01x05 - Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

[bunniefuu]

My couch!

DAN: They say,
"Don't sweat the small stuff..."

Are you trying to tell me
that suddenly size is no longer relative?

- [ELECTRIC BUZZING]
- [CLATTERING]

DAN: But in the 1989 film
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids...

- Run!
- DAN: Unexpected shrinkage

- turns even the smallest problems...
- [GASPS]

DAN: Into giant obstacles.

- This movie took us on a fantastic voyage
- [NICK SCREAMING]

and helped kickstart my obsession
with prop collecting.

- Oh, wow!
- DAN: This film is packed

with awesome props,

- from ridiculously complex inventions...
- [WAYNE SCREAMING]

- DAN: To stop-motion puppets.
- [WAYNE SCREAMING]

I'm taking out my magnifying glass
and going in search

of artifacts
from this larger-than-life film.

In a movie, every detail,
no matter how small,

is designed to tell you something.

I'm Dan Lanigan,
and I've spent my entire life

collecting artifacts
from my favorite films.

Now, I'm setting out to learn more
about the props

- from the Disney movies that I love...
- This thing is so cool.

Because these historic artifacts
make you feel

like you're a part of the story.

I'm starting my search
in Burbank, California

at the Walt Disney Archives
with archivist Rick Lorentz.

I've come to find the shrink ray,
the most important

and complex prop
in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

The machine works. Do the kids know?

Well, yeah, the kids know.

- That's great!
- It's not that great.

- Why?
- I shrunk the kids.

RICK: The shrink ray was used
in three films.

- DAN: Right.
- RICK: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,

Honey, I Blew Up... [CHUCKLES] ...the Kid,

- and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
- That's right.

Now, each time they used it in the film,

- they made modifications to it.
- Hmm.

- Took things off, added things to it.
- But they reused it?

- Yes. They reused it in all three films...
- Which is cool.

And then when they were finished
with production,

it went to Disney MGM Studios in Florida.

Which is where...
I actually saw it down there.

- Oh, did you? Part of the backlot tour?
- Yeah, on display.

It's kind of what got me into wanting

- to collect original props.
- That's amazing.

You saw it clear back then,
and here you are again.

Let's try it.
Try that end of the crate there.

- Okay. You want me to pull it back?
- I'll catch it here. Just crack it open.

DAN: Oh, wow!

Well, it's obvious that some changes
have been made since the original movie.

Do you mind if we get this on a truck
and I take this...

- Borrow it for a little bit?
- No. You got a way to get it there? Sure.

- All right. Awesome.
- Terrific.

DAN: I decided to take the shrink ray
to the film's director, Joe Johnston,

to get his opinion. Joe's a car buff,

so we met at a custom garage
to assess all the changes.

So, how did you get involved
in working on movies?

I got a call one day from the TA

at Cal State Long Beach,
Industrial Design Department,

and he said, "If you don't come down
and pick up your senior project",

"we're gonna throw it in the trash."

So I went down and picked it up.

As I'm leaving, I notice a sign taped
to the door of the design department.

It says, "We are looking for artists
and model builders"

"to work on a space movie."

It turned out to be Star Wars.

- Just happened to be Star Wars.
- It turned out to be Star Wars,

and originally intended to be
a six-week job,

it turned into ten years,
you know, for the original trilogy

- and a couple of the Indiana Jones films.
- Yeah.

After designing hundreds of iconic pieces,

Joe went on to direct amazing movies

like Jumanji, Hidalgo, and The Rocketeer.

So, I've got something over here
I'd like to show you.

JOE: God! Oh, my God!

Look at this. Is this the real thing?

DAN: Yes, but it is actually changed
over the years.

- JOE: Uh-huh. Oh.
- DAN: This was repurposed a little bit

- for two, and then in three...
- JOE: I see.

- They made a lot of changes.
- Okay.

So they just re-engineered
this whole thing?

- DAN: Yeah.
- JOE: I recognize this.

- DAN: The bones are right.
- JOE: The skeleton is there. Yeah.

DAN: Yes.
So, like, the emitter was removed.

This tube was added.

- JOE: Well, this wasn't on.
- No. This is different, right.

Absolutely.

DAN: The monitor was on here,
has been removed.

But, I mean,
it's still the shrinking machine.

Where's the circuit board
that the baseball hit?

- DAN: Right over here on the front.
- JOE: That's it, that's it.

So, tell me, how were you involved
in the design, and the build,

and the creating of this?
He's almost like a character, isn't he?

Yeah. They had one in existence,
but it did not move, as I remember.

- DAN: Okay.
- JOE: I sort of wanted the machine itself

to feel like it almost had
a mind of its own.

- DAN: Ah. Okay.
- JOE: So, instead of just being static

on its stand,
I wanted it to be able to raise,

swivel, and aim itself,
almost like somewhere in here,

there's a brain that's gonna shrink
those kids. [CHUCKLES]

- Right.
- But, you know, the thing about

- this design, which I didn't design...
- [SHRINK RAY WHIRRING]

but it... it looks like a mad professor
would have put it together.

- DAN: It does.
- JOE: So that was important.

[CRACKLING]

Blast from the past.
This is a real cinema relic.

- It is.
- Sort of like me.

[BOTH LAUGH]

- But it's such a great prop.
- Yeah. It is a great prop.

A lot of this stuff doesn't exist,
and I think we're very lucky

- that it's still around.
- I think it needs some work.

- It does.
- It's in pretty sad shape.

Do you think it can, or for that matter,
should be restored back to first film?

I think it absolutely could be.

I mean, we have a photographic record

- of what it looked like. Right?
- We do.

- Someone who loves this could restore it.
- Oh, yeah.

- I'm sure.
- And there's a lot of people

- that love this.
- Okay. [CHUCKLES]

- All right, then. Decided. [LAUGHS]
- All right. Let's do it.

I'm glad Joe likes the idea
of returning this piece of film history

back to its initial form.

So, after getting permission
to begin restoration

from the Walt Disney Archives,

I had the shrink ray sent
to my good friend

and special effects expert,
Martin Meunier.

[WHIRRING]

DAN: Martin's had creative positions
on numerous films,

like Starship Troopers and Coraline.

He even received
a Scientific and Engineering Award

at the Oscars.

You know, needless to say,
this restoration is important

for many reasons.

It's a prop, but it's designed to
kind of make you think,

"Maybe there's some scientific reason
why it would work?"

There is, and it's really fun.

It was shocking to see it, though.
Like, it was so different.

- I hardly recognized the thing.
- I mean, you can see the structure...

- Yeah.
- That it's real. But it has changed

- over the years.
- Totally. I mean, we got lucky,

we found the wiring that was used
for the liquid nitrogen.

- Oh.
- And that type

of braided wire, I've never seen before.

It's super unique. You could see
that it was designed to basically

have liquid nitrogen in it.

- 'Cause on the show, it turns white.
- [SHRINK RAY WHIRRING]

- DAN: Oh. Right.
- MARTIN: And you could see, on the left,

there's a big canister of liquid nitrogen.

- [SHRINK RAY BEEPING]
- That's cool. No pun intended.

- Cool thing...
- Yes. No pun intended.

On the nose cone,
there's these little electronic components

- wrapped around the nose cone, right?
- Right. Right. Right.

But these are impossible to find,
so we were able to cut some off

some circuit boards, mold them,
and make fake ones.

- These are the fake ones?
- These are the fake ones. So...

You know, that's what I love about you,
Martin, your attention to detail.

Speaking of attention to detail,
finding all of these components

was a little crazy.

I'm looking for wiring and...
But imagine it's the size of Costco.

- Mm-hmm.
- It's monstrous.

So, I kneel down to get some wiring
and circuit boards,

and I turn around,
and I see this guy here.

- That is the remote control.
- The base for the remote? Right.

MARTIN: Yeah. That's a 1960s.

- IBM executive dictation machine.
- Originally, it was meant to record...

- MARTIN: Yeah.
- DAN: Somebody's voice and dictate it.

This is just the base for the remote.

So, you would take other pieces
and put it on here.

MARTIN: Same process.

If this thing works,
this will put us right up there

with the invention of electricity,
first man in space.

[DOG BARKING]

First dog in space.

I made a computer model of the nose cone.

So, this was something
that you were not able to source?

- Oh, this was the machine.
- DAN: So this was a unique piece

- made for the shrink ray?
- MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I have one in the computer,
made a rapid prototype of it,

and then gave it to someone to mill it.

- It's a machined aluminum piece.
- Amazing. Amazing.

And there's this weird mount
in the back of this guy.

- Oh, wow.
- MARTIN: There's a Sony Handycam

and a Sony monitor on there.

It works, and there was
a couple of tapes in there.

So I viewed the tapes.

- So, what's on the tapes?
- I can't tell you.

- Really?
- [SHRINK RAY WHIRRING]

It's amazing how good

you have been using forensic techniques,

so you could recreate the missing pieces.

MARTIN:
There's no guesswork at this point.

DAN: This restoration is half engineering,
half forensics,

so I know it's in good hands with Martin.

With that underway,

I continued looking for artifacts
from the movie.

This led me to the film's prop master,
Brad Einhorn.

As the person responsible
for obtaining the props for the movie,

Brad spent countless hours
in places like this, the ISS warehouse.

Not every film artifact
is made from scratch.

Many important props start off
as off-the-shelf objects.

With Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,
you had to both build things, right,

- for... for the show...
- BRAD: Oh. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Yup.

Szalinski's inventions,
but then you also had to source

- ordinary things as well, right?
- Oh, yeah, yeah.

A lot of the inventions
I actually came up with

- and pitched to Joe. The dog feeder...
- [MACHINE BEEPS]

[MACHINE WHIRRING]

- BRAD: And the coffee machine.
- [COFFEE MACHINE WHIRRING]

DAN: Yeah, so whatever happened
to those things?

- Really?[STAMMERS] I don't know.
- I mean, I do have one souvenir.

- Really?
- Yeah. Yeah.

- Oh, okay. Let's check it out.
- All right. Let's go.

DAN: Wow. Okay.

All right. The first thing is my ID.

- Teeny Weenies.
- The Teeny Weenies. Wow.

The working title
of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Amazing.
How was it working with the director?

Oh, I love Joe.
I've done three movies with Joe.

This was the first one.

- DAN: I'm a huge fan of his work, so...
- BRAD: Me too, me too.

I mean, the really cool thing about Joe

was sometimes Joe would say,
"I wanna do this."

- DAN: Mm-hmm.
- And I would say,

"Joe, will you draw it for me?"
And he would, like, the next morning.

And I knew exactly what to build.

- I have some of the illustrations...
- DAN: Oh, wow!

- Of some of the props.
- DAN: These are originals, aren't they?

Yup. So, you can see the illustration
of the shrinking machine.

- DAN: [SIGHS] The shrinking machine.
- And then I got the baseball.

Grand...

slam.

[ELECTRICITY CRACKLES]

- [GRUNTS]
- Oh, my gosh. So, this...

BRAD: Yeah. That's the actual baseball.
It's got the laser burn.

DAN: So that it looks like
it actually blocked the side of a laser.

BRAD: I think we took a wood burner
and that's how I made the burn mark in it.

Wow. It's such an important part
of the story.

It shrunk the kids.

AMY: If you guys are hiding up here,
it's not funny.

[SHRINK RAY WHIRRING]

Can we look at it?
Could you break it open?

Yeah, of course, yeah,
let me get it out of here.

If I can get it out of here. Yeah.

- There it is.
- DAN: Wow.

Yeah, I mean, the actors signed it.

- I think all the actors signed it.
- DAN: "Brad..." Yeah.

It's faded off of there.

But that's what's important right there,
the burn.

BRAD: Oh, yeah, the burn. Yeah, that burn.
The laser burned it.

- DAN: That's so cool.
- BRAD: Yeah.

I got it. The ball came through the window
and activated the machine,

and then got in the path of the laser.

- Why didn't I think of this before?
- I could take a wild guess.

I'm glad I have something from Honey
for sure.

At the time, it meant a lot to me,
the baseball,

and what we accomplished for the movie.
And it was kind of my souvenir.

DAN: After seeing the ball
that started it all,

Brad suggested that I might find
more props in the hands of David Sosalla,

the miniatures supervisor
for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

DAVID: I actually managed to sneak off
with a few pieces.

Oh, look at this!

DAVID: A little delicate.
I sculpted a lot of the pieces myself.

So, what were these puppets used for?

Well, these puppets were actually used
just for some little animatics,

just to get an idea of scale
and some camera angles.

- DAN: Right.
- And then here

is one
of the original stop-motion ant puppets.

- Wow, look at that.
- And this is 1:12 scale.

[ANTIE RATTLES]

DAVID: If you'll look here,
these can swing backwards, forwards...

- DAN: Interesting.
- DAVID: Up. These are also animated.

It's like the shot of the ant
coming down from the cookie.

- DAN: Mm-hmm.
- DAVID: Well, we had to take

and sh**t the cookie on set,

and so here we have this huge cookie
with the kids and the ant way at the top.

- And in order to get it down...
- AMY: [SCREAMS]

DAVID: From the cookie,
we had to do it all in the 12 scale...

- DAN: Right.
- DAVID: With this puppet coming down

frame by frame.

NICK: If only we had some bug spray,
that'd show him.

Quiet!

- You worked with the kids, right?
- Yes. Yes.

- What was it like working with them?
- Wonderful!

They were very, very cooperative.

They enjoyed their experience
in Mexico City,

and they also enjoyed their opportunity
to be acting,

and to be acting in something
that was fantastical for them.

Yeah.

Antie was such an unlikely character
to become a fan favorite.

A lot of the credit needs to go
to the actors who convinced us

that this insect was their friend.

Low bridge!

DAN: A massive version of Antie
was created specifically

for the interactions with the cast.

Sadly, only a piece of it still survives.

And I know some people
who might appreciate

- being reunited with it.
- [AMY GASPS]

- JARED: Wow.
- THOMAS: Is it Antie? Is it Ant?

- [AMY LAUGHING]
- JARED: Yeah!

- DAN: He's seen better days.
- Wow.

Oh, my gosh!

DAN: Meet cast members
Thomas Brown, who played Little Russ...

Amy O'Neill, who played Amy...

and Jared Rushton, who played Ron.

Later, worm.

DAN: Hopefully, reconnecting
with this artifact, and each other,

will spark some memories.

- How hard was this thing to find?
- DAN: You know, I didn't find it.

It was recovered by the Disney Archives.

There's a lot of damage
that's happened over the years.

- JARED: Yeah.
- DAN: This is all that's left.

- AMY: Beautiful.
- DAN: Let's grab a seat.

- JARED: Yeah, absolutely.
- AMY: Okay.

DAN: It's an important piece. It's a sign
of how they did things in the '80s.

And now, something like this
would have been done

with a giant green blob
and CGI'd over the top of it.

JARED: Oh, yeah. And you can see just
how much was going on inside of that,

why you needed, you know,
one person with the aperture

- to turn everything and twist...
- DAN: Yeah.

- JARED: Everything, and...
- THOMAS: Yes, it's all mechanical controls

- inside there.
- JARED: And then there was eight

or nine guys doing the legs?

AMY: All these guys were dressed
like ninjas, in black outfits.

If you look at the hair,
you can still see the hair.

JARED: That material covered everything,
the whole ant, the whole head...

And they kept it slick.
They put this, like, gel slick on it,

so it had that shine to it.

This is so weird, it's...
All the skin is gone.

He was so realistic there.

It is kind of weird seeing
the bones of it.

I think it's beautiful.

The size of it brings me back
to relating to this ant.

Oh, yeah. The thing was massive.
I mean, it was pretty good-sized.

It was the size of, basically,
the size of a horse or a moose.

JARED: And there were several different
ants, I think. They had the bucking ant...

THOMAS: Yeah. It was just a bucking bronco
with an ant shell put on it.

Yeehaw!

DAN: You know, it's interesting...

- Did you ride it in the film?
- JARED: Yeah, yeah. No, I get bucked off.

- Like, we tried to tame it.
- [ANTIE SQUEAKING]

And then, this is your character's
best buddies, wasn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. It was.

- RON: Shoo!
- [ANTIE SQUEAKING]

Looks like you got a new pet.

I was surprised to see it.
My instinct was like, "Oh, is Jared okay?"

- [JARED LAUGHS]
- [CHUCKLES] Because...

That's so sweet.
That's really sweet of you.

Because in the movie, like,
it was a big turning point

for his character,
just showing the humanity of,

like, this kid.

I think in a lot of ways, it kind
of solidified the idea of an adventure

- for kids who are watching the movie...
- [SCREAMS]

JARED: Just suddenly
have the creature eating you.

[ANTIE SQUEAKING]

I remember kids in the theater,
you know, crying...

- [CHUCKLES] ...when the ant died, and...
- Yeah.

- No, it's gonna be okay.
- [ANTIE SQUEAKS]

JARED: It's also a testament
to the model makers for their ability

to humanize it to a degree
that we could identify with it...

- DAN: Yeah.
- JARED: And get emotionally attached

- to it.
- RON: [SOBBING]

That's why stuff like this is important.

This represents this journey
that you guys have been on.

I think the rest of it was destroyed.

I think it's just luck
that this thing survived.

It's definitely nice
to go down memory lane

and think about some of the stuff.

It was a good-natured, sincere film,
so it's something

that I'm happy to be associated with.
I think we all are.

Yeah.

DAN: If Antie was the hero,

then who was the ant-tagonist

- of the story?
- [ANTS SQUEAK]

DAN: My journey wouldn't be complete
without finding the monster responsible

for taking down Ron's six-legged friend.

So I'm flying up to San Francisco
to meet with my pal,

visual effects pioneer
and stop motion genius Phil Tippett,

at his studio in Berkeley.

- The stage.
- Here we are, the stage.

PHIL: This is a set in progress.

- DAN: Ah. So cool.
- Yeah.

DAN: Phil offered to show me
a real-world demonstration

with one of his many monsters he's made
for his ongoing experimental film series.

Stop motion never fails to astound me
with the amount of adjusting,

tweaking, and perfecting
between every shot,

just to get a handful of frames
that barely make up a second.

Phil's done this on so many classics,
from Star Wars to RoboCop.

Hiring Phil Tippett ensured
that the creatures

in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
were going to be second to none.

- [CHUCKLES] Look at that guy.
- PHIL: Mm-hmm.

That is a terrifying bug.

This was one of two stop-motion bugs
that we made

- for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
- Wow.

And it's all got an articulated skeleton
that allows us to...

reposition...

- one frame at a time, and this is...
- That is so cool in person.

That's the same kind of rubber
that they make skateboard wheels out of.

Oh. Really? And it looks so real.

And then these little eyeballs,
those look like little ball bearings.

PHIL: They are little ball bearings.

Why would you use ball bearings
for the eyes?

We use them a lot,
putting black Sharpie on it,

'cause the light will go
through the black Sharpie,

- but it'll give you a highlight.
- DAN: Wow.

Everything requires
a pretty good degree of research,

- you know, so I bought a scorpion...
- DAN: Really?

PHIL: And shot it
on 16-millimeter film,

sh**t it walking around, and...

- DAN: Wow.
- PHIL: So, these are surface gauges.

- DAN: Right.
- And this locates the object in space.

If the scorpion is gonna strike,

you know, you just do, boom,
a little move,

take out the gauges, sh**t...

- Right.
- Put it back in,

and so if it's gonna accelerate,
make a slightly bigger move,

take it out, sh**t,
and relocate to make a bigger move,

and so that's winding up.

Now, put it back in
and then have the thing strike.

DAN: At 24 frames a second,
this is one time-consuming process.

- And Phil and his team...
- [ANTS SQUEAKING]

DAN: Have painstakingly produced hours

- upon hours of film using this technique.
- [SQUEAKING CONTINUES]

So, this was done very similar to the way
that Harryhausen would do his creatures.

PHIL: Yeah. In 1958,
Ray's 7th Voyage of Sinbad came out,

and then that was like the bolt
of lightning

that struck me in. That was it.

DAN: Ray Harryhausen

- was a legend in stop motion...
- [BARKS]

DAN: Inspiring an entire generation
of future filmmakers, like Phil Tippett.

It was a simple process.

- A simple process.
- [LAUGHS]

[CHUCKLES]

DAN: After seeing Phil in action,

I got word that the film's star
was willing to meet with me.

So I'm going to take off to New York
to reunite props

with one of my all-time movie idols,
Rick Moranis.

And where better to meet
a larger-than-life legend

than at a miniatures museum?

Not only are you such an important part
of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but...

I've been watching your stuff
ever since I was a kid.

- Now I really feel old.
- [LAUGHS]

- But you don't look it.
- Pleasure to meet you.

Pleasure to meet you as well.
Huge fan of Strange Brew.

- Strange Brew.
- Strange Brew, oh, my God.

You know, like,
"Statue of Liberty." It's so much fun.

- We had no idea what we were doing.
- [LAUGHS]

DAN: Rick Moranis played Wayne Szalinski,
the mad scientist dad in the movie.

- [SHRINK RAY WHIRRING]
- Please shrink.

- [CLATTERING]
- [DOG WHINES]

DAN: He's a comedy hero,

starring in a slew
of '80s and '90s classics

like Spaceballs, Ghostbusters,
and Little Shop of Horrors.

I feel honored to connect with him,

and hope some props I've found,
can uncover some great stories.

You know, it's interesting...

the film has... It's been 30 years.

And these pieces right here
are basically all that's left

in the Disney Archive related
to your character

for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, your glasses

and this very broken watch.

- Can I touch these glasses?
- They were your glasses, go for it.

Yeah. Well, I think I still have a pair
that is very similar to that.

These have been in and out of style
multiple times

- since the movie.
- [CHUCKLES]

RICK: But it's good to know
that this exists

because the only thing that I did save
from the movies that I was in,

because I was using
prescription glasses...

- DAN: Mm-hmm.
- I would usually take a pair of glasses

and I pretty much have a pair of glasses
from every film that I did.

DAN: [LAUGHS]
Well, that's smart.

And I also kept
a couple of eight by ten photos.

Oh, really?

Used them as things to raise money
for auctions and various things,

and send to fans, stuff like that,
when people would write.

Everything is gone now. [CHUCKLES]
I don't... [CHUCKLES]

I don't have anything left.

What's interesting about this stuff is,
after the film is done,

you still have these items.

And it may just be a set of glasses,
and a broken watch,

- or it might be a giant ant... [LAUGHS]
- I didn't break the watch.

I... When I gave the prop guy
back the watch...

- DAN: It was...
- RICK: It was perfectly fine.

- It was in good shape, huh?
- So I don't want a bill for this watch.

I don't know.
It's a pretty expensive model there.

I remember when he came to me
with the watch. I do.

Because that was state-of-the-art
at that time.

Scientist, therefore, he should have
a calculator watch.

- DAN: Absolutely.
- RICK: And look where we are today.

That's right. So, as an actor, how much...

help do you get from the props around you?

You wouldn't be able to do it without it.

You have to have all the tools
that you need.

- Costumes, props, helmets...
- Yeah.

To build a character,
absolutely critical.

So, what's the deal?

It seems like a lot of your characters,
in productions you've been in,

wear odd helmets.

Yeah, it's funny.
I... I've thought about this.

You're absolutely right. I wound up
with a lot of interesting headgear, and...

I think it totally has to do
with the fact that

the short spate
of films that I was in, in the '80s,

happened to coincide
with a renewed interest

- in science fiction.
- Hmm.

And that was the result of Star Wars,
primarily, and Close Encounters.

So science fiction really boomed,
and that's when comedy came in,

and suddenly, I wound up in these films
where, for some reason, these characters,

you're absolutely right,
wind up wearing these odd headpieces.

- Yeah.
- Now, the contraption

that I wore in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,
with the lights

and the magnifying glass, lot of fun.

DAN: Now, we do have a replica.

This is built using
as many original parts as possible.

RICK: Wow. Yeah.
It was a homemade thing, so...

- DAN: That's the idea, right?
- RICK: Sure.

Your character would have made
something like this...

- RICK: That's right.
- DAN: With material that's around you.

This is just a hockey helmet with,
you know, exposure box, with some lights,

and some magnifying glasses.

You put this crazy helmet on,
it's out of need

to try and find your kids.

I remember that.
I, of course, remember the harness.

DAN: Yeah. How difficult was that,

- to be suspended over the yard?
- [COUGHS]

RICK: Wasn't hard for me.
I think it was hard for everybody else.

DAN: [CHUCKLES]
Who was trying to keep it up?

RICK: I was just laying in a hammock
on my stomach.

[DAN LAUGHING]

RICK: No, it wasn't difficult for me
at all.

[PANTS]

What does that film mean to you


Just how much fun it was.

But, you know, if that were made today,

it would be made very differently,
probably just with green screen

- and computer-generated stuff.
- Yes.

I mean, it's a film to this day,
that just holds up.

But so much of that is the work
of Joe Johnston.

I mean, he had the vision of this
in his head,

and on that movie, I was really an actor.

I think I drove him crazy
a couple of times,

- trying to get more comedy into it...
- [LAUGHS]

because I was always
looking for how to disrupt

- and get some more jokes in...
- Right.

And poor Joe just wanted
to make his movie.

- Are you saying that machine blew up...
- Blew up my kids?

- AMY: Oh, no! No, no.
- No, no, no.

If the machine had blown up the kids,
there'd be pieces of them everywhere.

- I would've found...
- Wayne...

Sorry, I...

And I also was so affected
by the shrinking machine,

'cause I think there was dry ice
or steam or smoke or...

[STAMMERS] ...I don't know what he used.

- DAN: Right.
- And then I think it was built

on hydraulics or something,

'cause when it turned on,
it would go up

- on its haunches.
- DAN: Yep. Yep.

RICK: It was really cool.

It was just wonderful to see
that come to life like that.

DAN: Hearing how much Rick appreciated
the magic of the shrink ray

made me excited to see the results
of my little restoration project.

I'm heading back to Burbank, California,
to meet with Becky Cline,

director of the Walt Disney Archives.

Now, I've worked with Becky
on a variety of projects involving props

from such films
as James and the Giant Peach,

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,
and Mary Poppins.

- BECKY: Wow.
- I am very excited.

I am too.

My friend Martin has done
a great job, in my opinion,

- and I'd love to show you what he did.
- I'm excited to see it. Please.

- All right. Let's do this.
- Okay.

DAN: Ta-da!

Oh, wow. [CHUCKLES]

That's amazing, my goodness.

This is fantastic.
So, he found all these pieces,

- authentic pieces.
- Authentic pieces.

This piece up here was completely missing.

This emitter here, he built it in 3D,
so that it would look

- exactly like it did in the film.
- [GASPS] That's just genius.

DAN: And then this was a remote
from a dictation machine,

so he added buttons,
he added this little lever.

He really dug into the details.

That's what's so wonderful
about something like this.

What we wanna do is to
share it with the fans,

and it needs to be
in its original condition.

This is like the primo piece
that explains that movie.

- DAN: It is. It is.
- So if you're representing that film,

this is the thing.

DAN: As they say,
"The genius is in the details."

- And on this film...
- [CLATTERING]

DAN: No detail was too small
to make

- this tiny world look so big.
- [ANTIE SQUEAKING]

The size of it brings me back
to relating to the ant.

DAN: From the scar on a baseball,
to the hair on an ant antenna,

I've seen the great care
the filmmakers took making every object.

One frame at a time.

DAN: Together, they helped create
the wonder,

the comedy, and the adventure...

[KIDS SCREAMING]

DAN: That makes this movie
a believably big little classic.

It was just wonderful to see
that come to life like that.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]