History WesternAnimation / StageFright

* TheDogBitesBack: Arnold's abuse of Tiny eventually leads to one of his dogs biting Arnold on the nose. ''Twice''.

The film tells the story of Tiny, a [[{{Vaudeville}} music hall]] has-been whose dog-juggling act is upstaged by the blooming medium of motion pictures. His friend Daphne stars in many of these films as the love interest to the character "Lonesome Arnold," whose actor, Mr. Hugh, is [[NiceCharacterMeanActor a brute once the cameras stop running]]. As Daphne's career prospers and Tiny's career disappears, Hugh exploits both of them by getting Tiny to train the dogs for his films, mostly so Daphne will keep acting in them.

* {{Blackmail}}: Hugh threatens Daphne that if she wants any more parts in his pictures, she'll keep her nose out of his business, allowing him to bully Tiny unchallenged.
* ChekhovsGun: Tiny uses the hat trick he teaches to his dogs to bite Mr. Hugh when he's harming Daphne.
* ChekhovsGunman: The theater organist briefly seen near the beginning comes back later to [[spoiler:bring Tiny back up from the pit, and bring Mr. Hugh down into it.]]
* DarkIsNotEvil: The organist is a terrifying looking ghost with a deep booming voice, but he saves Tiny from falling to his death. [[GoodIsNotNice He is not so merciful to the much crueler Hugh.]]
* DidNotThinkThisThrough: One of the dogs' tricks is to jump up and place a hat on someone's head when they say "Hat!" Tiny neglects the fact that Hugh is twice his height when Hugh wants to use the trick in one of his films and the dog ends up only going as high as his nose, biting him when he does.
* TheDogBitesBack: Hugh's abuse of Tiny eventually leads to one of his dogs biting Hugh on the nose. ''Twice''.
* DraggedOffToHell: Implied to be what happens to Hugh.

* EndOfAnAge: Downplayed. In the beginning, Tiny and his dogs are facing this when their vaudeville act is being overshadowed by Hugh's films. But in the end, Daphne implies to him that he ''can'' make a comeback, despite film's popularity.
* EnemyToAllLivingThings: Hugh. He couldn't care less about the dogs' well being so long as they perform, and they hate him equally.
* EvilIsBigger: Mr. Hugh is this compared to Tiny.
* EvilRedhead: Mr. Hugh, who is shown to be a heartless monster, has long red hair that stands straight up.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Mr. Hugh has a rather deep, growly voice, and he's a real nasty piece of work.
* FourEyesZeroSoul: The wicked Mr. Hugh always wears a pair of round glasses.
* HowWeGotHere: The film begins with Tiny training the dogs, but Hugh enters and starts bullying him. It ends with this scene's aftermath.
* IronicDeath: When cornered by Tiny's dogs, Hugh pulls out a large metal pin to beat them up... unaware that it was there to hold up the same projection screen on which his movies were shown. The screen drops on his head and [[KarmicDeath kills him instantly]].

* NiceCharacterMeanActor: Mr. Hugh plays the hero in his series of short films, but off the camera, he blackmails and abuses his costars.
* OminousPipeOrgan: This type of music is heard frequently throughout the short. The theater itself has an organ, played by a mysterious man in a white robe. Near the end, it turns out that [[spoiler:the organist is actually a ghost, and when Mr. Hugh dies, the organist comes to take his soul to hell,]] while playing some ''especially'' ominous music.
* RageBreakingPoint: After timidly receiving Mr. Hugh's abuse for many years, upon Mr. Hugh threatening to bring a red hot poker to make the dogs jump high enough to reach his head for the hat trick (Tiny is a full head shorter than him), Tiny growls and shakes in fury and instead teaches them to bite his nose when given the trigger word 'hat'.
* ShoutOut: Hugh kicking the bucket as a sign that he [[VisualPun kicked the bucket]] is one to ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld''.
* StealingTheCredit: As the dog tricks in Hugh's pictures grew in popularity, Hugh got the credit for them when it was Tiny that was training the dogs.

* VisualGag: In a ShoutOut to ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'' mentioned above, when the projection screen collapses on Mr. Hugh and kills him, he kicks a bucket over as he falls.