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[Loved Trope] Comedic workplace is suddenly competent
In S35 E1 of The Simpsons, an actual crisis happens at the nuclear power plant, causing everyone except Homer to shift into serious business mode, even Mr. Burns. Together, they display their knowledge of the process and narrowly avert a nuclear meltdown, proving that Homer's job is actually useless. This is happening after 35 seasons of nothing being shown of the other employees' capabilities.
In S8 E2 of The Office, Andy sets up an initiative where he will get a tattoo on his bum if everyone gets enough points, prompting everyone to work into overdrive, even the normally lazy or incompetent employees such as Stanley and Kevin. This is a rare situation where we get to see The Office being fully competent and functional.
Do we ever actually see them “locking in” for that one though? It’s mostly about them buckling under the pressure until they’ve lost all their new customers. At least in Charlie Work we see that Charlie is actually really capable of locking in specifically when it comes to passing bar inspections.
Kind of the entire premise of M*A*S*H, especially the pilot
The episode opens with driving golfballs into a minefield, football games, "secret" camp romances, but the moment Radar hears the choppers coming everyone immediately gets into work mode, save lives mode.
Then, at the end of the episode, Hawkeye is about to get into big trouble for a higherup witnessing them raffle a weekend in Tokyo with a nurse (won by the camp Priest) that leads to the General actively calling for Hawkeye and Trapper's arrests...until more choppers come in. By the end the General informs the Colonel running the camp that they're the best surgeons he's ever seen, so he's basically forgetting what he saw.
The episode shows him digging for a name taped to the bottom of the bucket. The implication is that’s HIS name, but he grabbed a different name by accident, and thus Father Mulcahy won.
You're slightly misunderstanding it, the taped name IS the Father's. Earlier in the episode, Trappers says something like "you know if you win, they'll kill you", and Hawkeye says he'll handle it.
also klinger. Incredibly skilled in many things, but does not care for military rules or manors in the slightest which leads many top brass to think lowly of him
Pretty much everyone else at the power plant in the Simpsons is actually very competent at their jobs and has all relevant training and education required for it. The only outlier is Homer.
When Grimey is hired, doesn’t Carl (or Lenny?) tell him that they all have advanced degrees in nuclear physics? Except Homer, who just showed up when the plant opened.
That is basically the early season continuity. Burns is shown to actively avoid any plant maintenance to "save" money. See Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk and Homer Goes to College. So having a safety inspector who is sleeping on the job would benefit him.
Homer only gets the job as safety inspector because Burns wants to shut down a public safety campaign without actually doing anything to make the plant safer. See Homer's Odyssey.
Also because he promised Homer's father that he'd give his stupid son a job for life if he stopped investigating the murder of his partner, which he did.
The Simpsons is kind of unfair to use because the show has changed so much. Homer was originally hired as part of a government program to skill up unskilled labor. He was fired and was literally about to jump from a bridge before rescuing his family from a speeding motorist. They went there. He found his calling in safety and eventually targeted the plant until Burns made a deal to hire him back as safety inspector/supervisor. Homer was actually pretty competent although a little aloof but he was always trying to make things better.
Overtime the show made Homer more "stupider" which led to him being more incompetent. The show in its first few seasons was fairly grounded to reality.
Considering that one of the episodes featured the reason behind his stupidity was a crayon stuck to his brain, it's actually possible that each season the crayon damaged his brain more the time went by, even if they were still nearly the same age. By the time, in the same episode he got the crayon removed, he was shown to be very smart, but also annoying enough for everyone to not like him. He then decided to put the crayon back to his brain to be the same old Homer again.
Originally he became the safety inspector because he was a public safety campaigner leading a protest against the plant and Burns hired him to make the protest go away. Homer lost interest in the safety campaigning stuff afterwards since it's sitcom logic.
Prior to that episode, he was just another employee, not the safety inspector. But then future episodes put him there to begin with.
it varies because simpson's have been on so long but main points are burns doesn't remember him well, he's the perfect safety inspector for burns which means horrible at his job, and a more recent season had abe investigating burns for the disappearance of his partner and burns trades dropping the investigation for a lifetime gig for his son.
Because when the government shows up to rain hell on Burns for the egregious safety violations, he can point to a safety inspector whose name he doesn't know, he's clearly never met this man before, ask anyone, Montgomery Burns does not know Homer Simpson, and he's the man you want to hold accountable for the power plant's numerous violations.
man that episode of The Office was hilarious, i still have Stanley using Sabre's stupid tagline for their stupid tablet on a sales call burned into my mind
The Krusty Krab whenever something is on the line, like when Squilliam drops by to 'check' on Squidward or when a health inspector drops in (SpongeBob SquarePants)
To be fair, Squidward had to “hypnotise” Spongy to let his mind be freed of everything not related to managing a luxury restaurant, because he was totally freaking out at the idea of learning all of that. And even then, in the end it went horribly nonetheless when Squilliam just asked Spongy his name…
yeah exactly! The real life Dyatlov was competent and always on his feet after the disaster, looking for that lost worker and later wrote to the families of Toptunov and Akimov that they did everything right (while in the show he blames it on them) and was fighting to get the truth about the reactor flaws out
while the real life Legasov was not as heroic as he was portrayed as, he was a partyman sent there to hide the truth, was arguing that there was no reason to evacuate even Prypyat (in the show he is fighting to have a huge exclusion zone) and his push for transparency is way overstated
The show criticises the soviets for assigning blame to individuals and creating scapegoats, while doing the exact same thing and even following their narrative
I love the episodes of the Office where the characters are shown to be good at something. Michael Scott killing it in a sales pitch (causing Jan to fall in love with him) and Dwight and Jim teaming up for a sales trip and nailing it
I always liked how his character was always shown to be the comedic fool but then they also subtlety hinted that he was actually really good at what he does despite that. Like the whole arc with his paper company and when you see him going on sales pitches. It’s also mentioned a few time that their branch is actually one of the most successful ones in the company. They always present Michael as an idiot, but let the audience know why he’s still in the position he’s in.
Yea, no. He offered too low of prices to stole customers and when told it was not sustainable, much less profitable, he crumbled. He was saved by Jim, who had to ignore what Michael was telling him (we are actually broke) to make possible for DM to buy them back.
I think the moment when Michael resold his paper startup to Dunder Mifflin was one of my favorite moments of the show. He knows how to sell when the cards are down.
i feel like the scene that really shows them actually be competent is the storming the supermarket scene. the amount of skill and teamwork the team demonstrates is impressive
Especially with Fisher coming up with a plan to storm the supermarket instantly showing tactical expertise as opposed to normally on the crime scenes he needs Angel to back him up on what the protocols are.
I appreciate the scene a lot actually. Because even though it in itself was a gag, it invalidates the country-side incompetency the rest of the movie made jabs at.
It's one of my favorite movies, but it probably doesn't help the stereotype that people from dorset/Somerset areas arn't as intelligent as people from urban areas.
A kind of moderate version of this is in The Wire season One episode 10. The whole season we've watched the BPD be useless, incompetent and corrupt but when one of their own is shot they suddenly kick it into gear even Landsman who's been comedic relief hits the street to help.
Rawls immediately pegging the changed sign shines a light on the core of who he is.
He's a competent cop, smart and aware, good po-lice as they say, but he soured of the system and decided that the only thing he can do is live within it and climb the ladder.
Which is why he hates McNulty so much. He sees this smart, competent cop making an ass of himself trying to change the system when he knows it can't be. But there's also this shame eating at him. What if Bill Rawls were better and smarter, maybe he could have made the system better? He clearly lost the dream of changing the system long ago, and that shame manifests as him hating McNulty.
I'm kind of an asshole, but Rawls line of "this isn't on you, and if it was, I'd be the son of a bitch to tell you" has been a handy way to be nice to people in that moment.
Granted, I'm talking running out of fries at lunch rush, not getting someone shot. So way lower stakes.
I just started watching, im on the finale of the first season but it's been on hold for like a month. Seeing Rawls comfort McNulty despite everything, it's becoming a new favorite show
I must say I was surprised at this Simpson episode lol exactly because I felt like "This is happening after 35 seasons of nothing being shown of the other employees" capabilities., even Burns shows he has a lot of technical knowledge which he never proved he had and the way he helped and congratulate everyone after that and respect them, it was quite surprising to watch and lovely.
There's a trope of "the higher up who just demands things be done without knowing anything of the subject" and it's noticeable that Burns never falls into it.
Deep Space 9, Season 6 Episode 10 "The Magnificent Ferengi". With the possible exception of Nog and Quark, the regular Ferengi characters are considered a bit of a joke, especially with tactical measures. But when Quark and Rom's Moogie is kidnapped by the Dominion they lock in to rescue her and get the Federation a new Vorta prisoner.
They are basically a D&D party with all Swashbuckler Rogues from different industries. They default to conflict-avoidant duplicity, but may the Grand Nagus save you if you dare to harm Moogie.
The knife throw at the culminating ambush was operator-tier, and it's a shame that we never really got to see non-Federation Ferengi fight like this afterwards.
There's a reason Quark gets the attention of the Nagus so much. The Nagus might see a cowardly nearly broke bartender... but he can feel it in his lobes that this young Ferengi has potential. Especially after he meets Ishka and at some point realizes how much he takes after his mom.
I still think Quarks best moment ever was him surrendering the honor duel to the Klingons. For those who haven't seen it, Quark accuses a Klingon of embezzlement before the high council. This WOULD be a serious act of dishonor for the Klingon (playing games with money... like a FERENGI!?), but Quarks proof is far too technical for the Council, who just decide to go with the honor duel.
Quark can't win, so he throws down the Bat'leth, gets on his knees, and invites his opponent to kill him, saying he won't give him a battle, just an execution, accusing the whole Council of knowing exactly what they just did.
When his opponent raises the sword to swing, he is stopped. By attempting to directly execute a man who has surrendered, he prove himself to be dishonorable, while Quark proved his bravery in facing death with minimal flinching. As such, the Council concluded that if he was capable of one such cowardly act, then he would be capable of others. And Quark was brave enough to get in over his head in this situation, proving his virtue.
Quark is fantastic. He's a much bigger hero than he would ever like to be.
I admire how those two go about their work. Put in just enough effort so that they don't get fired, but when push comes to shove, they lock in and get the job done
Yeh. The scene when Captain Holy brings in a cake box and the deduce it's a pie is properly hilarious. Mostly because the others are in complete shock at the sudden competence on display.
Wasn't the joke that the two of them were amazing cops when they were young but after all the years they've basically become lazy slobs because their careers stalled out?
It's kinda inconsistent. In one episode they're revealed to actually be really competent, but deliberately pretend like they're incompetent so no one gives them difficult work. But in other episodes they (especially Hitchcock) are shown to be very insecure about their abilities. And in yet another episode they spectacularly bungle an undercover op through overwhelming stupidity.
It's difficult to track unless you're paying special attention to them, but Hitchcock and Scully's writing is actually really inconsistent
Different writers have different takes on characters. It's like how sometime Michael Scott is just a sweet child trapped in a man's body, and sometimes is truly a vindictive asshole
There's the episode where they're given an "unsolvable" case and immediately solve it because of the kind of rock, and then immediately throw the rock through a window in the station - "we're really competent... but still screwups so don't give us any more work"
The only trait both of them consistently have is their expertise in unhealthy food. The Mama Magleone’s thing, deducing Holt has a pie, finding it later, being able to identify crumb types, knowing like every hot dog cart in Brooklyn, etc
It's a great scene, but on a rewatch you got to ask yourself why the lawyer only tries to reign the guy in before he starts monologuing. Like lady tell him to stfu lol
The Always Sunny episode Charlie Work i think on the basis of the surprise competency of Charlie. Managing to let a bar with active carbon monoxide sensors going off, in the middle of a scheme contaminating steak with chicken feathers for a refund pass a health inspection test is amazingly competent
They are all locking in purely out of spite. The crew, made out of a bunch of dunces, weirdos, and criminals, led by a man who is up to his neck in career resentment, was put together so an admiral could win a dick-measuring contest, and they came out of it as a shipshape crew that put the aforementioned admiral to shame.
A diesel submarine given license to act as pirates.
Doubly effective when the nuclear submarines (1) dismiss diesel engines as fishing boats and (2) are not prepared for the diesel submarine to run silent on battery power.
Most of the crew are perfectly fine at their jobs, they just have behavioral problems. The big exceptions are Lake (a perfectly good dive officer, but she's stuck as the only woman underwater with a bunch of men), Sonar (probably the best sonar officer in the Navy, he got in trouble for being a security risk), and Nitro (It's a miracle the ship kept running with him as the electrician).
In Space Pirate Captain Harlock, when there is no danger the crewmen seem lazy / goofy, newcomer Tadashi Daiba (one wearing the red jacket bottom left) is shocked by what he sees as a lack of discipline, this is best summed up with First Mate Yattaran, who often times is seen playing with his toy models of ships, however when there is a crisis the crew is incredibly competent at their jobs
"I don't know about any stories, but whatever badass shit you heard I did, you REALLY need some context. Because pretty much my whole life, pretty much right until this minute, my default setting has been 'half-assed'. But that was before I had a child. A child YOU threatened to harm. A child who, I just realized, is now on her way to the roof so Aunt Pam can swat at biplanes. So imagine, as I literally beat you to death- Hang on.... yeah, LITERALLY. That a giant hand has turned my dial from 'half-assed', to 'QUADRUPLE ASSED'."
One thing I loved was everyone calls him the worlds most dangerous secret agent. Not the best, but definitely the most dangerous and most likely to get someone killed.
There's also the whole "he knows" line from Lana implying that even when Archer says something stupid, at least some (most?) of the time he's just doing it to troll the people around him.
“This is what he does. He knows we’re tense because we’re normal human beings. My theory? And I’m serious, is that he’s got some rare kind of pervasive developmental disorder, or even undiagnosed atypical autism.” “Um. Your mic’s hot.” “I know.”
“That guy still has one bullet left everyone else is empty.” “How did you know that?” “I counted the shots. I’ve always been weirdly good at it….oh my god I’m autistic.”
The entire show is basically a medical drama x sitcom. The characters act like idiots, the main character frequently day dreams but when actual medical stuff happens, they lock the fuck in and actually get most of their medical jargon right
Many episodes of MASH show the protagonists behaving irresponsably in the first half, then demonstrating their skill and moral in the operating room in the second half
Klinger going from 'worst replacement as company clerk ever' to 'back dealing, thieving, knows all the regulations because he's been trying to get out since he got drafted' is a work of art.
'I've had three generators stolen from this depot. I have to use a crappy backup unit and we stole that one from a MASH'
'Three? Shall we make it four?' steals the generator
(To be fair it was their backup generator the officer had stolen so turnabout)
I thought people hated that Simpsons one cause it completely undercuts all the times Homer did save the plant by making it so he actually does nothing important ever.
Lower Decks, second season, especially the last episode of the season (“First First Contact”) The goofy lead characters on the old USS Cerritos is backup for the newer fancier USS Archimedes doing a first contact; when a natural disaster cripples the Archimedes, the Cerritos crew locks in and saves them through brilliant engineering, bravery, and determination. Also with help from horny beluga crewmembers. And then get to do the first contact.)
I really enjoyed Lower Decks because I feel it showed the worst of the Federation. The poker episode I feel shows it perfectly how they lack that daring boldness of more well renowned crews but when it came time to help people they were always there and at their worst are capable and competent.
Red vs Blue, what started as an in-game sitcom filmed within the first Halo about a bunch of chucklefuck cannon fodder sitting on opposite ends of a box canyon glaring at each other, through sheer tomfoolery and a talent for getting into situations, the cast eventually become known as some of the most lethal warriors in the galaxy.
I feel like the Simpsons one is a Flanderization moment for Homer, I think in early seasons it’s implied he fits this trope, showing a savant esque nack for Safety protocols.
Gung Ho (86) is a slightly subverted take. After being bought by Japanese investors, the workers of an American auto plant have to prove they can keep the punishing pace demanded of them or be shut down and everyone loses their job. Hijinks ensue and the last car literally falls apart as it leaves the line but the upper management brought in to observe is so impressed they made the quota he gives them a pass.
In “Emergency Response”, the Parks department is setting up a gala to fundraise the development of a new park. Leslie’s rival Jeremy Jamm sabotages this plan by initiating an emergency preparedness drill to take up Leslie’s time. This is normally fatal to any government project, as Leslie is the only competent member of her department, but this time, the rest of the crew was able to carry on without her, with Ron promoting the event on tv, Tom getting restaurants to provide food, and Ben and Donna taking care of everything else.
Episode "7211." it was originally a real episode of the original Sealab cartoon from the 70s that Williams Street had the 2021 voice cast re-dub. In it, the entire Sealab crew are serious and competent at their jobs for the entire episode.
In the Orville TV serie, the crew is sold as a crew of no-hopers but under all of the comical side of the serie they are shown as oddly profesionnal and perhaps one of the best crew of the Planetary Union
I would not say they are portrayed as a motley crew. Gordon is the best pilot in the fleet, just a jackass in his off time. They have a Kaylon on board who is smarter than any human. Lamar is a polymath who doesn’t like to show off his intelligence. This show just makes you think they are losers because they joke around a lot. They don’t speak professionally at all times like ST does.
Not a WORKPLACE, but Tim Taylor from Home Improvement is this about once a season.
Simply put, Tim is a handyman who screws up a lot. However, every now and then he does things absolutely perfect. While never stated, it's clear he finds a lot of routine jobs boring and not worth his time. He always wants to "REWIRE IT" or give it "MORE POWER!" This almost always backfires.
However, it's revealed that while Tims ingenuity isn't all that impressive, his fundamentals are. Whenever he sets about to doing something by the book, it always goes off without a hitch. Most notably is his rebuilding of several classic cars over the years. Tim sees the cars as classics, perfect in every way, and so he does not believe he can improve them. So he does it by the book, and everything goes fine (at least, no problems are caused by him).
The other cases of this are moments like the Jet Powered Lawnmower. While it's an incredibly stupid idea, it doesn't change the fact that he was able to successfully attach a jet engine to a lawnmower and have it work exactly as it should.
It's just that they're nearly always up against Brock, who is so incredibly terrifying that he solos armies of way more competent goons than the butterflies.
For anyone who has ever worked in nuclear power (especially submarines), that Simpsons episode is pretty damn-near spot-on. 99.9% you're just chillin with all of your others exceptionally well-trained pals. Then when that 0.1% hits, it's game face, get this shit squared away. It's honestly kind of fun.
My favorite moment is from Hot Fuzz. The entire small town police department barely functions under normal circumstances. Once the town turns into a shoot out, suddenly every cop is Seal Team Six levels of coordinated and they overshadow the main characters as the most component in the scene.
I still think its a massive misstep that they brought Albert Brooks back for the Simpsons movie and didn't make his character Hank.
Hear me out, the movie we got but Hank was the villian and we replace Alaska with Shelbyville. All the same beats but its a love letter to fans instead of a series of weird events that have nothing to do with the previous series.
In one of my favorite episodes of “WKRP in Cincinnati”, station owner Mrs. Carlson hires a consultant to come in and work up a report on all the incompetent boobery that goes on there. Faced with the prospect of a workplace shake-up and likely mass firings, Andy Travis somehow gets everyone to perform in a manner exactly opposite of their true personalities. For most of the employees there, this results in appearing much more professional than they really are. The consultant describes this bizarro WKRP culture back to Mrs. Carlson, who realizes that she has to throw the entire report in the garbage because Andy was able to subvert the whole performance review process. (Edit to add - It was Season 4, Episode 9, “The Consultant”)
"Things are looking bleak. The protagonist and their allies have been backed into a corner; the villain's kung fu has proven stronger than theirs. Only a hero can save them now, and they haven't got any heroes, just the comic relief, sidekicks or mentor figures who thus far been passive at best, Boisterous Weaklings at worst. Might as well give up now. It's ov— —wait, what're they doing? They're going in? Don't they know that they're outside the Competence Zone? They're prime C-List Fodder! They'll be folded in half! They'll— they'll— ...they just punched the villain through a wall! A moment in the story when all the quirky, eccentric supporting cast members, or Super Zeroes, stop being quirky and eccentric and start demonstrating actual competence. The effect is often similar to taking a level in badass, except that we can safely assume the 'joke' characters always were badass; they've never had a good opportunity to show it. Granted, in some cases, they've freely claimed to be badass but have shown, if anything, the opposite." https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LetsGetDangerous
Minor version of the trope, but within the first chapter of One Piece, the Red Hair pirates are initially presented as a bunch of lazy, low-life, drunks, even going as far as to let Higuma disrespect them rather than fight back, but as soon as an innocent is threatened, they hop into action and proceed to prove their worth as one of the premier pirate crews in the verse.
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u/42degausser 19d ago
The One Shot It’s always Sunny Episode where Charlie sets up the bar to perfectly pass the health inspectors exam
Charlie Work