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Hobos (view source)

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== [[Film]] ==
* The heroes in ''[[O Brother, Where Art Thou?]]'' are not hobos, but they briefly encounter some while attempting to sneak aboard a moving train. They still steal pies, though.
** They ''pay'' for the pies by replacing the pie with money held down with a rock.
* The film ''[[Emperor of the North]]'', set in the 1930s, depicts the brutal battle between a sadistic train conductor and a legendary hobo nicknamed A#1. (A rare example of a realistic depiction of the hobo life in a Hollywood production.)
* In ''[[Meet John Doe (Film)|Meet John Doe]]'', a [[Hot Scoop|reporter]] fabricates a letter from a [[The Everyman|John Doe]] who says he will kill himself on Christmas to protest the state of the country. When the story draws sympathy from the readership, she hires a former baseball player hobo to portray this fictional person in public.
* In the closing section of ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'', Jules declares his intention to quit his job as a hitman, leave [[Los Angeles]] and "[[Walking the Earth|walk the earth]]" in the style of Caine from ''[[Kung Fu]]''. His partner, Vincent, responds that he would be nothing more than a bum. {{spoiler|Better a live bum than getting shot up in the toilet.}}
* ''[[Hobo Withwith a Shotgun]]''
* ''[[Pee Wee's Big Adventure (Film)|Pee Wees Big Adventure]]'' - Pee-Wee encounters a friendly hobo when he hops a freight train, but the hobo's delight in singing old songs finally becomes too much for him.
* ''[http://www.billdaniel.net/projects/who-is-bozo-texino Who Is Bozo Texino?]'' documents filmmaker Bill Daniel's 16-year quest for the most famous boxcar artist in history.
* Any of [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s Little Tramp films.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* The novel ''[[Sixth Column (Literaturenovel)|Sixth Column]]'' (also titled ''The Day After Tomorrow'') by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] includes a hobo character. The hobo used to be a graduate student who decided to research the hobo lifestyle. He discovered he liked it and gave up being a student to be a hobo. He also points out to the protagonist that hobos are not tramps or bums, and in fact lays out an entire social taxonomy of American transients, with bindlestiffs at the bottom and true hobos at the top.
** Old blind Rhysling, the Singer of the Spaceways in Heinlein's ''[[The Green Hills Of Earth]]'' is a kind of hobo. He's an unusual example, as he's built up something of a reputation as a wandering poet and is well-regarded by pretty much everyone.
* George and Lennie from ''[[Of Mice and Men (Literature)|Of Mice and Men]]'', a novel by former hobo John Steinbeck.
** Spoofed by [[Tex Avery]] as hobo bears George and Junior.
* The climax of ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' has {{spoiler|literary hobos}} after Montag {{spoiler|escapes the Mechanical Hound by jumping in a river}}. It is later revealed that these are all {{spoiler|former English professors and stuff; they're keeping the books in their heads until contemporary society crumbles}}.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The Second Doctor from ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' was basically a [[Recycled in Space|Space Hobo]].
* It seems to be a running gag in ''[[ICarly (TV)|I Carly]]'' where hobos are found or mentioned as a joke.
** In "iEnrage Gibby", Carly even has a "hobo party" where everyone dresses up a hobo!
*** And the endless hobo gags have been so overused by [[Dan Schneider]] by this point that one troper is beginning to think it's used only because he thinks the word sounds funny.
*** In pretty much ''all'' of his works, too. He actually offered [http://danwarp.blogspot.com/2002/09/hobo-definition.html a definition for the term and how it's different than just 'homeless'] in a blog post.
* Dave Attell encountered one on his show ''[[Insomniac With Dave Attell (TV)|Insomniac Withwith Dave Attell]]''. After referring to him as a hobo, the man corrected him: "I'm a tramp."
* [[Mad Men|Don Draper]] had a life-changing encounter with a hobo, as he [[Flash Back|remembers]] in the episode: "The Hobo Code."
 
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'' basically has you playing [[Frankenstein's Monster|Frankensteinian]] hobos, whose [[Blessed Withwith Suck|inherent attributes]] keep them on the move and outcast from society until they [[Become a Real Boy|become human]].
* ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' allows player characters to choose "hobo" as an occupation.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' game ''[[Penny Arcade Adventures]]: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness'' featured an entire area called Hobo Alley. Of course, the portrayal of hobos was not exactly of the "Walking Americana" variety.
* Likewise, near the end of the video game ''[[IndigoFahrenheit Prophecy(2005 video game)]]'' reveals that all the hobos the player has seen throughout the town are {{spoiler|actually a secret group devoted to protecting the world.}}
* The homeless are... interesting in [[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza]]. They seem to be considered relatively noble, with a tight-knit community and {{spoiler|pretty much act as a secret army for the information dealer Kage the Florist.}}
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' actually has various hobos as enemies, most notably in the [[Bonus Dungeon]] "Hobopolis", and in a [[Shout -Out]] to ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]'' their leader is named "Hodgman" and they received permission to use some of the hobo names.
* In ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'', most of the people you see in New York are hobos. You even find some that live underground.
* In the web-game ''Hobo Wars'', the entire point is to be a hobo.
* In ''[[Stacking (Video Game)|Stacking]]'', Levi the Hobo helps the main character Charlie and paints murals of his escapades, {{spoiler|arriving in the endgame with "Hobo Team Bravo" as part of a [[Big Damn Heroes]] moment}}. There's also the DLC "The Lost Hobo King", in which Charlie helps Levi's uncle become said Hobo King.
* In ''[[Sonny]]'', you encounter two of these in succession on an old train that your party hijacks to escape a mountain village. The first one's a zombie, while the second is an actual human hobo. The second fight is handled in a slightly Anvilicious way, where [[What the Hell, Hero?|one of your party members calls you out after realizing on the second party turn that your foe's not a zombie]] (the anitheroic player character's response about not wanting to part with money not helping his case), in addition to the hobo having reduced max HP in comparison to the first and status ailments whose descriptions reflect the many negatives of hobo life inflicted upon him as the battle wears on.
 
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' have occasionally run into some hobos. Every third episode had a hobo joke for a while (some particularly cruel), mostly thanks to John Swartzwelder, a prolific writer and [[Preston Sturges]] fanatic.
** In "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" (1992), we learn that Homer's brother Herb went from Detroit bigshot to hobo after trusting Homer to design a new car.
*** In the DVD commentary of the episode creator Matt Groening said "John Swartzwelder '''loves''' hobos!"
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Real Life]]: Several famous Americans were hobos in their youth, including actors [[Clark Gable]] and Robert Mitchum, writers [[John Steinbeck (Creator)|John Steinbeck]] and Eugene O'Neill, folk singer Woody Guthrie, and heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey.
** Though closely connected to the American railways, a looser definition of hoboism requires only: transience, moochery, troubles with local authorities, and a habit of spontaneous narration. As such, hobos have a whole canon of nicknamed saints to inspire them, including "[[Confucius (Creator)|Confucius]]" K'ung-fu-tzu, Siddhārtha "The Buddha" Gautama, [[Jesus]] "The Christ" of Nazareth, Paul "The Apostle" of Tarsus, etc.
** The singer/historian/activist U. Utah Phillips was long famous in both American left-wing and folk-music circles for preserving the lore and history of hobos and their ethic.
 
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