Not Big Enough for the Two of Us

Santino Marella: This cafeteria isn't big enough for the both of us.

Kane: Actually, the kitchen is quite spacious. It could easi-(growls) I mean, YOUR SOUL IS MINE!

— WWE Slam City

A Stock Phrase used to emphasize two characters cannot occupy some important place or situation, meaning they will have to duel for it.

Originated from western movies and is now a Dead Horse Trope, more often Played for Laughs than Played Straight.

Not to Be Confused with there literally not being enough capacity for both people.

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Examples:

Advertising

• An advertisement for a television rental company had two cowboys complain that the television they were on (presumably not rented from the company in question) wasn't big enough for the both of them.

Anime and Manga

• Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo declares to Mew, "This world is too small for two of us!"
• Space Patrol Luluco: Said by Inferno Cop to Luluco to encourage, rather than to threaten, her to leave Hell.

Audio Play

• In The Firesign Theatre's "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger", from the album How Can You be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All?: when time travel leads to Nancy's past and future selves fighting, they both exclaim, "There ain't room enough in this dress for both of us!"

Comic Books

• Parodied in a Beano special where the Bash Street Kids go to the Wild West:
  Danny (kicks saloon doors open): This town ain't big enough for the both of us! (Saloon doors bounce back and slam shut on his nose, causing it to swell up to comical size) ...This town ain't big enough for me now!
• One strip in The Dandy begins with this line... with the other guy suggesting they move to a bigger town.
• Monica's Gang: One story features Jimmy's father telling a joke where an elephant tells an ant the town where they are isn't big enough for the both of them. Jimmy's father is the only character to find the joke funny.

Fan Fic

• In the Lost Girl/Merlin Crossover fic Lost in Camelot, this trope is almost explicitly stated by Bo during her confrontation with the troll; as the first Fae to take up residence in Camelot, Bo is technically the ruler of the kingdom from a Fae perspective, so the troll had to drive her out to ‘legitimize’ her takeover as far as Fae society is concerned.
• In The One With The Angelic Face, Angela (a female version of Angel) is split into the human female Angela and the male vampire Angelus by the Wand of Toth. Since the two are still part of the same individual, they literally cannot exist as separate entities for long; as they spend more time apart, Angela starts to revert to what should be her natural state of a two-centuries-plus corpse while Angelus becomes a pure vampire demon, creating the possibility that Angela will die or Angelus will cease to exist in a form that can exist on this plane of reality.
• The Tagline for Slender Man vs Siren Head is "These woods aren’t big enough for the both of us".
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: When the topic is brought up in chapter 29 of the sequel Picking Up the Pieces, Discord scowls and says he does not like having other Champions of Chaos on "his turf", saying it's a Rule and calling the Nightmare's allies "intruders". This is in fact a Berserk Button for him, as it marks the first thing that's really made him lose his temper since he appeared.

Film

• Inverted in The Frisco Kid: "This is a very big country. I'll tell you what I think is the best thing — I'll take San Francisco, you take the rest of America."
• Toy Story: One of the phrases that Woody says when his string is pulled is "This town ain't big enough for the two of us!".
  • He never says it directly to Buzz, but the town (or rather, room) not being big enough for the two of them is a plot point.
• Bedtime Stories (2008)
  Young Skeeter: The galaxy's not big enough for the both of us.
• The Virginian (1929)
  Trampas: This world isn't big enough for the both of us!
• The Western Code (1932)
  Nick Grindell: This town ain't big enough for the both of us and I'm going to give you 24 hours to get out. If I see you in Carabinas by this time tomorrow, it's you or me!
• Invoked in A Song Is Born, when the housekeeper demands Honey Swanson go, or she does.
• In trying to retrieve the Cross of Coronado at the beginning Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana meets up again with his childhood nemesis, Panama Hat, who remarks that it's a "small world", to which Indy replies, "Too small for two of us!"
• Megamind
  Titan: This town isn't big enough for two supervillains!
  Megamind: Oh, you're a villain alright. Just not a super one.
  Titan: Oh yeah? What's the difference?
  Megamind: [comes out of a giant representation of his head to "Welcome to the Jungle" in midair] PRESENTATION!

Literature

• There's a Tanya Huff short story in the Blood Books universe called "This Town Ain't Big Enough" in which Vicki Nelson, who's now a vampire, fights another vampire to keep her territory.
• Tai Pan:
  Dirk Struan: Hong Kong is big enough for Struan's and the other british traders. It's big enough for Britons and Americans. Whether it's big enough for the Brocks and the Struans is a different matter.
  Tyler Brock: I'll tell you this, boy; China isn't big enough for the two of us.
• Gore Vidal's Burr: Aaron Burr says that once he learned what Alexander Hamilton said about him, he realized that the world was too narrow for both of them. This is apparently a reference to something the historical Aaron Burr said, late in life:
  "Had I read Sterne more and Voltaire less, I should have known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me."
• The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. Averted when Sherlock Holmes scoffs at the idea of taking on a case involving the supernatural.
  Sherlock: This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.
• Swellhead. Richard Jeperson is presented with his bullet-riddled and bloody coat, despite the fact that the same coat is lying on the sofa next to him undamaged. He mutters, "There isn't room in the world for two of this." He's right, as the coat comes from an alternate universe that's leaking into our own with potentially fatal consequences.
• Played for Laughs in Where's Wally?, where a point of interest in Hollywood during the Wild West film chapter is listed as "Two cowboys shouting "This town ain't big enough for the both of us!"". It's two cowboys standing in a miniature town fighting against each other.
• Camp Haunted Hills: In book 2, after their encounter with a wandering mummy the night before, Robert Campbell (the titular camp's resident ghost, and the whole reason they call that area the Haunted Hills) remarks to Stuart and Brenda that "There's only room for one active dead man in this camp, and I'm it. I don't want that mummy on my turf."

Live Action TV

• M*A*S*H: Colonel Potter says this while fighting over a Sears catalogue with Hawkeye. He also says it when another character drunkenly rides his horse.
  Col. Potter: Dupree, I don't want to see you near this horse or my camp ever again. In fact, this war ain't big enough for the two of us!
• Night Court episode "Harry on Trial"
  Judge Willard: On July 12th of this year, didn't the defendant, claiming quote, "This courtroom ain't big enough for the two of us," unquote, squirt you in the face with a water pistol in open court?
• Soap Opera Home and Away. During a dream sequence:
  Dr. Phillip Matheson: I warned you, dude, Summer Bay ain't big enough for the both of us.
• Even Stevens episode "Short Story"
  Louis Stevens: Now listen, the school ain't big enough for the both of us, so you just get out of here.
• The Gene Autry Show episode "Feuding Friends"
  Pat Buttram: I told you before, Autry, no town is going to be big enough for the both of us.
  Gene Autry: Then you better find yourself another town.
  Pat Buttram: I will not! I found this one first.
  Gene Autry: I'm stayin' here tonight. You can do what you want.
  Pat Buttram: And I'm doin' it - right now! [Slugs Autry in the jaw]
• A Sesame Street short on the history of movies used this line as a running gag. At the beginning, Grover, dressed as a cowboy, is in a black-and-white silent film, accompanied by the title card "This town ain't big enough for the two of us!" This is followed by variations of the scene that add sound, color, a wide screen, musical numbers, and special effects.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In "The Initiative", Buffy is told that vampire Big Bad Spike has returned to Sunnydale and fumes, "Doesn't he know this is my town?" In "Enemies", rogue vampire slayer Faith expresses a similar sentiment (this time in reference to Buffy). "This is supposed to be my town!"
• Jesus of Nazareth. When King Herod orders the Massacre of the Innocents, he shouts, "This is my world! I will not share it with an infant! There's no room for two Kings here."
• Secret Garden. Played straight in episode 14 when Yeun Sul tells Gyung Ran to back off because she (Yeun) is the only crazy woman for this drama (she is not breaking the fourth wall, she's just referencing drama tropes.)
• Played for Laughs in one episode of El Chavo del ocho. Don Ramón is fed up with Chavo's antics, and tells him that the vecindad is not big enough for the two of them to continue living in it.
  Don Ramón: So it's that, either you leave, or I do.
  Chavo: One of us... has to leave?
  Don Ramón: Yes.
  Chavo: (turns around and starts to walk away towards the entrance. Then he turns around again) Shall I get a taxi for you?
• Horrible Histories: Henry VII's song:
  Spent a long time fighting pretenders to the throne
  Lambert Simbel and Perkin Warbeck said my throne was their own
  They claimed they'd been the princes in the tower, their rule delayed
  I said "This crown ain't big enough for the three of us!" and had one SLAYED!
• Blackadder. In "Duel and Duality", Edmund Blackadder is trying to contact his mad Scottish cousin McAdder, but they keep missing each other in order to save on special effects. When they finally meet up...
  Edmund Blackadder: Look, did you tell him to be here or not?
  Mrs. Miggins: I did, you just keep missing each other. I can't imagine why.
  McAdder: (enters) I'll tell you why. It's because there's no coffee shop in England big enough for two Blackadders!
• Star Trek: Voyager. In "Darkling", the Emergency Medical Hologram finds himself in a Jekyll & Hyde situation. He tampers with his personality subroutines, and unfortunately creates an evil EMH who sets out to destroy the good part of himself.
  Kes: The mobile emitter contains both your programs. If you damage it you could both be destroyed.
  Evil EMH: There's not enough room inside for both of us. One must die. I deserve to exist more than your Doctor does.
• Blake's 7. In the end of "Dawn of the Gods", Master Computer Orac is not happy that Evil Genius Lord Thaarn escaped.
  Orac: It is intolerable! There is insufficient room in the galaxy for his intellect and mine.
  Tarrant: I don't know. He did have one redeeming feature. He didn't like computers.
• Doctor Who: At the end of "The Deadly Assassin," the Doctor and the Master both leave Gallifrey. Castellan Spandrell muses, "They're going out into the universe. And you know, I don't think it is big enough for the two of them."
• Cobra Kai: Inverted, sorta-kinda, depending on whether or not Danny's competitor Tom Cole is serious or not.
  The Valley's big enough for two auto kings. Right, Danny?
• The Goodies: In "The Movies", the Goodies have taken over the British movie industry but can't agree on what type of movie to make. Graham (who wants to make The Western) says while dressed as a cowboy that, "This stage isn't big enough for the three of us!"
• On The Orville, Isaac, a robot who typically talks in Spock Speak, delivers this gem when the ship's crew uses the holodeck to simulate a Western:
  This town will not accommodate the numerical totality of our combined mass.

Music

• Sparks' breakthrough hit in the UK was a 1974 single called "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us". According to The Other Wiki, the song originally was going to be full of TVTro...—um, I mean movie clichés.
• Professor Elemental in "Fighting Trousers", in reference to rival "chap-hop" artist Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer.
  Be out Mr. B, I've set the egg timer.
  There's not room in town for two gentlemen rhymers.
  Leave town by the end of this instrumental.
  Yours, et cetera, et cetera, sincerely, and so forth,
  Professor Elemental.
• "Big Enough" by Kirin J. Callinan uses the trope as a sincere, if, humorous, metaphor for peace on Earth — two tough-as-nails feuding cowboys finally acknowledge that they can co-exist peacefully in the big country, and then extend the analogy by saying that the world is so big and beautiful that every country can be a place to live in harmony. This is so awesome that it summons the giant translucent ghost of Jimmy Barnes to scream at them in triumph on the horizon.
• Discussed in Chris Young's "Town Ain't Big Enough," a duet with Lauren Alaina, about the aftermath of a break-up and feeling like they can't get closure because they keep running into each other. Rather than duel for it as is typical for the trope, the lyrics wish they could "draw a line through the city" so they didn't have to see each other.

Newspaper Comics

• Calvin and Hobbes has a parody. The two of them are wearing white and black cowboy hats.
  Calvin: This town just ain't big enough for the both of us.
  Hobbes: Yep, I reckon we'll have to annex part o' the county.
• From a 1993 Garfield strip:
  Garfield: Spider, this house isn't big enough for both of us. Well, actually it probably is... [smashes the spider with a newspaper] So let's just do this for fun.

Radio

• In The BBC's 1980 sci-fi drama Earthsearch, a warlord makes a deal with the power-hungry Angel computers who are seeking Earth, which he also wants to conquer. However the Angels decide to kill him with a Cryonics Failure 'accident', as the Earth isn't big enough for his ambition as well as their own.

Theatre

• At the end of Hamilton, "Your Obedient Servant" and "The World Was Wide Enough" serve as this for both Hamilton and Burr, as during these songs their longstanding rivalry comes to a violent peak, ending with a pistol duel that ends with Hamilton dead.
• Antony and Cleopatra has Octavius Caesar say something like this when he believes Antony to be dead: "O Antony, we could not stall together in the whole world!"
• Henry IV, Part 1: "Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;/ Nor can one England brook a double reign/ Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales."
• In Knickerbocker Holiday, during their final confrontation, Stuyvesant tells Brom, "The same city won't hold both of us!"

Video Games

• In Kingdom of Loathing, a vacation encounter at the Distant Lands Dude Ranch involves both you and an unnamed NPC making this remark about the other. You both decide that the appropriate response is to take out your carpentry tools, do a bit of construction, and make the town a bit bigger.
• Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds: Dr Doom will use this as his intro line against the likes of Dormammu.
  Doctor Doom: This DIMENSION is NOT BIG ENOUGH for the BOTH of US!
  • Nova's win quote against Magneto involves regarding their helmets.
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron: said by Optimus against Megatron in the final chapter.
  Optimus Prime: This universe, no matter how vast, will never be big enough for you and I to coexist!
• The last mission in the Mothership Zeta DLC for Fallout 3 is named "The Galaxy Ain't Big Enough". It involves taking out an alien spacecraft.
• In Team Fortress 2, the Scout has the following domination line for the opposing Scout:
  This map ain't big enough for the two of us!
• In Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, there's a video of Gex dressed as a gunslinger in a showdown.
  Gex: Alright varmint, this level ain't big enough for the two of us. (lash his tongue on a fly and swallows)
• In Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, Ess's alternate voice pack gives her a Southern accent and several phrases to fit. One of her voice clips, which is not used in the game, is "This town ain't big enough for the two of us".
• In Them's Fightin' Herds, Texas might say "This town ain’t big enough for the two of us!" in one of his pre-fight quotes in a Mirror Match. As two Texas' take up a lot of screen, he's not kidding.

Web Animation

• SMG4 Movie: Western Spaghetti has the line delivered courtesy of Swag after shooting the gun out of One-Shot Wren's hand. He then proceeds to geek out over finally getting to say the line in the movie.

Web Comics

• A Softer World provides an interesting resolution:
  "This town isn't big enough for the both of us. Let's run away together!"
• Second Empire - even in an infinite universe, there isn't enough space for two Dalek Empires.

Western Animation

• Looney Tunes
  • Bugs Bunny Rides Again
    Yosemite Sam: This town ain't big enough for the two of us.
    Bugs Bunny: It ain't? Pardon me, Mac. (runs offscreen, building noises ensue) Now is it big enough? (Bugs has built an entire city nearby)
    Yosemite Sam: No, it still ain't big enough!
  • Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century: When Marvin lands on Planet X, Dodgers tells him "this planet ain't big enough for the two of us." After they blow it up during an Escalating War, the statement becomes quite literal.
    Daffy: As I was saying, buster, this planet ain't big enough for the two of us, so... (shoves Marvin off the remains of Planet X) off you go!
• SpongeBob SquarePants: quoted when SpongeBob and Patrick were talking about the advantages of being felons.
  SpongeBob: And you get to talk tough. [gruff voice] This town ain't big enough for the two of us.
• The Transformers, from one Titan (giant transformers whose alt forms are more like cities) to another:
  Metroplex: This planet's not big enough for the both of us!
• Jackie Chan Adventures
  • Episode "Project A, for Astral". Shendu is in Jade's body.
  Jade: Sorry Charlie, but my body ain't big enough for both of us!
  • Episode "Black Magic"
  Captain Black Dark: Oh Captain Black, I don't think Section 13 is big enough for the both of us.
  • Episode "Little Valmont, Big Jade"": again by Jade, only this time's she's 50 feet tall, and fighting a giant ogre.
  Jade: Okay Handsome, this town ain't big enough for the both of us!
• The ZhuZhus: Trashing of Zhuper Girl
  Madge: "this park isn't big enough for the both of us."
  Squiggles: "it's actually quite sizeable."

Real Life

• According to history the Mongol leader Jamukha, the last man who stood between Temujin and complete control of the Mongol tribes, was offered the chance for reconciliation with Temujin after his defeat due to their former friendship. Jamukha declined, saying that there was only one sun in the sky and there could be only one Mongol leader. Temujin then had him killed in the most honourable fashion possible.
• When General Bernard Montgomery sacked Lt. General Lumsden after the Battle of El Alamein, the latter commented caustically: "this desert is not big enough to have two such shits in it as Monty and myself at the same time."

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