After being accidentally thrown out with the trash, the children must work together and venture their way back through a backyard wilderness filled with dangerous insects and man-made hazards.

Scientist and inventor Wayne Szalinski has been designing an energy-projecting machine capable of shrinking and growing objects, but cannot get it to work properly.

His obsession with the machine worries his hardworking wife Diane, teenage daughter Amy, and aspiring inventor son Nick.

Shortly after Wayne leaves for a conference, Ron accidentally hits a baseball through the Szalinskis' attic window and into the machine, turning it on and blocking its targeting laser.

He enters the attic upon returning home; the shrunken children try to get his attention, but their voices are only loud enough to be heard by the family dog, Quark.

The kids feast on one of Nick's discarded Oatmeal Creme Pie cookies, and use a crumb to capture a friendly forager ant, naming it "Antie" and riding it toward the house.

The kids are forced to seek shelter in an earthworm tunnel, barely escaping the vortex caused by the mower, which Wayne and Diane shut off just in time.

Both families meet in the attic, and the kids use charades to inform Wayne that the baseball blocked the laser, which previously overheated targets and caused them to explode.

Months later at Thanksgiving, the Szalinskis and Thompsons have become good friends and are toasting over an enlarged turkey, while Quark feasts on a giant dog biscuit.

Before Rick Moranis was cast as Wayne Szalinski, the script was written with Chevy Chase in mind because of his popularity in National Lampoon's Vacation.

He declined, but suggested to Johnston that his friend (and costar of SCTV, Little Shop of Horrors and Spaceballs), Rick Moranis, would be a good choice.

Russ Jr., portrayed by Thomas Wilson Brown, seems to be interested in Amy, and less in football, while Ron, Jared Rushton, appears to be more straightforward and a bully toward Nick, although he warms towards him.

For the scene where Wayne lands in the Thompsons' pool, Moranis jumped off a flying board in the form of a teeter-totter on a swing set.

The consensus reads, "Even as its special effects take center stage, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids still offers a charming, high-spirited sense of adventure for the whole family.

"[16] A rare negative review came from Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, who stated: "The special effects are all there, nicely in place, and the production values are sound, but the movie is dead in the water.

Thomas Wilson Brown, Jared Rushton, Robert Oliveri and the Special Effects Crew were also nominated for a Saturn Award.

With 15 tracks, Horner produced the record with longtime engineer Simon Rhodes while it was originally performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Using a robotic camera and chroma key technology, footage from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids would be incorporated into the finished video and displayed immediately afterward on television screens mounted throughout the room.

From 1990 until 2016, a playground at Disney's Hollywood Studios recreated the overgrown backyard set of the film for park guests to explore.

In 1992, Disney released the first sequel, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, with Moranis, Strassman, O'Neill, and Oliveri reprising their roles as Wayne, Diane, Amy and Nick Szalinski.

As the title suggests, Wayne succeeds in enlarging his two-year-old son, Adam, to gigantic proportions as one of his size-changing experiments goes awry.

Peter Scolari took over as Wayne and Nick and Amy both returned as characters, roughly the same age as in the original film, and played by new actors.

Its plots involved other wacky Szalinski inventions (rarely the shrinking machine) that do not work quite as expected and land the family in some type of humorous mixed-up adventure.

[20] It was later confirmed that a "legacy-sequel" film titled Shrunk is in development to be released theatrically, with a plot that centers around Nick Szalinski as an adult scientist.

[22] On February 12, 2020, it was reported that Rick Moranis will come out of his long semi-retirement to reprise his role as Wayne Szalinski and that Johnston is now confirmed to direct.

[23][24] The plot will center around an adult Nick accidentally shrinking his two daughters and son to five inches tall and them coping with their new sizes while he gets his estranged father Wayne to help him fix his machine.

Johnston was confirmed to direct, with Todd Rosenberg set to write the script, from an original story by Gad, Ryan Dixon, Ian Helfer, and Jay Reiss.

[26][better source needed] In March of the same year, filming on all Disney projects were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and industry restrictions worldwide.

[30] In June 2023, Gad revealed on Twitter that the project has been put on hold indefinitely, although he expressed hope that production would resume in the near future.