Characters who got stupider as the series went on

I thought that Dr. Drakken got dumber and dumber Kim Possible went on. He felt like a force to be reckoned with, then he got all silly and dumb with his plans, but he still had a charm in him that gave him a semi-winner.
 
As others have said, Patrick and Cosmo have suffered from this lately. Patrick was dumb, of course, but I never remember him being so dumb it was annoying. He was aware of his surroundings, but his ideas and thoughts were what made his character. Now, he seems to have lost any and all common sense...The rest of the cast of SpongeBob seems to have become one-note, too. SpongeBob was much more intelligent with occasionally strange, but mostly naive and over-reactive, actions. Now, he acts too over the top and stupid. Squidward exists almost solely to be annoyed, Sandy is nothing more than a scientist with wacky inventions (which really strays from her original character), etc, etc. The same thing happened to Fairly OddParents.

I suppose characters are changed because they're easy to write and kids still watch. Or something. But it takes away from the original personality and obviously there are teens and adults who can easily recognize the changes. Even the kids, when they are older and watch the shows they grew up with, will notice the lack of rounded characters.
 
Some of my pics have already been listed, but here goes:

Chowder: (Chowder) Went from being childishly simplistic to irritatingly dumb. And loud.

Cosmo: (Fairly OddParents) Went from being a somewhat goofy but suave jokester to a total 5-star moron with a screechy nails-across-a-blackboard voice.

Numbuh 4: (Codename: Kids Next Door) Went from being a tough scrappy kid who just wasn't booksmart to the team's resident idiot/butt-monkey. Regarding Numbuh 3: She wasn't dumb per se, just very naive, flighty, annoyingly a "girly-girl" and spent half the time in her own little world.

Beast Boy: (Teen Titans) He started out as the team's clown who just liked to joke around, but in fairly short order he devolved into being dumb as a post.

-Also, regarding Teen Titans: before anyone says it, Starfire was not stupid. Just naive to Earth culture. If not understanding our "modern go-go world" (Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy reference) makes Star stupid, then Storm was also stupid when she first arrived in America, as she didn't get Western culture at first either.
 
If you've seen the two newest seasons, Caboose has returned to his season 1/2 level of intelligence. Probably because the series became "Plot with Jokes" from "jokes with plot".
 
Johnny Bravo - Granted, he was never a genius, but in the shows' 1st season, Johnny was merely narcissistic and clueless, but for season 2, he became a total oblivious idiot (the season 2 episodes were still funny, however).
 
I think a lot of it is fanservice or pandering to what the fans like.

I think all the personality traits (Patrick's dim wit, Spongebob's silliness, Squidward's cynical nature) all were exagerrated because the writers saw that fans were reacting positively to episodes, and they overcompensated by writing them too dumb.

The same thing has happened to Family Guy when they annoyingly brought back The Greased Up Deaf Guy and other minor one off characters for episodes after their initial gags.

Sometimes you shouldn't give fans what they want.
 
Practically all the He-Man and She-Ra villains became stupider over the course of their respective series, which was unfortunate considering both were action series that had a lot of potential. Having the heroes win by "dumbing down" the villains significantly lowered the good quality of these shows.
 
I thought the same thing about Drakken too. The really interesting character that I'm having the problem is Candace from Phineas and Ferb. I wouldn't say that she's stupid is that I don't know why she's at the need of "busting" her brothers.

If anybody knows that question please tell me because I'm oblivious to what her intentions are.
 
Candace's desire to bust Phineas & Ferb doesn't make her stupid, just obsessed.

It's because, a) Candace is a sister, and it's her job to mess with her siblings, and b) because like Wile E. Coyote, she's determined to achieve a goal that is unattainable.

I really don't think that an explanation for Candace's motivations is necessary. Anyone with a sibling should already know.
 
I wonder could be possible then Trent from Total Drama Island to Total Drama Action might fit the category? In TDA, he wents a bit nuts with the number 9 obsession. However Lindsay might have the reverse situation(less stupider as the series went on) and got some bright moments in TDA during the horror movie challenge, millitairy movie challenge and the mystery/murder movie challenge until she voted off herself.
 
While I agree that Candace's desire to bust her brothers is more of an obesession, I'm not sure if every sibling wants to mess with their siblings. At least not at the level of what Candace does.



I'm not sure if I would say Trent lost intelligence during TDA. He did have his crazy obsession with the number nine and with impressing Gwen, but he was simply more obsessed than lacking intelligence. While there were a few episodes where Lindsay appeared smarter, such as when she was trying to be the leader and when she was solving the mystery in another episode, she mostly remained the same clueless/dense character.
 
Chowder - He was pretty naive and optimistic when the series first came out (which I liked). Now however, there are some episodes where he's so clueless I wonder if he even has a brain.
 
Im gonna have to go with Patrick Star. he was never the sharpest knife in the drawer, just had the dopey charm about him.

Take for example the episode "Help Wanted". It was actually Patrick who convinced Spongebob to not be nervous and to persue going to the Krusty Krab to get a job application. Even in "Tea at the Treedome" Patrick's advice, though not the brightest, somewhat helped Spongebob out in the long run.

If they made Help Wanted today it would probably consist of Spongebob himself trying to go to the Krusty Krab with Patrick trying to distract him by asking him to go jellyfishing.
 
I also think DeeDee also may have gotten smarter than her initial just-to-annoy-dexter persona she originally had, but i havent seen the eps in any descending order (just random eps) to determine it or not, good thing the dvd may be coming.
 
Team Rocket from Pokemon was pretty competent during their first appearance - you were actually nervous that they'd get away with their plot. But as it went on, they really became more like comedy relief that couldn't catch a Pokemon (for more than a minute or two) to save their lives and jobs.
 
Carl from Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius. Oh wait, he was pretty stupid even from the start :p He just got more weird as the show went on is all.
 
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