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Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

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Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a 1989 film about four kids who mistakenly get shrunken to 1/4 of an inch tall and must cross a backyard which is dangerous and similar to a jungle for them due to their microscopic size.

Directed by: Joe Johnston. Written by Ed Naha and Tom Schulman.

Other

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  • Nick: I'm on a special diet. No toxic waste.
  • Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Sr.: The coach put me on these babies. You know what happened? I put on twenty pounds of pure unadulterated blitz-the-quarterback-and-rip-his-head-off muscle, Russell!
  • Wayne: Wait a second, Nick doesn't play baseball.
  • Nick: Hey, wait! I get it...French Class! [laughs]

Dialogue

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[It is a warm and sunny Saturday morning. In the neat and tidy backyard of the Thompsons' house, ten-year-old Ron Thompson is noisily pitching a tent. Ron is a Cub Scout. His fifteen-year-old brother, Little Russ, is lifting weights nearby. Their father, Big Russ, calls weight lifting pumping iron. Big Russ works for the Olympian Construction Company]
[Suddenly, a window on the second story of the Thompsons' house whooshes open. Big Russ leans out on the windowsill and sticks his head and shoulders out. Even though he's just gotten out of bed and is yet in rumpled pajamas, Mr. Thompson already wears his favorite hat, a Giants baseball cap, pulls down low on his head. He frowns at his watch and then down at the children]
Big Russ: What are you two doing here? And at this hour?
[Ron continues hammering aside. He calls to Big Russ without looking up at him]
Ron: Pitching a tent, Dad.
Big Russ: Don't you know I'm sleeping?
Ron: But you're speaking to us, Dad. You look wide awake.
[Ron grins innocently at his father. Big Russ frowns back, but withdraws his head and closes the bedroom window shut]
[Ron slumps to the ground with a disappointed look on his face]
Little Russ: What's wrong, Ron?
Ron: This is sissy stuff.
Little Russ: What is?
Ron: Camping in the yard. I want to camp out in the real jungle. With wild animals. Cannibals. Grizzly bears....
[Little Russ makes a sour face at Ron]
Little Russ: Grizzly bears don't live in the jungle.
Ron: They do so in my jungle. And they'd eat wieners like you for breakfast.
[Ron likes to tease his brother as much as he likes to upset their father]
[Little does either of them know that Ron is going to get his wish for a wild jungle. And soon]
[Amy Szalinski is watching the Thompson boys that sunny Saturday morning. She studies them, mostly Little Russ, from the kitchen window of the rundown Szalinski house next door to the Thompson house]
[Amy sighs heavily. Like Little Russ, she is fifteen. But she is tall, rather than short like Russ. And she wears glasses. Russ just doesn't seem to notice her. She sighs again and returns to making breakfast for the rest of her family]
[Amy's mother has had an argument with Amy's father the night before, and her mother has spent the night at Amy's grandmother's house. Amy is filling in for her mum as best she can]
[But cooking isn't one of Amy's strong suits]
[She picks up the bowl of eggs she has just done beating and looks down at her nine-year-old brother, Nick. He is seated across the table, reading a science fiction paperback, as usual. Amy puts some bread into the toaster near Nick]
Amy: Watch the toast for me, Nick.
Nick: Sure. [The book he is absorbed in that morning is called "Peace Feelers and Other Stories". Amy notices that Nick's current book has the sort of weird creature-cover Nick seems to prefer in his light reading. Nick is small and thin, and seems to be allergic to everything. He is not much help around the house]
[Amy walks to the sink and runs cold water into the bowl of eggs. Then she crosses the kitchen to the stove and pours the mixture of eggs and water into a waiting frying pan. She turns the flame down to low heat. Nick lays his book down and walks over to the stove. On his tiptoes, he peers into the pan]
Nick: Mum never made scrambled eggs that looked like that.
Amy: Mum's not here.
Nick: Where do you think she's coming back?
Amy: I don't know. Perhaps never....
Nick: I hope she comes back soon.
Amy: How is the toast coming?
Nick: Well, fine!
Amy: Then how come it's smoking?
[Nick strolls back to the table and sits down]
Nick: It's hot? [He bursts the toaster handle. Two smoking black squares rise slowly into view]
[Amy walks to the table holding the frying pan and scrapes some of its contents onto the plate in front of Nick]
Amy: A straight-A student, but you can't make toast.
Nick: I want to be a scientist like Dad. Not a cook!
Amy: Where is Dad?
Nick: Upstairs.
Amy: As usual.
[At that moment, Wayne Szalinski, physicist, is tinkering with his latest invention in his attic "laboratory". Amy and Nick's dad wears one red sock and one yellow, with rumpled clothing above. He chatters merrily to Quark, the family terrier, about his "electromagnetic pulse invention"]
[It looks like a very big amateur radio station]
[Puzzled, Quark listens to Mr. Szalinski. Quark has been named after a mysterious subatomic particle]
Wayne: This is it, Quark. A red-letter day. [He flicks a switch. The machine begins to hum. Quark retires toward the door] A common laser device, you say? [Quark's ears flop up] Wrong, Quark. It's an amazing electromagnetic pulse device. If this honey works and my calculations are correct, its computer scanners will home in on a solid object, analyze and isolate its molecular structure, and then reduce the space between its electrons. You know what that means, don't you?
[Quark just stares at his master]
Wayne: It will actually shrink the object. It will be a real boon to the space program and other scientific work.
[Quark's yawn echoes. Wayne takes an apple from a paper bag on the couch. Quark barks and wags his tail. Perhaps it is snack time. Quark carefully approaches the strange equipment. To Quark's disappointment, his master walks over to a large steel plate and places the apple on a pedestal in front of the plate]
[Quark heads to the door]
[Mr. Szalinski puts on a set of safety goggles. He walks across the attic to Quark's place among the door and absently puts another set of goggles on the dog. The scientist walks back across the attic to his strange machine]
Wayne: The only problem is that I haven't gotten this nonsense to work yet. But I'm close, Quark. I'm very, very close.
[Mr. Szalinski activates his double-beamed machine. The beams crackle in the air. They join to form a powerful single beam which is focused on the apple. A shimmer of light shines around the apple. It begins to vibrate in the frown]
[Suddenly, the apple explodes in a powerful spray of warm applesauce]
[Dejectedly, Mr. Szalinski flicks off the machine. Its beams die and its vibrations wind down. The scientist strips off his goggles and flops onto the couch]
Wayne: A bummer, Quark. [Quark trots over and jumps up onto the couch. He begins to lick the applesauce off his master's face. Mr. Szalinski scribbles something on a large mound of notes stacked on the couch next to him]
[The scientist brightens and looks up from his notes. He says to Quark with a grin]
Wayne: On the plus side, we have discovered a very expensive fashion to make applesauce!
[Nick falls into a flower]
Amy: Nick, get out of there. You're allergic to pollen.
Nick: It's too big. I'm too little to breathe it in. [sniffs the flower's pollen; he does a little sneeze]
[Wayne shows the Thompsons the shrunken furniture]
Mae Thompson: Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?
Diane: Well, up until now, the machine just...blew things up.
Mae Thompson: Are you saying that that machine...?
Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Sr.: Blew up my kids?
Wayne & Diane: No, no!
Wayne: No, if the machine had blown up the kids, there'd be pieces of them everywhere...
Diane: Wayne!
Wayne: Sorry, but I'm positive about this. The machine shrunk our kids.
Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Sr.: You're the one who needs a "shrink", Szalinski! You are a nutcase. And I'll tell you something: I have got an air hammer in my attic, and if you did do something to my kids, there's gonna be pieces of you all over the neighborhood! Come on, Mae! [storms out of the house, taking Mae with him]
Wayne: I think that went well.
Diane: I think we should have them over more often.
Ronald 'Ron' Thompson: Your dad will go to jail, your mother too. After all she paid for, that makes her accomplice. Do you even know what it's like in jail?
Amy: I'm not even going to tell you one more time to shut up.
Ronald 'Ron' Thompson: And then what? You'll smack me? You'll go to jail. I'll tell them after a big bee ate my brother you smacked me around. No jury in the world would fail to convict you. The whole Szalinski family is going to be in jail for life...
Amy: Look, my dad's invention works and so when we get home and he fixes us, we're gonna be so rich. You're gonna regret this.
Ronald 'Ron' Thompson: Um...Amy, you know I've always liked your family. Your dad's a real nice guy. He's not as weird as I thought he was. I love you and Nick like...Like my own brother and sister.
Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Jr.: So, you like to dance?
Amy: Yeah...You could see me?
Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Jr.: Well, no...Well yeah, yeah I could see you...But I wasn't watching you. I...
[The ground starts to vibrate beneath the kids' feet]
Ronald 'Ron' Thompson: EARTHQUAKE!
Nick: No worse, LAWNMOWER!
Russell 'Russ' Thompson, Jr.: Hey, Ron, this is a lot better than those nature hikes dad drags... [looks up] AAH!!!
Amy: Nick, don't you ever pick up your toys?
Ronald 'Ron' Thompson: What a wimp!
Nick: I've been looking for that guy.

About Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

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  • They were kind of nervous. It was after Re-Animator had come out, and our kids were complaining that they couldn’t see these movies that we were making. We came up with the idea for Honey! I Shrunk the Kids, and took it to Disney. They liked it, and we developed it for them. We got Ed Naha, who wrote Dolls, which we had done together, to write the script. I was going to direct, and did all the planning and worked out the special effects, and two weeks before it started shooting I got sick and couldn’t do it. They got Joe Johnston to direct the film, and I was pretty pleased with the results…It’s funny. When people talk about [Honey! I Shrunk The Kids] they say, “It’s so different.” Really, it’s not that different than Re-Animator. It’s about a mad scientist and an experiment that goes wrong, and so forth…the potential for severing some heads was there, when you have a giant ant coming at you with those big mandibles. Who knows what could happen?

̈** Stuart Gordon

  • Stuart and Brian had young children back then and came up with this idea about shrunken kids. They pitched it to Disney and the studio was interested. So, they approached me about working with them and we came up with the story. When I was a kid on the East Coast, there was a comic strip in the Sunday edition of The New York Daily News called the Teenie-Weenies. It was one huge frame showing little people riding around on mice or sitting in thimbles and I just loved that. There was also a little guy or girl that you could cut out of the newspaper and paste on cardboard to play with. So, in a way, I was prepared for this sort of thing ever since I could hold a newspaper in my chubby little hands.
    • Ed Naha

Cast

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