History Main / IncredibleShrinkingMan

The plots of Shrinking Man stories tend to involve hapless victims of AppliedPhlebotinum suddenly becoming one finger tall (MagicPants included), struggling to navigate a formerly friendly environment (such as a house or yard) and spending the rest of the episode trying not to get killed or eaten while attracting the notice of normal-sized folks who might be able to change them back to normal. Don't expect the message to [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption get across to normal people immediately]], but ''do'' expect those same people to become [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom unwitting hazards]] to the tinies - after all, [[ThisIsReality people don't just shrink randomly]], so why should they be concerned about something like that happening?

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAntBully'' centers around the ants that main character Lucas Nickle bullies finding a way to get even, by shrinking him with a specially-brewed potion while he's asleep. Though Lucas is initially standoffish towards the ants, TheHighQueen suggests that he live among the ants at his new diminished size. Lucas obliges, and eventually begins making friends with a few of them - which is good, because before he was shrunken, Lucas was goaded into signing a contract by an exterminator who's going to be coming by in a few days. Thus, the lives of Lucas and all of his compatriots are at stake unless they can band together and fight back.

* ''Literature/TheIncredibleAdventuresOfKarikAndValya'' has two kids drinking some liquid and shrinking to insect size, then being whisked into nature by a dragonfly. Needless to say, the whole thing is ''very dangerous''.
%% ZCE * The British SF novel ''Literature/ColdWarInACountryGarden''.
* Shrinking is one of the ''less'' bizarre experiences Alice has in ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''.

* Two books in the ''Series/EerieIndiana'' series use this. ''The Incredible Shrinking Stanley'', in which Stanley gets splashed with [[ShrunkInTheWash special soap from the Eerie laundry mat]] and starts shrinking, and ''The Dollhouse That Time Forgot'' where Marshall, after exploring a house that looks suspiciously like the dollhouse his sister just bought, finds himself getting smaller and smaller.
* ''The Shrinking Man'' by Creator/RichardMatheson, on which the movie ''Film/TheIncredibleShrinkingMan'' was based (almost all modern editions of the novel even add the "''Incredible''" part to the book's title, as the movie is more famous).

* The plot of the young adult book ''Literature/TheSixtyEightRooms'' by Marianne Malone. Complete with a fight with a cockroach.
* In the ''Literature/RainbowMagic'' series, when Rachel and Kirsty turn into fairies they shrink in size.
* The two kids in ''Literature/SixtyEightRooms'' are shrunken to five inches. They are regular size when in the miniturized rooms and leave to enter into the past.
* This is Mike Teavee's karmic comeuppance in ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' when he fools with the Television-Chocolate Room's setup so he can be "sent by television". After all, if an image one sees on TV is smaller than the actual object was.

* Evelyn Sibley Lampman's ''Literature/TheCityUnderTheBackSteps'' details the adventures of two children in an ant colony after they're shrunk to ant size.

* The Golden Age science fiction novel ''Literature/TheGirlInTheGoldenAtom'' involves a scientist and his friends who find a way to shrink and re-enlarge themselves, and discover a [[RussianDollWorld subatomic world]] inside one atom of a gold ring. Naturally, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin given the title,]] the hero meets a pretty [[HumanAliens girl]] there and they fall in love, while he and his buddies also help the locals overthrow a tyrannical regime.

* ''Literature/MoongobbleAndMe'': In book 3, Edward gets shrunk to blend in with the titular "evil elves" so he can swipe a dangerous magical item from them. He grows back to normal while he's asleep later.
* In ''Literature/TheMermaidsSister'', the mermaid Maren grows smaller and smaller the longer she's out of the ocean. By the time she finally reaches the shore, she's shrunk from human-sized to small enough to fit in a two-quart jar.
* In ''Literature/BadMermaids: On the Rocks'', Gronnyupple and Beattie drink a shrinking potion so they can infiltrate the headquarters of Crabagram, the mermaid mail service. Unfortunately, the spell wears off after a few minutes, and the two mermaids are immediately attacked by angry crabs.

*
In John F Carson's "[[http://shrinking.freehostia.com/Pic/BoysWhoVanished The Boys Who Vanished"]] two high school boys eat an experimental mixture which shrinks them to insect size. This 1959 novel anticipates the likes of Honey I Shrunk the Kids including training an insect. Long out of print, it has re-emerged online.

In John F Carson's "[[http://shrinking.freehostia.com/Pic/BoysWhoVanished The Boys Who Vanished"]] two high school boys eat an experimental mixture which shrinks them to insect size. This 1959 novel anticipates the likes of Honey I Shrunk the Kids including training an insect. Long out of print, it is currently readable on Internet Archive.

In John F Carson's "[[http://shrinking.freehostia.com/Pic/BoysWhoVanished" The Boys Who Vanished]] two high school boys eat an experimental mixture which shrinks them to insect size. This 1959 novel anticipates the likes of Honey I Shrunk the Kids including training an insect. Long out of print, it is currently readable on Internet Archive.

In John F Carson's [[http://shrinking.freehostia.com/Pic/BoysWhoVanished"]] "The Boys Who Vanished" two high school boys eat an experimental mixture which shrinks them to insect size. This 1959 novel anticipates the likes of Honey I Shrunk the Kids including training an insect. Long out of print, it is currently readable on Internet Archive.

In John F Carson's "The Boys Who Vanished" two high school boys eat an experimental mixture which shrinks them to insect size. This 1959 novel anticipates the likes of Honey I Shrunk the Kids including training an insect. Long out of print, it is currently readable on Internet Archive.

* ''Animation/FlowerFairy'': In Season 2 episode 39, a fairy casts a magic spell that inverts the sizes of the main characters, causing An'an and her human friends to become small while An'an's fairy companion Kukuru grows to the size of a normal human. An'an and her group find that they've been shrunken to the point that they're smaller than an earthworm, as they encounter one on the ground.

* The graphic novel ''ComicBook/InTheSmall'' features this happening to every human on Earth due to a mysterious blue flash. Shrunken, terrorized by animals and unable to use most technology, they need to rebuild everything in miniature.

* ''ComicBook/InTheSmall'' has this happen to the entire human race as they are reduced to six inches tall after an unexplained Blue Flash Cataclysm, the plot follows Two Teens as they forge a community in the now much larger (and more dangerous) world.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E94FourOClock Four O'Clock]]", the fanatical ConspiracyTheorist Oliver Crangle plans to shrink all of the so-called evil people whom he believes are trying to destroy the United States at four o'clock. [[spoiler:When the time comes, Crangle is shrunk himself.]]

** And of course, there was the appearance of Ray Palmer's Atom at the end of ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis'', [[spoiler:wherein he shrinks out of existence after finding out his ex-wife killed Sue Dibny]].