Forget the House of Windsor. The most entertaining royal couple in the world must surely be Rio's Carnival king and queen.
He is 30 stone, with an earring, shaved head and little quiff. She is a beautiful 18-year-old mulatta who, at the slightest twitch of music, erupts into breakneck samba dancing.
From the moment on Saturday night when the mayor handed the king the keys of the city, until tomorrow when the carnival ends, Rio de Janeiro is under their control.
The king is traditionally the fattest man in town. Called the Rei Momo - named after Momus, the Greek god of mockery and irreverence - he is supposed to be a symbol of indulgence and excess.
"It's the only time of the year I can be proud of my weight," says 27-year-old Alex Oliveira Silva, this year's tubby sovereign.
But even excess has its limits these days. The kingship used to be decided by eating competitions in the city centre, when vast crowds would gather to see the contestants stuff their faces with pasta and beer, and goad them to eat until they burst.
The biggest glutton was then crowned victorious.
However, the mange-tout ethic was abandoned when it reached its sad and, perhaps, inevitable conclusion. In 1995 the king of kings, nine-times champion Reynaldo "Ball" de Carvalho, hit 50 stone and - to all intents and purposes - burst.
Now the rules have been changed, with less of an emphasis on size. Kings are required only to be heavier than a slimline 17 stone (108kg).
In keeping with this health-conscious reinterpretation of tradition, candidates now also have to prove their anaerobic prowess at samba.
But Alex, who has been king for three years in a row, is finding that keeping his weight down is impossible. Wherever he goes - and he must attend several functions a day - people offer him vast amounts of food, and refusing goes against the spirit of his position.
"When I turned up at McDonald's 20th birthday party last week, I was given six hamburgers, four portions of chips, a litre of coke, and two milkshakes," he says. Did he eat it all? "Of course," he sighs, throwing his hands in the air. "What am I supposed to do?"
During this week, however, Alex expects to lose a couple of stone from all the partying. He has already promised that afterwards he will start taking the slimming pill Xenical and hopes to shed five stone - keeping him easily outside the 17-stone limit - for the competition to be king in 2000.
"Ball's death really shocked everyone. We fat boys really need to look after ourselves."
The royal court also includes the queen's mum, who never misses a chance to go partying, and two princesses - who were the second and third-placed contestants in the competition for queen (which is a more traditional beauty pageant than the one for her husband).
They all wear large blue sashes explaining just who they are and the king is never far from his tartan make-up case, which contains a bottle of whiskey and his aftershave.
The monarch travels in a battered orange van. Anything more chic might not be large enough to accommodate the most important man in town.