History Main / WorkOffTheDebt

* An extreme case of this was the basis of seasons 2 through 5 of ''TheFactsOfLife'': The four girls were working off damages inflicted to school property (with RichBitch Blair's parents not bailing her out as a growth experience).

* In the ''Film/ThreeStooges'' short "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise", the Stooges accidentally damage a farmer's saws; he orders them to work for him until they can pay for new saws. However, in the next scene, they aren't shown doing said work and [[PlotHole are back out wandering the countryside]]. It's never established if they did work off their debt or [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere ran off when the farmer wasn't looking]].

* In the ''Series/CaitlinsWay episode "Caitlin's Trust", Caitlin wrecks Jim's brand new ATV while taking it for a joyride (Long story short, she thought that he'd purchased it using money paid to him by the government to take care of her and she took the ATV for a joyride because she was angry about it). As it turns out, [[spoiler: he paid for the ATV out of his own pocket. He'd been secretly putting the government checks in a trust fund for Caitlin.]] When this comes out, he lets her (and Griffen, who was also in the ATV) do community service to work off the debt. In a twist on the trope, this is actually the lesser of two evils, as the alternative would have been to file criminal charges against her, which would result in her being taken away from Jim and Dori and sent to juvenile detention.

** Lisa worked as a living ''iPod'' advertising board to pay for her iTunes downloads. [[SpoofAesop That's what you get for downloading music legally]].

For some reason, this is far from becoming a DiscreditedTrope even though it should be because in most countries, the restaurant's only legal recourse is civil action, which would be more expensive than it's worth. No doubt a ShockinglyExpensiveBill will be involved. Related to TrappedByGamblingDebts.

* Subverted in ''{{Fables}}'', where Flycatcher works off his crimes by being a janitor, but keeps getting caught doing the same crime again and has his sentence extended. He does this because he likes being a janitor; it makes him feels fulfilled. The subversion was subverted by Bill Willingham when Flycatcher was turned into TinkerbellJesus.
** Bit more to it than that: [[spoiler:Bigby was deliberately harsh in his enforcement of their Masquerade because as long as Flycatcher is on community service he doesn't have to resume his search for his lost family and thus take the risk of remembering what became of them.]]

** At least a small part of the trope is justifiable in this case: The majority of the duck comics genuinely take place before dishwashers were in widespread use.
** Scrooge constantly uses Donald's debts to make him do stuff for him.
*** One story had Donald working off a debt only to learn it was already paid. Not wanting to part with money, Scrooge agreed to work for Donald, who had Scrooge pick some rare flowers (Donald wanted to impress Daisy). Unfortunately, that action resulted on Donald having to pay a fine three times the original debt's value. Scrooge paid it and now Donald had to work for him again. Scrooge [[SarcasmMode congratulated]] Donald for turning a credit into a thrice as big debt.

* ''That70sShow''

* ''ILoveLucy''.

* The plot for Pikmin 2 is basically this. Louie's ship was attacked by a space bunny while delivering a load of golden pikpik carrots[[note]][[spoiler: He ate them]][[/note]] putting Hocotate Freight in dept. Olimar returns with tresure and Prez sends Olimar and Louie back to the pikmin planet to get more tresure to pay off the dept.

* The plot for Pikmin 2 is basically this. Louie's ship was attacked by a space bunny while delivering a load of golden pikpik carrots [[note: [[spoiler: He ate them]]]] putting Hocotate Freight in dept. Olimar returns with tresure and Prez sends Olimar and Louie back to the pikmin planet to get more tresure to pay off the dept.

* An episode of ''Cheers'' had Norm painting the office to work off his huge bar tab.

[[quoteright:330:[[HeyArnold http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/helga-arnold-dishes.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:330: Oh, shut up and rinse...]]

* In ''FinalFantasyX2'', the merchant O'aka ends up in deep debt to some Al Bhed moneylenders after a business deal goes bad. You can either turn him over to the Al Bhed looking for him, or you can take him onto your airship and buy items from him until you pay off his 100,000 gil debt. If you pay off his debt, he'll reopen his shop and start selling some very useful items. If you turn him over to the Al Bhed, they put him to work at an excavation site in the desert to pay off his debt.
* Almost the entire point behind the mercenary work in the ''StarFox'' series. The Great Fox mothership was purchased/built by Fox's father, James, who racked up a huge bill for the ship. The bill was passed down to Fox after James was killed, so Fox and his crew do mercenary-for-hire work to pay off the rest of the bill.
* In ''TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', you can break the chandelier of the Lumpy Pumpkin to get a Piece of Heart. Doing so will piss off the owner, starting a series of sidequests where he makes you work to repay the chandelier.

* The Daffy Duck short "China Jones" ends with Daffy being threatened by Porky Pig into working off his debt at a Chinese laundry.

For some reason, this is far from becoming a DiscreditedTrope. No doubt a ShockinglyExpensiveBill will be involved. Related to TrappedByGamblingDebts.

* In the WarnerBrothers classic short, ''Hollywood Steps Out''; AndyHardy (a recurring role played by Mickey Rooney) gets into trouble, and as usual has to ask his dad for help. Since they can't pay the bill, Andy and dad end up washing dishes to the rhythm of the music being played by the band.

* In ''GhostInTheShellArise'' military {{cyborg}}s are essentially serfs to their units until they pay off the cost of their prosthetic bodies.

* This is the basic premise of ''Manga/ZombieLoan'', with characters who are BackFromTheDead having to work of the literal life debt they owe in order to stay alive as "Z-Loaners".