If we bend the rules a bit, there’s J. P. Prewitt, the (presumably well-off) “World’s Greatest Hand Model” from Zoolander.
Wasn’t there some Texas TV show called Who Shot JB?
Also, I’m about 80% sure that “J.B.” were the initials of the boss in a David Berg “Lighter Side of…” in MAD magazine back in the 70’s (roughly) wherein said boss tells his son he wants to run an idea up the flagpole at the board meeting and see if anyone salutes. Son says “Of course they will, Dad. They’re a bunch of simpering yes-men”, and Dad reports that there is about to be an opening higher up in the company for a worthy employee, and “well, you know how I feel about independent thinking”. One employee happens to accidentally overhear this conversation and figures it’s his lucky day, and when all the other directors at the meeting fawn over the proposal, he says “frankly, J.B, I don’t like it”, and J.B. asks if he can see him privately after the meeting, and…well, I won’t give away the O. Henry-like ending.
I too have this association of the lackey saying, “Great idea, [initials]!” to the rich boss type guy (I wanna say he’s a newspaper editor), but I’m not really sure where it comes from. It’s like wondering how people got the idea that Humpty Dumpty is an egg.
I remember in Seinfeld one of Calvin Klein’s people saying to him “You’ve done it again, C.K.” when they introduced Kramer as an underwear model. There was also J. Peterman, though I don’t remember if he was ever called J.P.
<pinky out> This is actually more Cafe Society material, rather than MPSIMS. Shall we adjourn and reconvene there?
Pretty sure that the use of J. B. is not from first names but from first and last names, because that was considered smart, sparkling wit in the “let’s make everything fast, efficient, and up-to-date” 1950s. If your boss’s name was James Brown, you’d call him J. B. to save the half-second. The name had to lend itself to this treatment: you didn’t call Xavier Quigley X. Q.
I’ll bet you’ll find this entering the mainstream from one of Stan Freberg’s records or radio shows. This is exactly his kind of humor. MAD and others stole from him with both hands.
I can’t think of any actual rich TV or movie characters named “J.B.” But that’s long been a sort of all-purpose name for the Big Boss.
Like, when a clueless husband in a commercial calls to his wife, “Honey! I have a big meeting with J.B. this morning, and I can’t find my deodorant soap!”
The “boss’s initials” gag was a running joke on Stressed Eric, where the title character’s boss was named “Paul Power.”
I think the middle initial can be anything that rhymes with B or P. Example: Dagwood’s boss, J.C. Dithers.
Yeah, I suspect JB is often chosen because it is close to JP without actually evoking a particular historical personage.
But again, JB is not used particularly often. There’s lots of examples of wealthy or powerful characters using initials, many with Js, but still few examples of characters named JB.
Hate to tell ya, but that exec-surrounded-by-yes-men was “W. W.”
Another example that Hollywood writers would have known firsthand: producer Louis B. Mayer frequently went by “L. B.”.
Still not “J.B.”
The claim is that specifically “J.B.” is a commonly used name of wealthy/powerful characters in movies. There are plenty of examples of wealthy characters going by their initials, but characters who go by “J.B.” are conspicuous by their absence.
I think the real question then is when people make the reference why do they almost always use “J.B.”? For my case I have convinced myself it must have been vague memories of the Beverly Hillbillies episode referenced earlier in the thread.
But the only answer to that is they don’t almost always use “J.B.”. I’m 54 years old, and apart from the OP’s friend, I’ve never once heard of anyone using “J.B.” as a reference to a rich person.