History Main / ImprobablyLowIQ

* Implied then subverted. [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Wile E. Coyote] claims that Bugs Bunny, in contrast to his genius, can hardly pass the entrance exams to kindergarten. We all know how it all turned out, didn't we?

* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' demonstrates this. The two intelligent people who never bred had a believable IQ of about 130, while the football player and the trailer park people, had scores in seventies and eighties, which are believably low-average. However, five hundred years later, the average score was five. Granted these people were so stupid that their society was collapsing around them and most of them probably would qualify as retarded, but given how IQ is defined, it's impossible for the ''average'' IQ to be anything other than 100, since the norms are adjusted to ensure that average. Justified, as they may be too stupid to realize that, or it may be scaling to modern-day IQ as a TranslationConvention - if they all truly had an IQ of 5 by the modern scale, these people would be unable to even talk or walk unassisted.

[[folder: Eastern Animation ]]
* Anusiak of Polish adult cartoon series ''Włatcy móch'' has an IQ of 50. There is also a school bus driver, who is a Satanist - his IQ was estimated, naturally, [[NumberOfTheBeast 66.6]].
[[/folder]]

* Homer Simpson of ''TheSimpsons'' has an IQ of 55 (taking a crayon out of his brain raised it 50 points to 105), but lives in a normal (not really, but within the show, yes) suburban home without any assistance. (The writers have claimed they started him as average, but [[{{Flanderization}} he loses about 5 IQ points a year from radiation]], and now he's basically "a dog who can talk"). Interestingly, his 105 IQ is portrayed as ungodly high--not just in comparison to his piers, but objectively, to the point where he devises a mathematical equation that flawlessly disproves the existence of God.

* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' demonstrates this. The two intelligent people who never bred had a believable IQ of about 130, while the football player and the trailer park people, had scores in seventies and eighties, which are believably low-average. However, five hundred years later, the average score was five. Granted these people were so stupid that their society was collapsing around them and most of them probably would qualify as retarded, but given how IQ is defined, it's impossible for the ''average'' IQ to be anything other than 100, since the norms are adjusted to ensure that average. Justified, as they may be too stupid to realize that, or it may be scaling to modern-day IQ as a TranslationConvention.

* Another character with ridiculously low IQ: [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Elmyra Duff]], who has "no detectable IQ" (presumed to mean an IQ of 0). This in comparison with a jar of mayonnaise, which is stated to have an IQ of 1.

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Him Diddle Riddle." As part of a series of tasks on the Professor's behalf, Him has the girls take their SAT tests. Buttercup's score is 35, Blossom's is 10 (which pisses her off big time). Bubbles--[[ScantronPicture who drew a pattern of a flower on her test]]--scored a whopping 1075. (Head writer Amy Rogers mentioned on a message board that it showed that Bubbles was actually the smartest of the three. Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek comment.)
** Bubbles, being aware that the test is meant to hinder them, simply refused to take it at all seriously. Buttercup just did it without considering what Him was sure to do in grading the test, and Blossom took it way, way too seriously--her rage proving the point. Him graded accordingly.

* Homer Simpson of ''TheSimpsons'' has an IQ of 55 (taking a crayon out of his brain raised it 50 points to 105), but lives in a normal (not really, but within the show, yes) suburban home without any assistance.
** The logical conclusion of this score is that Homer is actually ''dumber than ForrestGump''. (The writers have claimed they started him as average, but [[{{Flanderization}} he loses about 5 IQ points a year from radiation]], and now he's basically "a dog who can talk").
** Interestingly, his 105 IQ is portrayed as ungodly high, to the point where he devises a mathematical equation that flawlessly disproves the existence of God. Of course, 105 is actually only barely above average. FridgeBrilliance sets in when you realize that compared to [[CloudCuckooLand everyone else around him]], 105 probably would look downright brilliant.

** "[[RuleOfFunny We gave the same test to a shovel and two candy bracelets... They scored a positive 17.]]"

* ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' demonstrates this. The two intelligent people who never bred had a believable IQ of about 130, while the football player and the trailer park people, had scores in seventies and eighties, which are believably low-average. However, five hundred years later, the average score was five. Granted these people were so stupid that their society was collapsing around them and most of them probably would qualify as retarded, but given how IQ is defined, it's impossible for the ''average'' IQ to be anything other than 100, since the norms are adjusted to ensure that average. Justified, as they may be too stupid to realize that.

* In C. M. Kornbluth's ''The Marching Morons'', a character states that "the average IQ is now 45". As TheOtherWiki (and [[UsefulNotes/IQTesting our Useful Notes page]]) point out, this is nonsense.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': Holly the computer, once said to have an IQ of 6000 (equivalent to that of 6000 P.E. teachers or 12000 car-park attendants), has succumbed to computer senility. While trying to prove he's not completely gone, he [[spoiler:he fabricates a back-up computer program called Queeg, who "takes over" ''Red Dwarf'']] in the episode "Queeg". In the episode, Queeg claimed that Holly's IQ was actually 6. ("It's got a six ''in'' it, but it's not six thousand...")

* ''MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' presents a documentary on penguins and a graph displaying the results of an IQ test taken by the penguins against two other demographic groups. The penguins were inferior to the bushmen of the Kalahari but fared better than BBC programme planners.

* ''{{Garfield}}'' once gave us this list of beings, in order of intelligence (from 0 to [[ImprobablyHighIQ 1000]]): Amoeba - slug - dog - stone - ape - human - kitchen machine - cat.

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Him Diddle Riddle." As part of a series of tasks on the Professor's behalf, Him has the girls take their SAT tests. Buttercup's score is 35, Blossom's is 10 (which pisses her off big time). Bubbles--who drew a pattern of a flower on her test--scored a whopping 1075. (Head writer Amy Rogers mentioned on a message board that it showed that Bubbles was actually the smartest of the three. Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek comment.)

** Upon finding this out, Sandy [=McSouthers=] jokes (somewhat mean-spiritedly) that he always knew that Otis' IQ was minus ten.

* In a parody of Music/IggyAzalea's song "Fancy" by WebVideo/BartBaker, [[DumbBlonde Iggy]] spells her name as Iccy, Iegi, and HRT5, because she "can't spell because her IQ is negative ten"

* Brick Tamland from ''Film/AnchormanTheReturnOfRonBurgundy'' has an IQ of 48.

* In ''Literature/TheWestingGame'', in Sandy's notes of the other heirs to Westing's will, a note on Otis Joseph Amber is that his I.Q is 50 (Mild to moderate mental retardation, depending on the scale you're looking at). A person with this I.Q would have difficulties on their own, but it's stated that Amber is a delivery boy [[spoiler:and even marries Berthe Erica Crowe after the contest ends.]] When he's around, he acts more [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} nutty]] yet competent than mentally impaired
** [[spoiler: There is a reason for this.]]

Contrast ImprobablyHighIQ. For more information about IQ testing, go [[UsefulNotes/IQTesting here]].

* Another character with ridiculously low IQ: [[TinyToonAdventures Elmyra Duff]], who has "no detectable IQ" (presumed to mean an IQ of 0). This in comparison with a jar of mayonnaise, which is stated to have an IQ of 1.

IQ test scores are designed to follow a normal (bell curve) distribution with a mean of 100 points and a standard deviation of 15 points. The table below shows the expected statistics of below average [=IQs=].
||align=center border=1 width=100%
|| IQ|| Occurrence|| Frequency|| On Earth (of 7 000 000 000)||
|| ≤100||50%|| 1 in              2|| 3 500 000 000
|| ≤ 95||37%|| 1 in              3|| 2 586 089 381
|| ≤ 90||25%|| 1 in              4|| 1 767 447 763
|| ≤ 85||16%|| 1 in              6|| 1 110 586 778
|| ≤ 80||09.1%|| 1 in             11|| 638 478 538
|| ≤ 75||04.8%|| 1 in             21|| 334 532 466
|| ≤ 70||02.3%|| 1 in             44|| 159 250 924
|| ≤ 65||00.98%|| 1 in            102|| 68 707 300
|| ≤ 60||00.38%|| 1 in            261|| 26 812 664
|| ≤ 55||00.13%|| 1 in            741|| 9 449 286
|| ≤ 50||00.043%|| 1 in          2 331|| 3 003 422
|| ≤ 45||00.012%|| 1 in          8 139|| 860 065
|| ≤ 40||00.003 2%|| 1 in         31 574|| 221 699
|| ≤ 35||00.000 73%|| 1 in        136 176|| 51 404
|| ≤ 30||00.000 15%|| 1 in        653 327|| 10 714
|| ≤ 25||00.000 029%|| 1 in      3 488 556|| 2 007
|| ≤ 20||00.000 004 8%|| 1 in     20 741 279|| 337
|| ≤ 15||00.000 000 73%|| 1 in    137 360 561|| 51
|| ≤ 10||00.000 000 10%|| 1 in  1 013 594 635|| 7
|| ≤  5||00.000 000 012%|| 1 in  8 336 093 696|| 1
|| ≤  0||00.000 000 001 3%|| 1 in 76 429 353 031|| 0

* In ''TheWestingGame'', in Sandy's notes of the other heirs to Westing's will, a note on Otis Joseph Amber is that his I.Q is 50 (Mild to moderate mental retardation, depending on the scale you're looking at). A person with this I.Q would have difficulties on their own, but it's stated that Amber is a delivery boy [[spoiler:and even marries Berthe Erica Crowe after the contest ends.]] When he's around, he acts more [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} nutty]] yet competent than mentally impaired

* The titled character of ''WesternAnimation/{{Igor}}'' thinks he's smart enough to make monsters. But really, is to stupid to do anything right.

* Played with in ''ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "Him Diddle Riddle." As part of a series of tasks on the Professor's behalf, Him has the girls take their SAT tests. Buttercup's score is 35, Blossom's is 10 (which pisses her off big time). Bubbles--who drew a pattern of a flower on her test--scored a whopping 1075. (Head writer Amy Rogers mentioned on a message board that it showed that Bubbles was actually the smartest of the three. Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek comment.)