Dr. Shrinker

Plot

Dr. Shrinker, a mad scientist portrayed by Jay Robinson, built a ray that could shrink anything down to a tiny size. Three teenagers—Brad Fulton, B.J. Masterson, and her brother Gordie—crashed their plane on an island. Heading to the only house there, they met Dr. Shrinker and his assistant, Hugo. To demonstrate his invention worked, the doctor zapped the trio down to six inches tall. For the rest of the series, the three, called the Shrinkies, tried to get back to normal, while Dr. Shrinker and Hugo hunted them as proof of the ray’s power for a potential buyer. The doctor once mentioned he would throw in the Shrinkies as a free extra, though in another episode he planned to sell the ray to the top bidder and the Shrinkies to the runner-up. Each episode followed the same loop, as Dr. Shrinker himself put it: he chases them, catches them, and they escape—a vicious cycle driving him crazy. The idea might have come from the 1940 movie Dr. Cyclops, where a scientist in the jungle shrinks colleagues to keep his work secret. Dr. Shrinker ran for just one season on The Krofft Supershow. It was cut for the second season, along with the superhero segment Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. One episode, “Slowly I Turn,” appears on the Krofft Box Set DVD. In 2005, Marty Krofft said he and his brother planned to record commentary for a DVD release of the show.