When your show runs for more than 900 episodes, you're bound to see stupidity come up once in a while, even in a town as small as Odyssey.
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First Era (Albums 1-25)
- In "My Brother's Keeper," Philip has to constantly put up with the frustrations caused by his Annoying Younger Sibling Dean. He has just gotten back home after having recorded interviews with local construction workers on how buildings are made for a school project, and Dean expresses interest in being on his tape but Philip declines. Despite his wishes, Dean persists in his desire to be on his tape. In the middle of the conversation, Philip is called away.
You'd Expect: For Philip to take either the tape recorder or the tape itself and hide it away in a place where Dean can't get it and tamper with it.
Instead: He simply demands Dean not to touch it and walks off, despite Dean's clear history of tampering with Philip's things being established.
The Result: Dean doesn't heed any of Philip's threats and tries to record to his tape, horrifying Philip when he comes back. - In "A Bite of Applesauce" and several subsequent episodes, Whit has a top secret program on his computer called...well, "Applesauce". This is a very dangerous program that could cause tons of chaos if it falls into the wrong hands.
You'd Expect: That he would make some attempt to hide this program away in some area of his computer where it would be hard for a normal or bad-faith user to run across it. Or, if he insists on leaving it visible, put a password behind it.
Instead: The program is plainly visible to everybody who uses the computer and is not locked behind a password.
The Result: Not only do Connie and Eugene let temptation get the better of them and launch the program out of curiosity and end up in huge amounts of hot water over it, it causes even more problems down the road when Dr. Blackgaard looks to get a hold of it.
Compounding It: While the program doesn't need a password to be launched, it does need a password to access the second level of it. Meaning Whit did think to put a password on at least a part of it but didn't consider locking the entire program behind it might have been a good idea. - In "And The Glory," Jimmy is hosting a radio sportscast of their local baseball team, who has been in the playoffs. However, he's been forced to do so alongside Lawrence Hodges who doesn't know the first thing about baseball. While Jimmy is telling the listeners the parts of the game they actually need to know about, Lawrence is spending pretty much any time he does have to talk to bring up completely irrelevant stories and comments to the mix. When trying to tell Lawrence fails, Jimmy tries to tell Mr. Whittaker about this.
You'd Expect: For Mr. Whittaker, given that it's his radio station this is happening on, to put Jimmy's complaints into consideration and listen in on the broadcast, where he'd easily learn that Jimmy has a point and either tell Lawrence to knock it off or find someone else to replace Lawrence as his right-hand man. It's not like Lawrence isn't already known around town for being Mr. Imagination so he of all people should be wise enough to think this is a good idea.
Instead: Whit completely shrugs off Jimmy's complaints and doesn't even seem to really believe him. Evidently he must have not listened in on the broadcast at all either, because at one point one of Lawrence's stories runs for half the game.
The Result: Jimmy, fed up with Lawrence's unhelpful commentary alongside his having turned into the local Ensemble Dark Horse among the listeners, decides to take matters into his own hands by doing commentary in Lawrence's style, effectively leaving the sportscast with no actual commentary of any sort. It's only then does Whit listen in and intervene. - In "The Election Deception," Courtney Vincent falls victim to a stolen notebook that had numerous poems, personal journal entries, and in particular, her election speeches. The girl who stole her notebook, Shannon, pretends she is innocent and as such telling the principal doesn't solve the problem. After pulling numerous tactics to make Courtney's life miserable (including stealing her speech, leaving personal diary entries in others' lockers that they were never meant to see, and stealing a poem she wrote), she then leaves a note in Courtney's locker telling her to go to a specific room at 3:30.
You'd Expect: For Courtney to be suspicious of this, deduce it's another Shannon trick, and avoid falling for it.
Or Better Yet: Bring this note to a teacher or the principal, and have them scout her out while she goes to the room so they can firsthand witness what the real intentions of the note are.
Instead: Despite clear suspicions that there is something up, she still goes ahead and follows the instructions anyway.
The Result: This just so happens to be the time that Shannon is having her election staff meeting at the exact room the letter stated. As it turns out, she set the whole thing up to make Courtney look as if she were attempting to infiltrate their meeting and publishes an article in the school newspaper in another attempt to sabotage her chances at the election.
Second Era (Albums 26-50)
- "A Glass Darkly" has one of the most notoriously Unintentionally Unsympathetic characters across the whole show, due to numerous conclusion-jumps he constantly makes. That, of course, is Trent DeWhite's needlessly strict teacher, Dr. Hawthorne. It starts when he walks into the cafeteria just as Trent is caught in the middle of a food fight.
You'd Expect: For Dr. Hawthorne to hear out Trent as he's not the kind who usually causes conflict, and ask several other students who he trusts about what went on. Furthermore, you'd expect that he'd be suspicious that a known gang leader, Rodney Rathbone, was very likely to have something to do with this.
Instead: He immediately jumps to the assumption that Trent was the one that started the food fight simply because he's holding jello he's covered in. Marvin even tries to act as a witness to this situation but it falls on deaf ears to Dr. Hawthorne.
The Result: Trent gets a detention for something he wasn't even responsible for.
Third Era (Albums 51-Present)
- In "Between the Lines", Wooton's handyman decides he's had enough of Wooton's shenanigans and walks out on him. A little while later, another handyman shows up at Wooton's house and offers to do the job instead.
You'd Expect: For Wooton to be suspicious that this just so conveniently happened right after his previous handyman walked out on him, and make sure this is a legitimate contractor. This episode was made in 2016, so he good and well has access to the Internet to make sure.
Instead: Wooton hires him on the spot with no second thoughts. Sure, this is Wooton we're talking about, but even he's not usually this short-sighted.
Thankfully: The man does turn out to be an okay person after all and the only reason this Contrived Coincidence occurred was because he didn't want to make it known that he was Penny's ex, but that doesn't excuse Wooton from making such a brash decision. - In "Friend or Foe", Jules has been feeling the Being Good Sucks vibes lately and desperately seeks to recreate her life in Los Angeles. In the process, she "befriends" Valerie Swanson, who invites her to do all sorts of irresponsible things she normally isn't allowed to do under Connie's rule. All the while, Valerie mooches off her by taking advantage of her dad's credit card that has no limit on it, and does not repay her anywhere close to the same amount. Buck Oliver, having been raised by a father who led a counterfeit ring and more than familiar with how con artists operate, tries to warn her about it, but she (somewhat understandably) doesn't heed the warning and digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole. When she tries to turn the tables around and get Valerie to pay for something for a change, she is backstabbed with a threat of Blackmail. Understandably, she is hesitant to tell Connie or her father about this mess, but she talks to Buck again and he assures her that although it's not the easy thing to do, it's the best way she can get out of the mess.
You'd Expect: That since she already regretted not taking his advice earlier, and that he is more than familiar with how things like this work, she'd realize he has a point and spill it to Connie or her father.
Instead: Apparently not listening to the age old adage "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me", she decides to ignore Buck again against all logic and good judgement, and tries to stay undercover about the whole thing.
The Result: Unbeknownst to Jules, her father catches her in on the act and cancels her credit card, right as she's just about to pay for an expensive dinner. Valerie and her gang ditches her, leaving her with no choice but to tell Connie and her father about the whole thing, landing her in way more hot water than if she had just taken Buck's advice and said something earlier. - The episode "Millstone" has Connie trying to raise money for her friend who had recently lost her home. Unfortunately, her efforts to get the word out prove generally fruitless for the first few days and she grows impatient in trying to get the money. When Jay Smouse gets word of it, he tries to manipulate her into promising him free treats if he can help out. He unexpectedly shows up the next day with a large sum of money.
You'd Expect: For Connie to be suspicious of Jay, who has a history of being a Con Man and extorting free treats out of both her and Whit. Connie even initially says he owes way too much money to be deserving any treats right now.
Instead: Letting impatience get the better of her, she blindly accepts the donation money he raised, not once questioning how he got it.
The Result: Her pastor learns about Jay getting the money, and since he has enough common sense to be suspicious, he secretly follows Jay around until he catches him performing Blackmail. Connie is forced to learn the inconvenient truth and lands herself in even deeper trouble on top of her other actions earlier in the episode.
Video Series
- "Shadow of a Doubt" has a villain who practically foils his own plot. He starts off by meeting Dylan in the park, catching him taping everybody he runs across.
You'd Expect: That he would just keep quiet and move right along. Even if Dylan caught footage of the burglar, his footage has zero evidence of anyone he taped being the burglar, especially considering the culprit wasn't even wearing his disguise. Even if Dylan showed all his footage to the police, nothing in it could have been considered anything remotely suspicious.
Instead: The burglar lures Dylan into his own house and ties him up to a chair, showing him every single last piece of evidence that he's the burglar, spelling out his entire plan. His logic is to destroy Dylan's footage so he has no evidence to show (despite the fact that his footage couldn't have even counted as evidence to start with!), then move onto the next town to steal more valuables. Oh, and he spells out the entire rest of his Evil Plan in front of Dylan, right down to every single detail on how he got Mr. Whitaker framed to begin with. Even if he got away, he would have had a giant target over his head once the next town fell victim to him. And what was he to expect if the police or any other adult found Dylan tied to that chair?
Result: Dylan is able to escape the burglar and reach the courthouse just in time to prove Mr. Whitaker's innocence, exposing the cat burglar as the real criminal.
To Be Fair: The episode does have Police Are Useless and Hollywood Law in full force, so they may not have listened to Dylan anyway had he not escaped with enough true evidence, and it's clearly meant to be your typical villain exposition, but the cat burglar probably could still go down in history as the least competent burglar to ever walk the streets.
