Manchild / Live-Action TV

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• Max from 2 Broke Girls has shades of this — while she's not as immature as a child, she has a childlike enthusiasm for things like drugs and candy. She's essentially what Amy Poehler's Saturday Night Live character Caitlin, a hyperactive 10-year-old, may be like 15 years later. She also could possibly be a compulsive liar as many of her stories seem way too farfetched to be true and something a child would tell.
• Abbott Elementary: Ava is what happens when a woman with the mentality of a teenager is tasked with helming a struggling elementary school. Malcolm, the new gifted student, even refers to her as "just a big kid."
• While all the characters from Arrested Development fall into this trope to some degree (the clue's in the title, after all), there are a couple of stand-out examples:
  • Buster is the most obvious: in his early thirties when the series begins, he nevertheless acts like a literal child most of the time, and is treated as one by most of his relatives. He not only still lives with his mother but sleeps in the same bed as her as often as not, and the amount of control she exerts over every aspect of his life would be weird for any kid over kindergarten age, let alone an adult approaching middle age.
  • GOB, despite being the only member of the Bluth family living semi-independently and maintaining a (slightly) more mature facade than his brother, nevertheless can only identify two emotions by name ("envy" and "hungry"), and entirely fails to ever take the potential consequences for his actions into account. Poignantly, as the series goes on it becomes increasingly obvious that his status as The Unfavorite compared to his three siblings is responsible to a large degree: his parents openly admit to loving him the least, and his desperation for the approval of anyone in his family leads him to unquestioningly do whatever he's told.
• The Aquabats! Super Show!: The MC Bat Commander and Crash McLarson are standout examples, though all members of their super hero team are this in some degree; Crash especially, requiring a teddy bear and a bedtime story to sleep, and having poor emotional stability. This is particularly troublesome given the nature of his super powers.
• The entire premise of Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. Nora, despite being 27, still lives with her father and grandma, keeps a messy room, stays up all night playing video games, reflects on winning a Magic: The Gathering game as if it's a life-defining accomplishment, and is overall quite adolescent in nature.
• Bar Rescue:
  • In the episode based on The Blue Frog 22 (renamed to The Local during the episode, now open as Blue Frog's Local 22), the décor of the bar was compared quite seriously to that of a carnival, with board games all over the place and bright red colors. Not exactly inviting décor.
    • It should be noted, that the original décor in question was not so much the owner's choice, but rather more of a case of being an Extreme Doormat - in this case, to his own mother who also worked there. That became the first priority of that rescue.
  • Steve from Headhunters seems to think everything Taffer says is a joke and nothing is his problem.
  • Taffer flat-out calls Tim from the Brixton a child.
  • James from Cashmere is referred to as a child in the body of a 40-year-old for his various antics.
  • Taffer seems to think that everyone involved in running Piratz Tavern is this (it didn't help that the owner and her husband were deep in debt and living with her parents at the time).
  • Paul, owner of Gipsy and its short lived relaunch SBLV, spent the episode screaming at customers and staff over petty things like what music was being played, and also threatening to fire his staff for wisely refusing to serve him another drink because of how drunk he was. Sober, he was not much better, resisting the changes to the point of walking out before the relaunch. He then shut the place down for good when he returned.
  • Lonie, owner of Underground Wonder Bar (renamed, albeit only shortly, to Clear Bar), is a rare Gender Flip version of this. Absolutely awful non-existent management skills, and acting like a spoiled brat despite being clearly well past 50 or 60. Her first meeting with Taffer, she spends the entire meeting doodling on the paper table cover with crayons (that she puts out for customers to do the same, one of whom used them to good effect in the stress test), hearts and "Anger Lines". She brushes off Taffer and the chef expert there to help her every chance she gets, insulting or questioning a decision all the time. Then despite signing an agreement that she would not change the name back to Underground Wonder Bar for at least one year, just days after Taffer left she took down the Clear name and reverted to the old name.
  • Jacob, landlord of Martini Brothers (renamed to The Federal), takes customers to an adjacent "art gallery" for finger painting sessions. He also uses lemons as brushes/rollers, while the bar itself ironically doesn't have any.
  • Taffer calls the owner of RJ'S Replay a "mama's boy" for his excessive crying and for letting his parents sink their life savings into his failing bar. Taffer all but demands for him to call them up and discuss the financials the morning after the stress test.
• The Barrier: Iván is out partying all night on a regular basis and frequently displays immature behaviors. After one of his party nights turns out to have had the worse timing ever and a very insensitive remark earns him a from slap from his father, the maid with whom Iván in a relationship spells out that both her and his father love him, but would really like him to grow up a little.
• Better Things: Sam, who's middle aged, is often childish and tells terrible jokes, to her kids' annoyance. It's a bit downplayed since she (mostly) stays a responsible adult, but her attitude comes off as more kid-like than her own kids' (who are very mature in contrast).
• The Beverly Hillbillies: Jethro Bodine, in spades. Although his emotional and mental immaturity is owed to his lack of education (he's proud to be a sixth-grade graduate) and awe at being introduced to the Beverly Hills lifestyle.
• The Big Bang Theory: While all the characters indulge themselves in childish things, Sheldon insists that someone take care of him the way his mother would when he's sick (or even just homesick), locks himself in his bedroom where no one else is allowed when he's furious, curls up into a crying ball of sad on his bed when he's embarrassed, runs away from home when he's upset, is practically traumatized by the sound of people arguing^note Although this one may be perfectly justified, as his parents often got into arguments when he was a child and it is also implied that a lot of the arguments were exceedingly violent (he mentioned that his father would skeet shoot his wife's collectible dinner plates from the roof, and that his mom planned to put glass shards in his father's meatloaf), even when they said to Sheldon that they stopped fighting, and is stubborn and petty beyond all reason. The only thing on this planet that can force him to behave rationally when he's angry or depressed is an order from his mother, who Leonard calls "Sheldon's Kryptonite". He also responds positively to being patronized by Penny, especially if he gets a toy robot and a comic book out of it. Lampshaded by Bernadette at one point, after she successfully got him to go to bed by first reasoning with him about the effects of lack of sleep, and then simply treating him like an overgrown child and sending him to bed.
• BOB ❤️ ABISHOLA: Fraternal twins Douglas and Christina are in their late thirties, but act like stereotypical modern teenagers. They drink, smoke weed, watch Reality TV, use Tinder and other social media frequently, throw childish tantrums (Christina moreso than Douglas) and are extremely lazy and incapable of taking care of themselves.
• Bonanza: Several episodes have featured characters who were mentally "slow" –- some villains, some sympathetic characters, others one-off good guys the Cartwrights aim to help. One of the best-known examples was "The Ape," from the show's second season, where a large man named Arnie has traces of autism, is unable to read social cues and (more worryingly) has a fierce temper. His fierce determination to win over a barmaid that has no interest in him is what eventually leads to his downfall, despite Hoss' own determination to help focus Arnie and mentor him into a farmer.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • Detective Jake Peralta is a very good detective, but he's almost incapable of acting like an adult. For example, during a season one episode, it is revealed that he was keeping his mail in a bathtub to avoid reading it, and had bought six massage chairs, and rented a movie on demand 12 times to watch it over and over.
    Sgt. Terry Jeffords: The one mystery [Jake] can't solve... is how to act like a grown-up.
  • In many ways, Detective Amy Santiago is a female version of this trope; she's just a different kind of child. Where Peralta acts like the high-school class clown who never learned maturity, Santiago gives off the impression that she's still running for high school valedictorian.
    Jake: God, you must have been the worst fourth-grader ever.
    Amy: (smug) Joke's on you, I skipped fourth grade.
  • Gina Linetti could count as another variation as well, acting in many ways as a teenager despite being Jake's age, such as times where she stays on her phone for hours and pulls pranks to film for social media. fittingly, in one episode where middle-schoolers visit the precinct, she spends most of her time hanging with the kids and getting their personal dramas.
• Richard Castle is this trope in spades. He sets up laser tag in his house, plays with remote-controlled helicopters and other toys, buys property on the moon, and often has to be put in line by his teenage daughter. However he is capable of acting maturely, he generally just chooses not to.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer has Xander Harris. He sometimes behaves like a child and comes very immature. In "Band Candy", an enchanted chocolate is distributed in Sunnydale, which mentally brings the adults back to the level of children and teenagers. Xander says he does not feel any change even after three plates of chocolate.
  • The villains from the sixth season, Warren, Johnathan, and Andrew are simply nerds who have decided to be evil for fun. The three often behave like children in their performances, starting in an episode of the actor who was the best James Bond. In another episode, Andrew paints a picture of the very conspicuous Death Star on the car of the three, with whom they want to observe Buffy. All three always make references to pop culture, and argue like children.
• Cheers: Most of the cast, in one way or another.
  • Sam is in his thirties as the series begins, but still enjoys playing childish pranks and watching cartoons, even though he runs a bar.
  • Diane puts up a good front of being incredibly intelligent... but at the same time has a bedroom filled with stuffed toys who she treats like real people, throws melodramatic tantrums and sulks when she doesn't get her way, shows a general disregard for anyone else's feelings, and often dithers on big decisions.
  • Woody, who has an earnest but simple approach to the world, has serious trouble lying (it makes him break out in tears), and is generally upbeat if very, very stupid. He ends up married to another example, Kelly Gaines, who has been Spoiled Sweet, and is utterly terrible at reading people, and has no street smarts of any kind.
  • Cliff, who even into his thirties still lives with his mother, who treats him like a 6-year-old. At the bar, Cliff will act like a pre-teen, being perfectly willing to insult others but bristling when they do the reverse, scurrying away and hiding when confronted with physical violence. Around his mother, he's worse, acting like a toddler, complete with stropping and sulking. Ma Clavin's behaviour towards Cliff is a cycle of this: She treats him like a baby, then insults him because of the way he turned out. At times, Cliff edges towards Psychopathic Manchild, which gets him into trouble with the law.
• Morgan Grimes of Chuck has strong shades of this in the first two seasons, although around the time he gets promoted to assistant manager of the store he finally begins growing up. He never completely abandons his love of video games, comic books, toys, and other such interests, but his maturity level from Season 3 onward is strikingly higher compared to the beginning of the series.
• The Cleaner (UK): "The Widow" features a character played by Paul Chowdhry (47 at the time of filming) who dresses and acts like a child despite having a full beard and greying hair. He's credited, appropriately enough, as "Man Boy".
• Stephen Colbert's onscreen persona is like this, especially at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
• Community:
  • Pierce Hawthorne, bordering on Psychopathic Man Child territory.
  • Troy and Abed.
  • Basically the entire cast really.
• Daredevil (2015):
  • Wilson Fisk is socially awkward and prone to tantrums. When he gets really frustrated, he balls his fists and contorts his face in a remarkably babyish fashion, usually signalling the onset of a Berserker Rage.
  • Melvin Potter comes across as a really big kid. When Matt shows up at his workshop, he acts like he's going to punished by his parent for it. By Season 2, this character trait is dropped, since he doesn't have Fisk now still pressuring him or threatening his girlfriend. In his case, it's a result of being mentally disabled.
• Doctor Who:
  • The First Doctor. He sees himself as a dignified old man but his maturity level is closer to that of a 14-year-old: loving showing off to girls, being surly to authority figures, struggling with social skills, incredible self-centredness, gleeful meddling and boundless curiosity (not to mention his somewhat vertical relationship with Ian and Barbara and his incredibly parallel relationship with Vicki). Later canon pretty much states the "old man" aspects of his character were actually just a childlike attempt to look important. All this said, all of his later incarnations trust him to the point of seeing him as an authority over them.
  • The Fourth Doctor. One of the most dignified, mature and authoritarian Doctors of all — the Third — was immediately followed by probably the most blatantly childish and anti-authoritarian of the lot. He offers everyone sweets, plays with children's toys, doodles cartoons of people he dislikes, loves playing and running around and getting attention, tends to sulk when he can't get his way, and has childish Character Tics that make him bizarrely cute despite being huge and imposing. He's sensitive and vain about his age, constantly lying about it to seem younger. He absolutely detests authority and is willing to go anywhere, do anything to avoid taking orders again.
  • The Eleventh Doctor plays the age card less than previous Doctors did during an argument, and seems to even forget his decrepitude at times. The War Doctor isn't amused: a senile git of a man, Eleven has retreated from his grim past into a world of childlike frivolity. A good example of this is in "A Christmas Carol" where the Doctor tries to use his psychic paper to prove he is "universally recognised as a mature and responsible adult" and the paper shorts out because it's that unbelievable. This changes once he saves Gallifrey in "The Day of the Doctor": He pointedly chooses to stay behind and age into an old man on Trenzalore, as if unconsciously deciding to "grow up".
  • The Twelfth Doctor is rude to almost everyone around him, but sometimes shows a more caring side, and when he is alone he spends most of his time brooding. In essence, he is a rebellious teenager in the body of a grown man.
  • The Thirteenth Doctor is as hyperactive and scatterbrained as the Eleventh, and has some very childish tendencies as well, such as stomping her feet when she's angry, jumping up and down when she's excited and pouting when she doesn't get her way.
    The Thirteenth Doctor: [while in a police car] Can we have the lights and siren on?
• Dollhouse has Topher Brink who, for his mid/late-20-somethingth birthday, creates a buddy to play video games and tag with him. He gets much, much more childlike post-series tragically.
  • Then there is Terry Kerans, who is listed amongst the Psychopathic Man-Children.
• The Dukes of Hazzard: James Best once said of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane –- the character fitting this trope -– that Rosco is like a 7-year-old child who loves initiating car chases. Indeed, much of Rosco's behavior is that of a 7-year-old. While that of Hazzard County Commissioner J.D. "Boss" Hogg (Rosco's boss, confidant and partner in crime ... and his brother-in-law) is similar to the 10-year-old big brother.
• Everybody Loves Raymond: Ray is a very childish and immature Bumbling Dad, mostly due to Marie pampering him his entire life.
• Dougal from Father Ted.
• All six members of the main cast of Friends tend to act childish:
  • Ross is the worst one of the group. He usually resorts to petty revenge to get back at Rachel whenever they break up from their on again off again relationship (dating women just to make Rachel jealous) and gets into childish fights with his sister, Monica, such as hogging the TV or calling her childish names. For the latter, Ross thought his squabbles with Monica as they grew up together was harmless fun and that is why he kept doing it well into adulthood until Monica confessed that she hated Ross when they were kids because of his bullying.
  • Joey is almost as bad in this regard. He constantly mooches off Chandler (with everything from rent payments to acting classes), he refuses to maintain a steady romantic relationship even when he's well into his mid/late-30's, and he's hopelessly idealistic about his acting career despite clearly being a pretty lousy actor. As the show went on these traits were Flanderized for him, and by the final season he was buying Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, being entertained by a book intended for preschoolers, and had a written letter of his being mistaken as one written by an actual 6-year-old.
  • Rachel has a childish need to be the center of attention, refuses to take responsibility for her own actions, and constantly whines to her friends about her personal problems. Not to mention everything she does to sabotage Ross's relationships and all the arguments she gets into with him.
  • Chandler constantly makes immature jokes and (along with Joey) often gets caught up in activities that are meant for children far below his age group.
  • Phoebe has a childishly naive outlook towards life (even with her crappy childhood) and still believes in fantasy figures such as Santa Claus. Also, she has no problem criticizing and saying blunt, rude things to others, but gets offended and acts like a petulant child when they do it to her.
  • Monica is the most mature, except on the few occasions where she becomes a Control Freak and the times where she gets into fights with Ross. Because of how competitive she is she also often throws huge tantrums when things aren't going her away during any sort of game she plays against one of the others.
• Maris Crane, Niles' abusive wife from Frasier, is petty, vain, selfish, impulsive, unforgiving, quick to anger, ludicrously self-indulgent, incapable of admitting when she's at fault, has no empathy for anyone but herself, and is known to throw things when angry.
• On Fringe, Walter Bishop is a curious example of this. As a young man, he was a normal, mature adult. But then his partner cut pieces out of his brain and he spent 17 years in a mental institution heavily medicated. The new Walter Bishop, while he retains his prodigious intelligence, is a Cloudcuckoolander who cannot manage the basic necessities of life on his own, and is dependent on his adult son and his FBI-agent-turned-lab-assistant to provide for his needs. While his foibles are often played for comedy, later episodes also play up the pathos of his situation; unlike most Man Children, Walter remembers having been capable of living on his own, and his humiliation and sense of loss are keenly felt.
• Joey Gladstone in Full House loves cartoons, junk food, and having fun most of the time, and is in his 30s. By the time of Fuller House, he's in his 50s and hasn't changed a bit.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Owing to his limited intelligence, Hodor doesn't really act his age. In the Season 3 finale, he delightedly shouts his name into a well just to hear the echo.
  • Due to being deprived of a childhood, White Rat seeks childhood comforts such as being held and sung to.
  • Mace Tyrell. On the one hand he's easily led by his wilier mother who doesn't hesitate to rebuke him in public. On the other, he gets pretty defensive when Oberyn Martell sarcastically suggests he take one of Mace's spots on the Small Council, which gives off the impression of a small child protesting over having to share a toy.
• Kirk from Gilmore Girls.
  Paris: How old is he?
  Rory: You'd have to cut him open and count the rings.
  • Both Rory and her mother Lorelai are walking posters for this trope. When the series starts, Lorelai is in her mid 30s, yet she dresses, talks, and acts like a teenager (in one episode, she shows up to a parent teacher conference late wearing a band t-shirt), eats junk food like it’s going out of style, and still maintains the music interests and hobbies she did as a teen, not to mention she treats and raises her daughter as more of a best friend/surrogate sister than daughter. Rory, while wise beyond her years, also exhibits very childish behavior. She has a constant need to be the center of attention, needs praise and congratulations for every little thing she does, cannot handle criticism, and when things don’t go her way or she is criticized, she has an absolute meltdown.
• Ginny and Georgia: Georgia Miller has all the hallmarks of one, though the fact that she has managed to keep her kids healthy and well-cared for, if not necessarily happy, is a slight twist. She frequently acts pretty childish, very much like her daughter Ginny, which is likely due to having her at 15. E.g., putting every item of food they have in the trash to spite Ginny refusing the dinner she made.
• Rose Nylund of The Golden Girls is a rare female version at times. It seems that her hometown of St. Olaf has produced a fair number of these, although it can be hard to tell from her stories who is a Manchild and who is just a complete idiot.
• On Good Eats, Alton helps out a 32-year-old man who has his mother come by every morning and make him breakfast, at the mother's request. He eventually learns to at least cook one meal for himself, but his mom still does his laundry for him.
• On Grace and Frankie, Frankie is an extremely rare female example, mostly applicable because she is in her 70's and the usual female tropes focus on much younger women. Frankie throws tantrums when people don't do what she wants, she sings loudly when people say things she doesn't want to hear and will pull stunts like locking her family out of the house (or locking herself in) when she is mad at them. She is also financially irresponsible and has relied heavily on her (now ex-) husband and sons to handle the practical matters of life.
• Kate Bishop in Hawkeye (2021) is 22 but acts a lot like a teenager most of the time. She actually takes advantage of this to convince Clint to use her plan instead of his (granted, after she's already begun enacting it), something Clint calls her out on.
  Clint: That's not fair, that your inability to act like a grown-up helps you get your way.
• Hiro Nakamura of Heroes is completely psyched over his powers because it means he's just like the super heroes he's been reading about in comic books all his life. When his memory gets wiped back to age ten, some snarky fans commented that they really didn't see a difference from twenty-something Hiro. ^note Although of course that's ridiculous. Child-Hiro was entirely distinguishable from adult-Hiro: his Engrish was much, much worse than even in Season 1!
• Himitsu no Hanazono (2007):
  • Ryoko, Natsuyo's ex-boss, likes things that are way out of her age demographic, and is always happy-go-lucky. She pretends to have the image of a professional boss, but really isn't one.
  • Osamu is 30, but tends to act like an immature child, often Volleying Insults at Natsuyo and annoying his brothers. He has a room filled with manga, figurines and plastic Gundam models. At one point, Satoshi threatens to throw them out when he's angered.
• Ed Norton on The Honeymooners watches Captain Video while wearing his official Captain Video space helmet and Ray Gun, and whimpers and cries when he doesn't get his way.
• Hotel Hell:
  • John of the Roosevelt Inn, of Coeur d'Alene, ID. Ramsay repeatedly calls out his whimsical and carefree towards a failing business free-falling into debt and his stressed and resentful wife working hard trying to keep everything afloat. Most evident during the Sherlock Holmes-themed Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre nights where she's putting in massive amounts of work in the kitchen while he's basically prancing about with the guests pretending to be an English detective.
  • The owner of the Keating Hotel of San Diego, CA. essentially ran his hotel by putting in everything he thought was cool, regardless of whether it made any sense. This is why his entire hotel was designed to look like a Ferrari and also why there were 150 items on the restaurant's menu, despite getting no more than 50 customers a night.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Barney is the oldest but most childish member of the gang. He frequently plays laser tag against children and has a childish obsession with sex and money, even whining childishly when things don't go his way. His Commitment Issues and entire lifestyle resemble a child's determination of getting what he wants.
  • Minor recurring character Becky, Robin's co-anchor on Come On, Get Up, New York!, who talks like a baby and has the personality of an 8-year-old girl. Ted was basically her "dad" when he briefly dated her.
• iCarly: Spencer is a sculptor for a living, often making whimsical and sometimes weird sculptures that usually end up catching on fire or exploding before being perfected. He loves light-up socks, has a pet goldfish (that he often forgets to feed, resulting in another pet goldfish), and once went to law school for three days.
  • Carly even calls him a "manchild" in iLove You.
  • He calls himself one in the series finale.
• Burger, Ash and to a lesser extent Derek Jupiter of I'm in the Band.
• The most physically intimidating of the Impractical Jokers — heavy-set, scowly Q — had to don a nightshirt and tug around a teddy bear in an Ikea. Surprisingly, he managed to get a customer to tell him a bedtime story.
• Iron Fist (2017) is stunted emotionally due to his childhood trauma and being taught to suppress his emotions by the monks who raised him. Because of this, he often acts childish in front of his peers (such as switching seats during a meeting so he can sit by Joy), not understanding social norms (such as going into Colleen's dojo to spar), or losing his temper (such as when he freaked out at Ward for his bullying as children).
• The IT Crowd:
  • Moss is a man in his thirties who acts and speaks like a 4-year-old most of the time, doesn't swear, still lives with his mother and sobs uncontrollably when confronted by bullies...
  • Roy to a lesser extent.
• Ellen May in Justified. The relationship between Delroy and Ellen May resembled that of an abusive father and child. Later, her relationship with Ava took on a similar dynamic.
• Kamen Rider usually goes with Psychopathic Manchild, but a benign version would appear from time to time, too.
  • Kamen Rider Wizard: Shunpei Nara is overly enthusiastic, has little regard for personal space and trips over himself every so often.
  • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid:
    • Nico Saiba is 18, but you couldn't tell from the way she acts and dresses. She is a Troll who covers her room with Sickeningly Sweet decorations and grates on people's nerves with her cheerful attitude. Later parts of the story put a twist onto this as her act becomes pretending to be a Womanchild out of habit, loving to troll people, and needing to continue her reputation because she doesn't want people to know she grew up.
    • Dan Kuroto, President of Gemn Corporation, starts off as a Psychopathic Manchild but eventually becomes just a regular one after being put on a leash by the heroes. Among other things, he throws tantrums over other people making better games than him and calls his mid-series upgrade Level 1,000,000 just to be better than everyone else. He goes back to the insane kind in the altered timeline where he becomes Another OOO in Kamen Rider Zi-O.
  • Downplayed example in Kamen Rider Build: Sento Kiriyu is a serious adult rightfully called "hero of justice" as Kamen Rider Build. He is also a science geek with a massive ego, who tried to test his invention on people around him and he agrees with his friends that the more fitting version would be "narcissistic, conceited hero of justice".
  • In Kamen Rider Zi-O, Sougo Tokiwa is a downplayed example that nonetheless gets pointed out repeatedly through the series. He constantly talks about becoming King (of what is never specified) and his first reaction to being told he'll become the despotic Oma Zi-O is excitement that he achieves his goal. He also slacks off in subjects he doesn't like in school while excelling at the ones he has a liking for like an unmotivated middle-school student. His character development over the show emphasizes his emotional maturation but he still keeps his boyish enthusiasm.
  • Kamen Rider Zero-One's Aruto Hiden refuses to work for his family's company and wants to be a stand-up comedian, despite having an utterly childish sense of humor — simple puns are his A material, and quite a few of them aren't even really puns so much as replacing words with ones that rhyme. He eventually decides to take his place as president of Hiden Intelligence, but is easily distracted by the technology being developed there.
• Doug Heffernan from The King of Queens. Whenever he's having an argument with Carrie, he often goes to extreme lengths for petty revenge, often injuring himself or worsening the conflict. He has been shown to have a very juvenile sense of humor on several occasions, and one time fought with his father-in-law over a toy in his cereal box, just to name a few things.
  • The aforementioned father-in-law, Arthur, is one himself and arguably a bigger one. He has no job, living off his daughter and son-in-law, generally acts immature all the time, including yelling and throwing tantrums when he doesn't get his way and often showing a petty, child-like jealousy towards anything that takes attention away from him. It's so bad at times that Doug and Carrie (his daughter and Doug's wife) often have to reign in his behavior the way parents would do to a child. In his case, though, there's a possible excuse; he had a bad childhood, so it's possible he just never had the chance to mature properly.
• Lenny and Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley are this trope. While they do have some adult ambitions like getting girlfriends and starting a talent agency, they still have the same mindset as kids and often do childish things like drinking chocolate syrup and watching cartoons.
• The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Cruise To Nowhere" focuses on a young (about 20-years-old) poker genius named Joey Frost, who acts like a petulant child and whom Goren describes as having the emotional maturity of a 10-year-old. It eventually turns out that there's a sympathetic reason for this behaviour: a horrible childhood.
  • Goren himself fit this trope in the early seasons. Witness, for example, his glee at discovering a synthesizer that says things like "Oh, baby!" when you hit the keys.
  • Sometimes in later seasons, too, such as in 'Vanishing Act' when he reacts with similar glee at the various magic trick thingies.
• Legion: David Haller's schizophrenia is debilitating, so he's dysfunctional as an adult. He exhibits certain childlike behaviours, such as sleeping while his rocket ship lamp (which he had since he was a baby) is on, and its constellation-shaped lights seem to comfort him. In the scene where he's eagerly devouring waffles at his sister's house, Amy and Ben watch him warily as if they were parents who are concerned about how they should treat their emotionally volatile kid. In the series finale, Past Farouk ridicules David for his immaturity.
  Past Farouk: David. The victim. A boy pretending to be a man. Always blaming others. Boo-hoo.
• On Leverage Parker has shades of this given that she was somewhat emotionally stunted by becoming a thief at an extremely young age.
• Jacob from Lost began as an immature, emotional man with little social skills, plus he lived with his adoptive mother for nearly thirty years. Centuries later, however, Jacob's outgrown his previous phase.
  • Has he though? "You've got ink on your forehead."
• Stuart of Mad TV. Although the character is supposed to be an actual child, he appears as one of these because he is played by an adult man.
• Hal from Malcolm in the Middle is shown to be this to the point where he often indulges in his children’s various antics.
• Radar in some seasons of M*A*S*H. He does have some growing up to do in "Idols", and, as a final show of growing up, leaves his teddy bear behind when he goes home.
• Master of None: Both Dev and his best friend Arnold. In the pilot, they attend a baby's birthday party because it has a bounce house, and are inordinately entertained by baby toys.
• Vince in The Mighty Boosh is constantly eating sweets, writes in crayon and has an imaginary friend made out of bubble-gum called Charlie.
  • His actor Noel Fielding is very similar — in interviews and panel shows he will sit smiling sweetly, making silly jokes about rainbows, pigeons and pencil cases and acting like a total Cloudcuckoolander. This often leads to people making fun of him, and learning the hard way that he's also a professional comedian with a truly acid wit.
• Alexi in Mimpi Metropolitan usually tries to act suave (but the effect is more like a weird Large Ham), but when things slightly doesn't go his way he will start whining and crying like a child. Mami Bibir likes to treat him like a toddler child and it fits pretty well.
• Adrian Monk from the eponymous series Monk can be this at times. He tends to cringe and whine when faced with one of his multiple phobias. He's still obsessed with his childhood favorite show The Cooper Clan at least until he finds out the truth about the stars in Season 8. One particular episode has him totally revert to acting like a 9-year-old as a result of hypnotism. He snaps out of it by the end because Status Quo Is God.
• Mr. Bean sleeps with a teddy bear. In the first episode, he puts two dolls on the table when he sits down to take an examination. In general he is of the more common, Fish out of Water type, although his strangeness goes beyond childlike and into the realm of truly bizarre.
• The Munsters: Herman Munster. He enjoys watching children's programs, and frequently throws foundation-shaking temper tantrums.
• The Musketeers: King Louis XIII is pretty much one of these; being naive, childish, and prone to temper tantrums and storming off when he doesn't get his own way.
  Princess Louise: I haven't seen the King since we were children.
  Athos: He's barely changed.
• Roger Bailey Jr. of the series My Family is an irrationally optimistic character who has a somewhat infantile perception of the world, as a result of his doting mother's over-parenting. His idea of a fun stag night is making balloon animals and he is an ardent collector of Lord of the Rings figurines. It is later revealed that his mother still cuts his food up for him.
• Randy from My Name Is Earl.
  • In the same series, Earl had caused his teenage babysitter to become pregnant by poking holes in the condoms she and her boyfriend were using, because he had a crush on her and he was jealous. The couple is still together, having gotten married as a result of the girl's pregnancy, and their son is now grown up. He, however, is a mess; he dropped out of school, lives in the basement, is whiny and demanding, and uses a Jar Potty so he doesn't have to come upstairs to use the bathroom. Earl decides that the way to cross "Got the babysitter pregnant" off his list is to help him grow up. It's actually Randy that ends up doing it, though.
• TV's Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000 is this part of the time, and at other times he's a knowing parody of it.
• Similarly, Tony Dinozzo on NCIS, while not a full Manchild, was pretty well stuck in his frat-boy mentality for the first season or so. As his character has developed, his persona has moved from this to an effective obfuscating immaturity.
• The Office:
  • Kevin — Not that evident in the early episodes, but as the character became more prominent, he devolves into a simple-minded man-child with a subnormal IQ.
  • Michael Scott is an impulsive and Innocently Insensitive Bunny-Ears Lawyer with a pure-hearted kind of optimism.
• Parks and Recreation:
  • Andy. Part of the reason the show is praised for Growing the Beard is his Character Development having him go from a Jerkass to a simple man who just doesn't know better.
  • April of the same show fits as a Woman Child. Since she and Andy are married and live in the same house, which they never cleaned, repaired, or paid for, Ben has to whip them into shape.
  • Tom and Jean-Ralphio also fit. They started Entertainment 720 together so they could look cool. The business tanks into debt in about 2 months because they didn't know that companies have to make money.
  • Leslie fits, too. She is cheerful, hyperactive, and a little naïve. Not to mention her fondness for candy and dislike of vegetables. She is competent, however — indeed, very competent.
  Ann (in a deleted scene): Leslie is incredible. She has the energy of a 10-year-old. And the same taste in snacks.
• Connor Temple from Primeval also often behaves childish and immature. He is constantly joking, and often makes references to pop culture. It is even a running gag, that he always gets into trouble, and must be saved. In the later seasons, however, he becomes a little more mature.
• Shawn Spencer from Psych, especially in the episode Ghosts: Shawn responds to his mother's unexpected appearance by hiding out in his old bedroom (though this has more weight to it: it's bringing up memories of the divorce his folks went through, which led to a Broken Pedestal with his dad.) While on the phone with Gus, a conversation during which he becomes enamored with an unopened box of Shrinky Dinks, a teen magazine in pristine condition (which he tries to read to Gus over the phone) and playing with an old Furby. The latter one is especially telling as he would have to be 21 at the youngest to have previously owned a Furby.
  • In one episode, after freaking out about his Nintendo DS being stolen, his girlfriend tells him to stop acting like a child and he responds "I'm not acting."
    • Justified, in that there was an engagement ring (that's a family heirloom no less) for said girlfriend hidden in the Nintendo DS.
  • Another is where he answers said girlfriend when she asked how his dad went, he mentions watching Phineas and Ferb, having a snack and then napping.
  • It's hinted that a good deal of Shawn's childish moments was due to the strict upbringing by Henry; while he did have a fulfilling childhood that his dad was an active part of, he still missed out on opportunities to do things he wanted (his father heavily disapproved of superhero comics for how they make cops look for example). Furthermore, most of said activities were molded to serve as learning experiences for Shawn to become a cop. So it could just be that Shawn's childish acting out is a way to indulge in being free to do what he wants.
  • To a lesser extent, but still prevalent, is his best friend Burton Guster. While he does play the Straight Man to his antics, holds a respectable job and an overall more serious man, he has plenty of moments where he indulges in simple fun with Shawn. Heck, he has even been seen in pajamas with trains on them. He loves bunnies much like Shawn does and is actually pretty sensitive emotionally. He and Shawn are pretty co-dependent on one another (though in Shawn's case, it's because Gus was one of the few constants in his life.)
• Raven's Home: Despite having gotten older around their 30s, Raven and Chelsea have not matured at all since their teenage years. They are very childish and immature single mothers who can't handle the responsibility and seriousness of being parents. In fact, their own children are practically the ones raising them.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: Feng Hao is eighteen but acts more like a 12-year-old. Deconstructed since his immaturity leads to him giving away very important information without realising it, which leads directly to his own death and his mother's suicide.
• School of Rock has Mr Finn. He lives with his father and is a failed musician who was kicked out of his former band. This does work to his advantage though, since when he starts teaching, he's better able to relate to the students by being at their level.
• All four of the main characters in Seinfeld. It gets a Lampshade Hanging in Season 7's "The Engagement," when Jerry has a sobering realization about it (which, naturally, he quickly gets over).
  Jerry: What—what kind of lives are these? We're like children. We're not men!
• Many of the Sesame Street Muppets are this. They do some classically "adult" things (Bert and Ernie share an apartment, Big Bird lives semi-independently in his nest, Grover has had many jobs). Yet developmentally, they represent the ages of the target audience (Big Bird is developmentally 6, Grover is developmentally 4, and so on, according to Word of God).
• Sherlock in Sherlock. He does very, very, very strange things to solve cases, and...well, there's a lot that would qualify him for this category.
• Caitlyn on Saturday Night Live for the same reasons as the above is supposed to be a 10-year-old girl, but was played by then the well into her 30's Amy Poehler.
• Schemer from Shining Time Station is a full grown adult and doesn't know how to take care of himself. He also doesn't seem to understand the value of a dollar, as he thinks a nickel is a valuable amount of currency. (Even in the '90s, any self-respecting arcade machine would cost at least a quarter to use.) In "Schemer's Alone", his mother goes away overnight and leaves him a bunch of instructions.
  Schemer: "Take out the trash, make your bed, say please and thank you." I mean what does she think I am, some kind of mature adult?
• Star Trek: Picard:
  • For a young adult, Elnor is quite innocent thanks to his sheltered and isolated upbringing by nuns. He still retains his boyhood wish to see a cat in person, and Picard even adds that he may run across one or two of them as a way to encourage Elnor to accompany him on his mission. Elnor reacts with a child-like wonder to anything that's new to him, which includes falsehood (e.g. the idea of playing a role that is different from his true self is totally alien to him). Raffi and Narissa call him a boy and Rios refers to him as a kid.
  • Narissa frequently refers to Narek as her baby brother, and she does indeed view him as an immature, foolish, overgrown boy. As an adult, he still plays with a tan zhekran (a Romulan puzzle box), and Narissa criticizes him for being fascinated with what she considers to be a stupid toy.
    (Narissa fiddles with Narek's tan zhekran)
    Narek: (like an upset child) That's mine. Give it back. You'll break it.
    • In "Nepenthe", Narek is seen playing with another Romulan toy in the cockpit of his scout ship when he's following the La Sirena.
    • Invoked by Sutra in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1" when she tells Saga, "I'll babysit Soji's friend [Narek]."
• In one episode of The Suite Life on Deck called "The Starship Tipton", George Takei played a descendant of London named 'Rome Tipton'. He is usually seen with a teddy bear and acted very much like London. He was even still in school.
• Cupid on Supernatural.
  • When Castiel is dealing with Heavenly matters, he's a stoic Badass Longcoat. When he gets isolated among human beings, however, he descends into this at times, like when he goes to a brothel, suddenly craves meat, or...
    Castiel: "I found a liquor store... and I drank it." (falls onto Sam)
  • Dean Winchester is this whenever the writers decide to take a break from angsting him. For example, he gets super-excited about classic monsters like a proper werewolf, and makes movie references non-stop.
  • In Bad Day At Black Rock, while his run of luck allows him to have incredible reflexes and aim, Dean says "I'm Batman" after taking out an assailant, and looks genuinely disappointed/hurt when Sam responds with a "Yeah right, you're Batman".
  • In Season 6, Dean also shows his childish excitement of classic Western movies and the opportunity to go to the good ol' West.
• Today's Special had Jeff, a mannequin brought to life by a Hat of Power who was always having to be taught about concepts humans take for granted, like umbrellas and the weather.
• Hoyt Fortenberry from True Blood is an example of this trope that's both Deconstructed and ultimately played straight. Hoyt grew up under a mother who was extremely bigoted (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc) and smothered Hoyt well into adulthood in an attempt to keep him in her life after her husband committed suicide. The result is that Hoyt grew up emotionally stunted. Even though he's physically a 28-year-old who still lives with his mother, he's mentally a kid because of the way Maxine's treated him for most of his life, which has impacted how he's able to relate to the world. While he's initially nice and means well, this mentality ultimately becomes a handicap for Hoyt because it makes it hard for him to process hard truths and disappointments in life without reacting in an extremely childish manner. Like when Hoyt finds out what really happened to his dad, or when Jessica ends their relationship in season 4. When that happens, a nastier side to his character comes out that's a lot like a little kid throwing a temper-tantrum. Except in this case, it's a grown-ass adult who's doing it. The result is he falls into a Never My Fault mentality where it's easier to blame others for things that go wrong in the same way his mother does. This gets taken to the extreme in Season 5: After Jessica dumps him, he ends up joining a Hate Group that's targeting supernatural creatures, and verbally expresses a desire to see Jessica dead. When Jessica gets captured by the Hate Group, Hoyt ends up holding a gun to her head after she's been tied up and proceeds to slut shame her for sleeping with Jason while trying to justify why it's okay to kill her, and it is as horrifying as it sounds. While he ultimately chooses to let Jessica go, the problem is he still remains petulantly angry about the break-up afterwards. Instead of choosing to learn anything from his recent experiences, or take the time to self-reflect on his recent behavior, Hoyt opts to glamour all his memories out of his head so that he doesn't remember anything. And while it's unpleasant to watch, it make sense Hoyt would behave like this considering how he was raised. It's also implied that part of the reason Jessica lost interest in their relationship by Season 4 is because she felt like she became a Replacement Goldfish for Hoyt's mom in that he expected her to do the stuff his mom usually did for him, and Jessica was having none of that.
• Neal Caffrey from White Collar shows shades of this. When Peter tells him it's wrong to have nice things you haven't earned his reaction is a childish "why not?". Also, whatever mistakes he makes always seem to because he can't keep his feelings in check.
  • Multiple characters also lampshade his tendency to fail to completely think through the consequences of his actions, and inability to grow up. His ex/current girlfriend Sara tells him that he has a tendency to live with his head in the clouds, and Agent Peter Burke actually calls him Peter Pan several times early in the series, and tells him he can either be a con or a man, not both, in an effort to encourage him to get his life on track. In fact, he and his wife often give him advice that a parent normally would, despite the fact that they are not actually old enough to be his parents. Because he's so immature, in some ways, and didn't have much of a relationship with his real parents, this still works.
    Mozzie (exasperated, after Neal steals a painting despite the fact that it would be obvious that it was him): You're like a child.
• Shin Asuka from Ultraman Dyna, perhaps the most immature of all main characters from the Ultra Series. Despite being in his mid-twenties, he likes playing pranks, watching kiddie shows, reads children comics, and seldom take things seriously. He did become much more mature, however, by the time he came back in Ultraman Saga, some 15 years later (several decades in-universe).

Asuka: (waving at a security camera at the entrance of a top-secret government facility) "Look Ma, I'm on TV!"

• Invoked during one game of "Scenes From a Hat" on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, where the prompt was "If adults settled disputes the way kids do."
  Wayne: Alright, Jenkins. So you're not going to accept my proposal for the merger?
  Colin: No.
  Wayne: Okay... (the two start a shoulder-shove fight)
  —-
  Wayne: You sure we can't make this thing work, baby?
  Kathy: I'm sorry. I've tried.
  Wayne: I see... WHYYYYYYY?!!! (throws tantrum)

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