Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a 1992 American animated science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation for Walt Disney Pictures, and the sequel to the 1989 film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, produced by Don Hahn and released by Walt Disney Pictures, it stars Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O'Neill and Robert Oliveri, who reprise their roles as Wayne, Diane, Amy, and Nick Szalinski respectively, as well as newcomer Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Nick's love interest and babysitter of Adam, the Szalinskis' new son, whose accidental exposure to Wayne's new industrial-sized growth machine causes him to gradually grow to enormous size. It is set three years after the events depicted in the first film. It was filmed in 1991.
The antagonist to the Szalinskis is Wayne's coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson (John Shea), who wants the giant Adam stopped at all costs and would like to take over Wayne's invention that is now owned by the major corporation they work for, which is in turn owned by the kind Clifford Sterling (Lloyd Bridges).
The film would be followed by one last sequel in 1997, this time a direct-to-video one, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. A TV show also followed it in 1997, called Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
== Plot ==
Four years after inventor Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) accidentally shrunk his and his next door neighbor's kids, his family have moved to Nevada and have welcomed a new son, mischievous two-year old Adam. Wayne’s wife, Diane (Marcia Strassman), leaves on a Friday with their daughter, Amy (Amy O'Neill), to move her to her dorm at college, leaving Wayne to look after Adam and their teenage son, Nick (Robert Oliveri), who struggles with puberty. He develops a crush on Mandy Park (Keri Russell), who Wayne later arranges to babysit Adam. The next day, Saturday, Wayne takes Nick and Adam to Sterling Labs, where he has constructed an advanced derivative of his shrink ray which could make objects grow. He tests it out on Adam’s favorite toy, Big Bunny. However, when his and Nick’s backs are turned, Adam attempts to retrieve it and is zapped by the machine, which appears to short circuit and not enlarge the targeted object.
Back home, Adam and Big Bunny are exposed to electrical waves from the microwave oven and grow in size, now seven feet tall. Wayne and Nick try to take him back to the lab to reverse the process, but are caught by Wayne’s coworker, Dr. Charles Hendrickson (John Shea), who dislikes him, later discovering his folly. Diane returns home and discovers the truth, and she, Wayne, and Nick have a hard time trying to take care of the large Adam. Later, Wayne and Diane drive to a warehouse and retrieve Wayne’s first prototype to turn Adam back to normal. When Mandy arrives to babysit him, she panics and faints. Nick then ties her to a chair and gags her so she can't run away or scream. As he explains the situation to her, Adam is exposed to the television’s electrical waves and grows to fourteen feet, before escaping through a wall.
Nick and Mandy search for him, but are taken into custody, with Adam placed into a truck. Wayne and Diane return home, finding the smug Dr. Hendrickson waiting for them. He has summoned Clifford Sterling (Lloyd Bridges), the company chairman, with the plan to fire Wayne and experiment on Adam. Clifford arrives, praising Wayne when he admits his mistake and agrees to help Adam, firing the rude Dr. Hendrickson as well. At the same time, the truck carrying Adam passes by high voltage lines, exposing him to more electrical waves and causing him to grow even larger, escaping confinement. He mistakes Nick and Mandy for toys and puts them in his overalls pocket before heading for Las Vegas, pursued by his parents and the authorities. Wayne and Clifford figure out the cause of his growth and realize that exposure to Las Vegas' neon lights will make him grow bigger than ever.
Dr. Hendrickson turns to board director Terrence Wheeler (Gregory Sierra), who wants to start a boardroom coup to take Clifford out of power. With his permission, Dr. Hendrickson forcefully boards a military helicopter to attempt to tranquilize Adam, despite the pilot's reluctance. Wayne is determined to use his shrinking machine to shrink Adam back to normal, but needs him to stand still for twelve seconds so he can be shrunk. At first, he tries using Big Bunny to pacify him, but it backfires when Wayne suggests he take a nap (which he hates). After wandering through Las Vegas, he saves the escaped Nick and Mandy in a convertible from falling off the Kicking Lady of Glitter Gulch (Fremont Street) and puts the convertible in his pocket again, before pursuing an ice cream truck driven by Marshall Brooks (Ron Canada) to distract him away from the city. However, he grows to a max height of 112 feet and heads towards the Hard Rock Café, where he plays the lit up guitar. Dr. Hendrickson arrives in the helicopter shooting tranquilizer cartridges at Adam, hitting the guitar instead and causing him to drop it, crying from electric shock. Diane convinces Wayne to enlarge her so she can get to him, preventing Dr. Hendrickson from harming him and getting him to stand still for the needed time period for the shrinking ray to work. Wayne then fires it, returning them to normal size, but Nick and Mandy are gone. Dr. Hendrickson arrives, attempting to justify his actions, but an unforgiving Diane punches him in the face.
In the closing scene, Nick, Mandy, and the convertible are revealed to have been shrunk from inside Adam's pocket to the size of insects. They are quickly found by Wayne, who decides to give them a few minutes of privacy before unshrinking them. The only problem left now is how to unshrink the gigantic Big Bunny.
== Voice cast ==
* Rick Moranis as Wayne Szalinski, a wacky inventor.
* Marcia Strassman as Diane Szalinski, Wayne's wife.
* Amy O'Neill as Amy Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's daughter.
* Robert Oliveri as Nick Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's teenage son.
* Daniel and Joshua Shalikar as Adam Szalinski, Wayne and Diane's two-year-old son.
* John Shea as Dr. Charles Hendrickson, Wayne's insolent coworker.
* Lloyd Bridges as Clifford Sterling, the president of Sterling Labs.
* Keri Russell as Mandy Park, Adam's babysitter and Nick's love interest.
* Ron Canada as Marshall Brooks
* Gregory Sierra as Terence Wheeler, a board member at Sterling Labs who is allied with Dr. Hendrickson.
* Michael Milhoan as Captain Ed Myerson, a military pilot who reluctantly pilots Dr. Hendrickson to confront Adam.
* Leslie Neale as Constance Winters
* Julia Sweeney as a nosy neighbor
* Linda Carlson as another nosy neighbor
== Production ==
The film was not originally written as a sequel to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Originally titled Big Baby, it was about a toddler who grew to giant size by a freak accident involving a growth ray and eventually terrorized Las Vegas in a non-violent, yet Godzillaesque way. Disney saw the possibilities of making this into a sequel to the first film and rewrote the script. Whereas most of the characters from Big Baby were rewritten as characters from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, there was no character in the original that "Amy Szalinski" could replace, so she is seen going away to college in the beginning of the film.
Prior to this, sequel development was offered to screenwriter and teacher David Trottier.[1]
=== Casting ===
Rick Moranis returns from the first film to portray "wacky" inventor Wayne Szalinski. Also returning is his wife, Diane, who is portrayed by Marcia Strassman. Amy O'Neill and Robert Oliveri return to portray their kids, Amy and Nick. Nick has matured in his personality and interests since the first film. He is still considered "nerdy", but has taken more interest in girls and guitars.
Casting director Renee Rousselot searched over 1,000 small children for someone to portray Adam, the newest addition to the Szalinski clan. She searched for mostly three- to four-year-old boys because a younger child was thought to be problematic. She came across twins Daniel and Joshua Shalikar from New Jersey and immediately cast them in December 1990. One would act in the morning while the other was eating lunch or taking a nap. Baby consultant Elaine Hall Katz and director Randal Kleiser would plan the twins' scenes a week in advance. Tom Smith reported that, "On his own, Dan was almost too adventuresome to repeat one move, and Josh seemed very cautious. Put them together and they could do anything." However, the film did have difficulties in working with such small children, and one crew member later remarked it was "like playing hopscotch on hot coals".[2] At the time, the twins were scheduled to appear in two more Honey films. They did appear once, but were recast in Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
In the film, Nick has a crush on a girl named Mandy Park, played by Keri Russellin her first feature film. John Shea portrays Dr. Charles Hendrickson, who is scheming to get Wayne's control of the project, while Lloyd Bridges portrays Clifford Sterling, the owner of Sterling Labs.
Fred Rogers and Richard Simmons are also seen in videos in TV scenes in the film.
=== Direction ===
Randal Kleiser, of Grease and White Fang fame, was chosen to direct the film, replacing Joe Johnston. He would return to film with the cast in the 3D show, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which was at several Disney parks until 2010. Like the first film, and Grease, it had animated opening credits.
Production began on June 17, 1991. Filming took place in Simi Valley, Californiafor the parts involving the Szalinskis' house. Also used extensively was well known places in Las Vegas such as the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the Mirage Hotel, and Fremont Street.[3] The water park where Nick worked and where Mandy is first introduced is Wet 'n Wild in Las Vegas. It closed in 2004, twelve years after the film.
Special effects were used heavily throughout the film, but some were not. When Adam knocks down his bedroom door, production designer Leslie Dilley created a set with miniature furniture about four feet away from the camera, while the adult actors would be about fifteen feet away. Kleiser recalled, "Danny was generally better at improvising and fresh reactions. Josh was better at following directions, so we would alternate."[4]
=== Lawsuit before release ===
Disney would later find itself the subject of a lawsuit as a result of the film. The suit was filed in 1991 by Mark Goodson Productions director Paul Alter, who claimed to have come up with the idea of an oversized toddler after babysitting his granddaughter and watching her topple over building blocks. He wrote a screenplay titled "Now, That's a Baby!", which had not been made into a film but had received some sort of treatment beforehand.[5] Alter claimed there were several similarities between the film and his script, which consisted of the baby daughter of two scientists falling victim to a genetic experiment gone wrong instead of an enlarging ray. The case went to trial in 1993, with the jury finding in Alter's favor. Disney was forced to pay $300,000 in damages.[6]
== Reception ==
=== Box office ===
The film opened on July 17, 1992 to 2,492 theatres, almost twice as many as the first film. It was No. 1 on opening weekend with $11,083,318, and grossed $58,662,452 in the U.S.[7]
=== Critical ===
The film has received generally mixed reviews. It has a "rotten" rating of 39% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews.[8] Desson Thompson and Hal Hinson, both writers from the Washington Post, agreed that it was "a one-joke film". Roger Ebert, from the Chicago Sun-Times, said that Adam "didn't participate in the real world but simply toddled around".[9]
== Soundtrack ==
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid	Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Soundtrack album by
Bruce Broughton	Soundtrack album by
Bruce Broughton
Released 	1992, 2017 (expansion)
Genre 	Soundtrack
Length 	39:57 (original) 69:34 (expansion)
Label 	Intrada Records
Producer 	Bruce Broughton
Intrada Records released the record in 1992, in time for the film's release. The score was composed and conducted by Bruce Broughton, who would return to provide the score for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees appears in it. So does "Loco-Motion" by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and "Ours If We Want It" written by Tom Snow and Mark Mueller. The soundtrack album consists of just the score. In 2017 the label released an expanded edition included Broughton's score for Off His Rockers, the animated short that preceded the film in cinemas.
=== 1992 Track listing ===
# "Main Title" – 3:03
# "To the Lab" – 1:53
# "Adam Gets Zapped" – 0:35
# "Putting on Weight?" – 1:19
# "Macrowaved" – 3:15
# "How'd She Take It?" – 3:11
# "Sneaking Out" – 1:12
# "Don't Touch That Switch!" – 0:26
# "The Bunny Trick" – 2:41
# "Get Big Bunny" – 4:11
# "Clear the Streets!" – 3:00
# "Car Flight" – 4:38
# "Ice Cream!" – 3:47
# "Look at That Mother!" – 2:26
# "That's All, Folks!" – 4:20
=== 2017 Track listing ===
# Off His Rockers: Music From The Cartoon Short (4:27)
# Main Title (3:10)
# Meet The Szalinskis (1:04)
# Just Like Your Dad (1:36)
# To The Lab (1:58)
# Us Guys (1:02)
# Back To The Lab (1:14)
# Adam Gets Zapped (0:35)
# Putting On Weight? (1:24)
# Macrowaved (3:20)
# Hi Guys, I’m Home (0:57)
# How’d She Take It? (3:17)
# The Playpen (1:10)
# Sneaking Out (1:17)
# The Warehouse (2:07)
# Don’t Touch That Switch! (0:26)
# He’s Out And He’s Bigger (0:34)
# The Bunny Trick (2:55)
# Truck Ride (0:35)
# Hendrickson Gets Sacked (0:46)
# Get Big Bunny (4:18)
# No Naaap (1:47)
# Clear The Streets! (3:01)
# Car Flight (4:43)
# Ice Cream! (3:53)
# Look At That Mother! (2:30)
# Diane Decks Hendrickson (0:51)
# End Credits – That’s All, Folks! (4:25)
# Mandy? (0:38)
# How Was Your Flight? (0:14)
# Starting To Get Big (0:17)
# Wayne Gets Fired (0:22)
# It’s Not A Morphis (0:09)
# The Crate (0:15)
# He’s Headed For Vegas (0:10)
# Adam Catches The Car (0:20)
# Can’t We Go Faster? (0:20)
# Adam Cries (0:15)
# Mandy’s Room (Rock Source #2) (1:36)
# T.V. Commercial Source (0:17)
# End Credits – That’s All, Folks! (Alternate) (4:44)
== Home media ==
The film was first released on VHS and Laserdisc on January 6, 1993. It was released on a bare-bones DVD in 2002. While the VHS release contained no bonus material besides a music video, the laserdisc release contains the 1992 animated short film, Off His Rockers directed by Barry Cook, which accompanied the theatrical release. To date, Off His Rockers has only appeared on the laserdisc release, making its availability rare, although the short can be viewed on YouTube.
The film was released on VHS in 1997, alongside its predecessor to coincide with the release of the third film in the series, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.