Stupidity is a staple of television, as it is a staple of all art – after all, the tendency of human beings to suffer moments of intellectual malfunction is at the same time relatable, amusing and a great way to set stories in motion. But the classic comedy idiot has gone out of fashion in modern TV. There was a time when no TV comedy was complete without one character who wasn’t just prone to stupidity, but who was defined practically entirely by their feeble brain’s inability to process the world around it.
These idiots were wildly entertaining, and frequently the most loveable and popular characters on their shows. Nowadays, it’s vanishingly rare to see a true all-round moron lighting up the screen, and you can’t help but feel we’ve lost a little of our culture in the evolution. So in the interests of nostalgia and the remembrance of a golden age of televised stupidity, here are TV history’s seven greatest idiots.
Baldrick in Blackadder (Foxtel, Britbox) Tony Robinson as Baldrick (left) with Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder. In the first season of Blackadder , Baldrick (played by Tony Robinson), the servant of the weaselly Prince Edmund, was no fool – indeed he was probably the smartest character on the show, way quicker on the uptake than his master. But when the show was retooled to make Blackadder a sarcastic mastermind, Baldrick was fashioned anew, and as generations of Blackadder sunk lower in the social ranks, generations of Baldricks became ever more imb.
