Basic Trope: A character's body inflates like a balloon, most often Played for Laughs.
- Straight: Bob's entire body swells up like a balloon until he takes on a very rounded shape.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob inflates to the size of a city.
- Better yet, to the size of a planet!
- Downplayed:
- Balloon Belly
- Bob's body ends up swelling slightly, but not by much.
- Justified:
- Bob has an extreme case of allergic reaction that causes immense swelling whenever he's put into contact with the allergen.
- Bob ended up hooked up to a pump.
- Bob is a Rubber Man, and this is part of his superpowers.
- Bob is part pufferfish.
- Inverted:
- Squashed Flat
- A very inflated Bob ends up deflating back to normal shape or a skinnier stature.
- Subverted: Right as Bob starts to inflate, the air suddenly starts escaping out of his ears.
- Double Subverted: Alice covers Bob's ears and his body starts swelling up.
- Parodied: Bob inflates, and until he deflates he's carried around like a helium balloon with a piece of rope or string. Naturally, he isn't amused.
- Zig Zagged: Bob starts to inflate a bit, but the air suddenly escapes out of his ears. It restarts again, he grows bigger, but the air attempts to escape again, only to leave him bloated, but the expansion resumes in a vicious cycle.
- Averted: Nobody inflates.
- Enforced:
- An adaptation or remake of a work that had the trope in the source material.
- The gag happening at the behest of a producer or showrunner with an inexplicably keen interest in the trope who insisted that the writer(s) fit it in somewhere.
- Lampshaded: "Woah, dude! I thought this sort of thing only happened in cartoons!"
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz is armed with many air pumps to defeat Bob...
- Exploited: ...Because a heavily inflated hero is a helpless hero, thus allowing Evulz to have the upper hand and deal with him promptly.
- Defied: Bob evades any potential sources of inflation gags.
- Discussed: "I'm just trying to understand how my body can possibly stretch that much..."
- Conversed: "Good old cartoony gag. This was bound to happen to him, with that pump nearby."
- Implied: Bob is hooked up to a pump, and the camera cuts to bystander Alice staring at the scene with a dumbfounded (or amused expression.)
- Deconstructed: A human body is definitely not fit to stretch that much, and everything inside of Bob quickly ruptures as his body swells, killing him instantly.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs: This trope is already the Played for Laughs of Downplayed 1.
- Played For Drama: ???
Hey, look at that! The Inflating Body Gag page is swelling out of control!
