Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was released June 23, 1989, by Walt Disney Pictures — the feature directorial debut of Joe Johnston. Rick Moranis plays inventor Wayne Szalinski, whose attic shrink ray accidentally zaps his kids (and the neighbors' kids) down to a quarter-inch, after which they're swept out with the trash and must cross the backyard — now a jungle. The set pieces are burned into a generation's memory: the giant Cheerio in the cereal bowl, Antie the friendly ant, the LEGO-brick shelter, the sprinkler rainstorm, the scorpion fight. It became the highest-grossing live-action Disney film ever at the time — $222.7 million worldwide, a record it held for five years.

The film is from 1989, but the franchise lived its whole life in the 90s. Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992) went bigger — literally, with a giant toddler — though critics were far colder on it, broadly calling it a one-joke retread. The direct-to-video Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves followed in 1997 with only Moranis returning, and a syndicated TV series (1997–2000) with Peter Scolari as Wayne carried the shrinking premise to weekly television.

Disney's parks made it physical: the "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" 3-D show opened at Epcot in 1994, and the Movie Set Adventure playground at Disney-MGM Studios (1990–2016) let kids climb giant blades of grass and slide down a roll of film themselves. Between the VHS shelf, the sequels, the series, and the parks, few 80s movies were more thoroughly woven into a 90s childhood.