"Why does she hate me?" — Tori about Jade.

Stage Fighting
Season 1, Episode 3
First Aired	April 18, 2010
Production Code	103
Writer(s)	George Doty IV
Director(s)	Steve Hoefer
Viewed By:	3.3 million
Episode Guide
previous "The Bird Scene"	next "The Birthweek Song"

Stage Fighting is the 3rd episode of Victorious. It premiered on April 18, 2010 to 3.3 million viewers.

Plot

The episode starts out as Tori tries to shove her horn in her locker when Andre and Cat walk up. She tells them she is learning how to play the French Horn, as she likes a lot of French things (French fries, French toast). She is playing it horribly though and thinks it's broken. However, André plays the horn amazingly afterward to "fix" it, proving her wrong.

When entering her theater rehearsal class, Tori sees a bully who appears to be mercilessly attacking Beck. Tori tries to lure the bully off of Beck but soon finds out that the "bully" is a stunt actor named Russ, who is the teacher's assistant for the stage fighting class which Tori was unfamiliar with. Her fellow classmates explain the situation to her, in which Tori ends up joining the class.

Meanwhile, Trina and Robbie was partner up for a play and the characters kisses and Robbie thought it was for real.

The teacher announces that each student in the class will be paired with a partner for a stage fighting project. The teacher demonstrates on Cat, as an example of how a fake punch is, which really involves sound effects. The teacher pairs up students, with Tori and Jade as a partnership. Tori feels uncomfortable with the partnership as she and Jade do not really get along well.

Throughout the week, Tori worries that Jade will actually punch her, as a mistake or just on purpose. On the day of the scene, Tori plays an elderly woman coming home from a bingo game, and Jade plays a "brutal mugger". The mugger attempts to steal the elderly woman's watch, which causes the woman to whack (not really) the mugger with her solid, cherry-wood cane. However, a large crack is heard with Jade falling, screaming in pain and visibly bruised in one eye. Jade claims Tori hit her with the cane on purpose, which Tori repeatedly denies. The stunt crew, teacher, and students go into complete shock. Tori tries to comfort Jade by getting her a chair, only for the chair to break, as it was a prop chair specifically designed to fall apart when sat on.

The guidance counselor, Lane, talks to Tori about the incident, and after a small talk, he decides Tori will be punished with two weeks of detention and cleaning up the theater after the food fight that will occur in the play staged by Hollywood Arts High School students the following Friday. Also, while they talk, Lane has a security guard named Derek guard his office in case Tori has a violent outburst which annoys her.

Later, Jade and Beck are talking at lunch when a girl accidentally spills water on Jade's face all because of a prank involving some guys dumping ice down the girl's shirt, angering her. Instead of accepting help, she runs off.

In the hallway, André finds Jade as she is running away, only for André to notice that Jade's facial bruise doesn't look real - the color is leaking; he also realizes that the bruise isn't actually real, but just makeup. Jade makes André promise not to tell anyone, especially Tori. André accepts, only to shout, "Tori!", which causes Jade to burst with anger and chase him around the school.

Later, Tori is at the Blackbox Theater cleaning up the mess when Jade comes in. Jade is confused that Tori didn't tell on her, which she thinks is 'not right'. Tori decided to take the high road and just stop this feud by taking the punishment and not escalating the rivalry. Jade says Tori can't be nice to her when she's been mean to Tori; that's not how it works. But Tori replies that Jade should be nice to her some time; maybe that will work. Finally, Jade decides to help clean up. She then plays some music and starts dancing. Eventually, the guard sent to watch Tori, Derek, joins in and gets so caught up in the dancing that he doesn't realize Tori and Jade made their escape until he is left alone in the theater to clean up.

Subplot

Robbie develops feelings for Trina after they audition together for a World War II play. The scene included a kiss which Robbie mistakes for a real, romantic kiss, although it was clearly just a stage kiss. Robbie starts to assume that Trina is also attracted to him, stating that "they like each other", and assumes that they are dating.

Robbie kisses Trina at lunch, which leaves her in such shock that she spits skim milk in his face, which he hoped to be soy milk. Cat gets tired of Robbie trying to go out with Trina, so she explains to Robbie that you can't just assume that you are dating from a stage kiss. She also explains that you can fake passion through acting, which she demonstrates by kissing him. It doesn't work, as Robbie is now interested in Cat; he asks Cat to meet his parents directly after the kiss, startling her.

Status updates

• My life = in DANGER (Mood: Yikes)
• Lunch time. Salad with big lettuce. Still worried. (Mood: Buggin’)
• Time for stage fighting class. Should I ditch? I wish. (Mood: Freaked)
• OMG - I just got called to the GUIDANCE COUNSELOR’S OFFICE. Whyyyyy?!? (Mood: Frustrated)
• Um, whoa. Andre just told me something X-TREMELY interesting. I KNEW IT!!! (Mood: Grrrrr)

Trivia

• This episode includes the first kiss between Robbie and Cat in the series. They kiss again later in One Thousand Berry Balls.
  • This episode also includes the first and only kisses between Robbie and Trina. 
• Robbie kisses two girls in this episode and "falls in love" with both of them.
• This is the first episode with no appearance from Sinjin. 
• Tori and Jade's skit was about an old lady coming home from Bingo Night and a mugger about to rob her. Ironically, the old lady was supposed to beat up the mugger.
• This is the first time Robbie and Trina interact with each other.
• The blonde-haired woman is played by Jamie Snow, who also played Tara Ganz in Freak the Freak Out and Tori Goes Platinum. She also played "Tammy" in The Amanda Show sketch "The Girl's Room".
• The entire theater clean-up dance was improvised by Elizabeth Gillies, Victoria Justice, and Robert Christopher Riley (the actor who played Derek).
• Lane mentions that Hollywood Arts has a middle school.
• This episode features a large Jori main plot and a Cabbie subplot.
• André's "Play that funky music, white girl" line is a reference to the lyric "Play that funky music, white boy" in the 1976 song, "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry. Tori responds by saying she is half Latina, as a reference to Victoria (in real life) also being interracial.
  • As of 2025 on Paramount+, André's line is edited so that he only says "Play that funky music", although it makes less sense because Tori's following line remains. This censorship can also be found on Netflix.
• This is the first time that a chase scene takes place through the corridors and the stairwell.
• There was a deleted scene where after Trina locks her door, Robbie says to Rex, "Oh well, I guess it's dinner for the two of us at the Olive Bargain," and Rex replies, "Oh, NO! Not the Olive Bargain! Please!".^{[citation needed]}
• This is the second episode where the title is said in the episode. The first was The Bird Scene.
• This is the first time Jade shows her "soft side".
  • Although this is the first time Jade is also seen playing the victim.
• On Dan's Fun Facts blog, he says that Derek was going to pull out his pepper spray, though it looks like he was going for his gun instead.^[1]
• The song Jade, Tori and Derek are dancing to is "Queen of White Lies" by The Orion Experience. While filming, Liz, Victoria, and Robert were actually dancing to "Fluorescent Adolescent" by the Arctic Monkeys.^[2]
  • "Queen of White Lies" was also heard in the Zoey 101 episode "Coffee Cart Ban." (Zoey 101 was a Nickelodeon show by Dan Schneider that Victoria Justice had starred in prior to Victorious.) This song was also heard in "iParty with Victorious", just before Robbie breaks the sound.
• The lines "And it sounds kinda gross", "Who is this chick?!", "I'll pull it" and "Or onion pus", were not scripted, Dan added them on stage while filming.^[3]
• After André asks Tori why she picked the French horn, Tori says, "I dunno... I like French fries, French toast..." In the original script, Tori also said "French kissing" – but Dan decided that it was a bit much for a Nickelodeon show, so he cut it from the script.^[4]
• A stunt double was not used for Victoria or Liz as they wanted to do the stunt themselves instead.
• The bit where Rex has his hand on the hot blonde's knee at the end of the scene was not scripted, the director came up with that idea during rehearsal.
• The scene where Robbie and Trina's audition was actually filmed at around midnight. The lighting department made it look like day.
• When Trina and Robbie audition in the class together, in the background you can see "The Shadow Puppet Of Bali".
• There were about 7 to 8 takes of the kiss in Robbie and Trina's audition while filming.
• The bit where Tori accidentally picks up the huge piece of lettuce on her fork then shakes it off wasn't in the script. It happened by accident during a take, and it made Victoria and Dan laugh. So, Dan had her do the same thing again in the next take.
• In the first few parts of the episode, Robbie wears a shirt reading, "My Game is Classic", with the design itself resembling the 25m stage from the classic Nintendo game, Donkey Kong.
• Ever since this episode was filmed, everyone who works on Victorious (staff and crew) yells "Butternut" whenever they get freaked out or frustrated.^[5]
• It is revealed that Robbie is lactose intolerant.
• Everyone who works for Dan knows that he almost never let the girls wear ponytails on his shows. But in the last scene, he made an exception with Tori because a ponytail seemed appropriate for what she was doing in the scene.
• This episode is known as one of the most stereotypical in the series, when Trina asked Robbie what was wrong with him in a rude tone after she spat milk on him, (Robbie is lactose intolerant) and when she said that he has problems after Robbie asked Trina to convert to Judaism.
• Derek is portrayed by Robert Christopher Riley, who would later star alongside Elizabeth Gillies in the 2017 reboot of Dynasty.
• Ending tagline: "But we'll implode!"—Trina.
  • Her tagline is used in several episodes in the UK due to the credits being remade to remove ads from TheSlap.com.^[6]

Goofs

• When Tori and Jade are cleaning up after the food fight scene, Jade accidentally trips when she walks up to turn on the music. This was actually not meant to happen, but Dan Schneider decided to leave it in because Elizabeth Gillies stayed in character. Victoria's big, open-mouthed smile was not scripted as well; it was her reaction to Liz's slip-up.
• When Tori 'hurts' Jade, make-up appears already.
• It would be practically impossible to play the French Horn the way André plays it in the episode; the French Horn requires lots of air to play and was named one of the most difficult instruments to play by the Guinness Book of World Records.
• It is impossible for Tori to try to stuff a French Horn in such a small locker. She would have to store it in the music room instead.
• When Robbie kisses Trina, and she spits milk in his face, the milk dries between shots at a very fast pace.
• Trina should've reported Robbie for stalking.
• When Trina leaves the table during the scene where Robbie is trying to convince her to go out with him, she takes her pink patterned backpack with her. When Cat sits down, she puts her black backpack with a pink trim next to her on the seat. But when the part where Jade is storming away from the lunch area after getting water splashed onto her comes up, the audience can clearly see Trina's pink patterned backpack next to Cat.
• When the girl tells Jade "Please don't destroy me socially", you can clearly see Jade run away before she says "Just forget it". After she says that, she runs away for a second time.
• When Tori supposedly hits Jade, it is rather obvious that the cane didn't touch Jade and if it did, the angle meant Tori would have hit Jade in the head, not the eye.
• After a girl throws water on Jade. Jade's face and neck are wet. Then she appears dry. In the next scene in the hallway, Jade is wet again.
• The teacher says, "It's World War II, 1944, you're in a submarine, 1,700 feet down in the Atlantic Ocean, and you're probably going to die." That is well beyond the collapse depth of a World War II-era submarine. A submarine from that era would have suffered a hull collapse prior to reaching a depth of 1,000 feet.
• How did Tori know Derek's name? It is likely they already met each other before the start of this episode.

Running Gags

• The specialist brought in to teach the class about stage fighting repeatedly corrects the class that his name is Russ, not Steve.
• People thinking Tori is violent.
• People telling Tori not to hit them.

Quotes

Jade: [To Tori] Hey partner, I can't wait for our fight... scene.
Tori [To herself] Gulp.

(Tori tries to get Jade a chair to sit down on but it collapses underneath her)
Russ: That was a breakaway chair!
Tori: Aw, butternut!

Tori: Why do I have to play an instrument anyway?
Cat: Everyone at Hollywood Arts has to play an instrument.
Tori: Okay, well, I sing. My throat is my instrument! I'm a throat player.
André: Doesn't count.
Cat:: And it sounds kinda gross.
André: Why'd you pick the French horn?
Tori: I don't know. I like French fries, French toast.
Cat: (gasps) One time, when I was eating French toast at a restaurant, I started laughing, and then I started choking, so the lady who ran the restaurant made me leave.

Cat: So let's hear your horn!
André: Yeah, play that funky music, white girl.

Tori: You know I'm half Latina.
André: Then hit it, muchacha!

Tori: (to Beck) Well, it looked like he was hurting you!
Jade: (Suspiciously) Why do you care?
Tori: Because I figured he already suffers enough pain dating you.
Jade: You wanna see pain?!

Tori: (About Jade) Why does she hate me?
André: Maybe she heard you play the French horn!

Cat: I wonder if mirrors work in outer space.

Tori: Oh, great, so she gets an A- and I get a broken eye and a black nose.
André: I think you meant--
Tori: I know what I meant!
Cat: My dog has a black nose! It's so cute! It's like a baby meatball!
André: Meatballs are brown.
Cat: You're so mean to me! (She angrily takes her drink and walks off)
Tori: ...You want half her sandwich?
André: Mmm-hmm. (They both take half of the sandwich Cat had before she left)

Russ: Okay, and if anything goes wrong, just yell the safe word, which is, "butternut."
Teacher: Ready? And--
Tori: Butternut!
Jade: What?!
Teacher: Tori, what's the problem?

Tori: I was just testing the safe word. It works! (Jade rolls her eyes)

Cat: Why'd you hit Jade in the face with a cane?
Tori: I didn't!
Cat: Okay! I believe you, don't hit me!
Tori: Will you back me up here?
André: Okay, look. I sure Tori didn't mean to whack Jade in the face with the cane.
Tori: Why does everyone think I hit her?
André: Well, we were watching you guys do the scene, you hit her across the face with your cane, she fell down, and now her eye's all bloody.
Tori: Well that doesn't mean I hit her.
André: I kinda think it does.

Beck: Hey. How you feeling?
Jade: My eye hurts.
Beck: Oh, yeah? Which one?
Jade: (Sarcastically) Cute. I want coffee.
Beck: What's the magic word?
Jade: Get me some coffee...Please?
Beck: Actually, the magic word was lotion. But I'll accept your please 'cause you have a boo-boo eye.
Jade: (Calling after him) Two sugars!
Beck: I know what to do!

Cat: (after kissing Robbie) See?
Robbie: (stunned) I want you to meet my parents.

Derek: (Bending down over Tori) Is that mac and cheese?
Tori: (Frustrated) Who cares?
Derek: (Gets up and checks his phone) I just wanted to know if it was mac and cheese.

(Tori continues scraping, when Jade walks in. They look at each other for a few seconds)
Jade: I don't get it.
Tori: What?
Jade: I know that André told you that I faked everything. The blood, the black eye. What is that, mac and cheese?
Derek: (Looking at his phone) Looks like it right?
Tori: (To Jade) Why are you here?

Jade: Why are you here? Why didn't you tell on me?
Tori: 'Cause. We both go to school here and it's not gonna be fun for either one of us if we're fighting all the time.
Jade: So...you're just gonna let me get away with it? You took detention and a lower grade and you're scraping crusty pudding of the walls on a Friday night just so I wouldn't get in trouble?
Tori: Pretty much.
Jade: Well...you can't be nice to me when I've been mean to you. That's not how it works!
Tori: Well try being nice to me some time, maybe that'll work. Now go play I've gotta scrape this onion dip off the wall. (Smells the onion dip) Or onion puss.
(Jade drops her bag and picks up a scraper and a bucket and starts scraping)
Jade: This, might be more fun with some tunes. (Slips and turns on the music)

Gallery

Click here to see the photo gallery for Stage Fighting.

v • e • d Victorious Episodes

Season One Pilot • The Bird Scene • Stage Fighting • The Birthweek Song • Jade Dumps Beck • Tori the Zombie • Robarazzi • Survival of the Hottest • Wi-Fi in the Sky • Beck's Big Break • The Great Ping Pong Scam • Cat's New Boyfriend • Freak the Freak Out • Rex Dies • The Diddly-Bops • Wok Star • The Wood • A Film by Dale Squires • Sleepover at Sikowitz's Season Two Beggin' on Your Knees • Beck Falls for Tori • Ice Cream for Ke$ha • Tori Gets Stuck • Prom Wrecker • Locked Up! • Helen Back Again • Who Did It to Trina? • Tori Tortures Teacher • Jade Gets Crushed • Terror on Cupcake Street • A Christmas Tori • Blooptorious Season Three The Breakfast Bunch • The Gorilla Club • The Worst Couple • André's Horrible Girl • Car, Rain & Fire • Tori & Jade's Play Date • April Fools' Blank • Driving Tori Crazy • How Trina Got In • Tori Goes Platinum • Crazy Ponnie • The Blonde Squad Season Four Wanko's Warehouse • The Hambone King • Opposite Date • Three Girls and a Moose • Cell Block • Tori Fixes Beck and Jade • One Thousand Berry Balls • Robbie Sells Rex • The Bad Roommate • Brain Squeezers • The Slap Fight • Star Spangled Tori • Victori-Yes Films and Specials Freak the Freak Out • iParty with Victorious • Locked Up! • Tori Goes Platinum