Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (Movie)



Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a 1989 comedy film released through Walt Disney Pictures. It stars Rick Moranis, Matt Frewer, and Marcia Strassman.

Plot outline
Moranis plays "nutty" inventor Wayne Szalinski who perfects a machine capable of shrinking objects down to a hundredth of their size, though when first tested, it causes objects to explode rather than shrink. When his two children, Nick and Amy, and his clumsy neighbor Big Russ' two sons, Ron and Little Russ, enter Wayne's attic laboratory in which the shrink ray is located in order to retrieve Ron's lost baseball, they find it has been triggered by the ball and take the full brunt of the shrinking ray. The four spend the rest of the movie trying to get back to the house after accidentally being taken out to the curb with the trash. Since they are so tiny, the trip is an epic adventure filled with a number of obstacles: giant insects, hurricane sprinklers, dive-bombing bees, and a runaway remote-controlled lawn mower. Towards the end of this movie, Quark, the family dog, helps the children return to the house, where Nick falls off him and into Wayne's bowl of Cheerios. Wayne scoops up Nick in his spoon and nearly eats him for breakfast. However, Quark hears Nick and bites Wayne's leg, causing him to look at the spoon with a magnifying glass and find Nick. The four children are taken back to the attic and the machine is tested on Big Russ; then the children are returned to their normal size.

Cast

 * Rick Moranis - Wayne Szalinkski


 * Matt Frewer - Big Russ Thompson, Skalinkski's neighbor


 * Marcia Strassman - Diane Szalinski, Wayne's wife


 * Kristine Sutherland - Mae Thompson, Russ's wife


 * Thomas Brown - Little Russ Thompson, Russ & Mae's son and Amy's boyfriend


 * Jared Rushton - Ron Thompson, Russ & Mae's son and Nick's best friend


 * Amy O'Neill - Amy Szalinski, Wayne & Diane's daughter


 * Robert Oliveri - Nick Szalinski, Wayne & Diane's son

Sequels
In 1992, Disney released the first sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, with Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, and Robert Oliveri reprising their roles as Wayne, Diane, and Nick 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.

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 must 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 Honey, I Shrunk The Kids: The TV Show, in which 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 various types of humorous mixed-up adventure.