History VitriolicBestBuds / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': Charles is this with Hawkeye and BJ (who are regular best buds). They snipe at and act like they don't like one another, but -- on top of working together and sharing living quarters -- the three voluntarily spend a great deal of their free time together.
* On ''Series/{{Martin}},'' the title character and Gina's best friend Pam are constantly at each other's throats, but Gina doesn't mind because they have both separately confided in her that they think the other is OK, though they'd kill her if she actually said anything.

* On ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'', Ian Hislop and Paul Merton often mock and insult each other but are actually good friends. The one time Merton took it too far, quite gratuitously calling Hislop "that little shit", he was mortified and immediately began apologising profusely. By way of contrast, Merton's dislike of the original host, Angus Deayton, was completely genuine, and the banter could turn from amusing sniping to uncomfortable quickly on occasion.

** Doc Adams and Festus Haggen. The two’s banter and snarking provided a lot of the show’s humor, with Doc sending many a StealthInsult Festus’ way and Festus getting irritated with the “wally ol’ scudder”. Any episode where either of them are sick, injured or in danger, though, and you get to see that for all their bantering, they truly do respect each other. In one episode, an outlaw who wanted to punish Matt for getting his father executed kidnaps Doc, Kitty and Festus, and chooses Doc as his victim (after injuring Matt Dillon and chaining him to a pole). Festus rips the bars off of the jail window to get to Doc, and is only halted when it turned out the man just wanted Matt to feel how helpless he felt watching his father be hung. “Prime of Life” and the two-parter “The Guns of Cibola Blanca” are a few more examples of their friendship.

* Series/Gunsmoke:
** Doc Adams and Festus Haggen. The two’s banter and snarking provided a lot of the show’s humor, with Doc sending many a StealthInsult Festus’ way and Festus getting irritated with the “wally ol’ scudder”. Any episode where either of them are sick, injured or in danger, though, and their underlying affection and respect for each other becomes more apparent. In one episode, an outlaw who wanted to punish Matt for getting his father executed kidnaps Doc, Kitty and Festus, and chooses Doc as his victim (after injuring Matt Dillon and chaining him to a pole). Festus rips the bars off of the jail window to get to Doc, and is only halted when it turned out the man just wanted Matt to feel how helpless he felt watching his father be hung.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* The heroines of ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'', Caroline and Max, snipe at each other constantly but always drop everything to help each other in times of trouble. At one point Max lets slip to Caroline "You're my best friend" and both are immediately mortified at the revelation.

'''Mickey:''' [[AnythingThatMoves And that's enough hugging.]]

** Spock does hold his own in said exchanges, though, and usually manages to give as good as he gets -- either through InsultBackfire, or more directly (e.g. his ridiculing of Bones's medical competence and his illogical nature, which is surely the gravest insult a Vulcan can think of). Indeed, this was a common complaint when ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' attempted to replicate the Spock and [=McCoy=] dynamic with Data and Pulaski -- since Data, unlike Spock, never talked back or stood up for himself (or even really seemed to understand that Pulaski was insulting him), it looked less like a spirited exchange of give and take and more like a bigot bullying a neurodivergent person.

** Spock does hold his own in said exchanges, though, and usually manages to give as good as he gets -- either through InsultBackfire, or more directly (e.g. his ridiculing of Bones's medical competence and his illogical nature, which is surely the gravest insult a Vulcan can think of). Indeed, this was a common complaint when ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' attempted to replicate the Spock and [=McCoy=] dynamic with Data and Pulaski -- since Data, unlike Spock, never talked back or stood up for himself, it looked less like a spirited exchange of give and take and more like bullying.

** It seems like for every time that [[TeenGenius Adric]] and [[DeadpanSnarker Tegan]] snap at each other, they have a caring moment to make up for it. Notably, whenever Tegan is missing or possibly in trouble, Adric will be the first to insist that they go save her. Not to mention that Tegan is visibly grief-stricken when Adric dies and later tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Doctor to go back and save him.

** Fraser and Kowalski too. Kowalski treats Fraser far worse than Vecchio ever did.

** Bolander often berates his partner Munch whenever he screws up and is generally pretty hard on him, but he does his best to mentor Munch and get him to improve as a detective. Munch in turn respects Bolander, but won't hesitate to insult him in turn. It's implied Bolander is like this with all his partners; in one episode, his previous partner ([[AlwaysSomeomeBetter who Bolander claims was better than Munch in every way]]) arrives and notes that Bolander was just as hard on him as he was on Munch.

** The Keating Five as a whole is this. They argue a lot but they hang up together frequently (work, class and drama being reasons of this) and have several [[FriendshipMoment friendship moments.]]

** The Penguin and the Riddler are a VillainousFriendship example. Even when they're not in the middle of a bitter feud over something terrible one did to the other, they spend a lot of their screentime bickering and behaving quite childishly around each other, especially in Seasons 4 and 5. This is despite them probably being the most important people in each others' lives, to the point that [[spoiler: [[TakingTheBullet Oswald takes a grenade for Ed with zero hesitation]]]] in the series finale.

'''Eleven:''' Oh, "busy"? [[IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow I see, is that what we're calling it, eh?]] Eh? ''[bows before the [[ItMakesSenseInContext two Queen Elizabeths]]]'' Hellooo, ladies.\\

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': Shawn and Gus argue and mock each other over pretty much everything, from relationships, to personal interests, to how to handle a case. But they've been best friends since childhood and when matters get serious, always have each other's back.

** Walt and Jesse started as an extreme version of this, particularly in the early seasons; they'd bicker and fight relentlessly, sometimes to the point of physical violence, but would pull out all the stops to rescue the other whenever one of them was in danger. As the show progressed and Walt turned into more of a VillainProtagonist, the relationship turned into something much darker.