Characters who got stupider as the series went on

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Stuck In The 80s

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Who are some characters who seemed to get dumber (intelligence-wise) as the series progressed? The obvious ones are Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, but there are others. For example, Beavis and Butthead. They were always kind of stupid, but at least in the early eps they were a bit more aware of their surroundings, but by the later seasons they had totally de-evolved. Another one is Grimlock from G1 Transformers. It seems after the movie he became more and more childlike and clumsy as opposed to the somewhat dim-witted but still heroic character from the pre-movie eps. Heck, i have a theory that megatron and dinobot from beast wars were written the way they were so that transformers would actually have some INTELIGENT dinosaur TFs (and since those characters were fan favorites it must have worked).
 
One character I can think of is Numbuh 4 of KND. He started out normal, but became dumber and dumber as the series went on. It was an unnecessary move in my book since Numbuh 3 was already the dumb one.
 
This isn't really stupider more as just a transformation of stupid. But Patrick from Spongebob went from "clever" stupid in seasons 1-3 to just "stupid" stupid in seasons 4-6 if that makes sense. But I think that the good jokes are back for Season 7 so far at least.
 
Dumb? I remember correctly Numbuh 3 was naive, not dumb.

One simple example of a character who got stupider: Homer Simpson.

If someone remember the first seasons you see what i mean.
 
Bart got dumber too. Ok he was never smart but he was cleaver at first. Just compare an early sideshow Bob episode to a later one. It goes from Bart pretty much figuring out Bob's schemes by himself, to him idiotically falling into Bob's traps and Lisa figuring it out.
 
Can't forget Fry from Futurama. He was never the brightest guy around, but he wasn't stupid, either. Still, the writers apparently found him much easier to write if they made him stupider.

The only real problem with this is how often his intelligence and stupidity are flip-flopped throughout the series.
 
Patrick from Spongebob is a pretty clear example, as The Cartoon mentioned. He was always a twit, but at least he knew what was going on in the earlier episodes. He's not as radical a change as Cozmo from Fairly Oddparents though. I mean, darn he got bad.
 
Ya beat me to it. He was always a "smart" dumb character. He could have a burst of genius and not realize it, only adding to his stupidity, and he wasn't totally incompetent. But I agree, he's improved as of late.
 
Yeah, Cosmo got horribly stupid. He was always silly, but his stupidity became so bad, it's almost unbearable. And he jokes about it too, which kind of gets annoying.

The sad thing is that I noticed this with dumb characters in a lot of shows, live-action or animated. I guess idiots are easier to write for because stupid people are supposedly funny.
 
Yes about Cosmo. He's the champion when it comes to annoyingly stupid characters. And as for your comment about idiots being easier to write for, yes, perhaps, if the people writing for them aren't very good, but what's worse is, those people think kids LIKE stupid characters because they make the kids feel superior. Wow, superior to a moron! How pathetic is that?
 
You can't really talk just about dumb characters who get dumber over the course of the season. It may be most obvious with stupid characters, but writers tend to exaggerate the character traits of characters as the show wears on. Spongebob illustrates this very well: Spongebob, Squidward, Mr. Krabs; all had their character traits exaggerated as time went on.

While not an animation, I think Red vs Blue illustrates this perfectly. Especially Red Team suffered from turning into caricatures, though Caboose got a lot dumber as well. And in such a short amount of time too...
 
Red vs. Blue's characters are actually funnier as caricatures, though, unlike the rest of the examples being said so far. Other than Caboose, who has passed the point of no return when it comes to stupidity.
 
I'm gonna go with Dino from the Flintstones.

When he first met Fred and Wilma, Dino was not only smart but he could talk, answer phones and do just about anything a normal caveman could do. Then something incredibly traumatic must've happened to him because the very next episode his mind devolved down to that of a yapping pet that liked to tackle Fred and lick his face.

Honestly, I think this is a hard one to top, even for Homer.
 
Cosmo. Really. Is the king of stupids. At first he was just comically absentminded, now he's outsmarted by a baby. Wow. Still, I love all the characters in their golden days.
 
Chowder is also a case of changing from one stupid to another. At first he's simply childishly stupid, but as the series went on, he became "thinks forks go in electrical sockets" stupid.
 
Janine Melnitz from The Real Ghostbusters started out as a strong and independent woman but became somewhat ditzy and more helpless after she got a redesign and new voice actor later in the series.
 
I always thought that she was more clueless, at least in some situations, due to her naive personality, but not really lacking intelligence. I remember a few times throughout the series were she was to take action and understand the seriousness of the situation.

As others have pointed out, Cosmo and Chowder are two prime examples of silly/clueless characters transforming into characters without much of any intelligence. With Cosmo, the change came on pretty fast. He was never really bright, but he understood situations and said things that actually made sense. I think that Chowder's lack of intelligence seems to be more of an obvious attempt to make the show funnier, even though I think that plan backfired. Plus, his inability to understand much of anything comes off as more annoying than funny to me.
 
In recent years I became a bit disappointed with Francine Smith from American Dad. She felt like she got dumbed down. I think she slightly got a little better but it's still not the same.

A recent joke example of how she is now could be when she tried to think of what she likes but couldn't, and then she thought she liked reading but then realized what it was and said, "oh noo, I hate that." :-P
 
Ah, the curse of Flanderization. TV Tropes now has a subtrope for this.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TookALevelInDumbass

I agree withe Patrick Star, But SpongeBob SquarePants himself also suffered this so much, it's degrading. Sheldon J. Plankton, as well.

As for The Fairly OddParents, Cosmo is the worst of all, its like he's just filler, and it's not just him, but EVERYONE except Wanda has suffered this. What has happened with these characters?
 
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