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Dumber Than They Look

127 statements
22 feature instances
6 referencing feature instances

Dumber Than They Look	type	FeatureClass
Dumber Than They Look	label	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look	page	DumberThanTheyLook
Dumber Than They Look	comment	Fiction has some universal shorthands to show the audience that a character is smart, such as: having them wear glasses or a labcoat, giving them a big brain, or a very verbose, and seemingly eloquent, speech pattern (probably with a posh accent to boot), or a quiet and dignified demeanour that implies a deep and thoughtful introspection. Maybe they have all this, and more. Then, there is this character who ticks one or more of the above boxes... except for the fact that they're not actually smart. Maybe they're even stupid. Their bad eyesight is due to genetics or caused by playing too many video games, rather than studious reading. They're wearing the labcoat to serve as a substitute Badass Longcoat. Their enlarged cranium turns out to be more bone than brain. That introspective look they have? Well, they're just thinking about food or sleep. The direct opposite of Smarter Than They Look, this trope is where a character is assumed to be smart — often due to their nerdy appearance — but turns out to be of (less than) average intelligence. They are frequently a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, and might even be deliberately Feigning Intelligence, just to mislead other characters and the audience to think that the character is supposed to be smart, before revealing that they actually aren't. Note that the "dumb" aspect of this trope primarily refers to a lack of academic intelligence. An actually Book Smart character who otherwise lacks social graces or common sense doesn't count. See also Mistaken for Profound and Seemingly Profound Fool.
Dumber Than They Look	fetched	2023-10-06T12:45:57Z
Dumber Than They Look	parsed	2023-10-06T12:45:57Z
Dumber Than They Look	processingComment	Dropped link to BookDumb: Not an Item - FEATURE
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Dumber Than They Look / int_137ec0ee	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_137ec0ee	comment	Horimiya: Hori is under the impression that Miyamura was smart because of his glasses, but it turns out that all of his grades (barring Phys Ed and Health class) are, to put it mildly, pitiful. And when his grades start improving, he switches over to contacts.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_1498d0bd	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_1498d0bd	comment	Cooking Companions has Anatoly, a young man who is Feigning Intelligence. Anatoly has the appearance befitting of a studious nerd (crisp collared shirt, Nerd Glasses, etc.), which stands in contrast to his companions' more down-to-earth gear. However, we later learn that he's so illiterate, he can't even do basic arithmetic.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_187a332	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_187a332	comment	The Smurfs: Despite Brainy Smurf's English name, the fact that he wears glasses like the stereotypical smart guy, and has a house full of books written by him, he's just a braggart who doesn't know nearly as much as he says he does, and all his books are completely useless. In "Salad Smurfs", he turns into a pea as a reference to the fact that he's a pea-brain. In fact, his original name is "Schtroumpf à lunettes" meaning "Smurf with Glasses", nothing to do with him being actually "brainy", though he considers himself such.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_1a4b3ea2	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_1a4b3ea2	comment	Digimon: Digimon Adventure: Jou/Joe wears glasses and is obsessed with studying, but he is not a great student and is often afraid of failing his exams. He can't compare to Koushirou/Izzy, who is a computer genius despite being two years younger than Jou. Digimon Adventure 02: Miyako/Yolei also wears glasses, but while she's nerdy, she's not that smart. Like Jou, she is not assigned to the Crest of Knowledge, and while she has the most knowledge about computers among the new main cast, she is still learning from her senpai Koushirou.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_261c8d3f	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons: Millhouse Van Houten, despite looking and behaving like a stereotypical scrawny nerd, overall lacks any of the academic or other form of intelligence, being just an extremely immature, naïve, gullible, and socially awkward loser. He even denies being a nerd on the grounds that "nerds are smart."
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Dumber Than They Look / int_4fa61cf3	comment	Flunk Punk Rumble has Hana Adachi, who is often mistaken by her classmates as the bookish Class Representative due to her spectacles and braided hair. However, her grades are even lower than the notorious "yankee" Daichi Shinagawa, which shocks the latter when he finds out.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_547f6bce	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_547f6bce	comment	Family Ties: Alex's friend Skippy looks and acts like a Stereotypical Nerd (socially inept, nerdy clothes, Nerd Glasses), but he has no academic intelligence. Alex considers him even less intelligent than Mallory, Alex's Book Dumb superficial sister. In "Designated Hitter", it's revealed that Mallory is Smarter Than She Looks, while Skippy has an Improbably Low I.Q. that can't even be calculated.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_5c600b17	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_5c600b17	comment	Digimon Adventure: Jou/Joe wears glasses and is obsessed with studying, but he is not a great student and is often afraid of failing his exams. He can't compare to Koushirou/Izzy, who is a computer genius despite being two years younger than Jou.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_60f02ddb	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_60f02ddb	comment	American Dad!: In "Killer Vacation", Steve meets a handsome boy with a British accent who promises to take him to a nude beach. Several times the duo encounter obstacles on their journey, with the kid counseling Steve to make the dumber decision while backing said decision up with nonsense. While suspicious at first, Steve goes along with the advice, inevitably winding up getting hurt. It's when his new friend attempts to use live bees to soothe Steve's cuts that Steve realizes that despite the other boy's cultured, calm voice and handsome features, he's just a lucky dumbass.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_7d3f1bd3	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_7d3f1bd3	comment	Kisaragi from GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class wears large glasses and looks like a bookworm, but is actually one of the lowest-performing among her group. This is alluded to in one flashback of her first meeting with Noda and the Professor: Noda asked Kisaragi for a particularly difficult school problem, assuming that Kisaragi is smart (likely due to her glasses), only for Kisaragi to tell her that she's equally clueless, and prompting the Professor to come to the rescue.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_97abe183	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_97abe183	comment	The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Carl Wheezer, despite having the big glasses, portly physique and breathing problems of a prototypical nerd, is only marginally smarter than resident Cloudcuckoolander Sheen. Lampshaded on "Birth of a Salesman" when Jimmy's robot salesman says that Carl looks like a smart guy, and Carl remarks, "Nuh-uh, it's just the glasses."
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Dumber Than They Look / int_994a18ad	comment	Snatch.: Avi the Jewish American gangster certainly acts and dresses a lot smarter than his clueless partner Doug the Head — knowing that letting his friend Frankie Four Fingers gamble is a bad idea — but when it comes to actual criminal work, he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. He actually has to ask where Boris the Bullet Dodger got his name from, addresses Boris as a Russian repeatedly, despite people telling him that Boris is from Uzbekistan, and once a dog eats the expensive diamond he's after, he starts firing a gun furiously in every direction without looking at where he's shooting, which leads to him shooting Tony by accident. And then there's this lovely exchange between him and Bullet Tooth Tony:
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Dumber Than They Look / int_bea0c6f	comment	Maggie & Bianca: Fashion Friends: At first glance, Nausica looks like an Academic Alpha Bitch, since she wears glasses, dresses like a preppy schoolgirl, and acts like a Competition Freak with her classmates. In reality, she's not good at anything, has no real academic interests, and often resorts to cheating. When she interacts with Eloise, a Teen Genius who often talks about science, Nausica doesn't even understand her and finds her boring.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_c489a759	type	Dumber Than They Look
Dumber Than They Look / int_c489a759	comment	Digimon Adventure 02: Miyako/Yolei also wears glasses, but while she's nerdy, she's not that smart. Like Jou, she is not assigned to the Crest of Knowledge, and while she has the most knowledge about computers among the new main cast, she is still learning from her senpai Koushirou.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_d6eb7846	comment	The Replacements: Shelton Klutzberry looks and sounds like a stereotypical nerd with his scrawny physique, poor posture, and huge Nerd Glasses. However, as the series goes on it becomes clear that Shelton is actually an incredibly dim and gullible individual, and never shows any signs of being prolific in academia or any sort of intelligence. In "Truth or Daring", Todd manages to trick him into agreeing to challenge a professional wrestler to a fight (keep in mind Shelton isn't even strong enough to crush an egg). After he's been viciously defeated, Todd tries to trick him into a rematch by lying the wrestler has a fear of Crabs and raspberries. Shelton not only agrees but hopelessly misinterprets Todd's advice.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_d9c602eb	comment	South Park: Sergeant Harrison Yates. He first appears as a member of the FBI and is later formally introduced as the head detective of Park County Police Force. Compared to the stupid and oafish Officer Barbrady, whom Yates obviously outranks, Yates seems like a serious and no-nonsense officer. Unlike Barbrady, who often insists that "nothing is happening" despite obvious crimes taking place, Yates is more proactive in trying to solve cases. For all his drivenness, however, Yates is actually less competent than Barbrady. For example, when trying to find a Serial Killer who cuts off his victims' left hands, he consults advice from Cartman, whom he believes had developed psychic powers, rather than doing any actual investigation himself. He proceeds to arrest several innocents based on Cartman's "psychic visions" even though the actual, Obviously Evil killer is always hanging out near the crime scenes. Later, he is led to the killer's house by Kyle but fails to notice anything suspicious because he thought the hand collection displayed on his wall are right hands instead of left. In addition to his stupidity, Yates is also bigoted and corrupt, which leads to him frequently wasting a lot of time trying to frame minorities for a crime so that he can arrest them.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_ded0e62f	comment	The Count of Monte Cristo: Mock Millionaire Major Cavalcanti is mentioned as seeming to be the very image of a well-educated Italian nobleman, as long as he isn't spoken to or asked to do math.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_df7838ff	comment	Encouragement of Climb: Kaede is a glasses-wearing upperclassman who has a smart, big-sisterly vibe about her. She knows a ton about mountain climbing and camping and is happy to take the younger girls under her wing and teach them all about the outdoors. Unfortunately, while she might be smart about outdoor activities, she's a terrible student; her friend Yuuka says it's because she has nothing but mountains on her brain. Aoi learns this the hard way when she makes the mistake of asking Kaede for help with some math homework.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_e5feb1e	comment	Ace Attorney: Hugh O'Conner is regarded as the top student of his school and has the nerdy appearance and smug personality to match. However, his excellent grades are only due to his parents bribing his teacher to fake his test scores. Hugh's lack of good sense is exposed when the judge summons him as a witness: Though he tries to incriminate himself to protect the defendant, his testimony is so riddled with logic problems it causes the Prosecutor to leave the court out of exasperation.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_e936047a	comment	Hey Arnold!: Brainy, despite his nickname and him being a Sickly Neurotic Geek with glasses, he has never shown any kind of intelligence, and doesn't seem to be that bright. He's very scatterbrained as he has no capability whatsoever of delivering coherent speech and is oblivious to Helga's distaste for him, always following her even if he gets punched every time.
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Dumber Than They Look / int_ea107c11	comment	The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers: Several characters believe that Nick is an excellent student because of his somewhat geeky personality, but he admits that he's actually an average student whose grades average around "B-".
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Dumber Than They Look / int_eb068245	comment	Schoolhouse Rock!: Implied in the song "Unpack Your Adjectives". The camper places the adjectives "dumb" and "brainy" on two boys — a big and tall one, and one who wears glasses and a well-trimmed suit, respectively. However, when the big boy starts spouting complex mathematical formulas, the camper switches the adjectives to indicate that the average-looking boy is actually the brainy one, while the well-dressed boy is actually the dumb one.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Dumber Than They Look	processingCategory2	Brain Chain
Dumber Than They Look	processingCategory2	Stupidity Tropes
Snatch. / int_9bd16d00	type	Dumber Than They Look
Heimskringla / int_9bd16d00	type	Dumber Than They Look
The Count of Monte Cristo / int_9bd16d00	type	Dumber Than They Look
Schoolhouse Rock! / int_9bd16d00	type	Dumber Than They Look

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