(JEFF GROWLING)
On a colossal planet...
(SCREAMS)
...full of towering megacities.
REPORTER: (OVER RADIO) It's alive! A gigantic beast stalking the earth.
Raging through the streets on a rampage of total destruction.
Why on earth are we so drawn to the...
tiny things.
We're constantly told that, "Bigger is better.
"Demand more, super-size everything." Oh, there I am. (CHUCKLES)
Sorry about that.
And yet, small has become a global obsession.
Venture online and you can enter a surreal world of miniacs.
Hashtag tiny things has, get this, 1.2 billion likes on TikTok.
Hey, but here's what I want to know, have we all lost our puny minds?
Hello! Howdy doody? We all, well, so many of us, are so interested
and fascinated by tiny stuff. Come with me as we find out if less is more.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: Los Angeles, City of Angels, Tinseltown.
You know, when it comes to show business,
everybody's looking for the next big thing.
Well, it turns out that the next big thing is really, really tiny.
Inside this place, there's something teensy weensy going on
that people all over the world are going crazy about.
I'll say no more.
Hello. Stage C? Hello? Oh...
Door feels nice.
Hello!
I'm drawn like a moth to a flame. I know where there's shooting going on.
I see lights, I see a burly man with heavy equipment,
he winks at me, that's the good spirit of the crew member.
-And... -Hello.
Hey, I like the way you said, "Hello." Say it again.
-Hello. Hello. -Hello. You did. You said that,
-"Hello." -Hello.
JEFF: Chef Hannah is the face or should I say the hands of Tiny Kitchen.
That bite-sized cooking show with over 4.3 million followers,
and that's just on Instagram and TikTok.
The food may look too good to be true but every mouthful is real.
Now, if you've never heard of this kind of thing,
don't worry 'cause I'm also feeling confused.
I'm flummoxed, but intrigued. Hannah, you interest me strangely.
Why is it so popular? Why do people like it so much?
Part of it is just how strange it is.
-Strange. -To see like a giant hand going
into a little area, and it's all kind of mesmerizing.
-It is. -And then I think a lot of the fans
think that watching this is somehow relaxing.
I come to this fresh as a daisy...
-Yeah. -...you know?
-So, indoctrinate me. -HANNAH: Well, first... Yeah. So, today
we're going to film you instead of me making the episode, so...
-What? -Yeah.
-(HESITATES) Okay. -And it's not as easy as it looks,
I'll tell you that. Just don't make a mess 'cause we don't have a tiny maid
-to clean up for us. -Why would I make a mess?
-I'm not going to make a mess. -(CHUCKLES)
What? Do I like a messy person? I'm not going to make a mess.
Quiet on the set, quiet on the set.
Okay, let's please give a big hand
to your culinary substitute guest host, Chef Goldblum.
-That's me. Look at that! Oh, thanks. -HANNAH: Yeah. (CHUCKLING)
JEFF: Today, I'm going to be cooking spaghetti and meatballs.
Only they're going to be weirdly shrimpy-sized.
This should be a piece of cake, easy as pie. Watch this.
Okay, here goes. And action. There's Mr. Hand.
-And I did that nicely that time. -Okay. Yeah.
JEFF: Okay, watch this, watch and enjoy.
-(MUMBLES, GROANS) -HANNAH: It's fine.
Here's some salt. You're going to season it.
-JEFF: Okay, like that? Wow. -HANNAH: That's good. Yeah.
HANNAH: So, now you're going to stir this.
-This is going to be your pasta dough. -JEFF: Okay.
-Okay. -Oh, God in heaven. Well, this is hard.
HANNAH: Just do your best.
JEFF: Papa time. Kneading this dough.
-HANNAH: That's okay. -JEFF: Uh-oh. Uh-oh. This is terrible.
(LAUGHS) Do you should see what's happening to the table?
JEFF: Oh, I see, the whole table is moving. Sorry.
HANNAH: (LAUGHING) I know. This is....
-(GRUNTS) Heaven's sakes. Okay. -HANNAH: Uh-oh.
JEFF: What? This is not a two-hander. And fire in the hole.
-HANNAH: There you go. -JEFF: Cutting the pasta goes like this.
-Oh! -HANNAH: (LAUGHS) See...
-JEFF: God Almighty! -HANNAH: Now, you're knife's...
-JEFF: More of a certain kind. -Maybe there are people who like watching
tiny disasters happen.
Maybe we could rename the show,
-"Tiny Disasters." -"Tiny Disasters."
-JEFF: Yes. -HANNAH: Yeah.
But as you can see, it's not relaxing really, to do.
Like, do you feel relaxed doing it?
-Well, you're right. My back is already... -(CHUCKLES)
I'm going to send you a bill. It's Dr. Mesh Besher, he's not cheap.
(HANNAH LAUGHING)
And what do people get out of it, you think?
HANNAH: Maybe, it's like an escape from the real world.
Like, the stress of actually cooking your family a real dinner.
Wait a minute. They go, "I'm so stressed from cooking for my family,
-"I want to watch somebody cook a tiny... -HANNAH: Yes.
-"...tiny little meal." -HANNAH: It makes them feel better,
'cause they're like, "That would be so much harder."
JEFF: I would think they'd freak out.
I mean, I'm certainly feeling the heat,
but for the millions of folks who eat this up online,
well, I guess it's pleasurable viewing.
(WHISPERS) What are we listening for?
-Sizzle. -The sizzling of the meatballs...
(PAN SIZZLING)
JEFF: It says here, minuscule things have a way of stimulating our senses.
The slightest sound...
or sight...
or smell, taste or touch can spark minute chain reactions in our bodies.
(OPERA MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: Our tongues rejoice in thousands of taste buds.
Our fingertips tingle with 3,000 touch receptors,
and each one of us is packed with enough itty-bitty nerve cells
to circle the earth three times.
It's the reason that just a spark of electricity can make us flinch,
and a whisper can get you to gasp.
Every last inch on us is hardwired to react to a fly speck of stimuli.
What are you going to do with it? Give me that thing.
-Get out of my show. -(CHUCKLES)
-(OPERA MUSIC INTENSIFIES) -JEFF: Oh, it's sliding slowly
-and covering. Yes! -HANNAH: It's amazing.
JEFF: Look at that!
I guess I had a couple of shaky moments but you know, to me,
it's looking pretty good, I think.
-Oh! -HANNAH: Beautiful.
JEFF: Of course, I'm not the one to judge
but Hannah has invited some life-sized food critics...
How delicious.
JEFF: Cheers.
...to test the power of my dinky meatballs.
Wow!
-CAROLINE: Yeah, good? Flavorful? -It's a real meatball.
You know, I'm so gifted. I'm so gifted. I have goosebumps right now.
-Yeah. -I have goosebumps right now.
(ALL LAUGH)
All right, so, you guys. What do you think? Because I was told,
and I'm a little nervous because I made that.
You're actual food critics and are all super fans. What's the story?
I think, there's, like, the cute factor. Like, we like that it's so adorable.
Caroline and I were actually talking about, like...
thinking back to when we played with Barbies.
-CAROLINE: Dolls, yeah. -Or dolls.
And like setting a scene for them to live in.
So, does seeing this show bring you back to a time of childhood?
Does it make you feel, "Hey, I'm young again."
You know, its tiny food, but it makes you feel like a giant.
Takes me back to, like, childhood, you know?
JEFF: I can't thank you enough.
I'd like to say to Hannah...
-Kudos to the chef. -Oh...
-Thank you. -Fantastic.
Aren't you a little starstruck?
-I am. -Oh, yes!
-And amazed with your work. -Yeah, but how about with Hannah?
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
Well, how about that. That started us off, didn't it?
Here's my question. Is this a trend? Or is there something...
deeper with our connection to things that are miniature and small?
I think there's something in that. I really do.
Down the hatch, down my little hatch.
(GASPS)
All right. Fine and dandy. Let's see what else we can discover.
-(EXHALES) -(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: In an age of humungous stress,
maybe toy-like things have the power to unlock our inner child.
But are we all just desperate to be kids again,
or can our lifelong love of pint-sized stuff
reveal something more important about how we think?
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: Legoland! An entire civilization, but scaled way down.
Most of the citizens are only four inches tall,
but there are thousands of them, and they're from all walks of life.
Billions of kids across the globe go nutsy-cuckoo for Lego.
I've only become acquainted in the last couple of years.
But now it's time to sit up and pay attention.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
JEFF: Hey, guys. Welcome to Legoland.
I'm here to consult with the bona fide experts.
But I think that they can already sense that I don't really fit in.
-Oh, my gosh. Sorry there. -(GIGGLES)
JEFF: I'm going to have to get down to a different level.
'Cause sometimes all you need is the honest clear-eyed perspective
of a tot or two.
There's a guy in the port-a-potty.
-CHILD 1: He's reading a newspaper. -JEFF: He's reading a newspaper?
-CHILD 2: In the... On the potty? -JEFF: Yeah, some people do that.
(LAUGHING) Well, I guess my line of questioning
should really direct their attentions more specifically.
Now, look. You can all answer at once. Why do you like to build Legos?
CHILD 3: Because you can build everything that you want out of it.
You can build everything you want out of them, and because what?
It feels like you have control of, like, the universe.
Did you hear that? It feels like you have control over the universe.
We adults may have dominion over most stuff
but Lego puts the kids in charge
giving them the power and the freedom to create worlds of their very own.
And you know, it certainly has become a phenomenon,
with seven Lego sets sold every single second.
And an estimated 62 bricks for every human being on the planet,
which is enough to reach the moon ten times over.
It seems like a whole lot of people might be hankering for that divine control.
-Who is this enormous man? -I am Matthew Slagel.
-How tall are you? 7' 2", I believe. -I am many bricks tall.
He's going to be our guide, our tutor, our shaman, our mentor.
-MATTHEW: Yeah. -We are going to make self-portraits
out of Lego.
That's the fun thing about Legos, you can make them however you want.
So, however you see yourself, you can build you as yourself.
-Okay. -MATTHEW: So, you need two shoes.
-CHILD 1: Okay. -JEFF: I'd like something in the cordovan,
size 12 and a half, please.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
-CHILD 2: Awesome. -You're dismantling your shins. Why?
You're taking yourself apart. Interesting.
This is me and I'm decomposing myself, says Gideon.
What he's doing here, may look like the play
of the kiddiewink or the stripling, but it's the basis of how we all learn.
(UPBEAT MUSIC FADES)
JEFF: Psychologists call it decomposition. Hey! Isn't that what I said? I said that.
(CHUCKLES)
When a notion or a concept is just too massive to comprehend,
reducing it to its parts and its sub-parts can not only make it more manageable,
but it can lead to whole new ways of thinking.
This is how computer programmers and engineers,
architects and scientists, approach their toughest challenges.
From the seed of an idea to a spark of inspiration,
our entire society and culture is built on pipsqueakian foundations.
And that's something that the tykes, the rug rats, the kids, instinctively get.
It's a simple strategy...
but one that we so-called grown-ups so oftentimes forget.
Kids are way ahead of me. This is embarrassing.
-Slagle, make my Lego please. -MATTHEW: Like, something along that line?
JEFF: Hey, I think I'll call him Jeff, my very own elfin doppelgänger.
Hey, guys, I kind of finished mine off. What do you think?
BOY: No, you didn't.
Yeah, I know you're a little bit behind. Don't feel bad about it.
Don't beat yourself up.
Bryce, is this yours?
-Yeah. -You might be one of our star students.
I want to see the world through your eyes.
Let me see. This is the way you're looking at it.
Yes, yes. I feel like I know you for the first time.
Is there anything that you want to say about your work?
I just made it.
You just made it? I love that. Beautiful and profound.
Simple and profound. "I just made it," says he.
At last, I'm starting to catch on.
I'm seeing my universe through small fry eyes.
By bringing things down to our own measurements,
we learn to shape our place and space in an immense environment.
Where do you want to go, Mini Jeff?
Well, I'll go anywhere you pick.
Why don't we put him right here? Yeah.
And now, that I've been condensed, I'm starting to view the larger picture.
If we truly want to understand this real and amazing world of ours,
I think we got to start microscopically.
So, I'm heading out into that beautiful water,
on the hunt for one of the bitsiest organisms on the planet.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
Commanding me on my odyssey is Allison Cusick.
She is a microbiologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
and an expert on the Tom Thumb mysteries of the deep.
-Permission to come aboard? -(CHUCKLES)
-There we go. -Welcome aboard.
I got me sea legs already. I can feel it.
-What is our mission? -We're going to go yonder.
-Yonder sounds good. -(CHUCKLES)
We're after the tiniest things you could imagine.
-I'll bet. -Plankton, tiny...
-Plankton? -...tiny organisms.
-Small things? -Tiny little things that rule our world.
-Are you ready? -Let's go.
Let's go out yonder, and go out to sea.
Hey, I'm about to take a plunge beneath the waves of the most enormous ocean...
in order to encounter one of its most diminutive wonders.
I'm going to slip into something a little less comfortable.
Stay classy, San Diego.
(EXHALES)
(CLEARS THROAT)
It's me, Jeff.
I got to go in the water.
-ALLISON: We are going to go look... -JEFF: Yeah.
-...for something incredible. -JEFF: Let's find something. Okay.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: Ooh! She looked at me.
Oh, my gosh. Is that a ray?
This is fantastic.
It sure is enchantingly beautiful down here, but don't get distracted,
Mr. Jacques Cousteau Goldblum. Remember, we're hunting for plankton.
Allison travels the oceans collecting water
packed with microscopic life.
But here's the trouble with the micro, it's impossible to see, of course.
So, let's enlist a little help here.
Graphics team, go to town, take a deep dive.
You know, we may look to the stars for alien life...
but our oceans contain mysterious alternate universes,
that we're only beginning to understand.
In just one drop of seawater...
there are entire ecosystems.
Thousands of algae, a million bacteria, and ten million viruses.
From tardigrades, adorable water bears
known as the toughest creatures on earth...
and Daphnia, shape shifting fleas that could predict ecological disaster...
to bacteriophages, the inciest-shminsiest lunar landers
that might just revolutionize medicine.
(CHORAL MUSIC PLAYING)
JEFF: With our mission accomplished, it's now time to reveal what is arguably
the most powerful microorganism of them all. Show us, Allison.
(CHORAL MUSIC FADES)
ALLISON: Just grab a little bit of water from here.
So, now, you're going to put it on this glass slide, just one drop.
-Okay, ready? -ALLISON: Yeah.
There's something special that the phytoplankton does.
-Yes. They're incredible. Yeah. -Really? Should we look at it?
Let's see what we got here. So, those...
-Whoa! Wow! Where'd you get those? -(CHUCKLES)
Don't they look like spaceships?
It gets crazier though, these phytoplankton...
they are tiny, but they're mighty because they're like little plants.
-Yes. -ALLISON: So, they're using sunlight
to make energy that then feeds the rest of the animals
in the marine ecosystem. And then, 'cause they're using sunlight
and carbon dioxide to photosynthesize, they release oxygen.
They're responsible for over half of earth's oxygen.
-Is that true? -Yeah. More than the trees and plants
on land combined.
Aren't we lucky to live on this planet?
ALLISON: It's beautiful. It's a blue marvel.
Do people appreciate it?
-I think we could appreciate it more. -Isn't life beautiful?
Yeah. Even the microscopic life.
-Especially! -(CHUCKLES)
JEFF: It's just wonderful, I love the microorganisms.
I just... I'm in love with them.
Thanks, tiny, tiny creatures.
Every time you breathe...
and then breathe again...
one of those breaths is all due to the phytoplankton.
Isn't that spectacular?
What an amazing and glorious planet we live on.
It's home to 7.9 billion people.
Each one of us made up of 37.2 trillion cells,
and seven octillion atoms, that's a billion, billion, billion.
It's just mind-blowing, it's just impossible to comprehend.
But one thing is as clear as your grandmother's good crystal...
Tiny is mighty.
And when we bring things down to size, whether it's by miniaturizing
or magnifying them, we can start to make sense
of this terrific and gorgeous planet.
So, I got kind of inspired,
"Honey, I shrunk my world down a few pegs."
We've created a little something to show you
what really matters a lot to me, the ones most precious to my heart.
Okay, Jeff Goldblum, light the way. Light the way.
Come here, family. Come here, Goldblums.
(IMITATES WOODY BARKING) Hi, Woody. Good dog!
It's the little things in life that seem, at least to me, more precious than ever.
-(HEROIC MUSIC PLAYING) -(THUNDER RUMBLES)
JEFF: No matter how big or small,
whether you're a Leviathan or a Lilliputian,
it's the tiny things that help us to grapple with grand concepts,
and appreciate the wonders that are all around us.
So, let's take a grateful breath and savor every little moment.
(HEROIC MUSIC FADES)
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
(THEME MUSIC CONCLUDING)