Basement Dweller / Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Frank lives with his mother and pays her rent. It hasn't been mentioned if he actually lives in her basement. Subverted when he almost moved out to become a lawyer^note Jack put a stop to this after learning that all of Frank's male relatives were lawyers for The Mafia and consequently met bad ends.
• Arrested Development: Buster Bluth is a grown man still living with his mother. He is more or less incapable of functioning in the outside world.
• A rather disturbing variation occurs in Being Human (UK). One episode has a young man who lives with his parents... because he was turned into a vampire while in his late teens and his parents are trying to hide it. They constantly move around so no one notices their son staying the same age and have him feed off of them so he won't attack anyone else. By the time the protagonists meet him, they find his now-elderly father dying, leaving his son on his own for the first time in his life.
• Big Cat Diaries: Invoked by Saba's characterization of Chui the leopard when she finds he's still living with his mother about a year after they thought he'd have become independent. Obviously, being a leopard, he doesn't show the human-specific features of a Basement-Dweller, but he is living mostly off of his mother's kills when he's old enough to be on his own. Best guess about why? The local male (probably his father) seems to have gone missing and therefore wasn't around to drive him away and mate with his mother. Sadly, his mother Bella was looking kind of skinny from supporting her adult son as well as herself.
• The Big Bang Theory: Howard lives in his old bedroom instead of the basement, but otherwise fits this trope to a T. However, he and his family are Jewish, which is one of the cultures where adults living with their parents before they get married is considered normal. Howard did try moving out of his mother's and he financially can afford to (he's an engineer at CalTech), but his mother kept guilting him into staying until he married Bernadette in Season 5 and moved into a separate house to start his own family. After his mother's death, Howard and Bernadette move into her house.
• BOB ❤️ ABISHOLA has Chukwuemeka, the Romantic False Lead competing with Bob for Abishola. He's a handsome pharmacist, but a sexist mama's boy. In fact, his mother Ogeche is the one who introduced Abishola to her son. When Abishola chooses Bob, Chukwuemeka tries dating Kemi instead. The first date went awful and Abishola tells Kemi that "There's a reason why a man that handsome still lives with his mother." Kemi keeps seeing Chukwuemeka however, even though Ogeche is doing everything she can to mess things up.
• The Broad City episode "St. Marks" has a 34-year-old man who lives with his mother after dropping out of graduate school and kills time by pretending to be homeless and robbing people as a "joke."
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Xander Harris does not enroll in college during the fourth season and lives in his parents' basement, where he pays rent. He gets his own place in season five, about the time he's shown to take charge of his life by getting a permanent job and a steady girlfriend. By season seven, everyone seems to be living in the Summers household, but that's for mutual protection.
  • Also the Nerd Trio of season six, whose evil headquarters is Warren's parents' basement. ("Why can't we have a lair with a view?")
  • Spike in parts of Seasons 4 and 7. ("I'm chained in a bathtub, drinking pig's blood from a novelty mug!")
• Criminal Minds:
  • The accomplice of the killer from "Extreme Aggressor" has shades of this, since he lived with his grandmother and spent almost all his time in the attic; Morgan, after finding his bedroom, even says "This is a boy's room, not a man's".
  • The UnSubs in "The Wheels on the Bus..." were implied to be this trope for much of their lives, since their parents had abandoned them.
• CSI episode "A Space Oddity" plays the trope ludicrously straight by showing two guys living in a reconstruction of the ship from "Astro Quest" in their mother's attic.
• There was a series called Get a Life starring Chris Elliott that aired on Fox in the early '90s. Elliott's character was an epitome of this trope, although he lived in an apartment over his parents' garage, rather than in the basement.
  Chris Elliott plays Chris Peterson, a carefree, childlike bachelor who refuses to live the life of an adult. At the age of 30, Chris still lives with his parents and maintains a career delivering newspapers (the St. Paul Pioneer Press), a job that he has held since his youth. He has no driver's license (instead, riding his bicycle wherever he goes). He is depicted as being childish, naïve, gullible, foolish, occasionally irresponsible, and extremely dimwitted. Chris is often the subject of abuse from his friends and family. He is often seen dancing (involving a silly back-and-forth step while swinging his arms) to the piano tune "Alley Cat" by Bent Fabric. His lack of intelligence is exaggerated to absurd levels: at one point, he tries to leave his parents' house but is unable to operate the front door. He also fell out of an airplane after opening the plane's exterior door, believing that it led to the restroom.
• The Drew Carey Show: Drew had long been living in his parents' house, which he bought from them. When they have to move back in, he's forced to live in the basement. Naturally, he comments on being a 40-year-old man who lives in his parents' basement.
• Everybody Loves Raymond:
  • Robert Barone is forced to move in with his parents — even though he bought their house from them, and ends up having to give it back to them after he loses his apartment, he's cast as the "loser" because he's a man in his mid-40s living with his parents. The first time he moves out, he ends up in an apartment above the garage of the Jewish versions of Frank and Marie. They even cook his dinner, boss him, and ignore him in order to pay attention to Ray.
  • Then there is Amy's brother Peter, who when first introduced is running a failing comic shop in Pennsylvania but still living in his parents' basement. When Amy and Robert marry, Peter is a Manchild living in the basement and the despair of his parents. They take advantage of him staying in New York as an effective Basement-Dweller first with Robert and Amy, and briefly with Ray and Debra, to clear the basement, emphatically hinting it's time for him to move out. This makes him a problem for the extended Barone family. ^note he begins to shape up and accept responsibilities when he takes Robert's old apartment. And then he meets the sympathetic Peggy.
• On Sci-Fi's Flash Gordon the title character lives with his mother and sometimes worries that he's falling into this trope. Everyone assures him that he's actually rather admirable because he moved back home to help take care of his mother when she was diagnosed with cancer.
• Frasier:
  • People routinely make fun of the title character for living with his father, causing him to make the same reply of "He lives with me!" Except that this is actually the case... Frasier's father moved into Frasier's apartment to be taken care of, not the other way around. Oddly enough, the writers of the show seem to occasionally forget this.
  • In Season 11's "Match Game":
    Charlotte: I am thirty-five years old and I am living with my mother! How pathetic is that?!
    Frasier: Well... I've seen worse.
• Chip from Friends isn't nerdy. In fact, he was considered quite cool back in high school ... which is apparently why he decided to stay that way forever. He still works in a movie theater for the free popcorn, he still rides the same motorbike, and of course, he's still staying with his parents (although he's quick to add that he can stay out as late as he wants).
• Ghostwriter episode "Into The Comics": Manny Gite runs his evil operation from his mother's attic, where he resides.
• In Girls, unemployed college graduate 24-year-old Hannah still gets room and board from her parents. The show begins right when they cut her off because they fear they can't afford a retirement home if they just keep funding her. Hannah already quits looking for a job after only one failed interview (she did seem rude in the interview, to say the least) and instead runs back to her parents asking for money again, which only makes them laugh then get angry and shoo her away. Hannah walks out with $40 her parents left in cash on the table.
• Double-subversion on Good Eats. There's a 32-year-old unemployed man who's having trouble cooking for himself. He lives on his own in a small apartment but has his mother come by every morning to fix breakfast (and presumably other meals) for him. Alton and an assistant by the name of Clarence teach him how to make coffee, bacon, eggs, and hash browns. It's also revealed that his mom still does his laundry.
• iCarly (2021):
  • The first episode reveals that two divorces and a failed startup company forced Freddie to move back in with his mom. His mom doesn't really mind, much to his chagrin.
  • Nora Dershlit returns in the following episode and is revealed to still be living with her parents. Freddie starts to laugh until he notices the hypocrisy.
• Vinton Harper of Mama's Family, despite being over 40 years old, and a single father of two children, who DO move out when they're old enough. It was explained in the first episode that Vint was living elsewhere originally, but a combination of bad financial management and his wife leaving him meant he could no longer afford his house and returned to Mama's house with his two teenage kids. Vint's second wife, Naomi, lived next door. After they got married during the first season, Naomi sold her house and they were planning to move elsewhere, but she wound up getting scammed out of her money and them having to stay with Mama.
• Bud Bundy in the later seasons of Married... with Children.
  • In one episode Kelly asks Bud to chaperone the sister of a rich guy she's dating, Bud refuses so Kelly sweetens the deal by saying she'll hook him up with her friend Fawn, aka, "Fawn, Fawn let's get it on". Kelly says Fawn owes her a favor for going out with her brother who lives in the attic. Bud agrees to the deal and laughs at the "loser" who lives in his parents' attic, while he goes down to the basement.
  • Kelly herself is also a Basement Dweller of sorts. Several gags imply that she's too stupid to take care of herself and she'll always be dependent on Al and Peg. She also turns into a Butt-Monkey after she graduates from high school, as she's stuck in a series of dead-end jobs, largely fails to make it as an actress, and never succeeds at being a Gold Digger.
• Mr. Show: Don Pratt from a sketch. During his commercial, he tells the audience he can get anywhere within a 30-mile radius "anytime she doesn't need the car." Also when calling, "if [Don Pratt's] mother answers, hang up quickly!"
• On My Name Is Earl, Earl tries to make up for poking a hole in his crush/babysitter's condom. He finds the girl, who has married the guy who got her pregnant, and they have an unemployed adult son who dropped out of high school and leeches off his parents. Earl decides to help him truly become an adult.
• NCIS:
  • In one episode, Tony and Ziva interview the webmaster of a porn site who lives in his mother's basement. He also collects Star Wars toys as "investments" and met the site's owner/performer on his paper route. When Tony asks if his mother knows he's being interviewed by federal agents, the man looks down and admits he told her it's a job interview. Tony doesn't bother to hide his laugh, and Ziva guffaws hysterically.
  • Another, featuring an episode-long, city-wide Big Black Out, starts out with a man in his thirties who's playing a computer game when the Internet connection is suddenly lost. He immediately shouts for his mom, who he apparently lives with.
    Man: Nooooo! Moooom! MOOOOOOM!!!
• Jess dates a guy who still lives with his parents in an episode of New Girl. She is hesitant about it at first, but quickly realises the parents are much more interesting, lively, and welcoming than him.
• Odd Squad:
  • Delivery Doug, the egg-salad-loving rival of Delivery Debbie, has his egg salad delivery service set up in his mother's basement. Comments from his mother, in which she asks Doug if he's doing all right and plans on gifting Doug's brother a new car, imply that he still lives with her, much to the amusement of Debbie and Otto.
  • Bradley, who is the brother of Milton, still lives with his Nervous Wreck of a mother despite appearing to be in his late 20s, although it's never stated whether he lives in the basement or not. As opposed to going outside, he spends the majority of his time creating board games, with his newest one, Swamps N' Gators, having the capability to put players in the game as pawns.
  • Lord Rectangle's butler and maid are exaggerated examples — they are treated so lowly that they live under the basement of Shapely Manor.
  • The Soundcheck tribute band Soundcheck-ish has a Danny T impersonator who still lives in his mother's basement. He hopes to one day make it big with the band so he can move out and get his own place.
• Gender-Inverted on Orange Is the New Black, where it is shown that just before being sent to Prison for setting a bomb under her crush's fiancee's car, as well as mail fraud, Lorna Morello was living with her parents in her old bedroom.
• The Trope Maker is likely William Shatner's "Get a Life" sketch on Saturday Night Live, in which he made reference to how the Star Trek fans should get a life and move out of their parents' basements. That sketch may have single-handedly popularized every Trekkie stereotype.
• The most extreme example of this is Ted from Scrubs, the pathetically inept sad-sack attorney who not only lives with his mother but shares a bed with her.
• Seinfeld: George lives with his parents during most of season 5 because he can't find a job.
• Sex and the City: In one episode, Carrie begins dating someone who still lives with his parents. She is uncertain about it at first, and is concerned he is too financially dependent on his parents. Regardless, the high-rise apartment he lives in is far from being a basement, and his mother is always making snacks for him and Carrie. The episode ends with the mother finding his large bag of weed in the apartment. With a hangdog expression, he lies and says it's Carrie's. Instead of defending herself, Carrie goes along with the lie and leaves the apartment with the weed.
• During a hockey broadcast by The Sports Network in Canada, announcer Gord Miller and commentator Pierre McGuire were talking about ludicrous trade proposals they've read. Miller noted, sarcastically, "there are two types of people who make up proposals - 13-year-olds that live in their mother's basement, and 30-year-olds who live in their mother's basement."
• Played with in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When what's left of the Cardassian resistance movement are on the run on Cardassia, they end up hiding in the basement of the house Garak grew up in; complete with an overbearing mother figure who feeds them and makes them do chores. Garak shelters there, and if it never definitely says she is his mother, she acts damn close. Still, he certainly is not a shiftless loser. Eventually they realise they can't hide there forever, go out into the streets and start rousing the people to revolt.
• Weird Science: Chett Donnelly doesn't live in the basement and is aggressively macho instead of nerdy, but he otherwise ticks a lot of the boxes. The first episode has him moving back in after giving up being in the Marines, claiming they lost their way but clearly just wanting to mooch off the folks. He only worked a handful of paying jobs throughout the entire series (often under threat of being kicked out) and, for the most part, was content to goof around all day watching TV. He does have something of a social life, dating fairly regularly and having his own hangouts, but even his friends^note one of whom, in contrast, is married, has kids, and owns his own house don't particularly like him. Despite his age, he's far more immature than Wyatt and often acts as a Big Brother Bully towards him out of frustration for having been The Unfavorite for years. It's implied the folks would've kicked Chett out early on if not for the fact that Wyatt is still a minor and they're always away because of work.
• The Wire: recovering addict Bubbles lives for a time in his sister's basement. Even though he is clean, she won't let him come upstairs because he's stolen her property in the past.