When I was younger, like a lot of kids my age, I was obsessed with Big, Penny Marshall’s fantasy comedy-drama about a 12-year-old who wakes up one morning to discover he is a fully-grown adult, after making a wish the night before. I’ve long considered it one of the best Tom Hanks movies, and one of my all-time favorites, and so I recently did what any parent does when they want to pass their nostalgic obsessions to their kids: I sat down and made them watch the 1988 classic.
This was the first time in years that I have sat down and watched Josh Baskin go from a pre-teen living in New Jersey to the Vice President of Product Development of a New York-based toy company, and in addition to enjoying the movie like I was a kid again, I noticed a few things. Like, why didn’t I remember that Josh had a dad?
