VARIOUS TV SHOWS
Charmed: Size Matters
Phoebe and Piper don't take Paige seriously when she has a weird feeling about a creepy old house. Phoebe checks the place out by herself, only to be shrunk to five inches high by a demon, where the utters the classic "Uh-oh!" line. (See pic.) She hides behind a chair, only to be spotted by the demon (Robert Englund, "Nightmare on Elm Street") and chased around. He tries to capture her with a vacuum cleaner, but eventually decides to trick her by using an innocent woman (shrunk during the intro) as bait. Phoebe falls into the trap and is captured. Piper and Leo come looking for her but can't find her in the house. After they leave, the demon comes out and seals Phoebe and the innocent in clay, to eventually be made into figurines for his collection.
After a bit, the demon comes after Paige and Piper and shrinks them as well. All four women are next seen encased in clay on a shelf. Paige escapes using her "orbing" ability and breaks the others out. Then she summons the shrinking wand and uses it on their captor, after which they vanquish him with a spell Phoebe had cooked up during her long wait for rescue. They all return to normal size, and everything's cool. What they tell the innocent woman (who we didn't see enough of, unfortunately) is unknown.
There are two video clips in an archive located here.
Sliders
In the third season episode "Exodus," Quinn and Maggie slide to an alternate Earth very reminiscent of "Land of the Giants." Sadly, they aren't there very long, and they don't interact with normal size humans at all. Instead, they duck down a hole where they meet a giant, angry rabbit. These are about the best screenshots the episode has to offer. If anyone has the clip from this, please send it to me and I'll post it. By the way, Maggie is played by the highly shrinkable Kari Wuhrer (just look at that profile--she really makes camouflage gear look sexy!), who would be a fantastic choice for Valerie or Betty if they ever redo LotG!
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Also, late in the miserable final season, they have another episode where they jump to a giant world. This happens only in the last few seconds of the episode (I don't know the name, but it involves a bunch of monks trying to protect their world's knowledge from barbarians in navy ships). They fall out of the vortex onto somebody's desk. From their reactions, it seems clear none of them have ever been here before and Maggie doesn't remember the previous trip to a planet like this. (Of course, that particular episode happened two or three seasons and one or two networks ago, so you can forgive the writers some continuity.)
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Incidentally, the dialogue here goes something like this: "Where are we?" "Looks like somebody's office." "Yeah, somebody big!" (Phone rings LOUDLY and they all cringe) "Well, I don't want to be here when that somebody answers that!" And they all run off. In case you're interested, the next episode has nothing to do with a giant world at all, and the subject is never mentioned again. I guess they didn't stay long. Too bad.
Stripperella
This is a "cartoon for men" on the new TNN network. The main character, Striperella (voiced by, and sharing certain physical features with, Pamela Anderson), is a striptease dancer in her secret identity. There are two episodes with size-changing, or at least POV, content.
In a first-season episode (noted for its very cheap animation style), Stripperella winds up in a "large things" museum, but if you let your imagination run away with you, it looks like she's been shrunk in these poor-quality screen grabs. The actual episode does not feature shrinking. In the first panel, she's trapped in a giant bottle. After that, she goes through several museum areas before winding up atop the "world's largest vibrating banana" (I'm not making this up). She actually uses the line, "God, I love fighting crime!" in panel seven. (I had to include the shot of panel 8 because it reminds me so much of my own story Adventures in Miniaturization.)
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The second season (2004) featured new and improved animation plus thigh-high boots for our heroine. Plus they had a shrinking episode, too! Turns out a dwarf named Small Fry decides he wants to shrink everybody else to a size smaller than himself. Stripperella, of course, winds up shrunk too. (Not until the last 10 minutes, but still worthy of watching.) First she wants to give up superheroing, but then after surrendering her uniform, she goes back into action against the bad guys. Here are some screenshots, and there are videos over on the animations page, for those so inclined. Note the much better style of animation, especially with regards to her face and figure.
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Maybe It's Me
This show features a young woman in one of those really dysfunctional families that are so prevalent on television these days. (At least she has a family and isn't an orphan or product of a broken home...some family values are better than none, I guess. Anyway, enough with the social commentary. :) This particular episode, she goes out with her family for her birthday meal, and is embarrassed so much that she imagines herself shrinking in her chair. The videos are over on the animations page, but here are some screenshots, too.
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Regrettably, this is as far as this episode went. She never gets out of her chair, but she does at least speak in a really cute high-pitched voice... |
Dr. Shrinker
Okay, okay, this is an old kiddie show, but come on, admit it, how many of you saw this when it first aired, and felt that first strange stirrings of something you never quite forgot? I know I eagerly tuned in every week, even though I remember even as a child thinking it was pretty lame, and the effects were miserably bad. I can't be sure if this is the spark that activated the "SW gene" in my brain, but it must have been something like this. Anyway, here are some vidcaps, and there are some videos over on the animations page, too. BTW, if you look real close in the video, you'll recognize the sleeping guy in the third panel. Hint: Try and remember a certian radio station from Cincinnati...
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The Adventures of Gulliver
This is a short-lived Hanna-Barbera cartoon that used to run as part of a show called "Banana Splits." Anyway, most of it is pretty weak, but in this one particular episode, he helps out one of his little friends. Yeah, her name's Flirtatia, believe it or not (and this show got cancelled...imagine!). You can see the video clip over on the animations & video page, if you like that sort of thing.
Personally, just between you and me and the giant fence post over there, I wouldn't stop at just kissing her, would you? I just wonder if it's really possible for someone like Gulliver to get any real privacy in Lillput...or, hell, maybe he wouldn't care...
She-Ra "Small Problems"
Yeah, I know, I'm digging pretty deep to be pulling out vidcaps for a show as awful as this one. I mean, come on, She-Ra had it all--crappy animation, lousy voice-overs, terrible plots, cutesy allies, over-the-top villains...why didn't she get her own live-action movie like He-Man did?? Anyway, here's a couple of shots from one of the episodes we would've loved to see live.
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Fantastic Voyage
Most people don't know this, but there was actually a very short-lived animated series based on the book. It included the CMDF and everything, but of course the characters were different. They went all out for the stereotypes, too: strong male lead, a good-looking lone female character, the computer geek, the foreign mystic...you get the idea. For a minute there I thought I was watching Seaquest DSV! Anyhow, most of the time they wound up microscopic, which isn't all that "hot," but here are some shots from an episode where they were hand-sized. The blonde looks pretty nice in that jumpsuit, but sadly, the animation doesn't live up to the promise shown here. In fact, it's so awful I'm not even going to waste your time posting a clip.
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While I'm busy collecting animation shots, anyone got the Superfriends shrinking episodes? I know Wonder Woman shrinks in at least two of them...