Believe it or not, but I actually know a string theory physics professor for a large state university, albeit not a technical university. He both teaches and does research that is supported with grants. I haven’t asked him what he makes, but from the house he rents, and the fact that he couldn’t afford to buy a new car when his died, I gather he’s not swimming in the dough.
Of course, as a tenured professor, he has a kick ass retirement plan, including great health care. FWIW.
I also know 2 medical salesman, one man and one woman. The man, who peddles some sort of a heart device is actually present during surgeries (in case the surgeon has questions or difficulties with the device), makes in the $700s. The woman, who has an engineering degree, sells stents. I don’t know how much she makes but she’s the sole breadwinner for her family and they live down the road from the late Steve Jobs in Palo Alto, CA. I’d guess she’s making at least $300.
So, yes, I certainly believe a pharma salesperson can make $300k. However. It takes a while for any salesman to build a client base and it’d be very, very doubtful that any salesman could earn that much money that quickly. Penny is in her first year of sales, and she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.
I work at a fairly large university, and since we are a state school all of our salary information is publicly available. I just checked and the head of the Physics department makes about $128k a year, but everyone else makes under $90k. The median salary is a little over $65k and the lowest paid faculty in tenure-track positions (but who don’t yet have tenure) make under $60k.
That said, while I’m not a regular TBBT watcher, it was never my impression that any of the guys were tenure-track faculty. Has that actually been stated on the show?
The guys on The Big Bang Theory hold non-tenured positions. There was an episode in which they competed for a tenure-track opening (due to the death of a tenured professor).
The premise for Cool Million is that Jefferson Keyes is a private eye who charges a million dollars a case. In a 26-episode season, that would be $26 million a year. Sadly, the show only ran five episodes, so we have to say $5 million.
You do recall the money George made pimping out Florence and Weezie, don’t you? And, certainly you can’t forget honkey neighbor, Willis, and George profiting from some pretty high market value rough-trade, right? Dry cleaning was just a front to cleanse the real money.
Successful? True, it was still on the air. However, Tim himself once thanked the audience for making Tool Time “Michigan’s fourth-highest-rated cable tool show”. I am not sure a mediocre ranking that niche market is all that lucrative.
But nothing got past me; I was a very clever child.
You got the memo that Mr. Ed was a zebra and Gentle Ben was a raccoon with acromegaly, right?
And, do you really think they can train porpoises to pop out of the water on command like Flipper did? No, Flipper was really the penis of a blue whale with eyeballs drawn on it. They had the whale trained to lay on his back just under the ocean surface and think happy thoughts. You remember how Flipper used to shake and squirt out of his “blowhole” whenever Bud patted him on the head? It all makes sense now, doesn’t it!
I think it was mentioned in the show that House was working for lower than average wages for somebody in his position. Most hospitals wouldn’t hire him because of his personality.
Bob Hartley (Psychiatrist) , Jerry Robinson (Orthodontist) and Howard Borden (Navigator) probably were making pretty good money. Emily Hartley was a teacher (later a Principal).
People overestimate greatly how much a typical college prof makes. There are some people at some top schools that make a lot of money. But the bulk make very middle class wages, at best. And it’s gotten worse. Colleges now focus on hiring part-time adjunct people for peanuts.
Certain people in the media love to hype the salaries the few well-off profs make for political reasons.
The TBBT nerds do probably make enough to live okay on. But they’re not well off by any means. And Howard not having a PhD isn’t going to change things much. He could easily be making more than the others.
When I was interviewing for my first job when finishing up my PhD, one of my offers was from a well-known college in LA. It was the worst of my offers and the housing prices meant it was going to be difficult to find decent housing. So it wasn’t in the running.
I had a relative who as not just a prof but an assistant dean as well at a college near Pasadena. He could only afford to live in a house that was owned by the college which gave him a break on rent.
It may or may not make a difference to his pay, but Bob was a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. That is, he had a Ph.D. in Psychology, but was not an M.D.
Just wanna say that this post is the closest to actually making the parameters of the OP since it stated once (and then again) that the ENTIRE CAST OF CHARACTERS makes money, not just one dude
I thought about Cool Million and discarded it.
–Not a sitcom; it was part of Wednesday Mystery Movie.
–In rotation with Banacek and (I think) Madigan (and they replaced it with Hec Ramsey), so in an ideal season it would have had eight episodes a year.
–Five episodes, but the plot of one of them was that the check bounced and he did some burglary to recoup maybe half of his commission.
Here’s a contender: Arnie. A loading dock worker (Herschel Bernardi) gets whimsically promoted into senior management, and the other main character, Hamilton Majors III (Roger Bowen), is a crazy millionaire CEO.
My Seinfeld’s rusty, but what about George Costanza as the Assistant to the Traveling Secretary for the NY Yankees? I can’t ballpark his income, but be seemed to live comfortably.
Keeping with the original theme of the OP - how about Scrubs? By the end of the run the main cast should have been pulling down pretty good salaries. And the head MDs should have been loaded. The nursing staff probably pulls the average down quite a bit.
If anyone ever starts a counterpart to this thread the same actor has a shot at being the lowest paid working character, as Al Bundy in Married With Children.
