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"Able Seaman Johnson's trying to bake a pie,"
"Able Seaman Johnson said he'd 'ave a try,"
"But Able Seaman Johnson is such rotten cook,"
"Able Seaman Johnson has gone and eaten Mrs. Beaton's book!"
"Do you know what hell it is to be fat and stupid at the same time?"
In fiction, being overweight doesn't necessarily mean you're probably a bad person.
Maybe you're just stupid. In any group of characters the fattest one will probably be the dimmest.
Granted poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle is not necessarily a clever lifestyle choice (leaving aside more complicated real life reasons for weight gain that are unlikely to be portrayed in fiction), but many tubby characters seem to think of literally nothing else other than eating. Even if they are good, the fat character is generally a comic ditz.
This trope is particularly popular in animation.
See also Fat Bastard, Fat Slob, and Shorter Means Smarter. Often an element of a Straw Loser. Contrast Lean and Mean.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Gluttony from Fullmetal Alchemist is basically a pet ball of fat who consumes everything in his path. He's dull-witted enough in the anime, but in the manga, it takes Alphonse Elric about 30 seconds to convince Gluttony to lead his enemies right past all the defenses in the headquarters and right up to the Big Bad.
- Averted with Breda, who graduated top of his class.
- On the other hand, he acts a lot less serious/intelligent than the rest of Roy's crew. Then again, he is the Deadpan Snarker...
- Chaosic Rune: About users who can summon powerful "dragons" to do their bidding. One of the most powerful is Death Rex, whose limbs and body got separated from its main "head". Death Rex's "body" (who has taken possession of a human body) [1]
 , is a lumbering brute who is not too bright and is obsessed with eating. Much to Death Rex's chagrin, his "body" has gained a bit of weight - [2]. "For disgracing my plump body! I'll beat you to death!"
- Sumiyoshi of Excel Saga is a subversion. He may not speak at all, but he's still probably one of the smartest and most normal people in the entire cast.
- In Naruto, Choji's displays of stupidity are less spectacular than those of Naruto, but he has a lack of common sense to the point of valuing food over self-preservation, rarely has any especially clever or insightful ideas, and according to the Databooks, has the lowest possible score in Intelligence in Part 1, with it still being very low in Part 2.
- Marechiyo Oomaeda in Bleach is typically fairly dim-witted and not able to understand the events that go on around him, being irritated by anything beyond his comprehension.
- Averted with Dr. Tokita in Paprika. He is one of the smartest psychiatrist in the Institute for Psychiatric Research.
- One of The CutMan Brothers of Mega Man Nt Warrior had fallen into this catagory.
Comic Books
- Obelix from Astérix. Although you probably shouldn't tell him that. He is not fat, as he'll be the first to tell you. His chest's just slipped a bit, that's all.
- Averted with Garfield; he may be fat, but he's frequently been shown to be considerably smarter than his owner Jon.
- Not that that's much of an accomplishment.
- Averted with Bouncing Boy/Chuck Taine from the Legion of Superheroes- he has actually made a study of physics, angles, ect. to help him use his power to its fullest potential.
- Not to mention, in a game of snooker against Matter-Eater Lad, he hits three of the balls in the nets. At the same time.
- The appropriately named Schmöck from a story by Wilhelm Busch.
Fan Fiction
- Arnold of Soulless Shell, overlapping with Fat Bastard. He falls for Leif's ruse to get him to admit to being guilty of rape when he sentences him to death, then after breaking out of prison, plans on killing Leif in revenge before going off to rape a girl. Since Leif is a God Mode Sue with a particular hatred of rapists, Arnold dies a fairly nasty death.
- Arthur in A Very Special Arthur, who becomes retarded during the course of the story and is also described as quite overweight.
- Wheatley in the Portal 2 fanfic Test Of Humanity. Of course, he was dim-witted before putting on weight.
Film
- Jack Black in most of his roles.
- The late Chris Farley in most of his roles.
- Subverted with John Candy, although in some he played a Bumbling Dad-type character, the character he played all had their heart in the right places. He was quite an intelligent guy in real life.
- Lou Costello, at least compared with Bud Abbott.
- Curly Howard of The Three Stooges.
- Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle makes this Older Than Television.
- Nick Frost, as "Ed" in Shaun of the Dead and "Danny Butterman" in Hot Fuzz. A fat, but lovable oaf. Of course, at times you will want to push him off a cliff.
- "Baby" Brent from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
- Piedone sometimes subverts and sometimes plays this straight. In a movie where his role is that of a higher up policeman (so we're expecting him to have some brains), he's tangled in a web of corruption and doesn't know what to think about the situation anymore. In a So Bad, It's Good scene basically summarising Piedone's entire film career, he says "What Piedone doesn't like, Piedone punches!" and proceeds to punch his superior into unconsciousness. The guy turns out to be legit and even help Piedone in a tight spot.
- Mr.Sykes in Shark Tale.
- King Malbert in Igor.
- Kevin James's characters in various Happy Madison productions.
- Queen Latifah did this twice in Bringing Down the House and Taxi.
Literature
- This attitude shows up in Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy, including the difference in values. Among the Gernians (the "civilized" people), obesity is regarded as a sign of lack of self-control. Among the Specks (the "nature people"), it's thin people who are seen as stupid. The attitude is, "What kind of idiot can't even provide for himself?"
- Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
- This trope is largely averted in the Discworld books as the wizards are mostly very fat while being very clever (if not wise). On the other hand most of the more dynamic, forward looking wizards tend not to be fat such as Ponder Stibbons and (in a very different way) Ymper Trymon.
- Sergeant Colon is a straighter example, though he's portrayed more as an average man on the street than a moron.
Vetinari: The entire success of this plan depends on you seeming to be a fat idiot!
Sgt. Colon: I'm not too good at acting, sir.
Vetinari: Good.
- Played very straight with Crispin Horsefry in Going Postal, complete with a footnote expressing the author's irritation that people seem to believe in this trope in real life.
- It sometimes seems like Nanny Ogg has intentionally invoked this trope in her old age, allowing herself to get "larger than life" as part of her image as a witch (that she is the one usually present at a birth rather than a death and that she is kind-hearted and jolly but not necessarily bright).
- In The Courtship Of Princess Leia, the villain of the book was Warlord Zsinj, an extremely two-dimensional baddie whose three traits were one, stock evilness, two, puffed-up idiocy, and three, fatness. He was the first non-Hutt in the Star Wars Expanded Universe to be described as fat, actually. The X-Wing Series, set before his death, made his character considerably more complex and interesting. He was a fan of Obfuscating Grandiosity.
- In A Clockwork Orange, "poor old Dim the Dim" is the largest of Alex's droogies, and he lives up to his nickname. He's a bad person too, but who isn't?
- Played straight in A Song of Ice and Fire with King Robert, but averted with Samwell Tarley.
- Massively averted by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune. He may be hugely obese, decadent and depraved, but he's also clever, cunning and very sneaky. It's just a pity (for him) that he's up against the Kwisatz Haderach.
- King Rhodar of Drasnia in The Belgariad is also a subversion. His obesity is the result of loving books and scholarship more than hunting and warfare. His personal library is the third largest library in the world, and he is shown to be an excellent administrator. Even the more martially inclined rulers defer to his expertise in strategy, due to his excellent theoretical background.
Live-Action TV
- Woody in The Suite Life on Deck, though he gets more or less stupid depending on the day.
- Gibby from iCarly. Although he gets better when he's promoted to a regular in Season 4. Well, he might turn into The Scrappy, but that's YMMV.
- Randy from My Name Is Earl.
- Randy from Trailer Park Boys.
- Kevin from The Office, especially after Flanderization sets in. Before it he was revealed to be a World Series of Poker bracelet winner, which implies a level of competence with numbers and probabilities that the Kevin in later seasons couldn't hope to accomplish.
- Also Keith from the British series.
- Hurley from Lost. The trope was played with as various handwaves and justifications propped up to describe his supernatural clumsiness and misfortune.
- I think Hurley might be an inversion; although his ideas and opinions were often dismissed in the early seasons, he invariably turned out to have more common sense than most of the other characters. And he did end up taking charge of the Island and it's implied that he did a fine job with it.
- Possibly averted with Gordon on Freaks and Geeks. While we never really see him demonstrate intelligence, he is far and away the most thoughtful and insightful of the geeks.
- Chumlee from Pawn Stars is portrayed this way, however, occasionally he proves to be more clever than his reputation might suggest, and he's not the only overweight character on the show.
- Sergeant Garcia got this treatment in Disney's Zorro series.
- Ben Swain MP of The Thick of It, a junior minister in DoSAC under Hugh Abbot, is rather overweight and so amazingly dumb that one of the first things Nicola Murray does is sack him. (Swain gets sent over tho the Department of Education...Take That, anyone?)
- Larry Kubiac in Parker Lewis Can't Lose isn't really fat but just really, really huge. In the first few seasons, he is depicted as a typical high-school bully who only thinks of eating. Later, he becomes more of a gentle giant and it's revealed that his simple-mindedness is just a facade and that he is in fact fairly intelligent.
Newspaper Comics
- The Colonel Blimp cartoons by David Law (though not the 1943 movie, which is In Name Only).
Radio
- The Navy Lark has Able Seaman "fatso" Johnson, just bright enough to work out he is being screwed by C.P.O. Pertwee, just dumb enough not to be able to see it until too late.
Theatre
- Prince Go-go in Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre, the gluttonous, cowardly imbecile ruler of Breughelland.
- Falstaff in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the opera based on it, Falstaff.
Video Games
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
Real Life
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