A Fool And His New Money Are Soon Parted / Live-Action TV

Moments where Fools and their New Money are Soon Parted in Live-Action Television Series.

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• The narrator of 1000 Ways to Die pretty much says it word-for-word in the segment "Teller She's Dead", which tells the story of a bank teller and her best friend staging a bank robbery. The teller's best friend plays the role of robber and the teller plays hostage locked in a bank vault, and as soon as she is rescued, they get all the money they swindled and they end up on Easy Street for life. However, when the teller's best friend pulls the fire alarm, the scheme backfires when they both fail to remember that bank vaults are equipped with fire suppression systems, which not only suffocates fires, but humans, as well, killing the teller.
• In Season 1 of Better Call Saul, Jimmy receives a $30,000 bribe from the Kettlemans, and plans to use it to take his business to the next level. He immediately buys a fancy new suit, a billboard, and a big new office. Almost immediately after, he has to get rid of the suit and billboard to avoid getting sued for copyright infringement, and he has to return the bribe in order to help his girlfriend Kim get her job back after her Mean Boss demotes her for losing the Kettlemans as clients.
• Breaking Bad:
  • Walt makes a small fortune with his drug dealing under Gus, but makes so much that he can't even spend it without drawing the attention of the Intimidating Revenue Service. When he finally does try to spend it in order to have the family escape Gus' wrath, he learns all too late that Skyler gave it to her boss Ted in order for them all to stay off the IRS' radar. Walt has a major Villainous Breakdown following this.
  • Jesse also became wealthy working under Walt, but has a nervous breakdown and ends up throwing all the blood money away. By the end of the series, he's right back to being broke and on the lam.
• In a two-part episode of The Bob Newhart Show, Orphan Dentist Dr. Jerry Robinson spends a newfound fortune to advertise looking for the parents who put him up for adoption.
• In The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Man in the Bottle", a genie grants a shop-keeper and his wife four wishes. One of those wishes is for a million dollars, but they end up with only $5 after giving large sums to their friends and paying taxes to the IRS. Despite the four wishes, the couple ends up in the exact same condition as they were at the beginning of the episode. The husband had wished to lead a country and not be in danger of being voted out of office, so the genie turned him into Adolf Hitler - about to commit suicide at the end of World War II. He used his last wish to undo this one, and he and his wife gained a new appreciation for their modest lifestyle.
• In the "Lotto Fever" episode of Cold Case, the victim wins 8 million dollars in the Pennsylvania Lottery. He spends his money foolishly (huge house, race car, go-karts for himself and his friends, etc) but he was still the nice guy everyone remembers and gave money to his friends and family. Before he was killed by his sister and her husband he had enough money left to move back into his old apartment and was working at his old job again, but not before giving his last $100,000 to the one friend who didn't ask him for anything after he won. She received the money in the Medley Exit.
• Married... with Children:
  • One episode has Jefferson finding out that a doll treasured by his wife, Marcy, is worth millions, so he gets a different doll, switches it with the one Marcy owns, and then sells her doll for the fortune without her knowing, while getting Al to pretend to be him on the night he does this in order to prevent Marcy from becoming suspicious, on the promise that Al would get his share upon Jefferson's return. The problem? Jefferson loses the entire fortune at a casino on the way back, meaning Al had just spent a night with a neighbor he abhorred... FOR NOTHING.
  • Really, just about any time Al comes into any amount of money in any way, it's lost just as quickly, either to his wife's frivolous spending or one of his get-richer-quick schemes not panning out.
• While many of the drug deals arranged by the Trailer Park Boys are in fact successful and net a large amount of money, our heroes typically end up quickly spending it or losing it altogether. This means they have to come up with another drug deal in the next season.
• Spin City has an episode where Paul wins the jackpot on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Ensuing episodes have him use the money to open a political-themed restaurant named "Wonk".
• Castle has the title character recall how he acted out this trope when, while he was still in college, his first book became a bestseller and he became rich overnight. He quickly spent his new fortune on expensive luxuries. Luckily for him, his next book also sold really well and he learned to be smarter with his money by then. In the present, Castle is portrayed as being quite rich but so practical with money that it does not really show. Castle reveals this during an episode that features a murder victim who won the lottery and then seemed to spend the money on extravagant things as well as giving money away to homeless people. Castle figures out that this was due to guilt over stealing the winning lottery ticket (albeit only because the actual ticket-owner died of natural causes before he could collect his winnings and the victim had purchased both their tickets on the older man's behalf).
• On Parks and Recreation, Jean-Ralphio gets a lot of money from what is implied to be a scam (he was hit by a Lexus and won the lawsuit), and he uses it to start Entertainment720. He hires Tom to help him and together they spend the money on extremely extravagant gimmicks, including hiring two professional basketball players to play one-on-one all day in their office, giving a free iPad to anyone who visits, and paying random women $100,000 a year with free medical benefits to do nothing more than sit at desks and look pretty. Though billed as an entertainment company, they initially have no source of revenue or a plan to get a source of revenue, and they go bankrupt in short order.
• Firefly. After the crew knocks over the Ariel hospital, they've got a small fortune in medical supplies. They get to enjoy their wealth for about half an episode before they end up spending most of it to spring Wash from Niska's torture room. The show was cancelled before they managed to fence the Lassiter they acquired in "Trash".
• An episode of The Facts of Life, wherein Jo's dad burns through $300K in a few days.
• In an episode of The Wonder Years, Paul Pfeiffer's dad takes a risky investment in an oceanfront deal which ends up paying off big, leaving Kevin's dad, who decided not to join in on the investment, jealous. It all goes south in the end when the oceanfront is lost underwater.
• Prof. Oglevee on The Parkers is told that he has inherited $10M from his uncle. He moves out of his apartment and into an expensive house in a gated community, passes out hundred dollar bills to everyone on campus, hires bodyguards to keep him away from Nikki (they let her pass because she made them pies), buys custom-made clothes and shoes, as well as two very expensive cars plus another one for his new girlfriend Paris. He also makes a lot of other expensive purchases. And this is all BEFORE he received one cent from his uncle's estate. In the end, the estate is hit for back taxes, leaving the Professor with an inheritance of ONLY ten dollars. Of course he's broke and homeless, and Nikki is more than happy to help him out.
• Season 2 of 2 Broke Girls lampshades the fact that even when you try to avert this trope, it can still play out straight. The girls get a large sum of money from their friend Sophie as a loan/investment and use it to finally start their cupcake store. They try to be very frugal with the money, don't spend any of it on personal items and even keep working as waitresses in the diner to pay for rent and food. However, they misjudged their market, their location is not ideal and they make a number of costly mistakes like not buying business insurance. Their business is losing money and they are only saved from bankruptcy because a developer offers to buy out their lease. They barely manage to pay off their debts and are back in the same place financially as they were at the beginning of the series.
• In Season 8 of The Office (US), the six dockworkers won $950,000 in a collective lottery pool and quit, leaving the Scranton branch without anyone to load shipments. At the end of the season, two of Darryl's workers apply for their jobs back, saying they made a bad investment in an "energy drink for Asian homosexuals."
• In Nash Bridges episode "Patriots", Joe gets a side-job for an insurance company to do some watchover over some Arabian royal prince about to get a heart transplant. Having watched for two days how the the prince indulges in debauchery at the hotel and frequents shady bars, and pays with checks that bounce, Joe dismisses his one million dollar check of gratitude when all is over, going as far as shredding the check to prove his certainty to his SIU colleagues. Immediately, a call from the bank comes asking in what currency Joe would like to claim his money.
• Big Time Rush, the boys complain of not getting more money for their hard work which is being frozen in accounts until they reach 21. So Griffin gives them a challenge of giving each $20,000 and not spending it all within 48 hours. Naturally, the boys flub it from the word "Go". James buys a snake in order to impress a girl which fails, Carlos hires an assistant and loses his money having to pay his fees, Logan throws away his money tipping people left and right and Kendall, who was trying to be responsible and invest it, accidentally buys a truckload of oranges. The boys just barely manage to get their money back through some last-minute contrivances but do learn their lesson by the end of it.
• This is the central premise of Ballers. Spencer is a former NFL star who tried to be careful with his money but still lost all of it when his crooked manager embezzled it. In the present, Spencer works as a financial manager trying to help other professional football players avoid his mistakes. One of his new clients is almost pathologically unable to not spend his money on frivolous luxuries and maintaining a massive posse of hangers-on. He only starts to listen to Spencer when a Hookers and Blow situation threatens to derail his career and he realizes how broke he really is.
• Happens quite a bit in Silicon Valley.
  • Big Head is already shown to be a well-meaning guy but also basically a moron. Thus, it's no surprise that when he gets $20 million in a buyout from Hooli, he ends up blowing it fast. After buying a big mansion, he has the pool moved to a different part of the yard then has it moved back when he realizes the new spot can't be hooked up to water lines. It's also revealed he was actually renting most of the furniture and items in his house which means he can't sell them off to pay his debts. True, his manager ends up embezzling a lot but it's obvious Big Head would have run through it fast on his own.
    • Further compounding matters is that Erlich convinces Big Head to go into business with him just so he can use Big Head's wealth for his own gains. Erlich then spends over a million dollars on a huge party at Alcatraz before discovering Big Head is broke. While Erlich figures out the manager has been stealing Big Head's money, a district attorney refuses to prosecute as she argues that Erlich and Big Head would have ended up blowing all the cash anyway.
  • Jian Yang, a Chinese expat who rooms with the main guys in the "Incubator" house, similarly runs into this in Season 5. After creating his own app and getting a pretty penny for it, he ends up squandering it all on gambling and other frivolous expenses, forcing him back at square one.
  • Played with when Richard is ready to buy a new office for the company. He cites how he wants to avoid the mistake of wasting money on a large space they can't really afford without fancy decorations, etc. But he goes too far in the opposite direction by buying a blank room that's barely enough for more than 10 people. The rest of the group have to point out that a place with at least windows might be more enticing for employees and investors.
• In the pilot of Defiance Nolan wins a massive wad of scrip in Datak Tarr's underground fighting ring when he beats a Bio-man. However, Datak wasn't going to let him get away with knocking out his best enforcer and takes most of the winnings at gunpoint, leaving him only a small amount "for your troubles", which Nolan promptly spends at a brothel.
• All off-screen, but during one of Bones's season break time skips, Vincent Nigel-Murray (the squintern constantly spouting trivia) went on Jeopardy! and won a large sum of money, explaining why he was no longer working at the Jeffersonian. He returned shortly after. Not only had he spent all (or at least most) of the money, he's now in AA, as the lifestyle he was living was apparently more hedonistic than indulgent.
• This happened to Del in Only Fools and Horses. He won about £6 million from the sale of an antique watch in Time On Our Hands, then was revealed to have quickly lost the lot on the Futures Market between that episode and the following specials.
• The Golden Girls: Seems to be this when Rose's daughter finds out she's lost the considerable fortune her husband left her. Subverted when it turns out there was no fortune to begin with, and Rose only lied about it to make her believe Charlie was a more successful businessman than he actually was.
• WKRP in Cincinnati: Johnny Fever gets a hefty settlement for being improperly fired from a previous job. After blowing a chunk of it on frivolous junk ("Soap you can see through!") he winds up giving the remainder to his daughter.
• One episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues has The Ancient being given a lottery ticket that later turns out to have won a $20 million jackpot. After spending the entire episode being hunted by people who want to grab the ticket before he can cash it, he holds a press conference in which he donates all his winnings to a variety of charities.
• Subverted for laughs on The Resident. When Dr. Bell discovers a new patient just won $36 million in the lottery, he immediately starts sucking up to him in hopes of getting a huge donation for the hospital. In the end, the man cuts the check with Bell surprised to see it's only for a few thousand dollars. The man reveals that rather than take the full winnings immediately, he chose to have his fortune given to him in annual installments which are taxed less and eventually add up to more money. He fails to see Bell's forced smile as he openly laughs "Come on, only an idiot thinks it's better to get $36 million right off the bat!"
• In the second season of Joey, the title character lands a leading role in an action blockbuster. While on the phone with his agent, she tries to defy this by begging him to be careful with his money. He tries to assure her that he will be careful, only to spot his first impulse buy (an International CXT) before he can finish the sentence.
• The Boys (2019): A-Train, the Seven's resident Super Speedster, suffers from this, given that his status as the "fastest fucking man alive" is shown to be analogous to professional athletes (who are very susceptible to this). He falls into debt almost immediately once his income stream dries up, and is shown to have bought a lot of frivolous things over his career, like Prince's guitar. One deleted scene clarifies that he makes forty million dollars a year, but has only about 240,000 in the bank, and he has spent at least some of that money on thirteen houses, a private jet (which he can outrun on foot), a private island he's never visited, and having the ashes of Jan Michael Vincent shot into space.
• Played with in the Full House episode "You Pet It, You Bought It". It's first discussed: Upon learning that Michelle has made $221 by selling lemonade, Danny suggests her to save her money, but Jesse advocates for her to "live a little" with some spending, with Michelle responding: "I'm gonna live a lot". Then it's downplayed, as she gets Kimmy to take her to a candy store, only to come back with a donkey instead of candy, expending all of her savings doing so. Near the end of the episode, Michelle is forced to agree with everyone else that the donkey can't stay after witnessing the property damage he has caused inside the house, though it takes her a brief moment to accept the fact that the donkey will be donated and not sold.
  Michelle: That's it? I'm broke?
• In the season 2 finale of Malcolm & Eddie, the pair sell their bar for a nice profit, intending to go their separate ways. In season 3, they have to reunite with Malcolm hoping to buy the bar back... until Malcolm discovered Eddie spent almost all of his money on useless electronics, including a Soviet era satellite dish and more.
  • The worst is when Malcolm realizes too late that when Eddie said he "invested in CD's," he meant compact discs.