is there a way to refer to all movie clips on the stage or apply a function to all movie clips without applying the function to all manually?
yes, the function on all mc’s is do-able with prototypes:
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/oop/AS1OOPPrototypes1.htm
also, a simple example and more links here:
http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47510
Are you talking about making methods available to all MovieClips, or every MovieClip on the stage executing that function ?
There’s also http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/asbroadcaster.htm
which is addressed a little later in the first link Kalliban put 
This is more of calling a function for a group of movieclips at one time rather than just letting all movieclips have that function.
