The Rise of Competitive Eating in Pop Culture

1. A competitive eating event was the opening vignette of the episode of The Simpsons entitled Maximum Homerdrive, in which Homer Simpson's opponent, a truck driver, died after consuming the last bite of a monstrous steak, leaving Homer the responsibility of completing the man's cross-country delivery assignment.
   
2. An IFOCE King of the Hill episode, "The Fat and the Furious," had Bill Dauterive and eventually Dale Gribble participate in eating competitions.
   An eating competition at a county fair was featured prominently in the film Beethoven's 2nd.
   
3. The music video of Far East Movement's Round Round features a headband wearing male and several scantily clad women engaging in a hot dog eating competition.
   
4. A competitive pie-eating contest featured in the Stephen King novella The Body, later filmed as Stand by Me.
   
5. The movie Meatballs features a hot dog-eating competition.
   
6. A segment of the Hungarian/French/Austrian movie Taxidermia is set in the Communist period of Hungary and features several professional competitive eaters in a rather surreal way. (The movie is based on three short stories written by Hungarian author Lajos Parti Nagy).[2]
   
7. In an episode of Hey Arnold!, Arnold and other characters participate in a competitive eating contest.
   
8. In an episode of Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi, Yumi competes against a golden-toothed boy in a hot dog-eating conest.
   
9. In an episode of Without a trace, the FBI missing persons unit investigates the disappearance of a competitive eater.
   
10. In Malcolm in the Middle, the father is in a competitive eating contest at a town fair in the park.
    
11. MTV recently aired "I'm a competitive eater" as part of their "True Life" series
    
12. In an episode of SNL, a TV Funhouse animated clip parodied Takeru Kobayashi and Dragonball Z, making him out to be a superhero who saves the day by powering up and eating walls made of hot dogs.
    
13. In an episode of Samurai Champloo; Mugen, Jin, and Fuu all participate in a competitive eating contest to win money. Fuu was about to win; however, she accidentally forfeited while killing a fly.