It's a rare moment in American pop culture: Comedians and talk-show hosts are getting more fodder out of accountants than traditional targets like lawyers and politicians.

On Wall Street, things are a bit grimmer. The past year's two big corporate scandals -- the downfalls of Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. -- along with the seemingly endless parade of comparatively small corporate blowups (Global Crossing Holdings Ltd.'s bankruptcy, KPNQwest NV's shutdown, the seemingly imminent convictions of former top executives at Tyco International Ltd., Adelphia Communications Corp. and ImClone Systems Inc., and so on) have left the stock market in freefall and a significant swath of the business world suffering collateral damage.

And on the streets, the mood is turning nasty. Literally.

At the most recent court appearance of two WorldCom executives now charged with numerous fraudulent acts, I was waiting outside the courthouse with the usual mob of reporters and photographers, prepared to pounce on former WorldCom financial chief Scott Sullivan to record the details of his post- indictment departure. A passer-by stopped to inquire about the crowd. When I explained what we were waiting for, he joined the throng.

"This I gotta see. This is history in the making. When was the last time they actually threw one of these white-collar bastards in jail?" he remarked.

New York magazine is offering odds on that now, actually: A recent article handicapped the chances of several accused executive scofflaws of serving time. (Odds on Sullivan: 3-2. Odds on domestic doyenne and suspected inside-trader Martha Stewart: 15-1.)

The usually breezy city chronicle of gossip and conspicuous consumption has had to adjust its formula a bit to reflect its readership's changing concerns. Last month, it offered a detailed guide on what to expect while staying at "Club Fed", a federal prison for white-collar workers. A week later, the New York Times checked in with its own take on the subject. Treat it as a sabbatical, recommended one former inmate: "Or look on it as a monastery, though without the Gregorian chants."

If action follows public sentiment, dozens of executives will soon be embarking on enforced sabbaticals. Or, at minimum, paying hefty fines to refund some of their allegedly ill-gotten gains. Class-action suits are flying, not only against firms with "accounting irregularities" but also aimed at the analysts who touted them. The National Association of Securities Dealers is readying charges against former telecommunication stocks enthusiast Jack Grubman, while New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer sharpens his subpoenas for a case against Grubman's former employer, Salomon Smith Barney Inc.

August was a relatively quiet month on the corporate-scandals front -- even the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's deadline for top corporate officers to personally swear to the accuracy of their companies' books passed with little incident -- but fresh shockwaves could be on the way. Several tech companies remain under active investigation by federal regulators, including AOL Time Warner Inc. and Computer Associates International Inc.

I had never been to Manhattan's federal courthouse until August, when I went to cover the arraignment of a pair of WorldCom officials. As I joined the queue waiting to pass through the entrance security checkpoint and metal detector, I asked a guard for directions around the building. I hadn't been inside before, I said, explaining that I usually cover tech and business issues, not legal ones.

"Business reporter, eh?," he commented. "We'll be seeing a lot of you in the future, then."