Genius Ditz

This character would be nothing more than The Ditz, except they have one area of expertise in which no one can beat them. When that skill or talent is needed, they suddenly switch gears from airheadedness to hyper-competency. Sometimes they don't even know that they're doing it.



Examples

Wallace from Wallace & Gromit (the character above) is a good example — he's pretty clueless, but he's also an inventor of machines, which, except for regularly going spectacularly awry, seem to work pretty well. In his introductory short, he manages to make a working moon rocket out of items found around the house.

The book Cheese Lover's Yearbook introduced a number of non-filmed gadgets of his, such as the Recyc-O-Matic. The fact that when said out loud this includes "Psycho" is significant, because after he put arms and wheels on it, it proceeded to run amok, recycling building fronts and people's clothes before crashing into a brass band.


Invader Zim's titular character is a scientific and engineering genius, repeatedly showing himself capable of building devices beyond even those of his own species, such as a nigh-invincible nanotech exoskeleton, a time machine, a device capable of turning house pets into civilization-destroying abominations, and a monster capable of extracting energy from devouring anything. Zim could probably have destroyed Earth in a day, had he not been utterly incapable of common sense — his inventions always blow up in his own face, usually through no-one else's fault but his own. He's also more than capable of using the gullibility and general idiocy of humans to his own advantage in certain cases.



Teen Titans has Beast Boy. Normally the Plucky Comic Relief, he's also very Genre Savvy, and in the penultimate episode, he rallies the four remaining Titans and gets pretty close to taking down the Brotherhood of Evil, before they get caught. But of course, then Cyborg, Starfire and Raven, among others, pop out of the woodwork when we thought they were frozen like the rest. Beast Boy continues acting as leader until Robin is unfrozen, however.


Wolverine and the X-Men has Forge, a mutant with the power to invent and repair anything technological. As opposed to his persona in the comics — a combination of Gadgeteer Genius and Magical Native American — Forge in the TV show is a bumbling, neurotic teenager, useless in the field, with the temperament of an overworked, distracted mechanic, whose sole job on the team seems to be "keep the Blackbird in the air." And "Fix Cerebro." And "Fix the Danger Room." And "Fix the Danger Room after Wolverine has a temper tantrum in it."


Danny Phantom has Bumbling Dad Jack Fenton, who doesn't seem very smart, but invented probably half of the Fenton gadgets. He's also a very competent fighter, as a very dismayed Vlad found out.

He's also stated to have had solid "B-"s during his school years.


A great deal of the cast of The Simpsons falls into this category.


Wally from Young Justice. Robin says that they need a dumb, illogical idea to find Red Tornado. Cue everyone turning to Kid Flash:
Kid Flash: As a matter of fact...

He's probably more of a Ditzy Genius in general, though—he's a science prodigy who purposely gave himself superpowers, it's just that he's also the Plucky Comic Relief.

Freddy from Scooby-Doo in some incarnations, particularly Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Completely clueless about everything except for traps, particularly of the Rube Goldberg variety.


Avatar The Last Airbender has Sokka, who is often portrayed as the lovable idiot, has a lot of awkward moments, and gets caught in a lot of bad situations. But, he's also shown himself to be highly intelligent. He's the "ideas guy", he's the one who comes up with solutions to the many problems the group runs into. He plans out the invasion of the fire nation, and even helps invent some submarines.

Although Sokka mite be more of a Ditzy Genius.


popular Alternate Character Interpretation for Pinky And The Brain is that Pinky is this. he theme song never says which one is the genius and which one is insane...

Pinkie Pie in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a high grade Cloud Cuckoo Lander, but has a natural talent for throwing parties, a lesser talent in baking, and possesses an absolutely perfect memory for details regarding her friends to the point that she successfully reunited two long lost lovers with a glimpse at the right clues.

She's also an incredibly talented musician, and with this skill, was the only one who knew how to save Ponyville from a ravenous swarm of insects.



Ed from Ed Edd N Eddy. A bit of a moron most of the time...but a near encyclopedic knowledge of B-grade horror and sci fi movies, an unusual talent on the flute, some of the odd non-sequiters he says are rather profound and he saves Eddy from his abusive brother not by beating him up, but by pulling the pin holding a hinge together, causing the door to slam on Eddy's brother's head, knocking him out.

Son Goku of Dragon Ball is so naive he didn't know the difference between boys and girls until he was 12, even miscounted his own age at one point. However, his brilliance is found in fighting, first and foremost. He learned how to fire his own Kamehameha wave simply by watching Muten Roshi do it, despite the fact he took fifty years developing it, not only took it as his signature move but created variations and enhancements of the move Roshi couldn't have possibly foreseen, proclaiming him to be a "genius". Also, learning the Kaio-ken and the Genki Dama not only took him less than nine months to learn, but even though with the former he's not supposed to multiply it by even beyond twice, he found a way to push it to times twenty, and the latter he found a way to gather energy from nearby planets and collect it. He even discovered the weaknesses behind his own Super Saiyan form just by using it once, and find an effective way to use it.

Tamaki Suoh in Ouran High School Host Club — crazy idiot, but can play the piano better than anyone.

He also demonstrates amazing interpersonal insight from time to time, making his huge success as a host more than an Informed Ability.
He's also ranked second for his grade, right below Kyouya. And he apparently doesn't even study.

Sheska from Fullmetal Alchemist is clumsy, daydreams, and can copy a book word for word for weeks or even months after she has read it. Just give her the book title/description, it can be anything with words, including records. This is how she lands the job recreating all the character files burned in the Central Library while being overseen by Hughes. She can also remember all the facts in said books as well at the drop of a hat!