George Shrinks
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George Shrinks is a television series based on the children's book by William Joyce. 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.
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[edit] Content
George is the narrator of the show. Episodes range from trips to the aquarium to work around the house, vacations with his parents and playing outside. Because of his tiny size, even mundane activities often become dramatic adventures filled with excitement and learning. 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 do not talk but show intelligence throughout the series. On two occasions, he 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 music is used as for background, 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. It is revealed several times however that it takes place in the year 2000.
[edit] Characters
[edit] People
- George Bernard Shrinks- (Voiced by Tracey Moore) — Estimated to be only 3 inches tall. Star of the show.
- Junior Shrinks — George's little brother, who often accompanies George in his adventures around the house.
- Becky-Bryn McAuley: George's best friend and his next door neighbour. They go on adventures together.
- Perdita Shrinks — George's mother, a freelance artist by trade. Often builds and sculpts with abstract style.
- Harold Shrinks — George's father, a musician in a jazz band. Constantly building and trying out new instruments, in the search for the perfect sound.
- Becky's mother
- Ellen — George's friend and neighbor. She is Chinese.
- Ellen's brother, Matt — He has an anole lizard as a pet named Ting-Ting.
- Aunt Eunice — George's aunt. She's a world wide traveller and initially does not believe George is capable of doing everyday things because of his size. He wins her respect when he fixes her bonsai tree.
- Russell; a retired veterinarian and a friend of George's who used to live in George's house as a child. George found a box of his stuff in the attic and also found his long lost toy in the pond. He also assisted in his role as a retired vet when George & Becky's animal hotel was destroyed by heavy snowfall.
[edit] Animals
- Sparkle Tangerine, a neighborhood cat; often an antagonist in the series. Sparkle Tangerine is actually drawn from the illustrations of William Joyce's original book, wherein George is often hard-pressed to escape her opportunistic advances. In at least one episode, Sparkle's activities actually proved beneficial to George's efforts.
- Goldey, a fish
- Mouse, a mouse with a broken leg that George befriends while looking for the missing squeeker in Junior's toy.
- Mrs. Rabbit, a rabbit that lives in George's yard. She has a baby rabbit, introduced when George was preparing for a snowstorm, which George has named Zipper.
- Chirpy, A baby bird George teaches hows to fly.
[edit] Vehicle
- Zooper Car — an all-purpose transport vehicle, it is George's primary form of long-distance transportation. Can change from a car to a plane, a helicopter, a boat, or a submarine. Allows George to explore areas most people would not have access to. In some episodes, it has been modified to tunnel underground. It was made by his dad. It has been broken many times.
[edit] Plants
- Maurice — Aunt Eunice's prize bonsai tree.
[edit] Episode guide
| # | Title | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | On The Road | George and his family go to Capital City for Dad's big band concert. |
| 2 | Friends and Anemones | When Junior accidentally loses his simian shrimp at an aquarium, George must set out to recover the little guys before they are eaten by residential fish. |
| 3 | If I Ran The Circus | The circus is in town, and the Shrinks family is all excited about going. But the family's plans are threatened when a surprise attack of chicken pox hits Junior hard. |
| 4 | Coach Shrinks | George makes an effort to help Becky's struggling hockey team (which hasn't scored all season) to score a goal. |
| 5 | Becky In Wonderland | George and Becky read Alice in Wonderland, and are transported into a fantasy world of caterpillars, rabbits, and creatures. |
| 6 | George Unshrinks | When George, Dad, and Junior all have dreams about being different sizes, they find out that staying their original size would have prevented a lot more problems. |
| 7 | Migrate-est Adventure | After a monarch butterfly emerges from its cocoon in George's room, George and his family track a butterfly on its migration route with a scientist. |
| 8 | Toy George | George puts on a school play of Pinocchio, featuring Junior and their first cousin once removed, Skyler. |
| 9 | Lost and Found Art | After George and Becky carelessly lose Mom's found art sculpture, they set out to recover all of the pieces before they are recycled and permanently lost. |
| 10 | If It Ain't Broke | George and Junior sneak an illegal peek at Mom's surprise birthday sculpture for Dad (something she told them not to do), and get more trouble than they bargained for. |
| 11 | Ghost of Shrinks Manor | After Dad tells a spooky ghost story, George and Becky are so convinced that there is a ghost in the Shrinks House that they forget to think about a logical explanation for the spooky goings on at night. |
| 12 | Can We Keep Him? | George nurses a mouse with an injured leg back to health, but not without upsetting Junior, who feels that the mouse has taken away all of George's attention. |
| 13 | Journey to the Centre of the Garden | George and Becky's bean project is going AWOL, so George sets out to find out what could be causing the trouble. |
| 14 | Close Encounters of The Bird Kind | George meets a new kid on the block named Becky, and helps a little bird learn to fly. |
| 15 | Dog Sitting Miss Daisy | George is planning a surprise birthday party for Becky... but her present (a little dog) keeps messing things up. |
| 16 | Ants In The Pantry | An army of ants threatens to attack the family's picnic and George tries to stop them by himself. |
| 17 | Return To Sender | When George gets trapped in a mail parcel headed to Nigeria, he ends up going all around the world in a strange turn of events. |
| 18 | Round Up The Usual Insects | George and Becky carry out another science project about bugs, but when Junior releases them all, the pair need to round them up before Mom's party is ruined. |
| 19 | The More Things Change | George and Becky find half of a treasure map belong to Russell Copeland and the trio set out with Russell's friend Edna (who has the other half) to find their buried treasure, though not without some friction between some old friends. |
| 20 | From Bad To Worse | When Aunt Eunice is left to babysit George and Junior, George sets out to prove he can do all the things a regular ten year old boy can do - but not without various mishaps. |
| 21 | George-Lo-Phone | When George is rejected by the school's band because he is too small to play the piano, George and Dad resolve to create a one-of-a-kind musical instrument to prove everyone otherwise. |
| 22 | Sunken Treasures | George and Becky find a hidden room in the attic belonging to a boy named Russell, who lived in the house 70 years ago, and after reading his journal, use George's Zoopersub to recover a lost toy. |
| 23 | Down On The Bayou | The Shrinks family take their annual camping trip, but this year, George inherits his father's special compass. |
| 24 | Snowman's Land | After a huge snowfall, everyone is having fun but a disappointed Becky, who has the measles and won't be able to make her annual snowman from the first snowfall. George decides to make one for her, but risks being lost in a terrible blizzard. |
| 25 | A Star Is Shrunk | Mom, Dad, and Aunt Eunice all get small parts in a movie being filmed in town, but George becomes the real star when he gets to stand in the for hero of the movie. |
| 26 | Monster Mash | A new neighbor proves that everyone's negative first impression of her was wrong with her clever contributions to George and company's annual Monster Movie Marathon. |
| 27 | In the Duck Soup | When Junior's beloved toy duck is broken, George and Junior take it to a local toy inventor to fix it. The duck is saved, but not safe unless George can stop a legion of flawed toy robots from wrecking Junior's duck. |
| 28 | George's Apprentice | George manages to get his parents to buy him a new cool robot, but the toy proves to be more troublesome than he anticipates. |
| 29 | The Lost World of George Shrinks | George and Ellen release Ting-ting, Ellen's older brother's lizard, when they aren't supposed to and must track it down to the local zoo while learning about following instructions. |
| 30 | Tankful of Trouble | George and Becky planned to raise a frog for a science project, but things get out of hand when they end up with a bunch of frog eggs and far too many baby frogs. |
| 31 | Zoopercar Caper | A pair of toymakers, stumped for new ideas, find out about the Zooper Car. In order to please their hard-to-please boss, they decide to acquire it from George by hook or crook. |
| 32 | All Along the Clocktower | For the town's big anniversary, everyone decides to fix up town hall and the broken clocktower attached, despite rumours that the clocktower is cursed. |
| 33 | Down the Drain | George promises to keep a ring well hidden and safe that Dad plans to give Mom for their anniversary, but ends up going through the house's drainage system when the ring accidentally falls into the sink drain. |
| 34 | Return of the Space Invaders | George, Junior, and Aunt Eunice end up meeting Manigishi (Manny for short), a space alien who needs their help repairing her crashed spaceship. She needs it too; an upcoming meteor shower will make it impossible to get back home. |
| 35 | A Day at the Beach | George and Junior are excited about taking a trip to the beach, even though Mom is suffering from artist's block near a deadline and Dad needs to come up with a new tune soon. |
| 36 | Small of the Wild | George and Becky prepare for the worst and attempt to save a yard full of animals when a bad winter storm comes around. |
| 37 | King Kongo | Junior, who's supposed to be starring in George and Becky's monster movie, is more interested in eating cookies than in acting. They decide to find a replacement right in their backyard a monkey who has escaped from the circus, but things get a little crazy when their new star crashes the arts fund-raiser which mom and dad are hosting. |
| 38 | Speed Shrinks | George and Becky enter a model car race, but need to watch out for competitors who aren't beyond cheating if it means winning. |
| 39 | George vs. the Space Invaders | Too much pepperoni pizza and scary movies along with Dad's new musical instrument have George on edge, especially when real space aliens drop by for a visit and George can't convince anyone he isn't just imagining things. |
| 40 | Hound of the Bathervilles | To raise money and awareness for a local animal shelter, George and Becky set up a pet-wash-a-matic, but finds things turning upside down when a stray dog turns out to be someone's cherished pet. |
[edit] Trivia
- William Joyce, the author of the book that was the basis for the show, also wrote Rolie Polie Olie, another successful book that was also turned into a TV series.
- If you look closely in the house scenes, you'll find that the staircase in the Shrinks' house is a 2D, remodelled version of the house staircase in Rolie Polie Olie.
- 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.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
Perdita Shrinks (in the episode "A star is shrunk") - Oh my stars! Why didn't anyone tell me I looked like the 103rd Dalmatian!
[edit] External links
- George Shrinks launches on YTV, Fall 2006
- George Shrinks Home — PBS Kids
- George Shrinks Episode Guide at Big Cartoon DataBase
- George Shrinks at the Internet Movie Database
