Friar Tuck royal writs in 1417 refer to Robert Stafford, a Sussex chaplain who had assumed the alias of Frere Tuk. This "Friar Tuck" was still at large in 1429. These are the earliest surviving references to a character by that name. In the 1891 romantic opera "Ivanhoe" by Sir Arthur Sullivan and Julian Sturgis, Friar Tuck was played by Avon Saxon. In the film "Robin Hood" (1922) he was portrayed by Willard Louis. In the film, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) the character Friar Tuck was played by actor Eugene Pallette as a fat individual fond of food but also
Friar Tuck is portrayed as an itinerant seller of phony relics, who is first mugged and then adopted by the Merry Men. He also confesses to being on the run for killing the nephew of an abbot. In the 1997 film "", the second movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, big game hunter Roland Tembo refers to a Pachycephalosaurus as Friar Tuck. He could not not read its proper name in his dinosaur identification booklet while traveling over rough ground towards the beginning of the film. In the 2004 Dreamworks film "Shrek 2" the Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming take King Harold