Editing Takeru Kobayashi (section)

==In popular culture==
In the 93rd ''[[TV Funhouse]]'' short on the November 11th, 2006 episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', Kobayashi is the titular character of "Kobayashi", a parody of popular anime series, namely ''[[Dragon Ball Z]]'', where he appears in-between animated scenes as himself. Kobayashi's eating abilities partially inspired the ''[[King of the Hill]]'' episode "The Fat and the Furious". This episode originally aired on November 10, 2002. In 2004, a character inspired by Kobayashi, namely ''Kobarushi'', appears in ''[[Megas XLR]]''{{'}}s episode "Bad Guy". Kobayashi also helped inspire the 2005 ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]'' episode "[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (season 6)#ep126|Dog Eat Dog]]". The episode features a victim who ate himself to death, in part from eating several hot dogs at a hot dog eating contest. Kobayashi is mentioned by [[Will Ferrell]]'s character, Ricky Bobby, in the 2006 film ''[[Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby]]''. 

Referenced in movie ''[[Step Brothers (film)|Step Brothers]]'' by Randy ([[Rob Riggle]]) after Derek ([[Adam Scott (actor)|Adam Scott]]) threatens that Randy will, "...eat Brennan's (Will Ferrell's) dick", if Brennan botches the Catalina Wine Mixer, Randy adds, "Like Kobayashi!".<ref>{{Citation|last=CMN98|title=Step Brothers: Eat your dick|date=2008-12-06|url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8lMbk4DeN7E |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/8lMbk4DeN7E| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|access-date=2016-10-30}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Kobayashi appears in the ending cinematic of level three, "Around the World in 80 Bites" in the 2007 video game, ''[[The Simpsons Game]]''. In ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "[[Luca$]]" in the 25th season, the character Lucas Bortner wears a T-shirt with a photo of Kobayashi eating and refers to him in a dialogue. The ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "[[Killer Queen (Family Guy)|Killer Queen]]" features a parody of Kobayashi named Charles Yamamoto (voiced by [[Robert Wu]]), a hot dog-eating champion who is dethroned by [[Chris Griffin]] at a hot dog-eating contest, later making numerous attempts on Chris' life in revenge for defeating and dishonoring him at the competition. In the ''[[1000 Ways to Die]]'' skit "Vom-Ate-Dead", a professional eater modeled after Takeru Kobayashi is cornered by an emetophiliac woman who forces him to vomit on her, which causes her death when she chokes on an undigested piece of [[hot dog]]. Kobayashi appears as himself on a 2012 episode of ''[[Jake and Amir (web series)|Jake and Amir]]'', a [[CollegeHumor]] web series. He becomes aggressive when Jake tries to feed him hot dogs. Kobayashi appears as himself in the movie ''[[The Houses October Built 2]]''. He is in the Brain Eating Contest during the Zombie Pub Crawl in [[Minneapolis, Minnesota]].

Kobayashi was featured in the 2024 [[Netflix]] documentary ''Hack your Health: Secrets of Your Gut'', where he announced his retirement from competitive eating and a desire to create more healthy hot dogs.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/hack-your-health-secrets-of-your-gut-release-date-trailer-news | title=In the Search for Wellness, Hack Your Health Goes Straight to the Gut | website=[[Netflix]] }}</ref><ref name=henderson/>