Skip to main content
Games Radar Newsarama Total Film Edge Retro Gamer
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The smarter take on movies
UK EditionUK US EditionUS CA EditionCanada AU EditionAustralia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Don't miss these
Year in Review: The Best of 2025 main listing image for Best Movies of 2025 featuring images from Weapons, Superman, Sinners, and The Long Walk
Movies The 25 Best Movies of 2025
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Movies Movie release dates 2025 and beyond: every major film coming out in cinemas and on streaming services
Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It: Welcome to Derry
Horror Shows It: Welcome to Derry Easter eggs and cameos: All the Stephen King and wider franchise references you might have missed
Josh O'Connor as Jud Duplenticy and Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Movies The 25 best movies on Netflix to watch this week
Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise in It: Welcome to Derry
Movies The It factor: Why Hollywood can't get enough of adapting the works of Stephen King
Ryan Gosling as Court Gentry in The Gray Man.
Action Movies The 25 best Netflix action movies to watch right now
Benicio del Toro as Sensei Sergio in One Battle After Another
Action Movies My favorite character of the year was One Battle After Another's beer-drinking karate instructor
Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson at gunpoint in The Long Walk
Drama Movies Hideo Kojima shares lengthy review of Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, and it sounds like he's a huge fan: "It's a meta, philosophical film about friendship and growth"
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games
Streaming Services The 20 best movies on Paramount Plus to watch right now
David Corenswet as Superman in James Gunn's Superman
Superhero Movies David Corenswet says he was "really was not expecting" to even get an audition for Superman, and thought the call was for Top Gun 3: "It feels completely impossible"
Homer, Marge, Lisa, and Bart Simpson in The Simpsons season 36
Animated Movies Homer Simpson breaks the bad news that The Simpsons Movie sequel is getting delayed
Best Christmas movies: A close-up of Jim Carrey as the Grinch wearing a Santa hat during How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Movies The 10 best Christmas movies to watch right now
Gizmo in Gremlins
Horror Movies The 30 best Christmas horror movies to make you truly Claus-trophobic
Lindsey Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in Freakier Friday
Streaming Services 6 of the best new shows and movies streaming this week on Disney Plus, Netflix, Prime Video, and more (November 17–23)
The Long Walk
Horror Movies The best Stephen King adaptations ranked, from Carrie to The Long Walk
Trending
  • Best Netflix Movies
  • Movie Release Dates
  • Best movies on Disney Plus
  • Best Netflix Shows
  1. Entertainment
  2. Movies

7 Movie Characters Too Fat To Fly

Features
By Sam Ashurst published 25 January 2010

If Kevin Smith’s too big for air travel, so are this lot…

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat on Saturday night. He was deemed a safety risk. Which, obviously, is preposterous.

Because what those flighty fucks don’t realise is that overweight people are, by and large, awesome. We learnt that from films. Don’t these airline idiots watch their own in-flight movies?

What follows is a list of movie folk who, like Smith and totalfilm.com, aren’t circus massive, they’re just unthin.

And far from being safety risks, they’d probably save your worthless airline-working lives, if only you’d let them...

Page 1 of 8
Page 1 of 8
Uncle Buck - Uncle Buck (1989)

Uncle Buck - Uncle Buck (1989)

Why So Fat? Buck is a big fan of massive pancakes, washed down with a nice cool six pack of beer.

He’s proof that you can have a massive gut and still be awesome. All snooty airline douches should be forced to watch Uncle Buck, immediately.

Where He’d Be Flying: Either to conduct some ace Chicago-based babysitting for his brother, or to go on some kind of bowling world tour.

Either way, he’ll have to cut down on the maple syrup if he wants to fly first class.

Safety Risk? Not a chance. And if any of the stewardesses are having troubles with their boyfriends, Buck can pull out his drill and sort it.

Page 2 of 8
Page 2 of 8
Chunk - The Goonies (1985)

Chunk - The Goonies (1985)

Why So Fat? Because Chunk loves ice cream, Baby Ruths and his best friends pick on him because he’s overweight, so we imagine there’s a hell of a lot of comfort eating going on.

Where He’d Be Flying:
To Hawaii, we imagine. Judging by his shirt.

Safety Risk? Only to One-Eyed Willie. And, if anything, watching the Truffle Shuffle would be an entertaining way to spend your final moments.

Page 3 of 8
Page 3 of 8
Chubby Teen Wolf (1985)

Chubby Teen Wolf (1985)

Why So Fat? The kid’s a semi-professional athlete, despite the fact all he appears to exercise in his spare time is his eyebrow and his pizza lifting arm.

Still, he’s got a mean jump-shot and a werewolf for a mate, so we’d like to see you chuck him off a jumbo.

Where He’d Be Flying:
To take part in Teen Wolf Too. He was the only recurring actor in that stupid sequel.

Safety Risk? Nope. He could help hand out flotation devices using his accurate hook-shot.

Page 4 of 8
Page 4 of 8
Bob Fight Club (1999)

Bob Fight Club (1999)

Why So Fat? When Bob’s cancer treatment went wrong, he developed bitch tits. Much like when we eat too many burgers.

Where He’d Be Flying: To a major American city to carry out another Project Mayhem prank.

Safety Risk? Okay, we’ll give you this one. But we’d like to see you try and chuck him off the plane. His name was Robert Paulson.

Page 5 of 8
Page 5 of 8
Russell Up (2009)

Russell Up (2009)

Why So Fat? We’re not sure, but he’s got a pretty unhealthy relationship with his absent dad, so we’re going to go with parental neglect.

Why He’d Be Flying: Because he’s out of helium.

Safety Risk? Definitely not. He could use his previous experience to lift the falling plane with loads of balloons and that. The little genius.

Page 6 of 8
Page 6 of 8
Oswald Cobblepot - Batman Returns (1992)

Oswald Cobblepot - Batman Returns (1992)

Why So Fat? The Penguin is fat so that he more closely resembles a penguin. They’re very bottom-heavy, you see.

Why He’d Be Flying: Because Batman confiscated all of his helicopter umbrellas, and he needs to go and visit some relatives in Illinois.

Safety Risk? As long as there’s plenty of fish on the in-flight menu, we reckon he’ll be okay.

Page 7 of 8
Page 7 of 8
Silent Bob - Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Silent Bob - Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Why So Fat? He’s not even that fat, you evil airport Nazis.

We hope that, one day, you ask someone to open their luggage to inspect what’s inside, and it’s the Ark Of The Covenant what’s inside. And it makes your faces melt off. All the way off. Like in Face/Off.

Why He’d Be Flying: To transport some killer chronic.

Safety Risk? If he’s flying alone, definitely not. If he’s got Jay with him, then possibly. But then Jay’s skinny, so he’d be allowed to fly without his personal dignity being even slightly impinged.

Page 8 of 8
Page 8 of 8
Sam Ashurst
Social Links Navigation

Sam Ashurst is a London-based film maker, journalist, and podcast host. He's the director of Frankenstein's Creature, A Little More Flesh + A Little More Flesh 2, and co-hosts the Arrow Podcast. His words have appeared on HuffPost, MSN, The Independent, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, and many more, as well as of course for us here at GamesRadar+.

Read more
Tom Hanks in Sully
The 32 greatest plane movies of all time
 
 
Marlon Wayans as Isaiah White in HIM
Marlon Wayans explains why his new horror movie HIM has made him "desperate" for "heavier" roles post-Scary Movie 6: "These are my Denzel years"
 
 
Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda
Jack Black and Paul Rudd head out into the jungle to find a giant killer snake in meta first trailer for Anaconda
 
 
Keanu Reeves in Good Fortune
Keanu Reeves' worst on-set injury wasn't from John Wick or The Matrix, but from his angelic new comedy: "The pain was banana cakes"
 
 
The Long Walk
The best Stephen King adaptations ranked, from Carrie to The Long Walk
 
 
Dwayne Johnson in Tooth Fairy
Dwayne Johnson says his string of early career flops was because he shied away from a challenge: "I don't think I was ready for anything other than easy, light, family films"
 
 
Latest in Movies
Vision
Avengers: Secret Wars might be getting some help from a sorely missed MCU star
 
 
Lakeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah
LaKeith Stanfield set to spend 48 Hours in Vegas as Dennis Rodman
 
 
Potential new James Bond Idris Elba wearing a suit. That is all.
Idris Elba plans to retire from acting and become a full-time director
 
 
White Vision in WandaVision
Paul Bettany teases a return as Vision in Avengers: Secret Wars after Vision Quest
 
 
Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in The Shining
The Shining may be Stephen King's least favorite adaptation of his work, but it's my favorite
 
 
Ben Affleck in Justice League
Guillermo del Toro's scrapped DC movie would have been led by John Constantine and included a Batman cameo
 
 
Latest in Features
Deku powered up in My Hero Academia season 8
My Hero Academia's final episode cements the Shōnen anime as one of the all-time great superhero stories
 
 
Citizen Sleeper 2 key art with orange GamesRadar+ Best of 2025 badge in upper right
From Citizen Sleeper 2 to Hollow Knight: Silksong, the best sequels of 2025 expanded upon their predecessors
 
 
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 screenshot with orange GamesRadar+ Best of 2025 badge in upper right
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developers made my favorite RPG of 2025 by trusting their original vision: "We had the strength to say, 'Yes, that's what we want'"
 
 
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic screenshot showing the silhouette of a Jedi wearing a cape
Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic needs to put being an RPG before being a Star Wars game
 
 
Divinity
Larian's new Divinity game might mean a pivot back to classic RPGs and I can't wait to see it
 
 
The title card for Forest 3 shown during The Game Awards
Forest 3: Everything we know so far about the upcoming survival horror game
 
 
  1. Key art for Skate Story showing the glass skater boarding through a dark underworld filled with spikes towards a door of light
    1
    Skate Story review: "A beautiful and unique skateboarding game with great, stylized visuals set in a grungy underworld"
  2. 2
    Octopath Traveler 0 review: "The strongest entry in this retro-styled JRPG series yet, I love the greater focus on tactical battles"
  3. 3
    Sleep Awake review: "An all-timer horror premise is let down by tired stealth that I feel like I'm sleepwalking through"
  4. 4
    Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review: "The series' atmosphere has never been better, while being dragged down by a boring overworld and clunky psychic powers"
  5. 5
    Routine review: "This imperfect but wonderfully atmospheric moon-based horror leaves a strong impression"
  1. Freddy Fazbear in Five Nights at Freddy's 2
    1
    Five Nights at Freddy's 2 review: "We have waited two years for a Five Nights at Freddy's 1.5"
  2. 2
    Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review: "Brings Knives Out back to its roots for a sequel that's almost on a par with the original"
  3. 3
    Wicked: For Good review: "Builds to an incredibly cathartic conclusion, but isn't quite as captivating as Part 1"
  4. 4
    The Running Man review: "Some fun action and Glen Powell's star power aren't enough to energize this disappointing Stephen King adaptation"
  5. 5
    Predator: Badlands review: "Die-hard fans may be disappointed, but as a blockbuster action-adventure, Badlands kills it"
  1. Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in Stranger Things season 5
    1
    Stranger Things season 5 volume 1 review: “Can the Duffer brothers stick the landing? It’s sure looking like they will”
  2. 2
    Pluribus season 1 review: "Easily one of the year's best dramas"
  3. 3
    The Witcher season 4 review: "The Henry Cavill-less fourth season is the best yet"
  4. 4
    IT: Welcome to Derry review: "A supremely confident step back into the history of Stephen King's cursed town and killer clown"
  5. 5
    Splinter Cell: Deathwatch review: "A pale imitation of the long-dormant stealth franchise"

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

Add as a preferred source on Google
  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...