Bullied Nostalgia: Honey We Shrunk Ourselves

0:00 So many of our favorites to I like roller. Now they're being bashed. I guess. That's what we should expect on the bullied. Nostalgia podcast. Hello everyone. We're back with the bullied. Nostalgia podcast. I'm joined by kylin. Hello chance. It's me. Enjoy! I'm here. It is a very snowy day. Day. And we're here recording an episode for Honey. We Shrunk Ourselves. So, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a very good movie and I don't know about you, John. It certainly means something to me the boys and I have been playing a video game called grounded, which is essentially Honey.

0:55 I Shrunk the Kids, the video game where you have to survive in the Yard. So a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids themed episode gelled really nicely and I think I've probably only saw Honey. We Shrunk the Kids, the original movie once or twice, okay? Because somewhere along the way, our parents decided they would never buy an original movie. They would only by sequels to movies or 3 equals or whatever that is right? So that's the segue into where I was going with this. John and I had made an agreement that it had to be movies that we owned When We Were Young.

1:35 And we never owned Honey. I Shrunk the Kids. However, we did own the third movie in the series. Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and it's only now that I'm realizing how many of the movies we've done have not been the original movie. We did Superman for lab 4 times 3. Just wait Batman 3. It's pretty much all been sequel movies. Why mess with a good thing. So today we're doing Honey, I Shrunk the Kids lesser worse brother, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves and before we get into what we thought of it, or how this movie came to be chance, would you like to summarize what this movie is about?

2:27 Alright, so, Our two characters named Wayne and Gordon stilinski. There are two scientists and inventors and one of them builds a shrink machine. The concept is they were going to watch the kids over the weekend, but through hilarious hijinks him his brother and their two wives. All end up getting Shrunk, the Kids thinking they've been left alone all weekend, get up to Home Alone, style Shenanigans, making messes eating, whole bunch of junk food, that kind of thing. And Into the movie is all about the adults, trying to find a way to make themselves big and communicate with kids chance.

3:06 You said that the adults shrunk themselves? I wouldn't call that accurate. I'd say it's set of croquet balls. Shrunk them consistently a croquet ball would fall from the ceiling and Shrink them. Yeah. If we're looking at the antagonist of the movie, It's rabbit. So the first movie was Be successful so much so that they pumped out a sequel. And the sequel did well financially but went in a completely different direction. It's called Honey. I Blew Up the Kid which is not about explosions. It's right.

3:47 It's about Rick Moranis making their toddler big instead of small and I remember seeing that movie in theaters and it doesn't have the same Peel as the first movie instead, it's like Godzilla movie with a toddler, essentially. Yeah. Because they're just tons of movies, especially kids, movies about shrinking down to a small size. I feel like and it has to do with the fact that people find it fascinating. Yeah. It's a different perspective and it makes everything that we take for granted epic and scary.

4:22 So this movie was a return to form. It was going back to the basics saying, hey, let's make another Other big hit like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids but this time they're not in the backyard they're inside of her inside a house. So this movie was supposed to get a theatrical release in a budget of 40 million dollars. How much was the first one? You know that? I think the budget in the first one was 26 million dollars. Wow. So they were going all in and then somewhere along the lines, they decided, no, this is going direct to DVD directive.

5:00 S. Yeah, so that hurt them. They slash the budget from 42, 7 million dollars. And I would say it shows, I think a good amount of the movie looks pretty good rather than use visual effects. They just make physical objects, a good example being. There's a part where he's in a stereo, the entire stereo is an actual room. They built out of foam and cardboard. And yeah, it doesn't like but when they do visual effects like there's a scene where there's a hot Wheels car. That scene looks very bad. Yeah, I was surprised at how many jokes in this movie.

5:39 I enjoy, I expected this movie to be a dud, but I think that there's a fair bit of the original planned for theatrical release movie left in this. It's actually not a super bad movie but I think that the budget really lets it down the visual effects are weak and John made a comment. It feels like their size is super inconsistent. I think that's part of that. Same problem the green screen a lot. There's a lot of times where it's some background, that's just been dropped in behind them and often the background perspective seems off and just across the board.

6:28 I think the visual effects in this movie are what is the weakest part? Yeah. Going back to what you said earlier is there a lot of great one-liners the child actors in this movie are just okay, in my opinion but the adults had actors I feel like really steal the show. For me. Good example being the Mike Moranis is named Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis, phenomenal actor. He's hilarious all the time and the other a person plays Gordon his brother. Although not as funny as Rick, the two of them have very good chemistry and they're just funny when they're together.

7:05 Yeah, those two especially but the wives also had me laughing a handful of times I was being intentional about watching Rick Moranis. And like you said, even when he doesn't have anything to do, he is on. Even when it's other people's lying, he's making himself busy. He's active in a scene, his visual presence presence. Since is on point, 100% of the time. This is Rick, Moranis is last movie that he ever made. Unfortunately his wife passed away and so he retired from acting to be a single parent to raise his family.

7:48 Obviously, he had this series of movies named after him, but Rick Moranis was phenomenal. In everything. It's just one of those scenarios where it is rolling. Ders is maybe next only to build Marie. The funniest thing in that show, it's just unfortunate that will never see any of his work again. Hmm, he's definitely a talented actor and that was a big talk. Now Ghostbuster remakes are commonplace, but one of the major conversations that they were having throughout the 2000s was, could they get Bill Murray and could they get Rick Moranis?

8:29 He's obviously they never got Rick Moranis to come back. Allison Mac. Mmm. So Melville was a TV show about Superman when he was a teenager when he was a teenager that both Tim and I were into Tim, would sort of eventually take a break on the show and I would get super invested in, watch it from start to finish and aliceandmac played the character of Chloe in Smallville, which was a character made up for the TV show. She wasn't in comic books before that. Anyways, I sort of developed. Developed. I don't know if I would say a crush on Allison Mac but she certainly was my favorite Smallville character and was always rooting for her and caring about the scenes that she was in the storyline.

9:16 She was a part of. And so, I don't know when I realized that she was the one in this movie. He was the one in this movie, who was a lot. It was a while ago. I think I like came up to one day and I was like, She's in like it was this Epiphany? Probably like eight years ago or something like that. And so well John Henry watches this show and it may be on a regular basis. No, I'm sure when I discovered it out what to YouTube and watched he'll watch one episode of Smallville. Then, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, then it up to the plaza.

9:49 So Allison Mac is actually probably like 15 years old as an actress in this movie. I'm guessing and Chef said the kid. Actors are just okay. I would say she's better than okay. Oh yeah, she is. She is very good in this movie for a child actor. She is on point. There's one part where they're making fun of each other in the car and it cuts to the moms and it looks back and the facial expression that Allison, Matt gives you just like rolls her eyes and cringes, I was like, oh my goodness, that's why she's in character.

10:29 She's nailing it, it was very funny because I, in my research, I knew that Mila Kunis is also an Israeli and John's jaw like hit the floor. He's like, is that is that? But she's so young in his movie. She's got to be 12. Maybe it's, it does catch you off guard, okay? That brings the question. How young are the two boys? There are three kids essentially who were the main characters. So all I can say did. Definitively is Rick. Moranis is kid in this movie. The one who plays Alfalfa in Little Rascals is meant to be the toddler who got blown up in the second movie, and this movie takes place 10 years after that movie.

11:20 So he's so if he was one then, he would be 11 now. I get really excited. When I see characters in movies that I was closely following and TV shows like, yeah. When I watched lost, I would watch every single movie that had those actors in it. Yep. Or seamless Smallville because I spent ten Seasons hanging out with Allison Mac. She was the highlight of this movie for me. Yes. Here's the downside since Smallville it's come out, that aliceandmac was in a leadership role in a cult called Nixie. Mm, and it would essentially luer in powerful women and turn them into brainwashed.

12:13 Slaves of the leader of the cult, they would physically brand them and it sounds like Like there was some sexual nature to it as well, they became slaves to the hierarchy. The part where Alfalfa says, we will be your slaves. Aliceandmac has not aged well at all, because literally, that's what she would go on to do is make slaves of all these people. But yeah, I it's tough. I hope that she finds the help that she needs. She was manipulated just as anyone else was, but at a certain point, You're also part of the problem and she certainly had become part of the problem, okay, Tiki man.

13:09 So what Kaiser referencing here is a radiator, current character over me. Abby, plot in this movie, no, the tiki man is the reason why the entire plot and it does not wrong. The reason why Rick Moranis accidentally shrinks himself is because his wife is Sick of having a seven-foot tiki statue in their Hall and so she tells him to get rid of it. And instead of doing that, he secretly plants and shrink it. So that like the size of a name, they will appease his wife but he uses a key. Chains can have it with him at all times.

13:51 So this guy wins a Nobel Prize and spends all of the money he gets from the tiki Steinem tiki statue in all honesty. I actually really like that. So plug is Rick. Moranis is a really good job of just being a strange eccentric guy. And having a giant seven-foot-tall tiki statue that he loves just as much as his wife is a good way to do that up until the actual shrinking. In this movie, I am 100% on board. The dialogue is good, the characters are likable and vocally said, I'm enjoying this way more than I expected.

14:28 I want to keep watching this movie I think When it actually gets into the movie, the movie starts to fall down a bunch more. But 100%, the fact that Rick Moranis is going to such extreme lengths, to lie, to his wife, just so you can keep this Tiki. It's not admirable, but it is charming. However, at the end of the movie as a compromise, he makes the tiki man 100 feet tall and puts it in his backyard because that's how you do relationships and I can relate to that. I was just saying to John at last year in b.c.

15:07 dinosaur museum was closing down and they were selling off all their animatronics. I wanted so badly to sodium intake is my entire life savings to buy a Brachiosaurus that was taller than my house that I could just keep in my backyard would be, like, where do you live the Brachiosaurus. House Brachiosaurus is Nemo. My favorite dinosaur but it's just, it would be so cool to have one as big as your house. You have to lock him up. I think people would come and try and steal how you don't lock up your house.

15:44 I can take that away. I'm really saying is to bring my friends. Okay, step one, we steal a great. Steal a dinosaur step for you profit. No, the tiki is a good instigating device and surprisingly, it was weird that unlike the tiki man is, is the best way to start this movie. Tiki statues, a good instigator, unlike random croquet sets which are really dumb to explain that. Essentially what happens is they shrink, the Key and they go and look for it on the ground. And that's what I'm looking for it.

16:35 I'm going to paint the machine is shaking that shrink them and the vibrations move a croquet ball from up above that falls into a track that comically rolls down and Falls onto the button that then shrinks them and then the wives come looking for them and the same. And the exact same thing. Happens. Another croquet ball falls down this track and the timing of the balls to fall when there's people there, like if balls were Constantly falling, maybe that makes more sense. But the ball like waits for 15 minutes for the next victims.

17:10 The first time I feel was clever the second time. It's not. I think they could have just done a much more interesting way. They could have had a rat that crawled on the ground and man I would have been fine with that. Why do we not have that Ant-Man movie? Why don't we just have a Honey? I Shrunk the Kids at Man movie. Gee, I'd watch that or somebody's permanently shrunk Marvel Executives. Is the listen, I'm pretty sure that's what the Ant-Man versus Yellow Jacket fight is, were there on the Thomas that shrank from that scene.

17:41 Is phenomenal. Yeah. But what I'm saying is just give us that, give us like an atom movie. So Adam is a DC character who shrinks as well. Yeah, and he does a lot of stuff where, you know, he rides on frogs and he fights alongside or against tiny people. Don't do that. I mean, but give us stuff. That's relatable. They keep going so small that they're between molecules and quantum foam. And so now you're just in a Sci-Fi movie, but I like to see where you're just watching that Ant-Man movie from the ground, you know, right.

18:22 Like he gets stuck small or there's a reason for him to remain small, we get to see that stuff. A tiny bit in the first Movie. And then the second movie becomes more about. How can you push this technology? Don't push the technology. Push the storytelling device, right? Sorry I took you off track though. I do have a note here that I think Dad's probably going to want to take a troll up. Is I am going on vacation and no one can stop me. It's relates to Rick, Moranis his wife. I really enjoyed her acting, choose a fun.

18:59 She was all over the place. She was Eight, she is not the mom in the other movies. She was a recast for this movie probably because they had no budget but she does very good. I think the weakest part with her in it is when the Cockroach wants to eat her that scene is horrifying. Like genuinely it gets Play-Doh for Laughs. Yeah that's a terrible fight scene. She's just lucky that he wanted to eat her clothes and not her. Okay? There There's a scene later on the movie, where they meet a daddy long legs, and it's definitely animated to be cute.

19:37 But I can tell, if you have Arachnophobia, it's still be scary. In this scenario, they took a cockroach which is still scary to some people and animated it to make it worse. Is an inch away from her trying to tear off her legs. And this happens for a total of 30 seconds while she screams satisfying to watch that cockroach. Get stuck in the glue, though and dryer. I do kind of want to talk about the daddy longlegs because I will say that, that thing is still a creature that would eat them alive. Yak I made the same joke about eight times about it, randomly attacking them.

20:13 Yeah. So I think you made a sound effect to yes, because there's a point where the mothers have to get up on top of the kitchen counter. So they can get one of their sons ways medication. So they domesticated daddy long legs, so they began. Yeah. They befriended a deal. Long legs. It's a symbiotic relationship whereby if they create from a few spider webs it will help transport them up the kitchen counter. That thing is clearly a terrifying Beast. They say earlier in the movie that daddy long legs are so nice.

20:48 They eat other bugs, they are bugs, they are the size of bugs, guys, making all these jokes about the daddy longlegs eating the moms, but I look over at Kyle enough. Sure. And he's covered his eyes and his face because he can't stand to watch the daddy longlegs scene. I hate it. It isn't too scary. It's grotesque-looking, you're scared. No, I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared to connect with the daddy longlegs. She reaches out, her hand, and tickles, his mandibles. All four of them. There was a scene in this that props for them.

21:29 I don't feel like a ton of movies were doing then nowadays. It's a very common conversation but this movie, tackled consent. Yeah. That was impressive. Yeah. Especially for the 19th 1997. Is that it happens? Yeah, I was in matches. Crushing, on this boy, she tells him that he pulls her aside at a party. So it's just the two of them and she kisses. Her. And she says, what are you doing? You didn't ask me. Yeah, and he says, well, this is what I do. You wanted this and she's like, no. I would have told you if I wanted this I think nowadays you guys probably wouldn't be shocked to see that in a movie but 25 years ago, yeah, that was not a common Trope.

22:25 Another very important thing that this movie covers is one of the boys has a magazine. And yeah that's an entire scene where their backs are to the camera and they're talking about it and obviously magazine it's meant to Mabel - the dirty magazine and the one kids like man, if my dad saw this, he would freak out. Yeah. And then like they put the magazine on the floor for some reason and walk away Sports Illustrated for It's because Rick Moranis is grooming him to be a scientist. The idea of him doing something sports-related is forbidden.

23:09 Something actually akin to, that that I found really kind of keep Nala, seal, and that was, at the end of the movie. He decides to go to baseball camp, the kid that is and afterwards. Rick Moranis is driving him home and there's this little part where they talked about how his dad and memorized all the, Batting averages. And there was a resolution at the end of the movie where he said, you could do whatever you wanted, but it was like that scene again, showed that Rick was actually trying to get into his son's interest in trying to connect with them.

23:37 That's good. They're Dynamic. There's a scene early on where the kid runs out of peanut butter and a recovery rattus. Find solution is to find peanuts and put them in the coffee grinder. Yeah. And like it's just like black dust. Is that guy?

23:57 About it says there's grounds in here and your accessible, it's decaf. It's a really good seed, like Dad has to be so clueless. Most other resolutions in this movie happen in the matter of 30 seconds, 30 seconds, once they all return to normal size, there's about six things that happen in the span of 30 seconds. Seems like I'm sorry, honey. I'll get rid of the Tiki man. I'm sorry. Sorry, brother. You can run the company. I'm not good and I'm sorry, I don't care about the little things anymore. You can keep the teak.

24:33 I'm sorry, I should have trusted you. Yeah, it's the only one that wasn't. There was. I'm sorry. I should have taken my medicine. Yeah, that one that kid is never taking that medicine. Yeah, one of the kids has a potassium deficiency. Okay. The ebrake Yes, he break. It's a funny joke until it's not a joke. Essentially, one of the moms is extremely paranoid, but over everything. And so she pulls up to the house and then puts blocks under the tires. And the other one was like, why are you doing that?

25:13 She said, well, the engine was making noise. I was worried. Maybe the brakes would fail. You can never be too careful. That's Pretty funny that would never happen if the engine was failing. The thing that makes the car go would affect the thing. That makes the car dog anyways. But so then they get shrunk and they like didn't put blocks out of the tires, they climb up to a window and they're looking at their card like look our cars there, the kids will see the car there and know that we're here. And then the car just starts driving into another person's driveway.

25:50 It rolls away which Which in itself is also funny except that it rolls down the driveway across the street and up into the other driveway. Gravity means that it would come back down. Except that we established. That gravity is the antagonist in this movie. It is like this whole subplot, where it's Rick Moranis versus gravity. It's funny. We actually had a discussion about it and there were a lot of scenes in which the characters Fall From Grace. It's like there's one part where they fall down a laundry chute.

26:25 There's another one where they fall off the Second Story on to the first story window. And then there's another one where they fall into dip and dad made a couple of comments about how they should probably be dead. Then I came to the realization that if there are three quarters of an inch tall, as stated in the movie by that math, is that their terminal velocity is very low, and that's why you can drop a mouse. When the Empire State Building and it'll survive when you're that small, gravity doesn't affect you the same way.

26:52 Way. So in all honesty, all the times they must survive, it would actually you would be a little dazed but it can get up and walk away. My YouTube channel that occurs because that is what is class, 2 1. Yeah. And they have a series of videos called the size of life and it's fascinating. Yeah. The idea is amounts of a drop from the Empire State Building would get up and walk away. A dog would have its legs broken but an elephant would explode just because of how size affects things when they hit the ground.

27:19 I'm seven a dog's legs with her. What is it on the Empire State Building to begin with John? You're not sad about the elephant food explode, like a water balloon, I feel a strong connection to dogs. I mean yes Rosco were talking about you frost was our dog room sitting in on the conversation but I want that truck. What about me? Let's address the elephant in the room. Carl? You could go down. Anyways, they have to Get off of things constantly in the movie but it only occurred to me about a quarter of the way through, so they could just jump off anything and I'm sorry, it'd be like falling through molasses not falling, normally, you're right, every time they would fall, I'd be like, so they're dead then you're like, oh, because there's so much smaller.

28:12 Their terminal velocity would be much smaller as well. I was like, oh, my goodness. So I think that there is something to be said They need to treat the viewer as being really dumb because I'm really dumb. I would have never thought of that, but you're right. They could have just been on the bed and been like, well, let's jump down. They keep saying things, like, we'd never survive a trip down the stairs. Yeah, it turns out they would totally fine but we don't think in those parameters. And so, you need to tell the story in a way that the normal person yet and they could have solved that pretty easily.

28:48 If they just had a scene where they actually fell from a really high height and then go, Gordon or whatever shot up music, how are we still alive? Just a no. Are we're very smaller terminal velocities really low, most of the science jargon in this movie makes sense, the translator for dogs. They're very 0, that becomes a microphone. That's my biggest pet. Peeve is night. I chose not to focus on. Yeah, I don't know how to turn the stereo, which he sells. What sound. Yeah, into an input sound and then also an output sound at the same time.

29:21 Very Confusing. No. Um, which employ of course what I was saying is that whenever they would mention like the science of why something works, it just gets in bananas but yeah, you're doing about surface area of the bubbles. Yeah, things like that. That that makes sense. I surprising most of the Science tracks. Speaking of tracks, let's talk about the terrible Hot Wheels scene. They have a scene where they're in one of the kids rooms and they decide the only way they can get into the hallway. Ali is, if they go on a Hot Wheels car, go on the track, and then Shake themselves off of it or to get off early.

29:58 It looks super cool. And then you watch the scene and it's green screamed. So unbelievably poorly, that's the whole movie for me. It ruins that entire scene, which seems so cool in concept. Okay, let's jump to closing, John and lead us off. How are you feeling about this? I think this was an Easter gift. Wow, I think you're right. I would have never thought of that it'll keep going. I might so, we should have watched visit Easter. Yeah. So I can't remember if I held onto this VHS or not, I've held on to a couple of Keepers over the years, but if we open up the VHS cover it'll say kill XOXO Happy Easter.

30:45 Yeah, 1997 or whatever. So it was an Easter movie for me the movies, good. I enjoyed watching it. I actually thought the actors and actresses. Did a really good job. Yeah, this is held up surprisingly. Well yeah, I was sure we were going to bully this movie. Yeah, 7. But in dollars I it's not great but it's not bad by any stretch. Yeah. This is This is the worst of these movies might actually go back and watch Honey. I Shrunk the Kids and Honey I Blew Up the Kid the the Gordon. He's totally the dad from dinosaurs a Oh, really didn't you hear?

31:33 Oh, oh, okay. Yeah. No, I can hear it now. That's right. Nice to watch the movie. Again, it's a great show. You re-watch, dinosaur. We're off on a tangent but you re-watch dinosaurs recently. I well like 10 years ago. Okay, pretty reasonable. His seems like that show is not for adult. Yeah, it's for yeah. And I didn't know that as a kid. Yeah. Ten years ago, I was an adult and I've lost fat like wow, I would not have understood half these things as a kid. Like I remember the episode about drugs.

32:10 Yeah. I was like, oh, this is, this is a little heavy-handed as a kid. Yeah, but now going back and seeing that it's all about racism climate change. Yeah, yeah. Oh okay. Yeah, I guess the drugs were too heavy-handed. I was just the only one. I was old enough to understand. Thanks Triceratops table. To rethink my life.

32:35 So would you wash this again? Yeah. Yeah I think I would and just realize we all have different ratings. Yeah exactly one through five. Would you watch again as John? When will I watch this again? His dad Kyle. What are you? He's won through cookie over. Yeah, I'd say he was a short break for me. I can't believe I'm gonna say this but I would watch this movie again. I don't plan to, but in most of my other ratings, I would only watch it if it landed in my lap. But now, this but it might as well.

33:20 I probably won't because I don't have enough time in the day to watch mediocre movies. But this is not a movie that I would avoid, which certainly caught me. Off guard, chance on my 1 through 5 scale is going to go in the same spot as Quest for Camelot, which is a for, I believe this movie isn't spectacular. This isn't spider-verse or one of those other cult classics that I really enjoy, but I think this is a movie with good qualities. That being some phenomenal actors some really good lines. So I would say that this is a good movie, I think, if you watch it, you will enjoy some parts of it and you will not enjoy some others.

34:02 Kylie. Wait, I did I wanted a cookie out of Christmas in Wonderland, right? Yes gingerbread No, I would actually give it a sharp, right, though? It was good. I would eat a little bit shortbread, their small. That's the joke. Guys, put simply this might be one of the first movies we haven't bullied in any major way. Yeah, I think. The last one was Batman. I don't share the same love for this movie, that I share for Batman Batman Forever. I can't see, roasted, just let it sit. There secured nicely.

34:57 This one certainly has flaws, and I think that they cut a lot of Corners, when it came to making the movie, but it's a likable cast, and the writers didn't give them nothing. Going to work with. There's a number of good lines for me. This movie is mediocre, but compared to the crap that we Wade through, on this podcast regularly, this is top tier. Join anything else you want to say, no? Okay, shortbread chance, this is dog. Have anything to say.

35:38 Stay away from Empire State building's. So for all you out there, we've said it once before and we'll say it. Once again, look out for weirdos. Look out for dogs and Empire State Building but go for Elephants falling from Empire State building's, I'm sorry. Car, look out for daddy longlegs. If you find one, tickle its mandibles.