It’s been a wild year for the fictional rich, too.

This year’s edition of the Forbes Fictional 15 — a list of filthy-rich cartoon, book, TV and movie characters — is jam-packed with tales of great fortunes won and lost. For instance, the richest character on the planet today is a duck. As in Scrooge McDuck, the gold-coin counting Glaswegian and uncle to the famed Donald.

Scrooge McDuck“Soaring gold prices mean the penny-pinching poultry’s hoard of coins and bullion is now worth more than you can shake a tail feather at,” David M. Ewalt and Michael Noer wrote in the Forbes piece. They estimate Mr. McDuck’s worth at $28.8 billion, though he’s still not satisfied. McDuck still travels the world with grand-nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louis looking for even more treasure.

Last year’s number one — Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks — was less fortunate in 2007. The defense-contracting mogul and cat-food impresario was “tragically killed by an improvised explosive device during a visit to Iraq in March.” As for his curly-headed daughter, Lil’ Orphan Annie, she is “now in court fighting Warbuck’s former wives, bodyguards and mistresses” for his money.

Mr. Monopoly — he of top hat and cane fame — also had a bad year. With so much of his fortune tied to real-estate, he was hit by the subprime mess and “lost everything,” according to Forbes. (Too bad the game doesn’t have a “Get Out of CDO’s Free” card.)

The “quirky investor” Gomez Adams — known for “his affinity for sword fighting and crashing trains” — also had a good year. He shot up to number 12 on the list, with a net worth of $12 billion. My guess is that he made his biggest gains from “Thing,” who now runs a successful black-box hedge fund.

Montgomery Burns held fast at number 6, with $8.4 billion (though he’s getting up there in age at 104). Forbes says Mr. Burns suffered a setback as rioters looted Burns Manor and made off with priceless treasures. But he’ll make it up with reconstruction contracts and the boom in energy prices. Who would have thought when Mr. Burns first hit the list in 1989 that nuclear would be cool again!

Forbes says the biggest controversy this year surrounds Santa Claus. Mr. Claus ranked at the top for the first two editions of the list. But Forbes got so many letters from kids claiming Mr. Claus was real that they removed him from the list. Which is too bad. Given the benefits of global warming to the tourism business in the North Pole (ice-pack to oceanfront!), Mr. Claus’s vast real-estate holdings have soared in value. Add that to his successful outsourcing program in China and Mr. Claus will be having a merry Christmas indeed.