Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Danube-class Runabout

...No, that's not a pun this time.

"Honey, I Shrunk the Runabout" was the working title for the sixth season episode "One Little Ship", you know, the one with the runabout Rubicon getting shrunk down and somehow managing to kill just a bunch of savage Jem'Hadar soldiers and save the crew of the USS Defiant. The runabout-centric episode is a classic comedic entry in the midst of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dominion War arc, but actually started life as a pitch by series writer René Echevarria for a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode featuring a shuttlecraft instead.

According to scientific advisor André Bormanis, the episode's science was a bit of a stretch:

For years I'd been dreading the day the writers would decide to do some version of Fantastic Voyage. I didn't know whether I'd want to ask for a credit or a disclaimer on the episode.

Despite the in-universe technicalities of shrinking a runabout (something about subspace compression anomaly?), the episode was apparently a lot of fun to write and produce. According to Terry J. Erdmann and Paula Block's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, the writers were so excited about the episode, they attached a small runabout model to some fishing wire and lowered it into producer Ira Steven Behr's office window to sell the idea.