someone who sits on the couch and vegetates like a lump. no television is necessary, in fact it could even be considered a distraction

Very few words have a birthday so precise, and so precisely known, as couch potato. It was on July 15, 1976, we are told, that couch potato came into being, uttered by Tom Iacino of Pasadena, California, during a telephone conversation. He was a member of a Southern California group humorously opposing the fads of exercise and healthy diet in favor of vegetating before the TV and eating junk food (1973). Because their lives centered on television–the boob tube (1966)–they called themselves boob tubers. Iacino apparently took the brilliant next step and substituted potato as a synonym for tuber. Thinking of where that potato sits to watch the tube, he came up with couch potato. Or so the story goes, as told in the subsequent registration of Couch Potato as a trademark. In any case, when the new phrase reached the ears of Robert Armstrong, another member of the boob tubers, he drew a cartoon of a potato on a couch, formed a club called the Couch Potatoes, registered the trademark and began merchandising Couch Potato paraphernalia, from T shirts to dolls. He published a newsletter called The Tuber’s Voice: The Couch Potato Newsletter and a book, Dr. Spudd’s Etiquette for the Couch Potato. If the story ended there, couch potato would have been as passing a fad as the “pet rock” (1975) of the same vintage. But since the 1970s the tube has grown more alluring and the couch potato culture more compelling, especially with the 1980s invention of the zapper (1985), or remote control. No longer a cartoon character, the couch potato is now one of us.

A couch potato is a figure of speech for a person that does not do much. Typically, such a person would sit on a couch / sofa / chestefield / or other seat, watch television, and eat junk food, with little or no motivation to do anything else.

A couch potato is a slang word for someone who sits around too much, usually watching TV, or anyone who is inactive. Not sure why we use that term, but basically it means youre lazy!

🙂

eating potato chips on the couch…kind of a lazy person sort of activity

A man who always sit near the television

couch potatoes are those potatoes you find under your sofa.

slobby, lazy guy who sits around watching tv.