History Main / HollywoodDensity

** In "Deep Freeze", Mr. Freeze zaps Grant Walker with his FreezeRay and traps him in ice. Walker falls into the ocean and sinks like a stone, even though ice floats.

* Depleted uranium metal has density 19.1, very nearly the same as gold and much denser than lead. It is used for ballast weights in some aviation and nautical applications where lead weights would be inconveniently large.
* Anyone who ever found some iron pyrite, picked it up easily, and still thought it was gold instead of fool's gold has fallen victim to this trope.[[note]]The specific gravity of pyrite is about 5; the specific gravity of gold is 19.3. This means that a chunk of gold weighs about four times more than a chunk of pyrite the same size.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Tibia}}'' treats gold as a stackable (up to 100 per slot) object. 100 of them equal a platinum coin and 100 of those equals a Crystal coin.

* Plutonium in ''Film/TheExpendables2'' is contained in sealed containers that are easily carried by hand. Said containers are generally made of lead-lined steel and would weigh in at twenty kilos while plutonium itself is slightly denser than gold (and thus significantly denser than lead), and would be a challenge to carry at best.

* ''Literature/{{Discord}}'': In ''Literature/TheTruth'', Lord Vetinari is accused of trying to abscond with a large amount of gold supposedly stolen from the city's treasury. Commander Vimes and William de Worde both realise the story can't be true after they calculate how much that amount of money would actually weigh.

* In ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'', James Bond releases himself from a handcuff by using two gold bars as makeshift hammers. He later throws a bar through a respectable distance, hitting [[TheDragon Oddjob]] with it, but not doing any damage since the henchman is MadeOfIron. However, the film does acknowledge how heavy gold is in another scene where Bond deduces Goldfinger's real plan.

*** There's a bracelet of the same material. Which is carried ''by a child'' most of the picture. Early in the film, when lugging around the bracelet in a box, he comments it weighs a lot.

* ''[[Film/NationalTreasure National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets]]'': In the City of Gold, Riley handles a gold brick that should weigh about 150 pounds, as if it were some kind of lightweight prop.
* The movie ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'' has one of the characters (a ten year old boy) effortlessly carry and run with a solid gold tablet. He should not have been able to even pick it up. It's even worse in the sequel, with the characters waving the supposedly solid gold tablet around as if it were a clipboard.

* ''Film/OceansEight'' revolves around the plan to steal a necklace called "The Toussaint", which is explicitly said to contain so many diamonds it weighs 6 lbs (around 2.7 kilograms). But you wouldn't know it from the way most characters handle it on screen. Particularly egregious is the fact that [[spoiler:a busboy doesn't notice when 6 lbs of diamonds are casually dropped on his tray as part of the heist.]]
* A solid gold object the size of the idol at the start of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' would weigh at least fifty pounds, far more than Indy's small bag of sand. When Indy looks at it, he actually removes sand from the bag to approximate its weight and later events even suggest that he guessed too low. While it's never explicitly stated that the idol is ''solid'' gold, even a hollow gold object that size would be much too heavy to be toted around as easily as it is.

* In the first ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' book, Lyra escapes her captors by shaking out a bag of flour, running out of the room, and then waiting for the flour to explode. First, a large bag of flour would be too heavy for someone Lyra's size handle in that manner. Second, individual grains of flour are too heavy to drift in the air for that long a time.

* Plutonium in ''Film/TheExpendables2'' is contained in sealed containers that are easily carried by hand. Said containers are generally made of lead-lined steel and would weigh in at twenty kilos, and would be a challenge to carry at best.

* There is a story about an 18th-century nobleman trying to pick up a platinum ingot about 10 cm across. He then complained gluing the metal to the table wasn't funny.

* In ''Manga/TomoChanIsAGirl'', Carol gives Tomo three gold bars as a birthday present. They're smaller than the usual house brick-sized bars you see in fiction (small enough that she can carry all three bundled in a handkerchief like a ''bento'' box), but she's still a fairly ordinary high schooler and she still carries the bundle in one hand. Amusingly, the weight issue is brought up when Carol mistakes Tomo's shock for disappointment and explains that she went with smaller bars because bigger ones would weigh too much.

** In the ''Film/AntMan'' series, the Pym Particles are supposed to work by reducing the distance between atoms, causing objects and creatures to shrink down in size while retaining their mass. This stated mechanic is almost never applied, as characters repeatedly carry around vehicles and even buildings that have been shrunk down as though they weigh as much as their size would imply, even though they should have remained as heavy as an actual car/house/etc.

* The story ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} and the Cauldron'', Asterix is given charge of a small cauldron that is filled to the brim with silver coins. Given the density of silver, the cauldron should weigh more than Asterix does. Despite that, he is able to carry the full cauldron without the aid of the magic potion. When the cauldron and its contents fall off a cliff and lands on Captain Redbeard, the captain is somehow uninjured.
* {{Subverted}} with one LampshadeHanging in ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'': gold and other metals weigh as they should (in fact in one occasion a weight Diabolik used to break a bulletproof glass was a steel sphere filled with ''mercury''), with an early story having a foundry worker surprised by [[ItMakesSenseInContext the small size of the one-tonne gold ingots he was making]] and his co-worker pointing out that gold weighs a lot.
* Doll Man, in DC's relaunched Doll Man and Phantom Lady miniseries, became tiny, because his density was increased, while keeping his mass the same -- thus making the fact that he can throw punches that full-sized people can actually feel plausible. Awesome, makes perfect sense. They also have scenes of Phantom Lady holding him in her hand, or on her shoulder. So the issue of his mass is ignored during those instances.
* ''Little Lotta'' would often have Lotta's weight fluctuate depending on RuleOfFunny. According to one cover gag, a camel is unable to support her weight, but full-grown camels can carry up to 990 lbs, and she looks like she could be no heavier than 300 lbs.

* In a ''ComicBook/SecretWarsII'' tie-in issue of ''Power Man and Iron Fist'' the Beyonder turns a skyscraper (made of steel, concrete, glass, etc) into solid gold (slightly denser than steel, much denser than the rest); it immediately collapses in on itself from the weight.
* The titular superhero of ''ComicBook/TheVision'' has the power to "control his density". This power is used often to become intangible, super-hard, and ''heavy.'' Changing density doesn't affect his volume, either. Presumably, the mass needed to increase or decrease his density comes/goes to another dimension; this is the standard {{handwave}} for all ShapeshifterBaggage and similar issues in the Marvel Universe.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'': Piotr Rasputin has an official weight of 114 kg, and a height of 198 cm. When transforming into his [[ChromeChampion metal form]], his height becomes 226 cm, while his weight doubles to 228 kg. Assuming these numbers are correct, refers to him turning into metal instead of just gaining a metal coating, his human density is roughly equal to 1 kg/l, his metal form would have a density of 1.35 kg/l, or about half the density of aluminum. The kicker? The metal he transforms into is explicitly compared to osmium, the element with the highest density (22.6 kg/l, or exactly twice as dense as lead). If his metal form actually was osmium, Colossus would weigh 3826 kg. At other times it has been referred to as "omnium", a fictional metal that has no specified properties other than being really strong. (A few comics have suggested that Colossus is all or partly ''hollow'' in metal form, but that just raises new questions.)

* Classic ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' rated HumongousMecha by their total mass. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the fluff assigned height and width values to several of the more iconic chassis that would leave them with a low enough density to float on water, such as the 100 tons, 18 meter Atlas.
** This gets hilarious when various 'Mechs are depicted with other units or infantry for scale. For instance, the relatively diminutive Wasp is twenty tons and explicitly stated as six meters tall in one book, while the aforementioned Atlas is described as sixteen meters tall and one hundred tons. If both were scaled to similar heights, the Wasp would be over 3.75 times denser than the Atlas.

* Invoked in ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'s Siege'' by Bernard Cornwell -- Sharpe and his Confederates are accused of stealing the Imperial Treasury of France (they didn't). [[TheLancer Captain]] [[TheCaptain Frederickson]] points out that the court is accusing them of removing four tons of gold, in small wooden boats, whilst under enemy fire. However, this defense doesn't work, because of the [[MilesGloriosus arrogant]], [[UpperClassTwit aristocratic]], [[GeneralFailure incompetent]], [[GungHolierThanThou pretentious]] and [[BlueBlood snobbish Colonel Wigram]] presiding over the [[KangarooCourt kangaroo court martial]].

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/TheTruth'', Lord Vetinari is accused of trying to abscond with a large amount of gold supposedly stolen from the city's treasury. Commander Vimes and William de Worde both realise the story can't be true after they calculate how much that amount of money would actually weigh.

* In the first ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' book, Lyra escapes her captors by shaking out a bag of flour, running out of the room, and then waiting for the flour to explode. First, a large bag of flour would be too heavy for someone Lyra's size handle in that manner. Second, individual grains of flour are too heavy to drift in the air for that long a time.
* ''Literature/{{Biggles}}'': WE Johns fell into this trap in the novel ''Biggles and Co'', when a recently-demobbed Biggles was hired by a major bank who've been hit by a string of {{Armed Blag}}s and think air-freighting their gold bullion might help. It doesn't; the gang responsible get hold of a small stunt-plane and a few machine guns and turn SkyPirate... but Biggles put the real gold under a false floor in the aircraft's cargo hold, and the robbers drive off in triumphant possession of a large quantity of lead. Now, the author makes an effort at a HandWave by never quite specifying how much gold is being transported, stating only that the individual crates can be lifted comfortably by two men. But nevertheless, carrying a significant amount of gold ''and'' an equivalent number of crates full of lead would be an impressive feat indeed for the cutting edge of 1920s aerospace engineering!

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "The Jewel Robbery", Miss Brooks wrongly assumes Mr. Boynton robbed ''Frank's Jewelry Store'' and put the stolen jewels in a suitcase. What really is in the suitcase is Mr. Boynton's laundry, including his long-underwear. Miss Brooks fails to notice the suitcase is too light to have jewels when she has a student switch it with an identical suitcase owned by the cafeteria dishwasher. The dishwasher is the actual thief, and has the jewels stashed there! As it turned out, although Miss Brooks does not notice, Mr. Boynton immediately discovers the switch.

* At the other end of the scale, one episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' has the team investigating a casino heist, supposedly of ten million dollars in cash. Grissom realizes the money would weigh around two hundred pounds -- far too much for one man (seen in security footage) to practically carry. (It isn't stated, but it would also be unfeasibly bulky). The 200 pounds (actually closer to 220) presumes it's all in $100 banknotes. A more normal mix of currency would about double this. A million US dollars in mixed currency fills a large suitcase, and one would probably have to pay overweight charges to fly with it. $250,000 (in $100 bills) fits carefully into an DiabolicalMastermind-style aluminum attache case. Note, however, that having it all in $100s is not actually an unreasonable assumption for a casino heist, as the casino presumably sorts the cash, and a smart thief with limited resources would probably want to take his/her whole heist in the form of $100s if possible.
* In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', a character uses alchemy to create a big lump of solid gold, which the characters lift and carry as easily as if it was polystyrene.
* A DVD commentary on ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' pointed out this trope to highlight actors John Schnieder's acting abilities. In a scene where Jonathan Kent and [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] are moving bales of hay, Jonathan is visibly having a hard time carrying the prop hay. The production staff had forgotten real hay bales do weigh a lot and Schnieder, who had had some farm experience, decided to portray this right. The actor playing Clark Kent had no such experience, but given [[SuperStrength who he is]], it actually helped to make the two characters believable.

* Played with in [[Recap/SharpeS1E1SharpesRifles the first episode]] of ''Series/{{Sharpe}}''. Sharpe is assigned to escort a party carrying a box that, to allay suspicion, they claim is full of old papers and documents. However, they lift the box around with ease invoking this trope. After Sharpe (and the audience) have accepted that, Harper conversationally points out that they are being hoodwinked because paper weighs ''a lot'' and whatever the box contains is very light. [[spoiler:It is actually a flag that is a cultural treasure and propaganda rallying point]].
* In the [[MemeticMutation infamous]] "What's heavier?" sketch from ''Series/LimmysShow'', Limmy is [[EntertaininglyWrong humorously incapable]] of comprehending that a kilogram of steel would weigh the same as a kilogram of feathers -- even when other characters bring out a kilogram of both and put them on a scale -- because "Steel is heavier than feathers."
-->'''Limmy:''' [''pointing at feathers''] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Look at the size of this, that's cheating]]!
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" plays this straight when some gangsters steal a truck full of gold and hide out in a cave where they hibernate for many years. When they wake up, they crash the truck trying to get back to town, and hike back to town instead, carrying backpacks full of dozens of gold ingots each. Later on, one man drops his canteen and the other offers him a drink for a bar of gold -- he eventually ends up with both their shares of gold on his back, but doesn't even slow down.

* In ''Series/WhiteCollar'', a briefcase full of Krugerrands was quite easily passed around, while in reality that much gold would have weighed about a hundred pounds.

* The trope appears at the end of a ''Series/SesameStreet'' Muppet and Kid Moment, in which Ernie and Bert teach Shola Lynch about the relative sizes of balls. After showing her a basketball and two smaller balls, Ernie shows Shola a ball bearing (she calls it a "baby ball"). Ernie then throws the ball bearing to Bert, but it flies off-screen, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

* In ''Series/BabylonBerlin'', the revelation that [[spoiler:the Sorokins' stash of gold was melted down and cast into a boiler car on a train]] makes little sense when you realize that [[spoiler:not only would it be much, much heavier than the rest of the cars (and thus more noticeable), but it would also be almost totally structurally unsound.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The living spaceship in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E3TheClawsOfAxos "The Claws of Axos"]] retains the same volume but has "variable mass", which the Doctor blandly remarks is "interesting".
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate "Warriors' Gate"]], the hull of Rorvik's ship is made of dwarf star alloy, analogous to neutronium, so it should fall under the teaspoon-weighs-a-ton category. Romana and Adric heft it about [[StyrofoamRocks exactly as if it were made of Styrofoam]].
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon "Kill The Moon"]] Clara protests that if the Moon were to shatter the fragments wouldn't do any harm because it's made of eggshell, not rock. The density of eggshell isn't that different from limestone, so a sufficiently big chunk of it would be just as devastating.
* ''Series/NineOneOneLoneStar'' lampshades this when Judd explains the physics of a corn silo to the rest of the team. Corn in a silo is loose enough that a person can sink in it as if it was quicksand. However, it is also quite dense and a few cubic meters of corn surrounding the victim will exert a lot of pressure on the trapped person. If the firefighers just try to pull the victim straight out, they risk ripping his body in half.

* The info in the Pokédex in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' frequently applies this to living things, giving weights that are often ridiculously heavy or light: Wailord is 14.5 m long, yet only weighs about 400 kg.
** Apparently some Pokémon are ''less dense than hydrogen.''
** The whale family is at least called "float whale Pokémon," as Wailord is likely based on a blimp and its original form, Wailmer, seems to be based on a beach ball. However, how they manage to dive is the real question.
** Also, sometimes in the anime, people are shown carrying Pokémon whose Pokédex entry gives them a considerable weight with more ease than the average parent holding a baby for extended periods. Ash's Larvitar is probably the most infamous example since the average Larvitar weighs 158.7 lbs (72.0 kg, i.e. something you would expect from an average adult), but because it's only 2 feet tall (just slightly more than a newborn baby), the animators assumed 10-year old Ash Ketchum would have no problem carrying it around.
** This is one of the reasons for the {{Fanon}} theory that the ten-year-old player character in the games is the one writing the Pokédex entries. He/she is just making up numbers that sound right to them and wildly over/underestimating everything in the process.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tibia}}'' treats gold as a stackable (up to 100 per slot) object. 100 of them equal a platinum coin and 100 of those equals a Crystal coin.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'''s backpack inventory system lets Big Boss carry an RPG, two rifles, and an assortment of pistol sized weapons, along with medical supplies, rations, and any critter you caught, without getting weighed down. They only become weighty when equipped on his person.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', with the Attache case. Never mind an RPG weighs a lot, or that a fully loaded case would probably be too heavy to lift. And how does the Merchant hide that in his coat?
* In ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}} '', although gold is a very dense material, the player character can carry a cubic meter just as easily as a cubic meter of wood.

* ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' assigned weight to coins, as well as having money come in different denominations (copper, silver, gold and platinum). Along with the way fall damage was calculated, it meant it was entirely possible to commit unintentional suicide by grabbing a couple thousand platinum from the bank -- and abruptly taking 20k damage from the "drop" when you stepped off the threshold of the bank's front door.
* ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery Adom]]'' assigns weight to gold pieces. It's quite possible to get crushed under the weight the gold you are carrying if your magic fails you. With normal in-game methods you can accumulate hundreds of kilos of gold. Abusing a bug you can get hundred thousand kilos.
* In ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'', Nate realizes the golden statue they're looking for was brought to the island when he looks at some old freight logs and notices something weighing "about 500 pounds". A cube of gold that weighed 500 pounds would have about 8.94 inches (22.7 cm) to a side. The statue they find looks like it should weigh several ''tons'' at least. But then, [[spoiler:the statue isn't solid]].

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' expansion ''The Pitt'' you are sent on a quest to collect 10 steel ingots out of a possible 100. Each steel ingot weighs 1 pound. If you collect them all before turning in the quest, [[AntiFrustrationFeatures their weight won't count against your carry limit]]. If you collect some, complete the quest, and then go back for the rest, the remaining ingots will each weigh their full amount.
* The first expansion for ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', ''Dead Money'', subverts this at the end when the player finds a vault with 37 gold bars. Each bar is worth 10,439 caps, a ridiculously large amount, but each bar also weighs 35 pounds. You're under a strict time limit to escape with whatever you can carry, and if you carry more than your encumbrance limit, you move far too slowly to make it out. If a player wanted to take all the bars —- a total of 382,913 caps, enough that you'd basically never need money again —- they would be carrying 1,295 pounds. The highest possible carry weight a player could have (i.e. max Strength and various Perks) is 375 pounds, so a player could only carry 10 of the bars at most without being over-encumbered, and they'd have to drop everything they were already carrying. To make this all sillier, no vendor in the game ever has more than 8,000 caps. It's impossible to sell even a single bar for its total value. Some have speculated that this is meant to tie into a theme of letting greed go, as the inability to even find enough caps in the whole wasteland to make gathering all those bars worth it kind of makes the bars...[[TitleDrop Dead Money]] (the natural progression is to take out some in trade, but even then it is difficult to find a vendor with that much to spare).
** It's entirely possible to leave the vault with every single bar through clever use of the game world, such as [[GoodBadBugs by loading the gold into a dead body, decapitating it and carrying the head manually]]. Even without exploits, it's possible to take a shortcut by sneaking past a very alert NPC, avoiding the timed-run and giving the player plenty of time to escape with all the bars, as the player character can still walk at a waddling pace even if they're carrying over half a ton of gold.
** ''New Vegas'' also features a [[DownplayedTrope whitewash]] with [[HarderThanHard "Hardcore Mode"]] -- where (among other things) ammo has weight. At first, it doesn't make much of a difference when individual bullets weigh 1/15 to 1/10 of a pound -- but when players start acquiring automatic weapons that eat bullets like candy, or come across rocket launchers whose individual rockets weigh two pounds apiece, it really starts to cut down on what you can carry compared to normal mode. (Though even in hardcore, there are many completely weightless items -- including gunpowder and shell casings.) This is made more annoying by many junk items used for crafting being exactly 1 pound, an apparent default value, even if it makes no sense. Somehow a scalpel, forceps, and a ''single tin can'' all weigh a whole pound each.
** Both ''Fallout 3'' and ''New Vegas'' have an ItemCrafting component called a fission battery. They're the size and shape of 9-volt batteries, yet weigh ''10 pounds'' in ''Fallout 3'' and 6 pounds in ''New Vegas''. A portable fission battery would be denser than a regular battery since nuclear fuel and shielding are both heavy, but a 10-pound object that size would be ten times the density of ''pure uranium.''
* Lampshaded in the ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' fan novel [[RPGEpisode "Witches and Woodlands."]] Those who wager their weight in gold in [[{{Greed}} Mammon's]] trial and lose are [[TakenForGranite turned into gold statues]] to pay the debt. George protests that the density of gold means that the statues would weigh more than the living victims. [[GameMaster Beatrice]] hastily handwaves it by saying that the statues are hollow before muttering, "Damn, I hate science! Always messing with my magic."
* ''VideoGame/Payday2'': characters can throw bags of gold effortlessly, making it faster to constantly throw a bag of gold forward then pick it up as opposed to simply carrying it. (The developers noticed this as well, and with tongue-in-cheek referred to their game as a "bag throwing simulator.")

* In the same universe as above, in ''VideoGame/MechCommander'', there is a mech called a Cougar, which is a 35-ton mech. The Weapon variant can fit 34 tons of weapons, which means the empty chassis is only 1 ton.
* At one point in ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', Bernard gets $876,600 in quarters from a vending machine. That much change would weigh just under 20 tons. And Bernard lacks sufficient upper-body strength to pick up a bowling ball.
* ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'': Elaine is turned into what Guybrush describes as solid gold. While we don't actually see anyone pick up the statue, over the course of the game Elaine is stolen twice, buried, dug up again, and finally stored in the crow's nest of Guybrush's ship, suggesting that the statue doesn't weigh much more than the flesh-and-blood version. In fact, using a little back-of-the-treasure-map math, converting even a small woman's body into pure gold [[note]] On balance, human beings are roughly the same weight per litre as water; gold is nearly twenty times heavier than water, so multiply the original weight by twenty and you'd be in the ballpark[[/note]] would result in a statue weighing close to a metric ''tonne''.

* PlayedWith in ''WebComic/SchlockMercenary'': [[ActionGirl Elf]] carrying three large cylinders evidently made of solid gold is not a problem, as she is in strength-enhancing PowerArmor. However, she declines Kevyn's suggestion of leaning them against a bulkhead:
-->'''Elf:''' They weigh about a half-ton each. I'm not leaning them against '''anything.'''
* [[http://www.nerdragecomic.com/index.php?date=2013-05-03 This]] installment of ''Webcomic/NerdRage'' points out some major inconsistencies in the [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pokedex]], starting with how Wailord is '''absurdly''' light for its size.[[note]]For those who use metric, Wailord is roughly 14.5 meters long and weighs 398 kilograms (about the size of a city bus, yet as heavy as a horse). That would potentially give it a density of less than 1 kg/m[[superscript:3]] (air density is 1.225 kg/m[[superscript:3]]).[[/note]]

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'':
** Scrooge [=McDuck=] can ''dive into the gold and swim in it''. However, when the triplets try to do that, they get hurt and [[LampshadeHanging wonder how does he do that]]. Maybe the gold likes ''him'', too, and just wouldn't hurt him?
*** Comics from Creator/DonRosa [[LampshadeHanging lampshade this]]: in ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', Scrooge himself was extremely surprised when a Bedouin tried to ''murder'' him by throwing him in a train wagon filled with cash and he managed to swim in it, and when Donald first saw him diving in his money he believed he was killing himself until he started swimming (the nephews and him could barely believe their own eyes).
** The same thing happens to the Beagle Boys in one of the comics, and to [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Peter Griffin]] in one of their cutaways.
** Similarly, in ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'', Scrooge has to physically restrain Louie once from doing a swan dive into the Bin, remarking that Louie would be seriously hurt, if [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome not outright killed]] in the attempt. When Louie asks Scrooge how ''he'' does it, Scrooge remarks that he was able to master the skill only after years of practice. Further on in the episode, when Louie has to go hunting in the bin for Scrooge's NumberOneDime, he is shown pushing, waist-deep, through the coins with great difficulty.
** A later episode [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the danger when Dewey decides to go for a swim and Huey and Louie flat out state that it's probably a bad idea but too cool not to watch anyway.
* The mecha tanks in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' are made of pure platinum so they won't be affected by metalbenders. Platinum is even denser than gold and is almost as soft; they shouldn't be able to stand under their own weight.
* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': In "Bullies", Valmont uses the dragon talisman, which has the power of combustion, to rob Fort Knox. Jackie follows him there, and along with Uncle, each easily hold individual gold bricks. Uncle uses one to block a Dark Hand mook's punch ([[BondOneLiner "Respect your elders!"]]), and Jackie tosses gold bricks overboard [[IShallTauntYou in a mocking attempt to push]] Valmont's BerserkButton.
* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' episode "Spanakopita!" While Dr. Venture is ranting to his friends about how his vacation is being ruined by a rival cheating at the "Spanakopita games", he paces the room brandishing a rock the size of his torso.
-->'''Billy:''' All right, just stop waving that huge rock at me!\\
'''Pete:''' How are you even doing that?\\
'''Dr. Venture:''' It's pumice[[note]]extremely porous volcanic rock, about one quarter the density of water[[/note]]. For the pumice-carving competition.

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[[quoteright:349:[[Webcomic/NerdRage https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nerd_rage_wailord.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:349:So that's why it's called the "Float Whale" Franchise/{{Pokemon}}.]]

* In ''Anime/TheFumaConspiracy'', Fujiko successfully smuggles a large shingle made of gold under her jacket and moves very quickly and agilely despite the presumed large weight.
* In ''Manga/TomoChanIsAGirl'', Carol gives Tomo three gold bars as a birthday present. They're smaller than the usual house brick-sized bars you see in fiction (small enough that she can carry all three bundled in a handkerchief like a ''bento'' box), but she's still a fairly ordinary high schooler and she still carries the bundle in one hand. Amusingly, the weight issue is brought up when Carol mistakes Tomo's shock for disappointment and explains that she went with smaller bars because bigger ones would weigh too much.

* ''ComicBook/WelcomeToTranquility'': Minxy builds a plane out of solid gold, and it is specifically mentioned that it will not fly[[labelnote:*]] In fact, even standing upright would be beyond the structural strength of such a device [[/labelnote]] because it is too soft and dense a metal. [[RuleOfCool It does anyway.]]
* ''ComicBook/XMen'': Piotr Rasputin has an official weight of 114 kg, and a height of 198 cm. When transforming into his [[ChromeChampion metal form]], his height becomes 226 cm, while his weight doubles to 228 kg. Assuming these numbers are correct, refers to him turning into metal instead of just gaining a metal coating, his human density is roughly equal to 1 kg/l, his metal form would have a density of 1.35 kg/l, or about half the density of aluminum. The kicker? The metal he transforms into is explicitly compared to osmium, the element with the highest density (22.6 kg/l, or exactly twice as dense as lead). If his metal form actually was osmium, Colossus would weigh 3826 kg. At other times it has been referred to as "omnium", a fictional metal that has no specified properties other than being really strong. (A few comics have suggested that Colossus is all or partly ''hollow'' in metal form, but that just raises new questions.)
* The titular superhero of ''ComicBook/TheVision'' has the power to "control his density". This power is used often to become intangible, super-hard, and ''heavy.'' Changing density doesn't affect his volume, either. Presumably, the mass needed to increase or decrease his density comes/goes to another dimension; this is the standard {{handwave}} for all ShapeshifterBaggage and similar issues in the Marvel Universe.
* Mass Master from ''ComicBook/PowerPack'' has the power to change his density, which ''also'' changes his volume. His mass remains the same. Becoming denser shrinks the Mass Master, and becoming less dense makes him a cloud larger than his original body.
* Doll Man, in DC's relaunched Doll Man and Phantom Lady miniseries, became tiny, because his density was increased, while keeping his mass the same -- thus making the fact that he can throw punches that full-sized people can actually feel plausible. Awesome, makes perfect sense. They also have scenes of Phantom Lady holding him in her hand, or on her shoulder. So the issue of his mass is ignored during those instances.

* In a ''ComicBook/SecretWarsII'' tie-in issue of ''Power Man and Iron Fist'' the Beyonder turns a skyscraper (made of steel, concrete, glass, etc) into solid gold (slightly denser than steel, much denser than the rest); it immediately collapses in on itself from the weight.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', you can see the gold balls ''bounce around'' like rubber despite making metallic noises. Granted, the movie isn't realistic in the ''slightest'' bit (they don't even lose momentum!) but you'd assume that gold balls wouldn't bounce ''that'' effortlessly. Heck, due to gold's relative softness and low strength, if they fell on a hard surface hard enough to bounce they'd deform or dent instead.

* In ''Film/Hellboy2004'', Ilsa carries a briefcase full of NaziGold coins and even holds it out with one hand, but it should weigh hundreds of pounds.

* ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'' features several Mini Coopers that are packed full with gold bars, but it doesn't affect their maneuverability or speed as they zip around Italy. Charlie [[LampshadeHanging does question]] whether the Minis will be able to take the weight of the gold, suggesting that the writers were aware of the problem.
* ''Film/TheItalianJob2003'' packs the Coopers with gold, and it uses a HandWave by stating that they've beefed up the shocks to accommodate the extra weight, though this is unlikely to be sufficient in real life.

* ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy'':
** ''Film/TheMummy1999'' has the ''Book of the Dead'' made of solid gold, yet characters are carrying it around as easily as a normal book that size. In the same film, there are horses loaded with sacks full of gold artifacts, but the beasts don't seem perturbed by the weight. But when a duffel bag full of guns and ammo is thrown into a river, it ''floats''.
** ''Film/TheMummyReturns'':
*** There's a bracelet of the same material. Which is carried ''by a child'' most of the picture. Early in the film, when lugging around the bracelet in a box, he comments it weighs a lot.
*** Jonathan lifts the Diamond of Ahm Shere, probably about a cubic foot in volume. That's a big rock, and Jonathan's no muscle man, but it's not completely impossible. Just unlikely.
* The 1950s sci-fi film ''Film/AtomicSubmarine'' features the title boat dodging ice falling off the bottom of the Arctic icecap. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.
* Ice sinks in ''Film/VoyageToTheBottomOfTheSea''. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.
* ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra'' features an underwater ice-fall in the finale, though the ice was filled with metal, so possibly more likely. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.
* ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla''. At the beginning of the movie, a submarine traveling underwater passes by the iceberg Godzilla was trapped in at the end of ''Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain'' and chunks of ice begin breaking off as Godzilla starts to stir. Said ice chunks drop like stones around the submarine on a beeline to the seabed. [[RunningGag Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water]]; that, after all, is why icebergs are a thing in the first place!

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the bank robbers toss duffel bags stuffed full of stacked money into the bus like they were bags of balloons.

* The movie ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'' has one of the characters (a ten year old boy) effortlessly carry and run with a solid gold tablet. He should not have been able to even pick it up. It's even worse in the sequel, with the characters waving the supposedly solid gold tablet around as if it were a clipboard.
* ''Film/IronMan1'': Despite recovering from recent open-heart surgery, Tony Stark carries a lead-acid car battery like it's an empty cardboard box while in the terrorist camp. A car battery weighs about 30-60 pounds, so while it's not impossible for the muscular Stark to be able to carry it, it would require more visible effort and affect his balance.
* In ''Film/{{Heat}}'', the bank robbers have to run from the police while carrying big duffel bags that are absolutely packed with paper currency. A full duffle would be able to hold enough stacked and bundled bills to weigh between 150 and 200 pounds.
* The plot of ''Film/TheHiddenFortress'' revolves around smuggling surviving princess of the Akizuki clan and her family's treasure across the territory of the enemy Yamana clan. This treasure is said to be made up of 200 Kan of gold. A Kan is a Japanese unit of measure equal to 3.75 kg (approx. 8.27 lbs.), meaning the whole treasure weights 750 kg (approx. 1,653.47 lbs.) or ''¾ of a metric ton''. After the wood concealing the gold and the cart are burned, the party has to carry the gold on backpacks, with general Rokurota carrying 40 Kan, peasants Tahei and Matashichi carrying 30 Kan each, the princess and the servant girl 20 Kan between them and two captured Yamana soldiers carrying the rest. This means Rokurota was supposed to be carrying 150 kg (330lbs) of gold on his back, Tahei and Matashichi 112.5 kg (248 lbs.) each and the women 37.5 kg (82.6 lbs.) each. None of them should've been able to walk with that kind of load, let alone climb a mountain, but only Tahei, Matashichi and the soldiers are shown to be staggering under the weight at all.

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', the aliens' hemispherical mothership is described as being over 550 kilometers in diameter and "In terms of mass, it's a quarter the size of the moon." This would give it an ''average'' density about 20 times that of solid lead. The shots of its interior near the end of the movie show that it's mostly hollow, so that means the material it's built out of would have to be at least the density of white dwarf matter, if not neutron star matter (neutronium).

* An Creator/IrwinAllen movie, ''Film/CityBeneathTheSea'', invoked the density of gold when the titular undersea colony used ingots as shielding to separate samples of an [[{{Unobtanium}} ultra-fissionable material]] and prevent it from achieving critical mass. And then an idiot thought, "Gold! I'll steal some!" without considering that a) he might cause a nuclear explosion, and b) the gold he wanted to steal was being irradiated. [[FridgeLogic To be fair, the filmmaker didn't seem to consider the second point either]].
* In ''Film/KellysHeroes'', TheCaper involves a squad of Allied soldiers in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII stealing $16 million in [[NaziGold gold bars]] from a bank behind German lines. In the [=WW2=] era, the price of gold was fixed at $35 per troy ounce, so $16 million worth would weigh 15.67 U.S. short tons and have a volume of 26 cubic feet. It has been calculated that the writers grossly misrepresented the size and weight of that much gold given how much is visible in the movie and the means they use to carry it away. Boxes filled with bullion are also tossed around as if they were empty (which, of course, they are), when, given the size, they would weigh several hundred pounds.
* [[SoftWater Water is soft,]] and according to many, many disaster movies, very light. [[MostWritersAreHuman Most of us use water every day,]] and we expect it to flow around anything it encounters that is denser than air. However, one liter (1 cubic decimeter) of water weighs one kilogram. This means that every cubic meter of water weighs 1000kg, or 2204.6lbs: literally a tonne. ''This'' means that a 7-foot wall of water hits a building with 3.1 pounds per square inch, which is comparable to an explosion at close range. Now, scale this up to the 300-foot wave in ''Film/TheDayAfterTomorrow'' or the 3500-foot wave in ''Film/DeepImpact''. Bomb shelters built to withstand megaton nuclear blasts ''might'' survive, but they would be very hard-pressed.
* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallowsPart2'', the trio are in a vault at Gringotts where thousands of gold items are cursed to multiply whenever someone unauthorized tries to move them. Harry swims through a growing avalanche of them when he should actually be pretty quickly crushed, or should at least break a lot of bones and be rendered immobile. However, since gold has been said to be one of the few non-transfigurable materials, the duplicated objects in the vault can't turn into real gold, just something that looks like it.
* In the 2002 film ''Film/GhostShip,'' two men can lug around ''crates'' of gold bricks that in real life would require very heavy machinery.
* Almost at the end of ''Film/TheFog'', when Father Malone picks up the gold cross, an object this size made of solid gold should have weighed at least 100 kilograms, 220 pounds, probably more. To the credit of the actor, you can see him struggling to carry all this weight, but he shouldn't have been able to carry it alone. Specially problematic is when he lifts the cross with only his arms to hand it to the ghost, and keeps it in this position for a non-trivial amount of time.
* ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'' pretty much treats gold as weighing about as much as steel. It's hard to tell exactly, though, since the antagonists have an undefined level of super strength, and they're the ones most often seen handling gold.
* ''[[Film/NationalTreasure National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets]]'': In the City of Gold, Riley handles a gold brick that should weigh about 150 pounds, as if it were some kind of lightweight prop.
* Played egregiously straight in ''Film/TowerHeist'', where a [[spoiler:car made of solid gold]] is handled as if it weighed less than one made of steel, and does not seem to weigh down neither the [[spoiler:scaffolding crane]] nor the [[spoiler:elevator]] that are used to transport it.
* Plutonium in ''Film/TheExpendables2'' is contained in sealed containers that are easily carried by hand. Said containers are generally made of lead-lined steel and would weigh in at twenty kilos, and would be a challenge to carry at best.
* In ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', the authorities melt 20 tons of gold into one huge bar to move it and entice the protagonist to try to steal it. That much gold would make a cube about 3.5 feet in each direction -- about the size of a small refrigerator -- but they make a bar nearly as long as a train car, several feet wide, and a few feet high -- at least 300 tons worth, at a rough estimate. To top that off, the protagonist crashes the train into a bay and then is able to float the gold container away with nothing more than a dozen party-sized balloons.
* A solid gold object the size of the idol at the start of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' would weigh at least fifty pounds, far more than Indy's small bag of sand. When Indy looks at it, he actually removes sand from the bag to approximate its weight and later events even suggest that he guessed too low. While it's never explicitly stated that the idol is ''solid'' gold, even a hollow gold object that size would be much too heavy to be toted around as easily as it is.
* In ''Film/Deadpool2016'' the hero fills a duffel bag with a great many guns (mostly long arms) and what is stated to be 3000 rounds of ammunition. Unless composed entirely of puny .22's, the ammo alone would weigh closed to 100 pounds with the weapons themselves adding an equal amount. While this is nothing a SuperStrength character couldn't handle, the bag he puts it all in sits high up on his back as if it were filled with clothes.
* In ''Film/OceansEleven'', eleven men steal $160 million in cash from a casino. Assuming it's all in C-notes to minimize the number of bills, that much money would weigh roughly a ton and a half. Unless the team was all into heavy-duty bodybuilding, there's no way they could have moved that much weight in one trip as was shown in the finale. Despite all the careful planning involved in the heist, the question of how to lift 300-pound duffel bags and carry them out of the casino without giving away that the bags are a lot heavier coming out than going in isn't mentioned.
* ''Film/OceansEight'' revolves around the plan to steal a necklace called "The Toussaint", which is explicitly said to contain so many diamonds it weighs 6 lbs (around 2.7 kilograms). But you wouldn't know it from the way most characters handle it on screen. Particularly egregious is the fact that [[spoiler:a busboy doesn't notice when 6 lbs of diamonds are casually dropped on his tray as part of the heist.]]
* In ''Film/TheCountOfMonteCristo2002'', the Spada treasure that Dantes finds on Monte Christo is stored in large chests that are filled to the brim with gold coins. Those chests would likely weigh hundreds of pounds each, but Edmund and his servant are able to get a dozen out of the hiding place to their boat by themselves without any tools. They then load the chests onto a small skiff without foundering it.
* In ''Film/TheCallOfTheWild2020'', a dog (admittedly a huge St. Bernard) picks up a solid gold nugget in his jaws. The nugget has to weigh at least 10 pounds, but the dog doesn't seem to be struggling to keep his head erect with it in his mouth, and his master isn't surprised by its weight when the dog drops the nugget into his hand.
* In ''Film/DirtyHarry'', the ransom Scorpio demands for his kidnap victim is $200,000 in tens and twenties. That amount of bills probably would fit in the bag that Harry puts it in. Said bag would weigh somewhere in the 20-40 pound range, depending on the ratio of tens to twenties, which is something a grown man could plausibly lift one handed if the bag is sturdy enough. But Harry being able to run around the hilly streets of San Francisco for an hour or more carrying that bag in one hand the whole time stretches plausibility.
* The [=MacGuffin=] of ''Film/RedNotice'' is a trio of jewel-encrusted 18K gold eggs, each of which is larger than a football. If the eggs are solid gold rather than hollow (it's never specified), they'd probably weigh at least 40-50 pounds each. Given how casually the things are tossed around for most of the film (the opening act features Booth doing an extended parkour sequence while carrying one of them), they probably weigh a tenth of that at best.
* The case half the cast are after in ''Film/BulletTrain'' is stated to contain ten million dollars, which is evenly split between gold and hundred dollar bills. Given the value of gold during the film, the money would weigh about 135 kilograms or just under 300 lbs. Yet Ladybug has no trouble at all wielding the briefcase as an ImprovisedWeapon, even twirling it once or twice during a fight.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Website/TheFantasyNovelistsExam provides the page quote, pointing out the ubiquity of this trope in fantasy novels inspired by {{Tabletop RPG}}s.
[[/folder]]

-->-- ''Website/TheFantasyNovelistsExam''

* On ''Series/ThirtyRock'', Kenneth has an idea for a game show in which contestants guess which suitcase being carried by models is filled with gold. The show was discontinued for being too easy, as one had only to look for the model who had trouble holding up the suitcase. This perhaps qualifies as both a lampshade ''and'' a straight example of this trope; even a small briefcase will have a volume of some 1,000 cubic inches, so one ''full'' of gold would weigh over 700 pounds. By comparison, the current deadlift record is just over 1,000 pounds, so you'd need to be a seriously ripped professional strongman to even move that briefcase.

* In ''Videogame/Minecraft'', although gold is a very dense material, the player character can carry a cubic meter just as easily as a cubic meter of wood.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', the player can theoretically carry around over 2300 gold blocks, each of which is a cubic meter of solid gold. Then, you can put that gold inside shulker boxes and carry THOSE around, multiplying that weight by a thousand. Never mind that each shulker box (along with most other ''Minecraft'' containers) is itself only one cubic meter, yet it can fit thousands of blocks of the same size.