Idiot Houdini

The Idiot Houdini is when a character who is known for making consistently poor judgments never has to answer for them. In fact, nearly the exact opposite happens: Whatever kind of stupid idea they've come up with, it will work. If they sell the party's material possessions for some magic beans to give to a Nigerian prince he met over the Internet, we can be rest assured that at the end of the episode a Nigerian prince will come solve the conflict with a Deus Ex Machina. The Idiot Houdini will be healthy, wealthy, and have an ample supply of True Companions even though in real life anyone acting the way he does would almost certainly have died ten episodes before the series began.

In other words, an Idiot Houdini is a character who does idiotic acts but however, never gets any comeuppance or justifications for that.

Why This Trope Sucks

 * 1) This trope, alongside Character derailment, serves as hateful character development. Where characters you hate, dislike or despise get off scot-free from anything idiotic or problematic they have caused and actually deserve their comeuppance even more than the butt-monkeys do.
 * 2) It follows Karma-Houdini logic where their painfully lucky nature can get very obnoxious to watch if there's nothing redeemable, clever, or entertaining about what they get away with.
 * 3) Someone of them can get very mean-spirited, selfish, and annoying because of how lucky they are.

The Only Redeeming Quality

 * 1) There are some well-written characters that have this trope. In fact, they can even be likable and redeemable. Beavis and Butthead are notable examples of this.

Notable Idiot Houdinis

 * Cool Cat (a heroic manchild who never faces any consequences for his actions)
 * Peter Griffin (Seasons 8-present; becoming more of a mean-spirited and abusive psychopath than just a lucky idiot)
 * Homer Simpson (Seasons 11-30; His stupidity and immaturity in earlier seasons has lead him into being a redeemable version of this trope before his flanderization made it worse. Also, he has a crayon lodged in his brain, which is the reason why he’s unintelligent, somehow.)
 * Dee Dee (Dexter's mischievious and often misbehaving sister who can be likable sometimes)
 * Cosmo (Seasons 9 and 10; Cosmo being the more obvious take on this.)
 * Cat Valentine (Victorious, Seasons 3 and 4 and all of Sam & Cat)
 * Mr. Turner (Seasons 6-10; turning him into more of a idiotic manchild than before)
 * Billy (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy; making him a mean-spirited idiot)
 * Jade West (Victorious)
 * Tori Vega
 * Kirby (1995 and 2006)
 * Trevor Troublemeyer (Sidekick)
 * Four (Battle for BFDI)
 * SpongeBob SquarePants (Seasons 6b and 7; this would appear whenever SpongeBob got others hurt like Squidward for example)
 * Patrick Star (Seasons 6-9a; he got this treatment far worse than SpongeBob because of him being too stupid and problematic, sometimes maliciously used even!)
 * Henry Danger
 * Sheen Estevez (Planet Sheen; got this treatment where in the movie and the show, it was kind of the opposite)
 * Cameron (Pokémon)
 * The Chucks (Numb Chucks)
 * Jeffy (SuperMarioLogan)
 * Aya Asagiri (Magical Girl Site)
 * Ray Palmer (Futures End)
 * Pizza Steve (Uncle Grandpa, but he still redeemed himself in several episodes)
 * Kevin Reynolds (Supernoobs; in one episode, he recorded his team to give the videos to his tabloid magazine company owner, Marty Soulpatch, not knowing it could reveal their secret identities to them)
 * Joe (Blue's Clues; Season 6)
 * Carl Wheezer (though he is likable and redeemable)
 * Beavis and Butt-head (they are a extremely well-written and entertaining version of this trope)
 * Coconut Fred (taking SpongeBob's flanderization and adding salt to the wound with negatively used traits like his immaturity and recklessness)
 * Howie (Almost Naked Animals)
 * Bud and Doyle (Bio-Dome)