History Main / BobFromAccounting

''"Nothing good has ever followed the phrase 'Bernard from Accounting'"''

* The staff on ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'' make frequent references to the Accounts Department, with a lot of ethnic humour about how they were all Asian[[note]]That's ''South'' Asian, for Americans, Canadians, etc.[[/note]] (par for the course given the show), and in one episode, Mr. Patel from Accounts does appear.

* Music/JonathanCoulton's "Re: Your Brains" is narrated from the POV of "Bob, from the office down the hall", with the song being a memo to a coworker named Tom. Importantly, [[ZombieApocalypse Bob and the other coworkers have turned into zombies]], [[BlackComedy with the request being to let them in so they can eat his brains]].

* WesternAnimation/GravityFalls has Tad Strange, the only man in town who isn't a tad strange.

* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': In order to explain a plan to Pinky, Brain made a video featuring a birthday party for a character who fits the trope.

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* NGU Idle, a punny incremental Idle game on Kongregate has titans, a series of super powerful enemies, the third of which is called Jake from Accounting.

* ''Creator/MontyPython'' loved accountant characters -- for example, there's a ''[[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Flying Circus]]'' sketch about one who wanted to become a lion tamer despite his aptitude test showing that he was in no way suited to anything that exciting.

** Averted in ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'' with the crew of the Crimson Permanent Assurance, who show that it's fun to charter an accountant and sail the wide accountant-sea...

* [[http://chainsawsuit.com/2012/01/09/butt-shazam/ This]] ''Webcomic/{{chainsawsuit}}''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' invokes this trope ''deliberately'' - and then almost immediately subverts it, because Bob from Accounting is [[TheHero Mr Incredible]]. It gets even funnier when you realize that his last name, Parr, sounds similar to the word "par," meaning "ordinary." Therefore, Bob Parr's name is supposed to sound generic, [[NonIndicativeName even though the rest of him... isn't.]]

** In one episode Rachael trys to set her sister up with "Bob from Human Resources". Becomes a RunningGag after she keeps bringing him up.

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' does this with 'X from the gift shop' and 'Y from paediatrics'.

* The second wave of ''Toys/TransformersBotBots'' feature a robot called [[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Steve_From_Accounting "Steve From Accounting"]], who turns into a stapler.

* One of the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampyr]] youth in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'' "pretends to be an accountant". It's the Vampire equivalent of being one of those people who congregate in dark basements and drink cow's blood.

* UsefulNotes/JohnMajor, legendarily dull British prime minister, was the son of an ex-trapeze artist and had an early career in banking, prompting the joke that he was the only man ever to run away from the circus to become an accountant. And knowing that makes ''Discworld/MakingMoney'' even funnier.

Whenever a throwaway character in a WorkCom is introduced, he will often be labeled as someone from the "Accounting department", usually to serve as the straight-man for a joke. The character's name will also tend to be common and monosyllabic, such as "Bob", "Bill", "Ted", or Steve, altogether creating an impression of a [[FlatCharacter staid and two-dimensional]] person.

* ''Film/TheOtherGuys'' literally has one. He's generally plain, mostly a gag character, and known for interrupting people in the middle of personal conversations. He even gets yelled at by Terry for doing so.[[/note]]Though, Terry does feel bad afterwards as he was upset and lashing out at Bob unfairly.[[/note]] [[spoiler: He actually [[ChekhovsGunman turns out to be a plot point]] as he is seen at the meeting with Ershon talking to investors. It reveals that Ershon was going to try to get money through the police pension fund to pay back his debts.]]

Whenever a throwaway character in a WorkCom is introduced, he will often be labeled as someone from the "Accounting department", usually to serve as the straight-man for a joke. The character's name will also tend to be common and monosyllabic, such as Bob or Bill or Ted or Steve, altogether creating an impression of a [[FlatCharacter staid and two-dimensional]] person.

''[Cut to a man being thrown through a skyscraper window]''\\

Whenever a throwaway character in a WorkCom is introduced, he will often be labeled as someone from the "Accounting department", usually to serve as the straight-man for a joke. Said character's name will also tend to be common and monosyllabic, such as Bob or Bill or Ted or Steve, altogether creating an impression of a [[FlatCharacter staid and two-dimensional]] person.

Sometimes said person will betray this impression and be wacky or very unusual in some way, creating humor via contrast. (Their name may be dropped, [[NoodleIncident but we never see their quirky antics]].) Alternatively, the person may be from human resources or some other department that most companies have, especially one not known for its personality.

* Creator/CharlesStross's ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' has our hero Bob as a nondescript sysadmin in the IT department of "The Laundry", Britain's occult secret service. Being fully aware of the sheer horror and insanity that awaits actual field agents in his line of work, he is more than happy to keep out of harm's way. Fate, of course, decides otherwise, and his prowess in unforeseen circumstances ends up noticed by his superiors, thus subjecting him to being sent into increasingly more dangerous situations. To this day, he is unable to decide whether eldritch extradimensional threats are actually worse than the Laundry's relentless bureaucracy.
** He also used to have an archnemesis: Fred from Accounting. [[spoiler: Not for long, though, as Fred falls a victim to demonic possession.]]
** Also, the Accounting department should not be confused with Accounts. The former does accounting, the latter ''settles'' accounts by [[KillItWithFire rather]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill extreme]] methods. See also "Pimpf".

* Creator/CharlesStross's ''[[Literature/TheLaundrySeries The Atrocity Archives]]'' has our hero Bob as a nondescript sysadmin in the IT department of "The Laundry", Britain's occult secret service. Being fully aware of the sheer horror and insanity that awaits actual field agents in his line of work, he is more than happy to keep out of harm's way. Fate, of course, decides otherwise, and his prowess in unforeseen circumstances ends up noticed by his superiors, thus subjecting him to being sent into increasingly more dangerous situations. To this day, he is unable to decide whether eldritch extradimensional threats are actually worse than the Laundry's relentless bureaucracy.

** Also, in the sketch where people are simply falling off a building past a window, one of the two office workers recognized one of them as "Wilkins from Finance".

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* [[http://chainsawsuit.com/2012/01/09/butt-shazam/ This]] ''{{chainsawsuit}}''.

* [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TedTheAccountant/ Ted the Accountant]] is a recurring character in {{Reddit}}'s [[https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/ Writing Prompts]] subreddit. His valor and battle prowess is known around the world.