History Main / TVGenius

Often overlaps with AmbiguousDisorder. Compare TheRainMan, a.k.a. the TV Genius taken UpToEleven. The TeenGenius, the MadScientist, the ExtravertedNerd, TheProfessor, and the AbsentMindedProfessor all contain aspects of this.

* The Laputan intellectuals in ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', depicted as so wrapped up in their thoughts that they had servants to alert them when someone was talking to them, when someone was expecting a reply from them, when they were in danger of bumping into something, etc. Arguably rises to the level of TheRainMan, except for being cultural trait rather than an individual disability.

** Mordin is also old by Salarian standards (their lifespan is about 40).

* While there are plenty of smart people in ''[[Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob,]]'' Galatea fits the trope best, because her self-image is so wrapped up in [[{{Ubermensch}} her own opinion of her intellect.]] She's pedantic, pompous, and contemptuous of popular or lowbrow culture, as well as being a GadgeteerGenius and OmnidisciplinaryScientist. Her sister Molly is just as smart, but much more friendly and grounded, and with a much broader array of interests.

* While there are plenty of smart people in ''[[Webcomic/TheInexpliableAdventuresOfBob The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob,]]'' Galatea fits the trope best, because her self-image is so wrapped up in her intellect. She's pedantic, pompous, and contemptuous of popular or lowbrow culture, as well as being a GadgeteerGenius and OmnidisciplinaryScientist. Her sister Molly's just as smart, but much more friendly and grounded, and with much broader array of interests.

** Though it may be important to note that in the original belgium comics, Brainy Smurf was called "Schtroumpf à lunette" (Smurf with glasses), and he wasn't especially smart, just extremely pedant.

If a character becomes smarter, for instance through a GeniusSerum, [[ScrewLearningIHavePhlebotinum they'll instantly acquire all sorts of knowledge that they never actually learned at any point.]] Someone who becomes suddenly smarter may also suddenly acquire a lab coat and NerdGlasses and start speaking like [[SpockSpeak Mr. Spock]], though this is usually limited to the more comedic examples. They may learn to appreciate their 'normalness' from the inner unhappiness that comes from being too smart for one's own good.

* Kaolla Suu from Manga/LoveHina. She Makes many cool gadgets in her free time. Same can be said for her siblings. Keita and Keitaro are also portrayed to be able to find artifacts so quickly and easily, in ways which somewhat make RealLife archeologists green with envy ''and'' shocked as they treated the artifacts reckless in their (arrcheologists'} standards.

If a character becomes smarter, for instance through a TransformationRay, [[ScrewLearningIHavePhlebotinum they'll instantly acquire all sorts of knowledge that they never actually learned at any point.]] Someone who becomes suddenly smarter may also suddenly acquire a lab coat and NerdGlasses and start speaking like [[SpockSpeak Mr. Spock]], though this is usually limited to the more comedic examples. They may learn to appreciate their 'normalness' from the inner unhappiness that comes from being too smart for one's own good.

* In the 4th-season episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' called "The Nth Degree", Lieutenant Barclay is struck by a Cytherian probe and becomes a TV Genius. He also ''gained'' social skills, whereas he had none before, and became much more confident. He even made a pass at Troi; in her words, "A good one".

* In the 4th-season episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' called "The Nth Degree", Lieutenant Barclay is struck by a Cytherian probe and becomes a TV Genius. He also ''gained'' social skills, whereas he had none before, and became much more confident. He successfully hit on Troi.

Often overlaps with AmbiguousDisorder. Compare TheRainman, a.k.a. the TV Genius taken UpToEleven. The TeenGenius, the MadScientist, the ExtravertedNerd, TheProfessor, and the AbsentMindedProfessor all contain aspects of this.

* The Laputan intellectuals in ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', depicted as so wrapped up in their thoughts that they had servants to alert them when someone was talking to them, when someone was expecting a reply from them, when they were in danger of bumping into something, etc. Arguably rises to the level of TheRainman, except for being cultural trait rather than an individual disability.

In TV land, it seems, intelligence isn't just a matter of being able to learn quicker, reason better, and understand more easily. The TV Genius is what you get when intelligent characters conform to an unintelligent person's idea of how an intelligent person acts. A TV Genius has [[ImprobablyHighIQ an impossibly or immeasurably high IQ]], never uses a short word [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness when a sententious alternative might elicit advantageous conversation]], and has the full package of exaggerated traits and strange behaviors Hollywoodland associates with "big brains". This is especially obvious when [[ThisLoserIsYou the lead character]] is a "normal" person, [[BookDumb clever enough but no rocket scientist]], with the tradeoff of better looks and more social competence.

While intellectuals often do have interest in obscure topics, the TV Genius [[FanMyopia is inexplicably baffled that other people have different interests than themselves]]. Their only pastimes will be [[GeniusBookClub reading thick tomes]] and [[SmartPeoplePlayChess playing chess]]. They will frequently rattle off statistics and calculations to [[LudicrousPrecision implausible degrees of precision]]. These may be relevant to the plot at hand but not their assumed field of study; statistics and math articles are like Playboy magazines to these folks.

There's also a chance that the TV Genius will be used in AnAesop about respecting non-intellectuals and appreciating the hard work they put into being the best and the brightest via an encounter with someone with a learning disorder that locks them out of the genius strata.

Often overlaps with AmbiguousDisorder. Compare TheRainman, a.k.a. the TV Genius taken UpToEleven. The TeenGenius, MadScientist, ExtravertedNerd, TheProfessor, and AbsentMindedProfessor all contain aspects of this.

* The eponymous character of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'': he's a world renowned genius capable of building [[TimeTravel time machine]]s, giant robots and create all sort of genetically modified creatures, yet thinks "girl" is some kind of tribe, doesn't know what dirt is, and one time thought he was going to die due to having ''gas''.

* Billy of ''MightyMorphinPowerRangers''. He is very upset from getting a "B", yet he received the grade because he didn't have even an elementary school level knowledge of insects. There's also Dr. K of ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'', but she's justified as essentially being [[ForScience Raised For Science!]] and being very [[NoSocialSkills screwed up]] as a result.

** To a large degree, Reid's former [[ParentalSubstitute father figure]] Jason Gideon counts, since he's incredibly gifted (and not just in profiling techniques) but he's also very quirky, neurotic and antisocial.
*** He isn't anti-social, he doesn't socialize, is asocial, or lacks social skills, perhaps, is accurate. "Anti-social" means he has psychopathic traits and is likely to be a substance abuser, have poor impulse control, and is prone to violent outbursts. Actually, many of the criminals they pursue would qualify as anti-social. On shory, "anti-social" refers to ASPD and does not mean lacking in social skills, nor does it refer to someone that rarely engages in normal social interactions.

* Almost ''every'' MadScientist character in the ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'' series represents this, most especially Dr Neo Cortex, due to having fantastical scientific achievements in spite of being a CloudCuckooLander and a egomaniacal IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Surprisingly, Crash's sister, Coco, averts this. While she is a technical genius, and mildly bratty and eccentric, she tends to keep her ego and social skills checked, otherwise acting like a standard happy-go-lucky little girl with a bit of BigBrotherWorship towards ditzy Crash.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperheroSquadShow'' episode [[HulkSpeak "Hulk Talk Smack"]] featured the [[IncredibleHulk Hulk]] being smartinized by the show's MacGuffin. In addition to his skin turning grey (a ContinuityNod to the comics) he starts dressing well and speaking eloquently. He also becomes an insufferable jerk and can't seem to hold his own in a fight anymore.

* ''[[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo]]'' so much. 'WordofGod' said she had Asperger's. Social dysfunction? Oh yes. But don't cross her, or those esoteric items she's memorized will be used to kill you, and erase your identity from the net completely.

* In ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', after the wizard "makes" the Scarecrow a genius by giving him a diploma, the Scarecrow is suddenly able to rattle off very complex-sounding mathematical formulas. Justified in that the Scarecrow was already shown to be plenty clever. The diploma was a MagicFeather, and he was acting how he ''thought'' a genius should act. Shame the maths was actually ''wrong''.

* Patrick of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' was once made smart for an episode, but he voluntarily returned to stupidity after he realized he was turning into an InsufferableGenius and growing apart from SpongeBob.

* Doctor Enrique Borgos in "A Civil Campaign" is a brilliant biochemist who created a microbial suite that, when encased inside genetically engineered hive minded insects, could turn any cheap biomass into an almost perfect food source (and he's already planning strains of bugs that will churn out plastics and such in the future). He also had to be sprung from debtor's prison after financing his projects by selling shares in the original enterprise to about, oh... 800%, his original Butter Bug models were so hideous that a professional designer had to create something truly glorious to offset the prejudiced revulsion people had to eating ANYTHING that came out of the hybrid cockroach/pimple things, and he thinks that the way to appeal to a woman is to write her poetry... i.e. to rewrite his doctoral thesis in sonnet form. (And he STILL gets the girl in the end. Just not that particular one...)

* MegRyan's character in the movie ''IQ''.

In social situations, a TV Genius will come across like a human robot: their brain is so filled with jargon and minutiae that it leaves no room for [[NoSocialSkills interpersonal skills and social graces]]: either they have no idea how to communicate their thoughts without seeming blunt and insensitive, or they carry themselves with a sort of overbearing arrogance that comes from remaining emotionally detached and logical-minded in contrast to their sentimental colleagues (a la TheSpock) and can expect to be the [[StrawVulcan token Vulcan]] of a FiveManBand.

* Almost ''every'' EvilScientist character in the ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'' series represents this, most especially Dr Neo Cortex, due to having fantastical scientific achievements in spite of being a CloudCuckooLander and a egomaniacal IneffectualSympatheticVillain. Surprisingly, Crash's sister, Coco, averts this. While she is a technical genius, and mildly bratty and eccentric, she tends to keep her ego and social skills checked, otherwise acting like a standard happy-go-lucky little girl with a bit of BigBrotherWorship towards ditzy Crash.

* ''AWrinkleInTime'' and sequels features the superintelligent five-year-old Charles Wallace Murry. His intelligence is mainly demonstrated by formal speech and large vocabulary. But at one point he says "I wish Mother would teach me to read". The book explains that this was a conscious decision on the mother's part. But it does not explain how his family ''prevented'' him from learning to read: did everyone simply stop reading to him as soon as they realized his intelligence was something extraordinary? Apparently it never occurred to the author that many children-- including quite a few of average intelligence-- learn to read without formally being "taught".