In the new movie Moneyball,
Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill play Billy Beane and Peter Brand, the general manager
and assistant general manager of the Oakland Athletics. The film tells the true
story of how the two used sabermetrics to assemble a winning baseball team
despite the organization's lack of money. But frankly, that stuff's for
statistics nerds. What we find really interesting is the continuation of a
popular film and television trope: cool guys and their fat friends.
Not to be confused with the fat friend that girls keep
around out of a sense of charity, cruelty or both, or the corpulent leading man
as seen in The Honeymooners and in
85% of all sitcoms since then, the "Cool Guy and Fat Friend" trope is a very
distinct phenomenon, wherein an otherwise normal, possibly even enviable dude
keeps a big fatso around for laughs, protection or some other reason. To prove our point, here's a list of our favorite cool guys and their fat friends.
Cool Guys And Their Fat Friends
Why get in shape when you could just partner-up with a much heftier pal? We take a look at entertainment's meatiest trope: cool guys and their fat friends.
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By Aubrey Sitterson September 22, 2011 |
| 11 | Billy Beane & Peter Brand |
Our first example of the "Cool Guys and Their Fat Friends" phenomenon is also the most recent.
As the general manager of the struggling Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane needed not only a way to start winning games but also a fat sidekick. Fortunately, they both came in the form of Jonah Hill's Peter Brand (a pseudonym for Paul DePosta), who brought with him the idea of assembling a team of underdogs to really stick it to the moneyed opposition, which gives Moneyball the same plot as roughly 85% of all sports films, summer camp flicks and "Revenge of the Nerds" movies.
| 10 | Mr. Satan & Majin Buu |
American audiences might know him better by the slightly less ridiculous name of Hercule, but in the original Dragonball Z manga and anime, the man's name was always Mr. Satan. An arrogant braggadocio whose confidence far outweighed his ability, some claim that the character was meant as an indictment of typical white American attitudes. Obvious social commentary aside, the guy also happened to be besties with a giant pink marshmallow kung fu monster named Majin Buu.
| 9 | Peter Highman & Ethan Tremblay |
After the tremendous success of Iron Man and The Hangover, everyone was ready for Due Date to be an absolutely colossal hit - not only did it have an adorable dog, but it was injured in the cutest possible manner! Unfortunately that didn't pan out, otherwise the pairing of the always-suave Robert Downey, Jr. with the husky and hirsute Zach Galifianakis would have ended up far higher on this list.
| 8 | SpongeBob SquarePants & Patrick Star |
Though a recent study claiming that SpongeBob SquarePants could impact negatively on children's concentration has some holes in it, and the controversy over whether the title character is gay will likely never be solved, one simple fact is beyond dispute: Patrick Star is fat as shit. While SpongeBob keeps it together, squeezing into a slim pair of khakis each morning, Patrick lets it all hang out and doesn't even bother putting a shirt on over his humongous starfish gut.
| 7 | Fabious & Thadeous |
A fantasy-based stoner movie featuring James Franco, Danny McBride and Natalie Portman's butt. Seems like pretty easy money, doesn't it? Unfortunately, something must have been off when that magical combination was stewed together, as Your Highness never received the critical praise or box office success that you might expect of a Pineapple Express-themed Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. That said, Franco and McBride were perfectly cast as the cluelessly heroic Fabious and the sleazy slacker Thadeous.
