The Gadfly / Live-Action TV

• The A-Team: In "Incident At Crystal Lake", Hannibal tricks the bad guys into leaving the van (which they grabbed as a getaway vehicle) and running away by claiming that he put explosives on it. When they're gone, he still looks like he'll blow it up for a moment, causing B.A. to yell loudly in protest about destroying "his van". Hannibal grins — and reveals that the explosives were road flares and the explosive remote was a TV remote.
• Breaking Bad: Hank Schrader.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jenny Calendar likes playfully teasing Giles by describing the damage she has either ignorantly or inadvertently done to his books. She's of course well aware of the value of the books and wouldn't think of damaging them: she just likes to see him squirm.
• Lieutenant Columbo makes a lot of comments that could plausibly be excused by stupidity or absentmindedness, yet usually seem very intended to make the person he's talking to upset or off balance. He doesn't always limit his targets to murder suspects, either.
• Daredevil (2015): Elektra takes a lot of joy in exasperating and pissing off Matt because it's amusing to her.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor has shades of this in all their incarnations.
    • The Second Doctor especially loved to outwit his enemies by being as annoying as possible.
    • Matt Smith saw "The Tomb of the Cybermen" and asked for a similar costume as the Second Doctor, the first incarnation to wear a bowtie. Eleven takes quite a bit of inspiration from Two in general: dotty old man, weird and hyperkinetic body language, willing to chat happily with everyone and everything including babies and animals, takes great pleasure in being very annoying.
    • The Fourth Doctor has this in spades. While he pretends to be Obfuscating Stupidity, his enormous ego and penchant to let others in the room know he is really clever annoys them, and often just messes with people because he can.
    • Per the novelisation of "Twice Upon a Time", the First Doctor can't even resist the urge to annoy his own future self by being hugely sexist for no other reason.
  • River Song, in her first appearance, tells the man who hired her to keep his helmet on because she doesn't fancy him, starting as she means to go on.
• In Elementary Sherlock Holmes' hobby of messing with Conspiracy Theorists may fall under this umbrella more than Trolling, as there isn't any real malice in his habit of playing on their eccentricities for his own amusement.
  "My hobby is conspiracy theorists. I adore them. As one would a barmy uncle. Or a pet that can't stop walking into walls."
• Game of Thrones: Robert likes to evoke awkward moments only to defuse them with a Tension-Cutting Laughter. In his very first scene, the Adipose Rex Robert accuses Ned of getting fat, to the amusement of both men.
• Gilmore Girls: Lorelai Gilmore uses this as her main coping method with her overbearing parents. She even describes it to her mother Emily at one point so Emily can do it to her hated mother-in-law.
  • Jess has shades of this as well, and it's something he retains post-Character Development. It's another way he and Lorelai are Strange Minds Think Alike, though neither would ever, ever admit it.
• House of the Dragon: Daemon Targaryen, big time. For instance, he enjoys the privilege of being allowed to fuck off to Dragonstone and hang out there with his girlfriend—something most of the Small Council thinks he shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. Then, when bored, he decides to announce his marriage to a woman he hasn't so much as proposed to (while already being married), steal a dragon egg, and make up a Fake Pregnancy story, all to no end except trying to piss off his brother.
• In Horatio Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil, Acting Lieutenant Hornblower meets the Duchess of Wharfdale, a flirtatious older woman who loves needling the uptight Royal Navy officers with her boisterous attitude. She especially loves teasing the young and awkward "Mister H," as she takes to referring to Hornblower. She's not even a Duchess, but rather an actress trying to bluff her way back to England what with all of Europe engulfed in war. She assures Hornblower that her portrayal of the Duchess is quite accurate though.
• The Mother in How I Met Your Mother is shown to have this tendency to deceive others for laughs, such as telling Lily that the cookies they had given her were from underneath a train seat and freaking out Marshall by pretending to be a creepy psychic who reads Marshall's situation with "frightening accuracy".
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Durin IV tricks Gil-galad into handing over his dining table by claiming that it's made of a rare mineral that has great cultural significance to Dwarves. Elrond works out what happened when he spots Durin chuckling after one of the Elves carrying the table struggles with its weight.
  • Halbrand likes to push Galadriel's buttons and trade Snark To Snark Combats with her.
• Hawkeye of M*A*S*H does this, most frequently to Frank, Margaret, and Charles. He'll freely make flirtatious comments to Margaret (and Frank), and generally troll and prank them for his own amusement because it was easy to get a rise out of them (especially Frank). Trapper would be right there with him as his partner in crime, and once Trapper left, B.J. took his place (and occasionally would turn the tables on Hawk as well). Charles wasn't as easily gotten to as Frank and Margaret, however, and often gave back as good as he got. Even Margaret would at times give a bit back later in the series as she mellowed out.
• Patrick Jane from The Mentalist positively thrives on getting under people's skin. A favored method of his is using his Cold Reading and Sherlock Scan skills to publicly embarrass people by exposing their secrets. Much as with the Sherlock example below, it can be very useful during an investigation, but he also does it because it amuses him.
• In the The Mighty Boosh, the shaman Naboo acts like this at a party after a bottle (used to play Spin the Bottle) breaks. He claims that it wasn't an ordinary bottle and that they released a demon that's hiding inside one of them, causing everyone to worry. He then clarifies that it will only possess the body of a virgin. This causes Howard to scream in terror. Naboo then says that he was only joking, causing an embarrassing moment for Howard.
• Bill McNeil from NewsRadio. At some point, Dave has to explain to Mathew that Bill lies to him "because he thinks it's funny".
• Odd Squad:
  • O'Brian, one of the tube operators working at Precinct 13579, is a bully and tends to resort to this in order to get a rise out of whomever he "tube-blocks". In "Life of O'Brian", he does this with Olive, closing the doors of the tube lobby so she's prevented from leaving after she apologizes for the wrong thing and she is once again denied access to the tubes. This only serves to make her more irritated as she snarkily tells him that he's "making my day" before the doors suddenly open.
  • However, that's not to say Olive and Otto don't have their moments as well. The Cold Open of "O vs. the Ballcano" has them giving Sven some Laser-Guided Karma while also teasing him by toying with his odd problem of having snowballs thrown at him every time he says the word "snowball".
• Princess Agents: Yan Xun starts out as one. He constantly teases Chu Qiao and Yuwen Yue, even after they've both made it clear they're fed up with him, and he switches the guards' swords and steals food from a passing servant for his own amusement. In spite of his antics he isn't malicious; just careless and inconsiderate of others.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: Ning Yi has his moments, like when he gets Zhi Wei to repeat her unflattering remarks about Zi Yan while knowing Zi Yan can hear everything she says.
• Sherlock uses this as an investigative technique, throwing out random ideas and accusations just to see how the target reacts to them. According to him, people can be hesitant to volunteer information if they know they're being questioned, but they love to correct you.
  • This actually goes back to one of the original Sherlock Holmes short stories, where he gets someone to volunteer information “for a bet” that he’d never have gotten with straight questioning.
• Star Trek has Q. This is an omnipotent Sufficiently Advanced Alien who spends most days screwing with people and the fabric of the universe for his own amusement.
• Garak plays this role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, to the extent of deliberately screwing with people just to keep his skill in lying sharp.
• On Star Trek: Discovery Mirror-Georgiou take great delight in annoying the Starfleet personnel who are aware of her true identity, and especially likes trolling Burnnham in front of others who don't know her secret, forcing Burnham to fume without being able to respond and reveal the secret.
• Star Trek: Picard: Narek seems to enjoy deflecting Soji's attempts to learn more about him after they sleep together.
  Soji: Can I ask you a question?
  Narek: Sure, just don't expect an answer.
  Soji: Are we allowed to be sleeping together, or is that a secret?
  Narek: Very much the latter.
  Soji: Is everything Romulans do a secret?
  Narek: Ooh, I'm not at liberty to divulge that.
  Soji: Is your name actually Narek?
  Narek: It's one of them.
  Soji: So is there anything you can tell me about yourself?
  Narek: Yes. I'm a very private person.
• On Strong Medicine, Lu' s old nemesis Dr. Dylan West has joined the staff, much to her annoyance. He matter-of-factly insists that women don't need specialists, since, "aren't you all just small men anyway?" Lu being Lu and her Straw Feminist tendencies being completely out of control by this point in the series, basically erupts into one of her shrieking fits, much to Dylan's amusement (and expectation; his old nickname for her is "St. Helens", as in Mount St. Helens). The fact that he himself is a women's health specialist and therefore couldn't possibly believe what he's saying is completely lost on her.
• Taskmaster:
  • Greg Davies, the eponymous Taskmaster, greatly enjoys winding up the contestants while he judges their efforts, especially if they attempt to argue with him over it. He also enjoys trolling the audience with his judgments, such as one occasion where he broke a tie by telling the audience to shout out who they thought should win... and then deliberately choosing the other person.
  • Alex Horne, the Taskmaster's Assistant who actually creates and oversees the tasks, is a more subtle example. While he's often agreeable enough to assist the contestants in their task attempts, he's intentionally unhelpful when it comes to offering any advice (which is almost always of the Captain Obvious variety), or clarifying the parameters of the task (typically responding with "All the information is on the task", which is unhelpful, and even less helpful in scenarios where the task has been destroyed and can't be re-read anyway"). The tasks themselves are also often clearly designed to annoy or aggravate the contestants, or make them look ridiculous. Occasionally, a contestant will be singled out and secretly given a unique rule that they have to follow as they complete a task ("You must speak in an accent other than your own"), or even given a unique (and inevitably annoying or embarrassing) task that nobody else has to do ("Count all the hoops in this can of Spaghetti-Os"), which serves no purpose at all except to amuse Alex and Greg.
  • On the contestant side of things, Rhod Gilbert: Owing to a misunderstanding of what the point of the show actually was, and his long-standing friendship with Greg Davies, he basically took every possible opportunity to just screw with Greg every chance he got. He outright threw challenges in order to mess with his friend, to the point that he easily would have won had he buckled down and taken the show seriously. Some of his exploits include submitting the exact same "erotic" photo of Greg "looking fat" numerous times, hiding in Greg's closet to spy on him while he slept, getting a photo of Greg's mother in the bath wearing a fez, repeatedly making Alex get naked, tying up Alex numerous times, outright torturing Alex, nearly killing Alex with a spear, submitting a gift from Greg during the "worst gift ever received" challenge, and generally going out of his way to be a pest during team tasks. The fact that there is a compilation of all his wildest antics that is 22 minutes long is very telling.
• Titans (2018): In Bruce Wayne's self-titled Season 2 episode, Dick hallucinates Bruce as a sarcastic wise-cracker who represents Dick's guilty conscience; he crops up at the most inconvenient moments, predicting what Dick will do next, pointing out or flawed or inadequate those actions or statements will be and criticising or mocking everything Dick says or does. Although Dick knows he's dealing with a hallucination, he becomes increasingly frustrated until he can't help retorting back, much to the confusion of those around him. Meanwhile, "Bruce" has a whale of a time, taunting Dick over his cliche interrogation of Benny, defining himself as Dick's "psychic split", and even appearing on stage dancing with two exotic dancers on either arm.

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