Who's the fastest... and the fattest.
"For someone who cannot see his feet, you're very light on them!"
— Prince Naveen, The Princess and the Frog
This is when a fat or heavy character is much Faster Than They Look. After some chuckles from the audience, they reveal that they can maneuver like a gymnast, sprint like an Olympic runner, or kick you like Bruce Lee. This trope is likely a subversion of the Mighty Glacier and the idea that someone large is automatically slower because of their size. May intersect with Stout Strength if the character is also strong and tough, although being merely fast and easily hurt is not unheard of. The character may be a Heavyworlder, explaining some of their ability and density.
Almost always male, probably due to the media reluctance to ever depict a female of less than average mainstream attractiveness.
Sometimes Truth in Television, since body fat has little bearing on muscle or flexibility –- the correlation is between fat and lack of exercise, so someone who exercises but still eats a ton can end up like this. For example, sumo wrestlers and linebackers in American Football.note Moreover, mass × acceleration = force, so as long as someone can move effectively, more mass means more powerful strikes when they hit you. (In fictional works, the talent will often be humorously explained by way of the fact that, well, round people "roll" really easily, and thus will be good at basic tumbling.)
Compare Kevlard (which often goes hand-in-hand with this trope) and Stout Strength (where the fat guy is strong rather than agile). When both Kevlard and Stout Strength are in play, an acrofatic character is a Lightning Bruiser. Glacier Waif is the inverse. A very good way to establish a character as Big Fun. Characters like this rarely have their weight commented on, unless indicating a benefit. Whenever an anthropomorphic animal is portrayed this way, it will invariably be a martial artist panda.
Closely related to Handicapped Badass.
Example Subpages:
Other Examples
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Animation
- BoBoiBoy: Gopal Kumar is rather large, but he makes a point that despite being fat, he's still active, which he demonstrates by acrobatically maneuvering through a jungle gym with ease.
Anime & Manga
- Buccha from Air Gear though somewhat of a subversion as he's not technically fat. There's little actual fat on his body, what he does have however is a huge volume of blood, which concentrates mostly on his belly, and when required it floods his muscles. During said moments he has a much leaner, more muscular body; and his Air Treks are miniaturized tanks.
- In Basilisk Josuke is the fattest character in the cast, but he's also a really fast, speedy ninja (mainly because he's a sort of balloon man, hence almost weightless).
- Bleach: The first five seated officers of the Gotei 13 Second Division each control one of the five units of the separate Secret Remote Squad (ie, ninjas). The second unit requires great talent in Super-Speed to carry out its missions and its leader is the Second Division lieutenant, Marechiyo Omaeda. Omaeda is a lazy, overweight, wealth-obsessed food-junkie, who appears to be holding his position solely by virtue of family connections. Except that Obfuscating Stupidity is one of his favourite tactics: when this man starts fighting seriously, he makes high-speed combat acrobatics look easy. In his division, he is second only to Soifon for speed, and Soifon is one of the fastest captains in the entire Gotei 13.
- Tongpu, a.k.a. (Mad) Pierrot from the Cowboy Bebop episode "Pierrot le Fou", the maniacally grinning rogue assassin. However, it's not clear how much of it is actual fat, and how much is an anti-grav suit... or the absurd amount of hardware he's packed into his coat, ranging from hand grenades and shotguns to a frikkin' rocket launcher.
- The Big Bad of D.Gray-Man, the Millennium Earl, is a fairly rotund individual but is capable of readily fending off the protagonist in a sword fight. At least his Earl form is. His human form is a lot leaner.
- Normally in the Dragon Ball franchise, every notable fighter in the series in that show is fast and agile whether they're fat or slender. The ones who do play the trope straight, however, are Yajirobe, Dodoria, Majin Buu, and Pintar (in the tournament arc of Dragon Ball Z; it didn't help him).
- Subverted with Fat Gotenks. Everyone thought that he was going to be comparable to the played-straight Majin Buu, but he couldn't even run a few steps. The movie-only Veku (the failed fusion of Goku and Vegeta) was the same way with Janemba making a fool out of him.
- Sort of with Kurita in Eyeshield 21. Kurita was very fat and athletic (being a lineman and all), but he's slow as hell. He surprised people by being able to jump as high as Sakuraba.
- Mr. Heart from Fist of the North Star is one, he uses his fat to absorb physical damage landed onto him and can roll from a cliff pretty quick. It takes several minutes for Kenshiro to figure out how to penetrate the fat.
- Fullmetal Alchemist:
- Gluttony. As the name implies, he's quite rotund, yet he can get around pretty easily. That's due to him being a Homunculus.
- It also brings us minor character Jerso, a chimera who can turn into a blobby toad-like creature. He jumps like you'd expect, and is surprisingly fast in other ways as well.
- Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. In the Beach Episode, Sôsuke battles an overweight bodyguard who does Neo's "bending over backwards to dodge bullets trick" from The Matrix.
- Iwado the fat judoka from Holyland. The notes point out that many underestimate the speed of judoka.
- During the graphic OVA film, Kite, Oburi is sent to take out an overweight businessman who looks harmless. Turns out that the overweight man was a special agent who takes the fight to the young assassin, nearly killing him.
- Downplayed for Moguro Fukuzou in Laughing Salesman. Moguro isn't super huge, nor will you see him jump around and perform parkour, but for a stout guy with short, little legs, he can run much faster and with much more ease than you would expect. NEW implies that he runs for exercise on a regular basis.
- Lupin III: Island of Assassins features Bomber, one of the island's assassins, who is very fat but also extremely fast, capable of covering a person in explosive mines in a second.
- Boss in Mazinger Z. He was pretty fat, but he could be fast when he wanted or if he needed. Combine that with him being strong and sturdy, and he could deliver a good beating to anyone (except Kouji, much to his chagrin and disgust). He also showed up in the sequel Great Mazinger and has two cameos in UFO Robo Grendizer.
- Chuck Mustang, a Ragnan pilot of Delta Squadron in Macross Delta, is pretty chubby, but very active and agile. Which is understandable, considering that Ragnans often spend equal amounts of time in and out of water, and swimming is a fantastically efficient exercise.
- Pepe Lima's little sister in Michiko & Hatchin is a chubby little girl but very agile nevertheless. Michiko catches her stealing something and can't chase her down.
- Naruto:
- Choji Akimichi (as well as the whole Akimichi clan). There are definitely faster Ninja but they've never had trouble with the giant leaps or other acrobatics expected of them.
- The Shipuuden filler arc where Konoha and Suna have a joint Chunin Exam introduces Sand Village ninja Burami, who is much more rotund than any akimichi clansman. His jutsu practically weaponizes being a Fat Slob.
- One Piece:
- Oars — he's a giant (even by giant standards) who jumps several times higher than his own height. And he's damn fast. It helps that he had Luffy's shadow animating his corpse. His descendant, Little Oars Jr., is similar but perhaps a bit slower.
- Somewhat earlier is Yama of Skypeia. Really, a body that fat with arms and legs that small, it's a wonder the guy can even move. Yet he can move pretty damn well.
- And then there's Sentomaru, who's built like a sumo wrestler but can keep pace with Luffy.
- Lucky Roux, for a time fans were convinced that he's the fastest man on the OP universe, and well, he's fat.
- Also, Chopper's Kung Fu point; in it, he's almost round and has very short extremities, yet it seems to be his fastest form.
- Also, Big Mom, though it's to be expected since she's one of the four strongest pirates in the world. She's perfectly capable of chasing down opponents, climbing tall buildings, and (in the anime) even performing (evil) musical numbers.
- Rin in Orange Delivery is a very short and round girl — and a legendarily graceful figure skater.
- Nikuko of Please Tell Me! Galko-chan. Despite being obviously fat, she is well known for her fast, forceful advances in the girls' soccer team which lends Nikuko her epithet, "Sonic Meat."
- Pokémon: The Series:
- Ash's Snorlax. It may be extremely fat and heavy, but it can also move pretty fast when it needs to and flip through the air to land on its feet after being thrown. Also, May's Munchlax.
- Tierno in the XY series displays shades of this in the camp arc, much like his game counterpart.
- Andre in Prison School. After losing some of his marbles, he engages in some very impressive acrobatics. Examples include flips on a tree branch, horizontal spins, and even front-flips while serving as a horse for Risa.
- Genma Saotome from Ranma ½. Although he's naturally outclassed by his son and his son's peers, he's unbelievably agile and fast for someone with his age and frame. Even when transformed into a panda. He is, however, not so much obese as he is a large man in general.
- Ratman and his amazing sidekick, Fatman. Yes. They both use enough calories to give Michael Jordan a heart attack. Ratman turns calories into pure energy while Fatman is more this trope, with his superpower being the ability to turn body fat into a type of muscle fat. It's as awkward and awesome as it sounds.
- Another fat cat is Rhett Butler/Hercules from Sailor Moon, who saves Luna twice from a large gang of stray cats in one episode. The 3rd time was when Zoisite turns him into the monster-cat Youma called Bakene, and, despite destructive intention like the other Youma, saves Luna from falling.
- Ryu "The Owl" Nakanishi in Science Ninja Team Gatchaman can pull off all the same acrobatics as the thinner members of the team.
- Somewhat more down-to-Earth version: Mitsuyoshi Anzai from Slam Dunk is fat and old (in his mid to late fifties at least), but he can still shoot three-pointers like a pro. And he bounces a bit, too.
- Mr. Legend from Tiger & Bunny was the first Superhero ever and inspired the main character to become a superhero himself. Acts like Superman and has a Superman-like suit, but is fat and in his late forties when he appears — however, he's nonetheless the most badass Superhero out of all. And then he loses his powers. It obliterates him when this trope stops working, especially when his son charges up a soul fire attack.
- General Pepel of World Conquest Zvezda Plot. Though he is far bulkier than any other member of Zvezda, he is still able to leap around with superhuman agility, most notably during his battle with White Falcon.
- Goemon Ishikawa in Yaiba is quite large and plump, but he's a Lightning Bruiser when he fights.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has Pharaoh, Daitokuji-sensei's cat. Despite his bulk, he's pretty fast and strong.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Yuma's pal Tetsuo is like this. He's a big, bulky, fat guy, but he can ride a skateboard at ludicrous speed and deliver a powerful jumping uppercut to a giant robot.
Card Games
- The Ninja Burger card game, brought to you by Steve Jackson of GURPS, is about ninja who run a burger delivery service. One ninja takes full advantage of the company discount, and therefore only climbs as well as an Olympic athlete. He does have the weakest climb stat in the game since the missions are Nintendo Hard: 30 minutes from our franchise to honorable customer's secret location in Roswell or we commit seppuku!
- In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-Building Game, Bombur the Dwarf does his movie counterpart proud by having the same ability as The Flash.
Comic Books
- Blob, foe of the X-Men, while in the shows and movies is a Mighty Glacier, in the comics has the athletic ability of an Olympian. He has used cartwheels and gymnastic flips to place himself precisely where he wants to be as a blockade — or on top of a foe! Remember, Fred Dukes was a circus performer before he became a supervillain.
- Following Blob, there was Landslide of Cerebro's artificially created X-Men. He was a construct modeled after Blob, as well as Beast, Banshee, and Quicksilver, making him very strong, very agile, and very fat. Carlos Pacheco's design notes even had names such as "Fastball" and "Fatball" as potential codenames.
- A minor Western Marvel villain from Kid Colt called simply The Fat Man, who could roll and bowl people over.
- Marvel's fat-with-muscle The Kingpin is agile enough to fight Spider-Mannote and Daredevil hand to hand. However, Kingpin himself said that very little of his body mass is actually fat. Confirmed by Daredevil who compared hitting Kingpin to hitting a brick wall.
- Fat Cobra from Immortal Iron Fist is very fat and proves to be faster and more agile than the Hero.
- It helps that Bouncing Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes can bounce.
- Batman:
- Tweedledee and Tweedledum are extremely rotund, yet also extremely agile and acrobatic, capable of launching themselves at enemies like cannonballs.
- Depending on the Writer, The Penguin, who is always depicted as portly, is often more agile and a far better fighter than most men of his girth. While he has sometimes been written as a physical match for Batman, he has also been written as a character the masked vigilante can floor with a solid punch, but it usually takes him a while to actually land one. He's also a skilled judoka, which definitely helps.
- In Cable & Deadpool, Alex Hayden becomes obscenely obese and prefers to sit around eating munchies than doing any actual work. However, in Deadpool vs. The Marvel Universe, after a little pep talk from Outlaw while dinosaurs affected by the Venom symbiote are ravaging the town, he finally gets back into action, starting by leaping off a skyscraper and onto a dinosaur.
"Did someone call for Agent X, master of Kung-Fu, Tai-Kwan-Do, Jeet-Kun-Do, and apparently Sumo Wrestling? Well, you got him — 'cuz I'm back, baby! Now which dinosaur wants to get eaten first?"
- Partially subverted by Herbie The Fat Fury
. On the one hand, he is a fat, bespectacled loser with a bad haircut who easily defeats bank robbers, alien invaders, and Satan. On the other hand, his abilities are not from any training or skill, but from an arsenal of magic lollipops.
- Obelix from Asterix is very fat, but he has super-strength, is invincible in combat, and can defeat a Roman legion single-handed. However, both Obelix and Asterix mention a few times that Obelix is considered an excellent dancer, one of the best in the village. In addition, Asterix and Obelix's Birthday, declares that Obelix is brilliant at Twister.
- Tobias Whale, a giant from The DCU (and Alternate Company Equivalent of the Kingpin), is regularly able to outmaneuver and outfight Black Lightning, a former Olympic athlete.
- Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire. Buck is huge because he comes from a high-gravity planet, and yet surprisingly quick.
- Played with by the late minor Plucky Comic Relief villain Pinball from Marvel's Squadron Supreme alternate universe. It's not so much that he was fat (although he did look distinctly chubby), it's that his costume would pneumatically inflate on command and let him bounce around. Sadly his direction control wasn't the greatest.
- Mason Savoy from Chew is fat, strong, and can kick a whole lot of ass.
- Little Lotta is that rare female example — her identifying traits are a massive appetite and superhuman strength.
- Emperor Joker: The Joker used his reality-warping powers to turn The Flash into a man with Super-Speed who is also chronically addicted to junk food, thus earning him the nickname The Flab! The fastest fat man alive!
- Aquila: One of Nero's pets is a giant obese gladiator who keeps the Nubian warrior Aquila busy for a while. He mentions that it was previously one of his uncle Caligula's playthings.
- Wonder Woman's pal Etta Candy has been Big Fun and surprisingly quick and good in a fight ever since her Golden Age debut.
Comic Strips
Fan Works
- Always Having Juice has the re-imagined Sonic the Hedgehog. His body type was changed to better reflect the bodies of real-life hedgehogs, but he isn't any slower. He only ever seems to use his spin-based attacks though, so whether he is just as agile as before is up in the air.
- Ballser, the Final Boss of Something. Despite looking very round and heavy, Ballser gets faster and faster during the later phases of his boss fight. He even sprouts wings to become even faster and uses his weight to shake the ground and stun Mario.
- Pony POV Series:
- Queen Cocoon is incredibly bloated to the point she has to be carried around by her servants. Later, she reveals she does this to create the illusion of being vulnerable. She's fully capable of moving and fighting.
- Golden Tiara eventually meets and gets into a fight with her alternate universe counterpart Spoiled Rich. Even though Rich has let herself go due to her life of luxury, it doesn't affect her ability to fight.
- Yamujiburo's fan-kid for Serena and Tierno takes after Tierno in build. She also takes after him in energy. She loves dancing and wants to be a Coordinator.
- The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.: Hikaru, the fattest member of Team L.A.S.H., is also the most energetic, and an accomplished athlete to boot.
- Total Drama Legacy has Serena McGrady, the daughter of Harold and Leshawna. Much like her mother, she's a Big Beautiful Woman, but she's also surprisingly agile. Especially when she's Naruto-running.
Films — Animation
- Po from Kung Fu Panda, after being taught how to fight. Po was already quite agile, so long as his objective was the acquisition of food. Shifu simply needed to use this fact to his advantage in order to train Po to be so on command. It's also how Po managed to retrieve the Dragon Scroll before Tai Lung could, by imagining it as a cookie.
- In Princess Mononoke, Jigo the wandering priest is a fat old man but he can move rather quickly and skillfully as demonstrated when he jumps from rock to rock while his companions have to struggle to keep up with him. Made even more impressive by his impractical footwear... which was actually worn by Real Life priests of this type, to avoid ritual impurity.
- In Disney's Mulan, Chien Po went from anxiously balancing on poles above water to gracefully cartwheeling over them during training.
- In An Extremely Goofy Movie, Pete's rather overweight son PJ shows some surprising dexterity on a bike, a skateboard, and on the dance floor.
- The Incredibles: Post time-skip, Mr. Incredible has fallen out of shape over the years, but is still capable of maneuvering quickly thanks to his Super-Strength.
- Both Gru from the Despicable Me films and El Macho from Despicable Me 2 are much more agile than one would guess based on their bulk, with the latter especially pulling off some truly impressive salsa moves.
- Horton Hears a Who! (2008): For an elephant, Horton is quite graceful. He does a perfect swan dive into the river. He also climbs up a steep cliff.
- The hippos in the "Dance of the Hours" segment of Fantasia. Yes, the joke is how ungainly a hippo looks ballet dancing, but they are ballet dancing.
- In Sing, Gunter the pig is an incredibly high-energy dancer, with personality to match. Rosita (also a pig) does a good job keeping up with him, too, after she finds her confidence.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
- Peter B. has put on a lot of weight due to binge-eating pizza while in a depressed funk, and has even started wearing sweatpants instead of tights. When the time calls for it however, he's still just as agile and coordinated as you would expect from Spider-Man.
- Kingpin, who's even more absurdly proportioned than his comic incarnation, is still able to keep pace with the several-times-smaller Miles in a fight.
- In Turning Red, while noticeably chunkier in her panda form, Mei is extremely agile for her size and can leap great distances and run at astonishing speed.
Films — Live-Action
- Fatty Arbuckle might be the Trope Maker for film, as he showed amazing nimbleness for a man of his size. In Fatty's Tintype Tangle, the climax features an impressive stunt where Fatty runs back and forth on electric power lines.
- The kaiju, Gamera. Just look at him working the parallel bars in Gamera vs. Guiron.
- In the first film of The Godfather trilogy, Vito's rather surprising quickness saves his life during Sollozzo's ambush. Meanwhile, Clemenza is a great dancer, as we see at the wedding.
- Godzilla. Sure, he's normally content just lumbering at a relatively slow pace. But, when he decides to move fast, he does. His surprising agility even allows him to kick his enemies, with both feet, while sliding on his tail.
- Thor might be badly out of condition in Avengers: Endgame thanks to five years of zero exercise combined with drowning his sorrows in a combination of beer and food, with the difference being made very apparent from where he was in Avengers: Infinity War. Despite that, he's still a surprisingly fast and agile Lightning Bruiser, who easily dodges Thanos' flying sword without slowing his attack for an instant, and is one of those leading the charge in the climax.
- One of the monks in Shaolin Soccer has weightless moving as his specialty... even years later, after he had stopped exercising and gained a lot of weight.
- The title character of Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a surprisingly good fighter and very acrobatic (at times). In fact, being fat doesn't slow him down at all — suffering from hypoglycemia does, though. As Here Comes the Boom proves, Kevin James is able to be this on command.
- The late John Candy proved to be agile in some of his movies, including pulling off some martial arts moves in Delirious as well as being able to ride a horse. He does a somersault in Who's Harry Crumb? and can toss his shoes with deadly precision.
- Fat Bastard of the third Austin Powers movie is extremely agile in combat. He can even flip, though he needs a stunt wire team for that, which snaps halfway through his stunt.
- Obélix of the Asterix films, played by Gérard Depardieu.
- Speed, one of the supervillain/bullies in Sky High (2005), was a Flash-like speedster in spite of being overweight.
- John Travolta described his Hairspray character, Edna Turnblad, in these terms. Tracy is this trope too; a significant part of the film is focused on her mad dancing skills.
- Chris Farley's Haru in Beverly Hills Ninja — see Real Life; Farley himself was pretty agile and did many of his own stunts in this and other films.
- Near the end of the direct-to-video comedy film Run Ronnie Run, an overweight kid who was kidnapped by disgruntled Reality TV stars and spent his entire captivity playing Dead or Alive proceeds to beat the crap out of his kidnappers using the over-the-top "martial arts" moves from the game while the song "Ass Kickin' Fat Kid" plays in the background.
- Jolly U in Guest from the Future is very fat but is fast enough to catch up to running children.
- John Belushi as Jake Blues in The Blues Brothers. A singing, dancing, backflipping genius.
- King of Thieves: Danny can do a handstand even though he's the stoutest of the crew (although not by much) and over sixty.
- Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, especially in his song and dance number. Most impressive of all is when he performs several backflips across the floor of the Acme Gag Factory, despite wearing a hat, coat, and trousers!
- An interesting variant in the Big Momma's House series, since she's actually a man in a Fat Suit. To the characters not in on the deception, however, she definitely appears to be this, performing multiple backflips at great speed.
- Oliver Hardy from Laurel and Hardy was quite agile despite his girth.
- Bombur and the Great Goblin from The Hobbit count, as they can run with decent speed despite their weights. In one scene with the former he runs much faster than everyone else, and Bilbo and the other dwarves can be seen making a perfect "WTF" face as Bombur outpaces them. Apparently, this wasn't acting on the part of the cast, who were genuinely astonished by how fast the actor playing Bombur could move, even in a fat-suit.
- Cora, from Django Unchained, is eventually revealed to be this. When Django warns Cora and Sheba to flee the plantation, Cora hightails it out of there much, much faster than Sheba, having already reached the front gate by the time Sheba has made it down the steps. This is justified by the fact that Cora is a hard-working house slave, while Sheba, though slim, mostly existed to look ornamental and didn't do much in the way of exercise.
- While Andy Knightley from The World's End at first looks like your usual middle-aged, out-of-shape White Collar Worker, when the pub crawl gets violent, he proves to be the group's most capable fighter.
- In Animal House, Bluto, who doesn't look particularly fit and is played by John Belushi, shows his gymnastic prowess in the climax.
- Fred Dukes in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, particularly after he gains weight and starts boxing.
- Hound in Transformers: Age of Extinction. While fending off Decepticons in Hong Kong, he demonstrates remarkable agility despite being the bulkiest Autobot in the film. He even states "I'm like a fat ballerina..."
- Nacho in Nacho Libre, since he's a good wrestler despite the pounds.
- Sha Po Lang stars Sammo Hung as the Big Bad, Wong Po, who proves to be a match for all five of the cops that have been sent to take him in, and even gives resident badass Ma Kwun played by Donnie Yen the fight of his life.
- Balibo: Roger East is mildly overweight and middle aged, but he's able to both outrun an attack helicopter and best the much younger and fitter José in a fight.
- Killa in John Wick: Chapter 4 is a morbidly obese mob boss, yet is a master combatant able to contend against even John Wick. Ironically, he is played by Sccott Adkins, a renowned martial artist himself.
Literature
- Dune:
- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is this, though only because of his anti-gravity appliances; he's so fat that these are the only reason he can move on his own at all.
- Reverend Mother Bellonda from Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune is one of these. During a confrontation between her and Duncan Idaho, he admits he has very little hope of defeating her despite her being old, obese, and armed with nothing but a simple dagger. Keep in mind this is the Tleilaxu-enhanced, Bene Gesserit trained Duncan Idaho ghola, with the memories and experiences of all his ghola-lifetimes restored, who is saying this.
- Fatman of Wild Cards can jump around like a man who weighs a tenth of what he actually masses — because he does. His power is gravity control, and he habitually lightens himself to get around more easily.
- In one of the Burke novels by Andrew Vachss, Max the Silent has a brief spar with one. Although Max beats him, he is impressed with his skill. Also, in Terminal, we get introduced to Gigi, who is a perfect example of this trope at 450 pounds and ninja-quick. Burke may qualify; he is described as large and slippery, but lacking the knockout punch power to be a full Lightning Bruiser.
- The greatest and most agile thief in the Conan the Barbarian universe (except Conan himself), was a morbidly obese man named Rendara, who was able to shimmy up walls, crawl through tight openings and generally leap around like someone a quarter of his size.
- Hern Heslin, in The Duel of Sorcery Trilogy, is described several times as short and pudgy. The first time you see him, he's tied up...but not for long. After freeing himself, he quickly outmaneuvers and kills a bad guy who's much taller and trimmer. He ends up repeating both feats in Moonscatter.
- In Glen Cook's Dread Empire books, Mocker is noted for being very fat — and one of the deadliest swordsmen alive. His comrade Bragi Ragnarson, described as a giant of a man, flinches when Mocker threatens him.
- In the Star Wars Legends book The Planet of Twilight there was Beldorion the Hutt, the only Hutt ever to become a Jedi, who, unfortunately, degenerated into evil after surviving Order 66. Possessing strength and agility unheard of for his species, he uses a lightsaber quite effectively against Leia. She even comments to herself about how fast he can move for such a massive creature. He loses, leading to a very squicky description of what happens to a Hutt's body when it's sliced open by a lightsaber.
- Sergeant Garcia from the Zorro-stories is a good swordsman and strong, agile, and fit enough to be a credible threat to The Fox himself. He is also a distinctly pudgy Big Eater.
- Discworld:
- A rare female example in Carpe Jugulum whenever Perdita takes over Agnes' body. Agnes has quite a lot of muscle she never knows how to use.
- In Maskerade an imposter takes the place of obese opera singer Enrico Basilica on stage during a masked ball scene. The fake is a normal-sized guy pretending to be fat by padding his clothes, and moving quite clumsily when he tries to dance. The real Enrico is described as actually being quite light on his feet, like a barely tethered balloon.
- Elsewhere in the Discworld, Assassins' Guild teacher Mr Grunworth Nivor is in late middle age and overweight — but is a brilliant edificeernote and a very nimble and elegant dancer. University Arch-Chancellor Mustrum Ridcully is all-around big — but is described as having the swiftness, sure-footedness, and stealth of movement, when necessary, that makes a man into a born hunter and tracker. And the Fools' Guild's resident teacher or tightrope-walking skills is a vastly overweight Clown who, at first glance, should not be able to do all that acrobatic stuff on a very narrow wire some distance from the ground. And the short wide Nanny Ogg is perfectly capable of holding her own in a ballet company's chorus line... among girls a quarter of her age, twice as tall, and a third of her weight.
- The Wheel of Time has Vanin, a horse thief that ended up in the Band of the Red Hand. The internal monologuing, and conversations, frequently mention that he's a superbly skilled rider (even compared to the extremely mobile Band) and one of best horse thieves alive, all while obese.
- Partial points for Mark from the Vorkosigan Saga, who despite being short and force-fed until he was nearly too fat to stand, managed to completely destroy Baron Ryoval with his hands tied behind his back.
- Karadjoz from Prokleta Avlija is stated to be grossly overweight, yet incredibly agile. We never get to see him in action, though.
- Elsabeth Soesten: Brother Hieronymus is short, fat and slovenly. He's also a superb swordsman and rider.
- In The Goblin Emperor the Great Avar, Maia's maternal grandfather, is this. Maia's first impression is that he is "monstrously fat" but he is surprisingly light on his feet.
- Both justified and downplayed in the case of the Arkhos of Nemohaim in the Fire of Heaven trilogy. A Master Swordsman in his youth, the Arkhos has since become almost grotesquely obese, but maintains much of his old skill, and can both move incredibly quickly for a man of his bulk, and outfight all but the most experienced of swordsmen. He tires easily, however, and is typically left coughing and wheezing after any serious exertion.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Lord Wyman Manderley is quite obese and not much of a fighter, but someone did find it worth the trouble to knight him, and he is well-known for being a very good dancer. His sons are closer to Stout Strength than this trope, but they are similar in build to their father, both have been knighted, and both are noted to be far more agile than their bulk suggests.
- Strong Belwas, one of Daenerys' champions is immensely fat, but still takes on a seasoned warrior, Oznak zo Pahl, and takes him out easily. Made more impressive when you see that Oznak is riding a horse.
- The Heather Wells Mysteries subverts this with the protagonist. While Heather is certainly able to do sports, she hates doing it, is horrible at running (Big Boned shows her being so unfit that she very quickly pulls a muscle while jogging), but is still decent enough at climbing up things like elevators or fighting off people trying to kill her.
- Lampshaded in Bob Shaw's Shadow Of Heaven, in which the kilogramically endowed protagonist Vic Stirling reflects that most people consider fat men to be weak and slow-moving before beating a mook to a pulp.
- In The Lion's Cavalcade, sequel to The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, by Alan Aldridge, Madame Pavlovna Majeste Nijinska is a hippopotamus ballerina.
- Agaton Sax: Agaton Sax is a short, rotund man who's an expert at jiu-jitsu.
- The title character in Joe R. Lansdale's short story "The Fat Man", collected in Bruce Coville's Book of... Nightmares (and other anthologies). A morbidly obese Humanoid Abomination and Villainous Glutton with a second mouth in his stomach, the Fat Man is surprisingly fast and agile for such an enormous and flabby individual, described as leaping gracefully into the air to dive at his victims. He pretty effortlessly chases down and eats both protagonists in the story.
- The Morbidly Obese Ninja: Basu is an extreme example. He's 500 pounds overweight, but he's so strong that he can still do the sort of physics-defying ninja stunts that the genre requires, albeit not as well as he could back when he was in shape.
- Nero Wolfe: The titular Nero Wolfe is a former European man of action who has settled down to employ his formidable brains as a private detective in New York. He lives in quiet luxury, with a live-in chef who brings him bottles of beer and cooks incredible meals, and practically his only physical activity is working in his rooftop greenhouse, where he cultivates orchids as a hobby. Occasionally people assume he's too fat, old, and out of shape to put up much physical resistance but pay grievously for the mistake. He once used a bottle of beer to kill a snake turned loose in his office (as an exotic assassination attempt by a murderer). Another time, someone tried to rush him with a knife while he was sitting in his chair; he killed them with a bottle of beer, too.
- Angela Nicely: “Puppy Love!” establishes that Pusskins can run surprisingly fast despite being “podgy”.
- In The Hobbit, Bombur is constantly teased about his weight, but until the enchanted river incident he keeps up well, giving the trolls the best fight along with cousin Bifur and climbing trees at top speed.
Live-Action TV
- Gabby on The Big Leap doesn't let her weight get in the way of her skills at hip hop dancing, and eventually ballet as well.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer once featured a morbidly obese vampire who could still outrun Tara, Giles, and Spike.
- On Community when Buddy is discussing what he would bring to the study group, he says they need a chubby, agile guy. Though his actual invocation of this tropes is a bit messy.
- Doctor Who: In "Love & Monsters", the Abzorbaloff is far more agile than his size would suggest, which he exploits to get people to underestimate him.
- Anthony Anderson (who plays Teddy Brodis in seasons two and three), then much heavier in the late 1990s than he is today, was frequently this in Hang Time. Still, playing an athlete (especially, a basketball player) requires some agility, and he shows quite a bit of it; in season two's "Just One of the Guys", he manages to do a split that doesn't seem to hurt at all while cheerleading with Danny and Vince. In season three's "No Smoking", Teddy does backrolls to try and get some cigarettes he hid during a meditation session with Danny, Michael and Vince to get him to quit smoking.
- The Honeymooners: Jackie Gleason is the Trope Codifier for television actors. The man was versatile and able to not only do spry physical comedy but was an excellent dancer as well.
- Sal from Impractical Jokers is without a doubt the most limber dancer.
- Serious actor Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Ironside (1967)) does a comic entrance on The Jack Benny Show.
- Mr. Kim of Kim's Convenience is a chubby man in his 50s, yet he's still quick with his feet and hands if his impressive martial art hapkido skills are anything to go by. Gerald finds this out the hard way.
- Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls: The aspiring Grrrls are big, but they are experienced dancers. They do splits, they twerk, they leap. The audience gets to see footage of Jayla doing flips (in heels!) as part of her introduction and she also does them in the dance-off. There is, however, a price to pay for these moves: a contestant sprains her ankle while doing a split, and there is discussion about not getting proper instruction on how to dance as a plus-size woman.
- Randy from My Name Is Earl despite being fat is actually a really talented natural gymnast. It is only brought up once a season or so though to preserve the comedy value of it.
- The "Obesity" episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! — which focused on addressing common misconceptions about fat people — held a "Fat Guy Olympics" (with one skinny guy). Most of the fat guys outran the skinny guy. "Fat" was determined purely by BMI values as a point about their uselessness, only one of the participants was what most would consider fat and he was by far the worst competitor.
- Quite a few Monsters of the Week on Power Rangers were incredibly fat, but excellent fighters. The best example was Hydro Hog, an obese creature who the Alien Rangers considered their Arch-Enemy on their own planet, and with good reason: he was more than a match for all five of them at once.
- In Quantum Leap, some of the people Sam leaps into, such as the overweight priest or half-blind old man, are able to do amazing things when Sam is the one in their body.
- Saturday Night Live:
- One of the main differences between James Belushi and other hefty comics on the show (such as Bobby Moynihan) was his ability to move.
- Chris Farley was pretty light on his feet as well. Two examples were him ice-skating and the Chippendale dancer skit. He was also known to do cartwheels.
- Newman in Seinfeld runs with surprising grace in one episode when he chases after Kramer on the street.
- Stranger Things features a pudgy Dustin, chubby Bob Newby, and plus-sized Barb Holland as characters. Sadly averted with the last two characters (as this is a show with supernatural monsters).
- Dustin is a Pint-Sized Powerhouse who can carry his friend Eleven (who is about the same height as him) at 12 years old, and his cleidocranial dysostosis is beneficial to him doing various things with his limbs without injury.
- Bob Newby managed to outrun the Demdogs for a while, a great feat, but if he hadn't stopped to take his breath and steal a Longing Look at Joyce, he could have lived.
- Barb, who played Varsity Softball per the official handbook before she died along with nerdier extracurricular activities, wasn't able to outrun the Demogorgon in time.
- Rerun of What's Happening!! was a very good dancer, considering his large size. He was light on his feet, and incorporated some acrobatic jumps in his repertoire.
Music Videos
- Arthur the miner, from the video for The Avalanches' "Since I Left You."
- Deliberately invoked with the video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Fat". Al (in a fat suit) is, after all, supposed to channel Michael Jackson. Weird Al said he found the backup dancers in the video by putting out an ad for "real fat dancers."
- Speaking of Weird Al, Eric Stonestreet and Jack Black look rather light on their feet in the video for "Tacky."
- In most of his rap videos, overweight rap icon Heavy D showed how an athletic big man can dance.
- In Meghan Trainor's video for "All about That Bass," there is a large male Tongan dancer, Sione Kelepie, who was discovered through Vine. The man pulls off some very difficult dance moves, including an incredible split.
- The video for Lady Gaga's "Stupid Love" features plus-sized Jamie Rose as one of the backup dancers, and she has zero trouble keeping up with Gaga's frenetic choreography.
- Speaking of Lady Gaga, plus-sized Japanese comedian, actress and fashion designer Naomi Watanabe released a shot-for-shot parody of Gaga's "Rain on Me" video, and absolutely nails the choreography.
- Speaking of Lady Gaga, plus-sized Japanese comedian, actress and fashion designer Naomi Watanabe released a shot-for-shot parody
Mythology
- Santa Claus is traditionally depicted as a "fat and jolly man," but to make his deliveries, he would have to be able to run at hypersonic speeds, even disregarding the speed of his sleigh. He'd also have to be extremely superhumanly strong to carry thousands of tons of coal and toys, making him a Lightning Bruiser.
Podcasts
- Jed from the Cool Kids Table game All I Want for Christmas is able to pull off a lot of extreme stunts thanks to multiple successful Badass rolls. He's also exceedingly overweight.
Tabletop Games
- In GURPS, having a Fat or Very Fat character give you no penalties to acrobatics and agility, at least not directly.
- Played with in The Witcher: Game of Imagination. Each halfling must have at least 3 points in Agility (on 1–5 scale), which corresponds to "Good". They don't suffer any penalties, even if the entire race is made by default from pudgy, tiny people. On the other hand, starting trait "Fatass" makes all rolls related with Agility and Movement harder, while also decreasing Movement for all equations by one, making it a serious case of That One Disadvantage.
- The Book of Vile Darkness from Dungeons & Dragons introduces a feat called "Deformity (Obese)" in which a character becomes "grossly overweight... now at least triple the normal weight of creatures of her kind." To be fair this feat does come with a -2 to Dexterity since someone of that size would have a harder time moving around, but really, in terms of D&D, -2 Dexterity is a very minimal penalty and doesn't do much to stop a character from performing crazy feats of acrobatics and agility if they gain them with other feats or class abilities.
- Exalted: Sesus Nagezzer used to be this, his lifelong love of sweets and fine foods not getting in the way of the education, lifestyle and mystical power of a Dragon Blooded warrior. Unfortunately, a crippling injury causes him to lose the ability to exercise while his appetites remained as they always were (at least), causing him to transition to Adipose Rex.
- Ironclaw and its later expansion Jadeclaw feature the Corpulent flaw, which counts as an automatic stone (14 imperial pounds) of encumbrance, but it does not come with any limitations to the speed dice. It can also be taken multiple times... and Jadeclaw introduced viable skill trees for unarmed combat. This meant you could design a character who was several dozen pounds overweight, yet still able to run at about 22 kph and make a variety of impressive leaps, dodges, and feints (if you bought the skills for it) if they possessed the necessary level of speed dice. A few of the various unarmed martial arts skill trees rewarded characters who weighed more increasing their striking power against lighter foes. Pairing that to a fast-but-heavy build could lead to a steamroller-esque experience of near-Game-Breaker levels.
- In Necromunda, the artwork for the 1st Edition Pit Slave special character Bull Gorg depicted him as extremely obese yet his Initiative stat (the characteristic that represented reaction time, agility and combat speed) was one of the highest in the game.
- Warhammer: despite being an entire race of Fat Bastards, the ogres are surprisingly swift for their size. The average ogre unit has a movement speed of 6", almost twice as fast as some comparable infantry units, meaning the ogres can easily chase down and attack most enemies that try to fall back or kite them, even cavalry.
Theatre
- The Genie in the stage version of Aladdin is portrayed as acrofatic. He's generally portrayed by a rotund black man who seems nearly as flexible as the animated Genie.
Visual Novels
- Byakuya Togami (or rather, the Ultimate Impostor) of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, despite putting on at least 200 extra pounds since the previous game (except he didn't, the real Byakuya is just as thin as he ever was), is probably the fastest student in the class. At one point he berates the others for being slower than him since he thought moving fast was the only thing skinny people were good at. The opening scene of the Danganronpa 3 anime has him dodging gunfire.
Web Animation
- Cálico Electrónico: The villainous Cálico Lúbrico. Despite being short and kind of overweight, he pulls off some The Matrix-style bullet dodging in his first faceoff with Cálico Electrónico.
- Pom Pom from Homestar Runner is a lot like a big balloon, but that doesn't mean he can't be a skilled martial artist, as seen in "Summer Short Shorts" and the Strong Bad Email "pom pom."
- Cinderella from the Fatty Girl series is one. She was cursed by Devil to be overweight, but she was still able to chase him down because she was just as athletic as when she was thin.
- DSBT InsaniT:
- Power Rams look pretty pudgy and have very tiny legs, but they were very fast.
- Even outside of the arctic Icer exhibit, K-Seal is very mobile for his massive size.
Webcomics
- Murphy from Neko the Kitty uses fat instead of muscle.
- Butch R. Mann of Chopping Block varies between this and just plain fat, depending on the joke. In general, he gains a massive boost of strength and speed when his life is in danger.
- Shinra Banshomaru from Mob Psycho 100. While it's referenced a lot about Shinra's weight, making physical comedy out of his jiggling stomach as well as being mistaken for a local pervert at a playground (and soon goes after the real culprit who was snooping around), he also happens to be a local psychic in town and proves himself to be a badass after taking down a terrifying urban legend found in woods and survives being slashed by its knife-like claws and nearly is drowned to death from it, as well as being able to dodge its attacks by pulling off some astonishing acrobatic moves with surprising swiftness one wouldn't expect of someone his size.
- Schlock Mercenary gives us titular Sergeant "You're faster than you look" Schlock, who is a carbosilicate amorph, weighs 250–300 kilos and looks like a massive pile of greenish poo... er, goo. However, due to his every cell having multiple functions, his entire mass can act as a single muscle, allowing him to bounce around like a rabid kangaroo. While also being Nigh-Invulnerable and insanely strong.
- Steven and the Crystal GMs is a Steven Universe Campaign Comic, so of course Steven has this trope as a trait. His player has cursed it on at least one occasion.
- In a rare female example, White Dark Life has Tori in a borderline exaggeration of this trope. Inu and Uma predict her weight to be in the tons and yet, because this is a Sonic fan comic, she is still as fast as most of the other characters.
- Trevor (2020): Possibly due to an adrenaline rush; upon seeing Dr. Maddison and realizing that he's responsible for Trevor's escape, Colin, who is the heaviest member of the medical team, suddenly launches into a dead sprint across the room and clocks Dr. Maddison in the face. And this is after being tuckered out from running like a bat out of hell to get away from Trevor.
- My Best Friend Marneao has really big fighters among their characters, with Fleites and Gabriel being fat, destructive and fast.
- In El Goonish Shive, the koala-like Aberration, while by no means obese, in his aberration form is quite large and has a lot of mass due to essentially being a giant koala. Nevertheless, he remains quite agile and is able to dodge Susan's sword with relative ease.
Web Original
- This gentleman who, despite being on the pudgy side, can apparently do a cartwheel into a backflip with little difficulty.
- The submitter of this Not Always Learning story has not just agility but also stamina, keeping up through an hour and a half of back-to-back Zumba classes, while a skinnier woman who tries to bully her is the first to give up.
Western Animation
- Eleanor in Alvin and the Chipmunks. Of the Chipettes trio she has the larger physique, but is also a gifted athlete.
- Stan Smith in American Dad! has a pot belly but is extremely athletic, which is most likely a requirement for his work in the C.I.A. His gut is only visible when he's shirtless.
- In the first two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Iroh was decidedly stout, but still quite light on his feet.
- In "The Chase," he leaps at Azula and knocks her to the ground with his belly.
- In "The Crossroads of Destiny," he jumps out of a hole that he blasted in a wall with lightningbending.
- Played for Laughs in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," where after encouraging some kids to retreat after being threatened by a menacing-looking guy whose window they accidentally broke, Iroh takes off like a cheetah down the next alley.
- Bat-foe The Penguin was controversially reimagined as very skilled in martial arts for The Batman. With him, it was less the agility and more the Wire Fu-esque jumps, especially since the character design had very stumpy legs.
- In Beware the Batman, Humpty Dumpty is really fat, but fast enough to outrun Batman, even if he is carrying someone.
- Hoggish Greedly in Captain Planet and the Planeteers is a borderline case. He's an obese Villainous Glutton, but he proved to be a rather good runner in at least three episodes.
- Practically anyone who appears on Celebrity Deathmatch is a better fighter than his or her real-life counterpart, and they've had quite a few clay representations of overweight celebrities.
- Cleveland in The Cleveland Show is very overweight but can still run around as if his weight doesn't hold back while under pressure.
- Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace is overweight but he definitely qualifies, having to put up with Dennis' antics day in and day out.
- Roland of Extreme Ghostbusters, despite being rather chubby, is quite limber and agile.
- Peter Griffin in Family Guy is shown to be quite a good runner and jumper, despite being extremely obese. It's very rare for Peter to actually be exhausted from any physical activity. His teenage children, Chris and Meg, are both overweight and can both be fairly agile when the situation calls for it.
- Fat Albert from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is surprisingly agile for a person of his size, being able to run extremely quickly and jump very high. He's even able to keep up with someone riding on a bicycle.
- Fred "Twinkle Toes" Flintstone from The Flintstones becomes surprisingly light on his feet when doing his famous winning bowling technique.
- Broadway from Gargoyles is agile for his bulk, though the fact that he has the largest wingspan of the Manhattan clan may have something to do with that. The same applies to the clan elder, Hudson. He's solidly built, but still quite nimble.
- Jackie Chan Adventures:
- Tohru when he has the Rabbit Talisman.
- A team of Psycho Rangers in one episode includes an overweight martial artist who is able to go toe to toe with Jackie.
- Eugly from Kaeloo is extremely obese (she is stated in one episode to weigh about 230 kilograms), yet she is a very good athlete.
- The titular character in Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil isn't huge but he's definitely pudgy and still manages amazing stunts and maneuvers.
- My Little Pony Tales has Bon Bon who is the heaviest of the seven girls but surprisingly athletic. She roller skates with the girls and can keep up whenever she has to run.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Spike is shown to be athletic despite being pudgy for a dragon his size. This is proven in "Owl's Well That Ends Well" when he has to rush out of a dragon's cave after eating too many gems.
- Snips is a chubby unicorn colt who beats a hasty retreat rather handily from an Ursa in "Boast Busters".
- Babs Seed is drawn chunkier than the average filly but she is shown to be light on her hooves. She chases the Crusaders while bullying them in "One Bad Apple" and later keeps pace with her cousin Apple Bloom in "Apple Family Reunion."
- Trouble Shoes in "Appleloosa's Most Wanted" is one of the largest ponies ever featured in the show but that doesn't stop him from wanting to take part in rodeos.
- Noveltoons: One-shot character Ffat Kat from "Op, Pop, Wham and Bop" lives up to his name, but he is able to keep Rat Ffink on his toes.
- The Penguins of Madagascar are penguins and correspondingly chubby, but can all leap several times their own height and travel at speed by belly-sliding even on not particularly smooth surfaces.
- Elly in Pocoyo is, well, an elephant, and is skilled in ballet and martial arts.
- Howard Weinerman from Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja it turns out he can climb the rope for gym class. He just doesn't want to do it.
- He can also beat an un-powered Randy and Bash in a rush to Shangri Lunch in Der Monster Klub.
- However, when Randy briefly took control of his body, he found that he was unable to properly use his usual acrobatic fighting style, prompting him to fight more defensively.
- He also as stated below in Brilliant, but Lazy his time as "Le Beret" where he basically became a vigilante that could hijack broadcasts (albeit on a school level) and somehow got his hands on a hoverboard.
- Sean from Ready Jet Go! is a bit overweight but in the show's Big Damn Movie "Back to Bortron 7", he was able to do a perfect somersault over Jet's aunt, Eggplant.
- Mikey Blumberg from Recess is a talented ballet dancer. T.J. Detweiler is a more subtle example. He's chubbier than the other main six (save for Mikey), but can pull off some pretty awesome stunts.
- Heffer Wolfe in Rocko's Modern Life is shown to be quite nimble for his size and is even revealed to be a proficient roller skater.
- The Secret World of Santa Claus: Despite his trademark jelly-belly, Santa is more athletic than he appears. He is shown working out from time to time, and the elves occasionally comment on how good in shape he is.
- Imp from She-Ra: Princess of Power is fairly pudgy for his size, and his wings don't look big enough to lift him off the ground. He is still nimble enough in the air to evade most characters who try to catch him when he's discovered spying, and he's quite adept at sneaking around even if he isn't transformed.
- The Simpsons:
- Homer and Flanders have a parkour sequence in one episode. Flanders is quite fit, but Homer is, well, Homer.
- Depending on the episode, Homer can be quite athletic, such as the time he trained for Whacking Day.
- In a high school flashback, Homer was shown to be a talented gymnast until his father distracted him in the middle of a competitive floor routine, cutting his career short.
- Fat Tony is, well, fat, but he proves able to brawl with the best of them in the episode where his gang gets into a fight with a group of Yakuza thugs.
- Homer's pal Barney is more overweight that he is, but when he's off the sauce, he can do backflips with ease!
- Chief Wiggum is sometimes portrayed as surprisingly fast and resilient. In "22 Short Films About Springfield," he recovers from being hit by a car and immediately begins chasing Snake, even momentarily outrunning him.
- Crime lord Big Daddy from "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" is also able to bound along at a good pace while being chased by Wiggum, despite wishing he "weren't so fat."
- In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Survival of the Idiots," Sandy is in the middle of hibernating, and she engorged herself on acorns before she went to sleep, causing her to be about 5x her normal weight and height. When SpongeBob and Patrick inadvertently wake her up in a sleepwalking trance, she's currently dreaming that she's a sheriff back in Texas chasing down two outlaws named Dirty Dan and Pinhead Larry. As such, she projects them onto SpongeBob and Patrick, attempting to kill them, and despite her being fattened up, she's blisteringly fast on all fours, can rip off Patrick's forehead just by grabbing it, and was able to knock SpongeBob and Patrick out cold.
- Steven Universe, of the show by the same name, has impressive dexterity for an overweight kid in sandals. Examples include reassembling a tall stack of waffles piece by piece as they fall in midair ("SKILLS!") and playing keep-away with a Monster of the Week until it completely tied itself around the pillars of the boardwalk. His physical strength is highly impressive for a boy his age as well.
- Given his mother was an accomplished swordfighter and led an army against her homeworld, she was probably an example as well. A flashback episode shows her making a rather impressive leap and drifting gracefully down.
- Smokey Quartz, the fusion of Steven and Amethyst. They're massive in most senses of the word (though on the short side as fusions go), but in their debut they pull off some major acrobatics to the point where their opponent,Jasper, the Ultimate Quartz, can't even touch them. It helps that they have the same Not Quite Flight as Rose.
- Mario in all three Super Mario Bros. (DiC) animated series. King Koopa, being an Adipose Rex, also can display athleticism when his plans are foiled.
- Control Freak from Teen Titans. Despite looking like a lazy overweight teenager, Control Freak is surprisingly athletic and well-schooled in martial arts.
- Although TMNT '03's The Ancient One usually isn't the most active character, his appearance in the flashback episode "Fathers and Sons" show that this trope very much applies to him.
- Owen, LeShawna, and Beth from the Total Drama series compete in the same physical challenges as the other contestants without any problems. While Owen and LeShawna are sometimes out of breath, it never seems to cause them any big problems. Owen's weight and/or size has occasionally posed a problem for his team when the challenge involved moving or lifting other teammates; but as often, he's the one doing the lifting or moving of someone else and his accompanying strength is a real asset. Plus, being fat, the smell of food can motivate him to incredible speeds.
- MacArthur from the spinoff Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race is another example. She's fat but fit and agile as would befit a police cadet.
- Bulkhead in Transformers: Prime can move really damn fast if he wants to, despite his rotund shape. He's also very strong. These combine to make him a virtual One-Man Army.
- 21 in The Venture Bros. during the fourth season, after taking several levels in badass.
- Xiaolin Showdown:
- Tubbimura. Pretty agile for an overweight ninja.
- Panda Bubba could also apply here. He's a rather bulky guy but held his own in a Showdown with the monks.
- Clay himself. He started off as a Mighty Glacier but manages to pull off some pretty high jumps and can run pretty fast as the series continued and his martial arts training increased. He prefers the Mighty Glacier style, though.
- All of the Xiaolin Dragons and their opponents (the manifestations of their respective fears) briefly become this in "Dreamscape" when the episode's showdown is a four-on-four sumo wrestling match. Their bodies are magically fattened up for the duration of the match, but without losing any speed or agility.
- By the third season of Young Justice (2010), since semi-retiring from superhero work to focus on raising his daughter Lian and run his private security business, Red Arrow's put on some pounds and sports a visible dad gut. He's still shown to be as nimble as he was years prior and has no problem kicking ass when expected to suit up again.
