The Incredible Shrinking Toons

Thirty years ago today, "The Incredible Shrinking Woman" starring Lily Tomlin was released. So I've compiled a list of cartoons about characters who became tiny in their own ways.

"The Magic Bag," Felix The Cat, Trans-Lux, 1960. The Professor shrinks Felix to get him under his control, and steal the magic bag.

"The Little Man," The Jetsons, Hanna-Barbera, 1962. George is accidentally shrunk when he goes through a new machine. Mr. Spacely sees this as a chance for him to infiltrate Cogswell Cogs, and steal the cog needed to repair the machine. Later, Spacely and Cogswell are miniaturized.

"Small Spooks," The New Casper Cartoon Show, Famous Studios, 1963. The Ghostly Trio take reducing pills to shrink themselves and become small enough to terrorize insects. Casper seeks help from the Will 'O The Wisp.

"Small Change," Punkin Puss And Mush Mouse, Hanna-Barbera, 1964. Punkin Puss makes himself mouse-sized to catch Mush Mouse.

"Itty Bitty Freddy," The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera, 1964. Fred invents Fred-O-Cal, a reducing formula designed to make him lose weight. Instead, it reduces him the wrong way. He and Barney perform a ventriloquist act on the Ed Sullystone show, but what happens there is predictable.

"The Big Shrink," Underdog, Total Television, 1964. Simon Bar Sinister invents shrinking water, and uses it to shrink everyone in town, including Underdog, Sweet Polly, and even Cad, who just happens to be bigger than him.

"The Evil Collector," Space Ghost, Hanna-Barbera, 1966. The Evil Collector captures and shrinks Space Ghost, Jan, Jace, and an alien from Jupiter, and has his catlike pet Dracto chase them like mice. The tables are turned on the villain, and even the Jupiterian refuses to save him from Dracto.

"Tom Of T. H.U.M.B," Rankin-Bass, 1966. Tom and Swinging Jack are zapped by a shrink ray, and become the world's smallest agents, dealing with the agents of MAD.

"The Shrinker," The Mighty Heroes, Terry Toons, 1966. The Shrinker uses a ray on his helmet to reduce anyone and anything he sees, including the Mighty Heroes!

"Tiny World Of Terror," The Herculoids, Hanna-Barbera, 1967. Torrak shrinks the Herculoids, and engages them in combat against his warrior microorganisms.

"Birdman Meets Reducto," Birdman, Hanna-Barbera, 1967. Reducto reduces the Pentagon to a tiny building, and then shrinks Birdman. Inevitably, the villain becomes too small to see. He later resurfaced as Myron Reducto on "Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law."



"The Micro World Of Dr. Doom," The Fantastic Four, Hanna-Barbera, 1967. Dr Doom shrinks the Fantastic Four after finding his way into a microworld.

"Prisoners Of Planet X," The Fantastic Four, Hanna-Barbera, 1967. On Planet X, Reed shrinks the entire planet's population, except for Kurggo, in order to save them from being destroyed from an out of orbit planet.

"The Forbidden Pool," The Adventures Of Gulliver," Hanna-Barbera, 1968. Gary and Tag drink from the forbidden pool, and become as small as the Lilliputians. Naturally, Captain Leech takes advantage of the situation....

"The Micro Ventures," Hanna-Barbera, 1968. There were only four episodes of this series in which Professor Carter, his son Mike, and daughter Jill used their Micro Reducer to become small enough to observe insects and other tiny creatures up close. Each episode had the Professor telling scientific facts about the animals.

"The Strange Experiment," The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, Hanna-Barbera, 1968. Dr. Philastro tests his shrinking machine on Huck, making him his first human subject.

"Fantastic Voyage," Filmation, 1968. In this animated spinoff of the movie, the four members of the Combined Miniature Defense Force are reduced for a time limit of twelve hours to infiltrate enemy organizations. One episode even had them going inside Guru's body, just like in the film.

"Gulliver's Gigantic Goof," Superfriends, Hanna-Barbera, 1973. Dr. Hiram Gulliver shrinks many adults on Earth, including most of the Superfriends. Only Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog are immune to this.

"The Shaman U," Superfriends, Hanna-Barbera, 1973. A strange mist, eventually called Shamanite, shrinks some animals and plants, and enlarges others. The culprit, of course, is Dr. Shaman.

"The Incredible Changing Man," Speed Buggy, Hanna-Barbera, 1973. Speedy and his friends are up against Jerrick, a villain who can shrink or enlarge himself at will just by saying, "Metamorpho!"

"Incredible Shrinking Keith," Partridge Family: 2200 A.D, Hanna-Barbera, 1974. Danny accidentally shrinks Keith! Can he be returned to normal size in time for their gig on Minitravia?

"The Incredible Mr. Shrink," Hong Kong Phooey, Hanna-Barbera, 1974. Hong Kong Phooey and Spot set out to capture the title villain.

"Malice In Aqualand," Jabberjaw, Hanna-Barbera, 1976. Dr. Cybron builds a robot duplicate of Bubbles after capturing the real one. She shrinks Jabber and the Neptunes when she discovers their plan to fool her master.

"City In A Bottle," Superfriends, Hanna-Barbera, 1977. The Superfriends fly to another planet to rescue the citizens of Mid City and the Wonder Twins, all of whom have been reduced and imprisoned in a bottle by Mongor.

"Tiny World Of Terror," Superfriends, Hanna-Barbera, 1977. The Superfriends shrink themselves in order to pursue Professor Strickland, who's already shrunken two of his fellow scientists.

"Microgodzilla," Godzilla, Hanna-Barbera, 1979. Godzilla shrinks to near-microscopic size when the Calico passes through a pink cloud. While contending with a giant fly, the crew, especially Quinn, strives to make Godzilla big again. There's a brief comic moment when Godzooky decides to play Godzilla, and Captain Majors tells him there's no substitute for the real one.

"Time Of The Giants," Space Ghost, Hanna-Barbera, 1981. When the Phantom Cruiser goes through a radioactive cloud, Space Ghost, Jan, and Jace are miniaturized. Blip and the catlike space pirate Crugar, not being human, are unaffected.

"Microworld," Space Ghost, Hanna-Barbera, 1981. Space Ghost pursues the Toyman, who has somehow managed to shrink an entire planet!

"The Beginning," Pandamonium, Marvel Productions, 1982. In the premiere episode, Chesty, Timothy, and Algeron temporarily become tiny pandas.

"The Incredible Shrinking Wizard," The Smurfs, Hanna-Barbera, 1984. Thanks to magic pollution, Gargamel becomes tiny after falling into his own muck pond. The Smurfs get him to return to normal size by convincing him to think good thoughts instead of evil ones.

"The Incredible Shrinking Archie," The New Archies, DIC, 1987. Archie literally becomes the littlest boy in Riverdale.

"The Incredible Shrinking Turtles," Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Muirakami-Wolf-Swenson, 1988. The heroes become small reptiles. Can they deal with Shredder at this size?

"An Inside Job," Captain Planet And The Planeteers," DIC, 1992. When his fellow Planeteers and Sly Sludge are shrunk, Kwame unknowingly swallows them when he drinks the glass of water containing them! There was another episode with tiny Planeteers as well.

"Shrink Rap," Jackie Chan Adventures, Columbia, 2002. Jackie and Hack Foo are shrunken, and begin fighting each other.

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