History Main / UndisclosedFunds

For some reason -- perhaps to avoid the show becoming dated by inflation, perhaps because people's definition of "a lot of money" varies, or perhaps to [[AllOfThem just let our imagination]] [[NothingIsScarier do the work]] -- large sums of money tend not to be specified on TV. They are written down on pieces of paper, whispered in people's ears, etc. Commonly involves characters blatantly stating "That's a lot of money!" or making a statement about a large number of zeros, though other variations exist.

** A lot of other auctions require that the bidders submit sealed bids. This is because being able to see what other people are bidding both reveals information to other bidders and, at the same time, allows those make the bids to game the system.

** A lot of other auctions require that the bidders submit sealed bids.

* A similar device is used in one episode of ''TheSarahSilvermanProgram'', in which the titular character is asked by a nurse how many times she has had unprotected sex. Rather than say it out loud, Sarah writes it down on a piece of paper. The nurse seems more confused by the fact that there are two numbers on the piece of paper ("One's for the front") and that they are both identical ("I'm kind of OCD about that") than surprised at the size of the figure, but given the content of the rest of the scene, it can be assumed that the number is very high.

* In ''Film/TheGame'', the bill for the title game is left unrevealed, yet it is apparently enough to leave two millionaire brothers quite surprised.

* A sketch on ''TheSketchShow'' played with this, which a woman discusses with a repairman his prices using onomatopoeia (whistles for high prices, "eh" for low prices, etc.) At the end of the sketch, the woman asks how much it would be if she helps install it, and he replies, "£50".

* In ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Lily asks for the price of a wedding dress [[OnAScaleFromOneToTen on a scale of "never" to "never ever"]]. She receives a response of "[[BrokeTheRatingScale never ever ever ever ever times infinity]]".
** This is then subverted later in the episode when she tells her fiance she accidentally destroyed it. It was worth $8000.

* In the 1954 film ''WhiteChristmas'', Bob Wallace (BingCrosby), gets the estimate on how much the Christmas show is going to cost over the phone. His reaction: "Wow!", which leads to an exchange with Phil Davis (DannyKaye):

* Used at the end of the movie ''SmallSoldiers''. The father of the family nearly killed by dangerous action figures yells at the CEO of the company that made them, saying something like "Not even you have enough money to make up for this." His secretary then, silently, prints out a check. The father reads it, and then says something like "OK... I guess you do..." The audience never sees just how much the check was for.

* ''{{Flubber}}'' uses the "I've never seen that many zeros!" variety when RobinWilliams sells the flying car to a car company.
* Played straight in ''{{Moneyball}}'', when Billy Beane is given an unspecified offer to become GM of the Red Sox... until the epilogue ten minutes later, which tells us the exact amount: 12.5 million. Probably done for dramatic effect more than anything else.

* In the Egyptian novel ''TheYacoubianBuilding'', the corrupt car importer goes to a Party official to get elected to parliament. The official draws a rabbit--which Egyptians know means a million pounds (the Egyptian pound was about 5-6 to the dollar at the time, so it's not exactly RidiculousExchangeRates). When the importer's eyes widen, the official simply says, "just be happy it wasn't an elephant" (an elephant meaning anywhere from ten million to a billion pounds depending on context).

* In ''The Christmas Tree'', the mayor pays the orphanage with bags of money. He doesn't state how much the contents of the bags are worth, just that he's giving them two bags.

* In the Egyptian novel ''TheYacoubianBuilding'', the corrupt car importer goes to a Party official to get elected to parliament. The official draws a rabbit--which Egyptians know means a million pounds (the Egyptian pound is about 6 to the dollar today, so it's not exactly RidiculousExchangeRates).

---> '''Lisa''' -- This paper says 'please'.
---> '''Mr James''' -- I'm willing to say that out loud if that's what it takes.

---> '''Lisa''' - This paper says 'please'.
---> '''Mr James''' - I'm willing to say that out loud if that's what it takes.

** A hundred mil every sixty or so year for true immortality? That's a steal!

* On ''Series/{{Life}}'', the amount of money included in Charlie Crews's settlement for his wrongful imprisonment is undisclosed by court order.

* On NightCourt, after being informed of a citizenship applicant's net worth, Dan Fielding's stunned comment is: "My Social Security Number isn't that big!"
* In ''PersonOfInterest'', it is never stated exactly what Finch is paying Reese to save the Irrelevant Numbers, but according to the second season finale, Reese is able to live quite comfortably in a very expensive apartment on that salary - after giving 90% of it to charity.
* On [[''Series/ParksAndRecreation'']], Ron Swanson's hidden cache of precious metals and gems is valuable enough that it shocks an estate attorney, and even 5% of it is still an absurd number.
* On [[''Series/Friends'']], Chandler tries to quit his job over the phone. Judging by Chandler's end of the phone call, his boss [[EveryManHasHisPrice offered Chandler bigger and bigger raises until Chandler changed his mind.]]

* Both played straight and averted, on separate occasions, in the webcomic ''ScandalSheet!''. Played straight when Max shows Foster his first paycheque for working at The Comet - Foster's eyes grow large and he says "That's a lot of zeros." However, it's averted later when Foster receives a large amount of money [[spoiler: from his former co-worker at the porn studio, who found his script for ''Thigh-tanic'' and produced it, with enormous success]]. The amount is specified to be ten thousand dollars.

* In the Disney cartoon series ''Disney/{{Hercules}}: [[RecycledTheSeries The Animated Series]]'', Croesus, the King of Atlantis, writes out checks to buy off several people to stop the "rumor" that Atlantis is doomed to sink beneath the waves--- including the Fates and Hades, god of the underworld. This at first offends Hades, till he sees the amount on the check... "You think you can buy off HADES, GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD, with a wuh-wuh-whoa that is a LOT of brimstone...." (The joke being that Croesus was IRL the wealthiest king in Greek history up to his time....hence the phrase "rich as Croesus")

* In the ''{{VideoGame/X-COM}}'' remake, the shadowy council provides your funding in "credits". Considering you get an achievement for earning 1000 credits in a month of operations and how comparatively little it costs for the Engineering department to, say, build a spacefaring fighter craft from the ground up (with some scrap metal taken from various alien objects), then outfit it with a [[{{BFG}} fusion cannon]] capable of blowing an alien BATTLESHIP out of the sky with two shots, it can be assumed that "credits" are worth a hellalotta money[[hottip:*:The developers likely switched to the more abstract funding to both simplify gameplay, and to avoid the uncomfortable question of how much alien defense is actually worth: in the original game, it was only worth about seven million dollars a month. New York City spends more than that on police in a ''week''!]].

* On ''TheBigBangTheory'', when Sheldon mentions that Raj's parents are rich, the most detail he goes into is that they're "RichieRich"-rich, which is apparently "halfway between [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] and [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales Scrooge McDuck]]."
* On ''{{Life}}'', the amount of money included in Charlie Crews's settlement for his wrongful imprisonment is undisclosed by court order.

* On ''TheBigBangTheory'', when Sheldon mentions that Raj's parents are rich, the most detail he goes into is that they're "RichieRich"-rich, which is apparently "halfway between [[{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] and [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales Scrooge McDuck]]."

* HarryPotter comes into quite a bit of gold as the heir to the Potter and [[spoiler:Black]] family fortunes, but just how rich he is isn't specified.

* No sum is ever given for the cost of hiring (renting?) a doll from the {{Dollhouse}}, but it costs at least six figures if not seven. In ''Epitaph One'', we learn that Rossum is now charging "a nine-figure sum" for a full body transplant.

* Subverted in TheHoneymooners: a rich old widow who Ralph had befriended dies, and leaves Ralph "my fortune" in her will. Ralph gets excited about the riches coming his way, but it turns out she meant Fortune, her pet parrot.
* GilmoreGirls sets up its fundamental conflict (independent-minded Lorelai is forced to accept the help of her parents in order to provide for her daughter's elite education):

* When the eponymous character of Literature/TheDresdenFiles asks what it would cost to hire ProfessionalKiller Kincaid as backup for a raid, the answer is "a sum that made the amount in my savings account look very small indeed".
* This is an issue for Robert B. Parker's {{Spenser}} novels because of their use of {{Comic Book Time}}. When Spenser first appeared in the early 70s, his daily rate was specified as $100 a day. Later that became $200 a day. Eventually Spenser would seem say, as narrator, things like, "I told the client how much I charged, we argued about it, they complained it was too much, I told them to bite me, and finally they paid me what I had asked for in the first place."

* In ''Film/TheGame'', the bill for the titular game is left unrevealed, yet it is apparently enough to leave two millionaire brothers quite surprised.

* Early in the AnitaBlake series, Anita needs to question a prostitute in order to get some information on her case, and she has to buy the time. All we know is that Anita's shocked at the amount (well, and that the prostitute was fully convinced Anita was just using an UnusualEuphemism).
* In the QuantumGravity series, money is never mentioned with an explicit number. Whether it is merely called a lot of money or about to be told and then cut off [[CurseCutShort as a curse might be]] varies. Given that this is a universe where our universe essentially exploded and mixed very thoroughly with five others, and the currency is likely something no reader would recognize anyway, the amounts would be...complex.

* In the VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft novel, TheShatteringPreludeToCataclysm, it's never specified how much Gazlowe charges to rebuild Orgrimmar aftre the fire, or how much Baine and Stormsong pay him for the supplies to retake Thunder Bluff, but it's suggested that it's a considerable amount of money. This may be to avoid having to scale it with how expensive things are in the game.

* "Webcomic/SchlockMercenary" plays it strait with Lunesby, [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20090713.html here]]. Usually averts it, but gets the same effect by using real numbers but in something other than units of currency, like saying something cost a character a years pay.

* An episode of ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' where, upon finding Jiraiya's checkbook, the titular character opens it and exclaims "Woah! That's a lot of zeros!" Apparently, writing erotic novels can pay pretty well...

* At the end of ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'', Scrooge whispers to the two gentlemen from the story's beginning (the ones asking for charitable donations) how much he will give, causing them to react in amazement. Even though we're working with Victorian economics here, this example makes this trope OlderThanRadio.
** Those film and theater adaptations that do name a figure give a value that in those days was roughly equal to the salary of a semi-skilled laborer... for three or four years.