12/17/07

The Richest Real & Fictional Celebs

Oprah Winfrey
A friend and I had an interesting conversation the other day. She was discussing the concept that Ty Pennington of "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" might be included on the Forbe's richest celebrity list, due to all his advertising deals and his show. That prompted The Monetizer to try to guess at who was #1 without seeing the list. My guess was the big O, Oprah Winfrey, pretty easy choice. Oprah tops the list and makes a payroll of $260 million!

Here's your Top 20 Richest Celebs:

1. Oprah Winfrey
2. Tiger Woods
3. Madonna
4. Rolling Stones
5. Brad Pitt
6. Johnny Depp
7. Elton John
8. Tom Cruise
9. Jay-Z
10. Steven Spielberg
11. Tom Hanks
12. Grey's Anatomy Cast
13. Howard Stern
14. Angelina Jolie
15. David Beckham
16. Phil Mickelson
17. David Letterman
18. Bon Jovi
19. Donald Trump
20. Celine Dion

What's most interesting is to consider: what makes someone a celebrity? Because if it's just by being famous and known all over, Warren Buffet would easily be at the top of this list, and probably deserves to be! Buffet's famous, owns a company and is very well known for being rich! You see Trump on the list, and it makes you wonder... Also interesting to consider is that athletes such as Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, make paltry salaries of 30 million compared to bigger names on the list! Maybe athletes really are underpayed? Ok, maybe not..






Forbes has another interesting list, The Forbes Fictional 15:

1. Scrooge McDuck
2. Ming The Merciless
3. Richie Rich
4. Mom
5. Jed Clampett
6. C. Montgomery Burns
7. Carter Pewterschmidt
8. Bruce Wayne
9. Thurston Howell III
10. Tony Stark
11. Fake Steve Jobs
12. Gomez Addams
13. Willy Wonka
14. Lucius Malfoy
15. Princess Peach

To make this list the characters needed to be a fictional creation, starring in a specific work or series, and must be known fictionally for being wealthy. As you can see the Walt Disney character Scrooge takes the top spot here. In case you aren't in the know, "Mom" refers to the mom from Futurama, Carter Pewterschmidt is a poker partner of Michael Eisner and Bill Gates (on Family Guy) and Lucius Malfoy is a patriarch of an ancient wizard family from the Harry Potter stories. Princess Peach is from the popular Super Mario world, and she is heiress to the Mushroom Kingdom (the legal sort).

What can we learn from this? It pays to be a fictional character, or at least the creator of one! Don't expect a "Forbes Top 100 Who Wish they Were Rich" list anytime, because I think there'd be a huge 1 way tie!

3 comments:

birdeeb said...

That was interesting...what about Daddy Warbucks (from Annie?) ;o) Nice lists!

The Monetizer said...

Thanks birdeeb. For some reason he didn't make the cut. It seems like a lot of the newer cartoon characters from Fox have become the elite!

digga said...

Scrooge McDuck pwns them all. Hands down. Don't get out of line or he will have his muscle [Launchpad] come over and break your thumbs.

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