Stage Fright is a 1997 BAFTA-winning animated short by Aardman Animations. It was written and directed by Steve Box, who animated on A Close Shave and, later, co-directed The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
The film tells the story of Tiny, a 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, Arnold Hugh, is a brute once the cameras stop running. As Daphne's career prospers and Tiny's career disappears, Arnold exploits both of them by getting Tiny to train the dogs for his films, mostly so Daphne will keep acting in them.
Not to be confused with Alfred Hitchcock's 1950 crime thriller, or the 2014 slasher musical.
Tropes appearing in Stage Fright include:
- Ambiguous Ending: What happens once Daphne and Tiny exit the crumbling theater? Do they die? Do they Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence? Are they going on to a better life? You decide!
- Blackmail: Arnold 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.
- Chekhov's Gun: Tiny uses the hat trick he teaches to his dogs to bite Arnold when he's harming Daphne.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The theater organist briefly seen near the beginning comes back later to bring Tiny back up from the pit, and bring Arnold down into it.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The organist is a terrifying looking ghost with a deep booming voice, but he saves Tiny from falling to his death. He is not so merciful to the much crueler Arnold.
- Did Not Think This Through: One of the dogs' tricks is to jump up and place a hat on Tiny's head when they say "Hat!" Tiny neglects the fact that Arnold is twice his height, so the trick fails when Arnold tries to use it in his films.
- The Dog Bites Back: Arnold's abuse of Tiny eventually leads to one of his dogs biting Arnold on the nose.
- Dragged Off to Hell: Implied to be what happens to Arnold."Going... down."
- End of an Age: Downplayed. In the beginning, Tiny and his dogs are facing this when their vaudeville act is being overshadowed by Arnold's films. But in the end, Daphne implies to him that he can make a comeback, despite film's popularity.
- Enemy to All Living Things: Arnold. He couldn't care less about the dogs' well being so long as they perform, and they hate him equally.
- Evil Is Bigger: Arnold is this compared to Tiny.
- Evil Redhead: Arnold, who is shown to be a heartless monster, has long red hair that stands straight up.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Arnold has a rather deep, growly voice, and he's a real nasty piece of work.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: The wicked Arnold always wears a pair of round glasses.
- How We Got Here: The film begins with Tiny training the dogs, but Arnold enters and starts bullying him. It ends with this scene's aftermath.
- Ironic Death: When cornered by Tiny's dogs, Arnold pulls a large metal latch off the wall 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 kills him instantly.
- Meaningful Echo: In the beginning, Daphne tries to encourage Tiny to go through with his vaudeville act, despite its lack of popularity, because "the show must go on". Later on, when Tiny wants to go back to his basket because he's afraid society won't accept him or his dogs, to which Daphne responds with a rousing speech that there's a better life out there. Tiny repeats the previous line "The show must go on" to affirm that he and his dogs ready to move on and live a better life with Daphne.
- New Media Are Evil: Tiny and his once-popular dog-juggling act are ruined thanks to the emergence of film.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: Arnold plays the hero in his series of short films, but off the camera, he blackmails and abuses his costars.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: 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 the organist is actually a ghost, and when Arnold dies, the organist comes to take his soul to hell, while playing some especially ominous music.
- Rage Breaking Point: Tiny timidly puts up with Arnold's abuse for many years. However, when Arnold threatens to use a red-hot poker on the dogs if Tiny can't get them to jump high enough to put a hat on his head (Arnold being a full head taller), Tiny growls in fury and starts training the dogs to bite him on the nose when given the trigger word "hat."
- Stealing the Credit: As the dog tricks in Arnold's pictures grew in popularity, he got the credit for them when it was Tiny that was training the dogs.
- Stop Motion Animation
- The Narrator: Daphne plays this throughout the short.
- The Show Must Go On: Daphne says this to Tiny when he's afraid to perform his act. It becomes a Meaningful Echo when she says it to persuade him to leave the crumbling theater. The overall message of the film is that staying in the past may feel safe but eventually, you have to face the future.
- Truth in Television: Films were originally shown alongside vaudeville acts in their infancy, eventually eclipsing the live acts entirely. Most early cinemas were even converted vaudeville theaters.
- Visual Gag: In a Shout-Out to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World mentioned above, when the projection screen collapses on Arnold and kills him, he kicks a bucket over as he falls.
