History Main / BuffetBuffoonery

* In the ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' fanfiction ''Slayers Demiurge'', cooks take it as an article of religious faith that you do NOT have an All-You-Can-Eat special on the opening day of a new restaurant, because if you do, ''she'' will come. The head chef [[TemptingFate mocks this superstition]], claiming that [[BigEater Lina Inverse]] is a myth. [[SpeakOfTheDevil Then a certain red-haired sorceress walks through the door]], and proceeds to eat him out of business.

* [[BigEater Elma]] goes to a buffet with [[ThoseTwoGuys two of her work friends]] in chapter 2 of ''[[Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Elma's OL Diary]]''. [[RealityEnsues Predictably]], she ends up getting banned after eating more than 100 plates of food in the two-hour time limit.

* Taken to the extreme in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Wishfart}}'' episode "Spicy is Paradisey". Puffin wishes from Dez to be able to eat forever so that he can eat all he can eat at a buffet. He proceeds to eat non-stop for ''5000 years'' and turns into a living mountain that constantly demands food from a cult led by the buffet's owner (who is determined to uphold her restaurant's policy). Dez's descendant and Akiko have to set things right by convincing them to stop trying to satisfy Puffin's appetite.

** In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'' the wizards, notorious diners all, are seen to construct elaborate architectural models using celery and lettuce leaves so as to increase the depth of a bowl by up to three times its intended size.

* Nanny Ogg tries to counter the vampires who have taken over Lancre Castle by putting booby-trapped vol-au-vents, with a lot of garlic in them, on the finger-food menu. This is, of course, an example of [[Series/{{Buffy}} Buffet, the Vampire Slayer]]. [[note]]It doesn't work. wrong kind of vampire.[[/note]]

** In one episode, an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet founders once Homer shows up and eats for hours, actually forcing the restaurant to go on food runs several times to keep the pantry supplied (which he eats). Homer was finally kicked out when it became clear to the restaurant's employees that Homer wasn't going to stop eating even if it was midnight and the restaurant had long since closed and they wanted to go home. The guy in charge, Captain Macallister, has Homer thrown out, leading to a lawsuit for "false advertisement". In the end, the owner just charges people to watch in horror as Homer eats endlessly.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheTwelveTasksOfAsterix'', one of the tasks is to finish a meal cooked by Calorofix the Belgian, a chef famous for making meals for the Titans. Obelix cleans him out (Eating - as the first course - a boar with french fries, a flock of geese, several sheep, an omelette made with eight dozen eggs, a whole school of fish, an ox, a cow and two veal ("because to separate ze family...zat would not be right!"), a huge mound of caviar (with a single piece of toast), a camel, and an elephant stuffed with olives) and is still hungry.

* In ''ComicStrip/BeetleBailey'', restaurants have been known to post disclaimers saying that their "all you can eat" doesn't apply to [[BigEater Sergeant Snorkel]].

# Also, restaurants always have the legal freedom to refuse to serve (or even kick out and ban) customers, especially if they are being rude to everybody else or are just being annoying in general.
# And finally, there will always be items on the menu that are not part of the buffet and will not be provided unless you order normally -- so, sorry, that filet mignon with beluga caviar and champagne will always cost $500.

* ''[[Film/TheNuttyProfessor1996 The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps]]'' has a buffet sequence that borders on MundaneMadeAwesome. It starts with the Klump family walking up to the restaurant in silhouette before announcing themselves. ("Klump, party of six. And we are ''hungry!''") Cut to a fast-paced montage of them practically ''attacking'' the buffet line. It ends with a pan shot of the table with all of the food trays empty... except for the fully stocked salad tray.

* ''Film/TheNuttyProfessorIITheKlumps'' has a buffet sequence that borders on MundaneMadeAwesome. It starts with the Klump family walking up to the restaurant in silhouette before announcing themselves. ("Klump, party of six. And we are ''hungry!''") Cut to a fast-paced montage of them practically ''attacking'' the buffet line. It ends with a pan shot of the table with all of the food trays empty... except for the fully stocked salad tray.

* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}"

# Also restaurants always have the legal freedom to refuse to serve (or even kick out and ban) customers, especially if they are being rude to everybody else or are just being annoying in general.

* One episode of ''Series/HomeImprovement'' had George Foreman as a guest star with a running gag about him being a BigEater. He told Tim about the time he went to a seafood buffet and ate eight plates of shrimp, then when he tried to eat a ninth plate of shrimp "I was TKO- totally keeled over," and saying that it taught him the important lesson of needing to know one's own limits: eight plates of shrimp.
* One episode of ''Series/WorldsDumbest'' featurrd a man that called 911 for being kicked out from a buffet after eating the entire stock of the day's "all-you-can-eat" special. The man later protests the place's "false advertising" with a poorly-done picket sign and is eventually banned from the eatery.
* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' Vegas storyline, when Joey learns breakfast at the casino is a buffet he says "Here's where I make my money back!" and over the course of his subsequent conversation with Chandler, Chandler is distracted by watching him load pretty much ''all'' the scrambled eggs onto his plate.

* Customers going to extremes to eat as much as possible (fasting before going; staying in the buffet for absurd lengths of time (such as the whole day... and in some extreme cases for ''years''), sitting or even standing right in front of the buffet), sometimes even eating all the food and leaving others hungry.

# One of the key rules about buffets is that it's "all you can eat" both within a certain period of time after you paid (usually around half an hour or so, and then you need to pay for another serving) and for however long the buffet is active for the day (so you can't pay $2.50 and eat "free" forever). Also, the buffet will supply food as long as supplies are available -- once the available vittles reach a certain level, more won't be made until after the buffet time ends (or maybe even the next day).

* Played for drama on an episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' where the investigators were going over the steps of the VictimOfTheWeek. The man was a BigEater because of a neurological disorder that made him feel eternally hungry (to the point that his sister had to keep him restrained Hannibal Lecter-style for years in order to prevent him from overeating himself to death), and once the sister's boyfriend (who knew nothing about this issue but took pity on the man being bound to a chair) cut him loose, he went straight to a hotel's buffet and had to be kicked out by security because he was attacking other people that were trying to serve themselves.

** An all-you-can-eat seafood buffet founders once Homer shows up and eats for hours, actually forcing the restaurant to go on food runs several times to keep the pantry supplied (which he eats). The guy in charge, Captain Macallister, has Homer thrown out, leading to a lawsuit for "false advertisement". In the end, the owner just charges people to watch in horror as Homer eats endlessly.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/TalesOfMU'', Mack and some of her friends go to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Because Mack is a half-demon, she doesn't actually need human food to live and bigoted religious grandmother, who raised her, therefore never actually gave her any. Mack therefore has atrocious table manners when her friends start introducing her to food, and at the buffet she gets hooked on barbecued ribs, eating not only the meat but the bones as well. Naturally, this freaks out the other patrons and she gets thrown out and banned.
[[/folder]]

[[foldr:Literature]]