Forbes released its annual list­ing of fiction’s very wealth­i­est. I’m shocked to find out that Charles Mont­gomery Burns (the Simp­sons) is richer than Scrooge McDuck! For some rea­son, I always imag­ined uncle Scrooge as the car­toon world’s “Bill Gates”. I still think uncle Scrooge is classier than that annoy­ing Mr. Burns.

The biggest sur­prise is that Santa Claus has been unseated from the number-one spot! In fact, he’s been com­pletely removed from the list and Forbes’ rea­son for Santa’s dis­ap­pear­ance is hillarious:

We still esti­mate Claus’ net worth as infi­nite, but we excluded him from this year’s rank­ings after being bom­barded by let­ters from out­raged chil­dren insist­ing that Claus is “real.” We don’t claim to have set­tled the ongo­ing con­tro­versy con­cern­ing Claus’ exis­tence, but after tak­ing into account the phys­i­cal evi­dence — toys deliv­ered, milk and cook­ies devoured — we felt it was safer to remove him from consideration.

Here are this year’s 15 rich­est fic­tional characters:

	#1 Oliver “Daddy” War­bucks Net Worth: $36.2 bil­lion Source: Defense Indus­tries Age: 52 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Divorced, one child Home­town: New York, N.Y. Edu­ca­tion: S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook, B.S. More on Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks>
	#2 Charles Mont­gomery Burns Net Worth: $16.8 bil­lion Source: Energy Age: 104 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle, one bas­tard child Home­town: Spring­field, U.S.A. Edu­ca­tion: Yale Uni­ver­sity, B.S. More on Charles Mont­gomery Burns>
	#3 Scrooge McDuck Net worth: $10.9 bil­lion Sources: Min­ing, Trea­sure Hunt­ing Age: 80 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Duck­burg, U.S.A. Edu­ca­tion: Cluck U., dropout More on Scrooge McDuck>
	#4 Richie Rich Net Worth: $10.7 bil­lion Source: Inher­i­tance, Con­glom­er­ates Age: 10 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Richville, U.S.A. Edu­ca­tion: Richville Ele­men­tary More on Richie Rich>
	#5 Jed Clam­pett Net Worth: $7.7 bil­lion Source: Oil & Gas, Bank­ing Age: 51 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Wid­owed, one child Home­town: Bev­erly Hills, Calif. Edu­ca­tion: Ozark Ele­men­tary, dropout More on Jed Clampett>
	#6 Mr. Monopoly Net Worth: $7.1 bil­lion Source: Real Estate Age: 71 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Atlantic City, N.J. Edu­ca­tion: Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, B.A. More on Mr. Monopoly>
	#7 Bruce Wayne Net Worth: $6.8 bil­lion Source: Inher­i­tance, Defense Age: 32 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Gotham City, U.S.A. More on Bruce Wayne>
	#8 Anthony Stark Net Worth: $3 bil­lion Source: Defense Age: 35 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: New York, N.Y. Edu­ca­tion: MIT, B.S. More on Anthony Stark>
	#9 Prince Abaka­liki of Nige­ria Net Worth: $2.8 bil­lion Source: Inher­i­tance Age: 37 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Lagos, Nige­ria Edu­ca­tion: Yaba Col­lege of Tech­nol­ogy, B.S. More on Prince Abaka­liki of Nigeria>
	#10 Thurston Howell,III Net Worth: $2.7 bil­lion Source: How­ell Indus­tries Age: 60 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Mar­ried, no chil­dren Home­town: Pri­vate Island, South Pacific Edu­ca­tion: Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, B.A. More on Thurston Howell,III>
	#11 Willy Wonka Net Worth: $2 bil­lion Source: Candy, Aero­space Age: 57 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Kent, Eng­land Edu­ca­tion: Acad­e­mie d’Art Culi­naire, Paris More on Willy Wonka>
	#12 Lucius Malfoy Net Worth: $1.3 bil­lion Source: Inher­i­tance Age: 51 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Mar­ried Home­town: Wilt­shire, Eng­land Edu­ca­tion: Hog­warts More on Lucius Malfoy>
	#13 Tony Montana Net Worth: $1 bil­lion Source: Cocaine Age: 42 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sep­a­rated, no chil­dren Home­town: Miami, Fla. Edu­ca­tion: Pinar del Rio High School, dropout More on Tony Montana>
	#14 Lara Croft Net Worth: $1 bil­lion Source: Inher­i­tance, Antiques Age: 37 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Wim­ble­don, Eng­land Edu­ca­tion: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity More on Lara Croft>
	#15 Mario Net Worth: $1 bil­lion Source: Com­modi­ties Age: 23 Mar­i­tal Sta­tus: Sin­gle Home­town: Brook­lyn, N.Y. Edu­ca­tion: Brook­lyn Tech­ni­cal High School More on Mario>

[via msn/Forbes]