History Main / TheBarnum

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': [[Characters/MiraculousLadybugLilaRossi Lila Rossi]] lies to and manipulates everyone and panders to them. She tells Marinette, one of the few people to actually know she's a liar, that she just tells people whatever they want to hear regardless of whether or not it is true, which makes them like her.

* Common attitude among ancient Greek sophists -- philosophers, who traveled around Greek cities teaching for money (mostly philosophy, rhetorics, politics) or working as mediators (e.g. in court). They tended to be relativists, believing that law was merely a consensus between people and that justice didn't exist. Now they are mostly remembered as instructors in deception, being hated by Socrates, and "sophism" meaning LogicalFallacy.

* Dr. Terminus is a classic example as well as a [[SnakeOilSalesman Snake Oil Saleman]] in "Film/PetesDragon". The introductory song makes it clear that no matter what the towns folk issue he has a glib answer they find completely believable.

* Dr. Terminus is a classic example as well as a [[SnakeOilSalesman]] in "Film/Pete'sDragon". The introductory song makes it clear that no matter what the towns folk issue he has a glib answer they find completely believable.

* Dr. Terminus is a classic example as well as a"Trope/SnakeOilSalesman" in "Film/Pete's Dragon". The introductory song makes it clear that no matter what the towns folk issue he has a glib answer they find completely believable.

* Moira Loftus from ''[[Creator/ChristopherBrookmyre Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks]]'' is a fake psychic who does it because, really, people are practically asking to be fooled.

* Kingfish from ''Series/AmosNAndy'' sold tickets to fake raffles and fake tickets to a real ballet. When said tickets were revealed to be fake, he refunded the money... in counterfeit bills. He also took Andy for a grand tour of the entire United States, which is rather impressive since they never left Central Park. He briefly dabbled in selling shares in a uranium mine, and sold overpriced rabbits as chinchillas. Finally he sold a ring found in a box of crackerjacks for quite a sum, [[spoiler: only to find out it was actually worth quite a bit more.]]
* Mr. Humphries of ''Series/AreYouBeingServed''. Mr. Humphries knew how ridiculous his job was, and did it just as absurdly as he was supposed to. After all, he was never the one who had to face the consequences -- that was the boss or the customers.
* Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck from ''Series/TheATeam'' genuinely and unrepentantly ''enjoyed'' being a ConMan. He would occasionally gush and revel in explaining his latest scheme to the other members of the A-Team. For instance, he once started telling Hannibal about how he was starting his career as a movie producer by taking a student film, dubbing it over in another language, and then adding subtitles so that he could market it as a foreign film. Another time, the A-Team had to live in a suburban house for a few days to protect a client, and as soon as they get there, Face goes on a tangent about how he bought the house with a certain type of mortgage specifically so he could make more money when he sold it. He also loved living the high life by scamming his way into hotel penthouses and fancy beach houses, mostly because he could. Face also enjoyed seducing women by pretending to be a high-ranking film executive or director or even a neurologist and never, ever felt bad about it.
* Basi from the Nigerian TV show ''Basi and Company'' was a man whose goal in life was to become a millionaire without ever doing work. (His CharacterCatchphrase was "To be a millionaire, think like a millionaire!") As a point of honor, he pulled all of his scams while unemployed and living in a crumbling boarding house, which didn't hurt his spirits at all.

* Daisy Adair, from the TV series ''Series/DeadLikeMe'', who has been shown to have no problems whatsoever to exploit and trick the dead people's mourning relatives to get cash.
* Don Draper on ''Series/MadMen'' will happily sell any product, if there is money in it. In the first episode he comes up with a new ad campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes after promoting safer cigarettes is outlawed. [[BasedOnATrueStory Don Draper is based off of the character who invented the Marlboro Man]] His solution being, Lucky Strike: It's Toasted, Lucky Strikes' slogan in RealLife.
** While Don is non-judgmental to the point of apathy about the products his clients are selling, he believes deeply in sincerity in advertising. Throughout the show he has reacted poorly to any suggestion that advertising is a scam or easy to do. His response to people who suggest he's duping the public is to note that gullibility is part of human nature, and people will delude themselves no matter what you tell them.
* Travelling space circus owner and master of ceremonies P.T. Mindslap from the 11th season of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''. He gets called out by Max and Kinga that his circus doesn't have any ''actual'' acts, only the description Mindslap gives the audience after turning off the lights.
* Del Trotter from ''Series/OnlyFoolsAndHorses'' was one of this, to the point that similar characters in other shows and real life have been referred to as "a bit of a Del Boy" by the media. He was pretty unscrupulous about what he sold to people and even short-changed his own brother on occasion.
* In a fourth-season episode of ''Series/SeaPatrol'', an old friend of TwoDads joins the crew. It turns out that not only is he using his position to send info to a gang of pirates, he's also scamming another crew members into an online romance. TwoDads eventually turns him in.
* Quark from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' is a borderline example of this. Grand Nagus Zek is (usually) a much straighter example.
** In the first ''Literature/DeepSpaceNineRelaunch'' novel, Quark considers it a favor to ''only'' inflate the sale price of a shuttle by 20% for a close personal friend.
* Harry Mudd from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' was a [[LargeHam bombastic]] con artist, thoroughly pleased with himself when his schemes were working and [[BlatantLies shamelessly spinning]] his past misadventures when he shows up for [[Recap/StarTrekS2E8IMudd a second time]] in the original series and [[Recap/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeriesS1E10MuddsPassion again]] in [[WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries the animated series]].
** His personality in prequel series ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' suggests that by ''TOS'' he had ''mellowed out''!
* Sir Humphrey Appleby of ''Series/YesMinister'', Sir Humphrey had a cynical motto for everything ("Gratitude is merely the lively expectation of future reward"; "The Official Secrets Act exists to protect officials, not secrets"), and was always cool -- except when some honesty broke into his perfect world. A more positive take on Sir Humphrey is that he and the Civil Service are providing effective (or at least stable) government, and performing damage control when elected politicians pander to their electorate without regards to their own political survival.

%%* Lazarus Long of Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Future History'' is often described this way.

* Judith Merkle Riley's ''Margaret of Ashbury'' trilogy features a relic seller in 14th-century England who sells people body parts that supposedly belonged to saints. However, he's a LovableRogue and generally sympathetic, and his scams are PlayedForLaughs.

** [[Characters/GravityFallsGrunkleStan Great Uncle Stan Pines]], owner of the Mystery Shack, museum for countless oddities- all fake. One of his 'attractions' is the Bag of Mystery, which causes any money put in to mysteriously vanish. He claims that all of the myths surrounding the town are just cooked up by guys like him to shill clueless tourists. [[spoiler: Though the ending of season one and the season two premiere reveal that he does know about the journals and the strange things that happen in Gravity Falls. He knows better than to use anything truly paranormal for the Shack, though, because A) that stuff tends to be dangerous, and B) as shown in ''Boss Mabel'', people are fooled by his cheap tricks but [[WeirdnessCensor refuse to believe their eyes]] when confronted with a real monster.]]

* Bender from ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' sometimes channels the Barnum. Leela and Amy have both told him, "Bender, you should be more ashamed of yourself than usual!"

* Louise from ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' has shades of this whenever she engages in a get-rich-quick scheme.

** Great Uncle Stan Pines, owner of the Mystery Shack, museum for countless oddities- all fake. One of his 'attractions' is the Bag of Mystery, which causes any money put in to mysteriously vanish. He claims that all of the myths surrounding the town are just cooked up by guys like him to shill clueless tourists. [[spoiler: Though the ending of season one and the season two premiere reveal that he does know about the journals and the strange things that happen in Gravity Falls. He knows better than to use anything truly paranormal for the Shack, though, because A) that stuff tends to be dangerous, and B) as shown in ''Boss Mabel'', people are fooled by his cheap tricks but [[WeirdnessCensor refuse to believe their eyes]] when confronted with a real monster.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': Lila Rossi lies to and manipulates everyone and panders to them. She tells Marinette, one of the few people to actually know she’s a liar, that she just tells people whatever they want to hear regardless of whether or not it is true, which makes them like her.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': Eugene Krabs is a surprisingly mild example, considering his '''''EXTREME''''' MoneyFetish. It helps that [=SpongeBob=] is quite possibly the best [[BurgerFool frycook]] under the sea (to the point that he once [[WowingCthulhu outperformed]] ''[[PhysicalGod King Neptune]]'' with his cooking skills), if not the ''entire planet Earth'', and the Krusty Krab has a loyal clientele that Krabs would be stupid to cheat...at least, blatantly cheat. Doesn't stop him from charging customers a dollar [[ProducePelting a tomato to throw]] at Squidward's ill-fated interpretive dance show. Although, in that last case, they said "It's worth every penny." Squidward's dancing was ''that'' bad.

-->'''Dogbert:''' I only scam people who would do the same to me if they were smarter.\\

* Dr. Facilier from ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' is The Barnum mixed with actual, infernal magical power, thanks to his Friends on the Other Side. He wins people over with his [[EvilIsSexy incredible charisma,]] plays on their insecurities or desires, and then uses the power of a contract with them [[ManipulativeBastard to manipulate them to his own ends.]]

* Frank Fontaine in ''VideoGame/BioSshock1''. A career criminal who immediately realized that Rapture had a serious flaw: even in a city populated solely by people who believed themselves to be "exceptional," ''someone'' would have to scrub the toilets. That nobody else seemed to figure this out convinced Frank that Rapture was full of suckers. At one point he even calls it a confidence man's playground. He quickly scammed his way into being one of Rapture's richest and most powerful figures.

* Kingfish from ''Amos N Andy'' sold tickets to fake raffles and fake tickets to a real ballet. When said tickets were revealed to be fake, he refunded the money... in counterfeit bills. He also took Andy for a grand tour of the entire United States, which is rather impressive since they never left Central Park. He briefly dabbled in selling shares in a uranium mine, and sold overpriced rabbits as chinchillas. Finally he sold a ring found in a box of crackerjacks for quite a sum, [[spoiler: only to find out it was actually worth quite a bit more.]]

* Basi from the Nigerian TV show ''Basi and Company'' was a man whose goal in life was to become a millionaire without ever doing work. (His CatchPhrase was "To be a millionaire, think like a millionaire!") As a point of honor, he pulled all of his scams while unemployed and living in a crumbling boarding house, which didn't hurt his spirits at all.

* The narrator of the ''Literature/{{Confessions}}'' takes great delight in describing how Creator/{{Cicero}} exposed all the vanities, lies, and hypocrisies of those who call themselves "philosophers" to swindle others out of their time and money.

* Miroku in ''Manga/InuYasha'', in spite of being a Buddhist monk, is an adept and inveterate con artist whose favorite trick whenever he arrives in a town is to size up the largest and most wealthy-looking house, declare that he senses it's haunted by evil spirits, and offer to "exorcise" them in exchange for a meal and a bed for the night. If there's a pretty young girl in the household he's also been known to selflessly volunteer to stay with her all night to protect her. He's done it so often that when one house he's "exorcised" ''actually was haunted'', his companions were nothing short of shocked.
* [[spoiler: Kyubey]] from ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' follows shades of this. If people are willing to [[spoiler: make a contract without reading the fine-print, as it were]], why on earth would he say no? It's not his fault that [[spoiler: the fine print YouDidntAsk about says that you'll turn into a [[OurLichesAreDifferent Lich]] when the contract is made, and that you'll [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie eventually turn into]] [[EldritchAbomination a witch]].]]
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': Nabiki Tendō. An excellent example of the unprincipled type, having actually been [[WordofGod described by the author]] as having "no maidenly heart". This gets [[{{Flanderization}} really extreme]] as the series progresses, culminating in her [[spoiler:ruining her own little sister's wedding because she believes that inviting Ranma's other fiancées and his rivals will bring in more cash as wedding presents]]. {{Fanon}} often bumps her into a HighSchoolHustler, but this is arguable, as her schemes tend to mostly be limited to quickly taking advantage of situations, and her ongoing "business" is mostly limited to selling a large amount of soft-porn prints and images, some non-working merchandise or unreliable information, using blackmail or swindling opportunities, and investing in stocks. On occasion she has employed schemes with [[ManipulativeBastard several stages of efficient outrageous planning to them however, and she is an expert actress]]. Mostly, in a series populated by {{Made of Iron}} {{Jerkass}}es with SuperStrength, she survives through a combination of knowing when to get when the getting's good, and sticking to taking advantage of people who would never actually attack her (Akane, Tatewaki, Ranma...), and not being so irritating to those who would that [[OffingTheAnnoyance a cheated customer]] considers it worth their time to just kill her. This accidentally happened with Shampoo and Kodachi in the manga, and Ukyō at least initially attempted to threaten and beat her up, but Ranma came to her rescue, whereafter his paramours apparently decided to leave her alone.

%% Phoncible P. ("Phoney") ComicBook/{{Bone}}.

* Clinton Stark in ''[[Film/SevenFacesOfDrLao 7 Faces of Dr. Lao]]'' is a bit of an inversion; he doesn't feel remorse for exploiting peoples greed and short sightedness, but as he told his henchmen, he always hopes that his cynical assumptions will be proven wrong on each scheme. When his scheme fails thanks to Dr. Lao's inspiration of the townspeople, he is genuinely happy about the failure.

* Crowley from ''Literature/{{Good Omens}}'' -- a demon whose job it is to tempt people to sin, but can't force them to do anything they don't chose to, and often what people chose to do on their own [[HumansAreBastards is worse than anything he comes up with]].

-->. ''Even Dorothy had hope that "The Great and Terrible Humbug," as she called him, would find a way to send her back to Kansas, and if he did she was willing to forgive him everything.''

* Frank Fontaine in ''[[Videogame/{{Bioshock1}} Bioshock]]''. A career criminal who immediately realized that Rapture had a serious flaw: even in a city populated solely by people who believed themselves to be "exceptional," ''someone'' would have to scrub the toilets. That nobody else seemed to figure this out convinced Frank that Rapture was full of suckers. At one point he even calls it a confidence man's playground. He quickly scammed his way into being one of Rapture's richest and most powerful figures.
** His counterpart in [[VideoGame/BioshockInfinite Columbia]] has played EVERY CompanyTown card in the book, after his brother told him about these weird dimensional rifts that gave him a complete history of how corporations have scammed, betrayed, and outright enslaved the minority masses, and his reaction was "golly, I bet I could set a world record". He doesn't even get targeted by a working resistance movement until Elizabeth completely overwrites the fabric of spacetime.
** ''Videogame/Bioshock2'' has a slightly-more heroic Foil to Frank Fontaine in Augustus Sinclair. Like Fontaine, Sinclair is an opportunistic scumbag who scams the poor and destitute that rose to the top of Rapture's society by taking advantage of the system's faults and dead-spots. For example, knowing that Rapture had no homeless shelters or charity halls, Sinclair bought cheap housing early to become a slumlord. Knowing that Andrew Ryan had no prison system (he was building a Utopia after all) he purchased buildings that could be converted into penal colonies and then charge Ryan for sending inevitable undesirables there. But despite all that, he's got ''some'' scruples and lines he won't cross, unlike Fontaine, who's a sociopathic thug at heart. Sinclair ''genuinely'' likes and tries to assist the player character through the game.
* Marcus in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}''. The second game has a sidequest that reveals he tricked an internet celebrity into thinking he was TheChosenOne just so he could sell him a ludicrously overpriced gun. He then realizes he gave the guy too much change, and hires you to track the [[RobbingTheDead guy's corpse down and recover the money]]. He gives you the guy's gun as payment for the job.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', you can meet a man in the South Boston area not far from the Castle who sells "charge cards" for 110 caps each. He claims the cards are accepted in all the major shops in the Commonwealth and can be used as an alternative for caps. Of course, the cards ''were once'' valid before the Great War but are now absolutely worthless and no shop anywhere will accept them, and he won't accept returns if you go back to him. In other words, he's a con man. As if the con weren't fairly apparent from the start, [[TooDumbToLive he even calls you a "retard" under his breath regardless of whether or not you accept his offer, foolishly giving away his cover as a scammer]]. The only way to get your money back is to kill him, or better still if you have the Junk Jet on you, load the charge card into it and [[BoomHeadshot "forcibly return it" to him]], inflicting a good [[LaserGuidedKarma Laser Guided]] KarmicDeath.

Since the days of old Methuselah\\
Everyone loves a big bamboozler!

* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': Nabiki Tendō. An excellent example of the unprincipled type, having actually been [[WordofGod described by the author]] as having "no maidenly heart". This gets [[{{Flanderization}} really extreme]] as the series progresses, culminating in her [[spoiler:ruining her own little sister's wedding because she believes that inviting Ranma's other fiancées and his rivals will bring in more cash as wedding presents]]. {{Fanon}} often bumps her into a HighSchoolHustler, but this is arguable, as her schemes tend to mostly be limited to quickly taking advantage of situations, and her ongoing "business" is mostly limited to selling a large amount of soft-porn prints and images, some non-working merchandise or unreliable information, using blackmail or swindling opportunities, and investing in stocks. On occasion she has employed schemes with [[ManipulativeBastard several stages of efficient outrageous planning to them however, and she is an expert actress]]. Mostly, in a series populated by {{Made of Iron}} {{Jerkass}}es with SuperStrength, she survives through a combination of knowing when to get when the getting's good, and sticking to taking advantage of people who would never actually attack her (Akane, Tatewaki, Ranma...), and not being so irritating to those who would that a cheated customer considers it worth their time to just kill her. This accidentally happened with Shampoo and Kodachi in the manga, and Ukyō at least initially attempted to threaten and beat her up, but Ranma came to her rescue, whereafter his paramours apparently decided to leave her alone.

* Kaiki from ''LightNovel/{{Bakemonogatari}}'' waxes philosophical for entire episodes, in the shows trademark fashion, about why he tricks people, what it is like to be tricked, and what the capability to be trick says of the human condition.