Silly question - are Hanz and Franz really "pumped [clap] up"?

Not the actors. I’m not stupid. That’s padding.

I mean the characters. In the world where Hanz and Franz live, are they really all muscle under the clothes? Or are they supposed to be wannabe poseurs, trying to fool people that they are body builders?

I mean, they’re comically, unrealistically huge. But maybe in their world, the laws of physics are different.

I would guess that they are bodybuilders but not very smart; ya know, the way that they’re presented.

I think they’re supposed to be really muscular under all those clothes. I don’t recall there ever being any indication that they were fake.

I imagine this guy is one of their pupils.

I always figured that they looked like old-timey strongmen more than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

E.g.: http://www.bernarrmacfadden.com/macfadden60.gif

Yeah, they weren’t supposed to be posers, just not very bright, pretentious, egotistical (but ultimately harmless) jerks.

They’re large enough to be comedic, but not to be impossible, or even unreasonable.

There’s one bit where Arnold Schwarzenegger visits them…they’re a bit bigger than him (which is more striking on Carvey, since he’s about a head shorter than Arnie, whereas Nealon is a head taller), but not insanely so. (And looking at some pics from him when he was in his bodybuilding prime, I think he’d slimmed down slightly by that point, and they weren’t significantly larger than he was at his height.)

The sense I get it that they really are supposed to be completely muscle-bound under their sweatsuits. The joke is they’ve taken their body building to absurd lengths without realizing how far out on the fringe they are.

I don’t know about tthat. It had to be over twenty years ago now but I remember watching that sketch and Ah-nold was still a pretty friggin’ big dude then!

Oh, he was certainly still massive (still is), but looking at pics from his competitive body-building days…

Maybe it’s just the fact that since he wasn’t working to keep up the definition after ending his competitive career, the look of bulk was softened a bit, but he looked somewhat bigger back in the day.

Ferrigno-esque, one might say.

In at least one episode, H&F’s muscles move back and forth (some sort of gadget under the actors’ sweats) when they flex, so I think we’re supposed to assume they really are muscle-bound.

Definitely, with the Austrian accent (and I think one of them had a gap tooth?), they were making fun of Schwarzenegger. But with the sweats, and the “pump… YOU up!”, they were making fun of the fitness industry as a whole. I’m not even sure they were supposed to be bodybuilders, since most bodybuilders show a lot more skin. Just really over the top and absurd personal trainers.

They may have done that themselves at some point, but Ah-nold also did it before the beginning of that clip I linked. His pecs magically flexed up & down!

What do you think they ah, some sort of girly men? Of course they ah covered in muscles.

Yah, but dey vere all bad.

For the kids wondering: Hans and Franz: and they were made fun of in the Dragon Ball parody made by Team 4 Star.