"I worked forty years as a fireman, boy
On the Pennsylvania line
And I ended up just a derelict
Drinkin' Boone's Farm apple wine
Oh, where can a bum find bed and board?
When you gonna make it stop rainin', Lord?"
On the Pennsylvania line
And I ended up just a derelict
Drinkin' Boone's Farm apple wine
Oh, where can a bum find bed and board?
When you gonna make it stop rainin', Lord?"
— Warren Zevon, "Stop Rainin' Lord"
Hobos are either homeless people viewed through an industrial-strength Nostalgia Filter or living Americana: freewheeling folks, usually men, who for any number of reasons live a wealth-free life, stowing away on freight trains and moving from town to town looking for campfires and a good can of beans. The Great Depression Theme Park isn't complete without these boxcar barons.
Having been everywhere, seen everything and met everyone, the patricians of poverty are full of tall tales and song — not to mention sage advice. Some may claim to have been men of status (i.e., mayors, railroad tycoons or heavyweight champs) brought low by dumb luck, while others willfully renounced the stationary life. Both varieties of hobo will recount his story in detail, if you have the time.
These regents of the rails are never far from train tracks and almost always carry Bindle Sticks. They are usually found clad in their traditional attire, such as trousers filled with mismatched patches and ragged shoes that leave the big toe prominently exposed; oftentimes, one shoe will be missing and replaced by a rag tied about the foot. Their natural habitats are moving boxcars and campfire circles, though ramshackle hobo metropolises do occur. Any gathering of five or more hobos will feature a hobo gentleman, identified by ragged top hat, cane and swagger. A particularly large society of boxcar brigadiers might be presided over by the King of the Homeless.
Unlike street persons or the colloquial bum, hobos prefer rural settings, rarely panhandle, and generally conduct their affairs with some sense of dignity and etiquette. Newcomers to hoboism are often adopted by old timers and taught to observe some variety of "The Hobo's Code". When and how a hobo receives his nickname is unclear, but every hobo has one — it's usually "Boxcar" something.
Hobos are allergic to hard work, unless promised beans or alcohol, and are magnetically attracted to pies cooling on the windowsill (whose aroma may cause spontaneous levitation). Kindly old women and farmers' daughters are friends of the hobo; police officers, bulldogs and employees of the railway ("railroad bulls") are natural hobo predators.
Bonus points are awarded whenever a hobo plays the harmonica.
Note: This applies only to hobos as a trope. According to tradition that is now, at best, antiquated, the term "hobo" refers strictly to homeless travelers subsisting on odd jobs, whereas "tramps" travel without seeking work and "bums" do neither.
Compare Disposable Vagrant. See also Impoverished Patrician, with which formerly-wealthy hobos often overlap.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Blattodea: The protagonist Chiyuri Haijima is a kind and hard-working homeless girl raised and trained in combat by a depiction of Leiji Matsumoto as a King of the Homeless. On the positive side, Chiyuri is the Only Sane Woman in a Crapsack World controlled by deranged Social Darwinist assassins and rapists — though she's very naïve and glamorizes her status too much. On the negative side, the story takes any excuse it can to portray homeless men as freakishly ugly bastards. As early as chapter 4, a zombie outbreak causes a group of middle aged people who helped her adoptive father Yamato look after Chiyuri to assault her and they act like that's what they wanted all along.
"I'll use my privilege to sleep anywhere I want, whenever I want. That's kind of hard to beat. Hmmm... In the end... Not having a home... is the best!"
Comic Books
- In The Golden Age of Comic Books, Marvel Comics (then called Timely Comics, among other name changes) had a character variously called the Fighting Hobo or the Vagabond, who was a comical hobo who fought crime. These days it's panned as politically incorrect for glossing over the hardships of real hobos' lives.
- The Goon: Hobos appear as cannibalistic cavemen/jungle savages who have their own language. Their leader, the Hobo King may be a caricature of Woody Guthrie.
- Kings In Disguise was serialized for years in Dark Horse Presents and later published in book form. It's a grim look at the desperate lives of hobos during the Great Depression, and deconstructs the carefree popular image of the hobo.
- Rock Candy Mountain: The majority of the cast fit this category: they ride the rails from town to town, looking for work. Many aspects of "hobo culture" feature in the book: in the collected edition each chapter opens with a "hobo sign" and its meaning, the difference between a hobo, a tramp, and a bum is discussed, and several characters speak in hobo slang.
- ''Sub-Mariner: After Namor suffered from a bout of Easy Amnesia post-World War II, he spent a good deal of the 50's and early 60's as a bearded homeless person until Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four stumbled upon him and brought him home to the Baxter Building.
Comic Strips
- Dick Tracy: Steve the Tramp was one of the early villains in the strip.
Films — Live Action
- Bound for Glory: Woody Guthrie meets many during his travels, at one point riding in a railroad boxcar full of them. A hobo brawl ensues.
- Carts of Darkness: The homeless men presented in this film keep themselves afloat by collecting bottles from garbage containers to sell and are otherwise unemployed.
- 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.)
- Flodder in Amerika!: Sjakie ends up befriending a homeless person out of necessity. Fortunately, said hobo turns out to be one of the nicest people in the city (his hatred for social workers notwithstanding), helping Sjakie get his hand loose after he's been stuck in a stormdrain for a day and a night, taking him to a food court after Sjakie says he's really hungry, and making sure he gets to the hospital after it appeared that Sjakie tried to take his own life (Sjakie accidentally walked into traffic because he saw the Flodders on the other side of the road).
- Heroes for Sale: Tom and Roger become hobos and are treated horribly even though they are WWI veterans.
- Hobo with a Shotgun: The protagonist is a hobo who becomes a vigilante. With a shotgun.
- It's a Wonderful Life: As George wasn't there to stop him from fatally mixing up a prescription, Pottersville's Mr. Gower is now a homeless, alcoholic ex-con.
- Meet John Doe: A reporter fabricates a letter from a 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.
- Mickey One: After Mickey fled Detroit but before he settled in Chicago, he spent four and a half years traveling around, mostly by train.
- O Brother, Where Art Thou?: The heroes 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.
- On the Bowery: A particularly grim portrait drawn from Real Life, showing the lives of winos who have to scrabble for a place to stay the night.
- Pee-wee's 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.
- Pulp Fiction: In the closing section, Jules declares his intention to quit his job as a hitman, leave Los Angeles and "walk the earth" in the style of Caine from Kung Fu (1972). His partner, Vincent, responds that he would be nothing more than a bum. Better a live bum than getting shot up on the toilet with your own gun, as Vincent finds out.
- Sullivan's Travels by Preston Sturges features a film director who wants to make a gritty, realistic film about The Great Depression, but he's lived a privileged life, so he dresses as a hobo and goes out and rides the rails to help him learn what it's really like to experience that level of poverty.
- Union Depot: Chick and Scrap Iron are riding the rails and picking up cons as they go.
- Who Is Bozo Texino?
documents filmmaker Bill Daniel's 16-year quest for the most famous boxcar artist in history.
- Wild: While hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, Strayed runs into a reporter from the Hobo Times who assumes that she is a hobo and starts interviewing her. She insists that she isn't a hobo, but has to admit that she doesn't actually have a job or a place to live.
- Wild Boys of the Road: Lacking any better options, Eddie and Tommy start riding the rails, looking for work. It is a bad, bad life, nowhere near as romantic as it is often portrayed in other works. Hunger and fear plague the children as they travel across America. One child is sickened on the train by eating rotten food. Another is raped.
Literature
- The Areas of My Expertise: Hodgman gives a detailed history of the Hobo Conspiracy, including how a hobo (Hobo Joe Junkpan) once became Secretary of the Treasury and then gives 700 Hobo names (and 100 more in the paperback version). He does, however, make a point of distinguishing between normal homeless people and hobos (it's a lifestyle choice).
- Cities in Flight: James Blish has the character Mayor Amalfi liken the titular cities, which turned themselves spaceflight-capable and took to wandering around the stars to flee totalitarianism on Earth, to the migrants of the United States, saying that most cities are hobos, migrant workers, but some are tramps, basically petty criminals, and a few are the lowest sort: bindlestiffs, migrants who live by robbing other migrants.
- Fahrenheit 451: The climax has literary hobos after Montag escapes the Mechanical Hound by jumping in a river. It is later revealed that these are all former English professors and stuff; they're keeping the books in their heads until contemporary society crumbles.
- A Further Range: "Two Tramps in Mud Time" has the speaker chopping wood when two tramps come out of the forest and linger around, waiting for him to ask them to chop his firewood for pay. The speaker, who likes chopping wood, is irritated.
- The Green Hills of Earth: Old blind Rhysling, the Singer of the Spaceways, 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.
- "The Haunted Trailer" by Robert Arthur: The narrator finds his trailer haunted by the ghosts of three hobos.
- Snarkout Boys: In The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, the Snarkout Boys are taken to a Hobo Jungle, a vast, sprawling, off-the-grid neighborhood made of box cars and inhabited by self-proclaimed hobos.
- Ironweed is about Francis, once a professional baseball player, now a dirty drunken hobo who's nearly 60. Francis abandoned his family 22 years ago and is living as a bum because he is plagued with guilt about the death of his infant son, whom a drunk Francis dropped while attempting to change his diaper.
- Of Mice and Men, a novel by former hobo John Steinbeck, has George and Lennie, a pair of wanderers who sign on to farms as workers and move on once the work dries up.
- 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.
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: The Second Doctor was basically a Space Hobo.
- iCarly: Hobos are often found or mentioned as a joke. In "iEnrage Gibby", Carly even has a "hobo party" where everyone dresses up a hobo. Hobos are present in pretty much all of his works, too. He actually offered a definition for the term and how it's different than just "homeless" in a blog post. Not that it helped; multiple complaints forced iCarly to stop with the hobo jokes in 2011.
- Insomniac with Dave Attell: Dave Attell encountered one. After referring to him as a hobo, the man corrected him: "I'm a tramp."
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Rickety Cricket is gradually worn down by the gang after abandoning his ambition to become a priest. In each episode, he becomes more and more dishevelled, injured and scarred depending on what the gang makes his do. Eventually, he fits the profile of a stereotypical hobo.
- Mad Men: Don Draper had a life-changing encounter with a hobo, as he remembers in the episode: "The Hobo Code."
- New Girl: Outside Dave is a stereotypical homeless man who often shares strange wisdom, dresses in an assortment of clothes and rags he's found and wears cracked glasses.
Outside Dave: Now I'm going to mash a muffin into the phone. You tell me if it makes its way through.
- Oliver Beene: In season 2, a homeless man (played by Norm Macdonald) moves into Oliver's treehouse, sparking outrage amongst he and his friends.
- Our Miss Brooks: Miss Brooks deals with hobos in the episodes "Hobo Jungle" and "Miss Brooks Writes About a Hobo".
- The Red Skelton Show: In an interview on the "Funny Faces" video, Red Skelton described his "Freddie the Freeloader" character from his long-running TV series:
Red Skelton: “I get asked all the time: Where did you get the idea for Freddie the Freeloader, and who is Freddie really?
Well, I guess you might say that Freddie the Freeloader is a little bit of you, and a little bit of me, a little bit of all of us, you know. He’s found out what love means. He knows the value of time. He knows that time is a glutton. We say we don’t have time to do this or do that. There’s plenty of time. The trick is to apply it. The greatest disease in the world today is procrastination. And Freddie knows about all these things. And so do you.
He doesn’t ask anybody to provide for him, because it would be taken away from you. He doesn’t ask for equal rights if it’s going to give up some of yours.
And he knows one thing... that patriotism is more powerful than guns.
He’s nice to everybody because he was taught that man is made in God’s image. He’s never met God in person and the next fella just might be him.
I would say that Freddie is a little bit of all of us.” - The Murdoch Mysteries episode "Ballad of Gentleman Jones" is set around Toronto's hobo community. Watts and Crabtree go undercover to investigate a hobo killer, learn about hobo coins, and get into a fight with railway bulls.
Music
- "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a humorous folk song describing a fictional hobo paradise. There, cigarettes grows on trees, rivers run with alcohol, and boxcars are always empty and full of fresh hay. Bowdlerized versions have been found on compilations of music for little kids; on the other end of the stick, probably in protest to the romanticizing of the hobo life, it has also been covered by the likes of Tom Waits, whose version is without accompaniment and consists of him slurring, screaming, and sobbing the lyrics even more drunkenly than usual. The original version, written by Harry McClintock in 1898, ends on this deeply cynical and very much non-kid-friendly note:
The punk rolled up his big blue eyes
And said to the jocker, "Sandy,
I've hiked and hiked and wandered, too,
But I ain't seen any candy.
I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore
And I'll be damned if I hike any more
To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."- "The Appleknocker's Lament", in a similar vein as the above, is about a boy taken in by the "big rock candy mountains" promises of a jocker, who proceeded to abuse and molest him during their six long months of traveling together.
- Harry McClintock wrote another song called "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" that sings about spending the spring and summer as a hobo, wandering and begging for food. It posits the hobo life as an alternative to the oppressive nature of working for bosses within the capitalist system.
- "Waltzing Mathilda" is the Australian version. It comes from a wave of German immigrants who brought with them some of their habits, such as nicknaming their awesome GreatCoat Mathilda. A German swagman would refer to himself as "Auf der waltz mit mein Mathilda" (on the walk with my Mathilda), with all his belongings (swag) wrapped up in his coat.
- "Hobo Jungle" by The Band is a song about the death of an old hobo.
- Captain Beefheart's song "Orange Claw Hammer" is told from the perspective of a delirious old sailor who is "on the bum where the hobos run". Also note the song "Hobo Chang Ba", from the same album: Trout Mask Replica.
- Roger Miller's "King of the Road" describes a "man of means, by no means", a hobo who travels about by boxcar wearing old worn-out clothes and smoking slightly used cigars, is well-known by the engineers and their families and well-acquainted with the handouts in every town, and two hours of pushing a broom earns enough to stay in an 8' x 12' room for 50 cents a day.
- Tom Paxton, a former hobo, has written many songs about it, including "Bottle of Wine", "I Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound" and "Ramblin' Boy".
Well, if you see me passing byAnd you sit and you wonder whyAnd you wish that you were a rambler tooNail your shoes to the kitchen floorLace 'em up and bar the doorThank your stars for the roof that's over you!And I can't help but wonder where I'm bound, where I'm boundCan't help but wonder where I'm bound
- "Hobo's Lullaye", written by George Reeves and recorded by Woody Guthrie and David Rovics (amongst others) is about the harshness of the hobo lifestyle and the importance of finding solace where you can:
I know the police cause you trouble
They cause trouble everywhere
But when you die and go to Heaven
You'll find no policemen there - "The Ghost of Tom Joad", by Bruce Springsteen, is a hymn to the hobo life.
- Tom Waits himself has written "Bottom of the World" from Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, a song about hobo life in Australia.
Tabletop Games
- Arkham Horror: "Ashcan" Pete is a hobo who makes a living being sneaky on the streets and traveling with his dog. He's one of the playable characters, and uses his sneaky stats to easily evade combat.
- Call of Cthulhu allows player characters to choose "hobo" as an occupation.
- Dungeons & Dragons: A violent variation most associated with D&D (but also applies to most role-playing games) is the murderhobo: parties of adventurers with no fixed abode who go from place to place attacking whatever's in their way but not showing much in the way of Character Development or even personality. It's thought to have started as a reaction to the Killer DM tactic of using character backgrounds against them ("Oh, your character has a little sister? Guess who got kidnapped by cultists and possessed by the Big Bad"), leading to armed sociopaths caring only about the next source of gold and experience.
- The Others (2015): One of the acolytes that the Sin player can choose is the Corrupted Hobo. They're not particularly strong (not that any of the acolytes are), but their ability allows them to be summoned once per turn to the board in a non-ranged fight and disable an upgrade that the player has for the remainder of combat.
Video Games
- ClayFighter 63 1/3: One of the possible characters is HoboCop (yeah, like RoboCop), a hobo who becomes a vigilante and use tin cans as his "armor". Being so politically incorrect, he was deleted from production for lack of time and later became the only character unadded from the discarded ones in Sculptor's Cut.
- Daraku Tenshi: The Fallen Angels has Torao Onigawara, a karateka hobo (in reality a Retired Badass who became homeless). Also doubles with The Pig-Pen with flies surrounding him all the time.
- One of the thought cabinets in Disco Elysium is the Hobocop copotype. Being a hobo, it grants bonuses to the amount of money Harry can sell taré for more money and has his Shivers cap raised to six, but loses a point in Composure.
- Hitman: Absolution: On his first go-round in Chinatown, 47 thoughtlessly scatters a few coins in a bum's outreached cup. "Agh! There's COFFEE in there, ya fucker!" On your return trip, we see the hobo is back, fiercely protecting his cup to avoid 47 throwing something into it again: "You owe me a coffee, asshole!" 47 throws a $20 at him. The hobo makes his last appearance in the C.P.D. as he's being grilled by Detective Faulkner. His eyewitness testimony is completely useless (it's possible that the hobo is feigning insanity to throw off the cops, but this is up to interpretation), so Cosmo gets fed up and throws him out.
- Hobo (SeethingSwarm): Given his name, the titular Hobo is one of these, usually spending his time sleeping at the start of each game until someone beats him up and provokes him into going on a rampage. Several other hobos appear as enemies throughout the games, including Evil Knockoffs of Hobo whom the aliens create in the fifth game, Space Brawls.
- HoboWars: As the name suggests, the whole game is hobo-themed. For example, players could beg for cash and collect cans for money.
- Lost But Found: You meet a Homeless Man on Day 3, who prefers being called mister. He asks you to give him anything in exchange for heartwarming notes.
- Penny Arcade Adventures:
- You get to kill hobos and use them as meat in Episode 1. An advocate for the homeless requests the meat so that he can make a stew... for the hobos. You can then eat some for a stat boost.
Gabe: "I could stand to kill a few more hobos."
- One of the hobos is the world's leading urinologist. He asks you to bring him a rare Ferris wheel model so he can pee on it. Urinology sounds like the bogus delusion of a deranged man hopped up on moonshine until you meet several reputed scientists in Episode 2 who consider urinology a groundbreaking field.
- You visit Hobo Alley in Episode 3 to chase down Tycho's magical cezve, and one of the Class Pins gives the wearer the power of Hobos (namely better strength and a poison-like effect called "Hoboism").
- You get to kill hobos and use them as meat in Episode 1. An advocate for the homeless requests the meat so that he can make a stew... for the hobos. You can then eat some for a stat boost.
- Portal 2:
- When Aperture Science was falling on hard times, Cave started recruiting hobos off the streets for test subjects.
- One alternate universe features Michigan Slim Cave Johnson, the Hobo King.
- Potion Permit: Zeke is a homeless man who sleeps on the bench with his pet cat Kipps. He used to be a merchant from the capital, but he retired because his success became meaningless to him, and he chose to live the life of a carefree nobody in Moonbury.
- Power Pro Kun Pocket 9: The Vagabond Nice Guy scenario features a honorable wanderer who helps a shopping district's community face a corrupt supermarket chain. In most story routes he hangs out by an Artificial Riverbank with a tent and a fishing rod. It is also hinted he is the reincarnation of Red, the misguided sentai warrior from Koshien Hero, on something of a redemption journey.
- Silent Hill: Downpour: Murphy encounters a homeless man who provides him access to the subway network in exchange for favours. The game never really explains why he is there, making it ambiguous if he's just another person hanging around or a manifestation of the town to enable Murphy to keep going.
- Time Stalkers: Billy and Bob are homeless men who wandered into Fountain Square just in time for it to get abducted into Ring World. Billy pursues his dream of living in the big city, which seems to include every location in Ring World. Meanwhile, Bob develops an infatuation with Pyra and follows her wherever she goes.
- One possible party member in Wasteland 2 is Scotchmo, a shotgun-toting hobo. He is famed around the Wasteland, particularly among other hobos at the railroad camp and even as far away as California, allowing for unique dialogue options if he's in your party. He's also The Alcoholic and will drink any snake squeezins left in the party's inventory. He returns in Wasteland 3.
Visual Novels
- Daughter for Dessert: Before arriving at the diner, Lily travels to different places on the whim of an app she downloaded, not working, subsisting on her social skills and the kindness of strangers.
Webcomics
- Hijinks Ensue features Boxcar Pete, a hobo who for some strange reason wears a monocle and talks like a pirate.
- Guttersnipe, set in a Theme Park Version of a Theme Park Version of the Great Depression, has hobos that have become so numerous that they have taken over the entire center third of the nation, succeeding to become a sovereign nation called "Hobotopia" Hobos are depicted as a roaming barbarian tribe, armed with spears and wearing nothing but loincloths and the obligatory battered top hats.
- Realm of Owls: The hobos live in the outskirts of the city of Buffet. They look, act and live like real-life hobos, but are mostly perfectly fine or even happy with their lifestyle.
Web Original
- The Onion: In "Why Am I The Only Homeless Man Still Wearing Pickle Barrels?", the narrator is a homeless man who was once a powerful railroad tycoon before the fickle hand of fate robbed him of his mansion, wealth and fine suits, and set him on the wandering path of the hobo. He bears himself with dignity, seeking nothing more than a pickle barrel to clad himself in, a stray can of beans for his supper, and the company of his old friend Handsome Joe the Hobo King who lives down by the train yard. In recent days, however, he worries about the looming extinction of his traditional lifestyle — modern hobos have largely abandoned the traditional barrels for flashy, trendy wear such as be-patched trousers and shoes that leave the big toe exposed, suitable barrels have become rare as well as shipping companies have switched to glass jars and cardboard boxes, and fewer and fewer people transport their canned goods in poorly-secured bicycles where even a slight bump might send a hearty stew flying to the street.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: Lumpy Space Princess did a stint as one of these after she ran away from home.
"I'm doing so awesome on my own, like right now, I found this can of beans."
- Baggy Pants and the Nitwits: The eponymous Baggy Pants is explicitly described in the theme as "the hobo everyone knows". It may be because he's a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Charlie Chaplin.
- Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid: Depending on the short, Bosko is sometimes portrayed as a homeless nomad.
- Every Child: The Doorstop Baby is eventually taken in by a pair of hobos after all the middle-class people of the neighborhood manage to find excuses not to take care of the child.
- The Easter Bunny Is Comin To Town: Hallelujah Jones is a heroic version of this trope complete with worn clothes and Bindle Stick. He is an ally to Sunny the Easter Bunny and the denizens of Kidville, helping them deliver Easter goodies and creating Easter traditions like jelly beans.
- Futurama: "The 30% Iron Chef": Parodied. After Bender runs away from home, he comes across a group of hobos who take him on a robot hobo, or "robo" (at first he's offended, because he thought they said "romo"). He tags along with on their ride on an interstellar train on their way to Bumbase Alpha, the biggest hobo jungle in that sector of the galaxy, where he meets the reclusive chef Helmut Spargle, who, using only leftovers and garbage, can bake a pie with hobo-levitating aromatic properties (because they have jetpacks somehow). The hobos themselves are still the Great Depression-era types with tattered coats and worn top hats with the "lid" askew; Bender himself develops a five-o'-clock shadow made of rust while he's with them.
- Invader Zim mentions hobos, as well... as an urban legend on par with the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot. One episode has Dib receiving advice from a friendly hobo. Immediately after their conversation the hobo abducts a screaming passerby and runs off.
- Johnny Bravo: Pops ran away from home to live with hobos when he was three. When Johnny asks if hanging out with hobos is a good idea, Pops says they'll "eat [him] alive."
- The Legend of Korra: Korra encounters the strangely cheery hobo Gommu, who politely asks for one of her speared fish and gives her the first revelation that Republic City isn't all the shine and splendor she thought it was. Gommu later takes the Krew in for sanctuary during the late stages of the Equalist uprising as guests in the underground shantytown that he and other vagrants (bender and nonbender alike) had set up.
- The Little Rascals: In "King of the Hobos", Porky ran away and met an old hobo who called himself Boxcar Bill.
- Looney Tunes: Bugs Bunny deals with two hungry hobos based on Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton in the cartoon "Half-Fare Hare".
- Merrie Melodies: In "Hobo Gadget Band", a Trash-Can Band of hobos enter a singing contest and win a big recording contract. They reject it for a life on the tracks.
- Pigs Is Pigs (1954): Such is the Vast Bureaucracy at the railroad headquarters that even the hoboes riding the rails get twenty copies of the report about the guinea pigs.
- "Scottie Finds a Home": The antagonist is a vagrant who heckles the kittens grandma for free food in her own home.
- Schoolhouse Rock!: "Conjunction Junction" has two train-hopping hobos passing through the Junction. They enjoy a fireside meal with the conductor and try to leave by hot air balloon, but it won't go any higher even when they cut loose the sandbags.
- The Simpsons have occasionally run into some hobos. Several episodes have hobo jokes, mostly thanks to John Swartzwelder, a prolific writer and Preston Sturges fanatic.
- "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" (1992): 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!"
- ""Homer Badman" (1994): The family's babysitter choices have been narrowed down between a grad student and a "scary-looking hobo". Bart hopes for the hobo.
- "The Homer They Fall" (1996): Homer competes in Springfield's hobo boxing circuit, fighting Switchyard Sam and Boxcar Ira on his road to the title bout. As his trainer, Moe warns Homer that his opponents are "hungry fighters" in that they're only fighting to get a meal.
- "Kill the Alligator and Run" (2000): Bart asks if their Everglades tour guide has any hobo chunks to throw to the alligators.
- "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" (2000): Nelson claims that Springfield Elementary science classes are dissecting frozen hobos. And he's got the bindles to prove it.
- "Simpsons Tall Tales" (2001): A hobo explains that there are two kinds of hobos, stabbing and singing, and calls non-hobos no-bos. He works on a strict pricing plan: one story, one spongebath.
Hobo: (singing) Nothing beats the hobo life... stabbing folks with my hobo knife!
- "Treehouse of Horror XIV": After Homer becomes Death, Lisa demonstrates his job to her class on a hobo they brought in with the promise of a meal.
- Marge once asked when they became the bottom rung of society and Homer tells her "I think it was when that cold snap killed off all the hobos."
- One episode has Grandpa traveling the countryside with Bart. He points out the various hobo codes left on fences. The first means "Good food", the second means "Sexy farmer's daughter", and the third means "Mass hobo grave in backyard".
- Steven Universe: In "On the Run", Steven and Amethyst try living as hobos for a day, inspired by Steven's new favorite book series The No-Home Boys. Not only does being a hobo turn out to be less glamorous than it looks, but the trip brings up some of Amethyst's baggage about being a Gem who was born on Earth in a life-force sucking Gem "Kindergarten".
- Tex Avery: George and Junior were often depicted as hobos (no surprise, since they are based on Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men). Their first cartoon was even titled "Henpecked Hoboes".
- Tom Goes to the Mayor: While the trope questionably applies to Jefferton's sizable homeless population, the Mayor infiltrates them by wearing a bunch of patches and carrying a bindle on a stick.
Real Life
- Real Life: Several famous Americans were hobos in their youth, including actors Clark Gable and Robert Mitchum, writers 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" K'ung-fu-tzu, Siddhārtha "The Buddha" Gautama, Jesus Christ "The Christ" of Nazareth, Paul "The Apostle" of Tarsus, etc.
- Jesus especially was well-known to the hobos, since appealing to religion was a common way to get vittles. He was nicknamed Jerusalem Slim and Nazareth Blacky, as explained here.
- 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.
- The Civilian Conservation Corps, one of FDR's New Deal programs during The Great Depression, was primarily designed to help homeless young men, many of whom fit the definition of hobos, by putting them to work improving public lands.
