In classic TV sitcoms there is always the dum-dum. You know, the goofy friend or neighbor that doesn't have a clue and tickles our funny bones with their stupidity. These modern day court jesters like Waldo Geraldo Faldo (love that name) from Family Matters or Joey from Blossom were designed to make the main characters look like the voice of reason in a sea of morons and played their parts very well. But in the case of many of our favorite 80's TV shows, the characters didn't start out as idiots, they went through a process of "Dumbification" from one season to the next in order to boost ratings.
Sitcoms "re-tool" all the time and we notice when a character is replaced or disappears entirely, but the slow leak of IQ points is a little more sneaky. It happened more often than you probably noticed, so let's explore some of the most glaring examples of 80's and 90's Sitcom Characters Who Got Stupid.
Case #1: Buddy Lembeck, Charles in Charge
The first season of Charles In Charge that premiered in 1984 was a very different animal from the subsequent syndicated seasons. By the time season 2 rolled around they had eliminated every character on the show with the exception of Scott Baio as the title character and Willie Aames, as his womanizing sidekick, Buddy Lembeck. Now Buddy was always a little eccentric, but it usually revolved around his obsession with getting some action from the female co-eds. One could even say he was clever, often providing witty and scandalous one-liners to contrast against the more straight-laced attitudes of Charles. But this is likely not how you remember him.

By the time the show was in it's 4th season, Buddy was behaving like a child who had eaten too many Pixie Sticks. Spouting off hyper-active nonsense and getting into ridiculous situations like gaining psychic powers or dressing like a freaky Richard Simmons to pick up girls in an aerobics class. This exchange from one later season episode pretty much says it all Buddy: I have a mind like a sponge. Charles: No, you have the mind of a sponge. In the end, the character became the the joke, instead of making them.
Case #2: Kelly Bundy, Married...With Children
Dumb blondes are a dime a dozen in the world of television, but Kelly Bundy was a brash young woman cut down in her prime by this longstanding stereotype. The first season of Married...With Children in 1987 presented the Bundy family as a group of snarky, sour-faced suburbanites, but they were in no way idiots. Especially the tough, teenaged daughter who knew her way around a can of hairspray. Well-timed jabs at her parents and annoying brother, Bud showed that this girl had it all figured out and wasn't afraid to put the simpletons who were taking up her oxygen in their place. Then, the 90's hit.

By season 5, Kelly had started huffing gasoline...or so it would seem. Brain cells had to have been lost when you consider that Kelly's moments on the show were spent with conversations like this Kelly: Bud, what is this word? Bud: 'A.' Kelly: Oh cool, just like the letter. It was as if all the hair bleach had seeped into her brain or more likely she had inhaled all the roach killing fog from her gig as The Verminator. I'm not saying she wasn't funny, Christina Applegate is hilarious, but it was such a change from how the Kelly character was originally presented that she had to be part of this discussion.
Case #3: Samuel "Screech" Powers, Saved By The Bell
The nerd character is often more clueless than straight up dumb. On the contrary, it's usually their brain being crammed with book smarts that causes them to wear the funny clothes and goofy hairstyles. Screech had both. though he is often remembered for his wild parachute pants, t-shirt and suspenders combo, it was not always so. In the early days of Saved By the Bell he was just the genius runt that couldn't get Lisa Turtle to give him the time of day. Dressing up like Michael Jackson to get a girl to notice you, that's not a totally foreign concept, right? (says the guy who wore skinny ties and vests in 4th grade to get some Uncle Jesse from Full House action). In seasons 1 and 2 Screech wore the standard fashion of the day and even shot back some clever one-liners at people who insulted him. But when puberty hit in Season 3, the kid suddenly he went "Full Screech" (you never go full Screech).

For the remainder of the show's run, the now possibly special needs version of Screech could be counted on to break down into an infantile whimper at the drop of a hat or bust out his Shaggy from Scooby-Doo impression with a close-up on his "Zoinks" face. Where Screech was once treated mostly like an equal, he was now the focus of everyone's scorn. If the Bayside gang weren't rolling their eyes at his nonsensical comments, they were finding ways to take advantage of the poor kid. Remember when Zack entered him in the Miss Bayside pageant, just to win a bet? Sure, he won, but that's not really something that should boost the kid's confidence, y'know? It's like giving People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive cover to the St. Bernard from the Beethoven movies. Anyway, it was just sad to see an actual character devolve into a cartoon. Speaking of which...
Case #4: Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
Now you may say that an animated character shouldn't be taken too seriously to begin with, but remember that The Simpsons started out as a sitcom that just happened to be animated. Early episodes had morals, instead of being just 30 minutes of wacky vignettes and Homer was often at the center of the story. Back then he was just an oafish, grouchy, blue-collar worker trying to do the best for his family and making hilariously poor decisions along the way. Think about it, season 1 had episodes with Homer's morality being called into question when caught partying with an exotic dancer, getting fired from his job and being embarrassed by his family at the company picnic.Though by Season 5 it was his family that was embarrassed by him.

Ironically, the moment I recognized Homer's IQ drop significantly was the 5th season episode where he went to college. In a flashback where Homer meets with a high school guidance counselor, he is shown to be easily distracted by a dog with a ham in it's mouth, causing him to grapple with the animal for the meat. A scene which is then repeated as an adult when he leaves a conversation to chase a squirrel frolicking outside the window, while giddily laughing like a lunatic. Also in that episode, Homer becomes enamored by a pig's tail, repeating the words, "Curly, Straight, Curly Straight" over and over again and showing that he can't even spell the word "Smart". Going forward from this episode, Homer's stupidity becomes his greatest character trait, with his illiteracy and lack of common sense on full display. I actually stopped watching the show after Season 12 because all endearing character traits had been jettisoned in favor of random humor inserted into contrived "plots" that usually featured homer popping in to say or do something stupid, then disappearing until needed again.

While it may sound like I am down on these types of characters, the truth is I have laughed a lot at their antics. Each of them has had their moment to shine and contributed to the successful run of the shows they were on. At the same time, the continuity of the character development is always in the back of my mind. Then I remember that the sitcom is meant to be mindless by design, entertaining above all else and providing consistent characterizations second. It's in these moments that I take the advice of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song, "Repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax".
So tell me, did you ever notice the "dumbification" of a character from your favorite sitcom? Do you agree or disagree with my examples above?
Catch more of my ramblings about old TV show characters I waste more time worrying about than my taxes on Twitter @hojukoolander