George Shrinks

George Shrinks
Main title
Format	Animated series
Created by	William Joyce
Starring	Robbi Jay Thuet Bryn McAuley Paul O'Sullivan Tracey Moore Kathleen Laskey
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	40
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Production company(s)	Jade Animation PBS Nelvana
Broadcast
Original channel	PBS (2000) TVO (2000)
Original run	September 30, 2000 (2000-09-30) – December 1, 2001 (2001-12-01)

George Shrinks is a American animated television series based on the children's book by William Joyce, produced in Japan by Jade Animation and in Canada by Nelvana, in association with PBS. It tells the story of a ten-year-old boy named George Shrinks who, for unexplained reasons, is only three inches tall. The show details his adventures with his friends and family and riding in his "Zooper car".

The series started on September 30, 2000 on PBS Kids as part of PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch. The Bookworm Bunch disbanded in 2004, but George Shrinks was given an individual PBS debut on January 6, 2003. The first season consisted of forty episodes, targeted at children five years old and under. The final show aired in mid-2004, though it is still in syndication. The show should have been aired in Nick Jr. but it still canceled.

The original book version had a younger boy who awakes one morning to find himself tiny. He has an encounter with a cat, flies a miniature plane, sails in an ocean-sized tub, eats gigantic food, and rides on top of his giant sized toddler brother before he abruptly grows back to normal size.

Content

George is the narrator of the show. Because of George's tiny size, even mundane activities, such as working around the house or playing outside, often become dramatic adventures. His primary mode of transportation is his Zooper Car, a multi-purpose device able to transform into a helicopter, submarine, or plane. George often has interesting encounters with animals who, although they do not talk, seem to be able to communicate with George throughout the series. On two occasions, he has encountered robotic aliens his own size, and helped them get back home.

The show affects a retro-1940s look, with simple animation and colors. Primarily jazz is used for background music, reflecting both his father's occupation as a musician who tinkers with inventing new musical instruments and his mother's style as an avant-garde artist. However, statements made in the characters' dialogue imply that events take place in the year 2000, or the year that the showing episode was produced and filmed.

Characters

• George Shrinks — George, age ten, is the main character of the series. For reasons which are not explained in the story, he is three inches tall but it seems George was born small; his golden plated baby shoes were extremely tiny seen in "Round Up The Usual Insects". Because of his small stature, George has had to invent his own adaptive devicees, most notably the Zoopercar (a small vehicle which George built with his father, and which can be automatically transformed into an airplane, a helicopter, or a submarine). Another invention is a system of pneumatic tubes, which George also uses for transportation.
• Junior Shrinks — George's baby brother, who often accompanies George in his adventures around the house. Junior is estimated to be somewhere between the age of 2 - 5 in a sense, he is George's "sidekick" and "gopher", doing the tasks that are too difficult for George because of the latter's stature. However, his playfulness and his size sometimes leads to accidents, though Junior's sincere "Sowwy, George," always gets his brother to forgive him.
• Becky Lopez — George's best friend who lives next door. She and George go on many exploits and adventures. Becky is also the captain for a Little League ice hockey team called the Storks, whose terribly bad goal-scoring drought was the focus of one of the later episodes.
• "Mom" Perdita Shrinks — Mom is a freelance artist by trade who builds, sculpts and welds with a very abstract style. She is a member of the town's art committee, and is into organic foods. Mom is also very supportive of the projects that the family and kids work on, and she enjoys helping out in the community.
• "Dad" Harold Shrinks — Dad is a musician in a jazz band, and he is constantly building and trying out new instruments (most of which resemble oversized and distorted tubas and saxophones) in the search for the "perfect sound". Dad is a bit eccentric, but still loves his family and is a good father.

Other, minor and one-time characters

• Timmy and Jimmy Fortevoce— Timmy and Jimmy are identical twins, members of Becky's hockey team—Jimmy plays center and Timmy plays defense. Despite appearing in just two episodes, they still play an important role as supporting members of the cast. In Italian, their last name literally means "Loud Voice".

• Aunt Eunice— Aunt Eunice is George and Junior's great aunt (but whom the entire family calls 'aunt'), who sometimes serves as their babysitter. The first time she watched the boys, she was very patronizing toward George, treating him as though his size were a handicap and "assisting" him at every turn. However, Aunt Eunice's ways are changed when George fixes her prized plant, a Bonsai tree named "Maurice", which has seemingly been damaged beyond repair. She has travelled around the world; as such, she knows a great deal about different places as well as people. The boys' mother Perdita is Eunice's niece.

• Ellen— Ellen is a kindhearted girl next door with a Chinese nationality. Despite only appearing in three episodes, Ellen plays a major role in two of them. Ellen is a fan of old horror movies and enjoys playing harmless practical jokes. She has an older brother, Matt, who is the owner of an anole lizard named Ting-Ting (which, as Ellen describes, is literally Chinese for "Gracfuly Gracful"). She is left-handed and a member of the Storks, Becky's hockey team, as a forward on the left wing.

• Hilda and Henry— Hilda and Henry are two blond-haired, glasses wearing fraternal twins. They say almost everything in unison and only appear in two episodes. They enjoy playing tricks on one another, such as during a scary movies night at the Shrinks' residence. They are somewhat competitive, but are good friends with George and Becky.

• Helga— Helga is the goaltender for the Storks, a Little League Hockey Team that is the focus of the episode "Coach Shrinks". This episode is her only appearance, in which she plays a major role. She usually wears glasses, except on the ice because the lenses fog up.

• Lizzy — Lizzy is the right-wing forward for the Storks, Becky's little League Hockey Team. She's skilled at turning on the spot because of her previous experience figure skating; she joined a hockey team because she felt figure skating was lonely and wanted to join a team.

• Russell Copeland— Russell is a kindhearted senior that used to live in George's house as a boy. He is also a retired veterinarian.

• The Cadwells— Seen only in the episode "Speed Shrinks", they are two twins similar to Hilda and Henry, but they are somewhat villainous. They build a craft similar to the SR-71 Blackbird and use its special features to sabotage and unfairly halt the other racers in order to win.

Episode guide

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (September 2007)

• In the episode In the Duck Soup, Harold and Perdita (the parents) use "snookums" as a nickname for each other. This nickname is a shortened version of "ookums snookums", a name used between the parents in Rolie Polie Olie.

• Several episode titles (like Becky in Wonderland) are parodies of famous titles and sayings. Many are reworked movie titles, such as, On the Road In the Duck Soup, Close Encounters of The Bird Kind, A Star is Shrunk and King Kongo. Other episodes use book titles, i.e. Journey to the Centre of the Garden, Becky in Wonderland, If I Ran the Circus , Small of the wild and Hound of the Bathervilles. These titles are based on Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Circus, Jack London's The Call of the Wild and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. George's Apprentice is a parody of Goethe's poem Der Zauberlehrling (in English The Sorcerer's Apprentice.) Round Up The Usual Insects refers to a quip by Captain Renault (played by Claude Rains) in Casablanca: "Round up the usual suspects." Down on the Bayou and Return to sender are song titles.

• Some episodes feature characters playing one of the background songs of the show. This song is the same piece that George plays on the piano and the George-Lo-Phone in the episode of the same name. It's also the same song that Harold Shrinks plays on an invented instrument in Tankful of Trouble.

• In the episode George vs. the Space Invaders, George's father builds a spills and chills type instrument called the Scarimin. This is a play on the word Theremin, an instrument that makes a similar sound.

• George has been on all seven continents of the world; this happened when he got himself into a mail parcel that was to be sent to Africa as a birthday present for a pen pal. However, the parcel ended up going all over the world until it was finally brought to the right place. It would normally take weeks for a parcel to be sent around the world, but it only appears to take George a few days. This happened in the episode Return to Sender.

• In the episode Coach Shrinks, George says "It's Hockey Night in Shrinksville!" as his family plays a game of table hockey. This is an obvious parody of the show Hockey Night in Canada.

• In the episode From Bad to Worse, George says that he has used his dish washing system "a hundred jillion times". However, we never see it in any other episode.

• In the episode Dog Sitting Miss Daisy, Becky's mom comes to the Shrink's house and George calls her Mrs. Lopez, hence hinting that is Becky's last name

• The theme song, in a jump blues style, is sung by Canadian blues musician Colin James.

PBS Funding

• Hasbro (2000-2003)
• "Viewers Like You" (2003-2004)

External links

• George Shrinks Episode Guide at Big Cartoon DataBase
• George Shrinks at the Internet Movie Database