Small Name Big Ego / Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Has a lot of characters like this, since a recurring theme of the show is how pathetic the cast secretly are:
  • Jenna is a neurotic and vicious Attention Whore who views herself as A-List material even though she's a horrible actress, barely capable of getting jobs outside of TGS because everyone is either terrified of working with her or think she sucks. Her main way of getting into the spotlight is throwing engineered fits and controversies so that tabloids acknowledge her.
  • Tracy Jordan is more successful and well-known than Jenna, but is still B-List at best and is far stupider than he thinks he is. He's spoiled beyond belief so he essentially thinks that he's always in the right no matter how poorly he does.
  • Liz herself is downplayed but hinted to be the worst egotist on the show. She has a view of herself as an intelligent, hardworking, majorly competent, morally just, star writer and feminist icon. She considers her show on TGS to be a great, important, and successful show. In reality, she's of average intelligence at best, lazy, prone to whining, incompetent and in need of Jack's constant handholding, childish, and a barely known writer whose brief moment in the limelight ended after about a month and who uses feminism as to excuse away her flaws as the work of society's "sexist standards". TGS is actually So Okay, It's Average at best and relies on niche audiences to stave off cancellation.
• The Afterparty has Yasper breaking up the ska band in high school because of Xavier wanting to be a pop star instead. Years later, Xavier is massively successful while Yasper is upset at losing his "stardom" despite how it's shown the band wasn't really that good. When he's revealed as the killer, he claims that "I gave Xavier his career" when that's not true. A key point is his claim Xavier was "ripping off" his song title "Get This Party Started" from a conversation in high school when Xavier rightly points out that's just a common statement.
• The Andy Griffith Show: Barney Fife is the bumbling deputy sheriff to the competent Andy Taylor. He takes himself very seriously, as well as his role in law enforcement. Barney often considers Andy too lax, although Barney is often clueless. Barney once writes a song about their law-enforcement in quiet Mayberry, to the tune of "Frankie and Johnny". He is surprisingly incompetent with his gun; Andy only allows Barney one bullet . . . which he had to keep in his pocket.
• Just about any contestant on any competitive reality show which requires the contestants to do something, such as The Apprentice, Project Runway, American Idol, etc. American Idol in particular, which has entire episodes full of auditions by bad singers who will not be swayed from their belief that they are the greatest singers in history.
• Being Human: One Villain of the Week of an episode was the ghost of a serial killer who called himself "The Toyman" and murdered seven young mothers in the '70s. He sees himself as a Magnificent Bastard and vicious killer. While he is truly evil, he's nowhere near as good as he thinks he is, and his fairly obvious manipulations only worked on the protagonists because of how severely screwed up they all already are. When he introduces himself to Tom and Hal, they clearly have no idea who he is. What makes it particularly funny is he's boasting about a body count of seven to Tom, a lifelong vampire slayer who's staked at least fifteen vampires onscreen, and Hal, a centuries-old former monster whose entire life has been a cycle of bloody rampages interspersed with brief (for vampires) periods of grief.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Sheldon Cooper is a full-blown version of this trope and has traits of Know-Nothing Know-It-All and Insufferable Genius. Sheldon is an extremely smart individual who knows everything there is when it comes to physics, but that's where the positive qualities stop. Sheldon is convinced that he is so much smarter than everyone else that he lets them know it whether they want to listen or not. Sheldon will also go out of his way to correct people who don't have the correct knowledge on video games and comic-book superheroes. Outside of Sheldon's comfort zone, he is pathetic and knows nothing about other types of sciences, such as biology. Because Sheldon would rather fight to the bitter end rather than admitting he was wrong, he comes off as completely arrogant and most people can't stand him. Sheldon's apologies are also forced and are mostly not genuine. If Sheldon was in the wrong and he is forced by someone to admit it, then he will make a half-assed attempt to say he is sorry. However, if Sheldon knows what he did was wrong, he will genuinely try to make amends, even if it comes out looking weird. More recent episodes have Sheldon admitting that he has limitations in social situations; that he often has to force himself to be polite or at least tolerate others; and that he is trying to work on the issue.
    • There are also some hints that he isn't quite as good at physics as he thinks he is, notably when Leslie Winkle fixes an equation he couldn't work out, a Russian physicist/janitor solves a problem he couldn't after just glancing at it, and Stephen Hawking has to point out a math mistake he made. This is foreshadowed in the origin series Young Sheldon when he encounters the equally gifted Paige: for the first time in his life he is in the presence of somebody who is at least his equal, in some respects his better, and he simply cannot cope with this, throwing temper tantrums. And of course, she's a girl. This foreshadows his later interactions with Leslie Winkle, who could be viewed as an adult version of Paige.
  • Howard Wolowitz, or at least the pre-Bernadette Howard, was also pretty much this trope: his turning point seemed to come when Penny lost all patience, gave him the big "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and punctured all his pretensions to the point where he could no longer pretend to be the great ladies' man he imagined himself to be.
  • Penny displays shades of this in regards to both her social circles and her acting career. She looks down on Sheldon et al for liking science fiction, even outright calling them losers in one episode...even though these "losers" all enjoy successful careers, while Penny is reliant on them to buy her food. She also makes fun of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation saying that she knew they were from Star Trek because she's never heard of any of them...this from an actress whose only claim to fame is a crappy movie about apes and a commercial for hemorrhoid cream. She's also vocal about how she can do better than Leonard and scoffs at the idea of him doing better than her...even though he previously had done better than her, several times- there was Lesley Winkle, Dr Elizabeth Plimpton, Dr Stephanie Barnett, and Priya Koothrappali were all good looking, as well as intelligent and successful in their careers. Sheldon's cute assistant Alex also had the hots for Leonard, which made Penny extremely jealous.
  • Raj has dipped in to this, especially when drunk in the early seasons. Even when sober and in the final season, he once thought he could get in to a Twitter feud with Neil deGrasse Tyson after wasting his time on the news giving potshots at him. The "feud" was predictably one-sided and ended with Tyson personally calling Raj and getting him to back off.
• Black Adder: All the title characters, particularly Prince Edmund from the first series. Edmund is cowardly, sniveling, conniving, incompetent, and all-around unlikeable. He spends most of his time taking credit for his much more clever squire's ideas, usually only after he's tried his own dunder-headed plan and failed miserably. The other three Blackadders at least weren't idiots, but they spent most of their time insulting everyone around them despite having few, if any, accomplishments to their name.
• The Brady Bunch: All six kids have episodes at some point in the show where they deal with swelling egos, only to learn a lesson in the end about humility and keeping things in perspective. In addition, there was at least one episode where a guest character had a huge ego. In the case of "Quarterback Sneak," it is downplayed; Tank Gates, Carol's high school boyfriend, was legitimately talented and had many accomplishments on the gridiron, but he over-inflates his accomplishments.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Jack Danger (pronounced "donger") works for...the US Postal Inspection Service that Jake is forced to work with because mailboxes are being used as drug drops. He's an incompetent boob who falls on his ass when he attempts to chase a suspect, and when Jake tries to give chase, grabs Jake's leg demanding he help him up first. He considers the USPIS superior to the NYPD because it's a federal agency, and dismisses Jake's extensive experience in drug cases to dictate how the investigation will be carried out, i.e. in a stupid way.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Early on Wesley insisted he was perfectly capable of fieldwork since he's killed two vampires under controlled conditions. By that point, even the normal characters had slain more than that in actual combat.
  • Warren Mears may have been the long-term "Big Bad" of the sixth season, but his actions make it clear that he mainly lasts so long because the Scoobies didn't take him that seriously as a threat. When he acquired superhuman strength due to demonic orbs, he ranted about how he was so much better than Buffy, but it was clear that the orbs were the only reason he had any chance against her and he ran for it with a secret jetpack once Buffy smashed the orbs.
• Cheers:
  • Sam Malone. He was a former pitcher for the Red Sox who got drummed out due to alcoholism, and it's strongly suggested even at his best he wasn't much to write home about. While he was very charming and quite the Handsome Lech, he still managed to be rather full of himself, dedicating much of the later seasons of the show pursuing Rebecca because she was immune to his charms, a notion that baffles him.
  • Diane Chambers isn't any better. She regularly flaunts her intelligence (treading into Insufferable Genius territory at times) and deems herself as someone of importance. Unfortunately, it's because of this attitude that no one at the bar really likes her. Occasionally, something comes along to puncture her ego by pointing out despite her pretensions she's not accomplished anything of note, is generally hopeless at anything she puts her mind to (dancing, painting, writing) and is working as a barmaid.
  • Cliff Clavin is a mailman who lives with his controlling mother, but believes he is an encyclopedic font of knowledge, despite his vast array of Little Known Facts being utterly wrong, and gets extremely defensive when called on it. Everyone at the bar alternates between bemusement, open contempt of him, or fear that one day he will truly snap and kill people.
• Cobra Kai: John Kreese is a Sensei for Scoundrels who takes karate so seriously that he thinks of himself as some kind of visionary social leader who can, will, and should change the course of an entire generation to follow his Might Makes Right philosophy to life and views everything he does as part of an ongoing battle for survival because of his unresolved hang-ups from his time in the Vietnam War. He seems totally oblivious to the fact that he's just a geriatric sports coach whose sphere of influence begins and ends with about two dozen troubled teenagers in the San Fernando Valley, which ironically ends up being what makes him so dangerous; he genuinely lives like he's some kind of mighty supervillain tearing down society, and the aforementioned teenagers under his wings quickly become a glorified street gang as a result.
• Community:
  • Chang, on the first season, rarely wasted an opportunity to brag he was a tenured professor, which he isn't even close to being.
  • Britta and Pierce both like to think of themselves as the Only Sane Man of the group, and they're both wrong.
  • Jeff could be the biggest example on the show. He struts around like the big man on campus looking down his nose at everything and everyone around him, acts like a sex god who is irresistible to women, and clearly believes himself to be the coolest thing ever. In fact, he's a disbarred lawyer who is only at Greendale because he got caught faking his credentials, the one time we see him trying to go into business for himself he completely fails, and if at least one of his former partners (Britta) is to be believed he's apparently not even very good in bed. For all his cooler-than-cool act he's clearly just a big fish in a very small and crummy pond, and it's telling that he gets very uptight and touchy very quickly if anyone dares suggest that he's not the most awesome thing in the universe ever.
• The Dick Van Dyke Show: Alan Brady. A vain variety-show host whose present good fortune depends much on his writing team (although he did, apparently, work his way to the top). Laura Petri almost gets Rob Petri fired when she lets slip that Alan Brady is bald.
• Disney Channel: Take a shot every time you see one of these in a show (example: Joe Jonas in Jonas). Oh look, now you have alcohol poisoning. (Exposure to Amy Duncan from Good Luck Charlie is a particularly high risk.)
• Doctor Who: Sylvia Noble is an inversion. She really doesn't seem to have an over-inflated opinion of herself; she just has a really low one of everyone else. Sylvia has no understanding of the concept of tact, often insulting and belittling Donna and Wilf, her own daughter and father, respectively. She dismisses her daughter's disappearance in a flash of light while walking up the wedding aisle as Donna tricking everyone to demand attention. She has absolutely no respect or faith in her daughter and isn't afraid to tell her so. She refuses to acknowledge her daughter's choices and actions, and ignores the Doctor when he tells her there's danger. Fortunately, after Donna's actions in the finale, she seems to have realized her mistakes, and by End of Time, she's almost pleasant to be around.
  • More directly applies to spin-off companion Thomas Brewster in the Big Finish audios; Brewster has attempted such scams as stealing the TARDIS and telling former companions that the Doctor gave it to him, or trying to act as a gang boss while posing as the Doctor, but he just doesn't have the skills to pull it off.
  • The audio "Broadway Belongs to Me!" features the Sixth Doctor meeting the Alliance of Retribution, consisting of people whose plans were thwarted by the Doctor in the past, very few of whom the Doctor appears to remember. When the Alliance's leader Julian Arnstein proclaims himself the Doctor's arch-enemy, the Doctor initially assumes that Julian is some new version of the Master or the Rani, and ultimately admits that he has no idea who the man is or when they previously met. The Doctor ultimately muses that the Alliance must be some of his more forgettable adversaries, defending his forgetfulness on the grounds that he's been doing this for a very long time and can't be expected to remember everybody.
  • Played for laughs in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, where everyone considers the actors of the classic era Doctors to be washed-up has beens. Even Peter Davison's own children are only interested whether David Tennant will appear in the anniversary special. Sylvester Mcoy would also like to remind you that he's acting in a big blockbuster movie by Peter Jackson.
• Dog Bites Man: The little-seen reality TV series had A.D. Miles and Matt Walsh playing versions of this character as producer Marty Schonson and anchor Kevin Beakin. Ironically, Beakin was much more obnoxious but he had more legitimate stature whereas Marty Schonson had his own illusions.
• Kenny Powers of Eastbound & Down may well be the king of this trope. He's a pitcher who won a single World Series game but whose career took a nose dive due to his insane ego and demands. He still carries himself as if he was the greatest pitcher in history, assumes teams are fighting each other to try and call him back up and he's a beloved icon. He even once faked his death under the belief that "the press will never leave me alone." In reality, most baseball fans (and players) haven't heard of him, and those who do consider him a total asshole who threw away his career over his "mega star" delusions. But to him, he's already prepared his Hall of Fame speech in between writing his autobiography.
• Emergency!: Johnny Gage is a very experienced and highly skilled paramedic, but off-duty he is this trope. Many episodes have a comedic subplot that orbits around one of his attempts to develop other skills — attempts that always fail spectacularly. He tries to project a cool "man of the world" image, but his dates are never successful, his advice to his partner Roy is almost invariably wrong, his get-rich schemes never work out, and when he has a serious problem in his own life (such as a paycheck error, or a note from the IRS), he always panics and overreacts.
• Eureeka's Castle: Batley had such a big ego, one episode saw him singing a heartfelt ballad entitled "I Love Me".
• The Fast Show: Featured the character of Colin Hunt, a loud, obnoxious man who annoys his co-workers with "hilarious" puns, practical jokes, and slapstick comedy; and believes that everyone in the office finds this as amusing as he does. When it's pointed out to him that nobody thinks he is funny, he predictably reacts badly.
• Fraggle Rock: The Pa Gorg and Ma Gorg claim that they are the King and Queen of the Universe despite the fact they've only had two subjects, specifically their own son and for a very short time Wembley. Everyone else is either unaware of or plainly doesn't care about their claims of royalty.
• Game of Thrones: Played straight with some characters and zig-zagged with others. In the latter case they often DO possess a significant family name, but either that name doesn’t carry the caché they think it does, or they as individuals don’t have the smarts/personality to match it.
  • Theon Greyjoy definitely starts out as this, often for comic effect: An arrogant jerk who likes to boast about his skills on the battlefield and in the bedroom, as well as the greatness of his family (whose recent rebellion was easily crushed, which is why Theon is Eddard Stark's ward/prisoner in a Gilded Cage). The end result is that Theon is often the target of mockery from people of all classes in the feudal system. After being betrayed by his men and captured by Ramsay Bolton (nee “Snow”), he is completely and thoroughly broken, to the point of being a total submissive. In the later seasons he gradually regains his sense of self and even takes on heroic qualities, ultimately redeeming himself by dying in defense of the same family he turned traitor against.
  • Cersei Lannister is the clearest example of the zig-zagged variety. Despite coming from the richest and most powerful family in Westeros, the Lannister name is all she really has. Petty and self-absorbed to the extreme, her belief that she can wield political power successfully is all in her head, and she doesn’t possess the self-awareness to understand this. She’s also so certain of her position in society and control over others that it’s always a gut punch when things don’t go her way, and she takes slights intensely personally (to the point of orchestrating the murders of everyone who’s ever crossed her).
  • As far as Viserys Targaryen cares, the "blood of the dragon" flows in his veins and he remains the rightful ruler whose throne was usurped by Robert Baratheon. Yet these delusions of grandeur are just that, delusions: Nobody, besides his sister Daenerys to begin with, gives a hoot and few are willing to even house the exiled royals, much less finance an army to help retake the Iron Throne. Viserys is also a straight-up Entitled Bastard, expecting his every whim to be fulfilled and prone to insulting anyone he views as inferior. Let’s just say it doesn’t end well for the puffed-up popinjay.
  • Jon Snow - an apparent noble-born bastard - briefly displays this when he first arrives at the Wall. Despite his expert swordsmanship, he is made a steward - essentially a servant - rather than a ranger (a fighting man). When he bitterly complains about this treatment to his uncle Benjin, the veteran harshly reminds his nephew that his previous life doesn’t matter at the Wall, and every man is given only what he earns.
  • Stannis Baratheon, already known for being unyielding and having the “personality of a lobster”, falls into this following the death of his brother, King Robert. While he is technically the rightful heir to the throne, Stannis makes no attempt to actually understand his subjects or earn their loyalty, believing that his name alone makes it an Open-and-Shut Case. His rigid and uncompromising attitude doesn’t win him many popularity points, and he sees anyone who disagrees with his claim as an enemy worthy of punishment.
  • Joffrey Baratheon somehow manages to be this despite being King. For all his preening and throwing his weight around, it's immediately obvious to everyone that he's completely inept and out of his depth, and if it wasn't for his grandfather and uncle acting as The Man Behind the Man he'd have been overthrown and impaled on a pike long ago.
  • Walder Frey is the in-universe equivalent of Nouveau Riche, his family only rising to prominence in the past few centuries. Described as a man with no shame and extremely prone to breaking promises, Walder treats both his social superiors and his own family like dirt, demands things he has no legal right to ask for, and is generally loathed by everyone who meets him.
  • Theon’s father Balon Greyjoy declared himself the King of the Iron Islands shortly into the reign of Robert Baratheon, in a vain hope to return the Islands to their glory from ages past, but had his own dreams of rebellion quickly crushed under the heel of Robert’s combined forces. Following the execution of Ned Stark, Balon attempts the same thing again, proving he has learned nothing from his past mistakes. When his short-term achievements are undone by Season 6 and he shows no sign of ending the cycle, his own daughter - who well remembers their previous defeat by Robert - openly calls him out for putting his pride and ego ahead of military strategy and even common sense.
  • Before his legitimization at the end of Season 4, Ramsay Snow parades himself as being the heir to the Bolton line despite his bastard status. While in the long run his name ends up being less relevant to the overall plot than his actions, his father Roose is quick to correct him when he openly claims this lineage as the reason for his torture of Theon Grejoy (whom Roose wanted alive and unharmed to use as a bargaining chip with Theon’s father).
    Ramsay: We've been flaying our enemies for a thousand years, the Flayed Man is on our banners!
    Roose: My banners, not yours. You're not a Bolton, you're a Snow.
  • Janos Slynt brags almost non-stop about his "powerful friends", not realizing that he's only being used and that nobody likes him, trusts him, or cares about him. He even brags about his "important friends" as he's being led to his execution.
  • Daenerys Targaryen had this problem starting in Qarth during Season 2, threatening the destruction of the city if they denied her entry (which she had no ability to carry out at the time). As she continues to amass followers and resources over the course of the series and the Targaryen name actually starts to mean something again - a feat her brother Viserys was too petty and narrow-minded to accomplish - her ego fittingly becomes proportionate to her power. By the time she arrives in Westeros to reclaim the Iron Throne at the beginning of Season 7, her worldview has become more black-and-white than ever and she struggles to gain a foothold using anything other than brute force.
• Gilligan's Island: Despite being known as "The Movie Star," it is clear that Ginger Grant is not NEARLY as famous as she claims she is. Her overinflated ego and over-the-top attempts to be sexy are played to comedic effect. Her credits included mostly low-grade B-movies and a one-episode stint as a nurse on Ben Casey. In fact, almost none of the visitors on the island knew who she was. Even the famous movie producer Harold Hecuba was not impressed by Ginger at all, calling her out on her over-acting and mocking her.
• Girls 5 Eva: Has each lady of a former girl group showing some traits but Wickie has to take the cake. As the show begins, it's revealed she's not running some grand empire but a job shooting geese at an airport and a Mock Millionaire. The reason is that, while she has a great singing voice, she thinks she's far better than she actually is. It's revealed among the reasons she was booted out of the business was that she refused to have her backup dancers wear makeup or play arenas (like, say, the Staples Center) just because they were also sports venues. A running theme in the series is Wickie nearly ruining a big break for the rest of the band because of her outrageous demands, thinking she's bigger than any current pop star when many in the business have long forgotten her.
• The Golden Girls: Blanche Devereaux considers herself devastatingly beautiful and a "mankiller," but the rest of the women dismiss it as a bunch of fluff, rarely taking her stories seriously.
• Barry Goldberg - "Big Tasty" considers himself to be a brilliant athlete, a genius at constructing rap lyrics, and a crowd-pleaser in every respect. His mother's delusional praise of him doesn't help, neither does his hypercompetitive streak. In reality, Barry Norman Goldberg is perhaps an all-around mediocrity with a big ego.
• Tim Taylor on Home Improvement has both massive self-confidence and a massive tendency to screw up everything he does. He proves to be genuinely quite good at handiwork when he can put away his ego and doesn't try to make a show out of it, but that usually happens after some spectacular failure.
• House: Eric Foreman insists that he's head and shoulders above the rest of House's team when he's an unexceptional doctor with nothing to set him apart from his co-workers. Chase even calls him out on this in Season 7.
• How I Met Your Mother: Barney Stinson thinks his exploits are legen—wait for it—dary! However, this womanizing ladies' man has been repeatedly been shown as lame during several episodes in the series, although sometimes he does live up to his own hype.
• Intimate: Bruno and Oskar are actors at the beginning of their careers and starring on a basic TV drama, but nonetheless think they don't need to learn their lines and can just wing it. When he blows an audition, Bruno blames it on being "too straight and white" for the, in his mind, diversity-obsessed casting directors instead of genuinely not good enough.
• The IT Crowd:
  • Mercilessly mocked in the person of Denholm Reynholm.
    Reynholm: I hope it doesn't sound arrogant when I say that I am! The greatest man! In the world!
  • His son Douglas is even worse, as demonstrated at his father's funeral.
    Douglas: UNHAND ME, PRIEST! Where is your god? WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? FAAAAATHEEEER!!!
    (sobs melodramatically before seeing Jen)
    Douglas: Well who's this? Hi, I'm Douglas, what are you doing after the funeral?
  • Douglas is at least slightly aware of his failures, though. He's just too rich and dumb to stop himself. He is shown to be occasionally successful, which doesn't help, but then stuff like this happens:
    Lawyer: Sign here, here, here—
    Douglas: Look here, I think I know by now where to sign a sexual harassment settlement.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: All the main characters, with the possible exception of Charlie, fit this description.
  • Dennis really stands out. He believes himself to be an immensely charming, likable person who is skilled at everything and liked by everyone. In reality, he is sociopathic, vulgar, rude, idiotic, runs a failing business, and has really only gotten as far as he has due to his family's wealth. Most episodes have him attempt a new venture and becoming completely confused and aggressively annoyed when others don't view him as being talented. Dennis may actually count as "no" name, big ego. It is revealed in "High School Reunion" that he doesn't believe that he has to do anything to earn the respect and admiration of everyone around him and that they should just automatically believe he is a "golden god" simply because he does himself.
  • In "Who Pooped The Bed?", Dee is shown to think of herself as a graceful Sex and the City-esque starlet, and a compassionate liberal. In actuality, Dee is a crude immoral alcoholic who is willing to scheme her way to the top.
  • Mac is a Miles Gloriosus who claims to be an expert in karate, but usually gets beat up in fights or runs away. Being The Fundamentalist, he is also a massive hypocrite when it comes to religion.
  • Frank once claimed he became a millionaire through hard work and earning his money, even though he did it by cheating his business partner out of money.
  • While Charlie usually averts this, he became one during "Flowers for Charlie" due to being led to think he is smarter than he is.
• As shown in "A New Lease", Bobby from It's Awfully Bad for Your Eyes, Darling... thinks himself to be a famous actor. Samantha takes none of this and reminds him that only his nose appeared in a Captain Birdseye commercial.
• Kaamelott: Perceval and Karadoc, the two most incompetent Knights of the Round Table. To the point that, on some occasions, they manage to brag about how they epically failed a mission as if it was a victory. Notably, they're convinced that the ridiculous "fighting techniques" they invented make them deadly combatants, while in truth they're utterly inept and usually flee at the first hint of danger. King Arthur beating them both singlehandedly (literally, with a hand behind his back) is insufficient to shatter their delusions. While Perceval sometimes acknowledges his own stupidity and has some heartwarming moments, Karadoc, on the other hand, has absolutely no excuses for bragging the way he does.
• Kitchen Nightmares: It might be easier to count the number of owners/chefs who don't show this off. Gordon Ramsay may have won 14 Michelin stars, but to these guys he can't possibly be an actually good chef, he's saying their restaurant sucks!
  • "Sebastian's" has the title chef/owner a bragging guy with a ludicrously complex menu system and uses mostly frozen foods. He openly talks of his dreams of "franchising" his place, ignoring how the one establishment is a disaster.
    Sebastian: One day, my food will be in supermarkets. "Sebastians" all over the world.
    Gordon: You haven't got fucking one right yet!
  • "Pantelone's" has a pizza parlor owner boasting of having "The Best Pizza in Denver." It's from a review...written in 1985. The man insists he's still the best pizza cooker in the city, even after a public taste test has him coming third behind a store-bought version.
  • Joe of "Mill Street Bristo" openly claims his cooking is the best between New York and Los Angeles. He even plants fake reviews online claiming how great he is. In reality, he's prone to amateurish mistakes with bad food. Gordon soon realizes Joe is under the delusion the reason his place is failing is lack of publicity and Ramsey will boast about his food to others. While Gordon did his best, the place ended up closing down with Joe opening a new diner...which also closed down.
  • Nothing can top Amy and Samy, the owners of the infamous Amy's Baking Company. Aside from being horribly rude to customers, they blatantly steal tips from their staff and even kick out customers for daring to ask their orders be done in less than an hour. Amy brags out loud about her "genius" as a cook when Gordon finds her one of the worst he's ever tasted. After realizing how delusional these two are, Gordon just gives up and walks out on them.
• Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge: Alan Partridge (Ah-HAAAAAH!) is convinced he belongs on the television, hosting a chat show. He doesn't. He really, really doesn't.
• The Larry Sanders Show: Hank Kingsley. Despite the fact that his sole claim to fame hinges on his status as the sidekick to a much more charismatic and talented entertainer on an average-at-best late-night talk show, along with any tawdry commercial spokesman gigs that come his way, he nevertheless throws his weight around despite lacking the respect of almost everyone on the show except his loyal assistant. Played with in that Hank is more than aware of — and deeply resents — his status as the office laughing stock but is a little too stupid, vain, incompetent, deluded, and ultimately pathetic to do anything about it.
• Law & Order: John Munch^note When he was a regular on Homicide: Life on the Street got hit with this hard in "Sideshow" (Season 9, Episode 14, original airdate February 17, 1999). He asks to see his FBI file and that he doesn't know if their car will be big enough to hold it. It turns out to be one piece of paper that says he is "considered a dilettante and is not taken seriously amongst the radical community."
• The Librarians (2007): Matthew has literary pretensions out of all proportion to his actual talent.
• Little House on the Prairie: Mrs. Oleson. She thinks her gossip and braggadocio and extravagant gestures make her the true power in the town. In fact, it's probably only affection for her long-suffering husband that keeps the rest of the town from lynching her. Somewhat subverted in that she actually can be quite effective, for a time, but usually in the most vicious situations possible, and after, her stock drops even more.
• Lockwood & Co. (2023): Lockwood & Co. It's been operating as an agency for three months when Lucy joins it, and it's severely in the red even before they're slapped with a £60,000 fine, and yet Lockwood keeps referring to it as a "prestigious agency" and looks down his nose at cases he thinks are beneath them.
• Married... with Children: Al Bundy was the Big Man on Campus in high school because of his football prowess. He scored four touchdowns in the city championship game in a dramatic come-from-behind win. Fast-forward thirty years, and Al is now a balding, starving Jaded Washout who still clings to the memory of that championship game as the one thing that validates his pathetic existence. He acts as if being a high school football star is actually supposed to mean something, and that people should be impressed when he mentions it. Almost nobody remembers Al's accomplishments and no one at all cares.
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show:
  • Ted Baxter, the former Trope Namer. Baxter was a newscaster who considered himself incredibly popular, while everyone else in the newsroom thought he was an incredible bore and something of a Ditz to boot, but were (usually) too polite to tell him to his face. Randomly selected from his many blunders: When a broadcast runs short, Ted stands silently in front of the camera until someone hands him a fluff story which he presents as an important news bulletin — and even repeats in the same tone of voice.
  • Phyllis Lindstrom and Sue Ann Nivens have some of these characteristics, as well.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Major Frank Burns. This is highlighted in "The Novocaine Mutiny," where he recounts for a court-marital hearing the events of a supposed mutiny; he remembers himself as being brave under fire, inexhaustible, selfless, heroic, and of course, a skilled surgeon. The reality is that he behaved just like the sniveling coward he is, sending patients to the OR without properly prepping them first.
  • Played with for his replacement Charles Winchester. The man is indeed a hyper-qualified surgeon (unlike Frank), but his skills were best used in a regular hospital. He finds himself unprepared for the quick-and-dirty "meatball surgery" the camp has to utilize, which gives his ego some much-needed deflating.
• Misfits: Nathan is a young offender on community service who remains cheerfully obnoxious and arrogant despite being financially destitute, unemployed, homeless, and loathed by everyone he meets. His friends can't stand him and his parents don't want him around, his sexual conquests almost always end in abject humiliation, and once his power is revealed to be immortality — or rather "resurrection" — he starts dying in increasingly ghastly ways at least once an episode, but always bounces back with a smile on his face. He is utterly convinced that everyone loves and admires him and that women find him irresistible, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
• Modern Family: A few of the characters can qualify thanks to the nutty aspects of the family.
  • Mitchell boasts of being stuck in a well as a kid and no one noticed because it was the same day as Baby Jessica and still acts like she "robbed" him of his fame. He also carries on as if everyone wildly respects his fame from the county fairs of his childhood.
  • Phil can often think he's somehow a super hot-shot real estate man.
  • While Jay is highly successful and even rich, he tends to think that owning a major closet/furniture store makes him one of the most prominent and influential men in the city.
  • Manny is the worst as he's clearly smarter and more mature than the rest of his class and while he sometimes understands his standing, the rest of the time he thinks he's a role model to a class when in reality many kids don't even know him. Best summed up when he stands up at a winter dance to do a big speech:
  Manny: I know you all think of me as the golden boy, the wunderkind, the prodigy...
  Classmate: Who are you
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Tom Servo is one of those few examples who doesn't get off very easily from this; soon after he displays any form of arrogance, Break the Haughty usually follows in quick succession.
• NewsRadio: Bill McNeal. Not only is he narcissistic, he seems to believe being a newscaster at a small urban news radio station is the equivalent of being a media superstar. Many a time throughout the series was he mocked for presuming someone knew who he was only get informed to the contrary, and there were several occasions when Bill would imagine that he was being stalked by a Loony Fan. Despite all this, Bill also believes that he's wasting his career doing small-time radio and should break into television to get more famous.
• Night Court: Dan Fielding, especially as time went on. A slight divergence in that he actually was generally as successful with women as he expected to be when they were extras. He was also a pretty good attorney, and would generally behave with at least some amount of dignity and aplomb when presenting his side of the case. He was likely relegated to the night court because of his personality, not his skill.
• David Brent in the UK version of The Office is absolutely convinced that he's the life of the office and is a world-class musician, philosopher, and stand-up comedian. Everyone else he comes into contact with thinks differently. He does however seem to be at least partially aware that he isn't as great as he thinks he is, given how he reacts to people pointing it out, or otherwise not treating him as he feels he deserves. For example, when he tried giving Tim career advice which was rejected out of hand, he grew quite agitated, angry, and dismissive. Many of David's own illusions about himself are, of course, stripped away by the end of Series Two.
• Several characters in the US adaptation of The Office: Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute, and possibly Andy Bernard (though the latter did apparently go to Cornell). Ryan Howard as well, especially after he's promoted to the executive level.
• Osgood Conklin on Our Miss Brooks. Mr. Conklin is the principal of Madison High School, but had a pomposity out of all proportion to his position. He often answers his office telephone "Principal's office. Osgood Conklin himself speaking". In the episode "Public Speaker's Nightmare", he has Miss Brooks recite his entire resume before beginning a school meeting.
• Parks and Recreation:
  • At the start of the series, Leslie Knope is one as she believes her position as Assistant Director of the Parks Department is more vital to Pawnee than it actually is and that it's a stepping stone to becoming President of the United States. She later grows out of it after gaining some perspective and ascending to jobs that have much more importance such as the National Parks department, Indiana Governor, and possibly President.
  • Joan Callamezzo is very egotistical, despite only being the host of a public access talk show. She runs her own book club, à la Oprah Winfrey, and takes glee in humiliating people on her show.
• Pawn Stars: Many customers, particularly guys trying to sell cars, often think they did a great job restoring it, but really destroyed the item. One guy removed the air filter so he could fit a larger engine than the car could normally hold. Rick and the Old Man were horrified at the result, and the bozo mechanic claims that they weren't real "car guys" who would applaud the work he'd done.
• Peep Show:
  • Jeremy. He thinks he's a talented musician and sponges off his Heterosexual Life-Partner Mark because he won't settle for anything less than a job in the music industry (which no sane person would give him). Despite him being an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, it's easy to see that this actually comes from his insecurity as much as anything else.
  • Super Hans also counts though he is far more self-confident than Jez. He is equally untalented and pathetic but is often able to get Jeremy to follow him out of sheer confidence though Jeremy is also able to outthink him quite easily.
• Psych: While Carlton Lassiter is a very smart and capable detective, he can occasionally fall into periods where he believes he's a much bigger deal in law enforcement than he actually is and needs an ego check. The best example is how Lassiter spent years hunting master thief Despereaux and boasts of the "epic cat and mouse game" the duo play. When Despereaux is arrested, Lassiter gloats on how he's finally the victor in their long chase. He's actually jarred when this globally notorious thief wanted by a dozen international agencies flatly states he has no idea who this small-town cop even is.
• Booker on Raven's Home is an interesting variation. He thinks he's a star athlete, a hilarious comedian and the most handsome and admired guy in school. Thirty seconds is enough to show how wrong he is. However, it's shown Booker is skilled, just not at what he thinks he is. He may not be a jock, comic or dancer but he is a terrific cook, a pretty good musician and can even pull off magic tricks. It's lampshaded that if Booker just concentrated on his actual strengths rather than what he delusionally thinks he's "great" at, he'd be more popular and avoid some embarrassment.
• Red Dwarf: Rimmer continually insists throughout the series to be far more capable and popular than we know him to be. The sad thing is, considering Ace Rimmer (What a guy!), a dimension-jumping Ace and Alternate Universe version of Rimmer, we know he could become a popular, capable and friendly hero if he just got rid of his bad qualities. And possibly does so, as he eventually becomes the new Ace Rimmer. Multiple episodes show that though he may insist this, he actually has a lower opinion of himself than probably anyone else.
• Rik Mayall would later play other even more extreme Small Name, Big Ego characters by the name of Richie in both Filthy Rich & Catflap and Bottom.
• The 2006 Robin Hood TV series:
  • Marian. She tells Robin that "I do exactly what you do, only with more intelligence." Considering she's saying this while lying wounded after breaking into Guy's house, trying to steal his money, getting stabbed, and having to be rescued by Robin, this claim is dubious.
  • Her Replacement Scrappy was even worse. In her first episode as an outlaw, Kate makes judgment calls on a perfect stranger, snaps at Much for making a nervous comment before battle, argues with Robin about his orders, and is generally rude and snippy to everyone, all while contributing zilch to the team-unit. And the writers wondered why the audience hated her...
  • Robin has these moments as well, mostly towards Much, whom he seems to take for granted (technically not his ego so much as the "legend" he's building for himself goes to his head and he ignores good advice).
  • The sheriff Vaisey also has moments of this, though not to the audience but to other characters. In fact, his ridiculous dickery and Jerkass personality was what made him so endearing. But he seems to think he could run the entire kingdom better than the king, even though all he's shown us is he's exceptionally good at backstabbing people and inventing creatively fun tortures. The show's full of them!
• Albert Brooks often adopted this persona in his early Saturday Night Live short films.
  • In one sketch, Brian Williams played a small-time actor in a high school drama on The CW. While filming the last scene of the finale, he learns that there will be a college spinoff and that he is not appearing on it. He does not take it well, bringing up his brief appearance on Quantum Leap and his "dedication to the show."
  Barry: After all I have done for this show. I am on this set every day, whether I have a scene or not. I'm running my lines, I'm running their lines, writing lines-
  Director: Yeah, Barry, we specifically asked you not to do any of those things.
• Deconstructed in Screenwipe by Charlie Brooker, in which he explores how the "Talent" usually become this in some form. He starts out as an ordinary person who reacts to having someone around to wait on him hand and foot with embarrassment and sheepishness, particularly when his assistant does things he doesn't want or need. Unfortunately, he becomes so used to being treated like this that he takes it too far and ends up becoming an egocentric bully.
• The Todd, from Scrubs. He's actually a very competent surgeon, with Turk even jealous when the Todd actually outdoes him. And to his credit, the Todd gave Turk his full support over being Chief Surgeon. His ego instead stems from his sex drive. He thinks he's a sex god, but he's more of an idiot and a pig.
• Dennis Bukowski on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a Los Angeles prosecutor, not even a star one, but holds himself as the most handsome and desirable man around. He describes himself as "A New York 10 and an L.A. 11" and once refused to have an attractive female attorney on his side as he was concerned they might end up dating, ignoring her disdain for him. But nothing tops how he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an Light She-Elf shapeshifter posing as Megan Thee Stallion. The shapeshifter argues that Dennis was doing a "rolepay" as there's no way he could have believed he was dating the real star. Testifying on the stand, Jennifer relates to the court that, yes, Dennis is in fact delusional enough to believe this world-famous music star would want to date him. To top it off, the real Megan Thee Stallion is in the courtroom...and Dennis openly wonders if he has a shot with her.
• Jaggett of Side Hustle. It's one thing he thinks being a crossing guard makes him "Vice-Principal" of the school. It's another when he commandeers a booth at a comic book convention dressed as his self-created cat character no one has heard of and then tries to charge people $10,000 for his autograph.
• On Silicon Valley Erlich considers himself a cultured genius and top-level programmer who's a major power player in town. In reality, he's an average programmer who lucked out with a single app and sold it for just enough to live on. He's also a constantly stoned egomaniac his own co-workers can't stand. More than once, Erlich has nearly ruined a big deal by throwing his "weight" around, assuming his reputation is intimidating when most in the tech world have no idea who he is.
• The much-loathed by fandom Ellis of Smash. He truly believes his offhand comment about Marilyn Monroe is what "created" the musical about her and that everyone owes their jobs to him. He's constantly pushing his ideas and influence as if he's critical to the team, ignoring the fact he has absolutely no experience in theater and that everyone else just ignores him. It reaches his height when he poisons Rebecca to get Ivy the role of Marilyn. He then goes on a massive rant to Eileen on all he's done and demands he be named a producer. Eileen snaps that he's nothing but a glorified gopher and fires him on the spot.
• Dr. Rodney McKay from Stargate Atlantis. True, he is brilliant and competent, but NOBODY can be as brilliant and competent as Rodney thinks he is. He mellows out a bit by the first season, but is horribly like this in his first appearance on SG-1 where he continually insisted that Teal'c was already dead up until the moment when Sam Carter's plan turned out to be right. Though his reputation as this trope still hangs over his head back on Earth. In the episode "Brain Storm", Rodney goes to a convention where he meets several Real Life scientists who are well aware of his bloated ego, and they chalk up his warnings about the problem of the week as him trying to act smarter than everyone else as usual.
  • Comes back to bite him hard in another episode, where his overconfidence that he can fix a power source the Ancients themselves gave up on causes the destruction of a — no, 5/6 of a — solar system. Although, he actually solved an issue the Ancients couldn't figure out, which led to the destruction of the system.
• Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd, a recurring comic foil to Captain Kirk of the original Star Trek. Primarily a Con Man — who dabbled in human trafficking, pimping, drug dealing, grand theft starship, smuggling, and petty thievery — who used his bravado and gift for gab to further his various "enterprises".
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine features two prominent examples. And a third humorous example. And a fourth example Played for Drama.
  • Quark, however, wasn't an egotist, he was simply an incredibly canny con-artist. Quark is, however, notably successful and an important aspect of the Small Name Big Ego is that they are disliked and don't believe the negative criticism they get. Quark takes being told that he is a conniving backstabber as a compliment, since in Ferengi society, being called a "conniving backstabber" is a compliment. He also developed a good relationship with the Grand Nagus. While he may not be as good as he likes to think he is, he's still pretty good.
    • Whenever Quark gets his own episode, he routinely pulls off quite impressive cons. These often involved his own acknowledgment that he lacked traditional heroic traits. One of his most memorable was winning a fight by throwing away his weapon. He has even gone into long boasts about his more successful (and generally shady) business negotiations. If the Klingon Chancellor refers to you as "a brave Ferengi," you're doing something right.
    • This is lampshaded in "Civil Defense". When Quark and Odo (who consider each other Worthy Opponents at the best of times, and nuisances at all times) are trapped in Odo's office while the station is about to self-destruct, Odo (who later says he was just trying to be nice since he thought they were going to die) calls Quark "the most devious Ferengi I've ever met" — a compliment. After the danger has passed, Quark is outraged to find that Odo's real opinion of him is "a self-important con artist who's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is." Quark's mother has an opinion of her son that mirrors Odo's. It's particularly galling to Quark that she's far smarter and sneakier than he is, which gives favored son Rom great satisfaction.
    • In another episode, Quark and Odo get shipwrecked while the latter is transporting the former to an important trial involving a criminal organization called The Orion Syndicate. He gets a big laugh when he learns that Quark is not a defendant in the trial, he's an informant. Despite all his boasts about his criminal activities, Quark wasn't considered good enough to join the Syndicate.
  • Dr. Julian Bashir, who was all of 27 years old and a recent Starfleet Medical graduate at the start of the series, spent much of the first season never shutting up about how brilliant he was and that he could have had any job he wanted, but chose Deep Space Nine because he wanted to get his hands dirty and practice "real frontier medicine". In his first scene, he went so far as to call Bajoran space "the wilderness", right to Major Kira's face!
    • He also mentioned numerous times that the only reason he was second in his class instead of first was that he mistook a preganglionic fibre for a postganglionic nerve. After Medical experts who watched the show pointed out that the two have nothing to do with each other, and therefore no serious medical professional would ever confuse the two, writers added a reveal that he'd deliberately missed the question the avoid the pressure of being valedictorian. This gets a further Cerebus Retcon after the season 5 reveal that Bashir was illegally genetically enhanced as a child: he really is unnaturally intelligent, and threw his test in order not to draw too much attention to himself and risk exposing his secret. Underneath the apparent arrogance and bragging, he's spent most of his life believing himself to be a fraud, and a monster and freak.
  • Major Kira is rather irked to find out Cardassian high command considered her little more than a nuisance during the occupation.
  Kira: A minor operative whose activities are limited to running errands for the terrorist leaders?!
  • In "Valiant", Red Squad, a group of elite cadets trapped behind enemy lines, clearly have an over inflated sense of their own competence and their leader, acting Captain Tim Watters, has delusions of being the next Captain Kirk. But rather than being used for comedy, it instead underlines just how in over their heads Red Squad is and makes the ultimate conclusion of the episode where all, but one of Red Squad is killed after they foolishly try to attack a much more powerful Dominion warship all the more tragic and horrifying.
• In later seasons the producers of Survivor have edited Ben "Coach" Wade and "Special Agent?" Philip Sheppard season-long arcs as a Small Name Big Ego. Part of the strategy is a sarcastic edition of the Fake Ultimate Hero, complete with heroic music, but we are ultimately lead to sympathize with the eye-rolling contestants as he goes on more than one Character Filibuster believing himself to be a sage and Warrior Poet, but really proving to be an irritating version of The Philosopher.
• Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show. She thinks she's the prettiest and most popular girl in Point Place and everyone could benefit from her advice. Others beg to differ.
• Herb Tarlek, WKRP in Cincinnati. Justified to an extent; as the station's advertising and sales representative, a big ego comes with the territory. Herb also seems to know what he's doing as the station sells plenty of advertising slots (very corny local advertising spots are frequent gags on the show) and compared to some of his clients Herb does have some standards.
• Xena: Warrior Princess gives us the incredibly annoying Joxer, who frequently sings a sodding song about how great he is. A bad song.
• A rare female and Soap Opera example: Patricia Fernandez from Yo soy Betty, la fea. Prides herself on her beauty, her rich family and ex-husband, and her "Six semesters on Finances in San Marino U". It's soon pathetically obvious that, if certainly she is pretty, she is also shallow, vain, and a self-absorbed over-spender. Her own family wants nothing with her, and its implied that her ex filed the divorce just to get rid of her leechy self. She soon becomes the Butt-Monkey of the office because of her antics and the official Chew Toy of the Bettyverse.
• The Young Ones:
  • Rik repeatedly claims to be extremely popular and intelligent, even when people tell him to his face that he isn't. In one episode he actually bets money with the housemates that they like him, because they've just told him that they hate him. Subverted in that Rik seems to know he's an unpopular loser but buries it under several layers of self-aware denial and bravado. Hell, he can’t even say his own name without sounding like a complete idiot due to his Elmuh Fudd Syndwome.
  • Played straighter with Mike, who repeatedly insists he is a suave and sophisticated ladies man, even though everyone outside of the main cast seem to hate him as much as they hate the others and he is later revealed to be a virgin. The other housemates swing between actually treating him like "the boss" and treating him as if they're just playing along with his delusion.
• Ziggy Sobotka from The Wire is the Butt-Monkey on the docks and on the streets, but tries to present himself as a savvy street player. He lets his coworkers talk him into trying to fight the much larger Maui, and constantly pisses off every underworld figure he interacts with by talking too much and flaunting stolen goods.

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