History Main / HouseboatHero

* Tempest Gale in ''[[PaperinikNewAdventures Pk2]]'' lives on a small, crappy boat.

In RealLife, houseboats are typically mobile homes on pontoons, and are as close to CoolBoat as TheAllegedCar is to CoolCar. Some works with {{Loser Protagonist}}s will have the hero live on such a houseboat to highlight their tenuous grasp on normalcy.

--> '''[[Series/{{MacGyver}} [=MacGimmick=]]]:''' Lots of famous detectives have lived on boats. Sonny Crockett from ''Series/MiamiVice'', B.L. Stryker, the team from ''Series/SimonAndSimon'' and even ''[[Series/{{Quincy}} Quincy]]'' all lived on boats!

--->''Magazine/{{MAD}}''

--> '''[=MacGimmick=]:''' Lots of famous detectives have lived on boats. Sonny Crockett from ''Series/MiamiVice'', B.L. Stryker, the team from ''Series/SimonAndSimon'' and even ''[[Series/{{Quincy}} Quincy]]'' all lived on boats!

-- From the ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' satire of ''Series/{{MacGyver}}''

Straightforward trope -- the hero is that much cooler because he not only ''has'' a CoolBoat, he actually ''lives'' on it (in theory, the hero could live on an uncool houseboat, except that houseboats are almost inherently cool), making it, at the same time, a CoolHouse. This may be symbolic of the hero's cool detachment from things, since he could (in theory at least) just raise anchor and move his whole life away whenever he wishes. Doesn't apply to people who live on a boat which serves as the home base for dozens or hundreds of occupants, or to those who just ''work'' on a boat owned by someone else, even if that's where they spend their nights (in a navy, as a pirate, on a cruise ship).

* [[Series/ArrestedDevelopment GOB Bluth]] made a hearty attempt at this trope, but the boat belonged to the Bluth Company, and his residency there was one of the strings that kept him (in his mind) beholden to his brother Michael.
* [[BurnNotice Sam and Fiona]] were nearly caught snooping around on the boat belonging to the week's villains. This one's a two-fer, actually, since...

* ''BloodWork'' (Clint Eastwood lives on one); [[spoiler:but so does the BigBad, berthed a few slips down.]]

* The undercover cop in ''HardBoiled'' lives on a yacht (which ends up the site of one of the film's gunfight set pieces).

* ''{{Cocktail}}'': Bryan Brown lives on a yacht.
* JohnWayne in ''McQ''.
* Riggs, in at least one of the ''LethalWeapon'' movies.

* The early '60s detective series ''{{Surfside 6}}'' had its heroes living on the title boat in Miami Beach (cha-cha-cha, CHA).
* ''{{Quincy}}'' lived on a boat, until the episode "Quincy's Wedding, Part 2" [[spoiler: when he arranged to sell it, because his fiancee and soon-to-be-wife Emily didn't want to live on it. ]]
* ''MiamiVice'' (Crockett had two boats, one for racing, one where he lived with his alligator).
* On ''SimonAndSimon'' Rick lives on a boat parked in A.J.'s front yard.

* Bobby from ''{{Cougartown}}'' lives on a boat. A boat that never leaves the parking lot.

* Kellerman from ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet''. Of course his coolness got deconstructed as time went on.

* In JasperFforde's ''Lost In A Good Book'', Literature/ThursdayNext moves into a house-''air''boat (or should that be flying houseboat?) at the end of the book.

* Duncan [=MacLeod=] in ''HighlanderTheSeries'' lived off and on in one of these in Paris.

* In JimButcher's Literature/TheDresdenFiles novel ''Literature/{{Changes}}'', Harry is living on a houseboat at the end. Briefly.

* Travis [=McGee=], from the novels by John D. MacDonald, lives on a houseboat called "The Busted Flush" (he won it in a poker game), Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real, and maintains a plaque dedicated to the hero and his chronicler.

* Tempest Gale in [[PaperinikNewAdventures Pk2]] lives on a small, crappy boat.

* The Commodore in the 1980 ''{{Popeye}}'' lived on a boat.

* Joe and Brian accidentally sink Lowell's houseboat on Wings.

* Once, ''TheSimpsons'' moved to Terror Lake as part of a WitnessProtection deal in which they became The Thompsons.

* Travis McGee, from the novels by John D. MacDonald, lives on a houseboat called "The Busted Flush" (he won it in a poker game), Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real, and maintains a plaque dedicated to the hero and his chronicler.

* Travis McGee, from the novels by John D. MacDonald, lives on a houseboat called "The Busted Flush" (he won it in a poker game), Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real, and maintains a plague dedicated to the hero and his chronicler.

* TravisMcGee, from the novels by JohnDMacDonald, lives on a houseboat called "The Busted Flush" (he won it in a poker game).

* In JimButcher's DresdenFiles novel ''Changes'', Harry is living on a houseboat at the end. Briefly.

* John Kelly in TomClancy's ''WithoutRemorse'' has a very nice houseboat, IIRC, until he destroys it at the end as part of faking his own death.

* MacGyver lived on a houseboat for several seasons.

Straightforward trope -- the hero is that much cooler because he not only ''has'' a CoolBoat, he actually ''lives'' on it (in theory, the hero could live on an uncool houseboat, except that houseboats are almost inherently cool), making it, at the same time, a CoolHouse. This may be symbolic of the hero's cool detachment from things, since he could (in theory at least) just raise anchor and move his whole life away whenever he wishes. Doesn't apply to people who live on a boat which serves as the home base for dozens or hundreds of occupants, or to those who just ''work'' on a boat owned by someone else, even if that's where they spend their nights (in a navy, as a pirate, on a cruise ship).

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* In ''YouveGotMail'', Tom Hanks' character and his father and grandfather all have boats. However, they only use them to sleep in when they get kicked out of their apartment by a girlfriend.

* In the first season of ''AvatarTheLastAirbender,'' Zuko lives on a small, crappy warship. Also more of an example of Houseboat Villain than HouseboatHero.

* Parodied in ''TheSimpsons Movie'': Captain [=McAllister=], to escape from Lisa's environmental door-to-door campaigning, sent his houseboat down the river.

* In JasperFforde's ''Lost In A Good Book'', Literature/ThursdayNext moves into one at the end of the book.

* ''EndlessOcean'''s base of operations for your character is the trusty ''Gabbiano''.