The movie was adapted by Charles Busch from his play, which opened Off Broadway in 1987. (The show was originally to be called "Gidget goes Psychotic.") It's the first of his plays to make it to film. The biggest difference between the play and the movie is that Busch himself, a noted drag actor, played the Gidget-esque lead, Florence "Chicklet" Forest. To re-create the realism necessary for film's satire, however, Chicklet is played by a real woman in the movie (Lauren Ambrose). Busch appears in the film as Capt. Monica Start, a police investigator.