History Main / HollywoodDensity

* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' one episode has golden bricks which were covered in moss to make them look like old stone bricks, and the titular character easily lifted them as if it were that light.

* In ''Film/TheHiddenFortress'', if the gold bars are intended to contain 10 ryo (1 ryo = 16.5g) of gold each, then the 200 bars total would weigh somewhere between 70 and 90 pounds, depending on the purity of the bars, which is a plausible amount for two grown men to be able to carry with some difficulty. Once the party loses the horse and cart, the peasants carrying the gold are shown staggering under the weight. But based on the volumes of their packs, they should be carrying between two and three tons of the stuff each, as opposed to forty-odd pounds.

* In the animated film of ''WesternAnimation/TheWaterBabies'', the heroes bombard an evil shark's castle by dropping giant snowballs and icicles from the iceberg floating above it. Granted, this ''is'' in a film where sea creatures speak, swordfish wear feathered hats, and the human protagonist and his dog both breathe water. But still, ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.

* In the animated film of ''WestenAnimation/TheWaterBabies'', the heroes bombard an evil shark's castle by dropping giant snowballs and icicles from the iceberg floating above it. Granted, this ''is'' in a film where sea creatures speak, swordfish wear feathered hats, and the human protagonist and his dog both breathe water. But still, ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.

* In ''Film/TheCallofTheWild2020'', a dog (admittedly a huge St. Bernard) picks up a solid gold nugget in his jaws. The nugget has to weigh at least 10 pounds, but the dog doesn't seem to be struggling to keep his head erect with it in his mouth, and his master isn't surprised by its weight when the dog drops the nugget into his hand.

* Many games featuring weight limits for what a character can carry measure everything in the same unit. This can become a problem when the unit was designed with some common adventuring item (such as an arrow or dagger) weighing "1 unit," in which case items that should be much lighter (jewels, scrolls?) end up weighing the exact same amount as "base" items (which sometimes may lead to CriticalEncumbranceFailure). A common workaround is to give such items a weight of zero, which can [[HyperspaceArsenal lead to massive hoarding]] if any of them are common and useful.

* Many games featuring weight limits for what a character can carry measure everything in the same unit. This can become a problem when the unit was designed with some common adventuring item (such as an arrow or dagger) weighing "1 unit," in which case items that should be much lighter (jewels, scrolls?) end up weighing the exact same amount as "base" items, sometimes leading to CriticalEncumbranceFailure. A common workaround is to give such items a weight of zero, which can [[HyperspaceArsenal lead to massive hoarding]] if any of them are common and useful.

* Many games featuring weight limits for what a character can carry measure everything in the same unit. This can become a problem when the unit was designed with some common adventuring item (such as an arrow or dagger) weighing "1 unit," in which case items that should be much lighter (jewels, scrolls?) end up weighing the exact same amount as "base" items. A common workaround is to give such items a weight of zero, which can [[HyperspaceArsenal lead to massive hoarding]] if any of them are common and useful.

* Posibly played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', where is never terribly consistent about whether the characters are in a water-like medium or an air-like medium.

*** Comics from Creator/DonRosa [[LampshadeHanging lampshade this]]: in ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', Scrooge himself was extremely surprised when a bedouin tried to ''murder'' him by throwing him in a train wagon filled with cash and he managed to swim in it, and when Donald first saw him diving in his money he believed he was killing himself until he started swimming (the nephews and him could barely believe their own eyes).

** Similarly, in ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'', Scrooge has to physically restrain Louie once from doing a swandive into the Bin, remarking that Louie would be seriously hurt, if [[RealityEnsues not outright killed]] in the attempt. When Louie asks Scrooge how ''he'' does it, Scrooge remarks that he was able to master the skill only after years of practice. Further on in the episode, when Louie has to go hunting in the bin for Scrooge's NumberOneDime, he is shown pushing, waist deep, through the coins with great difficulty.

** It's entirely possible to leave the vault with every single bar through clever use of the game world, such as [[GoodBadBugs by loading the gold into a dead body, decapitating it and carrying the head manually,]] or getting your companions to carry some of the gold before time runs out. Even without exploits, it's possible to take a shortcut by sneaking past a very alert NPC, avoiding the timed-run and giving the player plenty of time to escape with all the bars, as the player character can still walk at a waddling pace even if they're carrying over half a ton of gold. A perk called "Long Haul" also enables the PC to fast-travel while over-encumbered, and ''Old World Blues'' introduces a device that the player can use to instantly teleport themselves to the Sink, where a merchant waits with a respawning +14,000 caps.

* The ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' series, based on ''Tabletopgame/BattleTech'', likewise rates its HumongousMecha by metric tonnage. The issue of silly tonnages and densities is exacerbated by the mechs being largely to-scale with each other and the environment unlike the often out-of-scale sourcebook art from ''Battletech''. The Atlas in ''Mechwarrior 4'' is taller than a 6 story building and its feet are as large as a small tank, but it's only 100 tons, twice the weight of a M1 Abrams. Later games are slightly better in this regard. Amusingly, in ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'', mechs will spontaneously ''become buoyant'' if they are ragdolled from leg damage while underwater; just about every mech would naturally be about as dense as Styrofoam or plywood.

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* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' one episode has golden bricks which were covered in moss to make them look like old stone bricks, and the titular character easily lifted as if it were that light.

* In ''Film/DangerDiabolik'' (best watched in [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S10E13Diabolik the MST3K incarnation]]), the authorities melt 20 tons of gold into one huge bar to move it and entice the protagonist to try to steal it. That much gold would make a cube about 3.5 feet in each direction -- about the size of a small refrigerator -- but they make a bar nearly as long as a train car, several feet wide, and a few feet high -- at least 300 tons worth, at a rough estimate.
** To top that off, the protagonist crashes the train into a bay and then is able to float the gold container away with nothing more than a dozen party-sized balloons.

* Amusingly averted in one issue of the comic based on the animated ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'' series. In order to hide the [[CoolCar DeLorean]] when they travel into the past, Doc Brown has added a feature where the car transforms into an ordinary-looking suitcase. Marty asks what's stopping someone from just picking up the suitcase and walking off with it, only to try picking it up and getting nowhere. Doc points out that it still ''weighs'' over a ton.

* Averted in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10276824/5/Harry-s-Loophole Harry's Loophole]]''. The Hungarian Horntail flicks the golden egg at Harry and catching it breaks both his hands, despite it being mostly hollow.

* ''Film/TheItalianJob2003'' packs the Coopers with gold, and it uses a HandWave by stating that they've beefed up the shocks to accommodate the extra weight, though this is unlikely to be sufficient in real life. Partially averted when the team is determining which armored car is carrying the gold and which are decoys - the loaded truck is noticeably riding lower on its suspension.

* Averted in one scene of ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice''. When examining a pair of photos of a suspect cargo ship, Bond and Tanaka deduce that it must have made a clandestine port call - and offloaded ''something'' - by the fact the ship is riding significantly higher in the water in the second picture.

* Averted in ''Film/AssaultOnAQueen''. The SubmarinePirates stealing crates of gold from the Queen Mary have to drag the crates along the deck, watched by the astonished passengers who have no idea that a robbery is in progress. The crew (who do know) naturally have no intention of helping them carry away their loot.
* Averted in ''Film/BlueStreak'' when a thief posing as a police officer gets called to a supposed burglary at a tire store. He points out to hoist the heavy rims to the roof and out would take a large team of men many hours, and therefore the owner probably stole them himself and reported it for the insurance. [[/folder]]

* ''Literature/TreasureIsland'': Averted. The narration mentions that loading Flint's treasure onto the ship is slow work, since gold is so heavy. It is stated that two bars of gold on a rope are a reasonable, if heavy, burden for a grown man.
* Averted in the first ''Jack Reacher'' novel." $100,000 in $1 bills fills a (tightly-packed) box that was made to contain air-conditioning units and weighs two hundred pounds, requiring two men to move.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Cyberchase}}'': The first Happily-Ever-After episode averts this, as the golden eggs that Hacker demands as ransom for Kingy's safe return are too heavy for the kids to gather and organize by themselves; fortunately, [[Literature/JackAndTheBeanstalk Jack]] just happens to know a friendly giant who can help.

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* In ''Film/TheCallofTheWild'', a dog (admittedly a huge St. Bernard-type) picks up a pure gold nugget from a creek using his jaws. The nugget has to weigh at least 10 pounds, but the dog doesn't seem to be struggling to keep his head erect with it in his mouth, and his master isn't surprised by its weight when he drops the nugget into his hand.

* ''Literature/{{Biggles}}'': WE Johns fell into this trap in the novel ''Biggles and Co'', when a recently-demobbed Biggles was hired by a major bank who've been hit by a string of {{ArmedBlag}}s and think air-freighting their gold bullion might help. It doesn't; the gang responsible get hold of a small stunt-plane and a few machine guns and turn SkyPirate... but Biggles put the real gold under a false floor in the aircraft's cargo hold, and the robbers drive off in triumphant possession of a large quantity of lead. Now, the author makes an effort at a HandWave by never quite specifying how much gold is being transported, stating only that the individual crates can be lifted comfortably by two men. But nevertheless, carrying a significant amount of gold ''and'' an equivalent number of crates full of lead would be an impressive feat indeed for the cutting edge of 1920s aerospace engineering!

* ''Literature/TreasureIsland'': The narration mentions that loading Flint's treasure onto the ship is slow work, since gold is so heavy. It is stated that two bars of gold on a rope are a reasonable, if heavy, burden for a grown man.

* In ''Film/TheCallofTheWild(2020)'', a dog (admittedly a huge St. Bernard-type) picks up a pure gold nugget from a creek using his jaws. The nugget has to weigh at least 10 pounds, but the dog doesn't seem to be struggling to keep his head erect with it in his mouth, and his master isn't surprised by its weight when he drops the nugget into his hand.

** Subverted in the short story "[[Literature/OctopussyAndTheLivingDaylights Octopussy]]". The sheer exhaustion of carrying ''two bars'' of NaziGold[[note]]Which isn't even pure - typical of the Third Reich, it's got a lot of lead mixed in[[/note]] through some hills almost drives main character insane. Later, when he has to get it through customs, he carries the bars in a briefcase and takes amphetamines to be able to lift it easily enough to conceal its weight.

* ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla''. At the beginning of the movie, a submarine traveling underwater passes by the iceberg Godzilla was trapped in at the end of ''Film/GodzillaReturns'' and chunks of ice begin breaking off as Godzilla starts to stir. Said ice chunks drop like stones around the submarine on a beeline to the seabed. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water; that, after all, is why icebergs are a thing in the first place!

* ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla''. At the beginning of the movie, a submarine traveling underwater passes by the iceberg Godzilla was trapped in at the end of ''Godzilla's Counterattack'' and chunks of ice begin breaking off as Godzilla starts to stir. Said ice chunks drop like stones around the submarine on a beeline to the seabed. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water; that, after all, is why icebergs are a thing in the first place!