Best animated TV stupidity of all time

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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
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
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
Recess picture

Beyond a Reasonable Scout - S5-E3

Stupidity: Phil the Scout ties a rope to Mikey's see-saw end's handle to lower Gus down without hurting him. Couldn't Mikey just climb off and hold the see-saw down with his hands and lowered Gus's end down slowly?

More Recess 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
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
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
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
More Saint Seiya stupidity
The Legend of Zelda picture

The Ringer - S1-E1

Stupidity: As Link is watching Zelda from his tower, he's completely distracted and oblivious to the Moblins entering his room from the floor. They have the element of surprise and one sneaks up behind him. But rather than doing the smart thing and say, stabbing Link in the back or delivering a crushing blow from behind while Link is unaware of his presence, the Moblin simply just grabs him on the shoulder and puts his arms behind his back to hold him while the other Moblins go for the Triforce. Giving Link plenty of ability to kick one in the face, free himself and grab his weapon to fight them off. The Moblin should have just gone for the stealth kill, even if they aren't all that bright of an opponent. (00:02:10)

Quantom X

More The Legend of Zelda stupidity
More Kyaputen Tsubasa stupidity
More JoJo's Bizarre Adventure stupidity
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns picture

The Alchemy Murder Case File 3 - S1-E8

Stupidity: The plot throws in a drawing from a XVII century tome asserting that the building was designed with alchemic purposes by the scientist who built it. Wonderful, but the concept is not carried out coherently; the elements (as in, elements from the periodic table, which does not fit the era already, but let's say it was an original take) are placed with no relation to the basic scheme. For instance, Tin is in the "Moon" position, and its murder was executed with Fire, and some intersections have one room, some two, with no logic.

Sammo

More Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns stupidity
More What's New, Scooby-Doo? stupidity
Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac picture

Die Kette des Nebels - S1-E4

Stupidity: In the original, the knight of the Phoenix suddenly appeared during the arena fights interrupting the show and stealing the Gold Cloth. In this remake of the saga, Sienna/Saori Kido leaves the arena by plane during a bombardment that occurs way before Nero/Ikki arrives to steal the Cloth. There is no reason why she would fly off in her VTOL without bringing the Golden Cloth with her, then (there's a lot of time for that). Instead she leaves it for the 4 Saints for them to "protect it", against a whole army and on foot in the middle of the desert.

Sammo

More Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac stupidity

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