History Main / OddlySmallOrganization

** ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is an incredibly intricate and detailed game with head-crushing complexity, featuring damage systems detailed down to ''individual tissue layers'' and random dwarf generation that is more complex than most roleplaying games' entire player character generators. It's a text game whose sheer depth of processing can crush a computer that can run ''VideoGame/FarCry3''. This game is programmed by a lone individual, known as Toady One.

* ''Series/KamenRiderKiva'' has the Wonderful Blue Sky Organization, a dedicated [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Fangire]]-hunting organization that seems to consist only of an EccentricMillionaire, TheChick, and TheRival--''at most''. Then again, outside of TheRival, [[InformedAbility they're usually too useless to warrant more members...]]

* ComicBook/FantasticFour. It's all in the name: four. And despite the fact that there have been members other than the original Four over the years, they never last long, and [[StatusQuoIsGod the original roster always returns]]. (Given that they are supposed to be as much a family as they are a team, most writers wouldn't have it any other way.) Of the original roster, two of them are ''literally'' family: [[Characters/FantasticFourTheFantasticFour Sue Storm]] and her brother [[Characters/FantasticFourTheFantasticFour Johnny]]. Sue later marries [[Characters/FantasticFourTheFantasticFour Reed Richards]], leaving [[Characters/TheThing Ben Grimm]] as the only one who isn't related to the others by either blood or marriage. In Grimm's case, he has been depicted as Reed's closest friend since they were in college together, and as having an unrequited affection for Sue. The Richards kids treat him as an honorary uncle.

* ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye:'' The Decepticon Justice Division, the most feared and despised part of the Decepticon army, capable of killing Phase Six class Decepticons, themselves each a OneManArmy, consists mainly of five people and their pet. Though they are mentioned to have agents and informants around.
** This is also true of the Autobots and Decepticons in many continuities, where both factions tend to be represented by rather small teams, with [[RememberTheNewGuy a couple of new characters trickling in]] [[MerchandiseDriven as new toys come out.]] In the G1 cartoon, Shockwave seemed to be the sole Decepticon on Cybertron bar a couple MechaMooks, and the ''Anime/TransformersArmada'' comic featured at most ten non-Minicon characters working for either faction.
** In an odd example of this, the Japan-original Decepticon Black Shadow had his function translated as "Space Mafia" rather than the more accurate "Space Gangster." This led to him picking up [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff a cult fanbase]] by virtue of the fanon idea that there was apparently an entire unseen Space Mafia out there, of which Black Shadow was the only member ever seen. The common interpretation of this (that Black Shadow was a OneManArmy sufficient to act as the ''entire'' Space Mafia) even influenced his later official portrayals, where he was written as a rogue SuperSoldier who wiped out entire fleets for the right price.

--->'''Crusher''': It's all perfectly logical to you, isn't it? The two of us roaming about the galaxy in the flagship of the Federation. No crew at all. \\

* Even though there are many (well, up to 26 going by the naming scheme, though [[WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries the animated series]] also uses non-English letters as well) Film/MenInBlack, it seems it falls to two agents to take care of most serious potential Apocalypses. Or serious incidents are so common that the Men in Black must rotate.

* ''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace'': The entire alien fleet? Three aliens ships with, seemingly, three or four aliens inside. And the eponymous plan only succeeds in creating a mere ''three'' zombies.
* The Fraternity in ''Film/{{Wanted}}''. For an organization tasked with keeping the world in balance, they are a pretty small group of people. Explained in the sequel video game, where the Fraternity featured in the movie is only a local branch.
* In ''Film/StreetFighterTheLegendOfChunLi'', The Order of the Web is supposed to be a Bangkok-wide anti-Shadaloo organization. Yet we only see three members: Gen (the "leader"), Chun-Li, and a dead vagrant Chun-Li literally stumbles across at an airport. Further enforcing the trope is the fact that [[spoiler:the "dead" guy turned out to be a not-so-dead Gen, who set himself up as a clue to put Chun-Li on his trail]].
* ''Film/RemoWilliamsTheAdventureBegins'': a former cop is forcibly recruited by a secret government organization called the CURE, founded by President Kennedy to safeguard the country from all threats by any means necessary. The entire organization consists of only three people (including the new recruit) and a powerful computer (for its time). There is also an OldMaster who trains Remo, but he's not officially a member.
** The book series this is adapted from explains it better; CURE has several thousand street-level operatives and informants, most of whom believe they work for an organized crime syndicate or in corporate espionage and none of whom do more than gather information -- or more commonly, copy off what they're already collecting for somebody else. CURE also maintains executive-backed authority to tap law enforcement, intelligence, and military communications and issue (forged, ostensibly from known superiors) orders to same. The very small administration and enforcement arm is meant both to expedite the one order the President retains authority to give it ("disband, commit suicide and make sure nobody will ever find any trace you existed") and make it possible to quickly but fully brief the President on just what it's been up to so an informed decision about that order can be made.
* Subverted in ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'', when [[spoiler:Mr. White's secret interrogation triggers the attack of an unknown associate]]. M responds: "When someone says that [[WeAreEverywhere they have people everywhere]], you expect it to be hyperbole. Lots of people say that. '''Florists''' use that expression. [[spoiler:It doesn't mean that they have people ''in the bloody room'']]."
* In ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'', the resistance against the Romans is split into an innumerable number of tiny organizations that constantly [[WeAreStrugglingTogether skirmish with each other]]: the 'Judean People's Front', the 'Judean Popular People's Front', the 'Campaign for a Free Galilee,' and the 'Popular Front of Judea' (which has only one member remaining.) This is dangerously close to TruthInTelevision. It's an old, old joke that if you get two Jews in a room and propose a question you will get at least three different opinions.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Both the Jedi and the Sith.
** For the Sith: "[[RuleOfTwo Always two, there are. No more, no less. A master, and an apprentice."]]. The second one is justified. The Sith was originally a very ''big'' organization, but [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder infighting and internal strife between their leaders]] led to their downfall at their enemies' hands. The only survivor was Darth Bane (not the founder of the order, which some sources claim, but still an important figure). He implemented the Rule of Two, realizing that the only way to avoid the mistakes that had nearly wiped the order out was to limit it to only a master and an apprentice from that point on. However, this doesn't mean that they can't train other Force-sensitives to padawan-like levels, especially if the Sith apprentice is trying to supplant his or her master and is training his or her own secret apprentice. LoopholeAbuse is common. Some sources have the Sith more like communist cells: there are only two (or one, or three, depending on whether the apprentice kills the master before or after starting to train his own apprentice) Sith in each group at any given time, but Bane set up several independent parallel groups, each of which believed itself to be the only one.
** The Jedi are guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, but it's a ''big'' galaxy. Even in their golden ages, there are rarely more than a few thousand Jedi and in most stories, there's considerably less. That said they tend to do a pretty good job in a OneRiotOneRanger way: if you send a Jedi to solve a worldwide dispute, they'll probably succeed.

* Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants in the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''. In [[Film/XMen1 the first movie]], it's just him, Mystique, Toad, and Sabretooth. In [[Film/X2XMenUnited the sequel]], it's reduced to just him and Mystique. Averted in ''[[Film/XMenTheLastStand The Last Stand]]'', where it expands to several dozen (or perhaps even hundred) members.

* ''Film/{{Airheads}}'': Ian "The Shark" seems to be the only DJ with KPPX "Rebel Radio", whereas most real-life stations will have four to five on staff.

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Film/Deadpool2016'' when Deadpool shows up at the X-Mansion, only to find the same two X-Men he's been dealing with for the rest of the film:
-->''"...it's weird I only ever see the two of you. [[BreakingTheFourthWall It's almost like the studio couldn't afford another X-Man]]."''
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'': Hendricks[=/=]Cobalt has an organization that seemingly consists solely of himself and his [[TheDragon Dragon]] ([[spoiler:and as it turns out, half the time TheDragon is simply Hendricks himself wearing a latex mask]]). He also hires an assassin and her men for one job and kidnaps a scientist whose family he's holding hostage for another. Even counting the extended group, that's less than half a dozen people. Which makes sense, because it can be hard to find professional employees when your organization's stated goal is literally ''[[WorldWarIII to destroy most of the world]]''.
* TheSyndicate of ''Film/MissionImpossibleRogueNation'' is treated like a multinational web of criminal enterprise but in reality, it only seems to be a fraction of the size that it's touted to be by Ethan Hunt. [[spoiler:The likely reason for this is that the organization hasn't been fully formed by this point, simply being a splinter from the British government after going into business for itself under the helm of Solomon Lane. The group was originally envisioned as having access to a near-bottomless funding supply spread across several accounts in multiple nations; a database that Solomon Lane is direly trying to get his hands on. With access to that, then they will truly be able to become the premiere source of criminal activity worldwide.]]
* This becomes a plot point in ''[[Literature/SevenDaysInMay Seven Days in May]]'', as the President's staff try to uncover evidence of a conspiracy to launch a MilitaryCoup. As they don't know how far the conspiracy spreads, they can't rely on the FBI or the military CID. However, at one point they see a high-ranking officer carrying out a reconnaissance, and realise the conspirators have the same problem--they have to keep the conspiracy small to ensure secrecy.

* InUniverse in ''Film/BillionDollarBrain''. British spy Harry Palmer is sent to contact LaResistance in Latvia only to find it consists of less than a dozen petty criminals. General Mindwinter however thinks he has 300 professionally-trained saboteurs in Latvia, ready to launch an insurrection on his orders. Turns out his agents have been sending in false reports and pocketing the money. After giving the order to start the insurrection by sabotaging missile sites and distributing plague virus in Soviet military bases, Midwinter storms across the border with his private army (unlike usual for this trope, we do see a lot of them on-screen) but it's nowhere near enough and without air cover they're massacred.

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': Asgore's court consists only of Alphys (royal scientist), Undyne (captain of the guard), a handful of soldiers (Royal Guard 01, Royal Guard 02, and the Snowdin Canine Unit), and Papyrus (guard-in-training). Then again, there don't seem to be all that many monsters in the Underground, since the No Mercy route, which involvse wiping out the monsters, has you kill several dozen monsters.

** ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Dawn of Sorrow]]'' sees protagonist Soma Cruz opposed by a {{Cult}} called "With Light" that believes that, for {{God}} to embody Perfect Good, He must be opposed by Perfect Evil, embodied by the Dark Lord, which was {{Dracula}}, until 1999. This cult, who summons demons to attack Soma using [[UsefulNotes/NintendoDS hand-drawn]] seals, consists of... exactly three people: two candidates, [[PlayingwithFire Dario Bossi]] and [[PowerCopying Dmitrii Blinov]], to be the new Dark Lord; and leader [[BigBad Celia Fortner]].

->''"We're the Robot Mafia… The '''entire''' Robot Mafia."''

* The ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' series from Creator/LFrankBaum uses this multiple times in regard to armies. In ''Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz'', it's revealed that the entire Royal Army of Oz is ''one person'', The Man With the Green Whiskers who first appeared in the original book. By ''Literature/OzmaOfOz'', the Tin Woodman has expanded it to… 30 people, three of whom are only mentioned. Another example in the Oz books was the army formed by Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo in ''Tick-Toc of Oz'', which had only 17 members (16 of which were officers) which made sense, seeing as Oogaboo itself had a population of only 50.

* The Dark Hand in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' was often referred to as being a superpowerful world-reaching crime net, with operatives everywhere... but the only operatives who seem to exist are the four henchmen (who aren't too bright), a black-belt temp, and their leader, no matter where Chan goes. Oh yeah... and the leader's driver. It would appear that their reputation is greatly exaggerated. Eventually the writers figured, "screw it," and the four/five characters were, by the end of their run, referred to as the Dark Hand exclusively, with no other members. Which of course [[FridgeLogic raises further questions]]… In earlier episodes, the Dark Hand had a lot of nameless henchmen, but they probably all quit when they heard that their boss was taking orders from a [[SealedEvilInACan statue]]. Not to mention that in later seasons, the organization has completely collapsed due to Valmont putting all his eggs in the Shendu basket, and now even those minions have moved on to other employment.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mask}}'', ruthless terrorist organisation VENOM, the greatest threat to world security, initially consisted of…three people. As more toys were released, they eventually expanded to…''eight'' people.

* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' subverts this. From the beginning, the group that turns into the Black Knights is shown as a small terrorist cell. When the Black Knights grow, you see how much they've grown (as they get a submarine as well as many more members). They end up as [[spoiler: the official military force of most of the world]].

** The Akatsuki, a sinister organization of {{Black Cloak}}s with only 10 members (actually 9, since Orochimaru absconded with their membership ring). They seem to find replacements for lost members pretty quickly, but they ''never'' send out minions to do things, instead sending out [[EvilDuo two of their number]] to accomplish any task. Even their ''accountant'' is a powerful fighter and formal member of the organization - apparently they don't trust weaklings with money or something. Made worse by the fact that many of their members are constantly having arguments and trying to kill each other.

** Akatsuki's status as this is fully averted in the Shinobi World War arc; Tobi fields an army of 100,000 [[spoiler: White Zetsus, which are supplemented with an army of legendary ninjas resurrected by Kabuto]].

* There are two examples in ''Manga/DeathNote''; both are probably justified. First, L's task force consists of himself, Watari, five of the main police officers and later, Light. The original organization had quite a lot more members, but they were afraid for their lives, what with the whole Kira thing, and L did not want to reveal his face to a large group of people. The second, the SPK, also started off with a lot of members, but [[spoiler: Mello offed all but Near and three smart enough not to reveal their true names to Mello's mole]], which kind of put a damper on things.

* Likewise, despite being very well-financed in the original ''Manga/{{Gatekeepers}}'', AEGIS was supposedly a worldwide organization; with Japan being just the Eastern outpost. By the DarkerAndEdgier sequel, there were about 5 members left, though given the mood of the sequel that may be more a case of things getting worse.

*** Yliaster has only three members: Placido/Primo, Lucciano/Lester, and Jose/Jakob. [[spoiler: Then they {{fus|ionDance}}e into one being.]]

* The ''Franchise/LupinIII'' franchise seems to play this straight. In the Manga, there was implied to be a large number of additional people working for the Lupin family, and the film even says that they're an extremely large organization. Mooks were featured in a few Green Jacket episodes, but from Red Jacket onwards, the "Lupin Empire" seems to contain only 3 or 4 people, depending upon Fujiko's interests, with the occasional hired help. The perpetual crew always outnumbers the "empire" characters, even when it would make sense to gather more help.

** Aizen's "army" of Arrancar likely barely hits triple digits, since 100 and higher are apparently reserved for the Privaron Espada, the former members of Aizen's elite Espada group. When he shows up to fight Gotei 13 in Fake Karakura, he has only 18 combatants (not counting Gillian fodder) on his side- himself, Tosen and Gin, the top three Espadas, the ten Fracciones directly under said Espadas' command, and Wonderweiss and his giant pet Hollow that spawns said Gillian hordes.
** Zigzagged in the final arc with Yhwach and the Wandenreich. His main army, the Sternritter [[note]]German for "star knights", though it should actually be Stern''en''ritter[[/note]], consists of twenty-six members, one for each letter of the alphabet. This may seem small, but it actually outnumbers the thirteen Captains of Soul Society...and then we see that he seemingly also has countless Soldat[[note]]German for "soldiers"[[/note]] at his disposal at least to match the number of rank and file Soul Reapers, though very few of said Soldat actually appear, and only in situations where the main army's members are not present. Not that this inconveniences Yhwach by much, though: not only are his Sternritter very powerful, Yhwach himself is also far stronger than any previously introduced antagonist, plus he has the excuse that the more he spreads his power around, the weaker he personally is, so having fewer fighters works for him.
* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'', Celestial Being at first appears to be this, consisting solely of 4 pilots, 6 crew members on their space ship, a supercomputer and ''a man who's been dead for 200 years'', whom the media report as being the group's leader. [[spoiler:We later learn that Celestial Being is actually a surprisingly large, secret organization, with ''at least'' three separate groups working against each other ''within'' the organization!]]

* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', Sir Nighteye's hero agency consists of himself, two sidekicks- Centipeder and Bubble Girl- and his intern and protege Mirio. Despite taking on Midoriya as an intern during the Internship arc, Nighteye has no desire to increase the size of his organization. By the end of the arc, [[spoiler:Nighteye is dead, Mirio has lost his quirk and Midoriya returns to school]], leaving the agency down to ''two people''.

* DependingOnTheWriter (and continuity), ComicBook/TheAvengers. For several years, it was standard for the team to have 7 active members, and to call for reservists if the situation demanded for it. But there have been periods where the entire active roster consisted of only 3 or 4 active members.

* [[Characters/XMenHellfireClub The Hellfire Club]] in ''ComicBook/XMen''. Although presumably they have tons of members and are incredibly pervasive, we really only ever see 4-5 of them. They make up for it with a crapload of [[{{Mooks}} nameless henchmen]], many of whom can be found at the ends of Wolverine's claws. Somewhat justified in that the X-Men are usually facing the Inner Circle of the club; the regular members are just normal but extremely wealthy members of society. This is how Archangel (who much later declined an invitation to the Inner Circle), [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] and Candy Southern got their membership.

* The [[FanFic/AkatsukiKittenPhoenixCorporationOverhaul Phoenix Corporation]]. It consists of the author and eleven "minions." [[spoiler:Supposedly, everyone else that might have been in it, or at least connected to it, is dead.]]

* In ''Film/StreetFighterTheLegendOfChunLi'', The Order of the Web is supposed to be a Bangkok-wide anti-Shadaloo organization. Yet we only see three members: Gen (the "leader"), Chun-Li, and a dead vagrant Chun-Li literally stumbles across at an airport. Further enforcing the trope is the fact that [[spoiler: the "dead" guy turned out to be a not-so-dead Gen, who set himself up as a clue to put Chun-Li on his trail]].

** The book series this is adapted from explains it better; CURE has several thousand street-level operatives and informants, most of whom believe they work for an organized crime syndicate or in corporate espionage and none of whom do more than gather information - or more commonly, copy off what they're already collecting for somebody else. CURE also maintains executive-backed authority to tap law enforcement, intelligence, and military communications and issue (forged, ostensibly from known superiors) orders to same. The very small administration and enforcement arm is meant both to expedite the one order the President retains authority to give it ("disband, commit suicide and make sure nobody will ever find any trace you existed") and make it possible to quickly but fully brief the President on just what it's been up to so an informed decision about that order can be made.

* ''Film/{{Airheads}}'': Ian "The Shark" seems to be the only DJ with KPPX "Rebel Radio", whereas most real-life stations will have 4-5 on staff.

** Both incarnations of the Order of the Phoenix are also quite small; the original group only had twenty-six members (and are said to have been outnumbered by about twenty to one), and about half of them were killed before the end. The second group is not much bigger but has the advantage of facing a much smaller enemy (the core force of the Death Eaters appears to be about fifty wizards, with the rest consisting of the coerced, the manipulated and the brainwashed, as well as minor hangers-on, who hadn't been replenished when the second Order was formed).
** The exact size of the wizarding population is an example of this trope. But as [[http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-hogwarts-how-many.html this essay points out]], assuming the vast majority of British wizard children go to Hogwarts (something outright said in the book), that means Britain's wizarding population between the age of 11 and 18 is below the 300 mark. And since that would be roughly one-tenth of the ''entire'' population, maybe one-twentieth if we allow for [[WizardsLiveLonger wizards' longer lifespans]], the total wizarding population is under 10,000. Details such as the size of the Ministry and the number of Quidditch teams mentioned make such a small figure ''very'' surprising, but then, WritersCannotDoMath. According to WordOfGod, there are actually 1000 students at Hogwarts, effectively tripling the "300" figure for school-age wizarding children and therefore inflating the wizarding population to between 10,000 and 20,000. It was also mentioned that wizards would have died out if they hadn't started marrying Muggles, indicating the population has always been somewhat small and probably still is. Also note that this is just Great Britain (and maybe Ireland). There are other populations in other countries. ''Goblet of Fire'' included students and staff from two other schools. There are Quidditch teams explicitly mentioned from other countries. American witches/wizards are mentioned during the Quidditch ''world'' cup. Though the magical world would need to be small compared to the {{muggle|s}} population to maintain the {{masquerade}}.
* ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'' and ''Day Watch'' both are pretty small organizations. Although there are still enough of them to have offices in most major cities of the world. (even if with only a dozen or so Others per Watch) Justified. A.) there are only about two hundred Others in Moscow, which has one of the "strongest watches" (Paris and Edinburgh Watches being the larger ones) in the world. One cop for every twenty people is actually an unreasonably high ratio. B.) As of ''Twilight Watch'', the Watches can conscript any and all Others in the event of a crisis. The Night Watch trains all Light Others and Light Others unaffiliated with the Watch are even called 'reservists' a few times.

** During ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' the Morporkian army consisted of possibly fewer than 1000 hastily recruited troops, as compared to Klatch's tens of thousands of veterans. Of course, the Force that actually won was even smaller (but highly trained, and much feared).
** It's understandable that Lancre, a kingdom a hundred miles across with two hundred inhabitants, would have a very small military and civil service. In fact, however, it consists of just one man: Shawn Ogg, who is also much of the palace staff. Technically there is also a border guard on the bridge into Lancre, but he lived there anyway and is a greeter more than anything.

* The Tribulation Force in the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' series, despite its grand name, is just four people. Worse, the world-conquering conspiracy they're rebelling against is also... four people (as the [[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2010/07/06/tf-gang-of-four/ Slacktivist pointed out]]). It's actually 6 if you count the two who are in ''both groups''.

* The ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' series from Creator/LFrankBaum uses this multiple times in regard to armies. In ''Literature/TheMarvelousLandOfOz'', it's revealed that the entire Royal Army of Oz is ''one person'', The Man With the Green Whiskers who first appeared in the original book. By ''Literature/OzmaOfOz'', the Tin Woodman has expanded it to… 30 people, 3 of which are only mentioned. Another example in the Oz books was the army formed by Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo in ''Tick-Toc of Oz'', which had only 17 members (16 of which were officers) which made sense, seeing as Oogaboo itself had a population of only 50.
* ''Literature/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'': For a NGOSuperpower capable of helping the Cretan Insurrection, destroy TheEmpire ships and with his own [[ConLang language]], the Nautilus crew is small: We only see Captain Nemo, his NumberTwo, and two unfortunate crewmen that die in the novel. And because they have severed all contact with inhabited continents, there will be no more crewmen. Aronnax made a calculation about fewer than sixty people:
--> ''"... Which is tantamount to saying that the air contained in the Nautilus would be exactly enough for 625 men over twenty–four hours."''
--> ''"625!" Ned repeated.''
--> ''"But rest assured," I added, "that between passengers, seamen, or officers, we don't total one–tenth of that figure."''

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Zigzagged with the Knights of the Blackened Denarius. They consist of people bearing one of thirty silver coins, believed to be the ThirtyPiecesOfSilver Judas was paid to betray Jesus, which each contain a FallenAngel that either enslaves the coins' owner or enters into a partnership with them if their willpower and mental fortitude are sufficient enough. Most of the Fallen don't get along though and some of the coins are unaccounted for, so their leader Nicodemus typically only ever has three to five of them working for him at any given time. However, the Denarians are also backed by a veritable army of human fanatics that are comparative to a small nation, so while the Denarians are few in number, their supporters certainly aren't.

* ''Literature/SpaceAcademy'': {{Justified}} in ''Literature/SpaceAcademyWashouts'' with Dark Matter [[spoiler: that actually just consists of Alexandra Ares as well as her immediate subordinates. This is because she's an AI and the manipulation of everything from the stock market to politics can be done instantaneously.]]

* Played with in ''Series/ThirtyRock''. The GE (and later Kabletown) executive hierarchy at NBC sometimes seems to consist entirely of Jack, although this is mostly because he has a large personal interest in Tracy (who is high maintenance and a mainstay of their income) and Liz (who he has an interest in grooming for the elite). There have been several occasions where Kenneth acts like Jack is his direct supervisor, prompting Jack to remind him that there are numerous people in between the two of them.

* In ''Series/AlloAllo'', we only ever see two or three members of the French Resistance and two members of the Gestapo. Both groups are actually very much ''over-represented'', the Gestapo very much so. The large Wehrmacht presence is harder to explain though - in one episode an outing is announced "to be attended by all officers below the rank of General" - and sure enough, that turns out to be just the three regular officers. And one of them is Italian.
* The crew of the ''Series/{{Andromeda}} Ascendant''. Originally supposed to be four thousand, but [[strike:Hercules]] Captain Dylan Hunt makes do with 6 for several years. When the [[TheFederation Systems Commonwealth]] had been sufficiently restored, extras started wandering about in the background but they were rarely important to the plot and it remained the main cast's job to fix any and all problems.
* None of the delegations sent to ''Series/BabylonFive'' appear to have more than two people in them: an ambassador and an aide. Real embassies to major diplomatic postings would also have attaches, security personnel, some career foreign service officials, at least one spy (masquerading as one of the above), and the dependents of all of the above (Londo has some dependents, but they only show up in one episode; Londo and his wives hate each other, which is why they spend most of their time seventy-five lightyears away). They might even bring their own cooks and cleaning staff in order to make it harder for outsiders to spy on them. Either justified or made worse by the fact that they don't seem to have actual embassies, just two sets of personal quarters. In the Centauri's case, it's explicitly because the first four Babylon stations were destroyed and they fully expect the fifth to be as well, so they sent someone expendable as an Ambassador and waited almost a full year to even send him one aide.

** The Night's Watch, responsible for defending the realm from the [[TheHorde wildlings]] and treated as SeriousBusiness by the show (if not necessarily by all of the characters), is at one point implied to consist of fifty men. Contrast [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire the books]], where the Watch is considered dangerously understaffed with a thousand members, and even after taking horrendous losses is still an army of several hundreds.
*** The Watch in the show starts at about the same level but takes more casualties over time. The writers also apparently completely forgot about the men in the other two castles after Season 4, making the population of Castle Black the entire Night's Watch. As of the end of Season 6, there are at most thirty men left.

* The Company in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' sometimes enters this territory. Sometimes they're portrayed as a large group with many teams of two agents (one super, one normal) out taking care of assignments. Other times The Company is portrayed as just Bob, his daughter, and some Indian doctor he has to coerce into being a thug because he apparently doesn't have anyone else to send on missions anymore. In the first season it is portrayed as all-powerful yet they only regularly show 1 character and have guest appearances by actors for the more high-ranked members. Yet in Season 2, Bob is running round doing the recruiting in Cairo as well as "kidnap missions." This makes one wonder if it is falling into disarray. This is confirmed in Season 3 where the company corridors are empty and [[MagnificentBastard Angela Petrelli]] is [[MayorOfAGhostTown alone]].
* The Federal Marshal's office from ''Series/InPlainSight'' has 4 people, of which only two do fieldwork and one is a secretary.

* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', ''good God'', yes. The entire NCIS lab consists of ''one'' person, the morgue has two, the administration has one, and so on. No other team or lab workers or ''anyone'' are ever seen. Deconstructed in that they all work sixteen-hour days in order to do the jobs of an entire organization themselves.
** There are other teams, some of which are even shown occasionally, but Gibbs' team is supposed to be the best, which explains why it's the one getting sent on most of the murder investigations. The other agents - and sometimes Gibbs' team itself - are presumably taking care of more mundane things like kidnappings.

** ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'' has the "empire" of Emperor Gruumm. Outside the three core villains, there's the MonsterOfTheWeek in the form of alien criminals who work for him by basically continuing their previously established MO but pointed in the direction he wants - always recruited onscreen (the baddie of the week was a longtime ally on ''two'' occasions) and robot [[MechaMooks grunts]] and [[HumongousMecha pseudo-Zords]] sold to him by an arms dealer who will sell to ''anyone.'' (Sometimes the MOTW was using Broodwing's wares before meeting Gruumm, or even ''despite never meeting Gruumm.'') The all-conquering Troobian Empire just doesn't seem to ''exist'' very much.
** This also applies to the good guys in many of the ''PR'' series. Five teenagers with attitude is a small force to send against invading armies. It's often of a necessity, though - there are only so many {{Transformation Trinket}}s to go around.

** A less extreme example, but considering the sheer size of the Dominion, it does stretch belief a little that the Female Shapeshifter is generally the only founder to be seen doing anything meaningful. This was compounded in the last season after their union with [[spoiler: the Cardassians and the Breen]], when many scenes took place at the very heart of their military operations, yet the only commanders ever seen to be giving orders were Weyoun, [[spoiler: Damar and that Breen guy]].

* Section 20 in ''Series/StrikeBack'' barely seems to go above 20 people at most (counting silent extras), which is unusual when you consider that it's doing the jobs of the SAS, SRR, Special Forces Support Group... basically almost every intelligence and SF-related job available. And more often than not, when they actually got into the field, it's usually just Stonebridge and Scott. Series 4 was slightly better about this, in that Richmond and Martinez would regularly go in the field, along with Locke, but for much of the series, it did seem that Section 20 was just 5 people.

* The team from ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' consists of just four people backed by an AncientConspiracy tasked with protecting the entire world. This was apparently not always the case as scenes in the '60s reveal a busy office with at least two active teams. However, flashbacks to the 90s always show just two guys (Young Artie and Young [=MacPherson=]). An alternate present where Pete was never born ''also'' has the Warehouse reduced to a single team with a supervisor. This is especially weird as we are shown that [[TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness The Regents]] that is in charge of the Warehouse but never seem to do much number at least a dozen. This was justified the first time we see them in person; other than go to meetings for votes they have almost no involvement and make their living in other jobs. The idea is that they represent the population at large.

* The Skull Lords, of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', consist of twelve low-mid level undead, each one of which usually has about four or five low-level minions to their name. There are monsters introduced in the same book that could wipe out their entire organization singlehandedly.
* Space Marine chapters in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' famously number about 1000 each due to structural regulations put in place after the Horus Heresy. Some stories attempt to justify this by having them operate as strike teams while the Guard handles the stuff that needs more people, while others have one thousand guys [[EasilyConqueredWorld casually conquering a whole planet.]] This is especially prevalent with popular chapters like the Space Wolves or the Ultramarines, who show up to engagements across the galaxy far more often than you'd expect for a group that could fit onto a football field[[labelnote:note]] Though in the Space Wolves defense, they not-so-secretly operate beyond Codex parameters so their actual numbers might be a few hundred or thousand more. Still fairly small when taken on a planetary or galactic scale[[/labelnote]].

** The eponymous ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia Order of Ecclesia]]'', like "With Light" above, seems to consist of only three people: protagonist Shanoa, [[TheLancer Lancer]] / [[TheRival Rival]] [[KnightTemplarBigBrother Albus]](who goes rogue at the start of the game), and founder Barlowe. This seems bizarre when the latter says things like "It is the desire of the Order of Ecclesia" or describes what the Order of Ecclesia is supposed to do. [[spoiler: [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Shanoa laments she's all that remains of it after Albus and Barlowe's deaths.]]

** Organization XIII could very well be an aversion, as the number of members are explicitly stated (not counting Xion, who is not an official member). What makes the Organization unusual is that they count as an example of this trope ''despite'' having an army of Nobodies at their beck and call. This gets JustForFun/{{egregious}} in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2 358/2 Days]]'' in which the other Nobodies don't even appear except as enemies and some members worry about a loss of manpower from losing just 5 guys. What's more, it's made clear in ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance Dream Drop Distance]]'' that the number of members was quite deliberate, and not just in a ThirteenIsUnlucky sort of way.

* Near the end of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', EDI implies that Cerberus is something like this, with a paltry 150 or so officers across a galaxy in which [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale the writers generally]] ''[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale do]]'' [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale have a sense of scale]]. [[spoiler: The Paragon ending implies that you just took a good chunk of those officers off as your own crew.]]

** In the game itself [[spoiler: most of Cerberus' new troops are indoctrinated human refugees, many of them having been taken against their will and implanted with Reaper tech, essentially turning them into lightweight husks [[FacelessGoons disguised]] with PoweredArmor]].

* [[spoiler:The Patriots]] of the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' 'verse were originally Six {{Fallen Hero}}es plus a few hundred to several thousands of clueless mooks, who have not the slightest idea who they are really working for. Then they have [[spoiler:a collection of artificial intelligences]] set up by those fallen heroes and left to run the country. The 4th game reveals the identities of those ex-heroes, and knowing who they are you see, even by the start of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' (and bear in mind we don't even learn about them until ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty''), [[spoiler: two of the members were already dead (including the first hostage you fail to rescue), the leader was basically retired all along (and is a vegetable by the time Solid Snake meets him) and the other three had gone their own way and turned against the group. Of the two that were dead, one of the latter actually murdered him]]. The "new" [[spoiler: Patriots]] avert this trope since, thanks to their enormous influence, [[IAmTheNoun they equate themselves with the entire country and are even compared to the prevailing global system]].

* Anytime Raiden organizes a group of Earthrealm warriors in ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' to oppose the forces of the Outworld, they tend to be small, and indeed, his efforts ended in failure in both ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance Deadly Alliance]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]''. In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', you could technically say he was successful (better than the alternative, at least; he saved the world and slew Shao Kahn - probably - despite horrible casualties for his side) but again, his group was a small one, starting with only seven (himself, Sonya, Johnny Cage, Jax, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao), the number later growing to thirteen as Kitana and Jade defect to his side and Smoke, Stryker, Nightwolf, and Kabal join his cause later.

** Team Yell in ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' are an even smaller organization--they consist of no more than a dozen hoodlums based in Spikemuth and as few as six or seven grunts roaming around Galar. There are also no admins whatsoever, with just the grunts and their leader [[spoiler: Piers]], who shows no signs of even being aware of what his organization is doing. Justified, though, as Team Yell's purpose is simply to let Marnie pass ahead of the other Gym Challengers by slowing the others down--they only need to locate bottlenecks where the furthest challengers are and [[NPCRoadblock get in their way]], which doesn't require many people as long as they're good enough at what they do. Averted with the larger-scope villainous organization [[spoiler: Macro Cosmos, which controls most of the industries in the Galar region: It DOES have an admin system and contains a seemingly endless supply of grunts]].
* Oros Phlox, the main villains in ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'', only consists of three members. Due Frabellum is the leader, but it later turns out that Due as well as the Belanos brothers answer to [[spoiler: [[BigBad Meden Traore]]]], the fourth member and true leader of Oros Phlox.

* Havoc Squad from ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic''. The Elite of The Elite, the best Republic Special Forces has to offer, known and respected by both the Republic and the Empire, and consists of just two guys (Player included) by the time everything on Ord Mantell is wrapped up. Justified as [[spoiler: all the rest of squad pulled a Face-HeelTurn to the Empire]] and getting Havoc back to being a proper squad is a recurring secondary objective throughout the Republic Trooper storyline.

* In ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'', the Ruinbringers consist of only three people- Susukichi, Tsugumi and their unseen leader [[spoiler:Game Master Shiba]]- but win the games every time, despite the fact that even the Wicked Twisters(the party) is larger than they are from the end of the game's first day.

* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' gave this impression, as despite being a global organisation funded by every country in the world, they only had enough resources to send 4 to 6 soldiers to a mission at any one time. If two or more events happened simultaneously, they could only respond to one, and the other regions affected were left with no defence at all, making them very angry and liable to cut off funding.

* The VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}} are supposed to be the last line of defense against the [[AlienInvasion alien threat]]. However, the force commands 20 - 30 troops at best (not counting fighter pilots, engineers, scientists, and such). There are various explanations of this situation, mostly revolving around some sort of political plot.

** Also in ''3'', the Hamazaki family's small size is a plot point. Kashiwagi mentions that a family with the kind of reach and wealth the Hamazaki family has should have at least a couple hundred soldiers, but the Hamazaki family only has ''ten'' "made" members. [[spoiler: This is because Hamazaki is using the [[RuthlessForeignGangsters Snake Flower Triad]] as his muscle, and is one of the first indications that Hamazaki is less than loyal.]]

* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' plays this for humor fairly often, as most any organization will be comprised of [[EconomyCast the standard cast]]. "more armies" is a good showcase of this - the On Point Kings are just Strong Bad, the Cheat, and Strong Mad, the Homestarmy is Homestar, formerly Homsar and Strong Sad, and a handful of inanimate objects ([[CompanionCube one of which "perished" in battle]]), and the Municipality under the King of Town seems to consist entirely of the Poopsmith. All three still consider themselves big enough to get booths at the Vaguely Military Career Fair, though given the vagueness of how many people live or work in Free Country, USA, it's hard to imagine what this means.

* SOMOS in Webcomic/SupernaturalInvestigationDepartment consists of about 5 or 6 people. This is a terrorist organization that has caused trouble in multiple countries.

* The Legion Ex Machina in ''WesternAnimation/BigGuyAndRustyTheBoyRobot''. Not only are they a prominent and credible threat with vast technological resources, [[spoiler: (having an abandoned factory as a base certainly helps)]] but they are {{nebulous|EvilOrganisation}}, as well. Despite being made of only 6 members.

* The 80's animated show ''[[WesternAnimation/COPS1988 C.O.P.S.]]'' had about 7-8 police officers and roughly the same number of members in the mob.

** Most of the organizations qualify. The megacorp Momcorp and all its subsidiaries seem to be staffed entirely by Mom and her three sons (though Dr. Farnsworth worked there before). During the film "Into Wild Green Yonder," the Wongs, who are building a mini-golf course the size of an entire arm of the galaxy, have 4 construction workers on staff, and one security guy - Fry. The New New York Police seems to have two cops on staff, with the chief introduced in one of the movies. Similarly, the League of Robots is composed of 4 robots (and Bender) who all happen to be particularly affluent 'bots (Hedonism bot, that Rich banker, a soap opera star, and an [[ProfessionalWrestling Ultimate Robot Fighter]])

* [[UsefulNotes/TheGestapo The Geheime Staatspolizei/Ge'-Stapo']] (State Secret Police) branch of the Schutzstaffel/SS (Protection Service) never had more than a hundred people operating in even the largest cities under Wehrmacht military administration (e.g. Paris, Brussels) or German State Administration (Amsterdam, Warsaw). This included the secretaries and the number was usually much lower. The organisation's effectiveness was entirely dependent upon the local cooperation of its rivals - the Sicherheitsdienst/SD (Security Service) branch of the SS, the Ordnungspolizei/Or'-Po' (Order Police) which were affiliated with the SS, and the local police force of the area in question. In Warsaw the Gestapo was utterly beleaguered due to a rocky relationship with the SD and Or'po', the incredibly begrudging cooperation it got from the Polish police, and general stonewalling by the population at large. In Amsterdam, on the other hand, the German Civil Administration managed to secure direct control over the Dutch Police and the SD and Gestapo forged a working partnership to police a relatively compliant populace and so produced Germany's most effective counter-intelligence work of the entire war. This unusual effectiveness notably caused the failure of the UK's late 1944 ''Market Garden'' surprise offensive operation to take the Netherlands.

* During Prohibition, the Volstead Act (the act that made the production and transportation of liquor illegal) was enforced by the aptly named Bureau of Prohibition. Or at least, it was ''supposed'' to, on paper. The agency as a whole had only 1,500 agents ''nationwide'', which per 1920 census totals was a ratio of 1 agent per every 70,000 people.

* People tend to think of Creator/SteveJacksonGames (the makers of ''TabletopGame/InNomine'', ''TabletopGame/{{Toon}}'', ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'') as a moderately powerful force in the gaming industry. Their total staff is less than twenty people at any one time with most work being contracted with freelancers. Most game companies are ''even smaller.''

** Al Qaeda never had much more than 3,000 members, and only around forty guys were involved in planning and executing the 9/11 attacks. Today, Al-Qaeda proper consists of 300-500 guys holed up somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan.

** Despite its notoriety, the Symbionese Liberation Army, best known for kidnapping and allegedly brainwashing Patty Hearst, never had more than sixteen known members at one time.

** Mojang AB[[note]]Formerly Mojang Specifications[[/note]], which is known for developing ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''[[note]]which is, itself, currently being developed by 4.5 people[[/note]] and ''VideoGame/CallersBane'' (formerly ''Scrolls''), currently consists of 40 people[[note]]the majority of which just work on the business end of things, until recently when Microsoft purchased the whole company from Notch for $2.5 billion[[/note]], but was, initially, run by just 1 person: Markus "Notch" Persson.
** Carpe Fulgur, the 2-man localization team that brought ''[[VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale Recettear]]'' out of Japan.

* The Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery, the SecretPolice of [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia the Russian Empire]] from 1825 to 1880, only ever had between 16 and 40 full-time agents to conduct investigations and a few hundred gendarmes to carry out arrests and other dirty business. Note that even in 1825, the Russian Empire had a population of over 40 million and covered an area the size of...[[ShapedLikeItself well...]]UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}, stretching almost literally halfway around the world from Poland to Alaska. Even European Russia dwarfed the largest European states in both population and land area (to give you an idea, in the 1870s, European Russia alone had 3-4 ''times'' the land area of Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary ''combined''). It should thus come as no surprise that when the Imperial government decided to replace the Third Section with the Okhrana, they also decided the new agency needed to be much better-staffed.

** Zigzagged in the final arc with Yhwach and the Wandenreich. His main army, the Sternritter [[note]]German for "star knights"[[/note]], consists of twenty-six members, one for each letter of the alphabet. This may seem small, but it actually outnumbers the thirteen Captains of Soul Society...and then we see that he seemingly also has countless Soldat[[note]]German for "soldiers"[[/note]] at his disposal at least to match the number of rank and file Soul Reapers, though very few of said Soldat actually appear, and only in situations where the main army's members are not present. Not that this inconveniences Yhwach by much, though: not only are his Sternritter very powerful, Yhwach himself is also far stronger than any previously introduced antagonist, plus he has the excuse that the more he spreads his power around, the weaker he personally is, so having fewer fighters works for him.

* In the Sci-Fi Channel's ''Series/TheInvisibleMan'', the protagonist works for a [[GovernmentAgencyOfFiction secret government agency]] that seems to consist of nothing more than DaChief, his assistant, the HotScientist, and two (three in the second season) field agents. Lampshaded as it's apparently small enough to be passed around to become a branch of various departments of TheGovernment. But then, The Agency is more just Darian and his handlers, and a running theme is that those in charge keep individuals in the dark to an unreasonable degree.

* Some of the most popular websites in the world, like Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}, are staffed by fewer than 100 people.[[note]]Although, for wikis like Wikipedia, that's because almost all of the work is done by the (vastly-larger) community of volunteer editors, with the paid staff just keeping the servers up and running and providing a point of contact for legal purposes.[[/note]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' the main group of Gargoyles consists of Goliath, Hudson, Brooklyn, Lexington, Bronx, Broadway, and Demona. They are the only Gargoyles that are formally introduced in the beginning and the rest are only briefly seen (for 1-2 seconds mind you) before they are killed and the main group becomes the [[LastOfHisKind last of their kind]]….which is kind of downplayed cause you haven't grown familiar with any other Gargoyles. From that point on, of course, the trope no longer applies. There is nothing "odd" about being a small organization when the rest of the organization has been dead for a thousand years.

* From ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'', the New Squidbeak Splatoon is a militia dedicated to taking down the unscrupulous attacks of the Inkling's sworn enemies, the Octarians. It consists of one old guy, his two granddaughters, one weapon shop owner and, by the second game, two blokes who stumbled upon them out of curiosity and one who took a wrong turn when defecting from the enemy side. It's a toss-up if the low numbers are due to Cap'n Cuttlefish intentionally keeping it on the down low to avoid raising a panic or if the Inkling's hedonistic lifestyle means they're simply clueless as to what the Octarians have been up to since the GreatOffscreenWar.

* ''Literature/SpaceAcademyDropouts'': {{Justified}} in ''Space Academy Washouts'' with Dark Matter [[spoiler: that actually just consists of Alexandra Ares as well as her immediate subordinates. This is because she's an AI and the manipulation of everything from the stock market to politics can be done instantaneously.]]

** While some franchise entries like {{Anime/The Castle of Cagliostro}} show Zenigata leading a squad of police, more often he's working the Lupin case alone or with whatever cooperation he's able to wrangle out of local law enforcement. One wonders if the real reason he can't catch Lupin is that it's one against four.

* ''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace'': the entire alien fleet? Three aliens ships with, seemingly, three or four aliens inside. And the eponymous plan only succeeds in creating a mere ''three'' zombies.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': The show is guilty of this with TheCartel. While never named, its geographic reach and status as a dominant force in the Mexican-American narco economy (several episodes state that its revenues are in the billions) heavily imply that it's supposed to be the Juarez Cartel, which has tens of thousands of members in total and at least hundreds in every major branch. Yet in this series you seldom see more than half a dozen members in one place. For a specific example: Tuco is stated to be the leader of the Albuquerque branch. It consists of Tuco, [[ThoseTwoBadGuys No-Doze, Gonzo,]] and a handful of mostly off-screen street-level dealers that he collects fees from (of which we only ever see two ''former'' members, Krazy-8 and Emilio). Other members of his group are only implied to exist by a single line from Hank where he says "our raid netted a bunch of [Tuco]'s lieutenants." ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' shows that his cell used to have more manpower that got attrited in that series, but it was still always pretty small.

* Both the Power Rangers and the villains suffer from this in ''Series/PowerRangersTakeFlight''. The Rangers are largely on their own until the US government begins backing them midway through (a change from ''Series/ChoujinSentaiJetman'', in which it was just the five Rangers and their commander after the Earth Ship's destruction in the first episode). For the villains, it's mostly just Trask and Dillik, and later Mainframe; Magda doesn't stick around long enough and Sasha becomes a WildCard who often works with the other two but doesn't care for them at all.

* From ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'', the New Squidbeak Splatoon is a militia dedicated to taking down the unscrupulous attacks of the Inkling's sworn enemies, the Octarians. It consists of one old guy, his two granddaughters, one weapon shop owner and, by the second game, two blokes who stumbled upon them out of curiosity. It's a toss-up if the low numbers are due to Cap'n Cuttlefish intentionally keeping it on the down low to avoid raising a panic or if the Inkling's hedonistic lifestyle means they're simply clueless as to what the Octarians have been up to since the GreatOffscreenWar.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': The show is guilty of this with TheCartel. While never named, its geographic reach and status as a dominant force in the Mexican-American narco economy heavily imply that it's supposed to be the Juarez Cartel, which has tens of thousands of members in total and at least hundreds in every major branch. Yet in this series you seldom see more than half a dozen members in one place. For a specific example: Tuco is stated to be the leader of the Albuquerque branch. It consists of Tuco, [[ThoseTwoBadGuys No-Doze, Gonzo,]] and a handful of mostly off-screen street-level dealers that he collects fees from (of which we only ever see two ''former'' members, Krazy-8 and Emilio). Other members of his group are only implied to exist by a single line from Hank where he says "our raid netted a bunch of [Tuco]'s lieutenants." ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' shows that his cell used to have more manpower that got attrited in that series, but it was still always pretty small.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': The show is guilty of this with TheCartel. While never named, its geographic reach and status as a dominant force in the Mexican-American narco economy heavily imply that it's supposed to be the Juarez Cartel, which has tons of thousands of members and at least hundreds in every major branch. Yet in this series you seldom see more than half a dozen members in one place. For a specific example: Tuco is stated to be the leader of the Albuquerque branch. It consists of Tuco, [[ThoseTwoBadGuys No-Doze, Gonzo,]] and a handful of mostly off-screen street-level dealers that he collects fees from (of which we only ever see two ''former'' members, Krazy-8 and Emilio). Other members of his group are only implied to exist by a single line from Hank where he says "our raid netted a bunch of [Tuco]'s lieutenants." ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' shows that his cell used to have more manpower that got attrited in that series, but it was still always pretty small.

*** It's easier to just list the government jobs Shawn Ogg doesn't perform: king, queen, falconer, beekeeper, and (possibly) palace cook.