Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,462
edits
m (categories and general cleanup) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (added example, standardized headers, potholes) |
||
(10 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
Bees and moths whirr above you like helicopters. Flowers and blades of grass loom over you. Familiar household objects are like huge, immovable obstacles. Your fellow human beings blot out the sky with their immense, towering girth. Sound like a bad case of the Mondays? Think again: you've been shrunk!
Line 13 ⟶ 12:
If the characters are shrunk down far enough, they could embark on a [[Fantastic Voyage Plot]].
Depending on how the shrinking works, they may or may not get their clothes to shrink with
Contrast with [[Attack of the 50
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
* Happens to Narancia in Part 5 of ''[[
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* Happens in the ''[[
▲* Happens to Narancia in Part 5 of ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jojo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' when he's attacked by an enemy with the ability to shrink his victims by stabbing them with his dagger.
▲* Happens in the ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura (Manga)|Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' TV episode where Sakura is shrunk by the Little card.
* [[Idiot Hero|Hiroshi]] from ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]'' wakes up one day to find himself no larger than a mouse. Of course, the reality of the situation is [[Artificial Human|stranger]] [[Cloning Blues|still]].
* ''[[Hime
* Happens only in the manga version of ''[[Busou Renkin]]'', when Tokiko is hit multiple times by Madoka's Bubble Cage.
* Also happens in ''[[
* Happens in one episode in the anime adaptation of ''[[Kochikame]]'' when the main character Ryotsu was shrunk by the wizard from Heaven. He goes through mishaps in the police box and later helped taking out criminals holding up hostages.
* Happens to the 5 main girls in ''[[Yes! Pretty Cure 5]] [[Oddly
* One episode of ''[[To
* In one episode of the original ''[[
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* DC [[Superhero]] [[The Atom]] had this as his power; some plots involved him or other characters shrinking and then having the size controls taken away/[[Phlebotinum Breakdown|break]].
** And of course, there was the appearance of the Atom at the end of ''[[Identity Crisis]]'', {{spoiler|wherein he shrinks out of existence after finding out his ex-wife killed Sue Dibny}}.
Line 38 ⟶ 35:
** The Atom has also lampshaded some of the oddities of his powers. When questioned about how people can breathe when they're barely the size of a cell, he admits that he has no idea how and he just goes with it.
* Bumblebee from the ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' and ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' was accidently reduced to the size of a small toy. Unlike most shrinking superheroes, she has yet to find a way to regain her original size.
* In the [[
** Incorrect. While Kandorians would gain superpowers upon leaving the bottle's artificial Kryptonian environment, they wouldn't expand unless some kind of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] was used.
* In fact, many comic book characters have shrinking (or size-changing in general) as their primary superpower (i.e. Ant-Man, the Wasp...)
* This happens to [[Donald Duck]], Scrooge and the nephews (along with Scrooge's whole money bin) in several different comic books by [[Carl Barks]] and [[Don Rosa]]. One of these was also "adapted" into a ''[[
** One quasi-educational story from the early '60s had Donald take his nephews (through an uncannily prescient virtual-reality device) on a trip through the mundane everyday world while shrunk increasingly smaller to encounter phenomena more fantastic than any make-believe reality the nephews could think of.
* Happened to Bart in an early issue of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' comic book.
Line 47 ⟶ 44:
* The ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' found themselves in a variant situation when they are captured by Doctor Doom and placed in a machine where their consciousnesses were transferred into miniature duplicates of themselves in a tiny simulation of a town called Liddleville. Eventually, they break out, manage to defeat Doom in their mini-versions and restore their consciousnesses to their real bodies.
* In the Marvel Universe in general, anyone who shrinks below a certain limit (apparantly somewhere between cellular size and molecular size) shifts into a "microverse" - the theory is that a shrinking person is actually displacng their mass extradimensionally, and when 99.99999999999999% is over there, the rest (and consciousness) follows. Among the notable inhabitants of microverses are Psycho Man, Jarella (a lover of [[The Hulk]] for a while), and the (now out of continuity) [[Micronauts]].
* Colossal Boy has this power in the 2004 relaunch of ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (
** More traditionally, Legion regular Shrinking Violet, who comes from the planet of Imsk where everyone has shrinking powers.
* The graphic novel ''In the Small'' features this happening to every human on Earth due to a mysterious blue flash. Shrunken, terrorized by animals and unable to use most technology, they need to rebuild everything in miniature.
* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4540557/1/bHuge_b_bSuccess_b Huge Success]'', [[Iron Man|Tony]] decided to look at Dr. Pym's pym particles without permission and ended up being 6 inches tall.
▲== Fan Fiction ==
** Some form of shrinking happens in many of [http://www.fanfiction.net/u/225641/GirlX2 GirlX2's] stories, often due to "[[Lilliputians|Lilliputian]] Syndrome."
▲* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4540557/1/bHuge_b_bSuccess_b Huge Success]'', [[Iron Man|Tony]] decided to look at Dr. Pym's pym particles without permission and ended up being 6 inches tall.
* In ''[[
▲** Some form of shrinking happens in many of [http://www.fanfiction.net/u/225641/GirlX2 GirlX2's] stories, often due to "[[Lilliputians|Lilliputian]] Syndrome."
▲* In ''[[With Strings Attached (Fanfic)|With Strings Attached]]'', the four get shrunk on their quest for the second piece of the Vasyn, though George [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|fixes himself]] as soon as he has a lot of room to do so.
** Actually, all of the humans in the chapter have been shrunk. The four manage to find a gun that will unshrink everyone.
== [[Film]] ==▼
* The most famous film examples are ''[[The Incredible Shrinking Man]]'' with Grant Williams, and its [[Distaff Counterpart]] with Lily Tomlin.▼
▲== Film ==
▲* The most famous film examples are ''[[The Incredible Shrinking Man]]'' with Grant Williams and its [[Distaff Counterpart]] with Lily Tomlin.
** It should be pointed out that the [[Square-Cube Law]] may have been somewhat averted in this particular movie because Scott Carey very slowly shrinks, thus giving his body a chance to adapt to his changing size.
** Both films were based on the novel by [[Richard Matheson]], who also wrote ''[[I Am Legend]]'' and scripted the two [[Kolchak the Night Stalker|Kolchak]] TV movies.
** As noted in [[Stephen King]]'s ''Danse Macabre'', Richard Matheson originally made the eponymous man shrink a constant rate of 1/7th of an inch per day rather than by a given proportion, resulting in the Fridge Logic of what happens when he gets to that height.
** The Lily Tomlin vehicle ''The Incredible Shrinking Woman'' made her decreasing size, caused by exposure to too many household cleansers, food additives, and hygiene products, a parable about out-of-control consumerism.
* This was the basis for the plot of the live-action movie ''[[Honey
* In the [[Beatles]] movie ''[[Help
* In ''[[Dot And Keeto]]'', Dot goes to eat the root that lets her talk to animals so she can apologize to some ants her brother was tormenting, but she accidentally eats the root next to it, which makes her shrink down to the size of a bug (and able to talk to them). After trying to get the attention of her brother and mother, she goes on an adventure among the bugs until her friend Kangaroo shrinks down, too, and brings her some of the root that will make her the proper size again.
* "Fantastic Voyage" in which a submersible is shrunk to microscopic size to be injected into a comatose spy to laser away the clots that are killing him. This has been pointed out, more than once, leads to a stupid conclusion where the people abandon the ship and swim to safety, being extracted from the tear ducts before they return to normal size automatically. No mention is ever made of the sub growing to normal size and exploding the patient.
*
== [[Literature]] ==
* Happens twice in ''[[
* ''The Incredible Adventures of Karik and Valya'' has two kids drinking some liquid and shrinking to insect size, then being whisked into nature by a dragonfly. Needless to say, the whole thing is ''very dangerous''.
* The British SF novel ''Cold War in a Country Garden''.
Line 79 ⟶ 73:
* Shrinking is one of the ''less'' bizarre experiences Alice has in Wonderland.
* Used in one of the Danny Dunn children's scifi adventures.
* Two books in the ''[[Eerie, Indiana]]'' series use this. ''The Incredible Shrinking Stanley'', in which Stanley gets splashed with special soap from the Eerie laundry mat and starts shrinking, and ''The Dollhouse That Time Forgot'' where Marshall, after exploring a house that looks suspiciously like the dollhouse his sister just bought, finds himself getting smaller and smaller. The latter overlaps with [[The Doll Episode]].
* ''The Shrinking Man'' by Richard Matheson, on which the movie ''The Incredible Shrinking Man'' was based (almost all modern editions of the novel even add the "''Incredible''" part to the book's title, as the movie is more famous).
* Happens in ''[[Power Rangers
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' has one of her "magic diseases" where her guilt causes her to shrink.▼
▲* Happens in ''[[Power Rangers ZEO]]'' ("A Small Problem") and ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' ("Honey I Shrunk The Rangers").
▲* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' has one of her "magic diseases" where her guilt causes her to shrink.
* ''[[Family Matters]]'' did this once, too.
* In one episode of ''[[The Greatest American Hero]]'', Ralph ''gets another copy of the suit's manual'' from the original aliens - but shrinks himself while experimenting, gets scared by an ant, panics and goes back to normal size, leaving the manual shrunk... I guess they also gave him an [[Idiot Ball]] to go with the replacement manual.
* This was the premise of ''[[Sid and Marty Krofft Productions|Dr. Shrinker]]''.
* In ''[[
** The early serial "Planet of the Giants" featured the first Doctor and companions trying to stay alive in a typical suburban home after a TARDIS malfunction reduced them to the size of bugs.
** The First Doctor permanently crippled the TARDIS of the Meddling Monk by removing the "dimensional control" so the other Time Lord couldn't get back into his (brand new, more advanced) TARDIS; afterwards, the console room was too small for him to fit inside.
Line 99 ⟶ 92:
*** In "Carnival of Monsters" the Third Doctor accidentally landed the TARDIS inside a "compression field", where the people on the outside were giants in comparison. Anything removed from the compression field returned to normal size within a few seconds. (The first thing so removed was the TARDIS, because it was interfering with the compression field. A giant hand reached in and picked it up.)
*** In "The Pirate Planet", the Fourth Doctor encountered a bad guy who kept the shrunken remains of planets he'd destroyed as trophies.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "One Little Ship": A runabout is sent to study a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] whose shrinking effect is already known (the fact that the explorers will be shrunk is a matter of great amusement to those staying behind). Unfortunately the Defiant is captured by Jem'Hadar and the now miniscule explorers must help the crew take back the ship. One scene has Bashir and O'Brien having to exit the runabout to alter a
* On ''[[Misfits of Science]]'', seven-foot-tall Dr. Elvin Lincoln had been working on a treatment that would make him shorter; he overdid it a bit and wound up with the ability to make himself six inches tall at will.
* "The Mighty Mites" segment of ''[[Owl TV]]'' revolved around a group of kids who shrink themselves at will to study insects and other small creatures.
* The first half of the two-part ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' episode "Mork In Wonderland" centers on Mork shrinking after taking a cold capsule (the explanation is that the capsule is supposed to shrink the nasal membranes in humans, but [[Bizarre Alien Biology|Orkans are entirely membrane]]).
* In ''[[Lois and Clark]]'', Clark got shrunk to 6 inches tall. Thankfully, he still has all of his powers.
* In the ''[[
* ''[[Sesame Street]]'' had a two-part story in which Big Bird was shrunk to about the size of a Twiddlebug.
* In the ''[[Wild Wild West]]'' episode "the Night of the Raven", Dr. Loveless shrinks James West and a Native American princess.
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* The title routine from [[Steve Martin]]'s 1997 premiere album ''Let's Get Small'' is [https://youtu.be/LoFRAJL7Lc0?t=473 a "reminiscence" of his experience with an unusual drug]. At first it sounds like he's just using "getting small" as an odd slang for getting high, but then it becomes very clear that the drug actually shrinks the user.
{{quote|One night I got ''really'' small... and I got inside a vacuum cleaner. And the drug wore off.
I retained the shape of a vacuum cleaner for about two weeks.}}
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* One memorable scenario from the early days of ''Dungeon'' magazine involved the player characters being shrunk down to the size of gaming miniatures by a malfunctioning magical orb. Unusual in that, aside from the usual small animals posing a deadly threat, many previous groups of travelers had already fallen prey to this effect, forming themselves into [[Wacky Wayside Tribe
== [[Theme Parks]] ==
* This is the basis for several attractions at [[Disney Theme Parks]]. A few include ''It's a Bug's Land'', a play area based on ''[[A Bug's Life
==
▲* This is the basis for several attractions at [[Disney Theme Parks]]. A few include ''It's a Bug's Land'', a play area based on ''[[A Bug's Life (Animation)|A Bugs Life]]'', another play area based on ''[[Honey I Shrunk the Kids (Film)|Honey I Shrunk the Kids]]'' and ''Honey I Shrunk the Audience'', and the long gone ''Adventure Through Inner Space''.
* This happened in ''[[Snowboard Kids 2]]''. The main characters were shrunk down, turning Wendy's house into a snowboard track.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]: [[The Minish Cap]]'' uses this as a gameplay mechanic.
* This is the entire story of ''[[
* ''[[Ratchet and Clank Size Matters]]'' centers around a shrink ray.
* Appears in a level in ''[[Okami]]'' where the eponymous wolf is shrunk down by magic to the size of her companion, Issun, and has to dodge such mundane dangers as spiders and Japanese housewives with brooms.
Line 129 ⟶ 124:
* The 'Mini' spell and debuff in most ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' installments, which induces a status where all physical attacks are reduced to [[Scratch Damage]] and defense is lowered.
* Minimize in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games.
* The Mini Mushroom in the ''[[New Super Mario Bros
** It also cuts their mass (because the ''Mario'' games already [[Art Major Physics|laugh in the face of physics]]). It does ''not'' change the strength of jumps. These two facts allow Mario to vault through the air and fall much more slowly.
* In ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood'', Guybrush uses one of the buttons on De Singe's Auto-Trepanation Helmet and gets shrunk a bit smaller than the size of a lab vole for a bit before growing back to normal size.
* In ''[[
* One section in ''[[
* Happens a few times in World of Warcraft (although only slight effects), with [http://www.wowhead.com/quest=14388 this quest] being an exception: you're shrunk to the size of a ''rat''.
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Banana
* In ''U.F.O.'', Queen Pamela's hostages are shrunk down to the size of small rodents and put in a gerbil cage.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Emergency Exit]]'', Saya accidentally gets shrunk by [http://eecomics.net/?strip_id=826 Eddie's shrink ray].
* Teeko from ''[[Chirault]]'' gets shrunk by an accidental spell from an unlicensed mage. Finding a way to return her to her former size seems to be a major plot point.
* ''[[Dream Tales]]'' has a whole series of comics featuring shrinking men and women.
== [[Web Original]] ==
▲== Web Original ==
* Some size warpers in the [[Whateley Universe]] can do this. Sizemax can either be a 30-foot giant or a couple inches high.
* ''[[Small Problem]]'' is a blog ostensibly written by Debby Small, who's 6½ inches tall.
* The [[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In the ''[[Ed, Edd 'n
* Happened in one episode of ''[[
* Happened on ''[[
* Happened on ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[
* In the ''[[
** Additionally, a ''[[
* This happened in the ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' episode "Getting Antsy", where a crook was using a shrink-ray to loot the city using ants. Darkwing ends up getting zapped and reduced to the size of an ant for most of the episode and gets shrunk a second time near the end, where he ends up coming up with an unusual way of saving the day.
* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (
** Finally both played straight and reversed in another episode, where Chinese big bad used shrinking ray to increase size (and luxury) of cars, and then import sell them. By the end of the episode, Rescue Rangers grow to the size of a human, and then back.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' episode "Micro Management" where Jack shrunk Danny, Skulker, and accidentally, Dash down to size. Had the added bonus of Danny slowly losing his powers because of it, risking his [[Secret Identity]] to the local [[Jerk Jock]] as the two tried to make their way up with [[The Hunter]] in pursuit.
* The 1967 ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' cartoon took this to a whole new level, shrinking the heroes until they wound up in a subatomic universe, then shrinking them some more, making them tiny within ''that'' context.
Line 175 ⟶ 166:
*** Also done in 1994 series, as a part of Nightmare Fuel, during a nightmare.
* Happened to Mario and Luigi in an episode of ''The [[Super Mario Bros Super Show]]''.
* An early episode of ''[[The Fairly
** There's also an episode where he shrinks down to have a chat with his (not making this up) evil, undead, pet gerbil, only to discover that it's [[Ax Crazy]] and out for revenge.
** There's also the episode where Timmy wishes he could have one last adventure with his Crimson Chin doll, upon which Cosmo and Wanda shrink him down to toy size. Much of this episode is very reminiscint of the movie ''[[Honey
* ''Inch High, Private Eye'' was a 1970s series about a ''very'' short detective.
* There was an episode of the ''[[Mega Man (
* In the ''[[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]]'' episode "Small Stuff", our duo is shrunk after going through the dryer.
* Occurs several times on ''[[Captain Planet]]''.
* This is the fate of anyone who messes with Reducto on ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney
* One episode of ''[[The Venture Bros]]'' cartoon has a shrink-ray gun Dr. Venture designed being sold at his yard sale. A later episode has Venture and Dr. Orpheus squaring off and betting over whether science or magic was better, deciding on shrinking as a challenge. Orpheus's incantations only shrink furniture, and Venture's shrink-ray gun is defective...testing it on Billy Quizboy has disturbing results.
* The fairies in ''[[Winx Club]]'' who have earned their enchantix form can shrink into tiny versions of themselves (except for Bloom).
Line 190 ⟶ 181:
* ''[[Space Ghost]]'' episode "The Evil Collector".
* Spoofed in the ''[[Fanboy and Chum Chum]]'' episode "The Incredible Shrinking Fanboy", where Fanboy only ''thinks'' he's shrinking, after the flower where he marks his growth grows overnight. [[Yandere|Yo]] uses this to her advantage, giving him a helmet with magnifying lenses to help with the illusion while she takes Chum-Chum to her room to [[And Call Him George|play with]].
* ''[[Nightmare Ned]]'' did this where Ned was being tormented by a pair of [[Enfant Terrible
* ''[[
* Happens to Applejack in the ''[[My Little Pony:
* The ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'' movie "Funny We Shrunk the Adults" is one where Dave and Miss Miller are shrunken by Simon's "matter compacting" ray. At the same time, the Chipmunks and some neighbor kids who they are trying to impress are wrecking the house with their rowdy playing and bringing in things like a circus, including the animals. In fact, it was the rowdy playing that made the shrink ray turn on and zap Dave in the first place.
* On an episode of ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'', the cast shrinks down to rescue one of Furrball's fleas from a vicious bedbug, but not without [[Lampshade Hanging]].
* ''Micro Ventures'' from ''[[The Banana Splits]]''
* In an episode of ''[[Eek!
* In the ''[[Princess Gwenevere and
* Happens in ''[[The Jetsons]]'' once. It's George who gets shrunk.
Line 203 ⟶ 194:
[[Category:Artistic License Physics]]
[[Category:Tiny Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]
[[Category:Shapeshifting]]
|