THE INCREDIBLE SHRUNKEN WOMAN

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN (1981)
dir: Joel Schumacher

THE INCREDIBLE SHRUNKEN WOMAN
Cracked #180, September 1981
a: John Severin

Possibly inspired by Lily Tomlin's Edith Anne character, a small child in her stand-up act that used giant props and furniture to make herself look smaller.

Pam Kramer (Tomlin) is a suburban housewife at home with her neighbor Judith (also Tomlin). Her husband Vance (Charles Grodin) comes home from a business conference representing a chemical product manufacturer.

Her husband spills perfume on her dress and they don't notice overnight it's disintegrated. Over time she notices she's been shrinking, so they go to a doctor. Dr. Nortz (Henry Gibson) figures out it's a combination of the chemicals from the products she's been using.

Dr. Nortz is behind a cabal that sees this as an opportunity to find out what chemicals made her shrink so they can use it on others.

Pat becomes a celebrity, her neighbor Judith tries to help out any way she can, and Vance's boss Dan (Ned Beatty) wants to cover up the fact that he's behind the products with chemicals that are making her shrink. In the movie, she went on The Mike Douglas Show where he played himself, but here it's Real People and host Sarah Purcell is portrayed.

She falls down a garbage disposal and climbs her way out, then is kidnapped by Dr. Nortz and his crew so they can experiment on her. She leaves a shoe behind and is mistaken for dead. At the lab, she defends a gorilla named Sidney who helps her steal the folder which has plans that would create a race of shrunken people.

Pat and the gorilla escape and end up at a grocery store. While he's created a commotion there she takes a mic from a table where they were shooting a taste-test commercial and says goodbye to everyone before disappearing completely. When the town has a candlelight vigil for her that night, she comes back and reveals the chemical spills caused by the rioting at the supermarket made her grow back to normal.