The Terror of Tiny Town

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The Terror of Tiny Town is a 1938 film, produced by Jed Buell and directed by Sam Newfield, and starring Billy Curtis, and Travis Lucas with his crazy backwards feet. It is the world's only Western with an all-midget cast. The plot is about a cowboy helping out a beautiful ranch owner menaced by local thugs. Using a conventional Western story with an entire midget cast, the filmmakers were able to showcase gags such as cowboys entering the local saloon by walking under the swinging doors, and pint-sized cowboys galloping around on Shetland ponies while roping calves. Many of these same actors were part of a performing troupe called Singer's Midgets, who also played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939.

[edit] Cultural Influences

Clips from the film were used in the following:

The video for the Dead Kennedys fast paced cover of the theme from Rawhide (from the In God We Trust, Inc album)
Hal Ketchum's music video for Small Town Saturday Night from his album Past The Point of Rescue.
In the background in a scene of the film Johnny Suede where Brad Pitt (in one of his first roles) enthuses to his friend over the telephone about the film.

In 1986, The Terror of Tiny Town was featured in an episode of the Canned Film Festival, a nationally-syndicated B movie satire series starring Laraine Newman.

In 1988, the punk rock band Adrenalin O.D. recorded a song entitled Theme From An Imaginary Midget Western, an apparent nod to both this film and the recording Theme From An Imaginary Western by the band Mountain.

The film is mentioned in, The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror, a book by Daniel Pinkwater as one of the movies shown at the Snark Theater.

The film was mentioned in an episode of M*A*S*H (TV series) by Maxwell Klinger.