History WesternAnimation / Bolt

* RunningGag: A few, one minor one involves a pair of college-age men moving across the US from New York presumably to somewhere in the West. They cross with Bolt and friends a few times, though the two groups only notice each other once or twice.

** [[YourMilageMayVary Either downplayed or subverted]]; the pound is never portrayed as a "prison" for anyone but Mittens. The dog catcher's van, on the other hand, is a clear parallel to a prison paddywagon, but one could chalk this up to RuleOfDrama.

** [[spoiler: Subverted with the agent, who at first seems to sympathize with Penny's mother in her distress, but then tries to persuade her to use the disaster for publicity.]]

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Arguably, the villains of the ShowWithinAShow. Towards the end of the film, Rhino spots one of Dr. Calico's underlings and charges toward him to attack. The actor merely picks up Rhino's ball and proceeds to gush about how adorable he is, despite Rhino's attempts to fight him.

Or at least on TV.

** Bolt is likely an Indian Spitz, or at least some sort of smallish spitz. Those dogs are known for being very bright. The others are, well, dogs. The other wiki says that he's a White Shepard (like Miley Cyrus has), which I guess is smart too.

** In this case partly because after Sanders left the project, Disney brought in Pixar director John Lasseter, who inluenced the film heavily in his own style.

* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis: In a good way and a bad way. Back near the beginning when Bolt is in New York, a nice dog-walker puts the blue leash on him. Now, if Bolt hadn't have freaked out and took off, the dog-walker could have taken him to an animal shelter, where the people there would have seen his address and returned him. Which would have been a good thing for Bolt, but would've ... well, cut the entire plot of the movie short.
** It gets better: Bolt starts his journey back to Hollywood in the back of a U-Haul van, but only makes it to Ohio before he freaks out over the styrofoam and jumps ship. The van's owners [[RecurringExtra show up several more times along the road]], and at the end of the movie you can spot them finally unloading it... ''in the backlot of Bolt's studio''.

* AirVentPassageway: Subverted in that only Bolt can fit out this way, Penny is too big.

* MeaningfulName: Dr. Calico. "Calico" isa breed of cats.

* OneSceneWonder: Malcolm [=McDowell=]'s background role as the ShowWithinAShow's villain.

** [[spoiler: Subverted with the agent, who at first seems to sympathise with Penny's mother in her distress, but then tries to persuade her to use the disaster for publicity.]]

'''The Director:''' You're missing ''everything'', Mindy. You see a dog. ''I'' see an animal that believes, with every fiber of his being; EVERY FIBER; that the girl he loves is in mortal danger! I see a depth of emotion on the face of that canine, the likes of which has ''never'' been captured on screen before. NEVER, Mindy from the network. We jump through hoops to make sure Bolt believes everything is real. It's why we don't miss marks. It's why we don't reshoot. It's CERTAINLY why we do NOT allow the dog to see BOOM MIKES... because, Mindy from the network... [[EnforcedMethodActing if "the dog" believes it... then "the audience" believes it.]]

* LuckyTranslation: "Bolt" has many meanings in Russian as well, but the most popular and widespread is "screw". Thankfully, "Volt" wonderfully goes with the existing lipsync ''and'' bears a connonation related to electricity, which sort of explains all the lightning signs.

* DirtyCoward: Most of the people in the studio. [[spoiler:When a fire starts while Penny is literally tied up in the set, most of the people are in such a hurry to get ''themselves'' out that they don't even take a few seconds to help untie Penny. This nearly causes her death.]]

* KarmaHoudini: The somewhat-crazed director of the TV show never does get any form of punishment for his... questionable method of making Bolt believe everything in the show is real. Same can be said for the Bolt replacement who ran away and caused the studio fire.

* AntiVillain: Mindy from the Network: she was threatening the director with canceling the show if the ratings drop, also, she wanted to convince Penny to replace Bolt to continue the show. However, she was just doing her work: a poor-rating show is bad for a business like a TV network, and if they didn't continue the show, many people would lose their jobs. There wasn't even one evil bone in her.

* AntiVillain: Mindy from the Network: she was threatening the director with canceling the show if the ratings drop, also, she wanted to convince Penny to remplace Bolt to continue the show. However, she was just doing her work: a poor-rating show is bad for a bussiness like a TV network, and if they didn't continue the show, many people would lose their jobs. There wasn't even one evil bone in her.

* BoringInvincibleHero: The Network Executive's criticism of the show is that there's no tension since Bolt never loses, and every episode ends with him victorious, thus prompting the cliffhanger and thus, the plot of the movie.

* {{Expy}}: Mitten's pigeon mobster underlings are most definitely not the Goodfeathers from {{Animaniacs}}.

* NoOSHACompliance: The in-show studio went up in flames ''really'' fast; apparently it was full of flammable materials, which, considering they were filming with a ''lot'' of torches in the set, was ''very'' stupid. Also, nobody had a fire extinguisher handy.
** Though it does make a certain amount of sense given the 'everything goes perfect the first time through' policy they had before. And wooden set pieces would be rather flammable.