Hyper Competent Sidekick / Western Animation

Hyper-Competent Sidekicks in Western Animation.

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• Many cartoons of the late 70's and early 80's seemed to have their protagonists be best friends with a Fairy Companion who could pretty much do anything the plot required. The most bizarre/notorious example would be Rubik, the Amazing Cube, which is the adventures of some kids and their magical talking Rubik's Cube. The only reason Rubik was a sidekick at all is that he could only walk/talk/save the day after he had been "solved", and the young boy he hung around with had the amazing ability to solve him quickly. So every episode Rubik had to be dropped or something, which was apparently enough to mix him up so that he couldn't fix everything in the first two minutes.
• Genie in Aladdin.
  • Haroud serves this function (and combines it with Deadpan Snarker as usual) for Abis Mal in Aladdin: The Series. A classic example of this is Abis Mal explaining (for exposition) his plan to attack the heroes. Haroud politely replies "I know what the plan is, master. Why are you telling me this?"
• Itchy Itchiford, (Itchy for short) from All Dogs Go to Heaven has this in spades, especially in the first movie and more so in the TV series. Charlie usually doesn't follow the phrase "think before you do" very well. Itchy prevents Charlie from going too far with his intentions for the most part, but even if he is unsuccessful in doing so, he always knows what is going to happen. Also, in the first movie, Itchy built Charlie's new casino.
• Amphibia: Ironically, while The Core frequently degrades and mocks him for being weak and useless, the vast majority of the villains' successes are a result of King Andrias actions and not the Core's:
  • Andrias spends the entire course of the show up until "True Colors" playing Marcy and Anne like a fiddle, easily making them believe in his facade of The Good King and nearly destroying any chance they had of resisting him without even lifting a finger himself. The only reason Anne retains her powers and thus ability to resist him is because of a coincidence completely beyond his control. Even after he reveals his true nature, he still sows discord between the girls by revealing the Awful Truth. By contrast, when the Core tries to manipulate the girls, it falls flat each time due to their Character Development.
  • While the Core is a good fighter, it has to rely on dirty tricks, lets itself get distracted by sadism, and is ultimately beaten by a teenage girl with no powers to speak of. Andrias is a far greater warrior who prefers to go directly for the kill with no dilly-dallying and wins without using dirty tricks. The only time Andrias can be considered to have lost a fight, it's against a Calamity-enhanced Anne whom he was completely unprepared for, and he proceeds to beat her during their rematch a season later.
• In an episode of Angela Anaconda, Johnny gets a magic kit and starts doing shows with Gina as his assistant. Angela convinces Johnny to make her his assistant instead and quickly finds out that Gina was doing all the tricks herself, Johnny was just too stupid to realize.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Downplayed with Princess Azula to Fire Lord Ozai. Azula does most of the actual legwork and is the most immediate threat to the heroes throughout the second season, showing a level of clever planning Ozai himself never approaches, but that's only because her father is Orcus on His Throne for most of the show. The Grand Finale shows that Azula isn't nearly as qualified to actually be an Evil Overlord compared to her father, as she's too quickly overcome by stress and paranoia as opposed to her father's composed, rigid and truly heartless disposition. Ultimately, for all her superior cunning, guile and manipulation, Azula is just as much of a "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl as her brother Zuko, but with a far more fragile ego; as soon as she loses her friends (who only stayed by her due to fear) and her father abandons her with little more than a "good job" consolation prize for her loyalty, she spirals very quickly, spending the remaining episodes and the follow-up comics a mentally disturbed wreck.
  • Iroh serves as this for Zuko in Book 1. He's arguably one of the most formidable characters in the series, but is content to sit back and sip tea. Granted, he does see his real duty as ridding his nephew of Ozai's toxic teachings.
  • Zhu Li from The Legend of Korra towards her boss Varrick. While he's a genius inventor and a master manipulator, he's physically weak and constantly needs her assistance and services as lab assistant, bodyguard, personal cleaner and other degrading jobs. And she's being doing the job long enough that she automatically knows what Varrick means by "Do the thing!" and always reacts accordingly. Despite occasionally showing frustration over his lack of respect towards her, which allows her to convincingly pretend to quit and abandon him in Book 4, she remains consistently by his side for much of the series and for the rest of her life, as they sort out their issues, admit their feelings for each other, and get married in The Finale. Post-series, she does quit for real, but at Varrick's insistence, because he believed she'd thrive as a politician after she expresses a desire to become mayor of Republic City (which she does).
• Harley Quinn, the Joker's sidekick, is usually able to pull off more competent comedy-themed crimes without him — and once beat Batman so bad the only way Batman could escape was getting her to invite the Joker over, knowing that the Joker's ego wouldn't let anyone else kill him.
  Batman (to Joker): "...though I have to admit, she came a lot closer than you ever did, puddin'!
  • Played with Harley: She is more a case of Sanity Has Advantages (not to say that she's sane, just more so than Joker). Joker suffers from some degree of Contractual Genre Blindness, but is frequently shown to be just as intelligent as Batman. Also, the DC Animated Universe is still aimed mostly for children. Harley being competent is slapstick and Amusing Injuries. The Joker being competent is... a lot less suitable for children's television. but still hilarious.
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: It was never really explored, due to the show being cancelled after half a season, but it was very clear that Commander Dogstar's Number One, Wolf, was both more competent and on-the-ball than his rather spacey CO. Wolf was also quite aware of this, his dialogue dripping with only barely concealed sarcasm.
• Slinkman of Camp Lazlo is this to Scoutmaster Lumpus. When Lumpus isn't being a mad dictator, he's lying in a lawn chair making Slinkman do all the work. As Lumpus deteriorated, Slinkman gained more control over camp. Slinkman secretly dreams of being scoutmaster, but by the time the show ends, he pretty much is already.
• In Captain Pugwash, Tom the Cabin Boy is the most intelligent and resourceful member of the crew, the only one who can cook and the only one who can actually sail a ship. Tom's ability to think up schemes is the only reason Pugwash has any success as a pirate at all.
• Darkwing Duck, "Heavy Mental". Darkwing is thrilled when he realizes that the Norma Ray did in fact give Launchpad superpowers, planning to use them to curb stomp his opponents. He becomes irritated and wants to get rid of them again after Launchpad's awkward early uses of them. By the end, he's interested in keeping them again, but Launchpad now wants them gone, and he gets his wish when they apparently wear off after the final battle.
• Cornfed from Duckman. It becomes a plot point in the Adventure Game where while Cornfed does make a plan for Duckman to save the day, he decides that this time he needs to learn how to do things himself and doesn't help him directly outside of that.
• Peter Puppy from the Earthworm Jim cartoon was like this at times. In fact, because of this one episode featured a council of superheroes that ordered Jim to hand over his super suit to Peter, who at the end gave it back.
• Edd is this to Eddy on Ed, Edd n Eddy, much to Eddy's chargin. Ed will randomly be this for both of them at random moments thanks to Rule of Funny.
• Stan is Xander Crews' hyper-competent sidekick in Frisky Dingo. Likewise, Sin is Killface's.
• Kif Kroker from Futurama is often shown to be far more intelligent and quick-witted than his boss, Zapp Brannigan, but on the rare occasions that Kif overcomes his shyness to speak up, Brannigan invariably ignores him, and often later blames Kif for his own mistakes.
  • "Be prepared to take the blame in three, two, one...Now!"
• Owen Burnett alias Puck from Gargoyles shows how dangerous one of these is when paired with a boss who's already a Magnificent Bastard in his own right (enough of one to get a couple of tropes named for him!). It's not that Owen is the smarter of the two, but that they're smart in different ways — Xanatos is a truly brilliant schemer, but it's Owen's cool efficiency and eye for details that make sure all the bases are covered, while occasionally acting as Xanatos's conscience. Both parties have genuine liking and respect for each other, and it's heavily implied that neither would be quite sure what they'd do without the other.
  • For the record, in "The Gathering: Part II", Puck mentions that he offered Xanatos the choice between a lifetime of loyal service form Owen or granting one no-fingers-crossed wish. Xanatos is smart enough to know the better choice.
    • And Puck respects him for that. Though one wonders if Xanatos decided to be cute about it and wish for Owen as his permanent sidekick.
  • And of course Preston Vogel is exactly the same way for Fox's father — without the aid of also being a magical being.
    • In fact, Puck based his Owen Burnett persona off of Preston's.
• In Gisele and the Green Team Alex has by far the most useful power in telekinesis, and this is used many times to stop whatever Nick is doing. The fact that she has the only offensive power among the five makes her even more competent.
• In Hanna-Barbera's The Godzilla Power Hour, poor Godzooky gets a lot of grief from fans because he's cute and much tinier than Godzilla. But taken objectively, Zooky is still a twelve-foot tall flying monster who dwarfs the human castmembers, and can handily intimidate humans who aren't expecting him. Apart from being a standard cute cartoon sidekick, he's also there so that even the human-scale filler scenes all Dai Kaiju stories have can still have a cool big monster in them.
• PJ from Goof Troop is, depending on the episode, either this or a Beleaguered Assistant to Max. While Max isn't really incompetent, he's shortsighted, self-centered, and danger-prone. On some occasions, PJ is the only reason Max is alive. Despite his hard work and consistent helpfulness, even in the face of unreasonable hostility, PJ gets almost no credit, yet he would gladly do anything to help Max out.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy well...
  • Mandy is the humorless girl who defeats Death himself with one word, then grows up to become far more formidable.
• In Hazbin Hotel, The Dragon Lute was this to Arc Villain Adam. Adam was a competent villain in his own right, but a Laughably Evil goofball while Lute was a sadistic Straight Man who frequently had to reign him in from breaking the Celestial Bureaucracy's rules. As a result, she ends up becoming a Dragon Ascendant in the season one finale after Adam's death and immediately gets to work Avenging the Villain.
• Herself the Elf has this for the villains and heroes.
  • On the villains' side, Ivy and Vendetta successfully capture Herself and three of the elves rather quickly, while Thorn sits and waits in his lab and isn't as effective.
  • On the heroes' side, Willow Song is constantly looking for easier ways to do things, is the only one who hears Herself's cries for help, is the one who distracts Thorn and Vendetta long enough for Herself to get her wand back, and incapacitates Ivy and Thorn with music so the others can escape.
• In a similar vein, Spot from Hong Kong Phooey. There are two ways Hong Kong Phooey defeats a villain. Either by luck (when he's alone), or by his cat sidekick, who usually takes advantage of the villain being distracted by the hero screwing up.
• Inspector Gadget:
  • Penny and Brain help out the titular inspector from behind the scenes.
  • Penny's dog, Brain, is Penny's hyper-competent sidekick.
  • Parodied in Robot Chicken, where Dr. Claw uploads Skynet into Gadget to eliminate his true nemesis: That 12-year-old girl and her dog.
• GIR from Invader Zim is far more competent than Zim himself... but only in duty mode. Which only lasts a few seconds.
  • An example of how much more competent GIR is, is when Zim decides to lock GIR in duty mode. GIR captures humans, absorbs huge amounts of knowledge, and determines Zim to be the reason that they haven't taken over the planet yet.
  • Even outside of duty mode, there are times GIR is more rational than ZIM.
  • And according to the unused scripts, had the show continued, Skoodge would have become this as well.
• Kim Possible:
  • Shego plays with this trope. She fights all the battles for Dr. Drakken, she tries to keep his evil plans in line, she even provides Drakken with the Unobtainium / Applied Phlebotinum needed for his capers (either by stealing them, or actually buying them). However, it's also painfully clear that Shego has no real ambition or drive of her own, and is more than content to act as follower to a more driven and motivated partner, much like fellow sidekick Ron Stoppable. And even if that wasn't the case, it's implied that she suffers from Creative Sterility anyway; when tasked with teaching Senor Senior Junior how to be a proper villain in one episode, he's the one who came up with the plans because she couldn't think of anything herself. And while A Sitch in Time shows that she could succeed in taking over the world as a solo villain, she had to be talked into it and given the plan of how to do so by her future self.
  • Team Pet Rufus is often this to Ron, sometimes appearing to be smarter than his owner and much more mechanically adept. Many times has the day been saved by Rufus running off and interfering on his own while Kim and Ron keep the villains busy. Lampshaded in "The Ron Factor", where scientists conclude that the naked mole rat is ultimately the biggest variable in the team's success.
• Lady Lovely Locks had this for the heroines and the villains.
  • The Pixietails have very strong magic and end up doing most of the work themselves, while Lady's only contribution is to summon them by shaking her hair.
  • Shining Glory's magic ends up resolving the plot a lot. In instances where he's out of the picture the solution is usually to save him so he can save the day.
  • Hairball has a wide knowledge of magic and is usually out in the field, while Duchess Ravenwaves is content to sit and watch from afar.
• Charles Foster Ofdensen in Metalocalypse. Clever, take-charge, and literally DEADLY CFO, manager, and laywer who has more brainpower in one pinky than his metalhead employers have between them.
  • Proven after he died, when their wild, compulsive spending sprees and horrible business practices pretty much drive them to bankruptcy.
• Mighty Max:
  • Norman, but it's justified in that his job is to be Max's bodyguard until he can fend for himself.
  • Max's other guardian, Virgil was really, really smart and really really old. But Max's on-the-spot ideas are what made him The Chosen One.
• The Modifyers: If it weren't for Lacey Shadows, the Baron would be harmless, since he's too much of a goofball to actually get anything done. Which is where Lacey comes in. She's his right-hand because she's quick-witted and resourceful. So much so, that she's really Agent Xero, in disguise.
• Smytus from My Life as a Teenage Robot becomes this to Queen Vexus as the series goes on. While Vexus becomes unhealthily obsessed with Jenny, Smytus never loses sight of the Cluster's actual goals (i.e. expanding and providing for its citizens). This culminates in the Big Damn Movie when he takes control of the Cluster military when it becomes obvious Vexus is wasting time and resources on Jenny. He nearly conquers Earth easily, whereas Vexus had spent the last two seasons utterly failing to do so. He's also smart enough to consider the possibility that the planet may be more trouble than it's worth, rather than obsessing over it like Vexus.
• Spike is this for Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. While Twilight herself is generally pretty damn competent the number of skills Spike possesses is simply staggering and there are a few episodes where Twilight would have been completely screwed without him.
• In OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Darrell turns out to be this to Lord Boxman. While lacking as Mook, he’s a pretty competent businessman and is far better at management than Boxman, who cares about nothing but destroying the Plaza over a petty vendetta. Eventually, Darrell gets fed up with this and takes over Boxmore by selling out Boxman to the board. Afterwards, the company soars to incredible success because Darrell stops wasting time attacking the Plaza and focuses on actually doing his job.
• A downplayed example in Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero. Sashi is extremely overqualified at her job but she does have flaws and vices, some of which are worse than Penn's, and Penn is usually perfectly capable of keeping up with her during missions.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • While he's supposedly more of a partner instead of a sidekick, the latter titular character fits this trope pretty well. Phineas is the idea guy and the spokesman of the two, but Ferb tends to have more mechanical expertise. He does most of the work building all their crazy contraptions and does all the menial jobs. He doesn't seem to mind, though.
    In the episode where he's helping his crush Vanessa Doofenshmirtz get a component for her supervillain father, she shows herself to be somewhat resourceful and very agile, but Ferb shows that his capability dwarfs that of everyone except Perry.
  • Isabella, who's a hybrid of The Heart and The Smart Guy. Shows strongest if Phineas is in danger.
  • Agent P. Major Monogram and Carl tend to spend much of their screentime goofing off and generally just being Those Two Guys, leaving Perry to stop Doofenshmirtz's plans with pretty much no help. Half the time, they don't even give him the slightest bit of information to go on, simply telling him to "Go find Doofenshmirtz and stop him"; this tendency is lampshaded when Perry has to work with a (human) British spy.
    Agent Double 0-0: What, that's it? No files, no location, no contact; what kind of a mission is this?
    Major Monogram: It was enough for the mammal.
• Porky Pig when he's depicted as Daffy Duck's sidekick (in numerous Chuck Jones movie parody shorts, perhaps mostly famously Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century) — in most of these cases, Daffy breaks the fourth wall to insist that Porky's character is supposed to be the Plucky Comic Relief, so this character type may be a subversion.
  • This holds especially true in the series Duck Dodgers, where Dodgers doesn't so much hold the Idiot Ball as have it surgically implanted in place of his actual brain. Apparently, the Cadet is so competent that he singlehandedly cured world hunger in his younger days.
  • It should be noted however this interpretation is mostly exclusive to the Chuck Jones shorts (or later ones based on his work specifically), with alternate interpretations often portraying Porky as somewhat a bumbling Butt-Monkey to a more apt trickster Daffy. It was also subtly implied that Porky's enormous deviation from his usual character was due to Jones' Daffy playing the Straw Loser of the series (similarly Bugs's Rogues Gallery were often Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains until they played against Daffy), perhaps why Jones played Porky as The Fool in non-Daffy shorts, with Sylvester playing his hyper-competent sidekick.
  • True to their Spin-Off Babies nature, in Tiny Toon Adventures Hampton J. Pig has more than once been hyper-competent sidekick to Plucky Duck, most notably in Batduck where Hampton was "Decoy, the Pig Hostage."
    • Humorously, Plucky himself has once has served this role to Daffy in a Duck Dodgers short where he was "the eager young space cadet." Somewhat odd, since Plucky is a child version of Daffy and normally suffers the same defeat-by-hubris role that Daffy does.
    • This situation was reversed for Hampton and Plucky all of once. In the movie special, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, the Pig family picks up a hitchhiker — who turns out to be a (and this is quoted directly from the radio report that only Plucky seemed to note the importance of) "mass-murderer with a psychotic aversion to pork." Said "hitchhiker" then expanded his range of targets later as he pulled out a hockey mask and chainsaw and proclaimed, "I hate duck, too!" Insanity then Ensued.
• Ms. Sara Bellum, assistant to the Mayor of Townsville, from The Powerpuff Girls. She's the one who truly keeps things running around in Townsville and is okay with her position.
• Ray the Firefly in The Princess and the Frog, who keeps the show going until his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Baba Looey to Quick Draw McGraw I teenk. Pointed out by a third party (possibly a criminal they had just busted?) at least once.
  • Confirmed. It was the very first El Kabong cartoon where the villain, Don Chilada, had El Kabong's guitar (which he uses to bash villains on the head) while the hero was incapacitated, but Baba Looey was inside the guitar and put a gun to Don Chilada's noggin.
• Ready Jet Go!: Sunspot, the pet, is this to Jet. He is clearly smarter and more competent than his owner, usually being way ahead of what he is thinking or realizing.
• It may be the case in the space-themed episode "Space Madness" of The Ren & Stimpy Show, where the titular duo's space counterparts, Commander Hoek and Cadet Stimpy, are sent to a mission that is roughly said to take around 36 years. They are exposed to the effects of the space madness, but Ren is the only one to succumb to them, while Stimpy does his job as The Caretaker for him in an unusually competent manner (in most episodes Stimpy's actions are well-intentioned yet careless). However, Stimpy might have been immune to the effects of the space madness due to being too stupid for them to have any effect on him, while Ren is mentally unstable by nature.
• The Cartoon Network series Robotboy revolves around Tommy, a short wimp with a giant head, who has been given the good Professor Mushimo's titular robot, whom the evil Dr. Kamikaze is determined to steal and use for evilness... Nessness. Tommy's task is to help Robot Boy Become a Real Boy, while in the process Robot Boy continually saves Tommy and his friends from certain doom by means of unorthodox evil plan.
  • Since the show is named after Robotboy, Tommy is probably meant to be Robotboy's sidekick, not vice versa.
• Lonnie in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power spends the episode "Roll With It" playing this role to Scorpia, who is actually very skilled... in the field of beating the crap out of stuff. Unfortunately, she had been tasked with maintaining the defences of a fortress, a task so far outside her field of expertise it may as well have been in space even without her out-of-control infatuation with Catra getting in the way. As a result, Lonnie, a cadet fresh out of basic training, has to take care of matters like ensuring Scorpia is facing in the correct direction or getting the spy robot to work properly.
• The Simpsons:
  • Although Mr. Burns is not incompetent so much as out of touch with the times, he'd be completely lost without his Beleaguered Assistant Waylon Smithers.
  • Parodied in "Simpson and Delilah" when Homer is briefly made an executive at the nuclear power plant. His secretary Karl (as opposed to Carl) immediately realises that Homer is just some lucky buffoon and isn't suited to his new job. He proceeds to help Homer act the part, resolving every problem in Homer's professional and personal life without so much as being asked. He later gets fired protecting Homer's job and still writes a presentation to aid him. Homer does brilliantly even without him, but because he's bald again no one takes him seriously.
  • Played for laughs in "The Springfield Spin-Off Showcase" with the segment "Chief Wiggum, P.I.", which shows Chief Wiggum and Principal Skinner as private investigators in New Orleans, only to have Wiggum bungling his way through the action sequences and Skinner handling the heroics himself.
• South Park has "Coon and Friends", the pairing of Eric Cartman as the "hero" and C'thulhu as his erstwhile companion.
  • Dougie/General Disarray seems to be this to Butters/Professor Chaos in more recent episodes.
• Similarly, Deputy Mayor Calico "Callie" Briggs from SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. Besides motivating lazy Mayor Manx, she also has a good relationship with the SWAT Kats and ready to help them out.
• In Sweet Sea, Squidney does the legwork both in stealing the necklace and impeding Sweet Sea, while his boss Sheeba waits in her lair and gloats.
• The Soviet cartoon "A Tale is Told" is about one of these helping a prince rescue a princess from Koshchei the Deathless. The prince himself is an arrogant fool, and actually attempts to run away a couple of times... yet still expects to get the girl at the end. Thankfully, she is too reasonable for that.
• Arthur of The Tick is many times more intelligent than his partner, The Tick, but he's got nowhere near the combat prowess (or Nigh-Invulnerability) of him, so he's content to play second fiddle to the big blue superhero as it allows him to help people superhero-style while avoiding the punishment.
• Transformers:
  • In Transformers: Generation 1 we have Cyclonus. He was sane, calculating, dangerous... everything Galvatron was not. Well, Galvatron was dangerous, but to his troops just as much as the Autobots.
  • Jazz to Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Animated. While Sentinel Prime is technically second in command to Ultra Magnus, Jazz is usually the one who keeps a handle on Sentinel and tries to steer him towards good judgment. Jazz eventually realized this was a lost cause and left to join the Autobots on Earth.
  • Soundwave and Shockwave, whom are effectively two-thirds of Megatron's Dragons, in Transformers: Prime. Soundwave doesn't fight or talk much, but is feared by almost everyone. Megatron wouldn't be nearly as effective without Soundwave's eye for detail and Starscream knew he couldn't replace Megatron without gaining Soundwave's approval. Airachnid learned first hand not to cross him. It's very clear that as long as Soundwave is around, no one can come close to taking Megatron down. Unless you count Predacons. Shockwave, meanwhile, has skills that Megatron values so much, that he orders him to remain in his lab to finish Project Predacon. Shockwave also notably manages to avoid making Megatron angry despite Predaking failing to kill the Autobots in his first two appearances.
  • Soundwave of the Decepticons is probably the only reason the faction keeps running. He's the only one of Megatron's lieutenants who lacks Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, his skillset is extremely varied from being a capable spy and intelligence officer to a powerful warrior, and he has his own platoon of casseticons who alone can potentially be more useful than a lot of the full sized Decepticons. In the Marvel G1 run especially, he had a habit of stepping up whenever the leader of the month was indisposed, and usually proved alarmingly good at it. He also assumed this role for a while in IDW's comics, when the snarling, thickheaded berserker Galvatron needed someone to handle tasks besides murder.
• The Veggietales Silly Song "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" has this between the titular veterinarian and his nurse. While the Veterinarian is a goofy and nonsensical guy who yodels at ailing animals to help them feel better, his nurse comes up with all of the sensible solutions to his customers' problems, and keeps the business afloat until he wanted a raise for all his work. Vet says "No way, Jose!", and come the next patient the nurse leaves the Vet to deal with a very angry bear stuck in a bear trap by himself.
• The Venture Bros.:
  • Swedish Murder Machine Brock Samson, the Venture family's bodyguard, who makes up for all the badassery they lack.
  • Dr. Girlfriend (later Dr. Mrs. The Monarch) as well. It's explicitly stated at one point that she designed most of the Monarch's technology, and his entire operation goes to hell after she dumps him.
    • Post-Season 3, The Monarch has gotten a second hyper-competent sidekick in Henchmen 21/Gary
  • Dr. Henry Killinger. He makes wonders for those he helps, though his true calling is to make them realize just how far they can go without him.
• Interpoll the pet parrot from "Victor & Hugo — Bunglers in Crime" seems to be a lot smarter than his owners. Mind you, that's not saying much.
• Gromit from Wallace & Gromit. Wallace is prone to making poor decisions and often seeks the least practical solution to their problems, often leaving Gromit to clean up the mess.
• Commander Peepers to Lord Hater in Wander over Yonder. The episode "The Axe" has Hater firing him in a fit of pique, only to rehire him upon realizing that Peepers was singlehandedly keeping his entire evil empire together.
• Mr. Big's secretary/assistant/minion, from WordGirl. She wanders into Beleaguered Assistant territory, though, often asking for raises.

• Boo Boo exhibited this in the Yogi Bear cartoons, often knowing when to stay out of a situation, and warning Yogi, "Mr. Ranger isn't gonna like this."

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