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Awww, don't they look cute together?
The Fat Best Friend is a common sidekick to the Main Character. There's three variants of this trope:
Type A: The Big Fun, brash character. This character is usually the jokester and extroverted compared to the Main Character. While the Main Character is uptight and tactful, the fat friend is funny and/or confrontational. They know they're fat and they don't care about losing weight and will throw their weight around, so to speak.
Type B: The Shrinking Violet. They know they're fat and it's one of their biggest insecurities. They are shy, awkward and generally have low-self esteem. Cue the Main Character being their ego booster, letting them know they're special and valued, and they're beautiful/handsome. In contrast to Type A, the Main Character is highlit as a caring, non-judgemental character.
Type C: The Ditz/ Cloud Cuckoolander type. This type can be profoundly stupid or simply airheaded or plain weird. They can have some Type A traits, particularly being extroverted. They always speak slowly or walk slowly.
What makes this different from most of the other Fat tropes is that this character is always a Satellite Character and we rarely see things from their perspectives. They're there to enhance the Main Character's traits and to simply be a friend. A possible reason for this trope's existence is a desire to be more realistic and less discriminatory by showing that not everybody in the world has a generically attractive body shape (therefore avoiding Hollywood Pudgy, perhaps), but still avoid having a fat main character.
See Fat Girl, Big Fun and Fat and Skinny. Compare to Black Best Friend, Pet Homosexual, and Satellite Character. Contrast Fat Bastard, Fat Slob, and Fat Idiot.
Examples
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Type A
Anime and Manga
- According to some, Cuba from Hetalia might count as this to Canada.
Comic Books
- Ganke is the best Friend of the v3 Ultimate Spider-Man, he's more intelligent and extroverted than Miles.
- Tubby from Little Lulu would be a Type A, as he mostly tries to play pranks on Lulu. Despite this, he is a good friend to Lulu.
- Etta Candy, Wonder Woman's sidekick from the forties and early fifties, was a rare female version.
Film
- In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Dave is shown to have two different best friends at different times in his life - the first in the prologue from his childhood, the second in the 'present day' - and both of them are fat. Though they barely even count as minor characters, the second turns up long enough to seem to be a Type A. As an added bonus, he is also black.
Literature
Live-Action Television
- Piper, the best friend of Anna on short-lived TeenNick series, Gigantic.
- Kim Parker, Moesha's best friend. She later broke out the mold and got her very own show.
- Mo Maskour from Degrassi, along with Bruce the Moose.
- Ivy from Good Luck Charlie.
- Trish from Austin & Ally.
- Eddie from That's So Raven, though his weight doesn't come up at all really.
- Noah's Arc: Alex, one of Noahs 4 main friends and the loud, fun, outspoken and confrontational one of the group.
Western Animation
Type B
Anime
Film
- Gaz's best friend, Dave, in The Full Monty is a tubby bastard and he hates it. He's always trying to lose weight and he feels so bad about it he can't even get it up for his wife. Of course Gaz pushes him into stripping to earn a bit of cash; nothing can go wrong there.
Literature
- Samwell Tarly in A Song of Ice and Fire is a good friend of hero Jon Snow and is a very extreme Type B, having terrible self esteem due to being constantly demeaned by his abusive father. Jon and others have tried to make him feel better about himself but it hasn't really taken yet.
Live-Action Television
- Terri Macgregor from Degrassi. She is friend to both the Alpha Bitch and Lovable Alpha Bitch in the show and their personalities just completely dominate hers. She's shy and withdrawn and thinks she can never get a boyfriend.
Web Original
Western Animation
Type C
Unsorted
Anime and Manga
- Kurita of Eyeshield 21 is a mix of all three. He's a lot friendlier then Hiruma, but also a lot less confrontational. He's also a bit of an airhead, but then again, about half of the team is too.
Stand-up Comedy
Literature
- Chet Morton is the best friend of The Hardy Boys, and has been described as fat, plump, chubby, stout, heavy-set, etc. He has a huge appetite, and vacillates between types A, B and C as the plot dictates.
Live-Action Television
- Seinfeld: Kramer's buddy and Jerry's antagonist Newman.
- Andy from According to Jim is Cheryl's brother and can be considered Jim's best friend.
Newspaper Comics
- Jeremy's best friend Hector in Zits.
Western Animation
- Though Homer Simpson himself is pretty fat, his drunken buddy Barney Gumble is even worse. He can lean as all three types Depending on the Writer (especially since quitting alcohol).
- Carl Wheezer from The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron, is generally a straight mixture of a Type C (though not as big of a Cloudcuckoolander as Sheen) and a downplayed Type B (which one dominates depends on the episode), but can also be a Type A in occasional situations, generally as part of a facade.
- Atomic Betty has Penelope Lang's friend Megan. She's occasionally shown traits of all three types, but being a side character who barely talks she doesn't really get much development.
- Arthur, Lance's friend at Military School in the Whole Episode Flashback of Sym-Bionic Titan. He has traits of all three. Octus' Newton disguise could be seen as this to Lance and Ilana, although he doesn't really fall under any of the types.
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