Weirder Than Usual

Carl: Jimmy! Jimmy!
Jimmy: What's the matter?
Carl: It's Sheen. He's acting really weird!
Jimmy: Yeah, Carl, where have you been for the past ten years?
Carl: No, I mean REALLY weird! He's not Sheen.

— The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius

"Weirder Than Usual" is a dialogue trope where an eccentric (weird) character has a sudden change of behavior. Perhaps this character is acting rather normal (weird for a weird character) or perhaps this character is acting even more eccentric. It's unavoidable for friends of this character to discuss the character's behavior. Often occurs in the form "That was weird... [Beat] ...you know, weirder than usual".

It's a classic line.

Variation: "That was weird, even for you."

Compare the darker version Not Himself, and O.O.C. Is Serious Business.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• When Nozomu "Baka" Tanaka from Wasteful Days of High School Girls is infected by a strange protozoa in chapter 72 of the manga, the usually Chaotic Stupid character starts acting much nicer and more considerate than usual, becoming something of a Nice Girl and diligent (if still not particularly bright) student overnight. This Out of Character moment weirded everyone out, though apparently not in an entirely bad way as Ota seems to like her in this state than her normal self. It doesn't stick, however, as she returns to normal after several hours of violent diarrhoea.

Fan Works

• In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, when John is pushing the boat through the Hungry Sea, he quickly starts to sing and then speak only nonsense and make weird faces. George, who can't get a straight answer out of him, asks Ringo if he thinks John is acting funny. Ringo listens, then dismisses John's behavior with “Oh, it's just John bein' John.” Unfortunately, George is right and Ringo is wrong. However, his behavior does provide a significant clue not many hours later.

Films — Animation

• How to Train Your Dragon: Astrid says to Hiccup something along the lines of "You're acting strange... well, stranger."
• Batman: Assault on Arkham: Batman tells Alfred that Harley Quinn is acting odd; Alfred replies "Odder than usual, you mean?"

Films — Live-Action

• At the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: "The captain seems to be acting a bit strange [Beat] er."
• In the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Frodo says this in the extended edition about Bilbo: "To tell you the truth, Bilbo's been acting a bit odd lately... I mean, more than usual."

Literature

• Used a few times in Discworld.
  • In Wyrd Sisters, Granny Weatherwax asks a summoned demon if there's something strange going on in Lancre, and the demon replies "You mean stranger than usual?"
  • In The Truth, Sacharissa, when instructing new correspondents how to report "News", says that "Wizards doing strange things wasn't news. Wizards doing strange things was wizards."
• The Dresden Files: Towards the end of Small Favor, Harry Dresden is having an argument with Michael, who suspects that Harry may not be wholly in control of his own decisions.
  "That's... possible," I admitted. "Anybody's head can be messed with. But if you go rewiring someone's brain, it damages them, badly. (...) If you know the person well enough, there are almost always signs. They act differently. Have I been acting differently? Have I suddenly gone crazy on you?" He arched an eyebrow. "More so than usual," I amended.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
  Harry: Professor Dumbledore — yesterday, when I was having my Divination exam, Professor Trelawney went very, very strange.
  Dumbledore: Indeed? Er — stranger than usual, you mean?
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Life, the Universe and Everything takes care to explain how exactly Ford Prefect can be said to be "beginning to behave rather strangely":
  Ford was beginning to behave rather strangely, or rather not actually beginning to behave strangely but beginning to behave in a way which was strangely different from the other strange ways in which he more regularly behaved.

Live-Action TV

• On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon and Amy terminate their friendship, and he tries to hide his loneliness by adopting first one cat, then several more. Leonard tries to express his concern to Raj and Howard, who at first don't understand the problem when he says he's worried about Sheldon. Howard notes that they are always worried about Sheldon, whom they described in an earlier episode as being "one lab accident away from a supervillain." After interacting with him and the first cat, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, they have a better grasp of the situation.
  Howard: Okay, I get it. We're worried about Sheldon.
• The Flash: After Barry finds himself repeating a day due to Time Travel, Joe asks why he was acting weird at that morning's crime scene.
  Barry: ... I always act weird.
  Joe: Okay, weirder.
• In a very early episode of I Love Lucy, Ricky is worried because Lucy's acting crazy (she thinks he's trying to murder her). To which Fred responds, "Crazy for Lucy or crazy for normal people?"
• In Mork & Mindy, Orkan birthdays lead to temporary insanity among other symptoms. Orson warns Mork that he will become weird, "or... weirder."
• In the Supernatural episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21), Jake says that learning about his super powers while serving in Afghanistan was "just too crazy". Sam replies, "Crazy is relative." Jake, realizing they are in a ghost town preparing to fight a demon, says, "I'm starting to get that."

Video Games

• Used in the South Park N64 game. Chef tells the kids that Big Gay Al has been acting strange, and they're indifferent. "Okay, stranger than usual."

Visual Novels

• The protagonist of Daughter for Dessert uses this to describe Mortelli’s behavior after he comes into the diner after an unusually long absence. And he’s right to be suspicious; Cecilia has been feeding Mortelli information “proving” that he let Lainie die.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner:
  • The Strong Bad Email virus has a variant on this:
    Strong Sad: Have you been using the Internet irresponsibly?
    Strong Bad: No more irresponsibly than usual.
  • And in caffeine:
    Strong Bad: After being exposed to my control Cheat, subject started acting way creepier than normal... like, even for Strong Sad.

Web Comics

• Appears in "Fuzzy-Wuzzy Is My Head" from Little Worlds, when Derby gestures to a tooth that isn't missing as evidence that he's hurt. Lev tells him that he probably broke his head. More.

Web Videos

• There was a LoadingReadyRun video where Paul denied having a family of tiny people living under his hat. Graham asked Matt if he seemed odd. Matt said he wasn't odder than normal.

Western Animation

• On an episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Sheen is caught under a weird spell. Carl runs to Jimmy to panic about Sheen "acting weird". Jimmy isn't concerned because Sheen is always acting weird. Carl then elaborates, "weirder than usual."
• Ben 10 episode "Last Laugh":
  Gwen Tennyson: Ever since we decided to go to the circus, you've been acting weirder than normal. What are you scared of?
  Ben Tennyson: I'm not scared of anything.
• DuckTales (1987): In "A DuckTales Valentine", after Launchpad is jabbed by one of Cupid's arrows, Dewey asks if the love-struck pilot is sane enough to be piloting on their flight home. When Scrooge attempts to pass the dizziness off as nothing that Launchpad doesn't usually have to deal with, Louie points out that trying to kiss a humongous predator is unusual even for Launchpad.
• Harley Quinn (2019): In "Being Harley Quinn" While traveling through Harley's mind, the crew run into Harley. while Harley and Ivy are alone for a bit, Harley tells Ivy that she thinks there is something screwed up about herself. When Ivy asks if Harley was realizing that just now, Harley feels the need to clarify that she means screwed up on top of her usual screwed up.
• Happens a few times on Invader Zim.
  • One example, from the Halloween Episode :
    Female Student: Dib's acting even crazier than usual today. Can we use one of our Crazy Cards to send him to the Crazy House for Boys?
  • In "Future Dib":
    Gaz: You've been acting weird all day! Even weirder than usual!
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • A variation in the episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen", when Spike notices Pinkie Pie acting strangely. Twilight gives the standard response of "She's just being Pinkie Pie". Spike watches her for a moment and notes that she's being "Super-extra Pinkie Pie today."
  • In "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", Pinkie tries to pass off her weird behavior (due to the stress of keeping a secret) as her usual weird behavior, but the others are not fooled, with Rainbow Dash even using the exact trope name to describe Pinkie's behavior.
    Rainbow Dash: I know the bar is set pretty high, but does anypony else think that Pinkie Pie was acting weirder than usual?
  • Yet another instance with Pinkie Pie in "To Where and Back Again" when she is replaced by a changeling.
    Starlight Glimmer: That was... strange...
    Trixie: Isn't she always strange?
    Starlight Glimmer: Yeah, but... not like that.
• In an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), April comments that Casey has been acting strange even since he joined a new martial arts dojo. Mikey quips "And that's different because...?"

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