Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show

When I first heard of this series, I thought it was going to be a stupid, corny, throw-away series. After a few episodes, however, I was pleasantly surprised. The family is perfectly casted (they're better than their original movie counterparts), and the dialogue is original and funny, which is the basis of this show's success. The plots are extremely corny (e.g. family gets trapped inside of T.V., family harbors a bigfoot couple, and family travels back to the Wild West days with some aliens) but amazingly they are able to pull them off with sharp dialogue and very creative elements (e.g. every comment is punctuated, very humorously, with a laugh track when trapped inside a sitcom, and the bigfoot couple whine and bicker like married humans). It's sad that the show is so underrated and has such a obscure time slot (11:00 AM, Sundays).

Let's recap. The first "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" movie was the best of the series and the special effects used in it have held up extremely well since 1989. "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" was mediocre at best. "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves" was just plain stupid. Now we have a T.V. series? What the hell? I mean, since the last two sequels to the original "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" movie bombed, what made the writers think they could possibly do a T.V. show without having disastrous results? The story lines for the series are incredibly stupid and range from Wayne getting trapped inside the T.V. to getting sent back in time. Please, just quit now. What is it with Wayne anyway? Why does he keep getting himself and his family into these chaotic situations? Besides, if I remember correctly, in "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves", didn't Diane Szalinski say that the state had strictly forbidden Wayne from ever using his machine for any reason and he used it anyway? In either case, he broke the law and should have been arrested for endangering the lives of himself, his family, as well as everyone around him.

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

There were two things I enjoyed about this show. The first was the actors who actually did a better job than those in the movies. The second was how the show used (odd) science and magic to put a new spin on the problems facing the cast of countless other family sitcoms.

The boy wishes he was an adult, no problem, drink a potion and he becomes an adult. The girl has a stalker, but here he is an alien. The dad doesn't get the credit he deserves at work, but why should he when his invention turns the future into a dystopia.

But while the cast was great, and the action even greater. The one thing I did not like about it was that despite being a comedy show the dialog simply wasn't funny. I cannot remember a single time I laughed watching this.

"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.