Didnt Think This Through / Calvin and Hobbes

"I keep forgetting that five of his six ends are pointy when he lies like that."

Examples of Didn't Think This Through from Calvin and Hobbes.

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• This is basically a fundamental part of Calvin's character. He's so impulsive and "live-in-the-moment" that he almost never thinks of the consequences of his actions, no matter how immediate they may be. Whenever he hurls a water balloon or snowball at Susie or his parents, he never has any kind of exit strategy when they retaliate against him; in fact, many times he seems genuinely surprised they retaliate against him at all. Similarly, Calvin rarely thinks of what might happen when his schemes fail. For example, he has Hobbes hurl him off a cliff with construction paper feathers expecting to fly like a bird or jumps from a second-story window with a makeshift blanket parachute, but apparently never thought for even a split second the possibility that these flights of fancy could potentially not keep him aloft. Hobbes tends to serve as the voice of reason, but usually not in time to avoid getting pulled into Calvin’s insane antics.
• Calvin doesn't think about where he's going to go after leaving Earth until Hobbes asks him.
  Calvin: You know, sometimes you're a real load to have around.
  Hobbes: I was just asking!
• When Calvin time travels to pick up a school project when it was done, he forgets the little detail that since he didn't do it in the past, it was not done in the future. When he (and his 8:30 self) attempt to threaten his future (7:30) self to do the project, 7:30 Calvin points out something they forgot: since they were all the same person, the 6:30 (original time traveler) and 8:30 Calvins would have to suffer whatever they did to him. If the 6:30 and 8:30 Hobbeses hadn't decided to write the story on their own, he would have been in trouble.
  • Calvin was also too lazy to even read through the story the Hobbeses wrote for him (which was about how stupid he was for trying to solve his homework problem with time travel). As a result, Calvin winds up humiliating himself in front of the whole class. At the very least, he did get an A+ for it.
• Calvin makes the world's largest snowball and is excited over plastering someone with it. Hobbes asks how he's going to pick it up.
  Calvin: Reality continues to ruin my life.
  Hobbes: Maybe you could put it someplace where someone will walk into it.
• In one arc, Calvin wants to gross out Susie by betting her a nickel that he'll eat a live worm. He wanted her to get disgusted and run away but didn't count on Susie not being grossed out and actually being prepared to make Calvin eat the worm as proof, given that her money is on the line (and actually forcing him to up the number to five worms to make it worth a nickel to her).
• In one strip, Calvin rings Susie's home's doorbell so he can hurl a giant snowball at her when she answers the door. He did not have a plan for when Susie's mother answered the door instead and hastily makes up a poorly constructed excuse for why he's holding a giant snowball.
  Calvin: Oh! Oop! ...um... Hi, Mrs. Derkins. I was hoping Susie would answer the ...uh... I mean, um, I'm selling huge snowballs. Would you like to buy one? *as he walks off and throws the snowball aside* My Plan A's always go off without a hitch, it's my Plan B's that need work.
• A similar situation occurred but for Hobbes instead, when he hid in the closet waiting for Calvin to come in and hang his coat up so he could ambush him. Unfortunately for Hobbes, Calvin's mom hung up Calvin's coat for him, inadvertently catching him in the act (because to her, he just looks like a stuffed animal that got put in the closet).
  Calvin: Waiting for me in the closet, eh? Too bad your little plan was thwarted!!
  Hobbes: Why don't you hang up your coat yourself?!
• In another strip, Calvin makes a water balloon pendulum so that if he misses, it will swing back around and let him throw it again. He quickly discovers a flaw in the design when he swings it at Susie, it misses, she catches it as it swings back around, and then throws it at Calvin. As he runs away, Calvin says "Bad Idea".
• Occasionally, Calvin runs away from school in the middle of class. However, he always ends up coming right back to his house, where his mother will ask why he's home so early and send him right back to school, but in big trouble this time.
  • One of these instances, his mom demanded to know why he was home from school, Calvin, clearly not having thought of a reason, hastily tells her there was a gas leak and everyone evacuated. His mom is able to easily disprove this simply by calling the school.
• In one strip, Calvin builds an impenetrable snow fort with walls so tall and thick that nothing can get in. The last panel shows one problem with this: no one way to get in also means no way to get out.
  Calvin: HELLLP!!
• In one Sunday strip, he goes in through the back door when he comes home from school to avoid Hobbes' Attack Hello, and then decides to surprise Hobbes for once... Hobbes predictably clobbers Calvin for the Jump Scare, and in the last panel Calvin reflects on his impulsion.
  Calvin: I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.
• A similar strip has Calvin attempting to jump on Hobbes while he's sleeping on his back. Hobbes immediately snarls and flicks all his claws out, giving Calvin a midair Oh, Crap! right before a vicious mauling.
  Calvin: I keep forgetting that five of his six ends are pointy when he lies like that.
• Many of the strips involving Calvin throwing a snowball or water balloon at Susie or Hobbes ends like this. Calvin always seems genuinely shocked that they immediately decide to retaliate by throwing something back, tell on him to his mom, or worse.
• In the story arc where he brings his Stupendous Man costume to school, he sneaks into his locker to change into his alter ego. However, he didn't count on how dark it is inside when the door is closed, so he ends up getting stuck inside because he can't find the handle from the other side.
• Most of the babysitting story arcs have Calvin deciding to cause Rosalyn trouble just for the sake of it, always seeming to forget his parents will come home in a few hours and hear all about the trouble he caused. This is made especially egregious at the end of the story with Stupendous Man when he tries to tell his mom nothing happened, somehow not remembering Rosalyn forced him to write out a full confession of all the trouble he caused.
• In one strip, Calvin tells Hobbes he thinks people are rotten, so, when he grows up, he'll live a million miles away from everyone. Hobbes asks him how he'll survive and what he'll eat if he's a million miles from everyone.
  Calvin: ...well, mom could come by twice a day to cook, I suppose.
  Hobbes: That would be quite a commute.
• In one Sunday strip, Calvin's mom tries to tire Calvin out for bed by chasing him around the house and tickling him. However, it ends up having the opposite effect; Calvin's mom gets so exhausted that she falls asleep right on the floor and it gets Calvin so hyped up he still doesn't want to go to bed.
• In one very early strip, Calvin asks his mom if he can rip up the floorboards in his bedroom to make a secret passage. The kicker at the end is that he had already done it and he totally didn't expect his mother to say no.
  Calvin: How quietly do you think we can nail these back in?
• Another early strip has Calvin's parents decide to give Calvin an allowance to teach him about the value of money. Apparently, they didn't stop and think that this is Calvin they're dealing with, because he's immediately instilled with extreme greed and starts scheming about how he can use this money to buy off everyone and gain power.
  Calvin's Dad: I blew it again, dear!
• In the first duplicator story arc, Calvin makes a duplicate of himself so that the duplicate can clean his room while he goes out to play. Calvin is so egotistical he never considers for a second that the duplicate, being exactly like himself, wouldn't want to clean the room either.
  • Later, Calvin decides he and the duplicates could each go to school one day of the week, while the rest of them stay home. However, he didn't apparently think about what would happen if the teacher asks him a question about something they learned yesterday, because obviously the next duplicates in line would have no idea what's being learned. This leads to Calvin and the duplicates being sent to the principal's office every single day, which is a lot, even by Calvin's troublemaking standards.
• In the second duplicator story arc, Calvin makes a "nice" duplicate that's a morally upstanding version of himself. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to understand that being "nice" meant being nice to everyone equally, including girls. Calvin is absolutely disgusted when he learns that the duplicate has being kind to Susie, which, to Calvin, is an incomprehensible flaw.
• In one Sunday strip, Calvin decides to follow Hobbes' advice to do all the things he doesn't want first so he'll have nothing hanging over his head while doing the fun things he actually does want to do. Calvin somehow doesn't realize that one of those things is taking a bath, which is only done at the very end of the day...
  Calvin: (in bed) See if I ever listen to YOU again!
  Hobbes: Never put the low priorities first.
• In one story arc, Calvin has to do a researched report on bats. Calvin is far too lazy to actually do any research and wholesale makes up his entire report, relying on a clear plastic binder to guarantee him a good grade. Unfortunately, the clear plastic binder is of no help to Calvin when he actually has to present his report, because then it becomes instantly clear to the teacher and all of his classmates that he knows absolutely nothing about bats.
  Calvin: [reading] Dusk! With a creepy, tingling sensation, you hear the fluttering of leathery wings! BATS! With glowing red eyes and glistening fangs, these unspeakable giant bugs drop onto...
  Class: BATS AREN'T BUGS!
  Calvin: Look, who's giving the report? You chowderheads or ME?!
• When Calvin and Hobbes are headed home from Susie's birthday party, Calvin has a sudden realization that trying to bring some ice cream and a piece of cake home for his mom by putting it in your pocket wasn't such a good idea as he reaches in and realizes it's melted.
• In the "Yukon Ho!" story arc, Calvin gets into an argument with Hobbes over leadership on their trek, and he angrily declares he's abandoning the journey to go home. Hobbes has to remind Calvin the entire point of the journey was because he was permanently seceding from his home, something which he loudly declared to his parents already.
  Calvin: (facepalming) My life needs a rewind/erase button.
  Hobbes: ...and a volume control.
• In a one-off strip, Calvin and Hobbes come across from freshly laid down cement, and Calvin gets the mischievous idea to put their butt imprints in it. The last panel shows the pair hastily rushing off to find a hose, with chunks of cement caked to their behinds, because they didn't expect the cement would dry so quickly.
• In a few strips, Calvin's mom tricks Calvin into eating his dinner by saying that it's made of something disgusting. Calvin is always thrilled and gobbles up his dinner with gusto, but Calvin's dad usually gets so grossed out by the idea of eating monkey heads or spider pie that now he doesn't want to eat dinner.
• In one early story arc, Calvin's mom tries to get Calvin to stop making ugly faces by telling him his face might get stuck like that if he does it too much. Calvin, of course, thinks that would be great, and decides to keep his face in a grotesque sneer to try and force it to happen.
• In one story arc, Calvin decides to build a robot to make his bed for him, but unsurprisingly enough, a six-year old with no engineering or robotics skills, available funds, or attention span can't build a robot in a single afternoon. Still, wasting the day on a robot that can't do anything ends up getting him out of having to make his bed in the end!
• In a Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes are left in the car while Calvin's dad goes inside a store. Calvin decides to hide himself and Hobbes as a means of tricking his dad into thinking they ran away. He didn't count on his dad knowing that he's hiding in the car and teasing him by acting happy at the thought of him disappearing. This makes Calvin come out of hiding, calling his dad a "sicko" and saying that he's sorry to spoil his dad's getaway.
• In one early Sunday strip, Calvin and Hobbes decide to play war, with Calvin saying the moment the other is hit by a dart they're "dead". The game starts and the pair instantly hit the other with a dart in a Mutual Kill, meaning the game is over immediately with no winner. The two look at the darts in confusion for a moment before declaring war a "stupid game".
• In one Sunday strip, Hobbes drenches Calvin with a water balloon, so Calvin decides to retaliate by soaking Hobbes with the garden hose. However, he runs up to Hobbes filling up a second water balloon only to find the hose doesn't work... because Hobbes had to remove the hose from the faucet to fill up his water balloons.
  Calvin: Uh-oh.
• In another similar strip, Calvin walks up to Hobbes with a water balloon to gloat about his "offensive superiority". Hobbes responds by picking up a random stick on the ground and then popping the balloon as Calvin is holding it, instantly soaking Calvin.
  Calvin: (dripping wet) That's the trouble with weapons technology. It becomes obsolete so quickly.
• In another Sunday strip, Calvin loads up on three water balloons at once, and he gloats to Hobbes, who only has one water balloon, that he's three times as well-armed as him. Hobbes response is simply to toss his water balloon on top of Calvin's three, and it promptly soaks him because Calvin can barely even hold three balloons at once.
  Hobbes: Maybe you should stock up on brains instead!
• In one very early strip, Calvin mocks Susie by saying that girls are not allowed in his treehouse. Susie snaps back asking Calvin why anyone would even want to sit in a tree all day to begin with. After a Beat Panel, Calvin realizes Susie is right... to his own anger.
  Calvin: Leave it to a girl to take all the fun out of sex discrimination.
• In one early Sunday strip, Calvin forgot to do his homework and decides to catch a cold so he can stay home from school the next day. Unfortunately for Calvin, his mom hears him coughing and makes him drink some nasty-tasting cough syrup.
• In one 1990 strip, Calvin is selling ice-cold lemonade on the sidewalk for five dollars a glass (for context, 5 USD in 1990 would be about 10 USD in 2020). What's more, he's selling it in the middle of winter. He doesn't understand why no one's buying, but his solution is to up the price to ten dollars a glass.
• In a one-off strip, Calvin tells his dad there are so many things you can take apart with a screwdriver. Calvin's dad, clearly sensing that Calvin has done something bad, asks what exactly. Calvin, realizing the jig is up, stammers, backtracks, and excuses himself.
  Calvin: I've got to stop introducing topics of conversation.
• In another one-off strip, Calvin hits a baseball right up into the air, grabs a baseball glove, and amazingly manages to catch the ball as it comes back down. Calvin is initially proud of himself, but then realizes this means he put himself out.
• Another baseball-related strip has Calvin and Hobbes attempting to play baseball but with snowballs. Of course, when Calvin hits a snowball with a wooden bat, it just explodes into powder on impact, so it's impossible to score any points.
• Calvin is hurtling out-of-control down a hill on roller skates and yells at Hobbes on help on how to stop. Hobbes yells to Calvin that he should steer in a gravel driveway and fall down. It does stop Calvin... but the gravel also absolutely mangles Calvin as it does so.
  Hobbes: It was only a suggestion.
• In one strip, Calvin lays out his plan to fake paying attention in class by cutting a ping-pong ball in half, drawing a black dot on each half, and putting them over his eyes. Hobbes points out one big flaw with this; Calvin has no way to even know which direction the teacher is facing with those covering his eyes.
• In one Sunday strip, Calvin decides he will become a fatalist so that every bad thing he does will not be his fault, it was predetermined by fate. Hobbes responds by tripping Calvin into a mud pit and saying that it was fate he would do that. Another strip has a similar premise where Calvin proclaims he's rejecting ethics and taking an "end justifies the means" approach to life. Hobbes responds by pushing Calvin into a mud puddle and saying that Calvin was in his way, so he shoved him out of the way; the end justified the means. In both cases, Calvin took up a moral stand without understanding that he could suffer the same consequences of that morality (or at least, in the latter case, he clarifies that he thinks his argument should apply only to him).
• In one Sunday strip, Calvin pays Hobbes to take a bath for him. Unfortunately for Calvin, his mom immediately discovers the ruse when she goes to kiss him goodnight because he's obviously still just as dirty as he was before, and makes him take the bath for real (except now Calvin is down a quarter).
• In one story arc, Calvin and Hobbes lay out an elaborate plan to sneak up to Susie and throw a water balloon at her, but the plan takes so long to even get to Susie's house that she's already gone inside for lunch because they didn't think of any contingencies for the possibility that Susie wouldn't just sit on the sidewalk for hours.
• Another similar story arc has Calvin attempting to bait Susie into a trap by "accidentally" dropping a letter containing his so-called secret plans, thinking that Susie would obviously want to foil said plans. The plan had no contingency for if Susie just handed the letter back to Calvin without reading it (because Calvin is so egotistical the possibility that someone wouldn't be interested in everything he does seemed impossible).
• Occurs in-universe in one strip, where Calvin shows Hobbes a snowman he made depicting a snow palaentologist digging for fossilized snow dinosaurs. Hobbes asks Calvin why he looks so sad, and Calvin replies that he realized that snow doesn't leave fossils, it just melts.
  Hobbes: Your snowmen lead tragic lives.
  Calvin: Well, they're not very bright.
• In one short story arc, Calvin puts a mask on the back of his head so Hobbes won't be able to sneak up and attack him. He gloats about his intellectual superiority to Hobbes, who simply responds by immediately attacking Calvin without sneaking up on him.
• In one later strip, Calvin tosses a water balloon up into the air and tries to catch it. Of course, when it comes back down, it pops and completely soaks Calvin.
  Calvin: How can something seem so plausible at the time and so idiotic in retrospect?
• In another one-off strip, Calvin stored a snowball in his school desk to throw at someone in the middle of class. Unsurprisingly to everyone except Calvin, it melted before he could use it.
• In one short story arc, Calvin attempts to not get in trouble before Christmas by staying in bed for the rest of December and not going to school so he doesn't have a chance to get in trouble. Calvin's mom has to point out to Calvin that refusing to go to school isn't good, it's bad.
  Calvin: That darn Santa has got be every way I turn.
• Double subverted in the story arc where Calvin and Hobbes decide to live on Mars. Hobbes packed a night-light because he thought that it might be scary sleeping on a new planet, and Calvin muses that Hobbes thought of everything. Then it shows Hobbes searching Mars for an outlet to plug the night-light into...
• One strip has Calvin trying to convince Susie to stand on an X on the ground as a dare, while refusing to divulge why he wants her to stand on it. Susie, knowing what Calvin is like, refuses, and Calvin realizes his plan to launch a barrage of snowballs on her might not be as well thought out as he initially believed.
• The direct preceding strip has Calvin trying to bring a Snowlem to life by having it struck by lightning (unrelated to the latter story arc with the snow goons). He didn't think about it until much later that there probably wouldn't be a thunderstorm until well into spring.^note A thunder snowstorm, or thundersnow, is actually possible, but it's a very rare meteorological phenomena.
  Calvin: I think he's going to melt before we can bring him to life.
• In one strip, Calvin declares to Hobbes that his latest snowman will endure as an immortal and multi-layered masterpiece that will continue to inspire artists for generations to come. He apparently forgot that, since it's made of snow, it'll melt... which it proceeds to do right before the pair's eyes when the sun comes out. He takes into mind for the following snowman, stating that the melting represents the horrors of mortality, but inevitably a passerby on the street just laughs at him for building a snowman in the warming weather.