Making a character appear completely stupid has been a way that television tries to elicit humor for decades.
Others characters often look down upon them, and you’ll catch them rolling their eyes or shooting condescending glares their way.
While sometimes the characters aren’t as educated as the rest of their friends, it’s often played up far too much for laughs and the things they are actually good at get brushed past or ignored.
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In fact, some of these characters are actually smarter than the people making fun of them.
Check out 13 of TV’s “Dumbest” characters who were smarter than they seemed!
Jason Mendoza – The Good Place
We can’t argue that Jason can be a little weird sometimes, but that really doesn’t make him as unintelligent as people think. Are we forgetting that once Jason even figured out they were in the bad place?
Brittany Pierce – Glee
The show tried to portray Brittany as dumb as rocks. And yes she didn’t have a whole lot of common sense. But do any of us? Brittany was the kindest and most understanding person and she really didn’t care what others thought of her. Her singing and dancing abilities were incredible, and we also have to mention the time she turned out to be a math genius.
John LaMarr – The Orville
LaMarr was originally presented as a goofy character out to have a good time, but he turned out to be much more than he seemed. LaMarr scored incredibly high in aptitude tests and was promoted to Chief Engineer.
Maya Hart – Girl Meets World
Maya was supposed to be the “stupid” best friend of the lead when she was actually the most intelligent character on the entire show. She knew how to handle sticky situations, could always think the most rationally when others couldn’t, and even got an A on a test simply because she decided to put in the effort.
Kimmy Gibler – Fuller House
Kimmy was always the dumb, annoying friend on Full House and its reboot. But she has since proven what an out-of-the-box thinker she is. Even her party planning business does quite well and the show has even shown how difficult it is for other characters to run it successfully.
Summer Roberts – The O.C.
She may have been seen as a ditzy and shallow character but Summer was much more. Her SAT scores were through the roof and she was even accepted into Brown.
Rose Nylund – The Golden Girls
Rose was shown to have zero common sense. Yet she was competent in psychology and even counseled people.
Jimmy Palmer – NCIS
Jimmy started off as Ducky’s sidekick in the morgue and was pretty much just the comic relief. Despite initially being more of a side-kick he’s now a doctor who runs the NCIS morgue by himself.
Penny Hofstadter – The Big Bang Theory
Penny was always looked down upon by most of the men in the show. In reality she was a lot smarter than they gave her credit for and had more common sense than all of them combined.
Mick Rory – DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
Rory was treated like an idiot for most of the show when in reality he deserves much more. He is both a novelist and an excellent reader of people.
Haley Dunphy – Modern Family
Haley is supposed to be portrayed as dumb and ditzy. Despite this, she also tends to be very cunning, manipulative, and has a high social intelligence.
Andy Dwyer – Parks and Recreation
Andy Dwyer was fun. Responsible? Not really. But he was a great character and a great musician. Say what you want about him, but learning an instrument is no easy task and Andy’s talent for the guitar proved that he was capable of doing anything he set his mind to.
Joey Tribbiani – Friends
Joey may not have been book smart, but he was smart in a lot of other areas. He knew how to treat his friends and others with respect, which is something other “smart” characters on the show struggled with. *cough* Ross *cough*
