Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show

Before the review, a brief plot summary: Wayne Szalinski is a brilliant and eccentric inventor working for Mr. Jennings at GENTEK. Happily married with a lawyer named Diane for a wife, he has a son, Nick (who follows in the tradition of his father) and a daughter Amy (witty but a bit spoiled). Neighbour to Police Chief Jake McKenna and his family, Wayne is the inventor of the shrink ray, the time hopper, the fully equipped van, and several other wacky creations which, whie functioning almost exactly as they were supposed to, always somehow backfire, sending the family into situations involving crime, aliens and the supernatural.

For one thing, the cast is far better than the movie. Peter Scholari is amazing at Wayne and far better than Rick Moranis, and these actors potray the characters and their relationships far more easily and with more wit. Now potraying Wayne's job and the people at work, this is like a sitcom... only much better.

The titles are always amusing, with examples like "Honey, The House Is Trying To Kill Us", "Honey, We're Past Tense" and "Honey, I'm The Wrong Arm Of The Law", and the one-liners make James Bond blush. "Deader than a Charlie Sheen flick", "When you have a brainstorm, it's a drizzle", and "The mayor will be back in six months, his term was shortened on good behaviour" are some of my favourites. Like Stephen King, When the plots are explained, they sound silly and corny, ie the van is shrunk and falls into Grampa's drink ("Honey, We've Been Swallowed By Grandpa"), a machine sucks them into the Tv ("Honey, We're On TV), and that Wayne inherits a billionaire's brain to re-animate ("Honey, It's A Billion Dollar Brain"). However, also like Stephen King, they are executed well. Unlike "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves", "Honey, I Blew Up The Kid" and those other cheap sequels, of course.

The spoofs are also very amusing. For example, in "From Honey, With Love" Wayne is showing some foreign buyers some metal at GENTEK, which they try to steal, when Dalton Pierce shows up. He's a Canadian secret agent, and impressed by Wayne's gadgets. He joins Dalton's organization taking the code letter P ("Oh, I can just hear: 'Let's get P on this one'."). When the superspy is accidently blinded by one of Wayne's inventions, P takes his place, trying to trap a villian on the Canadian submarine Scotia. He finds it has been abandoned and the villian has left explination of his death (the way villians would tell Bond) on the computer, where Wayne can listen like on voice mail, "If you were suprised, press one. If you saw it coming, press two." Wayne then finds a bomb left to destroy the ship, and, when failing to disarm it, uses his hand-held shrink ray to turn it into a tiny explosion. Better than Austin Powers, Get Smart or Spy Hard.

Theres so much more about this show I cant list it all, see it for urself!

The kids are well casted, the parents are loving and humorous. They are truly better casted than the movie. The characters do a fantastic job, and they work. They're compatable, they have loving moments. Even though the fathers problematic inventions can make plans go awry, they make it through and with pleasantly funny moments. The best episode is the one where the father joins a Canadian spy mission, and so does the family. They actually shrunk the moon.

This is a television show that for its three season run consistently had some of the best writing ever seen on television. Comedies are rarely given much recognition and commercial shows for kids, never, but Honey, I Shrunk the Kids episodes are really well-crafted, witty spoofs that stand up over time. The best episode I feel is about Morpheus who rules the dream world. In this show, Nick is worried about dissecting frogs and keeps having nightmares. His sister, Amy, is worried about taking her SAT's. The plot weaves together their fears and their personal strengths and weakness (nick is logical/Amy is intuitive) in a humorous, dramatic and meaningful way. If there were any justice in the world, this script should have won an emmy and be discussed in film and English classes. If this show ever comes out on DVD, it is definitely worth purchasing.

I remember watching loads of episodes as a kid and watched the movie only after having watched the TV show and it didn't stand up to the stuff that Szalinskis were pulling on the TV.

There were sub-plots involving all characters and every episode featured a new invention which went awry. It was well-acted and the humor for a kids' show was spot on. There were Bigfoots, aliens, ghosts, international spy agencies even noir. There was goofy humor, some fanservice from the beautiful Diane (red dress), Mr Jennings as the funny boss, Jake Mckenna as the neighbor who inevitably ends up involved in Wayne's schemes.

Tbh most of the Disney live action shows that came after did not even stand close to it. And given the state of live action tv from Disney right now, its better they don't remake it unless they can rediscover the 'fun' spirit of the original

"Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" is the rare film-to-TV series that beats its source material. While the movies are often plodding, cumbersome messes with anonymous characters, "HISTK" the TV series is firmly grounded in Matheson, Colorado, a sort of Anytown U.S.A. where anything can happen. Realistic science is, thankfully, tossed out the window: it's supposed to be a silly romp through suburbia fueled by wild creations from the Szalinskis.

I dare say the casting and acting is better than all the movies. Peter Scolari replaces the recognizable Rick Moranis, and actually does an even better job at the character. Scolari's Szalinski is a family man who invents things that go wrong, but he still has enough charm to make his relationship with his wife and kids reasonable. Barbara Alyn Woods makes what could have been a typical "Mom" character into an interesting, intelligent, and active co-conspirator/victim/commentator on the happenings in the household. Hillary Tuck and Thomas Dekker play the Szalinski kids, with Amy being a witty, sarcastic-but-never-irritating rival to Nick's sensible, science-minded personality. They form a believable family, more believable than most "normal" sitcoms on primetime.

Created by Kevin Murphy (he also created the brilliant "Weird Science" TV show on USA with Vanessa Angel), the show's stories are often breezy, sometimes predictable, but never boring. Unfortunately, HISTK is over (it had a three-season run), but, for my money, it remains a memorable comedy/scifi with truly likable characters.