Fat Best Friend

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The Fat Best Friend is a common sidekick to the Main Character. There's three variants of this trope:

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.

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-judgmental character.

The Ditz/Cloudcuckoolander. 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. 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 of Fat Best Friend include:

The Big Fun, brash character

(previously called "Type A")

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.

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Piper, the best friend of Anna on short-lived Teen Nick 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 and 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

The Shrinking Violet

(previously called "Type B")

Anime and Manga

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 TV

  • 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

  • The whole trope is inverted with King of the Hill, with fat kid Bobby and his satellite friend, Joseph. Joseph is especially awkward around girls as opposed to Bobby. Bill is a example played straight.

The Ditz/Cloudcuckoolander

(previously called "Type C")

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • Gibby from iCarly, who is so completely eccentric and odd that it dazzles the rest of the cast.

Western Animation

  • Patrick Star, from SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • Juicy, Calvin's slow witted friend on The PJs.
  • Barry, Steve's school friend in American Dad is a Type C with shades of Type B. Granted his Kindhearted Simpleton persona is actually the result of some perscribed vitamins that mellow his personality, unknown to him, he is actually a ruthless conniving sociopath without them.
  • Stimpy acts as a Type C with elements of Type B to Ren in Ren and Stimpy, being compassionate and dim witted in comparison to the smart yet manic Ren.
  • Tiger, Fievel's friend from An American Tail. How dim-witted he is depends on the writer. He's mostly just a Lovable Coward.
  • Mikey on Recess, though he's more naive and a bit of a Cloudcuckoolander than stupid. Subverted in the case as he's not a satellite character.

Combinations and 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.

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 TV

  • Seinfeld: Kramer's buddy and Jerry's antagonist Newman.

Recorded and Stand-up Comedy

  • Patton Oswalt recounts an anecdote where he's at a Hollywood party, and feeling depressed about not being able to get thin so he could be in movies. And then he's approached by Brian Dennehy, who reassures him that "Character Actors! Who gives a fuck if we're fat?"

"They're always going to need a fat best friend; that's never going out of style."

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).
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