History Film / Big

How did this happen? Well, Josh Baskin (David Moscow) was your average 13-year-old boy, who liked to play baseball and trade baseball cards. One evening, while he was at a carnival with his family, he tried to impress an older girl who was standing in line at a rollercoaster. But it backfired when the carnival worker pointed out he was [[YouMustBeThisTallToRide too short to go on the ride]]. Disappointed, he comes across the eerie-looking "Zoltar Speaks" wishing machine. With the machine, Josh wishes he was "big". The next morning, Josh awakens to find he's become a grown adult (Creator😹/TomHanks). He tries to go back to the carnival site but finds everything, including the wishing machine, gone. He tries to go home, but his mother mistakes him for an intruder, and he gets chased out.

How did this happen? Well, Josh Baskin (David Moscow) was your average 13-year-old boy, who liked to play baseball and trade baseball cards. One evening, while he was at a carnival with his family, he tried to impress an older girl who was standing in line at a rollercoaster. But it backfired when the carnival worker pointed out he was [[YouMustBeThisTallToRide too short to go on the ride]]. Disappointed, he comes across the eerie-looking "Zoltar Speaks" wishing machine. With the machine, Josh wishes he was "big". The next morning, Josh awakens to find he's become a grown adult (Tom Hanks). He tries to go back to the carnival site but finds everything, including the wishing machine, gone. He tries to go home, but his mother mistakes him for an intruder, and he gets chased out.

* FellAsleepCrying: Josh cries himself to sleep on his first night as an adult, and no wonder. Nobody knows who he is, he's staying in a fleabag hotel in the BigRottenApple, and somebody just got shot in one of the other rooms.

''Big'' is a 1988 film produced by Creator/JamesLBrooks and directed by Penny Marshall, starring Creator/TomHanks as a 13-year-old boy in the body of a 30-something man.

How did this happen? Well, Josh Baskin (David Moscow) was your average 13-year-old boy, who liked to play baseball and trade baseball cards. One evening, while he was at a carnival with his family, he tried to impress an older girl who was standing in line at a rollercoaster. But it backfired when the carnival worker pointed out he was [[YouMustBeThisTallToRide too short to go on the ride]]. Disappointed, he comes across the eerie-looking "Zoltar Speaks" wishing machine. With the machine, Josh wishes he was "big". The next morning, Josh awakens to find he's become a grown adult (Tom Hanks). He tries to go back to the carnival site but finds everything, including the wishing machine, gone. He tries to go home, but his mother mistakes him for an intruder, and he gets driven out.

->''Have you ever had a really big secret?''

* MagicPants: Averted. Josh wakes up as an adult in the same undies he went to bed in before. Later a BrickJoke [[spoiler:when Josh goes back to being a kid. The suit he wore didn't shrink with him.]]

* NoodleIncident: Susan is particularly offended at Paul for bringing up a guy named Golding in a list of her past relationships, though we never learn why .

** Made into a CrowningMomentOfFunny when after everybody laughs at his tuxedo, Josh thinks his fly is down and tries to discreetly check.

* OvernightAgeUp: TropeCodifier.

* FaceOnAMilkCarton: When Paul and Susan have breakfast, they have a milk carton on the table with Josh's child face on it. All while talking about Adult Josh who seems to have come from nowhere.

* DefrostingIceQueen:

* DefrostingIceQueen / SugarAndIcePersonality: Susan. Ste starts off cold, mistrusting of people, but Josh's innocence and kindness warms her up.

* ManChild: Josh Baskin comes off this way, he really is a 12-year-old boy in the body of an adult due to a wish he made to become taller so he could ride a roller coaster at the carnival. It gets [[{{Squick}} Squicky]] when, in an attempt to prove to his mother he's really her son despite having a 30-year-old's physique, he [[StealthPun briefly]] pulls down his pants to show her his [[GoofyPrintUnderwear little-boy underwear]] (mostly to show his birthmark), and she [[AccidentalPervert naturally freaks out]].

* PersonalArcade: One of the things Josh gets in his rapid rise up the corporate world is a ''[[Pinball/PinBot Pin*Bot]]'' pinball machine.

* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay / TrustPassword:

* FaceOnAMilkCarton: When Paul and Susan have breakfast, they have a milk carton on the table with Josh's child face on it.

** Paul. He doesn't like how this new guy moved up the ladder so quickly and his apparent obfuscatingStupidity keeps getting Paul embarrassed.

-->'''Josh:''' ''187 dollars?!''\\

* BigBad: Paul.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Paul, due to only caring about profit and not imagination.
* DefrostingIceQueen / SugarAndIcePersonality: Susan.

* HonestCorporateExecutive: Mr. [=MacMillan=].

** Paul.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Billy.

-->'''Josh:''' ''187 dollars?!''
-->'''Scott:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Yeah. They really screw you don't they?]]

Desperate, he turns to his best friend, Billy Kopecki (Jared Rushton), for help. With a little money, he goes to [[BigApplesauce New York City]] where he gets an entry-level job at the [=MacMillan=] Toy Company so he can support himself until he tracks down the Zoltar machine. While there, his childlike viewpoint and honesty helps him gain favor with the CEO, [=Mr. MacMillan=] (Robert Loggia), and he moves up the ranks of the company quickly. Which is how he meets Susan Lawrence ([[{{Weeds}} Elizabeth Perkins]]), an ambitious fellow executive. They soon fall for each other, although Josh starts to wonder: Should he stay with Susan or go back to his life as a 13-year-old?

''Big'' is a 1988 film produced by Creator/JamesLBrooks and directed by Penny Marshall, starring Creator/TomHanks as a 13-year-old boy in the body of a 30-something man. How did this happen? Well, Josh Baskin (David Moscow) was your average 13-year-old boy, who liked to play baseball and trade baseball cards. One evening, while he was at a carnival with his family, he tried to impress an older girl who was standing in line at a rollercoaster. But it backfired when the carnival worker pointed out he was [[YouMustBeThisTallToRide too short to go on the ride]]. Disappointed, he comes across the eerie-looking "Zoltar Speaks" wishing machine. With the machine, Josh wishes he was "big". The next morning, Josh awakens to find he's become a grown adult (Tom Hanks). He tries to go back to the carnival site but finds everything, including the wishing machine, gone. He tries to go home, but his mother mistakes him for an intruder, and he gets driven out.

** When calling his mother, she asks Adult Josh to confirm her son is all right by having him sing a song she used to sing to him when he was a child. Embarrassed, Adult Josh tries to ask for another question, but when his mother insists, he panics a little as he doesn't remember the song right away.

* BenevolentGenie: Josh wished to be big, which is vague enough that a JackassGenie or LiteralGenie could have subverted it any number of ways. But the Zoltar machine interprets the wish exactly how Josh intended it. The only surprise for Josh is that it actually ''worked.''