I wanted to mention this. How good Charlie is at is job may be open to argument by some, but in comparison to his lazy no good co-harts he is a fantastic employee. Best not to examine how he does the work often, but again, in comparison to what his cohorts do when shirking their jobs it’s not so bad at all.
Harry Solomon from 3rd Rock from the Sun is the family’s “communications officer” by dint of a transmitter implanted in his brain. When it’s activated, he carries out his official duties competently, albeit entirely passively. In everyday life he’s a complete dope. (Throughout the series he does take up some other odd jobs and hobbies, though it’s hit and miss as to whether he proves completely unsuitable or ends up tapping some hidden genius.)
Cliff was a terrible mailman. I remember an episode where he’s delivering mail in an apartment complex, and as soon as he leaves all the neighbors come out and start exchanging mail to whom it was actually addressed.
A lot of actors will stay in character as long as they’re on set, even if the cameras aren’t rolling. Maybe it’s similar for Columbo, and he drops the shtick only when he goes home for the day.
Jayne Cobb, in Firefly, is an idiot and a bully, but he’s a competent fighter and shows courage for the most part.
And even loyalty to his crewmates, increasingly so as the series went on (and in the subsequent film).
Only because the real doctors stopped him. One episode, for instance, he was going to remove a damaged kidney from a wounded soldier, who only had one kidney (which he would have seen if he’d looked at the X-rays).
Gomer Pyle was a perfectly competent mechanic’s assistant. He wasn’t as skilled as the actual mechanic whose name I don’t remember, but he was well on his way to learning, and he knew more than most of the rest of the town about engines. I suspect that he was a competent Marine, too, though I don’t remember that show very well.
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho was, of course, an idiot, but he was also a pretty good President. He recognized that his nation was facing a crisis, he took responsibility for it, he found the person best-qualified for dealing with the crisis, and he gave that person all the support and resources he needed to deal with the crisis.
In the short-lived Dilbert cartoon, Wally was shown to be a super-competant coder when he was forced to be.
He left a sponge (or similar) in a patient, who developed an infection IIRC. Definitely malpractice.
I think he missed a piece of shrapnel one time (Hawkeye: You can’t just look, you have to feel around, Frank!") that caused post-op bleeding.
How about Jerry Gergich from Parks and Recreation? Shown as a bumbling fool in his job, though partly that’s how he’s perceived by others. But outside the office, he’s happily married to a gorgeous woman (played by Christie Brinkley) and three lovely daughters, all of whom dote on him. He was shown to be a talented artist and pianist, and later serves ten terms as mayor of Pawnee.
Per TVTropes, it’s that Peter Falk gives his take in his memoirs “Just One More Thing”. In it he says Columbo is absent minded, but that’s because he’s concentrating all his thoughts on cases he hasn’t solved.
Actually, if anything, he’s become even more competent as the series progresses, and a marginally better team player, too. He’s still a raging egomaniac, but now it’s just as likely that one of the other losers will be the one who screws up the mission.
The most recent movie really leaned into that. Max was a hyper-competent analyst, and seemed like a goofball only because he was relatively new to field work.
And no one else needed to worry about doing guard duty because Zero was up all night staring at the jeep tied to logs to keep it afloat.
“The Todd” on Scrubs is a dimwit who spends all his time making juvenile misogynistic jokes, but is at one point the best surgeon among his peers:
Gomer upped his mechanic skills right quickly. Early on he was competent only in the basics - pumping gas, checking oil, putting air in the tires. His boss, Wally, was the mechanic. A couple seasons later Gomer was able to dismantle and reassemble (indoors, in the sheriff’s office) a vehicle.
As a marine, he was a goof. The things he was skilled at - running fast, growing tomatoes, predicting the weather, befriending children and hippies, cooking, and singing - were not typical marine competencies.
mmm
Gomer Pyle USMC episodes were often stories about his Sgt. worrying about him screwing up but he usually delivered in the end. This was something of a change from his character on Andy Griffith. Might just demonstrate once again that the Marines build men. Dumb ones, but hey, somebody has to go first.
ETA: Didn’t notice Chronos post before. I can’t remember all the episodes. I remember a few where Gomer screwed up in Mayberry but he was supposed to be competent working for Wally at the garage. Outside of the garage he seemed more like a Gilligan character. But I haven’t seen most of those shows for ages.
I think that falls under the idiot savant category that the OP is specifically excluding.
The real life Kim Peek (the guy that Rain Man was very loosely based on) had some amazing skills, but they were the result of his brain not working properly. It’s a fascinating topic all on its own but it’s probably well outside the topic of this thread.
(note - not moderating, this isn’t my forum to mod, just my opinion)
I always took it as Columbo having a bit of absent minded professor syndrome. He was very smart and very good at his job, but was so focused on solving crime that things like social skills and being organized (where he left his pen, to use your example) were unimportant to him. It worked to his advantage since criminals would dismiss him as being a bumbling idiot.
Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them.