Bad Bad Acting

"That was like a bad impression of somebody doing a bad impression."
—Jared Padalecki, Supernatural, Season 3 Gag Reel

Owen: Roooar! Monster noises!
Alejandro: (awkwardly) Oh no! The large out-of-shape monster!
Tyler: (screaming) WE MUST RUN!
Noah (in complete monotone) Think of the childreeen.
Izzy: (excitedly) He's so hooooot!

—Total Drama World Tour, "Super Crazy Happy Fun Time In Japan"

Acting's version of Hollywood Tone Deaf. In Hollywood, bad acting can only come in two flavors: Large Ham; and this trope, which involves acting that's extremely stilted, extremely wooden, or extremely monotone. It may result in something like this (read aloud in your most stilted/monotone voice):

"Oh, no. The asteroid... is coming towards us. We are doomed. Aaaaahhhh. Exit stage left"

This often happens when characters are forced to reenact a specific event in hopes that it will have the same consequences. Often afflicts school rooms around the world where teachers have students read lines aloud, with the students not caring for the actual tone of the piece at all. What can almost be considered a trope in its own right is to attempt to homage William Shatner with strangely placed staccato pauses and random jumps in pitch.

Bonus points if the character's eyes shimmy back and forth as they read the out-of-shot cuecards.

Also like Hollywood Tone Deaf, in that professional actors can, well, act. If they aren't very good at their job, you wouldn't be able to tell if they were sucking on purpose for the Show Within a Show. Those that are good at acting typically couldn't mimic a poor actor, and even then, just like above, it'd be hard to tell if the actor was trying to fail—though it's something like common wisdom that only someone who's very good at something can be deliberately bad at something. Also, as per Rule of Funny, genuinely poor acting isn't amusing—or at least not as amusing as Bad Bad Acting. Impersonations done in Bad Bad Acting tend to involve Hugh Mann and Most Definitely Not a Villain.

Just to reiterate, this is where characters try to act and do a horrible job at it, not when you think someone does a legitimately horrible acting job or even a So Bad It's Good performance. We have a whole other set of tropes for that.

Stylistic Suck is the Super-Trope of this.

Contrast The Power of Acting.

Examples of Bad Bad Acting include:

General

  • Basically any movie that parodies the 50's Sci-Fi film genre will feature Bad Bad Acting.


Advertising

"Look! With your SPECIAL EYES!" "MHUY BRAWND!"


Anime & Manga

  • The student film from Suzumiya Haruhi. Most of the participants genuinely can't act, but one of them just talks like this normally. In Koizumi's case it isn't the way he speaks that makes him a bad actor, it's the way he exaggeratedly gesticulates his way through every line he gets. Surprisingly, during the school festival when he's cast as one of the leads in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, his style of acting is oddly appropriate.
  • Late in the Ouran High School Host Club anime, Haruhi is kidnapped by the Zuka Club and forced to participate in a tragic play (as part of an excruciatingly complex revenge gambit by Benio). The characters comment on Haruhi's "robotic" acting, which consists of repeating the same line with virtually no intonation. (As an aside, Haruhi's English voice does an excellent job of crappy acting in this instance; the rest of the time, Haruhi is acted with great aplomb.)
  • Syaoran in volume 5 of Cardcaptor Sakura. So bad it actually comes across in a manga. That is not easy to do.
  • There is a kind of "flashback" scene in The Big O, where Roger and his butler Norman are on a theater stage and re-enacting the events of their first meeting, in very stilted melodramatic dialogue. It's some kind of Fourth Wall thing, probably.
  • In episode 29 of Keroro Gunsou, Natsumi degenerates into woodenly reciting her lines for the School Play whenever she's overcome with stage fright. Keroro goes to the other extreme.
  • The "Cell Games Historical Reenactment" in Dragonball Z. Promptly Lampshaded by the heroes who are incredulously watching it.
  • In a Lucky Channel segment of the first Lucky Star episode to feature Minoru Shiraishi's voice in the main segment, Akira criticizes his reading, and offers to help him practice by going over the scene again, with her as Miss Kuroi. Her reading of Kuroi's line is really dull, except for a bit when she has trouble reading the word "quiet" and Shiraishi whispers the correct pronunciation to her, provoking a bit of mild annoyance that shows as she says it correctly.
  • In episode 4 of The Familiar of Zero F, some people (who are presumably part of the staff at the tavern) put up an act that "re-enacts" the fight between Saito and King Joseph of Gallia. The acting is...deplorable to say the least.

Guy acting as Joseph: Oh no. I have been slain. Ahhhhhhhh... (collapses)

  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the girls of the "Beauty Village" claim to be under attack and ask for help from Team Gurren, pretending to be terrified. It is obvious to the viewer that they are faking it, but the brigade is so excited to be able to save an all-female village that they agree to help. The only person who asks if something might be wrong is Rossiu.

Fan Works

Films -- Animation

  • In the Lupin III movie The Castle of Cagliostro, Inspector Zenigata learns about an illegal counterfeiting operation in the basement of a building. The problem is that his superiors refuse to act on this, since many nations are buying these counterfeit bills. His solution? He brings a TV news camera crew down to the basement of the building while pretending to chase Lupin and badly feigns surprise at finding counterfeiting equipment, "discovering" it in a way that makes it impossible to ignore. This makes one of his superiors comment, "He's such a bad actor."
  • See the mutant-brain movie Hogarth watches on TV in The Iron Giant.
  • Subverted for effect in the first Naruto movie: the actress the team escorts played out a scene they see her shooting quite convincingly; this shocks the team because it sharply contrasts with how distant and snide the actress really behaves. She's not, however, able to fake crying.

Films -- Live-Action

  • The mockumentary Waiting for Guffman features an entire cast of talented actors... playing small-town hicks trying to make it big on Broadway.
  • All the characters in Boogie Nights in their movie-within-a-movie pornos. Amber Waves' affectless "You have a giant cock" is a good example.
  • In Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, the Tramp amuses the crowd by accident, but fails utterly when the circus master tells him to be funny.
  • In the So Bad It's Good movie Reefer Madness, two characters "act" out Romeo and Juliet for a few seconds. Very funny to see bad actors trying to act badly.
  • My Big Fat Greek Wedding has Toula's aunt acting this way when they're trying to trick Toula's father.
  • Daddy Day Care features a scene where Marvin has to fill in for a professional actor. His attempt can be put in this category.
  • A truly spectacular example occurs in Super 8 during the short film the main characters are producing throughout the movie. During the credits, you see the finished film, and the acting is bad. In fact, it shows off the acting talent of the young actors in being able to act that badly.
  • In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert Downey, Jr.'s character, a petty thief, is running from the cops and bursts into some acting auditions. In order to escape the police, he goes ahead and does an audition, reading out the lines in a monotone ("Um... beat up on me all night. You want me to give up my client, you can go spit.") until some of the dialogue hits too close to home. Then he appears to be doing a great acting job, but it's really genuine emotion. (Ah, Method Acting...)
  • The entire film The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is this way—the actors were playing the part of B-movie actors in a film, not like the characters.
  • Zack and Miri Make a Porno includes this when the main characters and the people they hired attempt to "act" in the film they are making. (Just as well that it's, um, a porno... Pity a mainstream film can't show "the good parts".)
  • In The Naked Gun 33 1/3, Frank Drebin has to replace a host at the Oscars Gala. At first he doesn't know what to say, so his co-hostess tells him to read off the autoprompter. Which he does, word for word, including the stage directions and even the co-hostess' own lines. Things don't exactly improve when he starts to ad-lib. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Borderline example in Son of Rambow, where the older brother is used in the film within a film. He reads his lines exactly as someone with no acting experience and no preparation would realistically have read them. The makers of the movie then comment about how bad of an actor he was.
  • Ghostbusters
    • In Ghostbusters 2, Janine and Louis are roped into acting for a commercial for the company. They fall squarely into this.
    • This scene follows the similar commercial from the first movie, with the originial three Ghostbusters reading very stilted lines, and Egon even looking down when he steps forward and back to make sure he steps on his floor mark.
      • This was actually Harold Ramis making sure he hit his mark—the director thought it was so perfect he kept that take.
      • This scene was later referenced in Ghostbusters' Spiritual Successor Evolution, with the main characters doing a really badly acted commercial for Head & Shoulders.
  • Likewise Alexander Dane, Alan Rickman's character in Galaxy Quest, when the out-of-work and typecast actors are advertising the opening of an electronics store. Note that Alexander Dane is a perfectly good classically trained actor otherwise, but there he was feeling very unenthusiastic. The others are all pretty stilted too, he's just the most obvious about it.
  • Averted in Cold Souls: when the newly soulless Paul Giamatti is acting in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", his performance is not stilted or hammed up, but it is still very noticeably and realistically bad.
  • Outrageous Fortune. Shelley Long's Russian acting instructor asks her to simulate being shot, which she grossly over-acts. Later on in the movie he takes a shot at her for real and appears to have killed her, but it turns out her performance has improved.
  • The 1996 movie Feeders, all of it.
  • In Dunston Checks In, a maid's boss's boss wants her fired, but her boss likes her and knows his boss will never remember the incident when he shows up again next year, so for the meantime the maid is on two weeks paid vacation. The joke is supposed to be that she's trying to seem sad in front of her boss's boss but is actually happy to be on vacation and is bad at acting. Interestingly enough, the actress seems to have been trying for Bad Bad Acting as a way of making the joke clear to the audience. What came out was more like bad bad bad acting.
  • Black Dynamite is a spoof of blaxploitation films, complete with bad acting as part of its Stylistic Suck. In one scene, Black Dynamite's girlfriend is playfully frolicking with him in a park, but whenever the shot cuts back to Black Dynamite, he's scowling and clearly confused about what he's supposed to be doing.
  • Reds has an example of this with Louise Bryant's terrible acting in one of Eugene O'Neill's plays. In general, Diane Keaton, who plays Louise, is the master of this trope.
  • The homage to Romeo and Juliet in Hot Fuzz.

"BANG!"

  • House of the Wolfman does this to a grating level. You can tell the actors care, so I think they were directed to be like the graduates from the Ed Wood School of Acting. The exceptions to the rule are Dracula and the old witch, who are spot-on.
  • Adam in the first Saw movie does this when pretending to have been poisoned. In the DVD commentary, Leigh Whannell wants to make it clear that it's supposed to be a horribly unconvincing performance.
  • The girl playing the role of the Saxon Princess on the film set in The Rocketeer. Justified in that she got the part by reason of being the director's niece; the rest of the cast is pretty good.
  • Signs: I'M INSANE WITH ANGER! I'M LOSING MY MIND!
  • Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: "Good morning starshine... the earth says... 'Hello'...I shake you warmly by the hands."
  • In Scream 3 when Sarah is asked to read her lines from the script, she reads them out with a pretty hammy performance, somewhere between Marilyn Monroe's president voice and a bad scared sounding voice.
  • In Help!, the ineffectual Scotland Yard inspector impersonates Ringo to fool pursuers on the phone:

Inspector: Allow me; I'm a bit of a famous mimic in my own small way, you know...James Cagney...[on the phone] Hul-LO there, this is the famous RING-o here, gear fab! What is it that I can do for YOU as it were, gear fab?
George: Not a bit like Cagney.

  • In "Girls Will be Girls," which features a cast of Drag Queens, bad yet self-deluded actress Evie gives the most stilted performance possible in her One-Hit Wonder film. At one point the script is simply placed open on a table on set, with Evie "subtly" cribbing looks at it, sounding out her lines.
  • Gustav von Wangenheim (Eddie Izzard) in Shadow of the Vampire. The guy couldn't even fake a yawn without it looking hilariously bad.
  • Parodied in this part of the DVD commentary for Zombi 3.

Deran Sarafian dubbing the voice of the late Robert Marius: Zombies are bad!


Live-Action TV

  • The Brady Bunch: The episode "And Now a Word From Our Sponsor" – where the Bradys are offered a chance to star in a TV commercial – has Mike and Carol hire an actress acquaintance (Myrna Carter) to help them brush up their acting skills, hoping to become believable when the fateful day finally comes. However, Myrna is – at best – a method actress to the extreme and more than likely just a very bad actress who is completely unqualified to give lessons or advice. Nonetheless, Mike and Carol (and the rest of the family) take her well-intentioned advice to heart ... and the resulting stiff, bombastic acting winds up costing them their shot at TV commercial stardom. The director, Skip Farnum, had wanted the family to basically "be themselves," and at the end of the last scene, Skip angrily asks his cohort the name of that bad actress they used to work with, because the Bradys' style was just like hers.
  • There's an episode of News Radio where a camera crew decides to shoot Jimmy James for a documentary. Whenever they start filming, though, he starts going all monotone and speaks like a robot.
  • Vanessa Bayer on "SNL" reoccurring sketch "The Miley Cyrus Show"
    • An older SNL sketch, "Goth Talk" was more or less Bad Bad Acting of the hammy variety. The two black-shrouded hosts, Stephanie and Todd (aka Circe Nightshade and Azrael Abyss), as well as all of their guests, tried to be ludicrously morbid, gothic and emotional, even when referencing very modern, pedestrian things. The fact that they essentially broke character every few sentences did not help.
  • Miranda's acting in Lizzie McGuire, complete with her accidentally reading out stage directions.
  • The Daily Show: For a while, the end segment (a.k.a. "the toss") that segues into The Colbert Report was pre-taped, instead of done with a live audience as usual. Fans noticed and were displeased. On the show that returned to live tosses, Jon Stewart acknowledged that the fans enjoyed the expression of "warmth and genuine camaraderie" between him and Stephen Colbert—and both immediately became very wooden, read robotically off the teleprompters, and expressed relief when it was over.
  • Sophie from Leverage is terrible. Really terrible. Once, Parker compared her acting in Death of a Salesman, in which Sophie played the title role, to a horror movie saying "Attention must be PAID!" and Eliot declared that that was the worst night of his life. This was juxtaposed with a flashback of him playing Russian Roulette somewhere. Of course, as is made clear throughout the series, she's only terrible when she's trying to act outside of a con. If it's during a con, she can pull off almost any role effortlessly. As Nate puts it, "She can act... when it's an act."
    • A critic's review of a stage performance where Sophie played Maria sums up her acting ability:

Theater Critics: Never before has a production of The Sound of Music made me root for the Nazis.

  • Face from The A-Team had a very similar example. When the A-Team had to help Hannibal make a monster movie on location in Season 4, the plot started to happen, and Face wound up playing the male lead. Normally, he was the slickest con man around, convincingly pretending to be all sorts of different occupations, but when they put him in front of a camera, he was wooden as all hell. Face, being Face, immediately made excuses for it, saying that he was getting the feel for the character, etc.
  • Subverted by an episode of The Big Bang Theory. The show worked up an expectation that Penny, who is an aspiring actress, (and also shown to be a horrible singer), was also not that good an actress either. Whilst the fans of the show would expect her to be a typical sitcom style bad actor (and this is lampshaded to an extent in the lines previous), the first time her acting is revealed, it's in a tense moment with the Dogged Nice Guy, Penny exclaiming that if they moved in together (to save on rent) that "She couldn't keep her hands off him". He basically believes her, at which point she reveals her acting classes "weren't a waste of money".
    • And as far as the singing is concerned, she's got quite a nice voice sometimes, as shown by the episode where Sheldon takes over her business.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation
    • In an episode, Barclay performs a play with Dr. Crusher. He is terrible at acting, stammering and forgetting lines. The audience, however, is too nice to criticize him and politely applaud the performance while saying things like "bravo"—except for Data.
    • In "Time's Arrow, Part II" the Next Generation crew have travelled back in time to 1893 San Francisco. When the landlady Mrs. Carmichael demands their overdue rent they pretend to be actors rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream and encourage her to read the part of Titania. Captain Picard then praises her stilted performance, and Mrs. Carmichael is so flustered she forgets about the rent for another day.
  • Lampshaded and parodied in several Mad TV skits entitled "Prehistoric Glamazon Huntresses A.D" that poked fun of B-rated television series.

"You are not a scientist... from the future... AS I am."

  • Played with in Monk. In the episode "Mr. Monk Goes to the Theater", Monk becomes the understudy for an actor who was murdered. When he's re-enacting the scene in the play to try to solve the crime, he's really good; Sharona does her part much less convincingly. Monk starts to lose it in rehearsals; during the actual performance, he makes a lot of mistakes and veers into Large Ham territory. Of course, during the actual performance, he was also rather flustered due to having just figured out that the murderer was the person he was acting with on the stage.
  • All of the Blockblister videos seen in The Amanda Show.
  • There was an episode of Hey Dude that featured Ted performing a script for someone outside eavesdropping. His performance was also typically stilted and wooden.
  • Max Evans of Roswell, formerly Roswell High, auditioned for a part as an alien prince. He stumbled over his lines a lot, but other than that it wasn't much different from usual.
  • The eponymous Bones, when trying to trick Gormogon.
  • Everyone in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace does this in their own particular way. Garth (as Rick Dagless) hopelessly overangsts his every line, the actress playing Liz lives in a world of Dull Surprise and breathless delivery, Dr Sanchez is played as the Ham to end all Hams, and Thornton Reed does little more than read his lines straight off the script.
  • Firefly
    • Simon in the episode "Jaynestown", when he's pretending to be a merchant looking to buy "mud".
    • When Simon and River come back onto the ship at the end of "Safe", Jayne's attempt at welcoming them back (and covering up that he's been looting Simon's luggage) is all about this.
    • Also in "Trash", where at the end it's revealed that everything was played by the entire crew from the moment Mal released Yo-Saff-Bridge from the crate. In fact, if you watch closely, the crew's performance really wasn't that great, with for instance Kaylee at times unable to stay serious.
  • J-Roc's numerous porno films in Trailer Park Boys, where the "actors" are absolutely terrible.
  • Funky Squad, an Australian Affectionate Parody of 70's cop shows like The Mod Squad, most notably with the "spontaneous laughter" in the "Everybody Laughs" Ending.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer has several examples of this:
    • Such as a painful rendition of Oedipus Rex by the main characters for a mandatory talent show in the first-season episode "The Puppet Show".
    • Nice-girl Willow trying to pass as her evil vampire counterpart in the third-season episode "Doppelgangland". ("I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!")
    • Also in "Doppelgangland", not only does Willow try to pass herself off as the evil vampire Willow, but the vampire Willow tries to pass herself off as good Willow, so Cordelia will let her out of the book cage. "Look at me. I'm all... helpless." Hilarity Ensues.
    • A variant: a robot (in seasons five and six) designed to look like Buffy moving among her friends using such cunningly in-character lines as "Willow, you are my best friend. You're recently gay!"
    • Not to mention Faith trying to impersonate Buffy.
    • Spike pretending to be American so Initiative soldiers won't realize who he is. When he tries it again in a later episode, he gives up before he's even finished speaking.

Soldier: Do I know you?
Spike: Uh, no. Uh, no sirrr, I'm just an old friend of Xanderrr...herrre.

  • Angel
    • Doyle's video ad for Angel Investigations in the first season. After his death, it's played later on in the first and then the fifth season, turning into a Tear Jerker.
    • Cordelia also displays this—especially in a risible performance in Henrik Ibsen's A Dolls House—but improves markedly.
  • The League of Gentlemen has Pam Doove, who became The Unintelligible whenever it was time for her to speak a single, easy line. Played with in that in-universe her unintelligible phrase becomes a popular meme, her advert is actually filmed and broadcast and, in the minds of the writers according to the DVD Commentary, she becomes a famous actress and wins an Oscar.
  • Reno 911! occasionally shows its police-officer characters doing incredibly stilted Public Service Announcements.
  • An episode of Green Acres, where the town puts on a play. Arnold, a pig, is considered to be a great actor and is sent to Hollywood. Considering the quality of the human acting, I don't blame them.
  • KYTV
    • There's a spoof behind-the-scenes production of a Dickensian costume drama with a useless lead actor, who can barely read and can't even say his lines in the correct order: "I think it now not far... is?", "I too, wife weary... am?".
    • Bad Bad Acting is a staple of KYTV's "Brazilian soap opera, Ole!, translated and dubbed by KYTV," where the "Brazillian" actors play with exaggerated melodrama, while the voice-over actors read their lines in a dull, monotone way, regularly missing their cues, reading the wrong lines and mispronouncing words.
    • KYTV was based on the radio series Radio Active which also used this trope regularly. The radio version of the Dicken parody featured the narrator saying "Children die on the street happily.... Die on the streets. Happily our story concerns on who lives." And the Oliver Twist expy saying "Gruel, please can I have some moron... Please can I have some more on my plate."
  • Friends

Hayes: You're thinking too much.
Joey: I really doubt that.

    • Phoebe and Ross also go overboard when they "act".
  • In the Doctor Who story Meglos, the Doctor and Romana are caught in a chronic hysteresis (a time loop), which results in them going through the same scene involving repairing K-9 by waggling his tail several times. In order to break themselves out of said loop, they have to deliberately recreate the scene, which results in Romana acting very woodenly, and the Doctor actually forgetting what he has to say next, even though he's already delivered the line at least three times already. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Scrubs has J.D. and Turk perform a concept scene for J.D.'s screenplay "Dr. Acula" and requisitely has them doing a horrible job at line delivery and staying in character when their line is over.
  • Despite Miley Stewart's successful Clark Kenting in Hannah Montana, Hannah herself couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. In one episode while co-hosting an award show, she speaks in a robotic voice and reads the instructions from the teleprompter. In another episode she is fired from a voice acting job for an animated movie. Ironically, noted director Rob Reiner gives her a role only after she goes out of her way to try not get the part. The latter scenario was more of a Springtime for Hitler situation; Miley was deliberately botching the audition as Oliver was jealous of Hannah's successes in life while Oliver was doomed to failure. Oliver would eventually forgive Miley for sacrificing her opportunity to save their friendship.
  • In Supernatural's "The French Mistake," Sam and Dean are thrust into an alternate reality in which they are Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. At one point Sam and Dean are forced to play themselves, and they do a spectacularly bad job of it.

Dean: Don't look at the camera.
Sam: What?
Dean: Look anywhere but the camera.

One can only imagine the "real" script directions for Jared and Jensen who were told to act as Sam and Dean(normal), who are acting like Jared and Jensen(would already be difficult) who are acting as Sam and Dean (OMGWTFBBQ).

Jack: (auditioning, fake-shivering violently) "Please, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, I'm begging you. I can't stand out here any longer in this unbearable--" (turns page) "heat." Oh. Oh... it's hot. (fans himself) "We need food or else I fear my family will perish, and my harp will break." Oh, "heart." (laughs) "My heart will break." I said, "harp will break." Did you hear that?

  • Margo's performance in The Sound of Music on Good Neighbors. Among other issues, she at one point starts singing "Mack the Knife".
  • Skins series five. The third generation gang are involved with putting on a college show towards the end of the series and chief organizer, head girl and all-round queen bee Mini McGuinness turns out to give a horribly stilted and melodramatic performance that she naturally thinks is really good. Meanwhile the most extreme outsiders of the group, Franky and Richard, give extremely good performances that are well-received by the audience.
  • Neighbours runs into this at time, especially with staged arguments. The fight between Rachel and Stingray, intended to convince Susan they weren't really interested in each other, was particularly cringe-worthy.
  • In the Married... with Children episode "Kiss of the Coffee Woman", Al and Marcy try to act in a coffee commercial, but deliver their lines in a completely stilted and unnatural way. After everybody has given up and left, they try it for one more time, and do it perfectly.
  • In the British cop series Jericho the title character is asked to introduce a television series about his 'real life' cases (actually fictional cases delivering moral Aesops). He's eventually replaced by an actor because his performance is too stilted.
  • On Arrested Development, Tobias Funke's entire acting career falls squarely into this. Highlights include his performance as George Sr. on Scandalmakers and his audition for the fire sale ad.

Tobias: OH MY GOD WE'RE HAVING A FIRE (sale), women and children first! Amaaaaaaaazing graaaaace... aaaaaand end scene.

  • On Californication when Hank is asked to read out loud from a screenplay he wrote, the result is stilted and incredibly awkward. It's especially interesting since the scene he's reading is based on events that occurred in the series' pilot episode, and the dialogue matches the earlier scene almost word for word.
  • The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth" featured an absurd showing of a fan film made by the main characters: Lethal Weapon 5. Aside from all its other problems (like the horrible racism), it featured some of the worst acting imaginable. Of particular note are Charlie's dreadful line readings ("Turns out someone tainted - tapped the tainted water supply! The person who just died was your wife!") and Frank's turn as the screeching Large Ham villain.
    • The Gang's venture into musicals in "The Nightman Cometh" also featured loads of bad acting.
  • The MythBusters sometimes do Stylistic Suck videos that illustrate a myth that they're doing. When they do this, the acting is either over-the-top or oddly stilted. While this is somewhat justified by the fact that none of them (with the possible exception of Adam) are professional actors, it still manages to be So Bad It's Good in the exact way Bad Bad Acting generally is.
  • A Murphy Brown episode had the title character hired for a cameo on a comedy show. Unfortunately, Murphy keeps delivering her single line in a horribly stilted manner:

Murphy: I GOT your APOLOGY, Kelly! NOW I'm SORRY that I filled your CAR with HERRING!

  • Eden Sher as Sue Heck in The Middle when Sue does public speaking or things on camera
  • Usually in That '70s Show, the actors will indulge in this trope, especially prevalent in a parody of the cult film Reefer Madness and a short about the future.

Music

  • The speaking parts in Lady Gaga's "Alejandro".

Stop. Please. Just let me go. Alejandro. Just let me go.

Puppet Shows

  • In the Dom DeLuise episode of The Muppet Show, Miss Piggy is trying to get noticed by Kermit. Among her efforts is a badly-acted conversation between Miss Piggy and Scooter involving her having gotten an offer from another show.

Kermit: Uh, Scooter, that performance by you and Miss Piggy was terrible.
Scooter: Gee, I didn't think it was that bad. I missed one line, but... Oh, no.

Radio

  • Used frequently by radio satirists Bob and Ray, in the course of poking fun at various conventions of the medium. One of their mock talk shows was called "Us, the Folks, Mumble!" and featured the following running gag:

Bob: (as host) OK now sir, tell us what happened in your own words...
Ray: (as guest) Um... mph schmpfl reffle flp...
Bob: (hastily) Er, maybe you'd better use our words, sir. Right here on the card.
Ray: OK, sure. (reads off card in stiffest and most unconvincing manner possible)

  • Early episodes of the BBC radio comedy The Burkiss Way opened with "unsolicited testimonials from satisfied customers" in which people would explain how the titular correspondence course had changed their lives. These were often delivered with reading-off-the-cue-cards stiltedness; The female customers (all played by Denise Coffey) would always end by asking "Was that all right?", but the worst example is an illiterate man explaining how the course taught him to read:

Customer: Then, a fiend in-tro-dunced me to... The Burgess Wag! Now, I can read and... re-redistribute all the choice lapels I want.
Prompter: Cheese labels!

  • Done every other year or so in The Archers with Ambridge's Christmas Pantomime
  • In one episode of the Bert Coules "Sherlock Holmes" radio plays, Holmes and Watson act out a scene from the 1899 play by William Gillette. Watson reads his own part rather woodenly, and Holmes reads the part of himself and the female lead.


Theatre

  • In Curtains, Jessica Crenshaw is a triple threat: she can't sing, dance or act.

Jessica: Kiss me while you can, boys! I'm bidding you!
Actor: ...Farewell.
Jessica: Farewell! I'm bidding you Farewell!

  • In the Sondheim classic Into the Woods, there are examples of this with the Baker and the Baker's Wife, the most notable being The Baker's Wife trying to get Jack to trade her magic beans for his "cow as white as milk".

Baker's Wife: Oh -
Baker: Ahem?
Baker's Wife: Ooooohhhhh! Oh, no! We mustn't give up our beans!

Video Games

  • Two words: Elcor Hamlet.
  • In Disgaea, one of the Prism Rangers delivers half his lines like this, and the other half of his lines as if he's trying to do this and failing to entirely remove the inflection... and then Etna shoots them.
  • In Phantom Brave, Ash and Marona employ this to get rid of a Bonus Boss who keeps coming back. Laharl is dumb enough to fall for it, too.
  • Dragon Quest VIII featured a scene in which the party is locked in a prison and acts out a scene to attract the guards' attention. In the English dubbed version, their delivery during this scene is wooden, but the guards are stupid enough to buy it.
  • Psychonauts
    • The theater stage, where all of the actors play out past events from Gloria Von Guten's life in this manner.
    • And "The Milkman Conspiracy" level, with all of the FBI agents hold marginally related objects while trying to act like normal citizens of Suburbia, like road crew workers, gardeners, housewives, and... assassins.

Agent: I am a road worker. This is my stop sign.
Agent: I am a sad widow. Boo, hoo. Boo, hoo, hoo.

  • The PSP game Dragoneer's Aria contains a segment wherein the two female characters need to agitate a spirit guarding a tree that wouldn't listen to anything they say (thus necessitating the threat). Their delivery is wooden, but, somehow, the centuries-old spirit falls for it.
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivioncontains a set piece in which an NPC "puts on a little act" as a prelude to faking his own death with the assistance of the player character. The result is positively hilarious.
  • The Lost Crown. As a game designer, Jonathan Boakes is brilliant: as a voice actor, well, he's a very talented game designer.

"'Dangerous Undercurrents.' I should take that. As a warning. To watch my step. From now on."

"CAN'T WE JUST IGNORE THE PROBLEM AND HOPE IT WILL GO AWAY?"

Max: Oh! When I'm on the intern-net, I always go straight to DOUBLE U DOUBLE U DOUBLE U DOT TELL TALE GAMES DOT COM SLASH STORE! Beat. Grin.


Web Animation

  • Homestar Runner
    • Frequently done by the characters when they're given a script to read.
    • The tutorial of Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People is full of Bad Bad Acting, with Strong Sad and Bubs reading their lines with all the pathos of a plank of wood, occasionally broken up with complaints about the awful, awful script.
    • The Dangeresque installments are full of this, especially from Coach Z.
    • A DVD bonus toon opens with the King of Town on stage, reading from a cue card in an extremely forced manner, and giving a reaction after the line is read indicating that he didn't even know what he was reading until after he read it. Of course, this bit of bad acting is justified when the viewer gets to see the cue card... and Homsar is holding it upside-down.
  • Red vs. Blue. Donut tried to orchestrate a play to illustrate how the time jump happened. The reds actually do good, but Caboose, being The Ditz, reads his stage directions aloud. However, that was his only flaw; he wasn't monotone or wooden.


Web Comics

Redcloak: Sir, you actually said the words "wink, wink."

Web Original

  • A Running Gag with The Nostalgia Critic is that he responds to instances of bad acting in the movies he reviews by staring at the camera and saying "I'm acting!" in a dopey voice and style reminiscent of the actor.
    • Also variations, e.g. in his Red Sonja review he imitates the actress' uncertain-sounding tone with "I'm... acting?"
    • Other That Guy With The Glasses contributors have also dabbled in this: Spoony and Linkara's Warrior crossover video showcased an alternate universe (one of several) where Spoony and Linkara are terrible actors, reading their lines flatly from the script, fumbling with the props and making no attempts to emote. Linkara's commentary hung a lampshade on this by mentioning that some people think they were already terrible actors to begin with...
    • There's also The Nostalgia Chick's review of Showgirls. Because she can't show the naughty scenes on blip, she has to get her friends to play the parts. They either look bored or uncomfortable and one is even reading a book while he gives a lapdance.
  • In Unforgotten Realms, when Rob is forced to do a scripted event, he seems to go out of his way to act as bad as possible. After a certain point, he gets sick of it and acts normally. Normally being kill everything.
  • PG Porn's construction worker/adult movie actor Chris can't remember his partner's name, delivers his lines in the most stilted way imaginable and looks on his mark before stepping on it. Leave it to Nathan Fillion to make bad nekkid-film acting even more hilarious than it already is.


Western Animation

  • An episode of The Amazing World of Gumball called "The DVD". In the episode Gumball and Darwin try to produce their own version of "Alligators on a Train" to replace the one they destroyed. Obviously, the end result had hilariously Bad Bad Acting and did not fool anybody.
  • Lor in The Weekenders episode "Radio Drama".
  • The Powerpuff Girls
    • Occurrs when the girls try to act in their own movie.
    • Also, when they create a fourth sister to help them in crimefighting, they faithfully act out the part of "accidentally" adding Chemical X this way.
  • Futurama
    • During the Aliens Steal Cable episode.
    • Also in the porn film featured in "A Big Ball of Garbage"—with gusto!
    • Also, the two educational films shown within the show: I Dated a Robot!! and Global Warming -- None Like It Hot!!! (the second features the claim that the Earth is warming due to the piling-up of corpses after gang-member-like greenhouse gases beat sunbeams to death).
    • Also in the Star Trek episode where William Shatner himself does it. It's the complete opposite of his usual unholy acting talent, and the entire Star Trek cast follows suit with their own embarrassingly monotone acting—though the fact that they're being held captive and forced to perform a fanboy's Marty Stu script goes a long way towards explaining their complete lack of effort.
    • Also frequent in the Show Within a Show All My Circuits, though Calculon is more of a Large Ham. Played straight when Zoidberg's uncle directs a movie, which also includes Bad Bad Directing. Keep in mind that Robot Devil gave Calculon UNHOLY! ACTING! TALENT!
    • Despite being a dream of Zapp Brannigan, The Transcredible Exploits of Zapp Brannigan is loaded with this.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender
    • Katara and Sokka when they're trying to get Katara arrested for earthbending and speak in the most stilted tone possible:

Sokka: Get out of my way, pipsqueak!
Katara: How dare you call me pipsqueak, you giant-eared cretin!
Sokka: What did you call me?
Katara: A giant-eared cretin! Look at those things. Do herds of animals use them for shade?

  • In the Sealab 2021 episode "Swimming in Oblivion", which features the crew as Animated Actors, Hal, playing Capt. Murphy, sandbags his lines because he thinks they're stupid.
  • The Critic does that quite a bit. Jay Sherman is a movie critic who ends up seeing mostly bad films....
    • Borderline case in The Pilot: Jay finally gets around to watching the movie his latest girlfriend is starring in. "I'll GIVE you a KISS alRIGHT. A kiss... OF DEATH!!!!!"

"It STINKS!"

Daggett: Oh my! It's going to crash into!... Us? Save yourselves!
Daggett: The End... Question mark?

    • Heck, practically every other episode features at least one example. In-universe B-Movie actor Oxnard Montalvo is the embodiment of this trope.
    • The Beavers idolize Oxnard Montalvo and he is probably consciously or subconsciously emulating him. (And really, why wouldn't anyone want to be Just Like Oxnard Montalvo.)
  • In the episode of Metalocalypse where Dethklok acts in a movie, they all do this.
  • In a good few Recess episodes the gang sometimes have to act for a scam and deliver horrible performances. One episode has a kid forgetting what word he's supposed to say... halfway through saying it and he has to check his hand for the rest of it (said word was "automatically"). Though subverted in one episode where Gus convincingly disguises himself as a girl in order to steal a baseball bat from the Ashleys.
  • Danny Phantom: Jazz and Danny has to perform a mock battle in front of Vlad, so convincing that even Danny himself didn't get it until the last minute. That was good acting, at least on Jazz's part. Then they commence the bad acting with Jazz having "killed" Danny; the two perform stilted acts that somehow gets the usual Chessmaster Vlad convinced. Later, Danny and Jazz poke fun at their poor attempts at drama.
    • There was also the episode in which Sam and Tucker had told the Fentons that Danny's face was disfigured because Danny Phantom had to attacked him and they had to impersonate Danny to distract his parents who were looking for him.

Sam: (dressed as Danny) Oh no! Please don't look at my facelessness! (runs away) I must live in exile!
Jack Fenton: (to Maddie) You ever notice that Danny kinda runs like a girl?

  • The ninth episode of The Venture Brothers, "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean", ends with a PSA, where the characters' eyes are shifting from left to right to indicate they're reading from cue cards.
  • A trope constantly employed in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo; the characters would act like this every time they needed to trick a monster into falling for a trap. Lampshaded in one episode when Scooby's scolded for going off script by showing genuine emotion.
  • Darkwing Duck is a terrible actor, although his ego won't allow him to realize it. So he... starts and stops... all of his lines... with Hollywood Tone Deaf... and wrong inflection... to indicate intent?
  • In an episode of WITCH, the Guardians need to leave to fight the forces of evil just before their slot in a school talent show. They leave behind copies of themselves to take their places, but it turns out that the copies don't retain any memories and therefore are not familiar with the short play they are putting on. It all goes downhill when the Taranee copy begins her narration with "Taranee speaks dramatically..."
  • SpongeBob SquarePants
    • In "As Seen on TV", Mr. Krabs films a commercial for the Krusty Krab, where him, Squidward, and Pearl are obviously not good actors. Then again, it aired very early in the morning.
    • There's also the bit in "Nature Pants" where Sandy and Patrick are trying to convince SpongeBob to return home. It obviously doesn't work very well; Patrick is both too dense and (at the time) too teary-eyed to act worth a damn.
  • In one episode of Sushi Pack, Titanium Chef "acts" horrified that Wasabi has discovered his plot in a ploy to get the blob of mustard to attack, giving him the final ingredient for his plan. One of his henchmen even face palms at how bad this acting is, but Wasabi takes the bait.
  • The Simpsons
    • The "Mr Plow" episode, where the family produces their own (badly acted) TV commercial.
    • And then there is the nuclear plant's commercial to convince graduates to work there.
  • In one episode of Freakazoid!, a man who runs into the room the main character is, panicking and yelling that the Lobe has arrived. He's promptly scolded and forced to repeat the scene. At a second instance, the titular character tells him to take acting lessons. Much later during the final showdown between the hero and the Lobe, the same man breaks up the fight to show them that the acting lessons have payed off, by performing the Death of Romeo, from Shaespear's famous play.
  • Family Guy
    • Stewie programs two robot lookalikes of himself and Brian so that no-one notices they've gone on a trip. They move around stiffly and talk in completely monotone voices:

Robot Stewie: Damn you vile woman. Blast. What the deuce.
Robot Brian: I am a tool. Stewie is much better than me at everything including arts and crafts and the guitar. I have no friends.

    • Also when Peter became a football player, he did a bad commercial for a Hyundai and Subaru dealership.

Peter: We will blitz the competition and in no time you will be driving your Hyundai or Subaru to a touchdown! (waits a minute then does the touchdown gesture)

Noah: (flat voice) Think of the childreeeeeen.

    • Team Victory's as well:

Bridgette: Oh honorable samurai, do you have any FOOD?

    • Duncan's "crying" in "African Lying Society". His mother actually falls for that!?
    • Sierra's attempt at a dramatic farewell to Cody in "Planes, Trains, Hot Air Mobiles" is so Narmy it's actually hilarious that she thought it sounded heartwarming.
  • In an episode of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, a TV commercial for a used car dealership shows off one of its "satisfied customers". Said "customer" is obviously reading from cue cards, to the point of stumbling over the word "courtesy".
  • In The Smurfs, Smurfette's crocodile tears when she was working for Gargamel and trying to turn the Smurfs against each other. Funnily enough, whenever she cries for real it's exactly the same, except with actual tears.
  • Cow and Chicken
    • Played with in an episode where Cow plays the title character of a film called "Pretty Little Girl". Not only is the acting atrocious, the actors (especially Cow, who's also nervous) keep mixing up random words on the cue cards. The director (who's actually the Red Guy) eventually decides to employ a little Enforced Method Acting, which makes the entire staff (himself included) burst into tears. Too bad the cameraman forgot to put the film in the camera.
    • Also, in the episode "Meet Lance Sackless," when they film a video to send to Canada's Funniest Home Vidiots, Cow pretends to accidentally put glue on her head as she mistakes it for anti-itch cream to heal her horns from doing chores and then Chicken falls onto Cow from the ceiling having their heads stuck to each other's, while saying their lines in a seemingly sarcastic manner. Also, when Cow reaches for the anti-itch cream, Chicken tells her to reach for the glue.
  • Seen in the Mega Man cartoon on two separate occasions when Mega and Roll try to fool Wily. (You can also tell which of Roll's voice actresses voices her by this—Robyn Ross doesn't do this, while Kathleen Barr does.)
  • Martha Speaks has a habit of doing this any time there's a Show Within a Show. Take for example a Harry Potter-esque home movie directed by TD:

Martha: (monotone) Oh, bad luck? I've been turned into a talking dog.
Martha: (stilted) Dark Lord of... Really Dark Darkness, I will not let you stop me?

  • In The Looney Tunes Show, Daffy is cast to play Foghorn Leghorn in a movie about Foghorn Leghorn, and he.... doesn't do such a good job.

Daffy: Oooh, boohoo, man! I'm crying so hard! I say, I say, look how hard I CRYYY!
Foghorn: Don't say it, do it!
Daffy: (starts laughing hysterically)

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