Line #34 Main/HowardHughesHomage


1	[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hughes_house.png]]]]
2
3	A NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed version of the famous [[RenaissanceMan multitalented]] eccentric 20th century tycoon Creator/HowardHughes. Hughes was a complicated man whose public persona changed drastically throughout his lifetime, and characters inspired by him can take a variety of approaches depending on what aspects of his life and career they emphasize.
4
5	Howard Hughes Homages are always rich, whether or not they start out that way, and always legitimately talented in at least one area, although they can be [[TheWonka exceedingly quirky]], in ways that can range from a love of AwesomeButImpractical projects to actual mental health problems. Howard Hughes Homages are NonIdleRich - they can be [[SelfMadeMan self-made men]] or build on inherited wealth, but they always played an active role in making their fortunes, and the higher-functioning examples have a lot of business and non-business interests. Technological fields are a favorite, particularly military technology and aircraft, and Howard Hughes Homages often play an active role in designing their products, as well as on the business side. Common personal interests for Howard Hughes Homages include aviation, engineering, and filmmaking - all activities Hughes himself participated in. Their antics may land them HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee, as Hughes was during an inquiry into the TroubledProduction of the H-4 Hercules.
6
7	Howard Hughes Homages based on Hughes' more outgoing younger years are often dashing playboys with [[TheCasanova very active love lives]]. Characters based on Hughes in his old age are more reclusive and often share Hughes's mental illnesses, such as agoraphobia, germophobia, or OCD, and may display some of his odd habits like wearing tissue boxes on their feet or not cutting their fingernails. Many Howard Hughes Homages have dapper mustaches, although Hughes himself was clean-shaven as a young man.
8
9	Because of their inspiration's early-to-mid 20th century heyday and interest in technological innovation, Howard Hughes Homages are well-suited to DieselPunk works and settings, but aren't restricted to them.
10
11	Sister Trope to EccentricMillionaire, RichGenius, and TheWonka, and often overlaps with ByronicHero or BrokenAce. See also MrAltDisney, another trope inspired by a real-world 20th century tycoon, which has some features in common. In fact, characters [[CompositeCharacter inspired by both Hughes and Disney]] are not rare.
12
13	----
14	!!Examples:
15
16	[[foldercontrol]]
17
18	[[folder:Comic Books]]
19	* Billionaire-playboy-engineer-superhero [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]]. He even designed for the military -- munitions instead of planes -- and went through a major struggle with a debilitating psychological problem, although in Tony's case it was alcoholism, not OCD. In his early comics appearances, he even had the mustache. Due to ComicBookTime, these days his father -- actually named Howard -- is portrayed as even more of one.
20	* Marvel's ''ComicBook/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1977'' featured an aeronautical engineer named Hugh Howards, who looked just like Howard Hughes.
21	* In maybe a case of circular spoof, in the French graphic novel ''ComicBook/{{Mystery}}'', an AffectionateParody of surperhero comics, Howard Hughes ''himself'' is the Iron Man CaptainErsatz of this AlternateHistory.
22	* A 1970s ''Comicbook/CaptainAmerica'' story features a reclusive Las Vegas-based billionaire named Harold Howard [[spoiler: who turns out to be the Kingpin, although there is also a real Harold Howard who gets kidnapped off-panel]].
23	* Another 1970s Marvel Comics example is Mal Donalbain, in the relatively obscure comic ''ComicBook/TheCat''. He is a wealthy, eccentric and reclusive businessman, and even has Hughes's phobia of germs. In keeping with the comic's theme of feminism, Donalbain is also a HeManWomanHater, obsessed with mind controlling the women his phobia stops him from touching.
24	* ''ComicBook/AstroCity'': Roy Virgil, ''a.k.a.'' the Astro-Naut, is an overt copy of Howard Hughes, being the BadassBookworm [[RichGenius millionaire owner]] of an aerospace company who goes on [[TwoFistedTales epic adventures]]. The only reason he won't share [[GadgeteerGenius his inventions]] with the US military is the fear that TheWorldIsNotReady.
25	[[/folder]]
26
27	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
28	* Preston Whitmore from Disney's ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' is an unshaven, bony, and nutty old codger that welcomes Helga Sinclair and Milo Thatch into his study while barefoot and half-dressed. He persuades Milo to join his crack team of adventurers in finding the lost city of Atlantis, for which purpose Preston has custom-built an elaborate submarine.
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
32	* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'':
33	** Tony Stark in the ''Film/IronMan'' and ''[[Film/TheAvengers2012 Avengers]]'' movies is an eccentric playboy engineering genius who loves to fly - although Tony prefers PoweredArmor to airplanes. Like Hughes, Tony was HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee in ''Film/IronMan2'', although the circumstances were decidedly different.
34	** His [[GenerationXerox father]] Howard in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger,'' an inventor/pilot/engineer/millionaire playboy. Even more so in ''Series/AgentCarter''. He even gets into film-making in Season 2. Though he is also portrayed as a MrAltDisney in ''Film/IronMan2''.
35	* Reclusive aerospace billionaire Willard Whyte in ''Film/DiamondsAreForever'' is an example of this trope inspired by Hughes in his old age.
36	* Upson Pratt in the ''Film/{{Creepshow}}'' segment "They're Creeping Up On You" mirrors Hughes in being extremely wealthy and being obsessed with cleanliness to the point of living in a hermetically sealed apartment.
37	[[/folder]]
38
39	[[folder:Literature]]
40	* Jonas Cord in the Harold Robbins novel (and film adaptation) ''The Carpetbaggers'', an aviation tycoon turned movie mogul with a tumultuous love life and concerns for his mental health.
41	* At one point in ''Literature/{{Microserfs}}'' two of the characters wear tissue boxes on their feet and tell everyone "Look! We're Howard Hughes!"
42	* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', a lot of Aerys II "The Mad" is based on Howard Hughes in his later life--though Hughes probably didn't set people on fire. After a promising start, he became paranoid and hypochondriac, and refused to trim his hair and nails. Also like Hughes, as a young man, he was very intelligent, but tended to dedicate himself to projects that were AwesomeButImpractical at best before quickly abandoning them.
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	[[folder: Live Action TV]]
46	* ''Series/TheBionicWoman'': "Fembots in Las Vegas" features Rod Kyler, another billionaire tycoon holed up in Vegas out of health concerns (though in his case it's justified, as he ''did'' contract an incredibly rare disease).
47	* ''Series/{{Wiseguy}}''. Vinnie Terranova is framed for a GovernmentConspiracy to destabilize the Japanese economy with counterfeit yen. A reclusive billionaire with dubious intelligence connections called Prescott Wilson is supposedly behind the scheme. He lives in isolation in his mountain retreat, only communicating with visitors by having them come halfway up the mountain on a chairlift, to have Prescott meet them on another chairlift while [[NoKillLikeOverkill carrying a LAAW rocket]]. When Vinnie is HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee, Prescott is the SurpriseWitness who appears at the eleventh hour to clear him. This was likely inspired by a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Irving fake Howard Hughes autobiography]] written by scammers who assumed (incorrectly) that he would never break his isolation to expose it.
48	[[/folder]]
49
50	[[folder: Radio]]
51	* The ''Radio/ImSorryIllReadThatAgain'' 25th Anniversary ReunionShow portrays squillionaire recluse Creator/JohnCleese as this:
52	-->'''David Hatch''': The aging crazed eccentric cast a sorry figure, encased in empty Kleenex boxes and latex rubber sheeting because of his neurotic obsession with not being mistaken for [[Series/FawltyTowers Basil Fawlty]].
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Video Games]]
56	* Cave Johnson in ''Videogame/Portal2'' was an eccentric mid-twentieth-century shower curtain tycoon who used his fortune to sponsor cutting-edge scientific research (much of it well into MadScientist territory) and suffered a mental and physical breakdown late in life. He was also asked to testify in [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee Senate hearings]] about missing test subjects.
57	* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': [[EmperorScientist Robert Edwin House]], former CEO of [[MegaCorp RobCo]] and present [[OneNationUnderCopyright Autocrat of New Vegas]], is clearly based upon Howard Hughes. It's possible to find a photo of House where he stands in [[https://lensebender.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/mr-house-post.jpg identical pose and clothes]] to one of the most famous photos of Hughes. His appearance, economic views, status as a SelfMadeMan and EccentricMillionaire, and pursuit of technology for the better of mankind are based on the younger Hughes as a famous billionaire, while his obsession with Vegas and seclusion [[ManInTheMachine in a sterile life support pod, interacting with the world through a computer]], resembles the older, shut-in Hughes.
58	* While Andrew Ryan of ''VideoGame/BioShock'' is clearly primarily based on Creator/AynRand, with the game's strong theme of Objectivism, it's not hard to see that there are some traits inspired by Howard Hughes as well. Primarily, Ryan having a background with industrialism, and his slow descent into madness and paranoia once his dream slowly begins to collapse onto him.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Western Animation]]
62	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/AaahhRealMonsters'' sees Ickis getting rich after stealing a jar of toenails from a Hughes-esque paranoiac.
63	* Sir Iknik Blackstone Varrick in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. Varrick is a brilliant inventor and a wealthy businessman who is effectively the creator of his setting's movie industry ([[OneManIndustrialRevolution among other things). And calling him "eccentric" would be [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} putting it mildly]]. Varrick also has an exceedingly stylish 'stache.
64	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
65	** In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E10Springfield $pringfield]]", Mr. Burns temporarily turns into a germophobic recluse with many of the traits of Hughes in his later years. He also becomes obsessed with a model airplane which he names "the Spruce Moose", a clear reference to Hugh's "Spruce Goose" plane.
66	** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E10TheSimpsons138thEpisodeSpectacular The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular]]" depicted Sam Simon as a Howard Hughes type [[https://frinkiac.com/caption/S07E10/160726 with a long beard and long fingernails in a hospital or mental institution bed.]] Simon [[SelfDeprecation personally drew the image]] after rejecting the writers' initial joke of him being represented by a "No Photo Available" card.
67	* ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' had Howard Huge in the episode "Bearly Alive", an eccentric billionaire hippo obsessed with building the world's largest airplane, the Titanium Turkey.
68	[[/folder]]
69

Context Main / HowardHughesHomage