Friends’s Chandler has wealthy parents. His mother is a romance novelist and his father has a Vegas act as a female impersonator.
I image the guilt his parents feel after the way they screwed up their only child’s life kept them supporting Chandler and his friends for years.
Yes, and he and Lilith (who I think is one of the best sitcom characters ever and I regret she wasn’t a full-time character on Frasier) lived in a very nice house in Boston. It’s unclear what money he brought into the marriage (his own mother had been established as a psychiatrist, so I could buy that she was wealthy and died shortly after her sole appearance in season three, giving Frasier a considerable inheritance before Lilith was introduced) but Lilith herself was a successful writer and the circumstances of their divorce, with her cheating on Frasier and then abandoning him and Frederick, might have made the settlement skew heavily in his favour.
The housing in “The L Word” bugs the crap out of me. Tina and Bette in a meticulous Craftsman in LA? Could work, though they seem to be in and out of full-time employment.
Jenny Schechter (sp) before she sold her screenplay could in no way afford that huge house with Shane and miscellaneous-roommate-who-propels-the-plot-that-week.
This is unrealistic because why? Academic science pays like crap unless you work as a consultant on the side or patent something big.
Yeah, the license was “ROBIN 1”.
Remember, there are acadamians who are very scared to face “the real world.” Sheldon & Leonard have the most bizarre yet believable co-dependant relationship I have ever seen portrayed on TV.
I agree with you on Holmes. He never got paid (perhaps Mycroft slipped him something from the government till, and he was always pulling Watson away from a patient. But Poirot had a secretary who was very good at going after debts owed her boss.
The one I was most fascinated with was Palidin of “Have Gun Will Travel.” Clearly he was independently wealthy, but I kept waiting for him to get kicked out of the Hotel Carlton or possibly the bottom falling out of the silver market and the Lone Ranger having to live with Tonto’s folks.
I somehow always thought a big-time band leader like Ricky Ricardo would live a bit better than he and Lucy did.
Are you feverish? 
Holmes got paid regularly? While it was true he was in it for the challenge more than the money, he still wanted the money; money was what made it possible for him to do the interesting cases. He clearly gets paid in the adventures of the Priory School, and in the Bohemian Affair, and implicitly in most other cases. The Red-Headed League is the one case where he most clearly doesn’t get a penny from his ostensible client, but I suspect he wrangled a reward from the bank before leading the police to the robbers. I mean, even back then coke was expensive.
Plus, Mrs. Suarez was the wife of a very rich man in Mexico, so it’s possible she had some nice jewelry to hock or managed to get her hands on some cash before they left.
For most of the series he was the leader of the house band at a nightclub. I’m not sure how much that would have paid, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t necessarily be a huge amount. But it was established that, at least in Lucy’s view, Ricky was something of a penny-pincher. Toward the end of the series he bought the club he worked in as well as a nice big house with some land in the suburbs, so I guess being frugal paid off.
His show was also syndicated, which can be big bucks.
Re: Sheldon on BIG BANG, it was revealed in a recent episode that he lives on 46.5% of his net after-tax income and saves the rest in a savings account and various hiding places in his house.
It didn’t take 'til then. The large apartment was Monica’s grandmother’s, and through an illegal sub-let, she and whomever her roommate is get it for very, very little money. Joey in one episode had to be the (male) superintendent’s dance partner to keep him from reporting it to the authorities.
Now that Sheldon has stated on the show that his expenses require only 46.9% of his post-tax income, that means he probably isn’t paid like crap.
He says that he expects the bank to pay his expenses, of which there were basically none (except his time). I assumed this was just a euphemism for his fee.
Regards,
Shodan
Well, JD’s comments about making about as much as waiters is probably pretty accurate for the setting of the show. Resident’s salaries don’t have nearly as much regional variation as other jobs–you make somewhere between $35-45K, no matter where you live. You can live pretty well on that if you’re in someplace with a reasonable cost of living. We were able to afford a nice house with a nice yard in a nice neighborhood between that and my $10/hour vet tech job. However, we were in Greensboro, NC.
But Scrubs takes place somewhere in California. At one point in the 90’s, I flipped through Parade’s issue on how much people make, and a grill cook in LA made $30K, about the same as my mom, the teacher with a Master’s and 25 years experience at the time. So yeah, I believe they made about as much a waiter, given where they are. If they lived in most of the rest of the country, their standard of living would be somewhat higher and having a roommate would be a personal choice, not a financial one. They still wouldn’t be living like they were doctors, though, unless they wanted to go back to living like students later.
I think the “B” in that address has less to do with an add-on and more of an homage to the address of Sherlock Holmes, who is a partial inspiration for the medical detective. (House=Holmes).
Cox seems to be well paid. His apartment is lavishly decorated, he drinks expensive scotch, and he drives a Porsche.
The falling ass-backwards line is likely a reference to the “real” Kramer, Kenny Kramer. Apparently, he invented some form of disco lighting early in life and pretty much lived off the money generated from licensing his patent.
Others have said it belonged to Robin Masters (Magnum was in charge of the security of his mansion and compound), but I just wanted to chime in that I have a picture of me with that car from a filming location in 1986. So cool…
Isn’t Lois Lane supposed to be a multiple time Pulitzer Prize winner? I imagine you get a coupla those babies, and you get to Taj it up. Bob Woodward probably doesn’t live in a shack!
James was low skilled and the 70’s were hard; especially since I imagine blacks still made SUBSTANTIALLY less than whites performing the same work. I think this was pretty realistic.
How does jingle writer Charlie Harper afford a house on the beach, a maid, fancy cars, broads and booze, not to mention his live-in brother who pays nothing and has his son over every weekend?