Line #83 Main/HouseboatHero


1	%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%%
5	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
6	%%
7	%%
8	%%
9	%%
10	%% Image and caption selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17097468230.18139900
11	%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
12	%%
13	[[quoteright:350:[[Literature/TravisMcGee https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/travismcgee_boat.png]]]]
14	[[caption-width-right:350:Home sweet houseboat.]]
15	%%
16
17	->'''[[Series/MacGyver1985 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/QuincyME Quincy]]'' all lived on boats!\
18	'''GirlOfTheWeek:''' True, but none of them ever converted their boat into a treehouse!
19	-->-- ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' satire
20
21	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 always inherently cool), making it, at the same time, a CoolHouse. This may be symbolic of the hero's cool detachment from things (or his being AllergicToRoutine), 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).
22
23	In RealLife, houseboats are typically mobile homes on pontoons or barges, 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 [[LonersAreFreaks lack of]] [[NoSocialSkills social skills]].
24
25	----
26	!!Examples:
27
28	[[foldercontrol]]
29
30	[[folder:Comic Books]]
31	* A pretty popular ''ComicBook/{{Archie\|Comics}}'' story involves one. Archie and Betty find a girl in a swamp, and take her to their friend, an old captain living in a houseboat. The girl is revealed to be an heiress, but her uncle is trying to kill her. Archie and his friends set a trap for him, luring him to the boat, planning on jumping him when he opens the door. However, the uncle decides instead to cut the lines, sending them down toward the InevitableWaterfall. [[spoiler:Of course, the gang had planned for this, and there was a cable that kept the boat from drifting ''too'' far down. Makes you wonder why the captain lived so close to a waterfall...]]
32	* Tempest Gale in ''[[ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures Pk2]]'' lives on a small, crappy boat.
33	* ''ComicBook/TimDrakeRobin'': Tim moves into a houseboat in the marina and continues acting as a costumed detective hero.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Fan Works]]
37	* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': Serris of Tides, the GuestStarPartyMember of ''Peril in the Frozen North'', is a freelance private investigator/artificer who lives on a boat, crafts his own crime-solving gadgets, and sails the world taking cases for hire.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]
41	* In ''Film/AssaultOnAQueen'', Mark Brittain and Linc Langley live on their fishing charter boat. When the owner the marina threatens to impound their boat for nonpayment of fees, Mark agrees to sign on to Rosa's expedition as diver.
42	* ''Film/BloodWork'' (Creator/ClintEastwood lives on one); [[spoiler:but so does the BigBad, berthed a few slips down.]]
43	* ''Film/{{Cocktail}}'': Creator/BryanBrown lives on a yacht.
44	* In ''Film/FatherGoose'', TheProtagonist starts out as this, but is stranded on an island and spends a fair amount of the movie trying to fix his former home.
45	* The undercover cop in ''Film/HardBoiled'' lives on a yacht (which ends up the site of one of the film's gunfight set pieces). [[spoiler: The film ends with him sailing away after the "death" of his cover identity.]]
46	* Leon Phelps, the title character of ''Film/TheLadiesMan'' lives in a beat up old houseboat full of painfully [[TheSeventies Seventies]] decor.
47	* Creator/JohnWayne in ''Film/{{McQ}}''.
48	* ''Film/MuddyRiver'': One of the more depressing examples of this trope. Shoko is a widow who has turned to prostitution after her husband, who used to work the houseboat, drowned in the river. The family is living in poverty and the houseboat is old and while seaworthy doesn't look like it's in a great state of repair. Shoko's daughter Ginko talks about how they have to lean over the side of the boat to pee, while her son Kiichi wishes that they could live in a real house.
49	* The Commodore in the 1980 ''Film/{{Popeye}}'' lived on a boat. Well, it ''is'' about sailors.
50	* Shane Falco in ''Film/TheReplacements2000'' ("See that yacht over there with the satellite dish? Mine's the one next to it covered in pigeon crap.")
51	* Lorenzo Lamas's character in ''Film/SnakeEater'' drives a houseboat.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Literature]]
55	* In Creator/JimButcher's ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Literature/{{Changes}}'', Harry is living on a houseboat at the end after his apartment is burned out. [[spoiler:Briefly. Then after he's revived he moves into a shack on a hidden island.]]
56	* Creator/JasperFforde:
57	** Literature/ThursdayNext moves into a house-''air''boat (or should that be flying houseboat?) at the end of ''Lost in a Good Book''.
58	** In the ''Literature/NurseryCrime'' series, which takes places sort of in the same universe, D.S. Mary Mary lives on the same houseboat.
59	* The protagonist CDR Mike Montgomery in the novel ''Literature/ScorpionInTheSea''. When he isn’t on the US Navy destroyer he is the captain of. The author of that book prefers this trope. The protagonist Jim Hall in another novel ''Literature/{{Darkside}}'' also lives on a houseboat.
60	* The ''Literature/{{Thora}}'' series is about a half-mermaid girl who lives on a houseboat with her mermaid mother and a human man who helps raise her.
61	* ''Literature/TravisMcGee'': The title character from the novels by John D. [=MacDonald=] lives on a houseboat called ''The Busted Flush'' (he won it in a poker game), parked in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The marina is real (although there hasn't been a Slip F-18 since their last renovation), and maintains a plaque dedicated to the hero and his chronicler.
62	* John Kelly in Creator/TomClancy's ''[[Literature/JackRyan Without Remorse]]'' has a very nice boat he uses to live on when he's not on the island he rents, until he destroys it at the end as part of faking his own death.
63	[[/folder]]
64
65	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
66	* ''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.
67	* ''Series/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...
68	** ... the villains were a couple running various financial scams while living out of the boat precisely so they could take off on a moment's notice, and...
69	** ... when they were about to be caught by the villains, Sam pretended to be a guy claiming ''he'' lived on the boat in order to score with Fiona.
70	* Bobby from ''Series/{{Cougartown}}'' lives on a boat. A boat that never leaves the parking lot. In the second season, Jules and the others move it to the marina to surprise Bobby. [[spoiler:It promptly sinks. They do fish it back out, leaving Bobby [[StatusQuoIsGod back where he started]].]] At the end of the season, Bobby [[spoiler:moves into an apartment and leaves the houseboat to a depressed Travis. In the third season, Travis moves to a dorm and Bobby is back on the boat.]
71	* A rare female example: Kate from ''Series/FairlyLegal.'' Although she admits in the first season finale that she doesn't actually sail[[spoiler: ...and in the season two premiere her boat blows up]].
72	* ''Series/{{Harrow}}'' lives on his sailboat anchored on the Brisbane river.
73	* On ''Series/{{Haven}}'', Duke lives in a barge he won in a poker game when he was younger. It's a cargo boat, but at least part of it has been converted into living quarters. In a subversion of the trope, he's on the other side of the law: he's a VenturousSmuggler, who works with the local Haven detectives only reluctantly.
74	* Duncan [=MacLeod=] in ''Series/{{Highlander}}: The Series'' lived off and on in a péniche on the Seine in Paris.
75	* Kellerman from ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet''. Of course his coolness got deconstructed as time went on.
76	* ''Series/MacGyver1985'' lived on a houseboat for several seasons.
77	* ''Series/MiamiVice'': Crockett has two boats; one for racing, one where he lives with his alligator.
78	* On the Animal Planet show ''Series/PitBoss'', main character Shorty lives on a boat. With pit bulls. It's a reality/documentary thing about a group that rescues abandoned pit bulls, so he fits the "heroic" requirement too.
79	* ''Series/QuincyME'' 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. ]]
80	* Cody in ''Series/{{Riptide\|1984}}'' runs the series detective agency out of his boat; his partners Nick and Murray live on the boat as well.
81	* On ''Series/SimonAndSimon'', Rick lives on a boat parked in A.J.'s front yard.
82	* The early '60s detective series ''Series/Surfside6'' had its heroes living on the title boat in Miami Beach (cha-cha-cha, CHA).
83	* Joe and Brian accidentally sink Lowell's houseboat on ''Series/{{Wings}}''.
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
87	* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': Mercenary outfits often live in their dropships, which is basically the 31st/32nd Century equivalent of living in a boat. Few merc groups have permanent landholds, and they have to move around a lot between contracts, so there's little incentive for them to actually buy a home on a planet that they'll be leaving in a few months and probably won't return to.
88	[[/folder]]
89
90	[[folder:Video Games]]
91	* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' plays with this trope in games that feature/revolve around sailing:
92	** In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'', Edward makes the Jackdaw his base of operation at least until he takes the island of Great Inagua under his control from an Templar agent.
93	** ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRogue'' averts this: while Shay uses the Morrigan much like Edward, he also gains a mansion residence in New York immediately after joining the Templars.
94	** Played straight in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' where the Misthios make their ship the Adrestia as their residence after leaving their childhood home in Kephallonia.
95	* ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'''s base of operations for your character is the trusty ''Gabbiano''.
96	* The crew of ''[[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun Hong Kong]]'' live in the ''Bolthole'', a derelict fishing ship moored near Kowloon Walled City. While spacious and a decent place tto live by ''Shadowrun'' standards, it's so rusted and old that everybody claims it would crumble down or sink the second it leaves harbour.
97	* Wei Shen's third safehouse in ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs2012'' is a houseboat down by the Aberdeen docks; not his fanciest abode, but still much nicer than his tiny starting apartment.
98	* ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden V}}'' has the Oboro Detective Agency, whose members live together on a small boat as both coworkers and surrogate family. This lets them pick up and go whenever they want; if the player isn't careful, this can lead to them being [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost forever]], courtesy of them leaving before the Prince can convince them to join his cause.
99	[[/folder]]
100
101	[[folder:Webcomics]]
102	* ''Webcomic/{{Derelict}}'': The main character's base of operations.
103	[[/folder]]
104
105	[[folder:Western Animation]]
106	* In the first season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Zuko lives on a small, crappy warship. Also more of an example of Houseboat Villain than HouseboatHero.
107	* WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck:
108	** "Hero" is questionable, but in ''The Little Wise Hen'', the very first Donald Duck shorts, he lived on a houseboat. Fittingly, since he was more of an actual duck back then, so you'd think he'd live close to water.
109	** His house at the Ride/DisneyThemeParks is a boat, called the ''Miss Daisy'', which was carried over into the ''WesternAnimation/MickeyMouseWorks'' shorts.
110	** In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', Donald and his nephews are living in an old boat. By the end of the pilot, it relocates to Scrooge [=McDuck=]'s swimming pool after [[spoiler:it catches fire due to the nephews trying to hotwire it.]]
111	* ''WesternAnimation/JoshuaJones'', a stop-motion series by the creators of ''WesternAnimation/FiremanSam'', puts a uniquely British spin on this thanks to the title character being a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowboat Narrowboat]] Hero.
112	* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': Marinette's classmate Juleka lives on a houseboat with her mother Anarka and brother Luka. Anarka fancies herself a modern-day pirate who lives by very few rules (and fails to get the proper permits for mooring her home). She once worked with rock star Jagged Stone [[spoiler: who is also the father of her children]] and considers his life on tour to be too erratic, so the houseboat seems to be a compromise. Luka is cool and somewhat aloof, while also sincere enough to become Marinette's RomanticFalseLead. Juleka, meanwhile, fits the socially awkward variant; she's shy and has trouble making friendships.
113	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
114	** Once, the family moves to Terror Lake as part of a WitnessProtection deal in which they become The Thompsons.
115	---> '''Homer:''' Oh, come on, Marge. You've always wanted a house by the lake. And besides, if you don't like your neighbors, you just lift anchor and sail away!\
116	'''The Simpsons:''' ''[laughing]''\
117	''[all the other houseboats sail off as quickly as possible]''
118	** Chief Wiggum lives on one (''The Big Queasy'') in the ''Chief Wiggum, P.I.'' segment from ''The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase''.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Real Life]]
122	* In the legal case of Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Fane Lozman was a local political troublemaker who lived in a houseboat, which was condemned and destroyed by the city in an effort to get rid of him. He filed a lawsuit and had to take it all the way up to the Supreme Court before he won his case, using his winnings to buy a new houseboat which he sailed right back into the town.
123	[[/folder]]

Context Main / HouseboatHero