Big was slightly different though, and all the better for it. It may still have featured a magical object (in this case a fairground fortune telling machine called Zoltar Speaks) and a child making a wish to be grown up, but in this case the child doesn’t swap bodies with anyone else. Instead, they wake up the next day to find themselves fully grown.

The child in question in Big was a lad named Josh, who suddenly becomes a 30 year old man with the mind of a 13 year old. Josh first runs away from home when his mother thinks he is a kidnapper who has taken her son, and having nowhere else to go ends up at his school where he manages to convince his best friend, Billy, that he actually is Josh.

Billy helps Josh to get a job at a toy company as a data entry clerk, but it isn’t long before he befriends Mr. MacMillan, the head of the company and gets promoted to an executive job as a toy designer! This all happens because Josh happens to be talking to the boss one day in a toy store, when he comes across a giant floor piano, and in a very memorable scene Josh and Mr. MacMillan play Chopsticks together on the keyboard. Apparently the pair really did play the tune for real, as is evidenced by the very occasional wrong note.

In his new found position of responsibility Josh attracts the romantic attentions of Susan, one of his coworkers, and it isn’t long before he finds himself spending more time with Susan than with his friend Billy, who starts to feel annoyed that his friend has forsaken him.

Before long though the pressures of adult life start to weigh heavily on Josh, and he soon longs to return to being a child. Luckily Billy has located the Zoltar machines new location, so all it takes is for Josh to make one more wish so he can return to his mother and his less stressful life as a regular kid.

Big is probably the best example of this genre from the Eighties, and believe me, there were quite a number of similar films released around this time. I’ll leave you with a clip of the afore mentioned piano scene.

Technically the film probably slots into the romantic comedy genre, but given that the spoken thoughts of the youngster were what provided most of the films funny moments, it is easy to overlook the fact that the film did actually have a plot.

Mollie Jensen (Kirstie Alley) is an accountant who finds herself pregnant after having an affair with one of her clients, Albert (George Segal). Despite promising to leave his wife and help bring up the child, Albert ends up breaking Mollie’s heart when she discovers him with another woman (and not his wife either).

She is so angry that she storms off, but then goes into labour, so hails a cab driven by a guy called James (John Travolta), who rushes her to hospital and is then mistaken by the hospital staff as being the father of the baby, and ends up being Mollie’s birthing partner. Mollie gives birth to a baby boy, who she names Mikey (and who’s thoughts are voiced by Bruce Willis).

Time goes by, and Mollie is coming to terms with being a single parent, when she discovers that James has been using her address in order to keep his grandfather in a local nursing home. James convinces Mollie to let him keep his grandfather in the home in exchange for becoming a babysitter.

As you can probably guess from this rather contrived sounding plot, James and Mollie end up becoming a couple, and the film ends with a scene where we see that Mikey is about to get a little sister.

The 1990 sequel, Look Who’s Talking Too, sees both Mikey and his sister, Julie, voicing their thoughts (Julie’s voice being provided by Roseanne Barr), whilst in 1993 Look Who’s Talking Now came along which saw the kids able to talk now, so instead we have Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton providing the voices for the families pet dogs. Me thinks that last one was a case of over egging the pudding somewhat.

The film was released in 1982 and stars Aileen Quinn as the titular Annie. The film is a musical and was based on a stage musical from the late Seventies, which in turn was based on a newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie which dates back to the 1920’s. Annie is an orphan with a curly mop of very orange hair. She lives in an orphanage run by Miss Hannigan, who makes the lives of Annie and the other orphans an unpleasant one.

One day though, Annie’s life changes for the better, when the secretary of Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney), a hard headed billionaire, turns up at the orphanage looking for a child to live with Warbucks for a week as a publicity stunt. Annie is chosen, and whilst Warbucks is not best pleased (he would have preferred a boy), as time goes by Annie starts to melt his cold heart, and eventually Warbucks adopts Annie as his own daughter.

Whilst happy at leaving the orphanage, Annie has always been convinced that she is not actually an orphan, and that her mother and father are still out there somewhere. Warbucks decides he will try to help Annie out, and makes an appeal for her parents to come forward.

Many people decide to come forward, thinking they can claim some of Warbucks millions in the process, but they are all turned away as fakes. That is until one pair come along with a convincing story, and Warbucks must sadly say goodbye to his new daughter, thinking she has been reunited with her real parents.

These new parents for Annie turn out to be Miss Hannigan’s criminal brother, Rooster (Tim Curry), and his girlfriend Lily. Luckily though, Annie’s orphan friends had over heard the pair plotting with Miss Hannigan at the orphanage, so they make an escape and go to tell Warbucks, who races to the rescue.

Annie is a fine family film featuring lots of memorable songs including “It’s a Hard Knock Life“, “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and “Tomorrow“. The cast all give great performances, especially the young orphan girls who sing and dance extremely well given their young ages.

*batteries not included is a heart warming mix of two classic storylines, given a science fiction twist to make it all seem more believable. The first storyline is one beloved of Hollywood when making kids movies – I call it the Nasty Property Developer™ – you must have seen countless films (mostly second rate ones it has to be said) based on this premise. The Nasty Property Developer™ has bought all the land surrounding except that which the hero of the film owns, who is refusing to sell, so the NPD™ sends in a bunch of hired goons to force them out.

The second storyline is the classic fairytale The Elves and the Shoemaker, where a poor unfortunate is aided by magical creatures in their hour of need. I this particular case though, it’s little robotic spaceship thingies rather than elves.

In noting the above two story influences I’ve pretty much spelled out the plot of the movie without being at all specific, so I’ll fill in some of the details. The heroes of the piece are Frank and Faye Riley, who own an apartment building and restaurant in a run down part of New York. They are an elderly couple, Frank being a hard working sort whilst is wife Faye is going senile. The pair are played by husband and wife team Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, who also starred together in that other Eighties classic Cocoon.

The Riley’s tenants are a bunch of characters that are all suitably vulnerable types in some way or other, the sort of people that even the coldest of hearts could not bare to throw out of their homes. It may seem a little cliched, but the jilted pregnant woman, the jilted failed artist and the retired boxer with the heart of gold (and possible brain damage) are effective characters for tugging at the old heart strings.

Mr. Lacey is our NPD™ of the story, who sends in Carlos and his band of hoodlums to try and force out the Riley’s by smashing up their restaurant, and later even setting fire to it.

As previously mentioned our magical Elves arrive in the nick of time, in the middle of the night, to help the Riley’s out. What these little fellas actually are remains a mystery. They could be spaceships, intelligent beings or robots, but really it doesn’t matter. Two of them arrive and set about repairing the property. The get called the Fix-Its, which is an apt enough name, and later it would appear that they are adult whatever-they-ares, as they give birth to three smaller Fix-Its who also like to help out with the repairs.

A nice little film, and yet another which was produced by Steven Spielberg (sometimes it seems there was nothing in the Eighties that he didn’t have an involvement in). It may not have been a blockbuster movie, indeed it was originally conceived as a story for Spielbergs’ Amazing Stories TV show, but it was quite popular at the time. For some reason it seems to have been forgotten about in more recent times. A shame, as it’s a nice family movie.

In a similar way to how people generally remark that sequels to films are never as good as the original, there is a similar rule to films that are connected in some way to video games. Most generally tend to end up being classified as stinkers, and the Super Mario Bros film is normally looked on as a classic example of a bad videogame movie.

Looking at the evidence you have to agree, and even the actors who appeared in the film like to distance themselves from it. Bob Hoskins, who played Mario, has publicly stated that he sees this movie as being his biggest mistake of all time, and the late Dennis Hopper (who played King Koopa) wasn’t too fond of it either.

The strange thing about the film is that it has most of the main features of a Mario videogame, but they are all slightly wrong. King Koopa is a humanoid evolved from a dinosaur, rather than being a giant turtle. They chose to use Daisy (who was the damsel in distress from Donkey Kong) rather than Princess Peach as the love interest, and they made her fall in love with Luigi rather than Mario.

The mushroom kingdom is portrayed as a dark, futuristic kind of place, rather than the sugary sweet land of the videogames, and the movie even starts off in our own world, with a plot involving a Mafia group trying to put Mario out of business.

Despite all this though, for some reason I can’t quite bring myself to hate the film. You can almost imagine this is what Super Mario might have been as a videogame if it were to have been invented with today’s videogame consoles in mind.

Condorman was a Walt Disney film release from 1981, which starred Michael Crawford (yes, the hapless Frank Spencer from the seventies sitcom Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em) as Woodrow Wilkins. When I first watched the film I half expected him to still have the slightly effeminate sounding voice, so was shocked to hear Frank Spencer talking with an American accent!

Woodrow, or Woody for short, is a comic book writer, but he works to a set of principals which mean he doesn’t include anything in any of his stories that couldn’t happen in the real world. Hence this is why the film opens with Woody plunging into the River Seine in Paris whilst attempting to fly with a gigantic set of wings strapped to his back.

Woody is in Paris visiting his friend Harry, who works for the CIA. Harry is ordered to find a US citizen to perform a document swap in Istanbul, and Woody is only to pleased to help out his friend. However, when he arrives in Istanbul the Russian citizen he is supposed to be swapping papers with turns out to be a Russian spy called Natalia.

Things turn sour and the pair are attacked, but Woody manages to fend off the attackers (through sheer luck) and then pretends to Natalia that he is in fact a US secret agent codenamed Condorman.

All would be well then, if it wasn’t for the fact that Natalia then decides to defect to the west, and asks for Condorman directly to be the US agent who will assist her in doing so. The CIA approach Woody for his help, but he only agrees to do so if they will supply him with a range of gadgets that he has designed for his comic books.

Condorman is finally truly born then, and sets off with a flashy yellow sports car, the aforementioned wings from the start of the film and a whole range of gadgets that would make both Q and James Bond sit up and take notice.

I suppose really Condorman is actually more of a spy film, but given that the hero ends up donning a superhero style bird suit, I think it does also qualify as a superhero film too.

The film was panned by the critics at time of release, and it didn’t do that well at the cinema box offices either, but I still have a soft spot for it, although this is still purely based on my memories of watching it as a kid. That said, the film did get a DVD release in the last couple of years as it seems to have developed a bit of a cult following, so it looks like I’m not the only one to have enjoyed it!

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…