Barry Gigante (known as Giant-Giant, just "Giant" or "The Giant" in his first appearance, and sometimes nicknamed "Señor Gigante-Gigante") is one of Dora and Boots' good friends. He is a giant who despite his large size, is truly friendly.
He made his debut in the Season 3 episode "What Happens Next?". He also appears in the Season 4 episode "Dora's Fairytale Adventure" (which reveals that he has a puppy), as well as the Season 5 episodes "Dora Saves the Three Little Pigs" (non-speaking cameo), "Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom" (picture only), and "The Super Babies Dream Adventure" (which reveals that he has a baby brother).
He is voiced by Brian Maya only in "What Happens Next?". After that, Leslie Valdes (the husband of the show's co-creator Valerie Walsh Valdes) voices him in all his other appearances.
Physical Appearance[]
The Giant-Giant is a large muscular human/giant with a light brown skin tone (almost tan) and short black hair. He has brown eyes and thick black eyebrows. His attire is a green short sleeved coat that is slightly ripped on the sleeves with light green pockets a white tank top under that, red suspenders holding up his blue and yellow striped pants, and two black shoes.
Appearances[]
- What Happens Next? (referred to as just "Giant")
- Dora's Fairytale Adventure
- Dora Saves the Three Little Pigs (non-speaking cameo)
- Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom (picture only)
- The Super Babies Dream Adventure
In addition to all his official appearances throughout these five episodes, his character model would be reused for a set of twin giants seen in "Dora Saves King Unicornio".
Description[]
He is an extremely friendly giant despite his large and fearsome size. Like Dora, the Giant-Giant is bilingual and speaks both English and Spanish, hence his nickname "Señor Gigante-Gigante” (Spanish for “Mr. Giant-Giant”).
He started out mean (though not necessarily antagonistic) in his debut episode "What Happens Next?", but Dora and Boots would use their minds to change his attitude right away to happy and positive. In that same episode however, he only existed inside Dora and Boots's imagination rather than in real life.
The Season 4 episode "Dora's Fairytale Adventure" reveals that he is indeed real in Dora's world. Additionally, he is immediately shown to be very friendly and helpful with everyone. It is also revealed in that episode that he has a puppy. He and his puppy successfully helped Dora on her 2nd test to teach the giant rocks to sing after she found his puppy. After Dora passed the test, the Giant-Giant rewarded her with a bag of sunshine. From that episode and onward, his personality remains unchanged, thus staying happy and positive.
The Season 5 episode "The Super Babies Dream Adventure" reveals that he has a baby brother.
Trivia[]
- The fact that two of episodes that feature the Giant-Giant, namely "What Happens Next?" and "Dora's Fairytale Adventure", were put together on a DVD entitled after the latter episode. as well him, alongside his puppy, being the only characters from Fairytale Land in the second aforementioned episode to help Dora on one of her tests (her 2nd one to be exact), could both likely explain why he (along with both the Witch of Fairytale Land and her two henchmen) remained intact on a modified cover promoting a 2012 reissuing of the aforementioned DVD.
- In "Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom", there's a picture of him in the Magic Storybook where he made a cameo appearance.
- The Giant-Giant is one of few characters that did not show up at Dora's birthday party in "Dora's Big Birthday Adventure". It is possible that the reason why he did not come is because of his large size that could cause accidents. But still, he's truly friendly.
- He's also one of the characters that did not go to the Pirate Play in "Dora's Pirate Adventure".
- Obviously, the Giant-Giant's existence in Dora's world hadn't been proven yet when "Dora's Pirate Adventure" made its premiere.
- In TV airing order, however, a somewhat odd contradiction as to when the Giant-Giant was proven to truly exist in Dora's world is sort of created, as "Dora's Pirate Adventure" was released on VHS and DVD on January 27, 2004, but it did not air on TV until on January 17, 2005 (3 months and 25 days after the TV premiere of "Dora's Fairytale Adventure" on September 24, 2004).
- Obviously, the Giant-Giant's existence in Dora's world hadn't been proven yet when "Dora's Pirate Adventure" made its premiere.
- He also never showed up at the Friendship Day party in "Dora's World Adventure!".
- In addition, despite appearing in both "Dora's Fairytale Adventure" and (via a non-speaking cameo) its first sequel "Dora Saves the Three Little Pigs," he is completely absent in the second sequel "Dora Saves Fairytale Land", although a rather antagonistic giant appears in his place.
- He's also one of the characters that did not go to the Pirate Play in "Dora's Pirate Adventure".
- Following all of the Giant-Giant's appearances, various other giants have appeared since then.
- In "The Super Babies Dream Adventure", the Giant-Giant has a baby brother who like himself, is a giant as well.
- A different giant that is a female appears in “Dora’s Hair-Raising Adventure”, though based on their skin tone and personality, it is likely that they could be related with one another (wife, mother, or sister).
- If she's the Giant-Giant's wife, it would make her the Baby Giant's sister-in-law.
- If she's the Giant-Giant's sister, it would make her the Baby Giant's biological sister.
- Señora Gigante being their sister is arguably the most likely option. Specifically, she is most likely their middle sister (younger than the Giant-Giant, but older than the Baby Giant) as whenever she's seen right next to Dora, she appears to be as tall as about two and a quarter Doras. By comparison, though the Giant-Giant was also shown be as tall as two and a quarter Doras upon his debut in "What Happens Next?", many of his later appearances depict him to be as tall as about five Doras (though a few scenes in "Dora's Fairytale Adventure" erroneously depict him to be as tall as three Doras).
- If she's the Giant-Giant's mother, it would make her the Baby Giant's mother.
- A set of twin giants appeared in "Dora Saves King Unicornio", and their character models are exactly the same as the Giant-Giant, recolored to distinguish them from the aforementioned character. It's possible that all three giants are triplet brothers.
- The changes made were as follows:
- TWIN GIANT #1: He looks pretty much identical to the Giant-Giant, except that his short sleeved coat is recolored to a dark teal, with his tank top underneath being recolored yellow. His pants have a dark and light red pattern, and the suspenders holding up his pants are recolored orange. His shoes are recolored black.
- TWIN GIANT #2: He has a much lighter (almost fair) skin tone and short light brown hair. His thick eyebrows were recolored to the same shade of light brown as his hair. His short sleeved coat is recolored burgundy, with his tank top underneath being recolored sky blue. Unlike either the Giant-Giant or Twin Giant #1, whose respective pants have a striped pattern, Twin Giant #2's pants are one solid color, which is a dark periwinkle, The suspenders holding up his pants are recolored orange. His shoes are recolored black.
- This is similar to the way that Señor Tucán's exact character model appears in various episodes of Go, Diego, Go!, recolored to look a lot like toucans in the wild.
- Coincidentally, both the aforementioned character and the Giant-Giant (Seasons 4-5) are voiced by the same actor, Leslie Valdes.
- The changes made were as follows:
- Finally, two completely unrelated giants appeared in these respective episodes:
- The first unrelated giant appeared as the main antagonist within Dora's dream in "Dora's Museum Sleepover Adventure".
- Similar Giant-Giant back in his own debut in "What Happens Next?", this unrelated giant only appeared in Dora's imagination, but still managed to reform himself.
- However, it took almost the entire episode for this unrelated giant to finally reform himself. By comparison, the Giant-Giant reforming himself was immediate thanks to Dora and Boots using their minds to change his attitude right away to happy and positive.
- Similar Giant-Giant back in his own debut in "What Happens Next?", this unrelated giant only appeared in Dora's imagination, but still managed to reform himself.
- The second unrelated giant, known as the Mean Giant, appeared in the second sequel to "Dora's Fairytale Adventure", titled “Dora Saves Fairytale Land”.
- Unlike the Giant-Giant, Baby Giant, Señora Gigante, and Twin Giants (all of whom have always been kind and friendly), or the unrelated giant from "Dora's Museum Sleepover Adventure" (who didn't reform himself until the end of that episode), the Mean Giant has always remained mean and antagonistic, and he's shown to be very overprotective of both his golden goose and its eggs, even though nobody wants his goose or eggs.
- The first unrelated giant appeared as the main antagonist within Dora's dream in "Dora's Museum Sleepover Adventure".
- The Giant-Giant somehow draws similarities with Marvel Comics superheroes Hulk (specifically the incarnation from the 2003 film of the same name) and Ant-Man/Giant-Man.
- In the case of the 2003 Hulk, the Giant-Giant has a somewhat comparable cartoon design with him (with the differences including a normal light brown (almost tan) skin tone, the addition of him actually wearing clothes, and being completely non-monstrous).
- There are a lot of coincidental aspects to this feature:
- Given how the Giant-Giant's character model was later reused for a set of twin giants that appeared in "Dora Saves King Unicornio", Twin Giant #2 bared a similar hair color and skin tone to Hulk's civilian identity, Bruce Banner.
- The 2003 Hulk film premiered in the same year as, though 3 months and 26 days prior to the Giant-Giant's debut episode "What Happens Next?".
- Taking various other Hulk media into consideration, Saerom Animation (the overseas animator for Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!, and 9 episodes of Dora and Friends: Into the City! respectively) also handled the overseas animation for the 1996 Hulk cartoon, which aired between 1996-1997 on Nickelodeon's then-corporate sister network UPN, as part of its UPN Kids block.
- A similar-looking Hulk would later be introduced in 2021 within Marvel's first full-length preschool series, Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
- There are a lot of coincidental aspects to this feature:
- In the case Ant-Man/Giant-Man, the Giant-Giant is of course depicted as a giant.
- In the case of the 2003 Hulk, the Giant-Giant has a somewhat comparable cartoon design with him (with the differences including a normal light brown (almost tan) skin tone, the addition of him actually wearing clothes, and being completely non-monstrous).
- Despite his own connections with the English fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk, the Giant-Giant actually acts more akin to Paul Bunyan from the American folklore of the same name, due to his kind and friendly personality. The same can be said regarding four other giants mentioned earlier. By comparison, the remaining two unrelated giants mentioned above, in light of their respective mean and antagonistic personalities, are probably the ones more akin to the actual giant from Jack and the Beanstalk.
- This argument actually makes sense as the choice of clothing worn by the Giant-Giant (and by extension, the Twin Giants from "Dora Saves King Unicornio") are sort of reminiscent to those worn by a lumberjack, similar to what Paul Bunyan would wear. And even if the Giant-Giant were to have remained mean in "What Happens Next?", the events of that episode are most likely separate from the next three episodes (four if you count the use of his overall character model for the Twin Giants) he properly appeared in, since the events of the aforementioned episode took place NOT in real life, but rather inside Dora and Boots's imagination. The minute he was revealed to truly exist in real life upon his second appearance in "Dora's Fairytale Adventure", he's immediately shown to be friendly and helpful.