Crazy Homeless People: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Buggrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"''|'''Foul Ole Ron''', ''[[Discworld]]'''}}

'''NOTE:''' This{{noreallife|this is [[TVAll The Tropes]], not a mass blog. As is such, [[No Real Life Examples|please do not relate]] [[Truth in Television]] examples. What homeless people are like in [[Real Life]] is not at concern here, only their portrayal in fiction.}}

* Hasegawa Taizou A.K.A. Madao (which stands for "totally useless middle-aged man" in Japanese) from [[Gintama (Manga)|Gintama]] is a perfect example of this trope.

== Comics[[Comic Books]] ==

{{quote| "...did you ever wonder who decided to call bums 'homeless'? Why did that start? It seems that as 'bums,' we were individuals, but as 'the homeless,' we're an institution."}}

* Justified by Ezrael in [[VogeleinVögelein]], at least whenever he talks to Vogelein:

{{quote| "Nobody'll see you. Everybody 'round here already thinks I'm a crazy old man, anyhow. They won't care if I talk to myself."}}

* John Carpenter's ''[[Prince of Darkness (Film)|Prince of Darkness]]''. The [[Big Bad]] takes mental control of the homeless people around the church and uses them to prevent the protagonists from escaping.

* ''[[CHUDC.H.U.D.]]'' was another exception. The subterranean-dwelling homeless were portrayed (mostly) as nice people, and one of the heroes ran a homeless shelter. Of course, then the homeless all started mutating, but that was mostly because so little was being done for them.

* Subverted by the local bum in ''[[UHF (Filmfilm)|UHF]]'', who looks and speaks like a crazy bum. However, when he asks George for some change, he takes exactly $1 in coins and hands George a dollar bill in return. Later, when apparently trying to do the same thing to the villain, he receives only a single penny, which he instantly recognizes as being a valuable collector's item. He invests the money he makes on the penny wisely.

{{quote| '''Mitch''': Hey, homeless guys! I'll tell ya what. I'll give you a dollar each if you'll go into this building here and run around yellin' and screamin'. <br />

'''Homeless Guy #1''': Uh, that's very nice, but I think what you probably need are, like, some psycho, out-of-control homeless guys? <br />

'''Homeless Guy #2''': Yeah, we're more the broken, spiritless, I've-lost-the-will-to-live type homeless guys. <br />

'''Mitch''': How about for two dollars? <br />

* ''[[Around the World Inin Eighty Days]]'' adaptation starring Jackie Chan has a crazy homeless man played by Rob Schneider.

* One of these appears briefly in ''[[The Anthropophagus Beast (Film)|Anthropophagous 2000]]''. He tells the main characters to turn back, then eats a pregnant woman's vomit.

* ''[[The BabysittersBaby Sitters Club]]''. During the books when Stacey lived in New York, she talked about a homeless woman named Judy who talked to her sometimes. She is mildly mentally unstable but has her good days and bad days.

* In the ''[[Circle of Magic]]'' books - specifically, their sequels - Daja meets with a homeless man who seems crazy, but is surprisingly helpful. He returns in ''The Will of The Empress'' and catches Tris' eye. Together Tris and Briar conclude that {{spoiler|he actually has the phenomenally rare ability to see and hear on the wind, which, combined with his attempts to repress it, and all the horrible treatments administered to try and make him stop it, and the constant treatment as if he ''is'' insane, have driven him half-mad already.}} They help him and it's suggested at the end that he's going to be able to function (relatively) normally in society from now on.

* The surprisingly good but short-lived American detective drama ''[[Raines (TV)|Raines]]'' did an episode that actually deconstructed this particular variation of the trope, where the deceased of the case Raines has taken on is a murdered homeless woman, who turns out to have had her identity stolen, among other tragic circumstances. When he talks to his therapist about the case, she notes after noticing his discomfort with the case that many times people aren't "comfortable" thinking of homeless people as real people who are worthy of normal respect and kindness, because they would rather think of themselves as naturally superior than admit that they too might possibly end up in similar dire straits. Noteworthy, in that the show managed to do it without seeming too much like a Very Special Episode... and in that the show still got canned anyway.

* Tom Green once had a crazy bag lady in one of his skits. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toaTpL54iI PONES]

* The ''[[Law and& Order (TV)|Law and Order]]'' episode "Darwinian" has a take on the "human trash" concept. A homeless man is on trial for murdering another homeless man over an ''orange''. The defense lawyer argues that his desperate situation caused him to kill just to survive (hence the title), which should excuse him of his crime. McCoy's counter-argument: saying that homeless people should not be judged by the same standards as the rest of us is basically saying they are less than human. And in this particular case, letting the murderer go free would further suggest the life of the homeless victim was worth less than that of someone more fortunate! (He wins.)

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' did this with Claude, the [[Invisibility|Hobo]]. HRG shot him, but Claude survived, and then he stayed invisible to hide from the Company, becoming an incredibly misanthropic homeless man in the process. He steals everything and doesn't care, he hates everything and everyone, but he takes care of a flock of pigeons.

* ''[[I CarlyiCarly]]'' makes a few references to these early in the shows run. One example being Sam needing to bring a baseball bat to a corner shop because of a crazy hobo living in the alley next to it.

* ''[[The West Wing]]'' had an episode dedicated to Toby arranging a military funeral for a homeless Korea veteran who happened to buy a coat which he donated to Goodwill, and then die in it on Christmas Eve. His brother fits the "crazy" trope nicely.

* Averted in an [[Very Special Episode|episode]] of [[Saved Byby the Bell]], in which the gang befriends and helps a homeless man (and his hot homeless daughter).

* ''[[Unknown Armies (Tabletop Game)|Unknown Armies]]'' had the canon NPC Jeeter. A partial subversion, as {{spoiler|while he ''is'' insane, he's [[Almighty Janitor|also a cosmic-level mystic]].}}

** It's not just Jeeter. A surprising number of [[Crazy Homeless People]] are also powerful wizards. The most likely reason for this is that you need to go crazy to become a magickal adept, and clinically insane people have difficulty maintaining homes and jobs. So when people on the street ask for change, give it to them, or they might trap you in some kind of dark alternate-reality Minneapolis.

* theThe [[Condemned]] games are all about beating up crazy homeless people.

* Ollie the Bum from ''[[Tony Hawks Pro Skater (Video Game)|Tony Hawks Pro Skater]]''.

* Crazy Dave in ''[[Plants vs. Zombies (Video Game)|Plants vs. Zombies]]''. Maybe. He calls himself your neighbor, which suggests that he has a home, but he runs a shop out of his car, wears a pot on his head, and speaks in gibberish.

* [[That Guy With theThe Glasses]] features ''[[Bum Reviews (Web Video)|Bum Reviews]]'', starring Chester A. Bum, who talks extremely fast, goes off on bizarre tangents, and says of every movie {{spoiler|(except ''[[Citizen Kane (Film)|Citizen Kane]]'')}}, "OH MY GOD THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!"

** There is also Lester A. Bum and the late Spencer A. Bum.

* Michael Swaim of Agents of Cracked has not one, but two homeless wives.(One for the house, one for his car, you see) Both of them are appropriately nutty.

* Chuck Sonnenburg of [[SF Debris]] [[Alternate Character Interpretation|re-interprets]] Captain Jonathan Archer of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' as this. From his review of [https://web.archive.org/web/20130817022218/http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/e104.asp "Strange New World"]:

{{quote| '''Chuck:''' [Archer] rants at the drop of a hat, listens to things that aren't there, talks to dogs, gives rambling speeches, and does things without thinking about whether people will live or die. In other words, someone found him sleeping under a pile of newspapers in an alley muttering about putting cameras in his eyeballs, took off his tinfoil hat, and put him in charge of a starship.}}

* Assuming that ''[[Adventure Time (Animation)|Adventure Time]]'' 's crazy old Royal Tart Toter is a homeless drifter who spends his days wandering around and hurting himself, he definitely qualifies as this trope.

* The ''Spawn'' animated show featured the titular hero often conversing with, protecting, and living with the homeless. The portaryal of them varied. Often they were alcoholics and drug addicts, or at least mentally unhinged, but basically good people. The irony being that the homeless were often more morally grounded than the show's other characters who lived in relative wealth and were often [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]s.