Bob From Accounting

Whenever a throwaway character is introduced, he will often be labeled as someone from the "Accounting department", usually to serve as the straight-man for a joke. Said character's name will also tend to be common and monosyllabic, such as Bob or Bill or Ted or Steve, altogether creating an impression of a staid and two-dimensional person.

Sometimes said person will betray this impression and be wacky or very unusual in some way, creating humor via contrast. Alternatively, the person may be from human resources or some other department that most companies have, especially one not known for its personality.

Once their function in the joke has been fulfilled, they will usually never be mentioned again.

Examples of Bob From Accounting include:

Advertising

• From a TV ad for Magic: The Gathering: "The goblin's out sick? Well, send in Bob. From accounting." Bob From Accounting was actually considered for a card in the joke set Unhinged.
• A recent commercial for some sort of microwaveable noodle dish. The mascot in question is a miniaturized stereotypical Chinese man, who apparently works in accounting.
• A series of Radio ads for the temp service AccounTemps between a Boss and an HR manager detail the problems when the HR guy fails 'to get Bob from AccounTemps

Film

• In the movie version of Horton Hears a Who, Mayor Ned, not believing that Horton's "voice from the drainpipe" is real, asks if the whole thing is a prank by "Burt, from Accounting". We actually see Burt from Accounting later in the film, though.
• In Inception, Cobb introduces himself this way when setting up the Mr. Charles gambit.
• The Incredibles invokes this trope deliberately - and then almost immediately subverts it, because Bob from Accounting is MR. INCREDIBLE, DAMMIT. It gets even funnier when you realize that his last name, Parr, sounds similar to the word "par," meaning "ordinary." Therefore, Bob Parr's name is SUPPOSED to sound generic, even though the rest of him... isn't.

Literature

• Ron's family in Harry Potter is all wizards and witches, except for one of his mum's distant cousins who is an accountant. ("We don't talk about him much.")
• One of the Vampyr youth in the Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum "pretends to be an accountant". It's the Vampire equivalent of being one of those people who congregate in dark basements and drink cow's blood.
• The Atrocity Archive gives our hero Bob from IT an archnemesis: Fred from Accounting.
  • Not for long, though... Actually, the protagonist seems to fit this trope in the beginning... only to subvert it with the vengeance.
  • Also the Accounting department should not be confused with Accounts. The former does accounting, the latter settles accounts by rather extreme methods. See also "Pimpf" by Charles Stross

Live Action TV

• In the season two episode of House where the hospital organised a charity poker tournament, Wilson finally won by beating "Berman from accounting".
  • House also cracks jokes about 'Debbie from accounting', Wilson's supposed romantic interest.
    • From the same episode with a poker tournament:

House: "Anything lower, you wouldn't sound so excited. Jacks or higher, your voice sounds like Debbie from accounting is sitting in your lap."

• Early episodes of Just Shoot Me features mentions of Baxter from Accounting.
• A lot of Chandler's workmates from Friends get this treatment, including "Financial Services Lowell" and "Brian from Payroll".
• From NCIS: Tony's misadventures with female coworkers tend to have names like "Alice from Evidence," etc.
• Scrubs does this with 'X from the gift shop' and 'Y from paediatrics'.
• On News Radio, they usually mention various people in Ad Sales.
• John Stossel did a report on taxes, and he showed an elderly man whom he introduced as Bob, his accountant.
• Monty Python loved accountant characters -- for example, there's a Flying Circus sketch about one who wanted to become a lion tamer despite his aptitude test showing that he was in no way suited to anything that exciting.
  • Also, in the sketch where people are simply falling off a building past a window, one of the two office workers recognized one of them as "Wilkins from Finance".
    • Oh no, that was Robertson.
      • Wilkins!
    • Robertson!
      • *Another body falls past* Well that was Wilkins.
• Subverted in Sherlock, when "Jim from IT" turns out to be Moriarty.
• In The Late Late Show with James Corden, everything contrives to make it look like a confused member of the audience is in the right place and it really is an episode of The Price is Right, down to opening the curtain to escort the man out and revealing a motorcycle (bandleader Reggie wanted to park it as close to the building as possible) with a fake nature backdrop behind it (it's there to make it look more "proportional" that way) and a model on it (that's his accountant).
  • This is shortly followed in the same episode by a whole toy horse race between various of the show's staff.
  • James Corden takes Paul McCartney on a tour of the Late Late Show offices and ends up lamely introducing him to "Paul" their accountant ("My name is Brian.")

Newspaper Comics

• Dilbert has a character Scott Adams refers to as Ted the Generic Guy, who usually fills this role.
  • And wasn't Bob from Accounting the only demon from Heck that wasn't at lunch in one strip?
  • Actually, his name was Ed.

Professional Wrestling

• Christian mentioned a "Bob from accounting" during his recent feud with Randy Orton.

Stand Up Comedy

• This trope forms the core of one of Eddie Izzard's Star Trek routines. Stevens from Accounts decides to go on an away mission to figure out why a landing party consisting of Kirk, Spock and McCoy routinely expenses several hundred packed lunches. Things look bad for Stevens as the Captain points out he's wearing a red jumper.

Web Comics

• This is the central gag of the new webcomic from Brian Clevinger, Warbot in Accounting.
• The political webcomic Get Your War On features only office workers illustrated by clip-art images -- basically blank templates of White Collar Workers. In the animated videos, consisting of phone calls between two main characters, they identify themselves/each other simply as Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable.
• Mentioned among the victims of the anglerfish attack in What the Fu.
• This Chainsawsuit.

Web Original

• Parodied in Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series:

Croquet: Yeah... everyone involved with the production of the Egyptian God Cards was killed. Pegasus: What!? Even Chad from Accounting? [Cut to a man being thrown through a skyscraper window] Croquet: Especially Chad from Accounting!

• • This was turned into Bill from Accounting when the joke was used in Naruto the Abridged Series and LK (not understanding why it was changed) concluded that it's Bill in the Naruto-verse and Chad in the Yu-Gi-Oh-verse. So he uses it in Naruto the Abridged Comedy Spoof Series Show, using the same clip mind.
    • Not only that, but it seems to happen every time someone says "Bill from Accounting".

Western Animation

• Sealab 2021: a character from the never-before-or-after-mentioned Accounting department serves as an additional foil to Murphy's inane scheme.
• In the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft," one of the programmers tells the prophecy of the Sword of A Thousand Truths to his colleagues. The leader asks who foretold the prophecy and the programmer says it was Saltzman from Accounting.
• Booberella, from The Simpsons, is the daughter of Bill, an accountant at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.
• Donna From Accounting from King of the Hill. Note, she's never called just Donna, always Donna From Accounting.

Real Life

• Bob Newhart was actually an accountant prior to going into comedy.
• John Major, legendarily dull British prime minister, was the son of an ex-trapeze artist and had an early career in banking, prompting the joke that he was the only man ever to run away from the circus to become an accountant.