Film dog almost trapped in small space - that's typical (7)
I believe the answer is:
classic
'typical' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'film dog almost trapped in small space' is the wordplay.
'film dog' becomes 'lassie' (I've seen this before).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'trapped in' is an insertion indicator.
'small space' becomes 'cc' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'lassie' with its final letter taken off is 'lassi'.
'lassi' going into 'cc' is 'CLASSIC'.
'that's' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for classic that I've seen before include "Relating to early Greek and Latin writers" , "The Derby or The Oaks, for example" , "Great piece of creative writing" , "Artistic work of the highest excellence" , "Work of established excellence (7)" .)