Best animated TV stupidity of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Batman: The Animated Series picture

Heart of Ice - S1-E3

Stupidity: Ferris Boyle tries to cover up his sabotage of Victor Fries' experiment, but he opts to store the incriminating security tape of the event in a filing cabinet instead of simply destroying the footage.

Phaneron

More Batman: The Animated Series stupidity
Star Wars: The Clone Wars picture

Show generally

Stupidity: Whenever General Grievous fights another lightsaber-user, there's almost always a moment with all the sabers crossed dramatically in front of both participants, one preventing the other striking a killing blow. Looks good, but utterly ridiculous, because he's got 4 arms and 4 lightsabers - he could easily block the blade in front of him with one or two arms, and simultaneously swipe at their head and legs, which no-one with two arms could ever defend against. Of course that would make for a lot of very short duels.

Jon Sandys

More Star Wars: The Clone Wars stupidity
Spider-Man picture

The Return of Hydro-Man: Part 1 - S5-E7

Stupidity: When Spider-Man is working in the lab, he uses his webbing to barricade the door shut so no-one interrupts him. When Debra Whitman shows up and asks who is in there, he identifies himself as Peter Parker. When he is finished with his work, he leaves out of the window so that by the time the security guards break the door down, he has vanished. Since he used his webbing to keep the door closed, it would be pretty easy for Debra and the security guards to figure out that Peter is Spider-Man since Spider-Man's webbing is at the scene and Peter seemingly vanished into thin air.

Phaneron

More Spider-Man stupidity
Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends picture

Percy and the Signal - S2-E7

Stupidity: Sir Topham Hatt is cross with both Percy and James. But why is James being blamed? He had no idea that Sir Topham Hatt didn't actually say that he had to stay in the shed and wait for him. James shouldn't have been blamed since he had thought Sir Topham Hatt actually said that and Percy should've been the only one blamed.

More Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends stupidity
Pokemon picture

Friend and Foe Alike - S1-E79

Stupidity: After eventually arriving at the stadium, why didn't Ash tell anyone that he was late due to getting kidnapped by Team Rocket? He arrived with half of his Pokémon exhausted and subsequently lost his battle. If he informed everyone about his situation, his battle with Ritchie would likely have been postponed until tomorrow, giving him some much-needed time to rest, which would have given him a bigger chance to win.

More Pokemon stupidity
Fantastic Four: The Animated Series picture

Behold, a Distant Star - S2-E10

Stupidity: When Johnny finds out his father is alive and wanted for murder, he is livid with his sister for telling him neither fact. When Sue decides to tell him the whole story, she asks Reed to pull a photo album from the drawer next to him, which contains a newspaper clipping detailing that their father was wanted for murder. If Sue didn't want Johnny to know about that, she shouldn't have placed the clipping in a photo album, and then kept the photo album in a communal area where Johnny could have easily discovered it at any time. (00:06:19 - 00:07:34)

Phaneron

More Fantastic Four: The Animated Series stupidity
South Park picture

The Succubus (a.k.a. Chef's Mama) - S3-E3

Stupidity: When Kenny and Cartman are sitting on the bench, Cartman can't start the tape as he has fallen asleep. Kenny then tries to wake him up, but wouldn't it have made far more sense for him to just start it himself, as he is sitting right next to it? Cartman's job was to push the play button. It was not like he had to rewind, fast forward or even eject the tape, so all Kenny had to do was just simply push the play button and tape would have started to play.

Shay

More South Park stupidity
X-Men picture

Show generally

Stupidity: One of Rogue's defining character traits is her inability to have physical contact with another person because of her powers and the sorrow it causes her. Several episodes of this show, however, featured devices that could suppress mutant powers, the inhibitor collars being the most prominent. Despite this technology at their disposal, they never even think to have Rogue wear an inhibitor device for times she would like to touch someone. Even if she didn't want to wear those specific collars, a character like Beast or Forge could easily create a new and harmless device by reverse engineering and adapting the existing ones. This of course would eliminate Rogue's ongoing dilemma and potentially curb her development as a character, but it doesn't make sense from the standpoint that she longs for physical contact with others.

Phaneron

More X-Men stupidity
X-Men: Evolution picture

Growing Pains - S2-E1

Stupidity: When the new principal is addressing the student body, Avalanche tries to impress Kitty by causing a couple of small earthquakes, one of which causes the scoreboard to crash to the floor below. The principal laughs off the incident and continues to address everyone instead of either evacuating the area or having everyone take cover.

Phaneron

More X-Men: Evolution stupidity
The Adventures of Tintin picture

The Secret of the Unicorn: Part 2 - S1-E4

Stupidity: When the Bird brothers are searching the treasure room for Tintin, one of them claims they have found him, and points. The other brother then shoots at him which was turns out to have just been a mirror reflection. The brothers then proceed to find Tintin and start by going straight forward, completely in a different direction than the mirror. If they wanted to find Tintin, wouldn't the more logical thing to do be simply look in the direction the mirror was pointing at? The whole point of a mirror is to reflect what is in front of it, so Tintin would probably have been standing in that direction anyway. (00:37:25)

Casual Person

More The Adventures of Tintin stupidity
Family Guy picture

Turkey Guys - S13-E5

Stupidity: The whole episode revolves on the turkey that Peter ate. Lois sends him and Brian out to get another one. She stalls dinner the whole episode waiting for them to get back. Problem is the turkey is frozen! It will take at least 6 or 7 hours to cook and Lois acts like as soon as they return with it, it won't take long to to cook, so the stalling makes no sense. (00:12:45)

More Family Guy stupidity
What If...? picture

What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath? - S1-E9

Stupidity: Ultron says he can destroy galaxies with a thought. So regardless of Dr. Strange's protection spells, he could destroy the planet they're all standing on, or evaporate the atmosphere, leaving them all suffocating in space, and just step away from the fight entirely while they die.

Jon Sandys

More What If...? stupidity
Kyaputen Tsubasa picture

The Brothers Tachibana - S1-E22

Stupidity: Masao and Kazuo in their first play of the game advancing from midfield face first the defenders, then a winger (Taki) then the two forwards (Tsubasa and Misaki). (00:13:00)

Sammo

More Kyaputen Tsubasa stupidity
Lupin III picture

Until Sunset, the Full Moon - S1-E7

Stupidity: This is not quite 'stupidity' but rather a "movie logic", supposedly sharp deduction that is really just a wild and nonsensical guess. Zenigata knows for a fact that Fujiko is impersonating Elena because she knew right away where to get the first aid kit, while Elena hasn't been in the mountain house since her husband's death. That makes no sense; Zenigata has to assume that Elena was completely straight about that fact (if it was the treasure's hiding place as he suspected, she easily could lie), and a person can easily remember where they store their security items even after years, for a variety of reasons.

Sammo

More Lupin III stupidity
More King of the Hill stupidity
Lupin the 3rd picture

Is Lupin Burning... ?! - S1-E1

Stupidity: Despite the fact that there are 100 (literally) cameras around the racing circuit and (again literally) everyone from the staff to the fellow racers works for the Scorpion gang, Jigen and Lupin's switch can happen without anyone noticing, even if it involved racing side by side for a lengthy period of time.

Sammo

More Lupin the 3rd stupidity
The Incredible Hulk picture

Darkness and Light: Part 1 - S1-E11

Stupidity: When Doc Samson emerges from the cave system and into the laboratory grounds, he says to the others "All clear" without even looking behind him to see if anyone is there, which leads to them being seen by Gabe Jones.

Phaneron

More The Incredible Hulk stupidity
Jonny Quest picture

The Dreadful Doll - S1-E12

Stupidity: The office Race is being held prisoner in has a thick wooden plank secured outside to prevent opening the door swinging to the outside, but the door was shown earlier opening to the inside. Furthermore, when Jonny rescues Race after lifting the plank, Race swings the door inside. Aside from the witch doctor guarding the shack, Race would not have been prevented from leaving.

Scott215

More Jonny Quest stupidity
Mobile Suit Gundam picture

Time, Be Still - S1-E14

Stupidity: An explanation is given for the reason why the bombs planted on the Gundam are not activated by remote control (they have plastic explosive in the regiment but not remote controls!), but no reason why they set the timer for the explosion to 30 minutes, way too much to be of any use in combat against the Gundam. Moreover, if the vulnerable spot of the Gundam shield were situated where it explodes at the beginning, it'd be completely useless.

Sammo

More Mobile Suit Gundam stupidity
More Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! stupidity

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.