Honey, I Shrunk the Audience was a 4D film spin-off of the Honey, I Shrunk the Kidsfilm series that was shown at several Disney theme parks. The audience wore 3D glasses, and the gimbal-mounted theater would shake and rock, creating the illusion of moving along with the characters in the film.
Synopsis
Viewers enter the Imagination Institute's theater for the Inventor of the Year Award Ceremony, in which professor Wayne Szalinski is receiving the award. Attendees are asked to don their "safety goggles" in preparation for the scientific demonstrations. The show opens with the crew of the show searching for Wayne, when he suddenly flies on stage miniaturized and in a transportation device called a Hoverpod. He accidentally drops the control box which sends him and the machine flying off behind the stage out of control. Then the show starts with Christie Smithers introducing Dr. Nigel Channing. Dr. Channing welcomes the audience and introduces Wayne. The Hoverpod comes back and destroys the neon "Inventor of the Year Award" sign over the audience. Dr. Channing attempts to introduce Diane, Wayne's wife, but she says that she has to go and help find Wayne. She takes Quark, the family's dog with her. Dr. Channing then introduces Wayne's sons, Nick and Adam. Nick, Wayne's oldest son, has a pet snake named Gigabyte around his neck, because he didn't want to leave him in their van. Nick then demonstrates his father's Dimensional Duplicator, a copy machine, to kill time while the crew searches for him. Wayne's youngest son, Adam, puts his pet mouse, Photon, in the copy machine and quickly multiplies into hundreds of copies. This does not go smoothly, and the audience ends up screaming with the loose mice running under their seats. To scare the mice away, Nick decides to use Wayne's Holo Pet Generator, which first takes the form of a cat, which then transforms into a lion, by accidentally giving the machine too much power, in the audience's faces. While the demonstrations go away, Wayne manages to use his shrinking machine to return himself back to normal size. He brings out the machine to demonstrate its uses by shrinking a family's luggage, saving space and money when traveling, hoping they will fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. Unfortunately, the machine goes out of control and shrinks the audience. Wayne inspects Nick and the audience and, after making sure they're okay, says the machine blew a fuse. He says that he's got some spare parts in his office to fix the machine. Diane enters the room asking Wayne if everything is ok. Wayne responds with, "Honey, I shrunk the audience!" The viewers are then antagonized by obstacles such as Diane fainting upon seeing the tiny people and Nick, and Adam taking a picture of them with a blinding flash and picking up the theater so he can "show the little people to Mommy." The whole room is lifted right off its construction for a minute or two before Diane and Channing persuade Adam to put the theater back where he found it. Then Gigabyte, much larger than the miniature audience, nearly eats them. Quark then chases him away with a few barks. Luckily, Wayne fixes the machine just in the nick of time and returns the audience and Nick back to normal size, but Quark is momentarily affected by the beam and then runs backstage out of sight. Wayne accepts his award and begins his speech, but he is interrupted by Nick warning of a "big, humongous problem." Diane then says, "Wayne, you didn't!" He then responds with, "Honey, I did! I blew up the dog!" The now giant Quark walks out onto the stage and the curtain closes while viewers hear the Imagination Institute's crew trying to stop him from crushing the place. He then finds his way through the curtain and sneezes on the audience for the finale. Diane then says, "Bad boy Quark! You know better than that!" As they leave, the audience can hear the commotion from backstage continue.
The film movie was directed by Randal Kleiser, who directed the franchise's 1992 release Honey, I Blew Up the Kid along with several classic films such as Grease, The Blue Lagoon, and Disney's Flight of the Navigator.
The movie was presented in 3D by using polarized glasses and projectors.
The entire audience was on a platform that moved up to four inches high during the presentation to simulate the theater moving and the floor shaking.
The song "True Colors" is played as part of the pre-show film as an advertisement for Kodak. In Disneyland & Epcot, the song is sung by various artists, one of which is Luther Vandross. In the Disneyland Paris version, it is sung by Cyndi Lauper.
