What happens when the Goffy stop playing around?

Things are looking bleak. The heroes and his allies are in a corner; the villain's kung fu is stronger than theirs. Outnumbered, outgunned, the situation calls for heroism, and unfortunately for our heroes, the only people around are all comic relief, sidekicks or mentor figures who've never really stepped up to the plate, when they aren't mere weaklings.

Hey, what are they doing? Don't they know that they're cannon Fodder!


Hold on a moment...............................THAT GUY JUST DESTROYED ALL THOSE MINIONS!!!!

A moment in the story when all the quirky, eccentric supporting cast stop being quirky and eccentric and start demonstrating why you should respect your elders. In effect it can often be similar to taking a level in effectiveness except that really, when you think about it, it makes more sense. It's not so much that they pull the power from nowhere. Rather, these characters have always HAD THE POWER, now there are simply demonstrating this. In some cases, they may even have been actively failing to demonstrate this much-hyped power before.

I agree that that these characters are capalble of much more

However do not seem to show their ability until the last resort