6. Wayne Szalinski - Honey, I Shrunk The Kids
Right away I think we can all agree that the secret science project at the core of 1989's "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" is a lot more insane than Doc Brown's time-travel. Implication-wise, I suppose Brown's is inherently more dangerous, but what are the intentions behind building a machine that effectively shrinks anything? Whatever they might be, Szalinksi is committed enough to seek out government funding, despite the fact that at that point his machine has effectively destroyed an apple ("On the other hand, we've come up with an interesting way of making apple sauce..") If you knew the guy across the street from you was building a fully functioning shrink/death ray in his attic, you would probably consider that absolutely insane, and possibly move. Of course, Rick Moranis could play Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet" and still come across as completely lovable (why did Lynch never work the guy?) Still, his machine reduced his children to the size of thumbtacks and they found themselves journeying through the jungle of their front yard. Had anything gone wrong, like maybe the completely ordinary occurrence of the mail man walking across the yard, the Szalinski kids would be dead and then you would have the guy in the neighborhood with a shrink/death ray in his attic AND missing kids whose bodies would be nearly impossible to ever discover.