Couch Potato

The term couch potato – which certainly does not apply to anyone in our family – was first coined in 1976 by a friend of American underground comics artist Robert Armstrong. In the early 1980S Armstrong registered it as a trademark. The term eventually entered common American vocabulary, generally defining one who unceasingly watches television as a form of "Transcendental Vegetation (TV for short)." The phrase was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993. In earlier times Dr Johnson had the similar term bedpresser in his dictionary to refer to “a heavy lazy fellow” but whether he watched the world go by in his underpants is something upon which he does not elaborate.

(Note the Dan Quayle spelling of potato!)