Wayne Szalinski’s (Rick Moranis) is a struggling inventor who has been tinkering in his attic trying to invent a shrink ray, a machine that is capable of shrinking anything to a fraction of it’s original size. Initially tests of the device don’t go well, with the items to be shrunk usually ending up exploding, but all this is fixed when one of the next door neighbours kids throws a baseball through the window, knocking the machine. Wayne’s kids accompany the two boys from next door into the attic to retrieve the baseball, and find themselves shrunk to the size of ants in the process.

The kids try to raise the alarm but end up getting taken out with the rubbish, and find themselves in an even worse predicament, stuck at the bottom of the back garden. Given their newly reduced size they find the garden a particularly hazardous place to be, having to fend off giant insects (well, giant to them anyway), massive water droplets from the garden sprinkler and even a robot lawnmower!

Meanwhile, realising what has happened, Wayne goes searching for the kids in the back garden, rigging up a rope and pulley system which he dangles from whilst wearing a massive magnifying glass, so as not to crush the kids accidentally under foot.

Eventually the kids realise the quickest way to get back to the house is to hitch a ride on the pet dog, which is a bit of a hairy journey (sorry – couldn’t resist the bad pun). The danger still isn’t over though as although they get back indoors one of the kids falls into a bowl of breakfast cereal and is almost eaten by Wayne. Luckily, the dog stops Wayne in time and the kids are discovered and returned to their proper sizes.

This film was just perfect for Rick Moranis, and it’s a shame we don’t get to see him in films so much any more. He plays geeky or awkward characters (Louis Tully from Ghostbusters for example) so well, but there don’t seem to be many films made these days that require that sort of character. Nerds are always depicted as being much cooler now for some reason.

In 1992 the sequel Honey I Blew Up The Kid was released (although I’m convinced it was called Honey I Blew Up The Baby originally) in which Wayne’s two year old son is hit by the shrink ray in reverse, and ends up becoming taller than a house. In 1997 came Honey We Shrunk Ourselves, which I’ve never seen but I think I can guess what happens from the title…

The Disneyland attraction Honey I Shrunk The Audience is a very effective demonstration of 3D films. As part of the audience you are supposed to be watching an awards ceremony for Inventor of the Year, which is being awarded to Wayne for his shrink ray. Unfortunately the shrink ray gets turned on you, the audience, and you are supposed to have been shrunk in size. Everything appears on screen in giant proportions, and thanks to the special glasses you are given when entering items seem to pop out of the screen at you. Further excitement is added when the chairs you sit in start blowing air at you and squirting water, the latter being particularly funny as it is timed to happen when a massive dog sneezes at you!

For the TV series Wayne was played by Peter Scolari, but the shrink ray played much less of a part, with stories instead being based on many other inventions that Wayne had invented.

Finally, and a little confusingly, there is Honey The Kids Rule The World. This film features Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd but it doesn’t actually have anything to do with any of the other Honey… films. In fact, this film was released in 2001 in the US and was called Kids World. During the film Honey I Shrunk the Kids is referenced, so for the European DVD release in 2007 it was retitled, probably in the cynical hope that it would sell better because people would think it was a continuation of Wayne’s adventures.

If by some strange quirk of fate you’ve never seen the film, or don’t know the story, then rather than describe the plot like I usually do with films here’s a recap provided by a little girl of the tender age of three.  She gets most of it pretty much spot on.  Thanks to Jonathan from Raised in the 80s for bringing this great video clip to my attention.

Watching this video got me thinking about my memories of Star Wars from childhood.  When the film was released I was only four (showing my age there) but it must have made some kind of impact on me as I definitely remember my Dad taking me to the cinema to see it.  We didn’t go to the pictures very much when I was small, in fact the only other films I distinctly remember going to see were The Jungle Book, The Aristocats and Moonraker!

Anyway, I believe I fell asleep before the end of the film, but here are my memories of Star Wars as a four year old (and these are true I’m sorry to say – I’m not making them up).

The Robots – I couldn’t get my head round their names, since a bunch of letters and numbers didn’t seem to be proper names.  R2D2 therefore ended up being called Dusty Bin, whilst C3PO was the funny Gold Robot.  I also remember being very scared for C3PO when Luke was lowering him into the cleaning tank after having bought the robots from the Jawas.

Darth Vader – How could you not forget Darth Vader?  The big black suit and cloak, the heavy breathing and deep voice and of course that helmet.  Movie history was made when he stepped through the blasted out hole onto Princess Leia’s ship at the beginning of the film, although I never realised he was human then so I called him the Black Robot.

The Death Star – BOOM!  There goes Alderaan.  Very impressive, although I did then think that the moon might be a Death Star and we could therefore get blown up any minute.

Chewbacca – Chewbacca was cool.  The fact he only growled only made him cooler, especially the bit where he’s playing that funny holographic chess game with C3PO and doesn’t like losing.  He also had the cool gun.  Somehow though I thought Chewie was just a big bear…

Light Sabres – The rest of the Jedi powers completely passed me by, to me Jedi equalled Light Sabre.  Or rather Jedi equalled Glowy Sword.  I was convinced that only a Jedi could use a Light Sabre, a bit like King Arthur and Excalibur, since nobody else got to use a Light Sabre at all.

The Trash Compactor – Turns out that the room with the slowly lowering ceiling or moving walls was a movie cliche even then, but it was the first time I had seen it.  I was sure they would get crushed when I first saw this scene.  Looking back now though, I do wonder why they keep big tentacle beasts in the waste containers on the Death Star…

Luke’s and Leia’s swing to safety - This particular scene always stuck in my mind.  I think I thought how incredibly brave they both were to swing across a huuuge drop.  What if they didn’t make it and fell?  Eek!  I think this one scene was probably acted out most at school, swinging on the ropes in the school gym when the teachers weren’t looking.

Whilst I must have watched Star Wars again when it came on TV it wasn’t until I went to college that I really got a full grasp of the entire story and realised that most of what I remembered wasn’t technically right (i.e. Darth Vader isn’t a robot).  Us oldies might look at the first three films with scorn, but I’m sure that those growing up with these films will remember them just as fondly when they grow up.

I’ll leave you with a couple of questions then, so feel free to post your thoughts as a comment.  Firstly, what are your first memories of Star Wars, and secondly, in which order do you think a child should now be introduced to Star Wars?  Should it be original trilogy first, like we had, or new trilogy first?  I’m inclined towards showing Star Wars first as it would otherwise spoil the whole “Luke, I am your father” scene from The Empire Strikes Back…

The Henderson family are driving home from their holiday when they come across a large hairy creature lying in the road.  Unsure what to do, they strap it to the top of their car and return home to there house in the Seattle suburbs.

The creature turns out to be a Sasquatch, better known as Bigfoot, and when it finally regains consciousness it sets to exploring its new environment, the Henderson’s house.  After investigating a stuffed deer head hanging on the wall (and making a huge hole in the wall whilst trying to discover where the back half of the deer could be) the head of the family, George Henderson (John Lithgow) attempts to calm the confused beast.

Before long the Sasquatch has become a member of the family, and is named Harry by them.  Despite his initial clumsiness Harry is actually a very kind and gentle creature, but he soon becomes intrigued by his new surroundings and sets off to explore the area, leaving a trail of panic and mayhem unintentionally behind him.

All this attracts the attention of a French Canadian hunter named Jacques LaFleur (David Suchet, better known these days for playing Poirot on UK television) who sets out to track Harry down.  George races around town trying to find Harry before Jacques does, and when they finally find him the Henderson family decide the best course of action is to release Harry back into the wild.

With Jacques in hot pursuit the Henderson’s take Harry back to the forest, but he is reluctant to leave his new family.  George punches Harry in the face, pretending he doesn’t like Harry any more, to get the Bigfoot to leave, which works. Unfortunately there is snow on the ground and Harry’s large feet (hence his name!) have left an easy trail for Jacques to follow.  The family strap on some giant feet (lucky they had those handy!) and create additional trails to confuse the hunter.

Harry observes the family doing this from up in a tree, and realises that the family were just trying to protect him.  When he then sees Jacques he realises that George may get shot by accident, and so leaps to the rescue, giving Jacques a little Bigfoot justice!

The film was so successful it spawned a TV series, entitled Harry and the Hendersons, just like the film was called in the US.  Whilst the back story was pretty much the same as the film there were a few changes made to support a longer running TV show.  It lasted for three series, with Harry trying to be kept secret by the Henderson family for the first two series.  In the third and final series Harry is finally discovered and becomes a bit of a minor celebrity.

In many ways the TV show followed a similar format to US sitcom ALF, being a US family trying to keep an unusual creature hidden from the public eye.  Both series featured a family where the father was desperate to keep the extra family member safe, the mother was generally critical to the whole idea, and there was a teenage daughter and younger son to round off the perfect average family unit.

The film provides further adventures for Number 5, now called Johnny 5, the self aware robot.  Whilst the two main human characters, Stephanie and Newton do not return for this film, the hilarious Ben Jahrvi does return.  At this point I should say it is probably a little wrong of me to enjoy Ben so much, seeing as he is an Indian character played by a made up white actor, but Fisher Stevens delivery of Ben’s mixed up attempt at the English language is rather funny.

The film opens with Ben trying to make a living for himself by building toy versions of Number 5, which he tries to sell on a street corner, with little success.  One of the toys escapes his stall, and ends up in the hands of Sandy Banatoni, a toy buyer for a department store.  She asks Ben if he can deliver 1000 of the toy robots to her for the Christmas market, a task which Ben will find impossible on his own.  However, Fred, the hawker of fake Rolex watches stood next to him gets involved, seeing the opportunity to make a quick buck.

Fred goes to a loan shark and gets the cash to fund Ben’s business, setting him up with a bunch of homeless people as staff and some run down premises that are due for demolition.  Unknown to Fred however, there are a couple of criminals in the buildings basement digging a tunnel, for across the road from the building is a bank in which a priceless collection of jewels is being stored.  The criminals are hoping to blast their way into the banks vault to steal the gems.

The criminals realise that they need to get rid of Ben and Fred, so turn up and wreck the joint, putting the robot production pipeline back to square one.  Luckily though, a large crate arrives for Ben, which contains our robotic hero Johnny 5!  The robots are soon being put together at an incredible pace by Johnny 5 himself, and when the criminals return to try and get rid of them again, Johnny 5 sends them packing.

Up to now Johnny 5 has been kept inside the building, but when he discovers he is in a city he goes off in search of “input”, exploring the city. He befriends a man named Oscar who works in the bank holding the gems, but as it turns out Oscar is actually one of the bad guys, and is in league with the two tunnel digging criminals.

Eventually, the criminals kidnap Fred and Ben, locking them up in a Chinese Restaurant cold storage room, and Oscar convinces Johnny 5 to complete the digging of the tunnel by telling him that he has a plan to keep Ben safe.  Our robot chum eventually realises he has been misled, and flees from Oscar and the criminals, but they eventually catch him and attack him, leaving him to “die” in a broken pile.

Having been rescued from the icy prison by Sandy, Ben and Fred return to their building to find the police emerging from their basement.  Fred gets away and goes looking for Johnny 5, eventually finding him and helping to repair him so that the robot can track down the criminals and bring them to justice.

Bastian is a young daydreamer who’s mother died when he was very young. He is picked on at school, and it is whilst running away from the bullies that he comes across an old book shop. The owner of the book shop is reading a large, old looking book entitled The NeverEnding Story. Bastian asks if he may read the book, but the owner tells him it is not safe. This just makes Bastian even more curious, and when the owner leaves to answer a phone call he borrows the book, intending to bring it back when he has read it.

Bastian sits down to read the book, which is about the land of Fantasia and its inhabitants. Unfortunately for Fantasia, it is under attack by a strange force called The Nothing which is gradually erasing parts of Fantasia from existence. The horrified occupants journey to the Ivory Tower to speak with the childlike Empress about the situation, but the childlike Empress is also under attack by The Nothing and has fallen into illness. She has however summoned a great warrior named Atreyu, who turns out to be a child too. He is given an amulet called Auryn to help him on his quest to save Fantasia.

Atreyu first seeks out Morla, a wise turtle like being who lives in the Swamps of Sadness. When Bastian reads the description of Morla in the book he makes a noise which Atreyu and Morla hear. Whilst thinking this strange, Bastian assumes it is a coincidence and reads on. Morla directs Atreyu onwards to see The Southern Oracle for more help, so he journeys across the swamps but becomes overcome by feelings of sadness. He is almost caught by the G’mork, a werewolf creature send by The Nothing to stop Atreyu, but is rescued by Falkor, a giant white luckdragon.

Falkor helps Atreyu to get as close to The Southern Oracle as possible, but he must continue alone past two Sphinxes and a snowstorm to reach the Magic Mirror Gate. When Atreyu looks into the mirror he sees Bastian reading the book, and it is now that Bastian finally realises that the book he his reading is more than just a book. Atreyu goes through the Mirror Gate and talks with The Southern Oracle, who begins to crumble to dust. Before it does, it tells Atreyu that the only way to save Fantasia is for the Empress to be given a new name by a human child who can be found beyond the boundaries of Fantasia. As you may guess, this child is of course Bastian.

Atreyu returns to Falkor and flies madly around Fantasia trying to find its boundary, but Fantasia is disappearing faster and faster. Still reading the story Bastian starts to panic as he has realised that Fantasia represents his own imagination, but just as Fantasia is about to be destroyed completely he yells out a new name for the Empress – Moonchild. Suddenly he finds himself standing in the Ivory Tower with the Empress, who tells him that all that is left of Fantasia is a single grain. Luckily this grain is still enough for Bastian to be able to use it as a seed for re-imagining Fantasia. This he does, restoring Fantasia to its former glory, and he is treated to a flight around the world on Falkor.

The NeverEnding Story is a fine fantasy film with a great array of weird and wonderful characters. Whilst the sequels don’t quite match up to the quality of the first film, they do all share one thing in common – the haunting theme tune provided by 1980’s pop star Limahl.

The film tells the story of young Jewish mouse Fievel Mousekewitz, whose family have fled their home town after it was invaded by Cossack soliders during the Serbo-Bulgarian war in 1885, which leaves them easy prey for the cats in the area. They board a ship headed for America, which at that time was seen as a place of great hope to the poor people of Eastern Europe and Russia. The mice wrongly believe that America is free of cats, and that the streets are paved with cheese, which isn’t far from what humans in a similar predicament thought at the time – just substitute cheese for gold and your probably a bit closer.

All seems good until the ship is approaching America, when a storm causes Fievel to be separated from the rest of his family. Fievel finally arrives in New York City lost and confused, and is taken in by a rat named Warren, who says he will help him out. Warren’s help is anything but, and Fievel ends up working in a sweatshop. Eventually, accompanied by his new friends Tony and Bridget he manages to escape, but things aren’t much better with his new found freedom.

The mice of New York are being terrorised by gangs of cats, and are being forced to pay Warren protection money to keep the cats away. Fievel decides this is wrong and encourages the mice to fight back by building a giant “Mouse of Minsk” to scare them away. The mice set to work but Fievel wanders off when he hears violin music coming from the sewers. Believing it to be his fathers violin, he follows the sound but ends up surrounded by cats and is caught. Fievel discovers however that Warren is not actually a rat but a cat in disguise, but also befriends a cat named Tiger who disagrees with Warren and the other cats.

Tiger frees Fievel, who flees back to the other mice to let them know about Warren, and their plan is put into place. A fire is inadvertantly started during the confusion, but this turns out to be a good thing for Fievel as it brings him and his family back together, allowing the Mousekewitz family to finally be happy.

The film has since spawned several other films and a TV series, none of which were actually associated with Don Bluth and so aren’t quite of the same level of sophistication. The film also enjoyed some UK chart success with the release of one of its songs, “Somewhere Out There“, which in the film was sung by Fievel and his sister Tanya at the same time, despite them being separated at the time and not knowing where the other actually was.

The film is based on the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit, the story revolving around the titular Roger Rabbit and is set in 1947 Los Angeles. The premise is that cartoon characters (collectively known as Toons) are actually alive, and cartoons are filmed on sets in exactly the same way a film starring humans would be. Roger Rabbit is a slapstick comedy Toon star who ends up being framed for the murder of Marvin Acme, owner of the Acme company (presumably the place where Wile E. Coyote always got his gadgets from). The planted evidence against Roger shows his wife Jessica Rabbit (a beautiful human Toon) playing pattycake with Marvin, which to a Toon is considered as having an affair.

Roger ends up recruiting Eddie Valiant, a human detective played by Bob Hoskins, to help clear his name. Eddie is a bit of a drunk and doesn’t much care for Toons after his brother was killed by an unknown Toon who dropped a piano on his head, but he ends up helping Roger out after he hides away in Eddie’s home.

Eddie has to protect Roger from the evil Judge Doom (played by Christopher Lloyd) who is a particularly nasty piece of work who is hoping to buy up the LA Interurban Railway and replace it with motor ways. This is bad news for Toons as the planned route for the roads goes straight through Toontown, home of all the Toons, and just so happens to be owned by the late Marvin Acme. Marvin had promised to leave Toontown to the Toons on his death, but his will appears to have gone missing, so Roger and Eddie must also try to find this.

They pay a visit to R. K. Maroon, boss of the cartoon making company that employs Roger, to try and clear his name. Unfortunately Maroon is shot in the back by an unseen assailant, who Eddie initially believes to be Jessica Rabbit. He questions Jessica, who tells him that Judge Doom is actually responsible for the murders. The finale of the film sees Eddie and Roger confront Doom and his Toon weasel henchmen in a majorly slapstick fight. It is eventually revealed that Doom is actually a Toon himself, when he is run over by a steamroller and becomes paper thin. He is in fact the self same Toon who was responsible for Eddie’s brothers death.

The bringing together of the cartoon and live action worlds in this film is nothing short of amazing work. It was featured the frankly staggering coup of bringing together so many cartoon characters from so many different studios in one film, including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (Disney), Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (Warner Brothers), Droopy (MGM), Betty Boop (Paramount) and Woody Woodpecker (Walter Lantz). Many more much loved characters are featured, but some of the standout scenes are the one where Eddie falls off a building, with wise cracks from Bugs and Mickey, and piano duel between Donald and Daffy, and Betty Boops cameo as a waitress in the club where Jessica Rabbit sings – Betty Boop is the only Toon still drawn in Black and White, thus treating her in a manner similar to one of the classic Hollywood actresses such as Greto Garbo or Audrey Hepburn.

The film opens with a car being chased by a helicopter through some mountain roads. The car stops whilst out of sight of the helicopter and a young boy gets out and runs into the trees. The car starts off again at high speed, forcing an elderly couple of the road in it’s haste. The elderly couple then come across the boy, who doesn’t know what he is doing there, only that his name is Daryl.

The elderly couple take the boy into town, but since they are unable to look after him, he is sent to a child welfare hostel. From here he is fostered by construction manager Andy and his wife Joyce, a piano instructor. It soon becomes apparent that whilst Daryl may be suffering from memory loss, he is also an extremely fast learner and more than capable of looking after himself. Daryl makes friends with Turtle, the boy from across the road, and also becomes Andy’s secret weapon in the little league baseball team he coaches.

Eventually though, Daryl’s real parents track him down, and they come to collect him. We soon find out however that they are not really his parents, but two scientists from a military research base. They fly Daryl to the base, but after returning from a quick lesson in how to fly a plane from the pilot, he overhears the two scientists, Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lamb, and realises they are not his parents after all.

Daryl is put through some tests, and we discover that he isn’t a normal human boy after all, but instead has an artificial intelligence computer brain. We also find out that Daryl is actually an acronym, standing for Data Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform. Dr. Stewart believes that Daryl has become much more than he ever thought possible, as we watch some of Daryl’s memories on a computer screen showing that he is capable of things such as choosing a favourite flavour of ice cream, the sort of things that he was never programmed to be able to do.

On presenting his findings to his military bosses however, Dr. Stewart is told that the D.A.R.Y.L programme is of no use to the military and is to be terminated. Dr. Stewart is outraged, but pretends to go along with their requests in order to rescue Daryl from the base and return him to Andy and Joyce, who he invites to the base to plan the escape. On the day of the operation to terminate Daryl, Dr. Stewart smuggles him off the base whilst Dr. Lamb covers for him, but Daryl ends up alone after Dr. Stewart is shot and dies whilst trying to get past a police roadblock.

For the final leg of his journey home, Daryl infiltrates an air force base, and steals a stealth plane (a Blackbird) to make his way home. He ejects from the aircraft just before it is blown up by it’s on-board defence system that detonates as soon as the plane leaves US air space, but lands in a lake and drowns. Whilst Andy and Joyce grieve, Turtle realises that Daryl can’t be dead because his computer brain doesn’t need oxygen, and sure enough we then see Dr. Lamb in the hospital room with Daryl, rebooting him.

Daryl is a surprisingly intelligent film, and whilst it may take a few liberties with the science involved it all comes across as being fairly believable. I particularly like it because for once the scientists are caring people who realise they have made mistakes and take action to correct them. Of course the military are still portrayed as gung ho war makers, but then you have to have a villain in kids films, don’t you?