If you want one good reason why he might not be as smart as most people think he is, just compare his house to the Orange Kid's house. His house is full of junk. The Orange Kid's is very organized. The Orange Kid has a very organized bookshelf. But the Apple Kid's bookshelf is behind a pile of junk. The Orange Kid has something that the Apple Kid doesn't have. He has a bed. The Apple Kid just sleeps on a bench.

The Apple Kid also asks for food when you talk to him. There aren't too many people who would give him $200. And some of the people who would donate the money would just walk away and take the money when he asks for food. He should just use some of that money to buy some food. It's still being used for his inventions. He can't invent anything if he starves to death. He's so hungry that he will eat anything you give to him. He'll even eat a ketchup packet.

Most people in Earthbound either have no pets or a dog or cat as a pet. But the Apple Kid has a mouse. If he had any common sense, he wouldn't have adopted the mouse. He could have gotten a disease from it. Or it could have been a rowdy mouse. Instead of being in his messy house when you go there, he could have been in the hospital because the mouse SMAAAAAASHed him. He got lucky. It wasn't a rowdy mouse. It's a small mouse, but he still has to feed it. He's so hungry that he has to beg for food. How's he going to feed the mouse if he doesn't have any food for himself?

If you look in that trash can in his house, you'll get the broken machine. The broken machine turns into the counter PSI unit when Jeff fixes it. But Jeff can fix this machine with his IQ level at 1. The Apple Kid probably spent months trying to fix it, but couldn't fix it and quit.

The Apple Kid does give you inventions that only a genius could create. But you never know if he did invent them. He livesnext to the Orange Kid. The Orange Kid has two admirers that are always near his house. There probably are more, but aren't obsessed as those two admirers. The Orange Kid seems like the type of person who would spend some time with some o those admirers. I also think he might have invented some of the inventions that Ness gets. So the Apple Kid could have snuck in or had his mouse sneak in while the Orange Kid was busy. The he could have stolen the Orange Kid's newest invention.

I'll give him credit for some of his inventions. He might have invented the yogurt dispenser, but something like that would be easy to make if you had enough money and time. He might have invented that simple machine, but he sent it to Ness with Escargo Express's Neglected Class. The delivery man wasted time in the Monkey Cave in the Desert and he also left it there. If the Apple Kid was as smart as he says he is, he would have paid the $18 for a better delivery man.

Even though it sounds simple, the zombie paper would be hard to make. I don't know if the Apple Kid could have invented something like that. He probably tried to put some glue he got at the preschool on a piece of a newspaper, but noticed that even his mouse could get off. Then he might have tried super glue and found out that that wouldn't work because the zombies could just rip the newspaper. Then he snuck into the Orange Kid's house and stole the zombie paper. But when he was sending it to Ness, he had the Mach Pizza man deliver the zombie paper. The Mach Pizza man doesn't care about the Apple Kid. He just wants to deliver the pizzas and make money. So he just gave the pizza to the first person he saw.

The Apple Kid probably is as smart as he says he is. He still could use some common sense. He probably didn't sneak into the Orange Kid's house, but he did ask for food and he had the Mach Pizza man and Escargo Express's Neglected Class deliver some of his inventions. He might just be lazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if he is as dumb as a rock..