Melissa McCarthy is a Big Fat Hippo. Rex Reed's Right

Critics are ...critics.

This is what they do.

Rex Reed declared that Melissa McCarthy is a "gimmick" comedienne who trades on being obese.

She is. I saw this fat hippo on "Saturday Night Live" and all she did was fall on her big fat belly and plotz around the stage and make a big deal out of being a big fat hippo.

She was not funny. She was a big fat hippo.

If she did that shit on "Britain's Got Talent" Simon Cowell would've said the same thing.

McCarthy was in some stupid chick movie where...she got laughs for being a big fat hippo. I think she took a dump in the movie. Or threw up or something. She WAS funny.

Being a fat hippo can be hilarious. Toss Oliver Hardy into a mud puddle. Shove Curly of the 3 Stooges down the stairs. Fatty Arbuckle had a very successful career being a load of lard. Not too long ago obese Chris Farley danced around topless, and put his massive hands under his belly to bawl about how he lived "in a VAN by the river." OK, both he and John Candy dropped dead because of being obese.

Hey Hey Hey, Fat Albert, it happens.

So big fat hippo Melissa McCarthy pulls an Adele, and starts whinging about how Rex Reed has a problem? His only problem is that he writes for a pretty obscure peach-colored silly newspaper that really doesn't matter. And he's beginning to look too much like Raymond Burr.

But let's not deny the obvious, child. Reed was doing McCarthy a favor. Do NOT rely on flopping around and being a gimmick comedienne. Whether it's being the fat one, the lesbian one, the black one...an artist should rely on talent, not play the fat card, the race card or the sex card and take the easy way, because it'll only bore people a whole lot sooner. And I was bored the second time I saw this blob.

Victor Buono (who also died too young) put out a comedy album, and even a single, declaring "I'm FAT I'm FAT I'm FAT" or something like that. You'll recall "FAT FAT FATTY" as one of the biggest laugh lines in "The Producers," aimed at Zero Mostel (and in the re-make Nathan Lane)

There's something about overstuffed obese people that just begs for a pie in the face or a pratfall, or some other abuse. FUNNY...Melissa McCarthy didn't tell the director, "Hey, don't make me look like a fat fool by taking a dump and farting and looking like a cow..."

No, that made her a star. All that Reed was saying, was GROW UP, not GROW MORE FAT, and do something else.

Look at the first picture. Melissa is really not a bad looking woman. She does have talent. She should do more than trade on a gimmick.

Fat people often can't help it...it can be glandular issue of some kind. An emotional issue. As unhealthy as being fat is, it shouldn't be trigger an automatic and hurtful set of insults. Well, Rex Reed is not a schoolboy. He is a critic. His remarks concerned McCarthy's art and her future as any kind of interesting actress or comedy performer.

As with Adele, the issue isn't really with being fat...it's with denying it, or declaring obesity to be a GOOD thing. Know what happened after Adele got hit with fat-cow insults? She reduced. She got a little more human-looking. She appeared on magazine covers in glamour poses. Same thing happened after Joan Rivers began to make jokes about triple-chinned Liz Taylor. Rather than mewl about what kind of nasty guy Rex Reed is, and what bad place he's coming from, McCarthy should just take what he wrote for what it is...criticism. Suggestion. Advice. Don't just be a fat slob and fall down and expect everyone to laugh uproariously. Your career will be VERY short. PS, Chris Farley's career was VERY short. Obesity is not always a laughing matter.