Ron Swanson & 9 Other Best Businessmen On TV | ScreenRant
Businessmen are supposed to be tough, dominant, rude, overbearing, but ultimately financially successful. This is the outdated stereotype about businessmen, at least, in part, thanks to movies like The Wolf Of Wall Street and television shows like The Sopranos. But businessmen come with different types of personalities, motivations, and financial ideologies, making one businessman TV character distinct from the other.
From small businessmen to CEOs of important companies, businessmen are some of television's most fascinating and most memorable characters, adding a touch of financial savviness to the shows in which they appear, and moving the plot along with their business ideas.
10 Tom Haverford (Parks And Recreation)
Tom Haverford faced considerable failure as a young businessman before he struck gold. He created his exciting new fragrance, 'Tommy Fresh', which was turned down by a fragrance mogul. After that, he created 'Snake Juice', which was a hit with patrons. Unfortunately, he had to sell his shares to the company when he learned that he cannot use his government position to promote his own personal brands.
His business, Entertainment 720 also folds over thanks to bad decisions and frivolous overspending by both Tom and his friend, Jean Ralphio. Finally, Tom makes it when his new business, Tom's Bistro, does tremendously well in town.
9 Ron Swanson (Parks And Recreation)
Ron Swanson, founder and head of the Very Good Company, ran various side businesses for a while before starting his own company. The manly libertarian, proud American and bacon-lover is also a highly intelligent and financially savvy investor, who has gone so far as to hide gold around his town in the case of civilization falling apart.
Ron Swanson put his woodworking and hardware skills to good use, building custom boats for people before starting a construction company that's "very good". In the words of the legend himself, "I know more than you."
8 Michael Bluth (Arrested Development)
The long-suffering, level-headed, but co-dependent Bluth member, Michael Bluth is trying hard to keep The Bluth Company afloat, and to keep his father from landing in prison. To add to his problems, his family still believes they can use the company credit card as their own personal credit card, while the Feds are trying to take his company down.
Michael stays strong, nevertheless, withstanding the pressures around him, and placating his sociopathic secretary along the way to make sure that she does not hurt the family business. Michael is often shown making very wise business decisions, but his family always finds a way to prevent his ideas from achieving greatness.
7 Pinky Penguin (Bojack Horseman)
Pinky Penguin is not a shrewd businessman, neither is he a cut-throat authoritarian business leader demanding success from his associates. Pinky is, instead, a calm and loving father, and an anxious businessman. The Penguin, who heads Penguin Publishing (an obvious pun on the book publishers, Penguin) Pinky once invested his company's entire future on paper, despite the growth of the internet.
His bad investments have left him living in squalid conditions, and unable to pay his company's light bill. Despite this, Pinky is patient with Bojack, an investment that finally pays off when Bojack's biography becomes a hit.
6 Jay Pritchett (Modern Family)
Founder and CEO of Pritchett's Closets & Blinds, Jay is a proud family man first and businessman second. Jay is a well-respected businessman in his field, and also displays a lot of pride for his success in the closets and blinds world. To become the business success that he is, Jay had to put in a lot of work on his company, meaning that he often neglected his family.
He also sometimes struggles with being hyper-dominating and unforgiving with his family, and slowly has to learn how to treat his family differently than he would a business rival.
5 Johnny Rose (Schitt's Creek)
The former CEO of North America's second-largest video chain, Johnny built his brand from nothing and went on to become a very wealthy man, providing a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family. Johnny proves that success in business can be achieved by being a good guy, but his wealth is eventually lost when he trusts his business manager too much and the government seizes all his property and business.
Stuck in Schitt's Creek, Johnny never gives up and strives to find a new business idea to catapult him and his family back to an elite life. The series ends with Johnny achieving his dream.
4 Creed Bratton (The Office)
Creed Bratton does what he must to survive. The former band member showed up to the office one day and pretended to be a worker, conning everyone. He has not done any work in the office for more than ten years.
Creed is also a leader of many cults, because it is financially profitable. Indeed, he runs many other side businesses, like his business selling weed and other types of drugs, including painkillers, and his other business selling Dunder-Mifflin office equipment to the highest bidder on Craigslist.
3 Lucious Lyon (Empire)
A Greek tragedy set in a modern-day hip-hop era, Empire follows the story of Cookie and Luscious Lyon, and how the couple built a music empire from poverty and obscurity. Lucious is a perfect example of a Greek tragi-hero. He is obsessed with his empire; with building his name and his brand and crushing his competition.
As a result, he sacrifices everything in pursuit of the top. When he does get to the top, Lucious stops at nothing, including murder, to keep his position. Once he swaps ambition for greed, the businessman comes to lose his family, his wife and his friends.
2 Frank Reynolds (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia)
Known to the business world as "the warthog", Frank Reynolds is a ruthless businessman who made his money in every illegal and immoral way possible. After he started a company with his business partner, Frank swindled his business partner and ended up with all the shares of the company and the money.
Frank does not like to give or share even the tiniest bit of his wealth unless it can make other people, including his children, miserable. In terms of financial success alone, however, Frank has been very prosperous, even if it came at the expense of everyone in his life.
1 Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers)
Another example of everything wrong with business, Basil Fawlty built a hotel as a means of becoming one of society's elite. On the other hand, the business man's character and his lack of emotional maturity, betrays that he is not a very good man.
Arrogant and constantly angry, Basil tries to get more elite and upper-class customers to use his hotel, but his schemes always backfire and humiliate him. Although he is embarrassed by the lower status of the customers who use his hotel, they are the ones keeping his business afloat and even profitable.
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