-All of those scenes involving Goku being afraid of needles are Toei add-ins. in the manga it's never actually proven whether he has "needle phobia" or not...my guess is that he probably doesn't. However, this fear of needles was simply put into the anime for comic relief (the whole idea behind the gag is to make the most powerful warrior in the uriverse appear to be afraid of something as harmless as a needle) and i don't really think this particular added quirk ruins Goku's character or makes him look dumb...i added it because to some, it can make him appear like a wuss and a bit of a moron. Here some more examples fillers that I think portrayed him as unintelligent (in no particular order);;
-In the Saiyan saga when he is recovering after his first battle with Vegeta, he escapes from the hospital thinking he was healed but ends up injuring himself again. the other scene were he attempts to esacpe and fales is also filler.
-After the Cell Saga, when Goku and King Kai are traveling down snake way to meet with Master Kai. Goku runs ahead of King Kai not even knowing where to go. He has to run backwards to King Kai repeatedly to find out where he's supposed to be going.
-At the other world tournament shortly before his match with Pikkon, he pigs out at a dinner table and when it was time for his match to begin they had to drag him away from the table and he's shown clamped on to what looked like a huge chicken-leg by his teeth while being hauled over to the ring... although it's obviously for comic relief and shows Goku's love for food, it was rather rediculous and in fact, Goku's actually not quite the hunger-crazed food maniac in the manga as he is in the anime at times. The whole thing with Goku at that tournament in the otherworld, is anime-only.
-In that flashback of Gohan's B-day in the Cell games saga, when they are trying to come up with a name for baby Gohan, Chichi asked Goku if he had any ideas what to call him and Goku replies saying "I'm starving!".
-After Videl was severely beaten by Spopovich and is in the hospital, Goku being late in returning with the senzu beans and eating at Korin's tower before coming back down to the tournament, is also the anime only. In the manga he didn't take NEARLY as long as he did in the cartoon; he simply left to the tower to get the beans and returns to give them to Gohan almost right away. He knew that Videl needed that senzu bean fast and I personally think (regardless if there was a meal right there for him or not) he would have put getting the beans to Videl ASAP before sitting at their table for something to eat... Again Toei was kinda over-doing it on Goku's appetite and believe it or not, I've seen Goku turn down food when he has something much more important to do.
-Almost everything during the ten year interval after the defeat of Kid buu and the last world tournament, is filler...including that whole bit were he's is bathing with Goten and Trunks and the episode when everyone is partying and Goku shows up very late.
The fact is, is that besides all those aformeantioned fillers, I do not recall of ANY moment in the manga where he acts like such a dunce...except maybe the time when he first arrived on King Kai's planet and he thought Bubbles was Kaio-sama himself. That is about the only non-filler that i can think of that i could say makes him look kinda dumb, but that was simply for comic-relief and he had NEVER seen King Kai before so how would he know what he would look like? gotta admitm, it is one funny scene that's for sure! In this aspect, Toei has to an extent, ruined the reputation of Goku and they messed him up (as well as the other characters) even more in DBGT. Though I'm only going by from what I've heard so far of GT...and since I haven't seen GT yet, so i can't really comment on it nor give my opinions on it, except for the fact that as far as I'm concerned, Dragonball GT is much like a big official fan-fiction, alot like the unofficial "Dragonball AF" (as are the fillers they put in, all the DB/Z/GT movies, specials and OVAs). However, since not much referenses are actually given to us on how Goku is like during times of peace, I guess Toei was trying to highlight his simplicity and naivette, but they kinda went overboard on it at times; making him appear rather stupid and a perhaps a little goofier than he actually is sometimes.... Further more, Goku's not the only character who's reputation has been damaged by the anime fillers;;; see this other editorial in defense of Yamcha and they made Vegeta look like a wuss at times when they had him chickening out on Freeza, had him acting all squeemish (and scared of those worms) when he was inside of Buu with "Kakarot" looking for Piccolo and the boys, is also in the anime only.......
Now I'm not trying to bash Toei here (after all if it weren't for them, I probably wouldn't have known about DBZ), but i have many gripes against them, mainly for their utter disrespect for AT and his work. When you get right down to it, the problem (largely speaking) all stems from Toei fillers that (as I mentioned earlier) over did it when they tried to show Goku's simple/innocent side, instead have made him act rather stupid at times. Well, that enough on fillers...
The next biggest contributor to this whole massive heaping pile of Saiyan poop, is the FUNimation dub, when they decided to mess around with the original dialogue and had their Goku spout out such ridiculous-sounding lines and jokes at times (of which have made him look even worse at times than in the Toei fillers i meantioned earlier). A good example of this is when he is fighting oozaru Vegeta in the Saiyan saga, they had him say "That monster who stepped on my grandfather and destroyed the tournament arena so many years ago....was HIM!!" Well for those who haven't yet seen the original Japanese version of that episode (hope you don't mind spoilers!)...he actually came to the conclusion that it was HIMSELF who was that monster that did all that way back when. There are MANY other examples of this in the dub that has portrayed Goku as pretty dang stupid...but I don't feel like going any further into this.
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