat] Also, there's a car in my mashed potatoes.
  • Also suggested in a "Performers" episode when a guy in British Parliament is scolded when his musical tie goes off. Kevin is quick to point out that — his choice in ties aside — at least the guy showed up (there were a lot of empty seats that day).
    Kevin: It looks like 90% of the government called in sick.
• Small Name, Big Ego:
  • Frank. Woo boy howdy. He believes this not only of himself, but all musicians, including getting angry at a cop for not treating an obviously drunk David Cassidy with the respect Frank felt he deserved.
  • One clip features a so-called "sovereign citizen" who feels that he shouldn't be held accountable to the law...yet expects the cops to handle him according to the law. The cops (and their tasers) are not amused.
• Small Reference Pools:
  • Sometimes averted. Occasionally jokes are made that reference things from World War II to Shakespeare, to obscure trends of the 1940s, and even certain parts of many religions, that most viewing audiences wouldn't know about.
  • World's Dumbest Brawlers has mention of the Japanese glorifying cannibals.
  • During an episode of "Outlaws" in which a man in Norway basically used his tractor to hold a would-be robber's car hostage:
    Billy: Here's the thing— you don't mess with Norwegians, okay? They are to Scandinavia what Latvians are to the Baltics. (confused reaction shots of other panelists)
• Soccer-Hating Americans: Whenever the show features a clip in which soccer is included - even briefly - much of the cast is quick to add their disdain for the sport in their commentary.
  Nick DiPaolo: Soccer's not boring enough when it's played by humans, let's slow it down even more underwater with fish!
• Social Media Before Reason:
  • Played With in pretty much every way, typically in one of two scenarios—either someone will film a disaster and its aftermath instead of doing something to help, prompting the commentators to jokingly Lampshade the importance of continuing to film the events; or someone will stop filming and go to help, prompting the commentators to complain (and, in some cases, re-enact the probable aftermath themselves).
  • Another form of this occurs when someone films something embarrassing and decides to erase the tape—which apparently means "send it to TruTV so Danny Bonaduce can make fun of it."
• Sophisticated as Hell:
  • Natasha Leggero (who dresses, acts, and talks like an extremely sophisticated woman), after seeing a guy wipe out attempting to snowboard down a staircase while drinking a can of beer:
    Natasha: [gasp] He got beer all over the Berber carpet! ... motherfucker!
  • Adrianne Curry once proclaimed, of an incident in which two fire trucks crashed into one another, that she's "Sorry that any firefighter got hurt, because they're obviously heroes and shit."
• Sorry Ociffer: Often parodied by the cast, and done legitimately by DUI suspects.
  Officer: Go ahead and stand up for me, man. Where were you drinking tonight?
  DUI suspect: I ain't drinkin'.
  Officer: You're not drinking?
  DUI suspect: I had a couple...
  Officer: Where'd you have a couple at?
  DUI suspect: Chaser's, but uh... I ain't that fucked up... [immediately falls over]
• Space Whale Aesop: Gary frequently gives these. "When you're drunk, don't try to have sex with an automobile, 'cause it ain't gonna work."
• Special Effects Failure: Pointed out In-Universe when the gang make fun of a mattress commercial. The salesman starts by pretending to be a bearded Chinese guy (complete with stereotypical acting) before switching to a bearded pirate, when...
  Bryan Callen: Hey, wait a minute! The pirate beard and the Chinese guy's beard are the same! YOU'RE NOT EVEN REAL, YOU LIAR!
• Spell My Name with a "The":
  • The Greg Wilson.
  • One guy who's featured twice on the show calls himself "The Horse".
    "I'M THE FUCKING HORSE!"
• Spoiled Brat:
  • One clip showed a teenaged boy who kept mouthing off to his grandmother who was babysitting him. Finally, to teach him a lesson, she gave him a swat with a wooden paddle, though not very hard. The brat yells in his most obnoxious voice "OW! What's wrong with you?! I'm calling my mom!" Understandably, the commentators wanted her to hit him again.
  • Another clip showed the same teenage boy whose parents got him an old jeep/truck for his 16th birthday, saying this would be something he could beat up and ruin. The boy responds by throwing a tantrum like a 5-year-old and beating the truck with a bat. No wonder his parents bought a used car instead.
• Spoof Aesop: Every so often, the best example would be Danny Bonaduce talking about his infamous run in with a transvestite prostitute.
  "The moral is never hire a hooker that can palm a basketball, unless that's what you're into. Night kids!"
• Staircase Tumble: One clip features a girl attempting a Grand Staircase Entrance in her prom dress when she trips and falls down the stairs.
• Stalker with a Crush: In "World's Dumbest Lovers 3", a drunken girl calls up a guy she had just met at a bar, and leaves him four long messages, one right after another, gushing about how cute she thinks he is and how she stirs up feelings of chemistry and nervousness inside her, and telling him all the places she works so he has multiple options of calling her back so they can talk together.
• Stealth Pun: In "World's Dumbest Criminals 21," the title of one clip is "Good Grief!" The clip features a robbery, and while holding up the store, the thief is snacking on... peanuts.
• Stoners Are Funny: A couple is pulled over in Kansas after the passenger throws something out of the window, and upon inspection of the vehicle, the police ascertain that they're in possession of marijuana. When the male resists the officers' search, they use physical force to get him to cooperate. His girlfriend, almost in a lethargic stupor, deadpans (in a rare instance, unintentionally) "Stop doing that to my boyfriend..." Michael Loftus can only comment that "That's some good dope right there."
• Strip Poker: One episode features a full-scale strip poker tournament. The episode then ends with Danny Bonaduce playing strip poker with three very attractive (but not very intelligent) women.
• Stuck in a Chimney: A few criminals have had to be rescued by police after getting stuck in chimneys and other passages. One clip plays it like a birthing scene.
• Stupid Crooks: The original reason for the show's existence. Any episode labelled as "Criminals" (or later, "Outlaws") are entirely these people.
• Super-Strength: In a "Partiers" clip, we see a dance party being held in Jamaica, specifically the skills of a guy who looks to weigh about a buck twenty soaking wet (as Roger would put it), and a girl whose roughly about the size of Loni. At one point, the guy effortlessly lifts the girl up, much to the cast's amazement.
  Brad: Good lord!!! Is he half Jamaican-half carpenter ant? How did he lift eight times his own bodyweight?!
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Leif pulls this a lot.
    • In a bizarre ending sequence after one episode, Jaime reveals that she had made a bet with Leif. She bet Leif that Todd would actually pay her for winning a race, which he had created with the promise of a cash prize. Todd didn't pay her, so Leif won the bet and got to "have his way with [Jaime]." We then see Jaime and Leif in Leif's car — she says she can't believe they're doing this in his car, and he replies with "It's not like I live in it or anything."
  • In one clip, we see a guy trying to break into a closed convenience store, and trying almost every way you can imagine: breaking the door down with his body, breaking the door down with his truck, knocking on the door, and even trying to pick the lock with a credit card; Mike T. states picking a lock with a credit card only works when you're trying to see your sister naked in the shower, to which he quickly adds, "Not that I've ever done that..."
  • Frank invokes this during a clip of a Revolutionary War reenactment.
    Frank: See, now this shit I love, 'cause you know me, I love shooting people. Stabbing them. [Beat] Y'know, in movies, not in real life.
    Brad: [darts eyes back and forth, raises eyebrow and smirks]
  • Dan, on a clip of a dumb show-off:
    Dan: A teenage girl dancing in her bra on the internet? I... I've never heard of such a thing or watched it... every night after my fiancé falls asleep.
• Suspicious Spending: In an early "Criminals" episode, the story focused on the Loomis armored car robery. The narrator tells that an armored truck carrying several million dollars disappeared; when it was found days later, most of the money was gone, with the prime suspect nowhere to be found, and no leads in the case. A few months later, a couple moved into a McMansion and filled it with expensive and tacky decorations. An investigation showed that they did not have the means for their purchases (no income to justify their expenditures, no registered inheritance or lottery winnings), and after questioning, they revealed to the authorities that the main conspirator was hiding in Mexico, and after his extradition, the three of them were tried and convicted of, among other things, grand theft.
• Tastes Like Purple:
  • During "World's Dumbest Employees," Bryan [while impersonating a small child on the lap of a mall Santa, who had been seen peeing behind the building and smoking] remarked that "Santa smells like tobacco, pee-pee and failure."
  • From the same episode, a clip of a hairstylist breaking into the salon he works at to pee into the coffee machine; Bryan remarks, "This tastes yellow. [Beat] Why does my coffee taste yellow?"
• Taxonomic Term Confusion: When someone refers to a man in a gorilla suit as a "monkey".
  Jessie Cantrell: Hey, that's an ape. Get your fucking primates straight, asshole.
• Technician Versus Performer: One clip features a boxer who performs an elaborate pre-bout dance with his corner — and then takes a severe hit ten seconds in by an opponent who actually decided to focus on boxing.
• Teeny Weenie:
  • Danny Bonaduce admits to this. Many jokes are made that Judy Gold has a bigger one.
  • And then there's the drunk guy who takes a piss in a hotel lobby. The manager gets back at him by posting flyers around town featuring a security camera picture of the drunk guy with the words "SMALL PENIS ALERT".
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: One of the running gags throughout the series is how much all the commentators hate each other. Special mention goes to Brad and Judy's rivalry, Danny and Leif's rivalry, and pretty much everyone against Tonya.
• That Came Out Wrong: Two girls are having fun by taking turns punching each other in the face. One girl lands a straight right hand on the other, directly on the nose. Unsurprisingly, the blow knocks her on her ass immediately. Dan comments:
  Dan: That's like one of the main problems I have with women— they don't know how to take a punch. [Beat] Wait, that sounded wrong.
• The Talk: Mike T. invokes this in a Competitions episode of a snail race, where a few snails stop racing to mate with each other.
  Mike T.: It's always fun when you have to explain things like this to your kids, like... "Why are the snails hurting each other, Daddy?" "Oh God, this is gonna be a long car ride home."
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That:
  • In a clip of a couple of dumbasses trying to BASE jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, and getting caught in crosswinds, Nick DiPaolo makes a crack that's definitely meant to bait Judy Gold:
    Nick: I jumped off a bridge and landed in Judy Gold's hair! (as Judy) "Fuck you, Nick!"
    Judy: Fuck you, Nick! You wish you had my hair!
  • Frank is very much aware that the editors super impose a waving American flag behind him, a Patton helmet on his head, an Eisenhower jacket on his chest, among other things, whenever he makes a crack about other countries, or remarks about how great America is.
  • All the other commentators know how Frank typically reacts to clips involving Russians, and will even imitate his probable reactions.
    Wes Denning: Don't show this clip to Frank Stallone. He'll have a stroke.
    Michael Loftus: (as Frank Stallone) [BLEEP]ing Russians. They're so stupid. That's why they'll never [BLEEP]. Yeah.
    Frank Stallone: Is Frank Stallone being set up? You know what, I'm gonna start forwarding this hate mail over to you at World's Dumbest.
  • An episode of "Partiers" shows a group of English mates sitting around a campfire, doing dumb stuff with their smoldering cigarette butts, like extinguishing them into one of their wrists, while he also eats one (while still burning). Danny often likes to pull the stunts we see in the clips, and Brad's well aware of this.
    Brad: No, no, no, don't show this to Danny! He's gonna try to eat one.
    Danny: (eats a smoldering cigarette butt)
    Brad: Dammit...
• The Tease: Marianne, Jaime, and Daisy tease taking their shirts off at one point, and it took Amanda about two episodes to do so for the first time.
• The Teaser: The show always had 'em, usually a sampling of the kinds of clips you're about to see in the episode, however, since about Season 13 the cast started putting on skits, or set up running gag to kick off the episode. By Season 15, these skit teasers became a Once an Episode thing.
• Themed Wedding: There've been a few. One is a sci-fi cosplay wedding, while another has everyone dressed in camo (including the bride) and the minister is wearing a deer costume.
• Theme Naming: Inverted with Daisy Gardner; Brendan even jokes her name sounds made up.
• Thief with a Heart of Gold: One clip featured a robber who triggered a heart attack in an elderly clerk. The robber actually shows compassion by apologizing, saying he does not want to hurt her, and letting the clerk call for an ambulance (he even asks for the phone). He does still take some money, but only thirty dollars. The clerk survives, thanks to the fact that the thief allowed her to call for medical attention.
• Third-Person Person: When a matador gets gored in the chin by a bull, Frank plays it off by saying "That almost grossed Frank Stallone out, and I've seen some gross stuff." If you think about it, Frank ended up making himself look stupid.
• Those Two Guys:
  • Whenever the cast reenact certain clips, or act out little skits to compliment clips, often times the pairings are as follows: Brad and Mike T., Chuck and Kevin, Jaime and Marianne, male-female pairing Loni and John. Sometimes Michael will play dual roles.
  • Brad and Judy have played lovers at least twice throughout the series, which is likely a parody of the fact that both are openly gay.
• Threatening Shark: Several idiots learn the painful way that just because a shark is out of the water, that doesn't mean it's harmless...
• Title Confusion: As the series progressed, some episode topics were introduced that were pretty much just synonyms for other topics ("Outlaws" instead of "Criminals", "Motorheads" instead of "Daredevils", etc.), likely due to some episodes reaching topic numbers up into the twenties, and the producers feeling that may turn some viewers off.
• Title, Please!: Season 15 introduces new title cards that don't include episode titles. They also stopped giving (usually punny) names to each individual clip throughout the show after Season 9.
• Tongue on the Flagpole: Happens in one clip. Chuck Nice even references A Christmas Story.
• Too Dumb to Live/This Loser Is You: Do we need any examples? Of course, it isn't exactly 1000 Ways to Die, either.
• Too Important to Walk: One clip features an event called "sedan chair racing". One team shows up dressed as Iraqi soldiers and claims that they misheard it as "Saddam chair racing".
• Took a Level in Dumbass:
  • Frank admits to falling for a prank in which a woman stuffs a Thanksgiving turkey with a Cornish game hen, and leading her daughter-in-law to believe she bought and cooked a pregnant turkey, because it didn't don on him that turkeys lay eggs.
    Frank: I didn't even think of that! Turkeys lay eggs, they don't give birth! Man, am I a dumbfuck. You got the Stallonester on this one.
  • Loni: I don't have genitals! [Beat] Do I?
  • Kevin has a subtle moment of this, in which we see Danny getting a "Smokin' Gun" tattoo on his shoulder, though the tattooist messes up from a mini van plowing through the store front (in the accompanying clip), to which Kevin remarks the van hit the store so hard it, "Knocked the 'G' off Danny's chest."
• Totally Radical: Billy claims that he wants to start using a new phrase he learned (which he heard in a featured clip) during his everyday life.
  Billy: Honey! The faucet is leaking like a bitch!
• Trademark Favorite Food: One can assume Loni must really her some bacon.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Done with the opening sequence of the show, during which a number of snippets of the clips featured are shown. The viewer sometimes gets to see the payoff of the clip (i.e., someone inevitably getting hurt) before they even see the whole clip itself. They'll also sometimes, prior to a commercial break, freeze a clip right before the part that makes the clip entertaining in the first place... even though they've already shown what happens during the opening.
• Treadmill Trauma: Featured in a few clips, including one where a guy's dance moves fell apart the moment he stepped foot on a moving treadmill.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The music video for "Booty Pop". Sexual lyrics, bikini-clad women, and a kid who barely looks old enough for kindergarten.

U-Z

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: In one clip, a man is arrested for a major crime during his wedding. Mike Trainor has the following to say:
  Mike T.: You knew he was doing something illegal to be that ugly and have a wife that hot. Something was afoot.
• The Unintelligible:
  • Frank. But not for the same reason as his brother, Sylvester. It's because Frank swears a lot, requiring many bleep sounds, rendering most of what he's trying to say incomprehensible.
  • A drunk sitting in a police car in one clip seems to be so pickled he's reduced to barking out in angry, drunken babbling. It gets to the point where Brad wonders if the man isn't speaking in tongues.
• Unlimited Wardrobe:
  • Sometimes the commentators will be wearing different outfits within the same episode. Heck, sometimes, they'll wear different outfits within the same segment.
  • Frank brags about being the best-dressed cast member on the show. Cue a brief montage of all the various different outfits he's worn over the years.
• The Un-Smile: During an episode of "Smartest Inventions", Daisy Gardner commented that one "age-reversing" product would keep her from having to choose which facial expression to use, as she stared blankly at the camera and smiled eerily.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • Mike T. claims, of a clip from a porno that featured a part of the set falling and hitting one of the actresses, "They had a blooper while they were filming it, and I bloopered when I watched it."
  • Tonya on a clip of a man who secretly takes upskirt pictures of a woman in a department store.
    Tonya: You're gonna go to jail, and then you can look at somebody else's whoa-whoa instead of my hoo-hoo.
  • From a "Performers" episodes, a candidate running for governor of the state of Tennessee asks in his campaign video for people to vote for him, wanting to be placed in the state capital building, "So [he] can do [his] issues."
    Chris S.: "Do my issues" sounds like some kind of bathroom euphemism.
  • In a clip from Canada of a couple of teens stealing a bait car, one of them asks the other for a "hoot" to smoke.
    Brad: A "hoot"? God, even Canada's words for drugs are weird!
  • A clip from a "Partiers" episode features two girl doing the cinnamon challenge, while "Hammied".
    Judy: YAY! WE'RE HAMMIED! WE'RE DOING THE CINNAMON CHALLENGE!
    Mike T.: Ugh, if only you girls weren't so hammied!
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • So, we have two really hot teenage girls (a blonde and a brunette), both wearing tight short-sleeved tops, and short shorts, brawling with one another; the brunette, at one point, even takes off her top, and continues fighting the blonde, and pulling on her hair. Chelsea, Billy, Judy, Kevin, Brendan, and Michael are all very excited by this clip... and what does Mike T. have to add?
    Mike T: Man, I've been living in the city too long... I want a lawn...
    • Although, he may have been saying that if he lived somewhere with a lawn, he'd be able to see this type of thing.
  • A Russian woman makes a provocative video for her boyfriend (and yes, she's actually very sexy), and as she pulls some suggestive moves for the camera, Daisy seems rather distracted:
    Daisy: This is the best Russia has ever looked on this show! Look at that apartment, they must have gotten it from Ikea!
  • Mike T. does this again with the ghost bike clip from a "Daredevils" episode, as said ghost bike rides away and crashes right over the barrier into the crowd.
    Mike T.: Oh my God, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen! [points out advertisement on the barrier] A 10% discount at Motel 6?! Oh my God!
• Verbal Tic:
  • Leif's slight Surfer Dude speech pattern (which he's been using since his Teen Idol days).
  • Billy almost always will pause mid-sentence with either an, "Uhh," or an, "Umm."
• Visual Innuendo:
  • Brad slaps himself with a cucumber on "World's Dumbest Record Breakers 4". Penis jokes are also made when a record-breaking cucumber is featured in the same episode.
    • As seems to be his M.O., Mike T. lampshades the obvious joke that was made during the clip:
      Mike T: [after other cast-members, and even the narrator, have made many jokes about it] Hey, guys! Cucumbers are shaped like penises! Hahaha!
  • A pink, condom-shaped, hot air balloon named Vrij Veilig appears on "Worlds Dumbest Record Breakers 5".
• Vocal Evolution: Throughout the first season, Chip Bolcik's narrations are delivered in a little more deadpan and wooden manner, as well as his voice in general is a little deeper, and slightly gruff too.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Pretty much every clip from Russia. One of the things that sets Frank Stallone off.
• Warts and All: Of the original cast, Danny seems to be regarded as the show's unofficial star, particularly in earlier seasons where it's not uncommon for a clip of some of his past exploits or activities are featured in a countdown; his transvestite hooker incident was also spoofed in an animated clip, and promotional images tend to plaster him front and center with Leif, Tonya, and Todd behind him in the background. Leif perhaps comes in second, as photos and clips from his Teen Idol days in The '70s are occasionally featured, and similarly, a drug arrest of his was also spoofed in a re-enactment.
• Watch Out for That Tree!: Watch this snowboarder in action.
• We Interrupt This Program:
  • One episode of "Partiers" features a Russian man (Bryan Callen using a Russian accent) interrupting Frank's umpteenth xenophobic rant, opening with "Don't be alarmed, fat Americans— we have taken control of this broadcast." He then proceeds to play several clips from countries other than Russia to prove that Russians aren't as stupid as Stallone claims.
  • Becomes a Running Gag in an "Outlaws" episode, where Billy continually interrupts commentary with a late-breaking World's Dumbest News Flash; when we're returned to our regularly scheduled programming, the cast is either still rambling incoherently, or display obvious confusion and annoyance at being interrupted.
  • One "Record Breakers" episode has the commentators repeatedly interrupted by Kenny G going for the record for the longest saxophone note.
• Weapon Specialization: One Turkish competition has two guys whipping each other. One guy then starts whipping the spectators.
• What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: You could call the show itself "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" That's how common this trope is during World's Dumbest.
• What Were You Thinking?:
  • If they had been thinking, it wouldn't be World's Dumbest, right?
  • Once while imitating something in a previous clip, Danny wound up ripping off one of his eyebrows with superglue and packing tape. His reaction? Other than a shout of pain - "Why would you let me do that?!?"^note Ratings!
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Todd Bridges' opinion of the cast pretending to be the cast of The Flintstones:
  Todd: Man, this show has really gotten stupid...but it's a living.
• Why We Can't Have Nice Things: One video revolves around a large group partiers in a once-popular waterfall in a state park in San Diego, California, where one of the revelers, wanting to impress his friends, jumps from the top of the waterfall and has to to be taken to the hospital as a result. The narrator then states that park officials have closed off the area to visitors.
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof: Sometimes the commentators act like they're observing wildlife. This is especially so with Michael Loftus' "Quest for Dumbness".
• Wise Beyond Their Years: One episode featured a clip, which was number one on the list, where a nine-year-old girl was able to drive her drunk father to a convenience store. The girl's father even tells the store clerk how well his daughter drove for her age.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • As Chuck once explained, "If your friends are laughing and giggling as you are being swept away by rapids... they're not your friends."
  • Another clip involves a group of friends getting another friend drunk. Then the guy whose house it was gets mad and demands the drunken friend leave, "accidentally" pushing the drunk backwards down a flight of stairs, the drunk ending his fall unconscious. One of the friends suggests they give him a pillow and leave him there. They call paramedics (eventually).
  • Often, if a person is shown having injured themselves seriously and the camera keeps rolling, at least one of the commentators will question why they won't just put the camera down and call for help.
  • A guy eats a flaming Dorito, and his mouth (understandably) hurts. His "friend" convinces him to eat kitty litter from a litter box, and then begs him to eat one of the cat turds in the litter box.
  • One man's response to his friend falling head-first down a flight of stairs? "Hey, hey! What happened? Are you bleeding? I'm busy recording, so I can't really help him."
  • One of the clips featured is this video which involves a guy, having passed out from drinking, being taken outside and sent into the middle of a pond on an inflatable raft. It's only when his "friends" start throwing rocks at him that he wakes up and swims for shore. Bonus points from the guy that says "Fuck that" when the cameraman says "If that raft tips and he doesn't wake up, one of us is going in after him."
• Worst Aid: Pretty much every damn time some idiot gets hit in the head and knocked out, the idiots around him start doing things that you're not supposed to do for a concussion. Highlights include slapping him, shaking him, pouring water down his throat, or just shrugging it off and saying that he's fine.
• Worst Wedding Ever: Several weddings are featured that go off the rails. Participants pass out, cops show up to arrest somebody, fights break out, etc.
• The Wrong Way on the Escalator: Several idiots on try to force their way on escalators in the wrong direction, usually while drunk and/or fighting people riding them the right way.
• You Know What They Say About X...: Subverted during a clip featuring a large black man at a pool, tripping and falling from a makeshift diving board (AKA a lawn chair):
  Billy: I guess what they say about black people is true... some of them are overweight.
• Writing Around Trademarks: Presumably to avoid embarrassing the institution, colleges, when featured, are generally not referred to by name. Of course, since the locations are given, it can usually be deduced...
• You Answered Your Own Question: After yet another stunt gone wrong, one woman in the video says "911 number, anyone? Does anyone know the 911 number?"
• You No Take Candle: Sometimes used by the narrator when introducing a clip that takes place in Russia, and also used by the cast when impersonating someone from Russia or another neighboring country (as well as the dubbed-in voiceovers of the people featured in the clips).

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