History Main / HonestJohnsDealership

* ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'': Tanaka of the "Tanaka's Amazing Commodities" home-shopping show in ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''VideoGame/Persona4''. Notable for being a Social Link in the former (each Social Link is modeled after a Tarot card -- his is ''The Devil''), for somehow managing to avoid being shut down between games despite his epilogue in ''3'' involving a massive class-action suit, for selling a mixture of legitimate merchandise and pure crap, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and]] for having one of the most infectious theme tunes ever recorded by human musicians.

** Ribald Barterman in ''Shadows of Amn'', proprietor of the "Adventurer's Mart", has the lingo, but most of the stuff he sells is actually good.

* Subverted in ''Series/ModernFamily''. Phil spends weeks researching and negotiating the best possible price for Hayley's first car but when he goes to pick it up Jay, who believes that all car salesmen are crooks, insists on coming along and tries to play hardball for a better deal. He mistakes the salesman's honest assurances that he can't go lower as a tactic and blows up the deal. They then go to another dealership where the second salesman tells them (again, completely truthfully) that he's never seen that model go for such a low price and he couldn't possibly match it, and when Jay bluffs that they can go back to the first dealership and get the original deal, the salesman replies with a totally sincere "Oh yes, you definitely should". Jay eventually secretly pays him the higher price to avoid looking bad in front of Phil, but the salesman still tells Phil the truth because he also has an overbearing father-in-law.

** In ''Film/ANewHope'', the Jawas steal and scavange droids that they find around Tatooine. One of the droids sold, R5-D4, had a defective motivator and proceeds to blow its parts right after being sold to the Larses, who are not impressed. C-3PO talks them into getting R2-D2 as a replacement.
** Speaking of which, take a look at C-3PO's dialogue. It's masked by Anthony Daniels' very sincere delivery, but on paper, it's clear that he was meant to have the mannerisms of this trope. After Daniels' voice became a PermanentPlaceholder this was largely dropped.
** Before leaving Tatooine Luke sells his landspeeder to an alien running a second-hand speeder lot and it's stated that he didn't get much for it because there is a newer model on the market. Given how beat up his vehicle is it seems odd that he would expect to be paid more but it's possible that in that environment any speeder, however used, would normally fetch a higher price. The implication is that the dealer recognised a motivated seller when she met one.
** ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'': Watto is similar to the Jawas, except that he stays in one town with a permanent storefront. (A few ExpandedUniverse sources go so far as to say he learned most of the tricks of the Trope from them.)

%%* ''WesternAnimation/{{Jumanji}}'': Trader Slick.

* Most characters played by Frank "Yeeeeeeeeeees?" Nelson, especially on ''Radio/TheJackBennyProgram''.

* ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'': 'Four-Finger Discount' Jack is well known for this, repeatedly shown early on selling scalped or stolen items, on the rare occassions where we find out where they come from. Later in the story, when he gets a legitimate job, he continues to treat it like one of his scam businesses anyway.

* ''Film/{{Matilda}}'': He crosses the line into outright criminality -- his entire business model is built on selling cars that appear to run fine, until they get about thirty miles off the lot when the customer's Sudden Onset Unbridled Rage is suddenly aggravated by whatever means he should choose to use to prove he doesn't owe them a refund. Such criminality [[DeconstructedTrope attracts the attention of the FBI]], who intend to put Wormwood in the slammer.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E50TheWholeTruth The Whole Truth]]", the used car salesman Harvey Hunnicut is a wheeler and dealer who is willing to tell any and every lie necessary to sell one of the dilapidated cars in his lot. However, an elderly man sells him a haunted Model A Ford for $25 which renders him [[CannotTellALie incapable of telling a lie]].

These are the guys who'll attempt to sell you anything, mostly items that FellOffTheBackOfATruck. The items may be off warranty, withdrawn by the manufacturer in your country, returned items that broke and got refurbished, salvaged from a wreck, or out-of-date models. The "gently used car" was probably an Uber or police car. They sell anything that is just barely legal. The prices are usually dodgy too, either TooGoodToBeTrue or obnoxiously overpriced. (The former usually catches more people out than the latter.) Sometimes there's big hidden fees and charges. Sometimes, there's there's a catch hidden on page 26 of the agreement. All in all, [[{{Greed}} their main goal is quick money]].

** Grunkle Stan. Before he started running a tourist trap, the majority of his adult life had been a cycle of "settle, scam, flee angry mob, repeat", often with the scam involving some type of defective product. These questionable products have included cleaning rags which were poorly dyed and left dye smears on surfaces, adhesive bandages which gave people rashes, and pitchforks which fell apart easily, among countless others. After creating the Mystery Shack, he went over to selling merchandise which isn't much worse than your standard gift shop fair, but most of his attractions are fraudulent and his merchandise is sometimes ''absurdly'' overpriced.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Flim and Flam start off as a ShoutOut to Robert Preston's character from ''Theatre/TheMusicMan''. They're charming, fast-talking, and will sell anything for a quick bit, including "health tonic" that may or may not simply be apple juice and beet leaves. Subverted with the Cider Squeezy 6000, which actually was a legitimate, working machine

** And the salesman from ''Homie the Clown'', who convinced Homer that bullet holes in a car were 'speed holes' that made the car go faster.

** Herman seems to do this. In "Old Money" he charged $400 for an old fez, claiming Napolean had owned it. When Grandpa bought it, Herman picked up Grandpa's discarded hat and displayed it with a sign claiming it was worn by President [=McKinley=] when he was shot.

* ''Film/TrueLies'': Simon, the loser who tries to seduce Helen, is a used-car salesman. This is mostly just to immediately establish him as a sleazeball through inference, since from what little we see of it it appears that his business is actually legit. Upon finding out about the "affair" his wife is having, Harry pays him a visit to scope him out, but Simon does not attempt to rip him off.

These are the guys who'll attempt to sell you anything, mostly items that FellOffTheBackOfATruck. The items may be off warranty , withdrawn by the manufacturer in your country, returned items that broke and got refurbished, salvaged from a wreck, or out-of-date models. The "gently used car" was probably an Uber or police car. They sell anything that is just barely legal. The prices are usually dodgy too, either TooGoodToBeTrue or obnoxiously overpriced. (The former usually catches more people out than the latter.) Sometimes there's big hidden fees and charges. Sometimes, there's there's a catch hidden on page 26 of the agreement. All in all, [[{{Greed}} their main goal is quick money]].

Like its cousin trope, the FriendInTheBlackMarket, Honest John can fit anywhere on the neutral or chaotic side of the CharacterAlignment spectrum: a good comparison would be the LoveableRogue JerkWithAHeartOfGold [[Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses 'Del Boy' Trotter]] or [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Mr. CMOT Dibbler]] types VS {{Jerkass}}es like [[Literature/{{Matilda}} Mr. Wormwood]] or [[TheSociopath Sociopaths]] like [[Film/TheThirdMan Harry Lime]]. After all, selling malfunctioning blow-up dolls is a far more forgivable occupation than selling TheAllegedCar that [[MyCarHatesMe hates you with a passion]] or [[SnakeOilSalesman fake pharmaceuticals to orphanages.]] If the "Honest John" character is genuine, ''pure'' evil, then you've got a DealWithTheDevil on your hands. More likely he's just a {{Slimeball}} - maybe one with friends in the LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub. However you slice it, you're probably not coming out ahead on this deal.

* ''Film/LethalWeapon3'': Humorously averted by Leo Getz. When trying to sell Murtaugh's home in, he insists on following the law and disclosing such interesting and alarming tidbits as the upstairs bathroom being "recently remodeled due to unexpected bomb damage" (which happened in the [[Film/LethalWeapon2 previous film]]).

* ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'': Joey Jeremiah was the HighSchoolHustler in the '80s versions. He grew up to become a used-car dealer in the {{Revival}}.

* ''VideoGame/StarControlII'':

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' featured two sketches in the early-90's with the character of Uri Shurinson (Creator/TomHanks), a salesman who repeatedly tried to haggle customers into purchasing [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct shoddy electronics]] that were either off-brand and claimed to have the internals of a name brand, or outright lying about what the product is. The first sketch featured Shurinson as a host on the "Sabra Shopping Network", which constantly claimed to be going out of business, and twice sold a VCR that was claimed to be the last one in stock. The second, better-known sketch featured Shurinson hosting ''Sabra Price is Right'', a show that cons contestants who thought they were appearing on ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' by offering such "prizes" as a television antenna claimed to be a satellite dish with "Toshiba guts", a "[[ExactWords cordless telephone]]", and a "microwave" that is actually a toaster oven. Shurinson proceeds to haggle everyone's bids, and the "winner" is dragged backstage and forced into paying for their prize at the price they bid at. At one point, he also makes a contestant buy one of the ''buzzers'' after reporting that it wasn't working.