“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” Cast Reunites With Antie—and Little Russ Is Still Gorgeous

The Kids Reunite With Antie And Suddenly It Is 1989 Again

When I was an 8-year-old boy, one of my first crushes was Little Russ from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids—and OMG, Thomas Wilson Brown is still absolutely gorgeous. Some childhood crushes fade into a blurry VHS memory. Others walk back onto your screen decades later and make you say, “Well, hello again.”

The real emotional sneak attack, however, arrives when Brown reunites with fellow cast members Amy O’Neill and Jared Rushton beside the surviving remains of Antie, the giant mechanical ant who carried the tiny kids across the backyard and then emotionally destroyed an entire generation.

Host and collector Dan Lanigan introduces the three former child stars to an artifact that has definitely seen better days. Most of Antie’s outer skin and hair are gone, leaving behind the exposed mechanical structure that once helped make the creature feel startlingly alive.

Brown, who played Little Russ Thompson, O’Neill, who played Amy Szalinski, and Rushton, who played Ron Thompson, immediately begin pulling memories from the battered prop. They remember its enormous scale, the crew required to operate it and the strange reality of acting opposite a creature roughly the size of a horse or moose.

And this was not just a reunion of three kids from one beloved movie. Brown, O’Neill and Rushton were among the era’s most recognizable young performers, turning up across the films, soaps, sitcoms and television dramas that shaped late-’80s and early-’90s childhood.

Thomas Wilson Brown Was Already A Young Western And TV Standout

Before Little Russ made him a childhood-crush fixture, Thomas Wilson Brown debuted as Augie in Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado and led the television Western Louis L’Amour’s Down the Long Hills. After Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, he appeared opposite Winona Ryder and Jeff Daniels in Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael and took on his most substantial television role as troubled teenager Jason Lochner on Knots Landing. So yes, Little Russ was cute—but Brown had already been riding through Hollywood since childhood.

Amy O’Neill Was A Familiar Face Across ’80s Television

Amy O’Neill had built a busy television résumé before becoming Amy Szalinski, with appearances on Mama’s Family, Night Court, Highway to Heaven, The Twilight Zone and Family Ties. She also played teenage mother Molly Stark during a recurring run on The Young and the Restless and appeared in the widely watched miniseries I Know My First Name Is Steven. O’Neill later returned as Amy in Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, while adding guest roles on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Young Riders and Murder, She Wrote.

Jared Rushton Was Everywhere From “Big” To “Overboard”

Jared Rushton may have the most instantly recognizable run of the three. He played Charlie, one of Goldie Hawn’s onscreen sons, in Overboard, then became Tom Hanks’ loyal best friend Billy in Big. He also appeared in Lady in White, starred as stranded teenager Brian Robeson in A Cry in the Wild, played Chip on Roseanne and later terrorized a new generation as Clyde Parker in Pet Sematary Two. For several years, Rushton was practically thee designated best friend, smart-mouth and neighborhood troublemaker of American movies.

The reunion also becomes a miniature lesson in how movies were physically built before digital effects could replace almost anything. Antie’s movements came from mechanical controls, cables and a team of hidden operators dressed in black. The creature’s body was covered in hair and kept slick with gel so its surface caught the light like a living insect.

Seeing the machinery exposed is fascinating, but the cast never treats Antie as merely a piece of equipment. Rushton’s Ron formed the closest bond with the creature in the film, and the reunion circles back to the moment Antie helped transform the tough neighborhood kid into someone openly capable of tenderness.

O’Neill remembers worrying about how Rushton might react to seeing the damaged prop because the relationship between Ron and Antie became one of the movie’s sweetest emotional turns. The kids in theaters understood it too. When Antie sacrificed himself protecting them from the scorpion, there were tears—and apparently some of us still have not fully recovered.

That attachment is exactly why artifacts like this matter. Antie is no longer polished, furry or ready for his close-up, but the surviving structure still holds the memories of the performers, craftspeople and moviegoers who believed in him. It is not simply an old prop. It is the physical evidence of how an entire emotional relationship was built by hand.

Watch The “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids” Cast Reunite With Antie

Thomas Wilson Brown, Amy O’Neill and Jared Rushton examine what remains of the giant mechanical ant and remember the practical effects, hidden operators and emotional storyline that made Antie unforgettable.

Source: Cinema Relics and the Walt Disney Archives.