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Daily Blarrrgh: The Downsizing of Hollywood's Funny Fat Men
From old-timey comedians like Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Oliver Hardy (Stan Laurel's rotund partner) to character actors like Sydney Greenstreet and Victor Buono to wild men like John Candy and Chris Farley, Hollywood has always had a special place for fat men, especially the funny ones. But in a body-obsessed, size 0 industry even Hollywood's corpulent comedians aren’t immune to downsizing.
Fat -- whether used as epithet, compliment or neutral descriptor -- meant something different back in the days when Buono, who was best known as King Tut on the campy 1960s Batman TV series, was estimated to weigh over 300 pounds and proudly released an album called Heavy (top tracks include "Word to the Wide," "Lard Lib" and "You Don't Have to Be Fat to Hate Rome"). But the latest crop of large entertainers, epitomized by Jack Black and Seth Rogen, are noticeably smaller than the actors of yore.
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