Family Movie Night - Disney Favorites “Man of the House” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”

For this review, I wanted to take a look at a couple Disney favorites - the 1995 movie “Man of the House” (its 30th anniversary) and the 1989 family comedy “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” Next week, to wrap up my Family Movie Night series, I will be checking out one more Disney favorite that’s also celebrating its 30th anniversary!

In the 1995 Disney movie “Man of the House,” despite having a dangerous criminal with a vendetta after him, attorney Jack Sturges has a tougher adversary to worry about - his girlfriend’s son, Ben.

As Sturges and Ben’s mom, Sandy, become more serious, Ben increasingly ups his efforts to sabotage their relationship, since he has no intention of giving up his prime spot in the household dynamic. Sturges is determined to connect with Ben, but Ben is going to make him work for it.

While the initial critic reviews for this 1995 classic were very mixed, most audiences have enjoyed it as a nostalgic, heartwarming family movie. I’ll admit the movie can be formulaic and a little cheesy at times, but it’s still great family entertainment!

“Man of the House” delivers a lot of fun moments and many viewers (such as myself) have grown up with this 1995 Disney favorite. In fact, I actually still have the old VHS copy somewhere! Even though some may think that the movie can be predictable, the central story of a boy learning to trust and accept a new stepfather can be enduring and also hilarious.

This family comedy features a lot of very funny moments that will have the family laughing, especially once Jack moves in with Sandy and Ben does everything possible to give him a hard time. Ben also pulls quite a few pranks on his potential stepfather, including making him sleep on a folding mattress that doesn’t quite work. A lot more humor comes into play once Ben and Jack join the Indian Guides, led by the late humorous George Wendt.

The movie’s primary arc of Ben finally accepting Jack as a father figure is easily one of the best parts of this movie. The conflict stems from Ben missing his real father, and the resolution comes when Ben realizes that family bonds are built on love and support. There’s also a moment at the end when Ben and Jack finally complete a family collage that Ben and his mom have been working on for years, which signifies that the three of them are finally one whole family.

“Man of the House” is a classic mid 90s Disney family movie that prioritizes a feel-good, heart-warming message. The comedy centers on themes of family dynamics, personal growth and acceptance. While it received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics, it performed moderately well and is often remembered fondly as a nostalgic 90s favorite.

MPA: Rated PG for mild thematic elements   (runtime 96 minutes)

In “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” when kids sneak into Wayne Szalinski’s upstairs lab to

retrieve a baseball, his experimental shrink ray miniaturizes them. When he returns home, he destroys the machine - which he thinks is a failure.

The children, now ¼ inch tall, must survive the journey back to the house through a yard where sprinklers bring treacherous storms and garden-variety ants stampede like elephants.

The 1989 movie “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” is a real fun, adventurous family movie that used really great practical effects at the time to create a very convincing “backyard wilderness". I also really enjoyed the blend of comedy and heartwarming family drama, especially the way the children learned to work together and how the parents' concerns reunited them.

Throughout this Disney classic, there are quite a few adventure-filled moments, such as when the sprinklers go off in the yard and to the mini-sized children, the massive water droplets are like bomb blasts, and one of the children gets the scientist’s attention while falling into a bowl of Cheerios. In their journey, the kids also befriend a foraging ant they call “Antie”, who becomes their loyal companion.

The movie received favorable reviews from critics and audiences who praised its originality, humor and heart when it was initially released. This movie also became an unexpected smash hit for Disney and even spawned a couple sequels, a TV series and a theme park attraction.

MPA: Rated PG   (runtime 93 minutes)

You can currently stream both “Man of the House” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” on Disney Plus!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wLblgq16xs

• The only Chevy Chase movie of the Nineties to open at number one, and the last of his career to do so.

• Shot during Jonathan Taylor Thomas summer hiatus from 'Home Improvement'.

• Though it made $40 million in the box office, this was the most successful Chevy Chase movie of the 1990s. It was also his first hit of the decade.

• There were plans to do a sequel which never materialized.

• In the scene where the tribe is learning a Native American rain dance, Ben is not participating and reading a magazine next to a tree. On the back of the magazine is an ad for The Lion King, which Johnathan Taylor Thomas voiced the character of Young Simba the year before this film's release.

• Chevy Chase also suggested Rick Moranis for the role of Chet, but Moranis had just finished two films the previous year and, being a single parent, he decided to take a year off from making movies.

• The role of Jack Sturges was initially offered to Tim Allen but he was shooting The Santa Clause (1994) on his summer hiatus from Home Improvement (1991), in which the co-star of this film Jonathan Taylor Thomas played his son that he declined the role. He also did so because he wanted the film to be distant from the Home Improvement universe, but did suggest to Disney that his comedic inspiration Chevy Chase play the role instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9nCNJ3cZSk

• In an early version of the script, there were five kids, one of which died during the sprinkler sequence, the sprinklers were portrayed as a treacherous storm, but the original draft's idea of a child dying in the scene was a more grim and potentially fatal encounter, hinting at a darker early version of the story before the concept was streamlined to four main characters whom one of them named Amy Szalinski nearly dies from drowning but is resuscitated by Russ so that the family-friendly film would leave a good impression on the audiences that encourages viewers to rescue unresponsive victims by using CPR.

• For the scene in which miniaturized Nick Szalinski drops into a bowl of Cheerios cereal, a tank was filled with 16,000 gallons of a milk-like substance made from chlorinated water, food thickener, and pigment. The Cheerios were made from tractor inner tubes, twelve feet in diameter, coated in foam.

• Chevy Chase and John Candy both turned down the role of Wayne Szalinski. Candy did however suggest Rick Moranis for the role. This also had happened when Moranis was offered Ghostbusters (1984).

• The neighborhood seen in the film is not real, it was built at the back lot of Churubusco Studios. An English garden located at the studio served as the "backyard," and the houses were cleverly placed around the garden to hide the studio buildings from most directions.

• The scenes involving the adult characters were shot first, followed by special effects-heavy scenes in which the children worked on oversized sets. To blend the normal-sized and miniature worlds, footage from first and second units was combined with blue screen material, special effects shots, and Vistavision reductions.

• The film's original title was "Teenie Weenies", which was rejected on the grounds that it sounded too much like a kiddies' film with no appeal to adults.

• Critical reception for this film was generally positive, and the film was a box-office success, grossing $22.2 million in its first week of release. First-week earnings surpassed Disney's "previous highest single-week record of $20.6 million recorded by Three Men and a Baby (1987). This film went on to gross $130 million in theaters and became the sixth-highest grossing home video of 1990. A 28 Jun 1989 LAT article called Disney's decision to pair Tummy Trouble (1989) with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids "a master stroke," and suggested the film benefited from moviegoers who were unable to secure tickets to sold-out releases of Batman (1989), the highest-grossing release with the same opening weekend as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.