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Wayne Szalinski is the protagonist of Disney's 1989 live-action film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, its 1992-1997 sequels, and the television series in the franchise.

Background[]

Physical appearance[]

Wayne is around a 5 ft tall man with short brown hair and glasses. He is usually always dressed either formally or semi-formally. He is somewhat shorter than his wife, Diane, and many others that he's encountered over the years. Although not very strong physically, he compensates physical strength with mental strength.

Powers and abilities[]

Wayne is known to possess several abilities he's shown throughout his life.

  • Intelligence: One of his greatest abilities is his intelligence. As an inventor, he has been shown to solve one problem after another, even when he's responsible for said problems.

Role in the films[]

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids[]

Wayne is an inventor who is struggling to get his shrinking machine to work. He tests it out on an apple, but rather than shrinking it, it blows it up instead. While it's an interesting way of making applesauce, it causes Wayne great frustration, as he has a conference at the lab later that afternoon and must be able to demonstrate that the machine actually works.

At the conference, Wayne is laughed at by the audience when he can't prove that the machine works. When he gets home, he finds his two children, Amy and Nick, missing. When he goes up into the attic, he finds some of the furniture (including his beloved "thinking couch") missing as well. He also notices that the window is broken. He takes his frustration out on the machine, destroys it, and sweeps up the debris into the trash.

Unbeknownst to Wayne, however, the machine actually works. It had shrunk Amy and Nick, as well as Russ Jr. and Ron Thompson, the two boys next door, and he had accidentally swept them up and thrown them out with the trash. He spends the rest of the day desperately looking for them.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid[]

Wayne and his family, after the shrinking incident, move to Nevada. Amy heads off to college and Wayne is raising his third child, Adam. Being the only one to constantly improve Adam's playpen so he doesn't get out of it, he is also responsible for a project to duplicate his shrinking machine with a new growing one. After constant failure, he continues working on it alongside Dr. Charles Hendrickson. Afterward, he, Nick, and Adam go to the lab to run some tests and he decides to use Adam's favorite toy, Big Bunny, as a test subject.

During the tests, Adam ends up in the line of fire and like Big Bunny, he is hit with the same electrical energy. Upon returning home, Wayne decides to fix him some lunch and while he leaves to talk with Nick, Adam is exposed to the microwave's energy and grows. When shocked to see his unnatural size, Wayne decides to return to the lab and reverse the process. Before doing so, they discover Dr. Hendrickson is there, who relieves Wayne off the project. Eventually returning home, Wayne finds that Diane is home, who has discovered overgrown Big Bunny, and so he decides to tell her the truth.

When confronting Diane, Adam comes into the house and causes her to faint at the sight of his unnatural size. She almost kills Wayne because of what happened, and after trying to get Adam to stop his playful rampage around the house, he manages to fix a huge playpen for him. He continues to seek a solution for Adam's condition and realizes the only one is his shrinking machine. Leaving Nick to watch over Adam, he and Diane head to the Sterling Labs Warehouse to find it. Succeeding in doing so, he assembles it on the way home and successfully tests it on two police officers.

Upon confronting Dr. Hendrickson and Clifford Sterling, the CEO of Sterling Labs, who fires the former and assists Wayne in helping to get Adam back to normal size. While going after him, Wayne, Diane, Sterling, and Marshal Preston Brooks all get ahead of him before he heads for Las Vegas. Wayne's first plan consists of Big Bunny which ends in failure after he says the word "nap", which is what Adam hates the most. Adam then heads for Las Vegas with Nick and Mandy in his overalls' pocket and grows at an alarming rate. After crossing an ice cream truck, Wayne realizes that Adam loves ice cream and so Marshal Brooks drives it in order to get him away from the city.

Wayne's plan seemed to have worked, however, Adam grabs the ice cream bar right off the roof of the truck and takes a bite out of it. Diane then brings up the idea that Wayne should make her big and despite his protest, she insists on it. Reluctantly he does so in order for her to get Adam to stay still and succeeds in returning them back to normal size. The next problem is to find where Nick and Mandy are due to the fact that they were still in Adam's pocket when he was returned to normal size, and therefore were shrunk. After finding them, Wayne decides to leave them alone for a bit while consulting Diane about Big Bunny.

Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves[]

Wayne and his brother, Gordon, are working on a science fair and as they come home, they use the shrinking machine to shrink a Tiki Man statue, but as it recharges, it accidentally forces a red pool ball to press the button and shrink them too.

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

Promotional Images[]

Screenshots[]

References[]

v - e - d
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Logo
Media
Honey, I Shrunk the KidsHoney, I Blew Up the KidHoney, We Shrunk OurselvesShrunkHoney, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show (episode list)
Disney Parks
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set AdventureHoney, I Shrunk the Audience
Characters
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Wayne SzalinskiDiane SzalinskiAmy SzalinskiNick SzalinskiQuarkRuss Thompson, Sr.Mae ThompsonRuss Thompson, Jr.Ron ThompsonDr. BrainardProfessor FredericksonAntieThe ScorpionTommy PervisDon ForresterGloria Forrester
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid: Adam SzalinskiDr. Charles HendricksonClifford SterlingMandy Park
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves: Gordon SzalinskiPatti SzalinskiJenny SzalinskiMitch SzalinskiRicky King
Honey, I Shrunk the Audience: Gigabyte
Locations
CaliforniaNevadaColorado
See Also
Szalinzki's Shrinking MachineSzalinski's Growing MachineSzalinzki's Shrinking Machine 2.0
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