Big Guy, Little Guy

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Don't mess things up again, ya lunkhead.

Two guys who are often Heterosexual Life Partners, and usually embody the Fat and Skinny trope. That's just the start of the bundle of tropes these two embody.

This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is always in charge. The big guy plays the Dumb Muscle role, but there's a catch, and this is important--oftentimes, the big guy will often have some pretty good ideas. The little guy always ignores the big guy's suggestion, only to come up with the idea himself just a split second later, as in Timon 'N' Pumbaa. Despite his occasional flashes of insight, the big guy is not obfuscating--He really is just a big dumb lug, and he often doesn't know his own strength.

The Little guy is usually listed first, since he's the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can't live without each other. Although these guys are seen most often in kid's shows, they are also played seriously.

See also Huge Guy, Tiny Girl, Those Two Guys, Those Two Bad Guys.

Examples include:


Anime and Manga

  • Samurai Deeper Kyo: the first people he kills are a giant with a comically oversized hammer and a midget nicknamed "Wind".
  • Baccano has Jacuzzi Splot's bodyguards, Nick and Donnie. This might be a case of Big Guy, Bigger Guy, Little Guy. And of course Nice.
  • The Butler Zakenna from Futari wa Pretty Cure. The tall one even has a long Forehead of Doom to emphasize his height!
  • Edward Elric (the little guy, but don't tell him I said that) and Alphonse Elric (the big guy) from Fullmetal Alchemist. Notably, Alphonse is only big due to extenuating circumstances and they are both quite consistently smart.
  • Vegeta and Nappa from Dragonball were this, at least until Vegeta killed him.
  • Gian and Suneo from Doraemon. Though the leader role usually belong to Gian, since Suneo is scared shitless of him.
  • Meryl Strife and Millie Thompson from Trigun are rare female examples.
  • Waver Velvet and Rider from Fate Zero. Of course, since Rider is a legendary warrior king on top of being a seven foot bear of a man, he doesn't settle for being the subservient one of the pair and dominates Waver from the moment he's summoned by him.


Comic Books

  • Asterix and Obelix.
  • Messrs. Shlubb and Klump from Sin City.
  • Sam and Max Freelance Police. Possible inversion, since Sam is the Big Guy but still the voice of reason holding Max (the Little Guy) back from indulging in "unnecessary violence" (loosely defined, since both Sam and Max are quite fond of solving problems with violence and gunplay).
  • Franky and The Goon. As in Sam and Max, Goon is the big guy but also the more sensible leader who reigns in his manic little partner(sometimes).
  • Newspaper Comic Jumpstart has a big guy who has nearly a dozen other big guy brothers, one of whom is in the NFL. Their highly intimidating (single!) father is at least 200 pounds lighter and one head smaller.
  • Hercules and Amadeus Cho from The Incredible Hercules.

Film

Literature

  • George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men are a good serious example.
  • Discworld has Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs, and Mr Pin and Mr Tulip.
    • Note that Colon actually outranks Nobby, which inverts the usual ranking of this trope. The puny Nobby is smarter than the overweight Colon, however.
  • Fletcher and Red in Half Moon Investigations to almost an extreme point, Fletcher "Half" Moon being small for his age and Red having been held back a year.
  • Freak and Max in Freakthe Mighty.
  • Lousewort and Sneezewort, the Punch Clock Villain duo in The Long Patrol.
  • In Dougal Dixon's Man After Man, some of the large, yeti-like tundra-dwellers evolve a partnership with small, nimble forest omnivores. The clever little omnivores scout out terrain and catch small game for their lumbering partners, and the tundra-dwellers carry their smaller companions across vast distances, hugging them close so they're kept warm by their big friends' thick fur.
  • Locke and Jean in the Gentleman Bastard Sequence, though Jean is a Genius Bruiser and has just as important a role as Locke in the brains area of their operation.
  • Inverted in The Dark Tower by the Hitler Brothers. The bigger brother, "George" is the brains compared to "Lennie" who is impatient and fairly stupid.
  • Mack and his friend/bossman Eddie Lui in the Emberverse. Also John Hordle and Alleyne Loring.
  • Vandemar and Croup, "the fox and the wolf", from Neverwhere.

Music

  • Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) -- "You've got the brawn, I've got the brain; Let's make lots of money"
  • They Might Be Giants - Particle Man "Universe Man, Universe Man, Size of the entire universe man. Usually kind to smaller man. Universe Man.

Pro Wrestling

  • This trope is used frequently in the Tag Team circuit, Notable examples being Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty, Chris Jericho and The Big Show, The British Bulldogs, and Spike Dudley and Balls Mahoney.

Real Life

  • Big Chuck and Li'l John, who hosted movies on TV in Cleveland, OH.
  • Terence Hill and Budd Spencer.
  • Stand up comedians Patton Oswalt(5'7) and Brian Posehn(6'6) joke that they look like something out of a horror movie when they're seen walking together.

Theatre

Video Games

  • War Craft 3's Goblin Alchemist hero is a goblin riding an ogre.
  • In Arcanum, half-ogres are employed by gnomes as bodyguards (this becomes a plot point later on).
  • Drakengard: Seere (a six-year-old) and Golem (Who's so big his attacks come from the sky)
  • Kimahri and Yuna in Final Fantasy X. Less noticeable now, but Kimahri is over seven feet tall (still short for his race) and probably wasn't much shorter when he traveled with Yuna when she was a child. Also, when summoning Ifrit, she sits on his shoulder for a second, then gives him orders.
  • Zexion and Lexaeus from Kingdom Hearts. They both possess copious amounts of Brains and Brawn, seeing as Lexaeus is a Genius Bruiser and Zexion is a Badass Bookworm.
  • Maloof and Mikhail from Psychonauts.
  • Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong.
  • Pepperoni (a giant fairy) and Goto (who resides in a suit that is barely half of the main characters' height) from Mana Khemia 2 Fall of Alchemy.
  • Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II had bosses Gorc and Pic, a Dark Jedi pair consisting of a huge Gamorrean and a tiny Kowakian Monkey-Lizard.

Western Animation

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