Funny Money: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

What happens when you combine [[Acceptable Targets]] and the classic fascination tourists have with foreign currency? This trope, of course.

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Canadian Bacon]]'', Bud (John Candy) and co. get pulled over for driving a truck covered in [[Completely Missing the Point|Canadian insult graffiti]] written in English, but not ''French''. The fine is $1,000 Canadian, or $10 American... and they have to add the French translations to the truck.

* The film version of ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'' has this exchange between the Dukes and a college kid they've suckered into analyzing a core sample they've given him: "How does 24,000 yen a year sound?" "Sounds like 40 bucks."

** It's about $240 in reality.

** They are Bison Dollars. Each one shall be worth 5 British Pounds. [[Narm Charm|For that is the exchange rate the Bank of England will set once he kidnaps their queen!]]

 

 

== Literature ==

* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[The Number of the Beast]]'' it notes that the alternate-future U.S. went through a huge hyperinflation, and one New Dollar is worth 1,000 "old" dollars.

* In an [[Older Than Radio]] moment [[Mark Twain]], in ''The Innocents Abroad'', was on a cruise that stopped in at the, Canary Islands, where many of the passengers went ashore to a restaurant. Clearly not having been adequately briefed on the concept of exchange rates, when the bill was presented for "24,000 reis" for cigars, and "18,000 reis" for wine, and so on, the passenger who had offered to pay paled in horror, gave the proprietor of the place $70 in gold, and informed him that that was all he had. The proprietor had to go and get someone else to translate the amounts of local currency to dollars before the situation stabilized - at a price somewhere nearer to $5 than $5,000.

** Except that after Miles ''won'' the war he was hired to fight, millifenigs begun to be traded again, and got a relatively decent rate.

** In a later book in the series, ''Mirror Dance'', it is revealed that Miles has a framed millifenig on his bedroom wall.

{{quote| '''The Guide:''' In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altarian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems.<ref>In the TV (and possibly radio) version, it uses "doesn't count as money"</ref> Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.}}

** This is also some [[Self Deprecating Humor]], since the Galactibanks are the products of [[Douglas Adams]]' imagination.

* In the ''[[Timeline-191]]'' series, the Confederate States of America win the Civil War and remain their own country, but then lose the world's equivalent of World War I. This causes Confederate banknotes to rapidly decrease in value, to the point where people have to race to spend any money they get their hands on before prices rise again. It takes a few years to get the economy under control again, by which time the banks had started printing one billion dollar notes (now rendered worthless themselves by federal decree, not that anyone would be able to give change for them anyway).

 

* One episode of ''[[Simon and Simon]]'' saw the brothers imprisoned in an imaginary Latin American dictatorship, sentenced to pay a hefty fine (something like "a hundred thousand pistartes", or whatever the fake currency was). While in jail, they meet an ex-pat American and relate to them their doubts about paying such a "large" amount. When told about the fine, the ex-pat says, "Guys... that's about fifty bucks!" The brothers Simon are soon out of jail.

* [[Invoked]] and then [[Averted]] in an episode of ''[[JAG]]''. Harm ends up in a fender bender caused by a beautiful Italian girl, who doesn't want any legal trouble and offers him several thousand Lira (in the form of a wad of cash) as compensation. Harm [[Genre Savvy|points out]] that she's offering him less than twenty dollars. It's only later that Harm learns she is [[Four-Star Badass|Admiral Chegwidden's]] daughter, of course.

 

 

* In the online game/community [[Nation States]], each nation can name its own currency, whose value -- relative to other in-game currencies and real-world currencies -- is determined by the player's policy decisions. Quite a few fall into this territory.

* In ''[[Dubloon]]'', there's a man who is eager to sell you his goodies for 10,000 Farquads<ref>He doesn't accept dubloons.</ref>. Once an exchange service is open, you can find out that 10,000 Farquads are worth ''1 dubloon''. Said man is also Black<ref>Maybe he is from Zimbabwe?</ref>.

{{quote| '''Informant:''' A pleasure doing business with you.<br />

'''Rico:''' [[Deadpan Snarker|Considering the value of the Panauan buck, shooting you would have been more expensive.]] }}

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In the [[Reality Show]] parody cartoon ''[[Drawn Together]]'', 500 billion pesos are apparently the equivalent of 12 U.S. dollars.

* In an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'', when on a South American island Peter gets $37 out of his wallet. This makes him the richest man on the island.

* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', a representative for Russia asks the Olympic committee for Russia to host the Olympics as it would stimulate its economy and help its exchange rate of 1 US dollar to 50 rubles... which quickly escalates to over a thousand rubles.

* A first-season episode of ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' saw Scooby as a potential heir to a share in a considerable fortune--a million American dollars. {{spoiler|Turns out, while Colonel Sanders (no! not ''that'' Colonel Sanders!) had the million-dollar fortune... the dollars were in worthless Confederate paper money. [[Fridge Logic|No attempt is made to explain why the mansion isn’t noted as part of the estate, since it’d at least be worth something]]...}}

** [[Did Not Do the Research|Or the fact that confederate money is highly valuable among collectors]].

{{quote| '''Edd:''' This is foreign currency, Eddy! Virtually worthless in its present state!}}

* In ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'', Gantu realized he was getting paid with worthless bills with his employer's face on them, as they were to be worth something after he took over the universe.

** This hasn't changed much. In October 2009, a million rupiah is worth about US $106.

** The exchange rate is deceptive, however. While the rate is cartoonishly steep, it is stable, and actually has moved sharply in the rupiah's favor over the past year. If you happened to spend the last year and a half working in Indonesia and getting paid in US dollars, you basically took a 7% pay cut.

* The South Korean Won is at approximately 1,000 Won = $1 US. Unfortunately, the largest size bill available to the general public is 10,000 Won, which with the varying exchange rates tends to be about an $8~$11 bill at most. Now Korean landlords, when renting to Americans, like their rent for the year up front, in cash...So every year to two years, a number of Americans are seen with large brown paper bags full of 10,000 Won bills. To give an idea, my family was living in a 4-bedroom apartment that cost 5,000,000 Won a month.

** Currently in 2010, the largest size bill available to the general public is 50,000 Won, thank you very much.

*** And a [[wikipedia:File:Zimbabwe $100 trillion 2009 Obverse.jpg|100 trillion-dollar]] bill a couple months later.

*** After going through a long period of hyperinflation (at one point the inflation rate was over 230 ''million'' percent, and the money supply was growing by 658 ''billion'' percent) and three revaluations, the Zimbabwean dollar was suspended in January 2009, and finally abandoned in April 2009. Before the third revaluation, the exchange rate was 300 trillion Zimbabwean dollars to 1 US dollar. ATMs were unable to cope with the amounts of money people needed to withdraw, producing overflow errors. One 2005 Zimbabwe dollar was worth 10 ''septillion'' (10^25) 2009 Zimbabwe dollars.

* One Eastern European currency which subverts this trope is the Latvian lats, one of which is actually worth ''more'' than a pound sterling. British holidaymakers soon realize that the one-lats pint of local ''alus'', whilst still cheaper than the extortionate prices at home, isn't ''quite'' as much of a bargain as it first appears.

** Tourists often get burned in Kuwait, not realising that 1 dinar is worth US$3.50.