It should not come as any surprise that television used confrontation and humiliation for entertainment as it matched entrepreneur and investor.
But in reality, cash-laden business angels were a lot more sympathetic and contemplative of the investment opportunity before them.
However, a University of Strathclyde professor of entrepreneurship, Colin Mason, said the current credit crunch meant business angels were filling a vacuum left by risk-adverse banks.
Business angels were part of the business landscape throughout much of the world, and typically were high net worth individuals who invested their own money and expertise in companies in the hope of financial gain, but also the challenge of growing a business.
Typically, business angels were successful businessmen aged 46 to 65 who invested in early stage ventures - someone with a good idea but no customers and a production system that needed further development.
But now, as banks had tightened their lending criteria and venture capital funds were also more conservative, Prof Mason said businesses that were more established were seeking investment from business angels.
He said recessions created more investment opportunities, as people who had lost jobs took the opportunity to "challenge their inertia".
"Losing your job is a pretty good way to loosening your inertia."
Prof Mason is from the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde and, in his academic career, has co-authored five books or research monographs, co-edited 11 books and published more than 140 journal articles and book chapters, papers and conference proceedings.
His research specialty has been entrepreneurship and venture capital in the context of regional development.
Prof Mason has been the William Evans Visiting Fellow at the University of Otago.
He said that while the recession would encourage tighter rules for banks and finance companies, he hoped they would not be too stringent or it could stifle enterprise, such as the growth of budget airlines, which was the result of government deregulation.
But he believed there was a role for governments to look more closely at filling the investment void left by banks and which was now increasingly falling on the shoulders of business angels.
Governments could encourage more investment by business angels, leverage their investment, provide some form of bank finance guarantee or assist with early-stage proof of product concept.
Prof Mason said start-up companies usually relied on funding from friends, family, the founder and business angels before getting to a size where they could get bank funding for trading and then bank loans to buy assets before being largely self financing.
Prof Mason said business angels liked to see frugality in the entrepreneur and the first question they would ask was what the money was for.
The angel also needed to know something about the business or market so they could evaluate the business and how they could add value.
They would want the venture to be niche rather than going head to head with large, established companies.
"Business angels are not into investing in me-too products."
Prof Mason said angels were investing in people and entrepreneurs and they wanted investment where people were receptive to their advice.
Although there needed to be chemistry between the partners, the investment should also provide a financial return and an exit strategy for the angel.
"Any sense the entrepreneur wanted the money and not their advice, that's a no-no."
A United States friend told him a business angel and entrepreneur needed to be able to spend a wet weekend in Toledo (a United States city) together, Prof Mason said.
Out of 100 potential investments, a business angel would initially discard 90, another seven after closer scrutiny and out of the remaining three seriously consider two.
Meanwhile, Business Mentors New Zealand has reported a 33% increase in requests for assistance from small businesses in the the past four months.
"Since December, we've also noticed that a lot more of these businesses are in crisis situations, requiring urgent assistance in areas like improving financial management, cash flow and debt collection as well as enhancing sales and marketing strategies to achieve better cost-benefit results," said the chief executive of Business Mentors New Zealand, Ray Schofield.
