Entertainment
10 Fictional Characters Who Are Obsessed With Certain Foods
Everyone has their favorite foods – even fictional characters. Remember when Paul Newman ate fifty boiled eggs in an hour when he was in prison, purely out of boredom (and to win a bet)? Fictional characters can enjoy food just as much as we do. Leslie Knope is obsessed with breakfast food. Whether it is established as a running joke or simply a character trait or, in some cases, their whole reason for being, like the Cookie Monster and the Hamburglar. Their whole characters revolve around the foods that they enjoy. These 10 fictional characters are obsessed with one food in particular.
10. Popeye and spinach
The whole Popeye character was created in the first place in order to sell spinach. Spinach had been discovered and it was thought to be the healthiest thing in the world. Back then, it was the equivalent of quinoa or Quorn or superfood, whatever that is. So, all of the health organizations wanted people to start eating this stuff. They created a character whose defining hallmark was his love of spinach who gets huge muscles and the ability to do anything whenever he eats a can of spinach. So, Popeye was born and he became an iconic cultural staple. And then they found out that spinach actually wasn’t as healthy as they thought. No one’s life was going to be saved by spinach. They had no idea. It is still healthy. It’s green and it’s natural and it’s organic. But it’s not as healthy as they had originally thought it was going to be. But at this point, Popeye had become iconic and his love of spinach had become iconic, so it was too late to retire the character and create one who likes the foods that are actually healthy. Oh, well. As a character, he’s still a barrel of laughs.
9. Bugs Bunny and carrots
This character, who has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is synonymous with carrots. He hardly ever appears on screen without a carrot in his mouth. The crunching of a carrot often complements his snarky comments. He’ll make some kind of smart alecky remark to Elmer Fudd and the sarcasm and the condescension will really come through, because he’s munching on a carrot. It’s the same effect as a cigar or a cigarette – he’s got the thing in his mouth, ready to punctuate his statements in a powerful and dramatic way, but the carrot is more wholesome and family friendly and fun. It’s also a more appropriate thing for a rabbit to have in his mouth. Picture it now: Elmer Fudd is trying to sneak through the woods and be “vewy, vewy quiet,” as he hunts “wabbits” during “wabbit season,” and then Bugs Bunny appears behind him, takes a bite from his carrot, and totally nonchalantly says, “Eh, what’s up, doc?” That is the attitude and the personality of this iconic cartoon character summed up in one memorable image, and it requires the carrot to really make it work and hammer it home. The voice performance of Mel Blanc is a huge part of the reasoning behind why this character became a pop culture icon, but his love of carrots is one of the most significant parts of his iconography.
8. Winnie the Pooh and honey
If you can’t find Winnie the Pooh, then look no further than the nearest honey pot, because he will undoubtedly have either his hand or his head stuck in it, trying to get as much honey into his mouth as possible. This cuddly, friendly, unthreatening, little bear is obsessed with the sweet, treacly goodness of gloopy, delicious honey and will often treat himself to an entire beehive full of the stuff. Pooh’s obsession with honey has links to bears’ real life affinity for honey. However, according to science, when bears go digging around in beehives, they don’t just stop at the honey like our friend Pooh. They’ll eat all the bees and the larvae inside it, too. Pooh has been voiced by Jim Cummings in all of the animated TV shows and movies for Disney. Most recently, the character was featured in the live action movie Christopher Robin, a movie that grossed almost $200 million worldwide on a budget of $75 million. It told the story of a grown up Christopher Robin who is confronted by his old creations. Cummings voiced Pooh in this movie, too, because it’s pretty much impossible to see anyone without his warm, soothing, friendly voice as Winnie the Pooh.
7. Augustus Gloop and chocolate
This kid loves chocolate so much that he damn near killed himself trying to eat it. He dived into a lake of melted chocolate, just so that he could drink the tasty, sugary, gloopy treat all around him. Let’s be a hundred percent honest with ourselves, though. In the book and in the movie, Augustus Gloop is made out to be some kind of out of control monster who sees a lake of melted chocolate and can’t help himself from wanting to get in there, but come on, that’s exactly what we would all do. Charlie Bucket stands there with his judging eyes, thinking that Augustus Gloop is a fat slob who couldn’t wait five minutes before tucking into all the chocolate on display in Willy Wonka’s factory, but how dare he? If any of us got anywhere near a massive body of melted chocolate that ran through a controlled industrial area, we would be right down there at the riverbank on our hands and knees, right alongside Augustus Gloop, slurping that chocolate out of the lake. It’s a shame that he got sucked into that tube and got stuck, which is one of the scariest scenarios imaginable to find yourself in, because it will put a lot of people off of actually doing that if they ever find themselves in a situation with a lake of melted chocolate.
6. Cookie Monster and cookies
This inhabitant of Sesame Street loves cookies so much that the word “cookie” is in his name. He’s Cookie Monster! Everyone loves this guy. He is famed for his googly eyes and his shaggy blue fur, which combine to make him look both cuddly and psychotic all at once. Cookie Monster can be heard saying one of four catchphrases, and they all involve cookies. He will either say, “Me want cookie,” “Me eat cookie,” or the simpler alternative, “COOKIE!” The only one of his four beloved catchphrases that doesn’t contain the word “cookie” is the one that goes, more or less, “Om nom nom nom nom!” which is what he says when he is eating cookies and therefore his mouth is too full for him to speak full words. He is arguably the third most memorable and iconic character from the long running educational PBS kids’ show, after Elmo and Big Bird. It could even be argued that he is better known than Bert and Ernie. Bert and Ernie are known as a duo, not separately. Cookie Monster is known as a solo character and it’s hard to become iconic as just one guy without a sidekick to bounce off of.
5. Hannibal Lecter and human flesh
It’s a good thing that this character’s name is Hannibal, because the only word in the English language that rhymes with it and vice versa is “cannibal,” and conveniently enough, he is a cannibal. He eats people. That’s his thing. He’s not “Stan the Man” or “Rob the Slob” or something cool that rhymes like that. He is “Hannibal the Cannibal.” That’s how he became known in the papers and among the public following his capture. Dr. Lecter was once a brilliant psychiatrist who happened to enjoy eating people in his down time before he was found out and arrested. After that, he became a good friend of an FBI agent named Clarice Starling and helped her to find the new serial killer that she was trying to track down as her first big case, “Buffalo Bill.” Don’t try to take down any information from Hannibal for the census, because he will kill you and then eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Don’t try to keep him in prison either, because he will break out in a very gruesome way and you will almost certainly regret trying to keep him behind bars when you’ve got no face left.
4. Scooby Doo and Scooby Snacks
We all know what was going on with Shaggy and Scooby now. When we were kids, we had no idea. We thought they were just two guys who liked a certain food brand called Scooby Snacks and liked to eat gigantic club sandwiches the size of a house and were too lazy to get involved in the solving of any cases. Scooby and Shaggy both maintain that being in a constant state of fear, thanks to their work with Mystery, Inc. taking them into haunted houses and abandoned fairgrounds full of ghosts and ghouls and mummies and zombies, leaves them in a constant state of hunger. But Fred, Daphne, and Velma never wanted any Scooby Snacks. They would eat at meal times, but they would also stop eating sometimes and get the job done. What we now realize as adults is that Scooby and Shaggy were high all the time and they wanted to eat boxes and boxes of Scooby Snacks to quench their bad cases of the munchies. That accounts for why they were so lazy, why they would often see wild things, and why they would freak out more than any of the others at the slightest hint of danger. They were just a pair of stoners.
3. Ron Swanson and any kind of meat
Ron Swanson loves bacon and eggs so much that he doesn’t just want you to bring him a lot of bacon and eggs – he wants you to bring him all the bacon and eggs you have. When he goes to restaurant with some of his friends or co-workers, he doesn’t just order one big steak and be happy with it – he orders several steaks and only stops eating steak if everyone wants to pay the check and leave. Where does he put it all? The guy never stops! But he does go hunting a lot and he likes to toss the pigskin around in the parking lot, so the calories do get burned off. When Chris Traeger came along with his restrictive diet and his organic whole foods, Ron was flabbergasted. He couldn’t understand how a man could go through his life without the succulent beauty of red meat. Ron jumps at any chance he gets to use a barbecue or to cook some burgers. In his competition with Chris to make the best burger, with Ron using beef and Chris using turkey, Ron simply grilled some patties, put them onto a bun, and told everyone that he didn’t care whether or not they used any kind of sauce. Everyone unanimously agreed that Ron’s was the better burger.
2. Homer Simpson and donuts
“Mmm, donuts.” That is the lesser known catchphrase of Homer Simpson. Of course the best known one and the one that was entered into the dictionary when the show became popular enough to be a cultural institution is “D’oh!” On the poster for the movie adaptation of the show that came out in 2007, the “O” in “Movie” was a donut with Homer’s face underneath it, and in some of the posters, the “O” was just a greasy circle where a donut once was, because Homer had removed the donut from the title of his own movie and started eating it. When his head became a donut, he couldn’t help eating that, even though it was the one that was keeping him alive. He really can’t help himself! In one of the “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween special episodes, Homer is sent to Hell where the Devil punishes him by making him eat thousands of donuts. The idea behind the punishment is the same as John Doe’s – punish his sin by making him commit it so many times that he never wants to do it again. But it kind of backfires, because Homer never learns his lesson. He never grows tired of eating donuts or becomes full. The Devil runs out of donuts and Homer is no less full than when he began – he actually wants to be provided with more!
1. Deadpool and chimichangas
The Merc with a Mouth is not as obsessed with chimichangas in his movie form as he is in the comic books. The movies, starring Ryan Reynolds, are more focused on telling a love story and delivering epic action sequences and making you laugh with hilarious fourth wall breaks. But in the comic books, Deadpool is a huge fan of chimichangas. Still, the Ryan Reynolds movie version of the character did appear in an ad for the popular fried Mexican fast food. It’s such a huge part of the character’s genetic makeup that they simply couldn’t adapt him for the screen without incorporating his love of chimichangas in one way or another. You can’t keep the guy away from them. And yet, he once claimed to hate them. That would be so Deadpool. He makes an entire community of comic book readers think that chimichangas are his favorite food and they remember it, because that’s what comic book readers do when they find out a new fact about one of their favorite characters, and then chimichangas become famous for their association to Deadpool. And then it turns out he doesn’t even like them and he made the whole thing up. That’s exactly the kind of thing that the Merc with a Mouth would do.