History Main / DitzyGenius

* Jason from ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}''. The kid always does his homework and gets incredibly high marks in school... yet will pull off incredibly dumb, and sometimes dangerous stunts, half the time just to torture his sister. He's a kid smart enough to program absurdly effective computer viruses, and dumb enough to send them to people who want to see if his website has any content.

** Miu Iruma from ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' was a lot like Soda, but even smarter [[CloudCuckoolander with the added eccentricity to match]]. She was a crude InsufferableGenius and TheFriendNobodyLikes due to her [[NoSocialSkills complete absence of social skills]], and tended to make wild leaps of logic in the class trials. [[spoiler: ZigZagged by the fact that she [[TheCuckoolanderWasRight accurately managed to finger the killer in every trial she participated in]] but [[RightForTheWrongReasons lacked the deductive reasoning ability to connect the how and why and convince the others]], leaving [[PlayerCharacter Shuichi]] to pick up the pieces.]]

* ''Fanfic/StoryOfApolloDaphneAndLucaAnItalianTragedy'': [[BrainyBrunet Luca]] is very smart and studious, but also quite naive and oblivious.

* Mitsunari from ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'' is a brilliant military strategist who's also [[BadassBookworm quite skilled in reading and swordmanship]]. However, he also is something of a lovable doofus (albeit an [[NiceGuy extremely sweet]] and [[{{Bishonen}} pretty]] one) who [[TheKlutz regularly spills tea while trying to make it]], is [[SarcasmBlind blissfully oblivious]] to [[DeadpanSnarker Ieyasu]]'s attempts to insult him and [[ObliviousToLove anything related to romance]], and frequently [[ForgetsToEat forgets to eat]] while caught up in his reading and the [[AccidentalMisnaming names]] of people he isn't close friends with.

Compare NerdsAreNaive, though note that not all nerds and geeks are geniuses and vice versa. See also {{Cloudcuckoolander}} or BrilliantButLazy, especially in cases when the character's intelligence is largely {{informed|Ability}}. One of the standard Hollywood interpretations of a nerd, along with the StereotypicalNerd. Very closely related to SmarterThanYouLook and BunnyEarsLawyer. Also compare AbsentMindedProfessor, who isn't foolish so much as forgetful. See also NoSocialSkills and SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining. If the character's deficiencies are in the areas of manners or consideration for other people, see InsufferableGenius.

* ''Fanfic/NewStars'': According to Lieutenant Commander LaMarr, the Fleet once employed a scientist who was brilliant enough to create what would have been the Union's first teleporter, but was also stupide enough to bring a beer into the testing lab, which he spilled all over the control panel (which both fried the machine's circuitry and ruined all of their data). John states that this is why the Union bans the presence of food or drinks in testing labs.

* Otacon from ''Webcomic/TheLastDaysOfFoxhound'', in a {{Flanderization}} of his original appearance in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''. An engineering genius who designs and builds a walking stealth deathtank capable of firing untraceable projectiles from almost any location, but so naïve that he believes it'll be used solely as a missile ''defense'' platform.

Compare NerdsAreNaive, though note that not all nerds and geeks are geniuses and vice versa. See also {{Cloudcuckoolander}} or BrilliantButLazy, especially in cases when the character's intelligence is largely {{informed|Ability}}. One of the standard Hollywood interpretations of a nerd, along with ExtravertedNerd. Very closely related to SmarterThanYouLook and BunnyEarsLawyer. Also compare AbsentMindedProfessor, who isn't foolish so much as forgetful. See also NoSocialSkills and SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining. If the character's deficiencies are in the areas of manners or consideration for other people, see InsufferableGenius.

'''Calvin's mom:''' ''[cleaning up the mess]'' [[LampshadeHanging How can kids know so much and still be so dumb]]?

* Kotomi Ichinose in ''VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}'' regularly tops or at least places in the top ten of national grade/test averages and studies incredibly advanced physics in her spare time. She also doesn't seem to see much of a problem with using scissors on any science book [[spoiler:that mentions her parents or their work]] and reacts...very...slowly...to things, plus [[CloudCuckoolander many]] [[TheWonka similar]] traits that become more obvious with time. Watching her "''tsukkomi'' lessons" with Kyou and Nagisa can be both FacePalm-inducing and hilarious.

** Miu Iruma from ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' was a lot like Soda, but even smarter [[CloudCuckoolander with the added eccentricity to match]]. She was a crude InsufferableGenius and TheFriendNobodyLikes due to her [[NoSocialSkills complete absence of social skills]], and tended to make wild leaps of logic in the class trials. [[spoiler: ZigZagged by the fact that she [[TheCuckooLanderWasRight accurately managed to finger the killer in every trial she participated in]] but [[RightForTheWrongReasons lacked the deductive reasoning ability to connect the how and why and convince the others]], leaving [[PlayerCharacter Shuichi]] to pick up the pieces.]]
* Mitsunari from ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku'' is a brilliant military strategist who's also [[BadassBookworm quite skilled in reading and swordmanship]]. However, he also is something of a lovable doofus (albeit an [[NiceGuy extremely sweet]] and [[{{Bishonen}} pretty]] one) who [[TheKlutz regularly spills tea while trying to make it]], is [[DoesNotUnderstandSarcasm blissfully oblivious]] to [[DeadpanSnarker Ieyasu]]'s attempts to insult him and [[ObliviousToLove anything related to romance]], and frequently [[ForgetsToEat forgets to eat]] while caught up in his reading and the [[AccidentalMisnaming names]] of people he isn't close friends with.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'': Both Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin have elements of this, in contrasting ways. Jack Aubrey is a highly successful naval officer (which requires technical and mathematical knowledge as well as strategic and leadership skills) as well as an amateur astronomer and musician but has a tendency to make poor choices when on land, especially in financial matters. Stephen is a physician/scientist/spy BadassBookworm ''par excellence'', but is utterly hapless at sea and something of an eccentric {{Cloudcuckoolander}}.
* Yuri from ''Literature/DirtyPair'' is very intelligent when it comes to science, forensics, and hacking, but she can be rather ditzy at times, particularly when she's around a guy she likes, or sometimes when thinking up crazy ideas to solve a problem.
* Leonard of Quirm is the most intelligent man on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''...and has absolutely no comprehension of human nature whatsoever. The Patrician finds conversations with him a combination of relaxing (since he doesn't have to watch what he says) and frustrating (since Leonard comes up with things like "Yes, I've invented an incredibly powerful war machine, but that's okay because no-one would ever use such a thing.") ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' has him repeatedly shocked at Nobbs and Colon's constant ideas of how to use his inventions to attack others.
* ''Literature/FullMetalPanic'' features captain Teresa "Tessa" Testarossa. She is a tactical and strategic genius who became a captain in the international anti-terrorist organisation ''MITHRIL'' by the age of 16 and personally designed the submersible carrier ''Tuatha De Danaan'' which she commands. She is also a lovesick teenage girl and (apart from her talent for swimming) generally clumsy and slightly awkward.
* Nako in ''Literature/GenieTeamGJikenNote'', whose [[AttentionDeficitOohShiny inattentiveness]] is serious enough to actually ''mask'' her intelligence for years and cause her to be passed off as a troublemaking ditz.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** Luna Lovegood. She is a CloudCuckooLander almost to the point of ObfuscatingStupidity, but she pulls out one genius move after another when it counts.
** Ravenclaw House seems to favor these. The description on ''Pottermore'' states that one of its lesser-known values is eccentricity, and has graduated quite a few Ditzy Geniuses over the years.
* The title character of ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' is brilliant at most things she does, scoring incredibly high grades in all her classes and mastering every sport she tries with minimal effort, but she utterly fails when it comes to anything that requires her to consider other people's points of view, like the movie she made. She thought it was brilliant; everyone else was... less enthused. At one point she fails to comprehend why [[DeathIsDramatic characters always die at the climax of a story]], and another time she complains that crabs didn't evolve softer shells so she could eat them easier. She also fails to realize that wearing a PlayboyBunny outfit at school would upset the teachers. And then there's her general InsaneTrollLogic, such as pointing out that Tanabata wishes will take years to reach their destination due to the speed of light delay, but expecting that Orihime and Hikoboshi will be able to ignore the lightspeed barrier because [[AWizardDidIt they're gods.]]
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' has a Havenite former ops and tac officer, who's shown to be a tech nerd, and put in charge of a R&D station known as Bolthole. Her name's Shannon Foraker.
* ''Literature/JakubWedrowycz'': Jakub is literally a genius, but comes across as a {{Ditz}}y old bum due, in part, to [[BookDumb poor general education]] (three years of elementary school back in the 1910's), though ObfuscatingStupidity also comes in play.
* Michael Sevenson in the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'' manages to be TooDumbToLive after having gone through a university. His complete inability to tell even a partial white lie and his tendency to act without thinking (sometimes to the extent that ''he doesn't even that realize he's acted'' until after the fact), not to mention his tendency to ignore social norms, make it surprising whenever he shows that he does, in fact, possess intelligence.
* Josh of ''Literature/TheMagicians'' is just as academically brilliant as all the other student magicians at Brakebills, but in his case, it's tempered by him being lazy, careless, ignorant, and UnskilledButStrong. In the sequel, he offers to teleport his friends from Venice to Corwall - only for a light-hearted interrogation to reveal that he believes Cornwall to be in ''Canada.'' And when he actually learns that it's in England, he doubles down and classifies it as part of Europe... only to surprise everyone with an incredibly complex discourse on the science of magnetic force and the magical art of astral folding.
* In ''Literature/OnTheSpectrum'', Clara's best friend Bree acts like a ditz, but gets straight A's in school.
* Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt gives us Beatrice Löwenström in her debut novel ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}''. She's a very intelligent young woman when it comes to academical and intellectual pursuits. But man, does she make some lousy decisions! When she's bullied into an engagement with a man, who's like forty years older than her and treats women like dirt, she never asks for help from anybody, who might actually want to and be able to help her. She also gets drunk at her cousin's engagement party (which could have ended much worse than it did), trusts her sociopath cousin (she shouldn't have) and tries to seduce male protagonist Seth when she has just fallen off a horse and gotten injured (not the right time)!
* The whole Peterkin family in the humorous children's novel ''The Peterkin Papers''. They are well-educated, creative, and in their way, resourceful, but fail at handling mundane problems on their own due to a combination of ComplexityAddiction and lack of common sense.
* Another Swedish example is Indra Ingridsdotter, the protagonist of ''Röd måne'' by Elisabet Nemert. She's such a brilliant medicine woman that she eventually gets knighted by the queen. But she also has an extreme lack of common sense. She has casual sex with many different men...even though she lives in the 17th century when casual sex was against the law. It's not until after a scorned ex-lover has her thrown into prison that she finally realizes how stupid she had been.
* The Greek class from ''Literature/TheSecretHistory''. They're all extremely intelligent (except for Bunny maybe) but they have absolutely no common sense. Especially Henry who is so secluded from society that he doesn't know how social situations work, how he should act in a police interrogation or whether it's a good idea to have a drug fueled orgy in the woods with your friends.
* ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'': Sugou Nobuyuki is a VR genius in his own right, though falling a bit short of [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Akihiko Kayaba]]. But he's prone to very blatant BondVillainStupidity moments and can't anticipate very obvious consequences to his actions. Case in point: he believes that there are numerous organizations that would kill to have his research and shelter him from the law after Kirito defeats him in [=ALO=]. Instead, he's arrested and incarcerated, with [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome RECT nearly going bankrupt as a result of his crimes]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': Johnny Silverhand can appear as either this trope or GeniusDitz depending upon what he does or is going to do when a person first meets him. On the genius side of the trope, one only needs to talk to him to know that he is well-read in a variety of topics including art history, political theory, cryptography, and computer science. On TheDitz side, however, he is someone who fully embraces the destructive nature of the SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll lifestyle without fear and then ups it by joining a [[BombThrowingAnarchists terrorist group]]. In addition, he is seemingly incapable of interacting with the world without insults or violence, destroys long-term relationships for short-term gratification, and hates corporations so much that he allows [[GreaterScopeVillain Saburo Arasaka]] to punch him in the nose if it results in him getting a bruised knuckle. In short, he is the epitome of an EruditeStoner who speaks in a SophisticatedAsHell manner, is impulsive, and has a short attention span as well as a shorter temper.
* Measurehead in ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is a GeniusBruiser who works as TheDragon for the local NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters. A large ScaryBlackMan, who despite being [[PurpleProse eloquent]] and well-read, utilizes InsaneTrollLogic to defend his BoomerangBigot ideology based in anthropometric-based racism, to the point he has phrenology charts tattooed all over his body. He's also astute enough to be one of the only two characters in the game capable of convincing [[PlayerCharacter Harry]] that [[JerkassHasAPoint alcoholism is ruining his life and helping him quit]], and also shares with him the only good piece of advice that he gets about his goal to return to the past -- that he doesn't want to, and should embrace the freedom and opportunities of the modern world [[HopeIsScary instead of retreating inwards in failure]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': Merrill is a brilliant mage and historian well noted for her talents. She's also extremely naïve, very socially awkward, has little in the way of common sense (for some time she considered muggings to be some form of greeting), and an absolutely abysmal sense of direction. This is both played for laughs and treated seriously.
* The Sophons of ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace'', they're just as likely to run away screaming from a planetary anomaly or study it despite being irradiated. ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace2'' reveals their rapid advances (they were the first to use nuclear power, mine asteroids, and so on) came with similar amounts of catastrophic [[ForScience SCIENCE]]-induced cock-ups (they were also the first to crash their test rockets, set off artificial earthquakes on their homeworld, and accidentally blow up their own moon).
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', the Warrior of Light is TheAce and an InstantExpert at nearly every craft they put their mind to, be it battling {{Physical God}}s or becoming an artisan. But several of their dialogue options and journal entries make them come across as a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}. For instance, when looking for an object at the bottom of an ice-cold, murky pond, they can offer to try and ''drink'' the pond dry to get to the thing they're looking for. They can also be a SupremeChef but completely fail to register that the "squishy" spices they just retrieved from a shipwreck are rancid and moldy.
* Morgan from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' is [[spoiler:the player character's son/daughter and, much like their parent, is]] a BadassBookworm [[spoiler:with a love for tactics and Easy Amnesia]]. While it's clear from Morgan's thought processes that they're very intelligent, the issue is that, despite appearing to be [[VagueAge anywhere from fifteen to their early twenties]], Morgan spends a lot of time [[ItMakesSenseInContext literally bashing their head against posts]], asking bandits [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas if their mother would be proud of them for their actions]] ([[SubvertedTrope it doesn't work]]), and other similar actions. It becomes obvious Morgan lacks a lot of common sense and is very naïve, and their [[spoiler:amnesia]] probably doesn't help matters, either.
* PlayedForHorror in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' with the BigBad, William Afton. He was a RobotMaster and SerialKiller who despite being brilliant was a [[TheSociopath low-functioning sociopath]] whose single-minded obsession with [[ChildHater child murder]] and [[DidntThinkThisThrough general lack of foresight]] led to him being HoistByHisOwnPetard on several occasions. [[spoiler:He decides to climb inside the springlock suit even when the condition it's in makes it highly likely to kill him, and even [[CameBackWrong as Springtrap]] ''knows'' that the pizzeria in [[VideoGame/FreddyFazbearsPizzeriaSimulator the sixth game]] isn't what it seems but can't resist the opportunity to kill more kids. Both of these examples lead to his death.]]
* Voridus in the ''Awakening the Nightmare'' DLC for ''Videogame/HaloWars2'', who is surprisingly adept with Forerunner technology and successfully experiments with Covenant technology. He's also a competent fighter. But he is so eager to prove himself to Atriox that he inevitably keeps failing him, and despite repeated warnings from both Atriox and his brother Pavium, he [[spoiler:breaches the energy shield around the ruins of High Charity and releases the Flood, almost dooming the galaxy]].
* In the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series, particularly high magic potential seems to be tied to intelligence, with characters like Zexion and Aqua showing high aptitude in magic. The character with the ''highest'' magical potential in the series? ''Donald Duck'', who isn't just a mage, but also a powerful wizard. He's also, well, Donald Duck, with all his usual stubbornness and lack of common sense.
* Yukiko Amagi of ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has a bit of this. Intelligence-wise, she's very smart, as her best friend Chie remarks that Yukiko always ranks near the top of the school charts when it comes to exams, and she's also often the one to make important deductions about the murder case the group is working on (up until [[KidDetective Naoto]] joins the group, anyway). On the other hand, she's capable of being very air-headed too, often displaying a remarkable ability to miss the entire point of a conversation (for instance, not knowing that a guy asking her to "go somewhere" with him was asking her out on a date, or thinking Yosuke is making a dirty remark when he suggests Yukiko give him some "private lessons" during a conversation about studying), and occasionally spaces out completely when others are talking to her.
* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'': {{Downplayed|Trope}} with the titular character Clank. Compared with Ratchet, he is the more BookSmart of the duo, but unlike most robots depicted in media, he [[InvertedTrope inverts]] the NoSocialSkills trope as he usually plays the StraightMan to Ratchet. However, he does have his ditzy moments with one example being the time he thought a DisguisedInDrag Qwark was his sister at first.
* Kiel of ''VideoGame/RuneFactory4'' takes great joy in reading books and learning about all sorts of things. However, he apparently failed to grasp the basic concepts of secrecy, deceit, or even just being a prankster, because he takes ''everyone's'' words at face value and can't keep anything in confidence--not that he deliberately goes around telling people, mind you; he just tends to let things slip when he shouldn't. He's also naïve and inexperienced in the real world, despite his vast reading list.
* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik is a genius who [[ImprobablyHighIQ has an IQ of 300]], capable of singlehandedly building entire fleets of airships and space stations as well as armies of killer robots. However, he usually dresses his machines in garish colors, tends to throw temper tantrums whenever he's on the losing side and has a tendency to paste his face on everything. In addition to almost always including an incredibly obvious weak point in all of his robots (which is not unusual or unexpected for video game villains), special mention must be made of the [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog Egg Dealer]] -- a slot machine robot that had a random chance of attacking himself or even giving Shadow immediate access to his ultimate technique. Got to wonder what he was thinking when he programmed those particular features in.
* Luigi, of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros''. When he's turned evil in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', he manages to build a giant killer robot that takes over two hundred hits with an alien space laser to go down in a couple of hours, owns his own airship (that he's implied to have built himself), is a master at card games, is explicitly stated to be the brains of the brothers, when Mario has a job which already requires someone to be very smart, and, yet, acts extremely childish when he's on adventures.
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'':
** Lamia Loveless in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAdvance'' is a completely competent mecha pilot -- calm, analytical and deadly in battle. During her normal life, however, she tends to act ditzy. This is {{justified|Trope}} since she is a {{Ridiculously Human Robot|s}} who was created mere years ago and had only recently discovered what it felt like to be human.
** Yong Gebana of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration: Dark Prison'' has a seemingly serious personality when it counts and apparently operates "by the book" most of the time. She has a slight obsession with data, which is represented by how she acquires and utilizes data constantly when in actual combat (her debut chapter is called "Auditor Girl", referencing this). She has some slight "ditz" moments at times and we are usually shown her self monologues on which she usually "assorts" the current situation when she doesn't get something.
* ''VideoGame/TalesSeries'':
** Harold from ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2'' is an eccentric, unpredictable, childish and sometimes downright psychotic young lady; yet, she is the genius behind the creation of the [[EmpathicWeapon Swordians]], and a magic expert. The writers of Vesperia seem to have taken a bit of her when making Rita; theory supported by a Harold mask usable by her (as an Attachment) and her Miska Doctoral Degree costume title, very reminiscent of Harold's garment.
** Rita Mordio in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''. A prodigy mage at the age of fifteen, but possessing absolutely no social skills. She's rude, direct, [[DisproportionateRetribution violently assaults those who bother her]] and cares nothing for other people. This can be chalked up to her young age and that she was raised (as an orphan) in a university town filled with self-absorbed scientists.
** Pascal in ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'' is a lot more sociable than Rita, but she's so energetic that she's nigh-incomprehensible when she gets excited, and she can't read social situations: she doesn't so much break the tension in a room as much as crash through it head-first. She also has no concept of personal space.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'':
** Prolonged exposure to [[GreenRocks Australium]] can not only lead to TestosteronePoisoning of muscle growth, [[GirlsWithMoustaches women growing facial hair]], and men growing chest hair in the shape of a country or state connected to them, but also increases intelligence while lowering common sense leading to this trope. TheEngineer's grandfather Radigan Conagher was once tasked by the U.S. government to work with it, which increased his intelligence to the point of being able to create a fully functional prosthetic limb but also lead him to saw off his own hand so that he could use it. Australia’s population as a result of working with the metal has led it to become the most technologically advanced nation, but it also uses the technology for the most ridiculous of reasons and they decide their king through kangaroo boxing.
** TheMedic may look like [[GermanicEfficiency he has it fairly together]] on the field, but look a little closer and [[MadDoctor you'll find out otherwise]]. For example, he apparently believes that the best way to talk to a patient during surgery (the patient being his {{Heterosexual Life Partner|s}}, no less) is to regale him with the story of how he lost his medical license (it involved removing the entire skeleton from a man who lived to tell the tale). It's fairly obvious that the man is both socially inept and generally round the twist.
* Uncle Albert from ''VideoGame/UncleAlbertsAdventures'' is a skilled scientist and engineer, but according to the narrator, people would call Albert either a genius or a crazy man for doing "useless things" such as raising bugs, counting stars and building useless machines.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The Solomons from ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' are all advanced aliens who could make fools out of even the smartest human beings, yet, because they have never dealt with emotions before, they come off as utterly crazy and weird to everyone around them. Dick, in particular, is a pompous manchild who can't even teach a young girl to play hopscotch without turning it into an argument.
* The title character of ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything''. He's an expert in just about every subject matter there is but is absolutely terrible at predicting how people will react to things. For instance, in "Adam Ruins Security", he needs to have it pointed out to him that going on live TV and giving serial killers advice on how to get around common security systems might have unintended negative consequences.
* RecurringCharacter Professor Pepperwinkle in ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman''. Example: he brings his latest invention to show Perry White. It's an untested time machine. Perry doesn't have time to look at it because he's busy with an important story involving a gangster who is about to turn himself in to the authorities, and who is in his office at the time, so the Professor turns his time machine on and sends them all (himself, the gangster, Perry, Lois, Jimmy, and Clark) to prehistoric times. Success!... Then he realizes that he didn't bring enough fuel to make a return trip.
* Winifred "Fred" Burkle in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' may qualify. She's a skittish, timid, socially awkward girl, exacerbated by her imprisonment in another dimension where she was viewed as little more than cattle for several years, to the extent she verges on {{Cloudcuckoolander}} (at least in earlier seasons). She also happens to be a quantum physicist of near-genius intellect.
* In one episode of ''Series/BarRescue'', Jon Taffer goes to save a bar called Paladino's, which has two owners, John and Jonathan, who are both scientists by day, but seem to have trouble running the bar. This comes to a head during the stress test when they can't figure out if they got an order of pizza right.
-->'''Jon:''' John and Jonathan are book brilliant, but they're common sense ignorant. They can't get a slice of pizza to a table without a ten-minute discussion.\\
'''Jonathan:''' Jon Taffer called us morons, and he's absolutely right.
* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', roughly 86% of the main cast (that's 6 out of 7) fit this trope. The initial quartet are all respected in their fields of research but lack social skills and are [[ProudToBeAGeek unashamedly open about their love of comic books and sci-fi]].
** Sheldon Cooper may be a brilliant theoretical physicist, but he is insufferably arrogant, eternally confounded by social conventions, and almost completely ignorant of pop culture outside the sci-fi genre. He is an obsessive RulesLawyer, writing out Roommate Agreements and even Couple Agreements. He even [[ScheduleFanatic keeps a timetable for his bowel movements]].
** Raj is a gifted Astrophysicist, whose work is featured in scientific magazines, yet has a SickeningSweethearts relationship ''with his dog'' and in early seasons was incapable to talking to women unless he had alcohol inside him.
** Amy is a neurobiologist, again, excellent at what she does and again, hilariously inept at socializing. In spite of speaking a very deadpan tone of voice, she gets ''super'' excited when the other girls include her in their activities. Very rarely does a woman in her late twenties get that excited about being invited to a slumber party.
** This was Bernadette's original characterization in Season 3 and early Season 4. She's introduced as a microbiologist with an interest in physics as well (every bit Howard's intellectual equal) but also rather ditzy, seemingly oblivious, and unable to understand Howard's jokes. However the ditzy aspect of her personality was dropped, probably to differentiate her more from Penny, and was replaced by her aggressive nature and {{Tsundere}} traits.
** Howard Wolowitz has engineered a number of devices used on the International Space Station and was even invited up into space to install one of them. He is multi-lingual, able to speak in several languages including Mandarin, [[Franchise/StarTrek Klingon]], sign language and binary code... [[ManChild yet he still has his mother take him to the dentist, eats candy till he gets a bellyache like a nine-year-old, once spent all his food budget on Pokemon trading cards]] and somehow thought it was a good idea to impress a girl by taking the Mars Rover for a joyride.
** Experimental physicist Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, has the least outlandish quirks of the initial group and has a Ph.D. from Princeton. However, his unloving upbringing has left him [[IJustWantToBeLoved extremely needy for validation and affection]], to the extent that the first time he and his Penny slept together he wrote her a '''10-PAGE LONG''' "Thank You" letter.. [[TotallyRadical His attempts to look cool are hilariously inept]] (including the backwards baseball cap) and he once used the equipment from government-funded laser experiment to build his own BatSignal.
* Lord Edmund Blackadder from the second season of ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''. A transitional Blackadder, having gained a lot of cunning and suave that would grow with each of his predecessors, but still having some blithering, pitiful shades of the previous Edmund.
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': Bones is intelligent for solving crimes and yet clumsy with social stuff... Because her understanding of human behavior is more intellectual than intuitive, she forms conclusions that make perfect sense in theory but are flawed in practice because humans themselves are flawed. It was heartbreaking when she told Booth she was going to adopt a dog that had been trained as a killer, only for Booth to tell her that the dog had been put down because her protestations that the dog shouldn't have been blamed were ''right''.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'':
** This is Hank's opinion of "Heisenberg" when he views security footage of Heisenberg breaking into a chemical warehouse with homemade thermite... and then struggling to carry a barrel out to his getaway car.
--->'''Hank:''' Look at this -- they're smart enough to use thermite to cut through the lock, but they didn't think to bring a handcart? Try rolling it, morons! It's a barrel! It rolls!
** This ends up being true of Hank's assessment of Walt [[spoiler:in Ozymandias telling him, "You're the smartest guy I ever met and yet you're too stupid to see, he made up his mind 10 minutes ago]].
%%* Lloyd Lowry from ''Series/BreakoutKings'' has many elements of this.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* Reid from ''Series/CriminalMinds'' often qualifies, although he's working on it, in his odd Reid way. He's very good at numbers, statistics and abnormal psychology of all kinds, but no good at all, most of the time, at things like the unspoken rules of conversation and tact.
* Alli Bhandari from ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' is brilliant with math and science, an ace writer, and has a great memory. However, she usually gets into bad situations based on [[FatalFlaw her lack of people-smarts and street-smarts]].
* The Doctor in ''Series/DoctorWho''. He's eccentric, more than slightly manic, rarely compliments anyone's intelligence without mentioning his own, and has the ability to, without fail, sniff out and leap headfirst into any danger that his companion hasn't already stumbled into. Oh, and he's also a ridiculously competent Genius who's saved the Earth countless times, but that's nothing you'd be able to tell at first glance. Especially not if you're glancing at his [[InsufferableGenius sixth incarnation]]. Or [[TheWonka the Fourth]]. Or [[SophisticatedAsHell the Tenth]]. Or... [[TheNthDoctor any version]] of him, for that matter. But Six is especially bonkers. Eight has a definite case of AttentionDeficitOohShiny going on, too (as does Eleven, for that matter), both in [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the movie]] and the ''Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures'' novels:
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' A meteor storm. The sky above us was dancing with lights. Purple, green, brilliant yellow. ''YES!''\\
'''Grace:''' What?\\
'''Eighth Doctor:''' These ''shoes!'' They fit ''perfectly!''
* Steve Urkel in ''Series/FamilyMatters'' is a scientific genius, building all sorts of inventions. However, he is very clumsy and lacks in social skills.
* Alex P. Keaton from ''Series/FamilyTies''. He's a hypercompetitive straight-A student and math genius who was doing his parents' taxes when he was five years old and advised his parents on mortgage rates when they bought their house. Yet in everyday activities, he often proves completely incapable. His little sister frequently beats him in sports, he fails at things like building kites, cooking or fixing cars even with extensive directions.
* Carlton Banks from ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' may be a book-smart and highly intelligent first-class high school (later college) preppy, but he is especially naïve and [[ManChild immature]], especially in later seasons, and on multiple occasions seems to be ObliviousToLove. These areas are his cousin Will's expertise and he is often forced to (whether he wants to or not) bail Carlton out of social situations where such happens.
* Mrs. Howell from ''Series/GilligansIsland'' is this crossed with RichInDollarsPoorInSense. She's quite intelligent in a number of ways, is apparently second to [[OnlySaneMan the Professor]] in terms of formal education (though her expertise lies more in art and culture), and is a source of motherly wisdom, but lacks basic sense and can act pretty scatterbrained at times.
* Kurt Hummel from ''Series/{{Glee}}'' is very intelligent and a fluent French speaker, but prone to moments of ditziness, such as his belief boxes have four sides or his plan to feed the doves at [[spoiler:Burt and Carole's wedding]] glitter.
* Aziraphale in ''Series/GoodOmens2019'': clever enough to track down the Antichrist by deciphering the words of a notoriously eccentric prophetess, and takes on the assembled armies of Heaven and Hell with strategic {{Rules Lawyer}}ing via ExactWords. Foolish enough to visit Paris during the Reign of Terror while dressed in obviously expensive (and presumably aristocratic) high fashion because he missed French food. Crowley best sums it up with his exasperated shout of "You're so clever! How can someone as clever as you be so ''stupid''?!" during his unsuccessful attempt to convince Aziraphale that his plan to get Heaven to call off the Apocalypse isn't going to work.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': Chidi Anagonye is an expert in moral philosophy, but whenever he tries to actually apply his knowledge, he fails miserably and becomes incapable of making even the simplest decisions.
* Moss from ''Series/TheITCrowd'' is an extremely book smart technological genius, with NoSocialSkills and a rather absurd lack of common sense. When a fire broke out in his office, for instance, his reaction was to send a carefully worded e-mail to the fire department, then sit there and wait for them to respond.
* Philip from ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' has access to all the knowledge of the earth and is quite smart in his own right, able to figure out many things that Shoutarou can't. However, due to LaserGuidedAmnesia and being trapped in a factory placidly taking orders for eleven years, he doesn't know things that most people consider rudimentary. When he happens upon a subject that he finds interesting (a place, a food, a type of dance...) he will obsessively look up everything he can about it, oftentimes dressing up in zany outfits or trying nearly-suicidal activities just because he can. Also, especially towards the beginning of the series, he has NoSocialSkills.
* Leo in ''Series/{{Leonardo}}'' is possibly the smartest person in the world, but is incredibly easy to manipulate due to automatically believing in people, much to the despair of his StreetSmart friends.
* Prof. Hamilton in ''Series/LoisAndClark'' has discovered a way to clone dead people with all their old memories and personalities intact, as well as a way to alter personalities... so he brings back Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde. Naturally, they all escape and wreak havoc across Metropolis. Lois even calls him out on it.
-->'''Lois:''' Hollywood's created a dozen versions of Frankenstein and you still didn't get the point.
* The titular character of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' may have [[ImprobablyHighIQ an IQ of 165]], but he has the judgement of a drunk squirrel. To name a few showcases: he tanked his grades and got caught trying to drink underage just to impress a rather unintelligent girl, tried to crash his mother's car into his father's car to get sent to military school after he had been embarrassed the previous day, crashed his go-kart into Reese's for revenge for stealing his birthday money causing them to get both hospitalized and grounded with Dewey getting Malcolm's only birthday present, tried to dispose of a loaded gun rather than calling the cops, and held a pair of open scissors near his face right as Reese popped a balloon.
* ''Series/{{Monk}}'':
** Adrian Monk is normally unable to function in society due to his severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and fear of just about everything. However, he's rather gifted academically, and once he sets foot in a crime scene, he can almost instantly solve the crime with the smallest or most overlooked pieces of evidence.
** Monk's brother exhibits similar qualities: He has an extreme case of agoraphobia that prevents him from (nearly) ever leaving his house (as well as a related phobia that prevents him from entering the study of their father), but is evidently a highly skilled writer of technical manuals.
* Screech from ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' is an academic genius but can barely function in the real world. [[{{Flanderization}} It gets worse over the years]].
* Sherlock from, well, ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''. Justified as Sherlock only keeps important information in his "hard drive", which does not include tact, common sense, or the idea of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness heliocentrism]]. John pretty much calls Sherlock this in one episode:
-->'''John:''' You know, for a genius, you can be remarkably ''thick''.
* ''Series/SiliconValley'':
** Richard Hendricks is an extremely talented programmer who has the ability to redesign an entire platform literally overnight. He also lacks basic common sense and has ''very'' poor decision-making skills.
** Jared Dunn is a highly skilled business manager, who speaks with a high vocabulary, and is essential in keeping Pied Piper work productively and professionally. But he is helplessly clumsy and is quite inept when it comes to casual human conversation. His ExtremeDoormat nature, out of nowhere references to pop-culture and utterly bizzare recollections of his DarkAndTroubledPast often make him a complete social alien.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Daniel Jackson is like this in the early seasons. One notable example is in the episode "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E211969 1969]]", when the team goes back in time to the titular year and are captured by US military. A soldier asks them (in Russian) if they are Soviet spies, and Daniel immediately replies ''nyet'' ("no" in Russian).
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** Commander Data of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' represents the pinnacle achievement of robotics and is very likely the most intelligent officer in all of Starfleet. He is also routinely stymied by basic human interaction and language.
--->'''Chief O'Brien:''' ...We'll be burning the midnight oil on this one.\\
'''Data:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint That would be inadvisable]]... If you ignite a petroleum product on this ship at zero-hundred hours, you will activate the fire suppression system, which would seal off this entire compartment.\\
'''O'Brien:''' That was just an expression.\\
'''Data:''' Expression of what?\\
''[later]''\\
'''Data:''' It appears we will be required to ignite the midnight petroleum, sir.
** Ensign Harry Kim of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' is a brilliant scientist and engineer, but also hopelessly inept when it comes to relationships to the point that he can't even get laid in his own holodeck simulations, and no con is so obvious that he won't fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
%%* Lulu from ''Series/TrueJacksonVP''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
%%* ''Series/TheWaltons'': Jim Bob. He's really smart, just [[BrilliantButLazy lazy]].%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample
* Justin Russo from ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' plays this trope pretty straight. He excels at academics but tends to have no common sense to the point that he seems to have the IdiotBall glued to his hands.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* In ''Manga/AsteroidInLove'', [[TheQuietOne Ao]] is usually [[OnlySaneMan sensible]] and [[TheSmartGirl intelligent]], but her relatively frequent [[IdiotBall lapse of common sense]] puts her to this trope, mainly due her interest in astronomy as well of her [[TheSpock Spock]]-ish way of thinking.
* Kirino Chiba of ''Manga/BambooBlade'' is frequently behaving in a ditzy, overexcited manner. She is also ranked 20th in her year at school. Not genius level, but highly respectable nonetheless.
* ''{{Manga/Bartender}}'': The titular character, Ryu Sasakura, is a textbook example. Behind the bar, he is The Glass of the Gods, a walking liquor encyclopedia and the king of customer service, smooth as silk and slick as a silver bullet. Outside his comfort zone, he is a somewhat goofy ManChild with a strange obsession with eating gyoza.
* In ''Manga/BeautyAndTheFeast'', Yamato is mentioned to have excelled at any sport he put his mind to and was even chosen to represent Japan at a junior high level baseball tournament. But he's also air-headed and spacey, often forgetting to respond to his family's texts and failing to communicate himself properly, causing others to make assumptions about him.
* ''Manga/CaseClosed'':
** TeenGenius Hattori Heiji is a brilliant detective who always keeps on par with Shin'ichi's deductions, but can't for the life of him remember to call Shin'ichi "Conan" when they're in public (which shouldn't be that hard, since "Conan" was the first name Heiji knew him by). He also has a bit of a HairTriggerTemper, particularly when talking to his [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend childhood friend]] [[BelligerentSexualTension Kazuha]]. So much so that one [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3620272/4/An_Unprofessional_Opinion fanfiction]] diagnosed Heiji with Asperger's Syndrome in a fictionalized psych profile.
** The main protagonist, Shin'ichi Kudo, is introduced as an amazing detective, even given the nickname "The Modern Holmes". However, he is [[NoSocialSkills incredibly socially inept]], which was a major reason why he had little to no friends as a child, the sole exception being Ran.
* Harumi Kiyama in ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' is a very intelligent scientist, but lacks even the most basic shred of common sense. For example, her thought process when it's hot essentially comes down to "It's hot, therefore I should take off some clothes." The fact that she's doing this in public doesn't occur to her. She actually becomes the source of an Urban Legend about a "Stripper Lady" because of this.
* Lloyd in ''Franchise/CodeGeass''. Brilliant mecha designer, does not understand basic human interaction. The characters are shocked to hear that he is engaged. [[spoiler:It's an arranged marriage since Lloyd is an Earl. He was only interested in the match because of his fiancee's vintage GiantRobot]].
* [[GreatDetective L]] of ''Manga/DeathNote'' is a Ditzy Genius (compared to [[GeniusDitz Misa Amane]]) as he was stated by the author of ''Death Note'' to be the most intelligent character in the series, and has enough idiosyncrasies and few enough social skills that he can barely interact. Generally hyper-competent, he tends to fail in normal conversations and interpersonal relations.
* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'':
** Laios is incredibly knowledgeable about monsters, surprisingly good at deduction and observation, a decent tactician, and a peerless fighter. He also once tried [[ExtremeOmnivore (successfully!)]] to eat AnimatedArmor.
** Senshi is a keen survivalist, a solid combatant, and a SupremeChef, but spending years underground and eating monsters makes him fairly spacey and dotty. After being kidnapped by orcs and claiming to have a plan, he revealed his plan was that he could use the orc supplies to make bread.
* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'': Although Doraemon is the smartest of the main characters and seems to have a vast knowledge of many different subjects, he ended up the clumsiest of his kind due to a problem during his production, and will rarely get anything done when he's nervous.
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** Bulma, especially in the English dub. She's one of the brightest minds in the world, being able to make brilliant inventions out of junk in minutes, however, she tends to make bad judgement calls. This is best shown in the Red Ribbon Army Saga where she invents a high-tech spy drone and sees that Goku is planning to attack the Red Ribbon Army HQ. After the drone gets blown up she realizes they need to call for help, but she complains they don't have a phone. Turtle then points out that if she could make a drone then a phone shouldn't be any trouble for her, to which she gets the point and sets to work making the phone. All this and yet somehow she gets the idea to become a treasure hunter. She gets [[CharacterDevelopment only slightly better at this over the course of the series]], in the sense that she doesn't walk headlong into danger without thinking first so much.
** It runs in the family, because her father, Dr. Briefs, is even worse -- he's a genius in anything mechanical, but has absolutely no common sense.
** While Piccolo is easily the smartest of the Z-Fighters and a good tactical genius, several of his battle plans fail because [[DidntThinkThisThrough he overlooks glaring flaws in them and doesn't notice until it's too late for him to do anything about it]]. For example, when fighting Raditz, he breaks out the Special Beam Cannon to take him down, but it fails the first time because he didn't actually think to ''immobilize'' Raditz beforehand.
* ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' gives us Miho Nishizumi. At first glance, she's shy, socially awkward, and usually clumsy. She is also an expert tactician and commander in the sport of Sensha-do/Tankery, due to being from one of the most prominent families in the sport. The only thing that sets Miho apart from her family is that Miho [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind values the safety and efforts of her team]] which clashes with her family's "win at all costs" belief.
* Joshua Lundgren of ''Anime/GunXSword'' is one of the greatest mecha engineers in the world... and doesn't understand why women scream when a guy walks into the girl's bathroom.
* In ''Manga/HayateTheCombatButler'', Maria and Nagi have both skipped grades and know multiple languages. When they are split up while on a train, Hayate is torn between protecting his master or staying with the maid until Hinagiku shows up for a [[BigDamnHeroes less-than-fully-heroic rescue]] because they are completely clueless about the world.
* Miyako of ''Manga/HidamariSketch'' acts like she has a case of AttentionDeficitOohShiny, but her artistic and academic abilities are levels above the other characters--she's one of the few people who is BrilliantButLazy but not BookDumb. That said, her use of GratuitousEnglish is also quite terrible...
* ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'':
** Most of the humor in the series comes from Kaguya and Miyuki being this: they're legitimately very bright, but they also suffer from badly warped ideals, weird upbringings, and ComplexityAddiction, resulting in them turning every single exchange into a BattleOfWits. Most of these "battles" end in a stalemate because of them managing to outsmart themselves. Kaguya, for instance, nearly had Miyuki dead to rights in an exchange that would have ended in him admitting he was a virgin, but revealed in the process that she was so sheltered about sex that she thought "your first time" meant ''kissing.''
** It becomes clear as the series goes on that Fujiwara is more flaky than stupid, which isn't helped by her "best friends" sabotaging her test scores by tricking her into not studying. She can speak five languages, design functional games, elaborate scams, is a skilled pianist, and still scores slightly better than average on tests in a very difficult school despite almost never studying.
* Sanae Dekomori from ''Literature/LoveChunibyoAndOtherDelusions'''s anime adaptation may be a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} out of her [[{{Chuunibyou}} delusions]], but she's still the top student of her grade, to Yuuta and Shinka's utter surprise.
* Miyuki Takara from ''Manga/LuckyStar'' is extremely smart, talented, gets very high grades, and has a lot of knowledge about different subjects that the other three main characters don't. However, she can be rather clumsy and naive, and is prone to spacing out when she's thinking too much about something. That's probably why Konata is always saying how {{Moe}} she is.
* Yuu Kashima in ''Manga/MonthlyGirlsNozakiKun'' is good at almost everything, but she has an off-kilter thought process and can never seem to figure out when the things she does will get her in trouble.
* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' gives us Denki Kaminari. He is considered the dumbest person in class 1-A, but at the beginning of the story we are told that UA is the top Hero school in Japan and perhaps the entire world, and that in order to get in you basically had to ace middle school, showing that literally everyone at UA who is considered "dumb" such as Mina Ashido, Rikido Sato, Tetsutestsu Tetsutestu, and Ejiro Kirishima, are actually all still quite intelligent. Denki is a special case as he does have many real moments of stupidity, but he's still at the top school in the world meaning he is simply the dumbest genius in a school of geniuses.
* Professor Shinonome of ''Manga/{{Nichijou}}'' is a technological wunderkind who built a RidiculouslyHumanRobot and a device that allows her cat to speak like a human. She's also 8 years old, and [[InnocentProdigy possesses all the naivete of a kid her age despite her amazing mechanical aptitude]].
* Tamaki Suoh in ''Manga/OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' is so ditzy that despite starting a HostClub, he mistakes his romantic feelings for Haruhi as wanting to be her ''father''. He also has the second-highest grades in his year without even trying, to the frustration of some.
* [[IncomingHam Black]] from ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. Type match-ups, move accuracy, evolutionary lines, detailed information on every Gym Leader and Elite Four member (including their team line-ups), Black studied them all before going out on his quest ToBeAMaster. Pity he has NoSocialSkills and feels that it's appropriate to shout out his dreams to people who are quickly going deaf.
* Tenpou in ''Manga/{{Saiyuki}} Gaiden'' brilliant strategist, but seems baffled by everyday life and would probably be buried under a pile of books almost permanently if it wasn't for Kenren.
* ''Manga/{{Sekirei}}'':
** Mikogami Hayato graduated from college before the age of 15 and is cunning enough to outsmart the resident ManipulativeBastard. On the other hand, he's a [[{{Keet}} hyperactive teenager]] prone to AttentionDeficitOohShiny moments. He treats the Sekirei Plan like a super-exciting game of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' and expresses the desire to transform the world into something out of a video game if he wins.
** BigBad Minaka Hiroto was also this before he became TheWonka.
* ''Manga/SleepyPrincessInTheDemonCastle'': When properly motivated, Princess Syalis is scarily competent; she breaks out of her cell so easily that the demons eventually give up on locking her in, she repeatedly manages to {{MacGyver|ing}} sleep aids out of random objects, and it's eventually revealed that she's a well-practiced bureaucrat who's capable of keeping the castle running just as well as (if not better than) the Demon King. However, she also has a tendency for ''extreme'' tunnel vision; getting so focused on her objective that she disregards most of the consequences of her actions, causing her to border on both LethallyStupid (her attempt to use magic as a sleep aid ended up [[NoSelfBuffs knocking out everyone in the castle except herself]]) and TooDumbToLive (using a lethally poisonous mushroom as an impromptu mattress, ''repeatedly'').
* Dr. Gel from ''Anime/SpaceDandy'' is said to be the Gogol Empire's greatest scientist, and is even shown building impressive technology and performing complex calculations and equations to back this claim. That said, he suffers from SkewedPriorities and repeatedly fails at his assigned task of capturing the title character. He's so bad at it, in fact, that [[UnknownRival Dandy doesn't even know that Gel exists]] until the final episode. Gel simply assumes that [[SeeminglyProfoundFool everything Dandy does is an ingenious plot to foil him]], and while Dandy [[GeniusDitz is smarter than he looks]], Gel's repeated failures can usually be chalked up to [[BornUnlucky bad luck]] and [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain cartoonish incompetence]].
* Jou Kurumada of ''Anime/TomicaHyperRescueDriveHeadKidouKyuukyuuKeisatsu''. He's a skilled mechanic and brilliant strategist. Other than that, he can be rather clueless. The drama of an entire episode is drawn from the fact that he can't remember the contents of a phone call he had with his wife just the other day.
* In ''Manga/{{Yuyushiki}}'', Yui sees Yuzuko as this. She does do well in school, but as Yui points out...
-->'''Yui:''' ''[on Yuzuko's {{def|iedtrope}}ying SmartPeopleWearGlasses]'' She really is pretty smart. It's her ideas that are dumb.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Jeanette from ''WesternAnimation/AlvinAndTheChipmunks''. She's very well-read and book-smart, but otherwise lacks common sense and general intelligence, such as putting her shoes on the wrong feet, holding signs upside-down, walking into doors or walls, tripping over untied shoelaces, falling down the stairs, etc.
* ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'': Although Clam is able to create an exact copy of the Mona Lisa in 30 seconds, play an entire symphony by blowing across the top of a bottle, and construct a gigantic Segway-like machine out of a tree trunk, it's quite evident [[CloudCuckoolander his worldview is very odd]]. Most of the cast does not recognize his genius at all, usually passing him off as TheDitz due to said oddness.
* Gadget from ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers''. She can make almost everything from almost anything, including rebuilding a plane out of garbage, but she simply does not register that in certain circumstances, certain behaviors are socially necessary or unusual.
* Philly Phil from ''WesternAnimation/ClassOf3000'' is capable of building high-tech machinery in minutes and is a genius on the bass guitar, but he also has NoSocialSkills and displays a lack of common sense.
* Dr. Crumhorn from ''WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'' is the smartest villain on the show, able to make sharks that swim through concrete. However, he's very ditzy, and has no common sense. He mixes up his cough drops and his transformation pills without fail, he's also just not very subtle. He's also come the closest to defeating Danger Mouse, only foiled by his own ignorance to the flaws in his plans.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'': [[GuyOfTheWeek Ted]] was [[HomeschooledKids homeschooled]] for most of his life, which gives him both an EncyclopedicKnowledge of everything and a ditzy lack of social skills.
* Dick Dastardly from ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'': He's skilled at mechanics and can build almost anything. But that's about all. He never plans ahead and spends his whole life trying to catch that pigeon.
* ChildProdigy Dexter from ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' definitely fits the bill. He's able to time-travel, create robots and build portals to other dimensions, but is utterly incapable of taking care of himself for a single day when his mom is sick. He doesn't know how to cook (having never heard of "flour"), and when he cleans, is [[MundaneObjectAmazement amazed at the sight of dust particles]]. He's also very gullible and doesn't even know what chickenpox is. In general, what he has in scientific smarts, he lacks in common sense.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', AJ could occasionally dip into this. Most notable in "Hex Games", where he shows an absolute inability to use slang or communicate like a normal kid, or the third ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTimmyPowerHour'', where he spends the whole special believing he's in the future.
* The third season of ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'' gives us Cesar Salazar, the formerly absent older brother of the eponymous Rex. Among his many achievements are: Working on the nanite project alongside his and Rex's parents, building a mobile lab capable of traveling at relativistic speeds, sauntering into Providence and casually neutralizing everyone between him and his kid brother, and [[spoiler:creating the [[AIIsACrapshoot insane AI, ZAG-RS]], which has nearly succeeded several times in [[ApocalypseHow destroying all life on Earth.]]]] When not performing feats of scientific awesomeness, however, it's clear that, against all logic, ''[[BunnyEarsLawyer Rex]]'', not known for being the smoothest guy around, got all the social skills in the family.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' has [[spoiler:Stanford Pines]], a brilliant inventor and scientist who was capable of constructing a dimensional portal in his basement, but is also sorely lacking in ''any'' sort of common sense. He hands lethal weapons over to children without a second thought, and [[spoiler:made a deal with a demon he summoned after being specifically warned against summoning it, all because it flattered him with praise]]. This is in contrast with [[spoiler:his brother, Stanley Pines]], who's a [[StreetSmarts street-smart]] ConMan with common sense enough to drive a successful business and take care of his family for thirty years.
* Kin Kujira from ''WesternAnimation/{{Grojband}}'' is the band's tech guy and a GadgeteerGenius able to constuct inventions ranging from working hologram duplicates to time machines, but he's also a goofball CloudCuckoolander often crossing over into MadScientist territory. Interestingly, his brother Kon is instead a GeniusDitz.
* Zim from ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' is a scientific genius among races of scientific genius. He can build time machines, enhance elite positioning systems (to the point that GIR could point out individual exoplanets while indoors), mutate small house pets into kaiju-like monsters, slow down objects (including explosions) in time and space, hack into the Massive, and much more. However, he is still one of the least competent Invaders. Zim has little enough common sense to attack ''his own planet'' with a battle mech, commandeer a gargantuan maimbot to break open a faulty vending machine, accelerate a temporally slowed explosion ''before'' the Almighty Tallest would examine his operation (even [[TheDitz GIR]] realized that this was a bad idea), and uses [[PaperThinDisguise paper-thin disguises]] for himself, GIR, and his base. He's lucky that most humans are too idiotic to notice that he's an alien, or else he would have been discovered literally minutes after arriving on Earth.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jellystone}}'': Cindy is smarter than the average bear (more so than Yogi), but not above wacky shenanigans that Yogi and Boo Boo commit. Plus, some of her best solutions are not always the most well-thought-out.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'':
** When it comes to science, math and the like, Quack Quack is absolutely brilliant -- and yet, he can't figure out that a picture of himself with Stumpy's head taped onto it isn't a picture of Stumpy.
** [[RobotMaster Olaf]] the emperor penguin counts as well, as he has built his own DoAnythingRobot, [[spoiler:an army of MechaMooks]], a freeze ray, and [[spoiler:turned Stumpy into a {{Cyborg}}]], but he is otherwise a complete idiot.
* Dr. Drakken and Professor Dementor from ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' constantly produce [[MadScientist spectacular world-menacing gadgets]], but can't stop a couple of teenagers from [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption foiling their schemes]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': Among the eleven kids, we have second youngest child (and daughter) Lisa Loud -- at only four years old, she's already finished school up through getting a [=PhD=], she gives university lectures, she has at least one Nobel prize and she also [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking helps her parents do taxes and pay bills.]] But for all her accomplishment in book smarts, she's a bit lacking in mundane sense. She fails to see why experimenting on a fifteen-month-old baby would be a bad idea and very few of her experiments have actually worked without ultimately failing and/or having some kind of weird side effect. She's basically [[WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory a female Dexter in this regard]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyB'': Bessie Higgenbottom can do anything that will earn her a badge -- including creating cold fusion or building a working robot with limited A.I. -- but that doesn't make her any less of a ditz.
* Kevin French in ''WesternAnimation/MissionHill'' is this. He's absolutely ''brilliant'' in school, but so socially inept that it does him little to no good. Ironically he's forced to rely on his StreetSmart but BookDumb older brother to deal with pretty much any real-life scenario.
* Jenny ([=XJ9=]) from ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'' is a highly advanced and intelligent combat android. But she's pretty clueless and naïve when it comes to mingling with non-robotic teens (other Brad or Sheldon).
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' Twilight Sparkle: A unicorn so smart, she knows most of the constellations by heart and is able to finish a race fifth place, ahead of a few dozen other, more athletic ponies, simply by using her book smarts. She's also a filly so silly, she needs to consult a reference book on something as simple as a sleepover. She even reads the book to find out what to do ''when a tree falls into her house'' instead of just getting up and helping move it. There's also the fact that [[HyperCompetentSidekick her dragon roommate, Spike, does most of the housework]] (he ''loves'' his job, though, so he's not complaining too much). While Twilight is able to take care of her own for short periods, Spike is ''way'' better than her at it and a few episodes imply that Twilight would be completely screwed if Spike wasn't involved in her life.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Luz Noceda is actually shown to be rather intelligent, with sound critical-thinking abilities and a quick grasp of magical principles. That being said, she is also rather impulsive, airheaded, clueless, and lacking in common sense.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
** Heinz Doofenshmirtz. He's a genius when it comes to science, technology, math, and engineering, but he lacks just about everything else such as social skills and common sense. He puts self-destruct buttons in a convenient location on just about every invention he builds, and he's never even recognized his nemesis, Perry the Platypus, in even the most transparent of disguises, and tends to assume Perry is just an ordinary platypus if he's not wearing his trademark fedora. To put all this into perspective, take his scheme in the episode "Fireside Girl Jamboree": He was smart enough to build a machine that is capable of transforming metal into broccoli (A ''mineral'' into ''living matter''), but decided to make it ''out of metal''.
** To a lesser extent, Phineas himself. His brilliance with science and technology is nearly unparalleled, but he's also very naive and completely fails to pick up on things like Isabella's obvious crush on him or Candace's disapproval of his inventions.
* Brain from ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain''[=/=]''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'' regularly produces plans that are ingenious and lack any kind of common sense. He also often screws up his own plans when he lets his anger at Pinky distract him and forgets some essential part of his plan.
* ''Franchise/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** Mojo Jojo lives and breathes this trope far too often. Despite his high intelligence, Mojo is [[DidntThinkThisThrough extremely inept at planning his schemes with major detail and they predictably end in failure]]. A blatant example of this is in the episode "Monkey See, Doggy Two" where Mojo shows the girls the video of how his plan to turn every citizen in Townsville into dogs failed. So after turning the girls into dogs, the dog-transformed Buttercup runs around and bites him from behind, causing him to drop the Anubis (which he used to transform dogs) onto his head, breaking it. He tells the girls than his plan won't fail this time because he won't turn them into dogs, neither of them will bite him (since he has his rear covered with steel), and he won't drop the Anubis. All this and he forgets the fact that the girls can still beat him up, which they predictably do, causing his plan to fail even worse than it did before.
** Professor Utonium is also like this to a certain degree. Pretty much everything useful he's invented, including the girls themselves, he's done so by accident. If that's not enough, whatever he set his mind to do something intentionally, he tends to create disasters. (The episode "Uh Oh, Dynamo" is the best example.)
* Roba from ''WesternAnimation/TheProblemSolverz''. He's the smartest member of the team, is knowledgeable about many subjects, and has built his own radar scanner. However, he's also very socially inept and childish.
* Jet Propulsion from ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo''. He is an expert mechanic and can name every single one of Jupiter's moons, yet he is incredibly naïve about Earth culture and can't keep his alien identity a secret.
* The nerd in ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' is meant to be quite intelligent, yet one skit has him unintentionally hack into the US government's database and end up nuking Canada. He doesn't even realise he hacked into the database until a SWAT force sent by the government breaks into his house and arrests him.
* Entrapta in ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' is a technological genius, genuinely a very nice person, and near-terminally devoid of common sense or self-awareness. At one point, she keeps Scorpia and Catra in a polar hellscape for multiple unnecessary days after finding the actual objective of the dig because she thought they were having fun. The mission then dissolves into chaos because after her first experiment with a virus-spreading First One artifact went catastrophically haywire and nearly killed multiple people, including her, she decided to not only repair the artifact, but carry it around in case she had the time to experiment with it again.
* Sideshow Bob from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' -- cunning, cultured, ruthless, and an expert manipulator, he's nonetheless a hapless victim of highly avoidable slapstick and of anyone who can successfully appeal to his pride, with the result that grade-schoolers and [[RunningGag garden rakes]] get the better of him on a regular basis. On one occasion he publicly confessed to his entire (up to that point, roaringly successful) evil plan of the moment and handed over detailed records of his involvement, [[SkewedPriorities simply because he'd been accused of being a pawn in someone else's scheme and couldn't bear to be thought of as anything less than a mastermind]].
* Plankton in ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''. Despite being an evil genius, he tends to overlook simple things, which his computer wife Karen has to point out. Like that the alphabet ends with "Z", and he doesn't remember how to blink. He's able to make so many amazing inventions that not even ''humans'' can come up with, yet how does he decide to get money? ''By selling human resources at a dingy restaurant''. And in "Goo-Goo Gas", he thought that baby powder was actually ''made'' from babies.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'': Starscream is a former scientist and his scientific aptitude comes up in several situations, though it's not as prominent a trait as his [[TheStarscream backstabbing]], at which he is majorly incompetent. Despite being scientifically knowledgeable, his schemes to overthrow Megatron are often poorly thought out and make him come across as an idiot.
* In a milder version of the trope, Chloe Park from ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears'' is a child prodigy who is grade-school aged but attending college. She has shown to be pretty smart and self-sufficient, but still takes rash decisions that can land her in dangerous situations (entering the cave of the titular bears to get information for a report or climbing into the habitat of an albino alligator because she promised Ice Bear they would see it).
* ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner'': Wile E. Coyote is a genius capable of building roadrunner traps, [[CutLexLuthorACheck but, if you think about it, wouldn't it be much easier if he just ordered food instead of ordering a bunch of supplies from ACME]]? Alas (for him, at least), he's simply too stubborn to give up. In comics, it's revealed that he's '''actually''' ordering food, and capturing the Road Runner is just his hobby.
* Tecna from ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub''. She's the smartest of the group when it comes to technology and science, but she can be absolutely clueless when it comes to anything unrelated. Early on in the show, she referred to a mop and bucket as "primitive devices". Flora had to guide her in using them, but wasn't specific enough, which made Tecna utilize the bucket as a helmet and the broom as an elongated feather duster.
* ''Franchise/XMen'':
** Forge is portrayed this way in both ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' and ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009'', though in the latter it's more a case of BrilliantButLazy, while in ''Evolution'' he's energetic and brilliant, but somewhat foolish and lacking in foresight.
** Shadowcat in ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution''. She's portrayed as a very intelligent student, but could be easily excited over "typical" teenage topics (driver's license) and early on had [[LikeIsLikeAComma the tendency to use the word "like" so much in a single sentence]], [[Franchise/ScoobyDoo Shaggy Rogers]] would probably take notice.
* Jack Spicer from ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'' is incredibly incompetent not only as a villain but also virtually everything he had done to the extent that the other characters tend to forget that he really ''is'' a genius who can create robots from scratch.
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Luz Noceda is shown to be rather intelligent, with sound critical-thinking abilities and a quick grasp of magical principles. That being said, she is also rather impulsive, airheaded, clueless, and lacking in common sense.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': Luz Noceda is shown to be rather intelligent, having good critical thinking skills and understanding magical techniques within a flash. Nevertheless, she is also rather impulsive, airheaded, clueless, and lacking in common sense.

** Lamia Loveless in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAdvance'' is a completely competent SuperRobot pilot - calm, analytical and deadly in battle. During her normal life, however, she tends to act ditzy. This is {{justified|Trope}} since she is a RidiculouslyHumanRobot who was created mere years ago and had only recently discovered what it felt like to be human.
** Yong Gebana of ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration: Dark Prison'' has a seemingly serious personality when it counts and apparently operates "by the book" most of the time. She has a slight obsession with data, which is represented by how she acquires and utilizes data constantly when in actual combat (Her debut chapter is called "Auditor Girl", referencing this). She has some slight "ditz" moments at times and we are usually shown her self monologues on which she usually "assorts" the current situation when she doesn't get something.

* Harumi Kiyama in ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' is a very intelligent scientist, but lacks even the most basic shred of common sense. For example, her thought process when it's hot essentially comes down to "It's hot, therefore I should take off some clothes." The fact that she's doing this in public doesn't occur to her. She actually becomes the source of an Urban Legend about a "Stripper Lady" because of this.

* TeenGenius Hattori Heiji from ''Manga/CaseClosed''. He's a brilliant detective who always keeps on par with Shin'ichi's deductions, but can't for the life of him remember to call Shin'ichi "Conan" when they're in public (which shouldn't be that hard, since "Conan" was the first name Heiji knew him by). He also has a bit of a HairTriggerTemper, particularly when talking to his [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend childhood friend]] [[BelligerentSexualTension Kazuha]]. So much so that one [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3620272/4/An_Unprofessional_Opinion fanfiction]] diagnosed Heiji with Asperger's Syndrome in a fictionalized psych profile.

* [[GreatDetective L]] of ''Manga/{{Death Note}}'' is a Ditzy Genius (compared to [[GeniusDitz Misa Amane]]) as he was stated by the author of ''Death Note'' to be the most intelligent character in the series, and has enough idiosyncrasies and few enough social skills that he can barely interact. Generally hyper-competent, he tends to fail in normal conversations and interpersonal relations.
* Laios, of ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', is incredibly knowledgeable about monsters, surprisingly good at deduction and observation, a decent tactician, and a peerless fighter. He also once tried [[ExtremeOmnivore (successfully!)]] to eat AnimatedArmor.

* Yuri from ''Anime/DirtyPair'' she is very intelligent when it comes to science, forensics, and hacking, but she can be rather ditzy at times, particularly when she's around a guy she likes, or sometimes when thinking up crazy ideas to solve a problem.
* Although {{Manga/Doraemon}} is the smartest of the main characters and seems to have a vast knowledge of many different subjects, he ended up the clumsiest of his kind due to a problem during his production, and will rarely get anything done when he's nervous.

* Sanae Dekomori from ''LightNovel/LoveChunibyoAndOtherDelusions''s anime adaptation may be a CloudCuckooLander out of her [[{{Chuunibyou}} delusions]], but she's still the top student of her grade, to Yuuta and Shinka's utter surprise.

* Mikogami Hayato of ''Manga/{{Sekirei}}'' graduated from college before the age of 15, and is cunning enough to outsmart the resident ManipulativeBastard. On the other hand, he's a [[{{Keet}} hyperactive teenager]] prone to AttentionDeficitOohShiny moments. He treats the Sekirei Plan like a super-exciting game of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', and expresses the desire to transform the world into something out of a video game if he wins.

* ''Manga/SleepyPrincessInTheDemonCastle'': When properly motivated, Princess Syalis is scarily competent; she breaks out of her cell so easily that the demons eventually give up on locking her in, she repeatedly manages to [[{{MacGyvering}} MacGyver]] sleep aids out of random objects, and it's eventually revealed that she's a well-practiced bureaucrat who's capable of keeping the castle running just as well as (if not better than) the Demon King. However, she also has a tendency for ''extreme'' tunnel vision; getting so focused on her objective that she disregards most of the consequences of her actions, causing her to border on both LethallyStupid (her attempt to use magic as a sleep aid ended up [[NoSelfBuffs knocking out everyone in the castle except herself]]) and TooDumbToLive (using a lethally poisonous mushroom as an impromptu mattress, ''repeatedly'').

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** ComicBook/LoisLane: A woman whose [[IntrepidReporter journalistic brilliance]] is matched only by her total inability to recognize sneaking into the villain's lair alone and unarmed just ''might'' be dangerous. And her [[ClarkKenting inability to recognize her boyfriend's face]]. A RunningGag in both comics and other media is that she is also terrible at spelling, despite, again, ''her job being journalist.''

** [[Characters/SupermanJimmyOlsen Jimmy Olsen]] in ''ComicBook/AllStarSuperman'': As part of the AdaptationDistillation, he combines his lack of common sense from the Silver Age with the hidden genius one would need to be Superman's Young Pal.
* Bart Allen, a.k.a. ComicBook/{{Impulse}} and later Kid Flash II. He's got an awesome PhotographicMemory and the ability to [[SuperSpeedReading super speed read]] an entire library ''in two hours''. He could rival [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Oracle]] in terms of encyclopedic knowledge, but he's in [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} his own little world]] most of the time.

* Jason from ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}''. The kid always does his homework and gets incredibly high marks in school... yet will pull off incredibly dumb, and sometimes dangerous stunts, half the time just to torture his sister. He's a kid smart enough to program absurdly effective computer viruses, and dumb enough to send them to people who want to see if his website has any content.

* [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Princess Luna]] in ''Fanfic/{{Progress}}'' manages to be a brilliant leader, improving irrigation systems and the tax code and much more (not to mention being a {{Physical God}}dess), and [[HilarityEnsues set the microwave to 27 minutes when making popcorn]]. Being a FishOutOfTemporalWater helps.
* As revealed in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue of ''Fanfic/TheNewRetcons'', [[spoiler: Robin Patterson becomes this: unable to live by himself, but was accepted into the physics program in a nearby university.]]
* ''Fanfic/FutariWaPrettyCureBlueMoon'' has [[SenseiChan Ami-sensei]]. She's constantly given to speeches about hope and justice, chasing a promotion she's not sure will ever arrive despite her best efforts, and is the laughingstock of the school, but she's a GadgeteerGenius who can build anything from a super-toaster to an elaborate trap for the local PantyThief to an interdimensional communicator.
* The ''Fanfic/DoctorWhoovesTheSeries'' Doctor makes a show of being this, which is part ObfuscatingStupidity, part genuine unfamiliarity with the world he's found himself in, and part simply [[CloudCuckooLander him]].
* ''Fanfic/MyHeroesReborn'': Hibiki Kinzoku has the PastLifeMemories of MCU Tony Stark but is this thanks to his original personality being that of a complete moron. He can't even use freakin' ''Amazon'' without accessing Tony's memories.

* In ''WebVideo/DeathNoteTheAbridgedSeriesKpts4tv'' [[EvilGenius Light Yagami]] is characterized this way:

* Roxy in ''Webcomic/{{HSETAU}}''. She's a brilliant scientist and self-made billionaire, but she buys an infrared sauna off of the internet to scan WK and WQ because x-ray machines are expensive. When her 13 year old daughter Rose suggests borrowing the x-ray machine at the local clinic, Roxy realizes that not only is Rose right, but building the sauna would probably put them on a fast track to giving WQ and WK cancer. [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy Roxy's behavior is mostly due to her frequent drinking clouding her judgement.]]
* In ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'', [[spoiler: Akihiko Kayaba]] is proved to be this. [[spoiler:Despite his hair-brained scheme to pretend to set up a death game to save face over a bug that was more due to how sleep deprived he was, he is still a genius programmer. Sugou states that despite Sword Art Online's buggy code, his team was able to advance virtual reality simply by studying it. Sugou's entire plan is based on the fact that Kayaba's code has the potential for video game stats to affect a person's real life ability such as charisma allowing for real life CompellingVoice. And the fact that he could have made [[WhatCouldHaveBeen a genuinely good game]] if Bethesda didn't order him to finish the game before its deadline. And when Bethesda refused to delay the release so he can undo a bug that could kill people if they log out, he decided to lock everyone in the game and claim he added the kill nature ''on purpose'', rather than consider he could frame a terrorist group from the crime, which he regrets when Asuna points it out.]]

* Kronk in ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove'' is a borderline polymath who excels at cooking, various types of obscure linguistics (both HashHouseLingo and [[SuddenlyFluentInGibberish squirrel]]), identifying different types of wood at first glance, communicating and empathizing with others, and identifying meta inconsistencies in his own narrative. He’s also so dense he knocks himself over while trying to slap a fly that’s landed on his own face, thinks he won’t be seen if he “pauses” his own (self-provided) theme music and he flattens himself against a wall in plain sight, and is generally a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter when it comes to his BadBoss, Yzma. In essence, he’s ''too dumb to realize he’s a genius ''.
* Professor [=MacKrill=] from ''WesternAnimation/HelpImAFish''. He's a highly intelligent scientist who created a potion that can be used to turn other living beings into fish and vice versa. He easily forgets things and often makes up songs to help him remember.
** Joe is quite clever for a fish, but [[spoiler:his logic can get quite messed up. In the end, he drinks more and more antidote to solve Fly's line of questioning and becomes a [[ClippedWingAngel horribly mutated merman, but only realizes far too late that he's become a strictly-air breathing human at the bottom of the ocean and promptly drowns.]]]]
* Miles Morales in ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'' is very book-smart and artistic, but he doesn't realize what would be suspicious about getting a 0 on a true-or-false test. There's also the time he tried to play dumb to a security guard asking what he was doing by claiming to not be Miles Morales.
** From the same movie, there's Dr. Olivia, who is one of the smartest women on the planet: she's the one who constructs the device that allows for dimensional warping, and frequently makes online videos about the nature of quantum mechanics. She's also a CloudCuckoolander who rides a bike to work, has an exercise ball instead of a chair at her desk, and has about two hundred icons (with absolutely no rhyme or reason to their placement) on her computer's home screen. [[spoiler: This makes TheReveal of her full name--Doctor Olivia ''Octavius''--and role as classic Spidey villain Dr. Octopus all the more surprising; how could such a silly, lighthearted genius [[BewareTheSillyOnes be a threat?]]]]

* ''{{Film/IQ|1994}}'': Catherine Boyd is a brilliant mathematician and doctoral candidate at Princeton. However, she's also absent-minded, easily distracted, and rather gullible.

* ''Film/DoctorStrange''. A genius as a neurosurgeeon and a very quick study at magic, who broke his hands by [[DrivesLikeCrazy speeding and texting on a narrow road at night]], and who nearly summons Dormammu because he didn't read the book all the way through.

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' features captain Teresa "Tessa" Testarossa. She is a tactical and strategic genius who became a captain in the international anti-terrorist organisation ''MITHRIL'' by the age of 16 and personally designed the submersible carrier ''Tuatha De Danaan'' which she commands. She is also a lovesick teenage girl and (apart from her talent for swimming) generally clumsy and slightly awkward.

* Literature/JakubWedrowycz is literally a genius, but comes across as a {{Ditz}}y old bum due, in part, to [[BookDumb poor general education]] (three years of elementary school back in the 1910's), though ObfuscatingStupidity also comes in play.

* Justin Russo from ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'' plays this trope pretty straight. He excels at academics, but tends to have no common sense to the point that he seems to have the IdiotBall glued to his hands.
* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' roughly 86% of the main cast (That's 6 out of 7) fit this trope. The initial quartet are all respected in their fields of research, but lack social skills and are [[ProudToBeAGeek unashamedly open about their love of comic books and sci-fi]].
** Sheldon Cooper may be a brilliant theoretical physicist, but he is insufferably arrogant, eternally confounded by social conventions, and almost completely ignorant of pop culture outside the sci-fi genre. He is an obsessive RulesLawyer, writing out Roommate agreements and even Couple Agreements. [[{{Squick}} He even keeps a timetable for his bowel movements]].

* The Doctor in ''Series/DoctorWho''. He's eccentric, more than slightly manic, rarely compliments anyone's intelligence without mentioning his own, and has the ability to, without fail, sniff out and leap headfirst into any danger that his companion hasn't already stumbled into. Oh, and he's also a ridiculously competent Genius who's saved the Earth countless times, but that's nothing you'd be able to tell at first glance. Especially not if you're glancing at his [[InsufferableGenius sixth incarnation]]. Or [[TheWonka the Fourth]]. Or [[SophisticatedAsHell the Tenth]]. Or...[[TheNthDoctor any version]] of him, for that matter. But Six was especially bonkers. Eight had a definite case of AttentionDeficitOohShiny going on, too (as did Eleven, for that matter), both in the movie and the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novels:
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' A meteor storm. The sky above us was dancing with lights. Purple, green, brilliant yellow. ''YES''!
-->'''Grace:''' What?
-->'''Eighth Doctor:''' These ''shoes''! They fit ''perfectly''!
* Reid from ''Series/CriminalMinds'' often qualifies, although he's working on it, in his odd Reid way. He's very good at numbers, statistics and abnormal psychology of all kinds, but no good at all, most of the time, at things like the unspoken rules of conversation and tact.

* Kurt Hummel from ''Series/{{Glee}}'' is very intelligent and a fluent French speaker, but prone to moments of ditziness, such as his belief boxes have four sides or his plan to feed the doves at [[spoiler:Burt and Carole's wedding]] glitter.

* Alex P. Keaton from ''Series/FamilyTies.'' He's a hypercompetitive straight-A student and math genius who was doing his parents' taxes when he was five years old and advised his parents on mortgage rates when they bought their house. Yet in everyday activities, he often proves completely incapable. His little sister frequently beats him in sports, he fails at things like building kites, cooking or fixing cars even with extensive directions.

* Sherlock from, well, ''Series/{{Sherlock}}''. Justified as Sherlock only keeps important information in his "hard drive", which does not include tact, common sense, or the idea of [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness heliocentrism]]. John pretty much calls Sherlock this in one episode:
-->'''John:''' You know, for a genius, you can be remarkably ''thick''.
* Lloyd Lowry from ''Series/BreakoutKings'' has many elements of this.
* Prof. Hamilton on ''Series/LoisAndClark'' had discovered a way to clone dead people with all their old memories and personalities intact, as well as a way to alter personalities. So he brings back Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde. Naturally, they all escape and wreak havoc across Metropolis. Lois even called him out on it.

* Alli Bhandari from ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' is brilliant with math and science, an ace writer, and has a great memory. [[FatalFlaw However, she usually gets into bad situations based on her lack of people-smarts and street-smarts]].
* Philip from ''Series/KamenRiderDouble'' has access to all the knowledge of the earth and is quite smart in his own right, able to figure out many things that Shoutarou can't. However, due to a MindWipe and being trapped in a factory placidly taking orders for eleven years, he doesn't know things that most people consider rudimentary. When he happens upon a subject that he finds interesting (a place, a food, a type of dance...) he will obsessively look up everything he can about it, oftentimes dressing up in zany outfits or trying nearly-suicidal activities just because he can. Also, especially towards the beginning of the series, he has NoSocialSkills.
* Adrian Monk of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' is normally unable to function in society due to his severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and fear of just about everything. However, he's rather gifted academically, and once he sets foot in a crime scene, he can almost instantly solve the crime with the smallest or most overlooked pieces of evidence.

* RecurringCharacter Professor Pepperwinkle in ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman''. Example: he brought his latest invention to show Perry White. It was an (untested) time machine. Perry didn't have time to look at it because he was busy with an Important Story involving a gangster who was about to turn himself in to The Authorities, and who was in his office at the time; so the Professor turned his time machine on and sent them all (himself, the gangster, Perry, Lois, Jimmy, and Clark) to prehistoric times. Success!...then he realized he didn't bring enough fuel to make a return trip.
* The Solomons from ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' are all advanced aliens who could make fools out of even the smartest human beings, yet, because they have never dealt with emotions before, they come off as utterly crazy and weird to everyone around them. Dick, in particular, is a pompous manchild who can't even teach a young girl to play hopscotch without turning it into an argument.
* Leo in ''Series/{{Leonardo}}'' is possibly the smartest person in the world, but is incredibly easy to manipulate due to automatically believing in people, much to the despair of his StreetSmart friends.

--->'''Chief O'Brien:''' ...We'll be burning the midnight oil on this one.
--->'''Data:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint That would be inadvisable]]...If you ignite a petroleum product on this ship at zero-hundred hours, you will activate the fire suppression system, which would seal off this entire compartment.
--->'''O'Brien:''' That was just an expression.
--->'''Data:''' Expression of what?
--->''[later]''
--->'''Data:''' It appears we will be required to ignite the midnight petroleum, sir.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': Ensign Harry Kim is a brilliant scientist and engineer, but also hopelessly inept when it comes to relationships to the point that he can't even get laid in his own holodeck simulations, and no con is so obvious that he won't fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Daniel Jackson was like this in the early seasons. One notable example was in the episode '1969', when the team went back in time to the titular year and were captured by US military. A soldier asks them (in Russian) if they are Soviet spies, and Daniel immediately replies ''nyet'' ("no" in Russian).
* Moss from ''Series/TheITCrowd'' is an extremely book smart technological genius, with NoSocialSkills and a rather absurd lack of common sense. When a fire broke out in his office, for instance, his reaction was to send a carefully worded e-mail to the fire department, then sit there and wait for them to respond.
* ''Series/TheWaltons'': Jim Bob. He's really smart, just [[BrilliantButLazy lazy]].
* Lulu from ''Series/TrueJacksonVP''.
* Screech from ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' is an academic genius, but can barely function in the real world. [[{{Flanderization}} It got worse over the years]].
* Winifred "Fred" Burkle in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' may qualify. She's a skittish, timid, socially-awkward girl, exacerbated by her imprisonment in another dimension where she was viewed as little more than cattle for several years, to the extent she verges on {{CloudCuckooLander}} (at least in earlier seasons). She also happens to be a quantum physicist of near-genius intellect.
* Lord Edmund Blackadder from the second season of ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''. A transitional Blackadder, having gained a lot of cunning and suave that would grow with each of his predecessors, but still having some blithering, pitiful shades of the previous Edmund.
* The title character of ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything''. He's an expert in just about every subject matter there is but is absolutely terrible at predicting how people will react to things. For instance, in "Adam Ruins Security", he needs to have it pointed out to him that going on live TV and giving serial killers advice on how to get around common security systems might have unintended negative consequences.
* The titular character of Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle maybe have an IQ of 165, but he has the judgement of a drunk squirrel. To name a few showcases: he tanked his grades and got caught trying to drink underage just to impress a rather unintelligent girl, tried to crash his mother's car into his father's car to get sent to military school after he had been embarrassed the previous day, crashed his go-kart into Reese's for revenge for stealing his birthday money causing them to get both hospitalized and grounded with Dewey getting Malcolm's only birthday present, tried to dispose of a loaded gun rather than calling the cops, and held a pair of open scissors near his face right as Reese popped a balloon.
* Mrs. Howell from ''Series/GilligansIsland'' is this crossed with RichInDollarsPoorInSense. She's quite intelligent in a number of ways, is apparently second to [[OnlySaneMan the Professor]] in terms of formal education (though her expertise lies more in art and culture), and is a source of motherly wisdom, but lacks basic sense and can act pretty scatterbrained at times.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': Chidi Anagonye is an expert in moral philosophy, but whenever he tries to actually apply his knowledge, he fails miserably and becomes incapable of making even the simplest decisions.
* Aziraphale in ''Series/{{Good Omens|2019}}'': Clever enough to track down the Antichrist by deciphering the words of a notoriously eccentric prophetess, and takes on the assembled armies of Heaven and Hell with strategic {{Rules Lawyer}}ing via ExactWords. Foolish enough to visit Paris during the Reign of Terror while dressed in obviously expensive (and presumably aristocratic) high fashion because he missed French food. Crowley best sums it up with his exasperated shout of "You're so clever! How can someone as clever as you be so ''stupid''?!" during his unsuccessful attempt to convince Aziraphale that his plan to get Heaven to call off the Apocalypse isn't going to work.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'': This is Hank's opinion of "Heisenberg" when he views security footage of Heisenberg breaking into a chemical warehouse with homemade thermite... and then struggling to carry a barrel out to his getaway car.
-->'''Hank''': Look at this, they're smart enough to use thermite to cut through the lock, but they didn't think to bring a handcart? Try rolling it, morons! It's a barrel! It rolls!
** This ends up being true of Hank's assessment of Walt [[spoiler: in Ozymandias telling him, "You're the smartest guy I ever met and yet you're too stupid to see, he made up his mind 10 minutes ago]].
* In one episode of ''Series/BarRescue'', Jon Taffer goes to save a bar called Paladino's, which has two owners, John and Jonathan, who are both scientists by day, but seem to have trouble running the bar. This comes to a head during the stress test when they can't figure out if they got an order of pizza right.
-->'''Jon:''' John and Jonathan are book brilliant, but they're common sense ignorant. They can't get a slice of pizza to a table without a ten-minute discussion.\\
'''Jonathan:''' Jon Taffer called us morons, and he's absolutely right.

* Measurehead in ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' is a GeniusBruiser who works as TheDragon for the local NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters. A large ScaryBlackMan, who despite being [[PurpleProse eloquent]] and well-read, utilizes InsaneTrollLogic to defend his BoomerangBigot ideology based in anthropometric-based racism, to the point he has phrenology charts tattooed all over his body. He's also astute enough to be one of the only two characters in the game capable of convincing [[PlayerCharacter Harry]] that [[JerkassHasAPoint alcoholism is ruining his life and helping him quit]], and also shares with him the only good piece of advice that he gets about his goal to return to the past — that he doesn't want to, and should embrace the freedom and opportunities of the modern world [[HopeIsScary instead of retreating inwards in failure]].

* The Sophons of ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace'', they're just as likely to run away screaming from a planetary anomaly or study it despite being irradiated. ''Videogame/EndlessSpace2'' reveals their rapid advances (they were the first to use nuclear power, mine asteroids, and so on) came with similar amounts of catastrophic [[ForScience SCIENCE]]-induced cock-ups (they were also the first to crash their test rockets, set off artificial earthquakes on their homeworld, and accidentally blow up their own moon).

* In the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts series'', particularly high magic potential seems to be tied to intelligence, with characters like Zexion and Aqua showing high aptitude in magic. The character with the ''highest'' magical potential in the series? ''Donald Duck'', who isn't just a mage, but also a powerful wizard. He's also, well, Donald Duck, with all his usual stubbornness and lack of common sense.
* Yukiko Amagi of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' has a bit of this. Intelligence-wise, she's very smart, as her best friend Chie remarks that Yukiko always ranks near the top of the school charts when it comes to exams, and she's also often the one to make important deductions about the murder case the group is working on (up until [[KidDetective Naoto]] joins the group, anyway). On the other hand, she's capable of being very air-headed too, often displaying a remarkable ability to miss the entire point of a conversation (for instance, not knowing that a guy asking her to "go somewhere" with him was asking her out on a date, or thinking Yosuke is making a dirty remark when he suggests Yukiko give him some "private lessons" during a conversation about studying), and occasionally spaces out completely when others are talking to her.
* ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'': A DownplayedTrope with the titular character Clank. Compared with Ratchet, he is the more BookSmart of the duo, but unlike most robots depicted in media, he [[InvertedTrope inverts]] the NoSocialSkills trope as he usually plays the StraightMan to Ratchet. However, he does have his ditzy moments with one example being the time he thought a DisguisedInDrag Qwark was his sister at first.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'': Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik is a genius who [[ImprobablyHighIQ has an IQ of 300]], capable of singlehandedly building entire fleets of airships and space stations as well as armies of killer robots. However, he usually dresses his machines in garish colors, tends to throw temper tantrums whenever he's on the losing side and has a tendency to paste his face on everything. In addition to almost always including an incredibly obvious weak point in all of his robots (which is not unusual or unexpected for video game villains), special mention must be made of the [[VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog Egg Dealer]]--a slot machine robot that had a random chance of attacking himself or even giving Shadow immediate access to his ultimate technique. Got to wonder what he was thinking when he programmed those particular features in.

* Lamia Loveless in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAdvance'' is a completely competent SuperRobot pilot - calm, analytical and deadly in battle. During her normal life, however, she tends to act ditzy. This is {{justified|Trope}} since she is a RidiculouslyHumanRobot who was created mere years ago and had only recently discovered what it felt like to be human.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Prolonged exposure to [[GreenRocks Australium]] can not only lead to TestosteronePoisoning of muscle growth, [[GirlsWithMoustaches women growing facial hair]], and men growing chest hair in the shape of a country or state connected to them, but also increases intelligence while lowering common sense leading to this trope. [[TheEngineer’s The Engineer’s]] grandfather Radigan Conagher was once tasked by the U.S. government to work with it, which increased his intelligence to the point of being able to create a fully functional prosthetic limb but also lead him to saw off his own hand so that he could use it. Australia’s population as a result of working with the metal has lead it to become the most technologically advanced nation, but it also uses the technology for the most ridiculous of reasons and they decide their king through kangaroo boxing.
** The Medic may look like [[GermanicEfficiency he has it fairly together]] on the field, but look a little closer and [[MadScientist you'll]] [[MadDoctor find]] [[ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder out otherwise]]. For example, he apparently believes that the best way to talk to a patient during surgery (the patient being his HeterosexualLifePartner, no less) is to regale him with the story of how he lost his medical license (it involved removing the entire skeleton from a man who lived to tell the tale). It's fairly obvious that the man is both socially inept and generally round the twist.

* So and So from ''WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad''. She gets straight A's and prides herself on being an academic overachiever, yet is [[TooDumbToLive utterly devoid of anything resembling common sense.]]
* Dr. Wily and/or Dr. Robotnik from ''WebAnimation/DorklyOriginals'' can be portrayed as [[EvilIsHammy hammy versions]] of this, while Robotnik does have moments of showing higher intelligence/competence, insight, or unusual acts of how smarter he can actually be in the most realistic ways possible aside from his trademark comical buffoonery with being poked fun at by Sonic & company or his casual behavior. Where [[PunchClockVillain the assistant and Villain Consultant, Kevin]] pointed out Robotnik's flaws in his plans in order to help him out defeat [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]] [[CombatPragmatist without giving him a chance,]] Dr. Wily in his first appearance ([[CareerRevealingTrait who was revealed to be a gynecologist]]) also had this type of resolution where he had flaws in his tactics to defeat {{Franchise/Mega Man}} because of the results from his reputation with [[{{Mooks}} his creations being easily destroyed]] to then being enhanced afterwards.

* Palma from ''Webcomic/MushroomGo.'' She's an immature, loud-mouthed teenager with a short attention span and poor grammar. She may also be the smartest [[VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine Pianta]] in the world and has spent most of her life lost in books.
* Link is this in ''Webcomic/NintendoAcres'': Competent at being the hero of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, has an incredible knowledge of literature, and can't open a door without using a bomb or boomerang.

* Dr. Crumhorn from ''{{Danger Mouse}}'' is the smartest villain on the show, able to make sharks that swim through concrete. However, he's very ditzy, and has no common sense. He mixes up his cough drops and his transformation pills without fail, he's also just not very subtle. He's also come the closest to defeating Danger Mouse, only foiled by his own ignorance to the flaws in his plans.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' character [[GuyOfTheWeek Ted]] fits this trope. [[HomeschooledKids He was homeschooled]] for most of his life, which gave him both an EncyclopedicKnowledge of everything and a ditzy lack of social skills.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', AJ could occasionally dip into this. Most notable in "Hex Games", where he shows an absolute inability to use slang or communicate like a normal kid, or the third ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTimmyPowerHour'', where he spends the whole special believing he's in the future.

* Quack Quack from ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}''. When it comes to science, math and the like, he's absolutely brilliant. And yet, he couldn't figure out that a picture of himself with Stumpy's head taped onto it wasn't a picture of Stumpy.
** [[RobotMaster Olaf]] the emperor penguin counts as well, as he has built his own DoAnythingRobot, [[spoiler: an army of MechaMooks]], a freeze ray, and [[spoiler: turned Stumpy into a {{Cyborg}}]], but he is otherwise a complete idiot.

* Sideshow Bob from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''--cunning, cultured, ruthless, and an expert manipulator, he's nonetheless a hapless victim of highly-avoidable slapstick and of anyone who can successfully appeal to his pride, with the result that grade-schoolers and [[RunningGag garden rakes]] get the better of him on a regular basis. On one occasion he publicly confessed to his entire (up to that point, roaringly successful) evil plan of the moment and handed over detailed records of his involvement, [[SkewedPriorities simply because he'd been accused of being a pawn in someone else's scheme and couldn't bear to be thought of as anything less than a mastermind]].

* ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner'': Wile E. Coyote is a genius capable of building roadrunner traps, [[CutLexLuthorACheck but, if you think about it, wouldn't it be much easier if he just ordered food instead of ordering a bunch of supplies from ACME]]? Alas (for him, at least), he's simply too stubborn to give up.
** In comics, it's revealed that he's '''actually''' ordering food and capturing roadrunner is just his hobby.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': This is Hank's opinion of "Heisenberg" when he views security footage of Heisenberg breaking into a chemical warehouse with homemade thermite... and then struggles to carry a barrel out to his getaway car.