Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
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| Honey, I Shrunk the Kids | |
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| Directed by | Joe Johnston |
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| Produced by | Penney Finkelman Cox Jon Landau Thomas G. Smith Brian Yuzna |
| Written by | Stuart Gordon Brian Yuzna Ed Naha Tom Schulman |
| Starring | Rick Moranis Matt Frewer Marcia Strassman Kristine Sutherland Thomas Wilson Brown Jared Rushton Amy O'Neill Robert Oliveri |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Hiro Narita |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 23, 1989 |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Language | English |
| Gross revenue | $222,724,172[1] |
| Followed by | Honey, I Blew Up the Kid |
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a 1989 comedy film released through Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, and Marcia Strassman.
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[edit] Synopsis
"Nutty" inventor Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) has invented a machine capable of shrinking objects to one percent of their original size, however his progress is slow as the machine continually fails, causing the targets to explode rather than shrink. Wayne's one-track-minded approach to his inventions has caused strain between himself and his wife Diane (Marcia Strassman), who had spent the night before over at her mother's house before returning to work that day as a real estate agent. His children are Amy (Amy O'Neill) and Nick (Robert Oliveri), who respectively spend that morning preparing breakfast (burning it horribly) and playing with the family dog Quark. Wayne hurriedly has to leave for a scientific conference, though not before waking his neighbor "Big Russ" Thompson (Matt Frewer) prior to his family's camping trip which he had paid to reserve. Mae Thompson (Kristine Sutherland) is Russ's wife, Ron (Jared Rushton) is the youngest child and an athlete, and "Little Russ" (Thomas Wilson Brown), the older son, is trying to decide where he fits in in his own life without being compared to his father after whom he had been named. The Thompson family go about their Saturday morning activities, their lives separate if not unintruding to their neighbors. Big Russ and Wayne seem to have an undescribed feud going on.
While Big Russ and Little Russ are packing their RV, Little Russ stops to watch Amy enthusiastically cleaning house while practicing dance moves. Big Russ notices this and calls the Szalinskis a "weird family." As the day progresses, a bored Ron comes out with a baseball and a bat, practicing his swings. He hits the ball and sends it flying directly into the Szalinski attic window. Little Russ is Ron's only witness, but despite attempts to dissuade his big brother, Ron is dragged next door to retrieve the ball and offer repairs. Amy sends Nick and Ron to the attic to get the ball while she and Russ talk. When Nick and Ron reach the attic, they find the machine had been activated by the ball's bouncing around in the room and it zaps them. Meanwhile, Wayne fails to impress at his conference and is pretty much laughed off the stage with his theory on reducing the size of empty space in any given object in order to cause shrinking, as he fails to provide any proof. Russ and Amy, frustrated with how long Nick and Ron are taking, ascend into the attic and are also zapped by the haywire device. As they become aware of what is happening, Wayne returns home and follows a distraught Quark up to the attic. The machine, trying to find a target for the incoming sounds of Wayne's footsteps, causes the baseball to be dislodged from its spot and shut down, leaving no evidence it was ever active.
The kids move the couch and try to get Wayne's attention when he comes into the attic, a feeble attempt because at their height their cries aren't heard. Wayne loses his temper at the shrinking machine and violently dismantles it as the kids avoid the falling debris. Wayne takes up a broom and a dustpan, sweeping up the Szalinski and Thompson kids and throwing them into a trashcan, then takes it outside. Diane comes home and she and Wayne reconcile, with him promising that he will go back to his old job at the factory. The kids get out of the garbage bag and enter the forest of their lawn (which Nick had not mowed so his friend Tommy could try their remote controlled lawn mower). Nick falls into a flower and is picked up by a bee. Russ jumps onto the bee, and the two become separated from Amy and Ron. Wayne is attacked by the bee and grabs Ron's bat to knock it away. Wayne realizes he is holding the bat and notes the broken window. He deduces that it must have been the baseball that broke the window, and discovers that the shrink ray had been working. Upon seeing the broom again he assumes he had taken the kids out in the garbage. Wary of stepping on his lawn now, Wayne tries various means to find the kids (starting with stilts and binoculars) he inadvertently turns on the lawn's sprinkler system, sending enormous drops of water down onto the kids trekking through the yard. They reunite and Amy nearly drowns in a pool of mud. Russ rides a piece of grass down the mud to rescue her. When they get back to shore, he performs CPR in order to get her to breathe again. Nick then asks "Where did you learn artificial respiration?" to which Russ replies "French class, kid" as it resembles making out. Nick is confused by the answer.
Hunger begins to plague the children, and they eventually find one of Nick's Oatmeal Creme Pies in the yard, but they are quickly dissuaded when an ant arrives. Nick says that the ant could possibly carry the four of them back to the house. After training the ant like a pet and using the cookie as a lure, they fashion a makeshift caravan of leaves to drag them home. Russ and Mae begin to get worried when their vacation-friends arrive, and their kids are nowhere to be found. Don (Mark L. Taylor) and Gloria (Kimmy Robertson) are disappointed when Russ makes an understated excuse to why they cannot make it (when really they can't find Ron or Little Russ) and Russ threatens a grounding for the wayward teens. Both Mae and Diane call the police who deliver almost unsympathetic visits to each house. Wayne tells Diane what happened to the kids, which causes her faint before they try to find their children in a makeshift sling out back. The kids, in the meantime, realize that they won't be home before dark. Ron, who had come to see "Anty" like a pet suggests letting him go. After they remove the harness, Anty doesn't want to leave their side despite Ron's shouts that "Mom'll never let me keep you!". Big Russ becomes more and more worried about Ron and Russ, and his nerves cause him to break out a cigarette, which he flicks non-nonchalantly into the Szalinski yard giving the opportunity for the kids to grab small roots and light them for their night time traveling. Wayne and Diane decide to tell the Thompsons what's going on, which results in Wayne being threatened with an Air Hammer. The kids eventually come across a wayward Lego block and while Ron and Nick take the top most tube, Amy lays in the bottom and Russ lays on the ground. After a heart to heart talk, Amy and Russ kiss. Their kissing is interrupted when a ferocious scorpion attacks, trapping Ron in the Lego block. Anty comes to fight it, giving him enough time to escape. Before they manage to launch a counter assault and scare the scorpion away, however, Anty is fatally stung and dies as Ron pets him.
The next morning, the four kids, who were now sleeping together, get up among the makeshift grave made for Anty and are ready to continue their journey home. Tommy, comes to the Szalinski's yard and activates the lawn mower. Wayne, who had spent the entire night rebuilding the machine, and Diane see this and yell for Tommy to stop mowing. The kids, who had taken shelter in a worm burrow, are put in severe danger when the mower stops overhead, pulling the four of them toward it. The mower is turned off just in time, and the kids fly between the blades and into the yard, landing scant feet from the house. Tommy leaves and Wayne and Diane return to the house. Nick becomes upset and Ron starts to panic, but their morale is restored when Quark comes. They climb aboard the dog and enter the house. Nick loses his grip when Quark barks at Wayne who is eating his breakfast, and Nick falls into Wayne's bowl of Cheerios. Unaware he is close to eating his son, Wayne eats his cereal, narrowly missing Nick each time. Finally Nick is caught in his spoon and nearly eaten by his father. Quark hears Nick's screams and bites Wayne, causing him to flinch and notice the dot floating on his spoon. After seeing Nick then the others, Diane gets the Thompsons to have them present when Wayne restores them.
Briefly baffled by the exploding glitch in the machine, Russ deciphers the charades the children are performing and they learn that the baseball is the answer. The baseball had interrupted the laser's heat being fed into the ray which was causing the objects to explode. Big Russ volunteers as the living test subject and is successfully shrunk. The ray is fired on the kids who are returned to their normal size. The scene shifts to a Thanksgiving dinner in which an enlarged turkey (and enlarged Milk-bone for Quark) is served. As the scene fades out, Nick finally proclaims: "I get it! French Class!"
[edit] Cast
- Rick Moranis - Wayne Szalinski
- Matt Frewer - Big Russ Thompson
- Marcia Strassman - Diane Szalinski
- Kristine Sutherland - Mae Thompson
- Amy O'Neill - Amy Szalinski
- Robert Oliveri - Nick Szalinski
- Jared Rushton - Ron Thompson
- Thomas Wilson Brown - Little Russ Thompson
- Sean Kendall - Celebrity guest on TV Series
[edit] Production
The film was filmed in late 1988 in Mexico City, Mexico and San Diego, California. The scene where Diane walks out of the mall was filmed at a local mall in Beverly Hills, California.
The film underwent a few titles before being released. The film's initial title was "Teenie Weenies", which was rejected on the grounds that it sounded too much like a kiddies' film with no appeal to adults. The titles "Grounded" and "The Big Backyard" were considered and subsequently dropped during pre-production.
John Candy and Chevy Chase were originally approached to play Wayne Szalinski. Both rejected the role, but Candy suggested Rick Moranis to director Joe Johnston. Moranis accepted.
Honey I Shrunk The Kids received a 71% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
[edit] Sequels
In 1992, Disney released the first sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, with Rick Moranis and Marcia Strassman reprising their roles as Wayne and Diane Szalinski. As the title suggests, Wayne succeeds in enlarging his two year old son to gigantic proportions as one of his size-changing experiments goes awry.
A three-dimensional film called Honey, I Shrunk the Audience complete with physical effects such as wind and water was created as an attraction at Walt Disney World's Epcot in 1994, and later Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. The attraction is a mock award show by "The Imagination Institute" that is intended to honor Szalinski as "Inventor Of The Year." Instead, the audience is "shrunken" and threatened by a giant dog, a giant python and even a giant toddler, among other thrills. The attraction reprises most of the original cast and adds Eric Idle as the host of the award show.
Disney produced Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves in 1997 as a direct to video release. Only Rick Moranis reprised his role in this film. Many new characters were added such as Wayne's brother and his family. This time, it is the parents who are reduced to minuscule size, and need to be rescued by their kids. Wayne's niece Jenny Szalinski was played by Allison Mack, and a friend by Mila Kunis.
The last incarnation of the franchise was the television program Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show. Peter Scolari took over as Wayne Szalinski. The show's plots involved other wacky Szalinski inventions (rarely the shrinking ray) that don't work quite as expected and land the family in some type of humorous mixed-up adventure.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids at Allmovie
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids at the Internet Movie Database
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids at Rotten Tomatoes
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In popular culture An episode of The Super Mario Show cartoon was called Princess,I shrunk the Mario Brothers.A Sonic cartoon episode was called Honey,I shrunk the Hedgehog.
