The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981): Behind the Chaotic Comedy Starring Lily Tomlin

A Forgotten 80s Comedy That Deserves a Closer Look

If you were a kid in the 80s flipping through cable and Superstation TBS, chances are you saw The Incredible Shrinking Woman once or twice. Maybe you remember Lily Tomlin getting smaller by the minute, or maybe you just recall the poster where she’s perched on a gorilla’s shoulder. Either way, for most people, that’s the beginning and end of this movie’s legacy: a middling box office hit, mediocre reviews, and a quirky footnote in early 80s Hollywood.

But here at Movies of the 80s, we live to look closer at the forgotten and the overlooked. And when you look closer at The Incredible Shrinking Woman, you find a surprisingly chaotic production filled with scrapped scripts, blown-up budgets, bizarre casting choices, and a couple of career-defining butterfly effects.

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From The Incredible Shrinking Man to Lily Tomlin

The project began in 1976 as a gender-flipped remake of the 1957 sci-fi cult classic The Incredible Shrinking Man. The first screenplay won praise, but it didn’t get traction until Lily Tomlin came on board. At that point, John Landis, fresh off Kentucky Fried Movie and about to break huge with Animal House, signed on to direct. Actor Lawrence Pressman was set to play Tomlin’s husband.

Then it all fell apart. Tomlin left for Moment by Moment (1978) with John Travolta, Landis blew up into one of Hollywood’s hottest young directors, and the project stalled.

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John Landis Walks, Joel Schumacher Steps In

Universal Pictures wanted the movie made, but not at the $20 million price tag Landis was pushing for. After Tomlin’s Moment by Moment flopped hard with critics and audiences, the studio had no faith in her star power to support a mega-budget. Landis walked, and Lily Tomlin’s partner Jane Wagner reworked the script, giving Tomlin multiple characters to play based on her famous stand-up personas.

The replacement director? A production designer-turned-first-time filmmaker named Joel Schumacher. Yes, that Joel Schumacher — years before St. Elmo’s Fire and decades before he put nipples on the Batsuit. Schumacher was thrilled to have Tomlin and Charles Grodin (who replaced Pressman last-minute) acting under his direction.

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Rick Baker, Gorilla Suits, and An American Werewolf in London

Here’s where things get fun. Special effects wizard Rick Baker (who had already climbed into a gorilla suit for the 1976 King Kong) was brought on to design effects for Tomlin’s shrinking. He also donned the ape costume yet again, this time as the gorilla who rescues Tomlin from a group of mad scientists.

At the same time, Baker was working with John Landis on An American Werewolf in London. That movie won the very first Academy Award for Best Makeup. So yes, the chaotic production of The Incredible Shrinking Woman indirectly helped spark one of the greatest horror-comedy classics of the 80s.

Talk about an odd Hollywood butterfly effect.

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Release Delays and a Shrinking Reputation

The shoot itself was chaotic but finished within budget. The real problems came later. Universal panicked over release dates, bumping the film from summer 1980 to late 1980 to December — and then again to January 1981, so it wouldn’t clash with Tomlin’s other film 9 to 5.

By the time The Incredible Shrinking Woman finally hit theaters, audiences were lukewarm. Critics were harsher, slamming Schumacher’s uneven debut and calling the film messy and flat despite Tomlin’s efforts. It made back its budget, but nobody was clamoring for a sequel.

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The Charmin Guy and a Final Screen Credit

One detail that has stuck in the cultural memory: the casting of Dick Wilson, better known as Mr. Whipple from the Charmin toilet paper commercials, as a grocery store manager. For decades, Wilson was the face of Charmin, constantly reminding shoppers “Don’t squeeze the Charmin!”

In The Incredible Shrinking Woman, his role felt like a deliberate wink at audiences — a little meta gag in a movie already built on absurdity. Fittingly, it was his final big-screen role. In the end, Wilson’s cameo has probably had more cultural staying power than the movie itself.

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The Legacy of a Middling Comedy

So what do we make of The Incredible Shrinking Woman today? On paper, it’s a modest 1981 studio comedy that never lived up to its potential. But dig deeper, and you find:

• Joel Schumacher’s messy but fascinating directorial debut.

• Rick Baker splitting time between a shrinking housewife comedy and one of the greatest horror films ever made.

• John Landis walking away, only to make a genre-defining classic.

• A $10 million feature film that’s remembered most for casting the Charmin guy.

Not a great movie, maybe not even a good one — but undeniably, a strange and fascinating snapshot of Hollywood in transition.