Mostly for that reason then a lot of the stories I wrote during the pandemic were inspired by movies or TV.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Obviously part of the inspiration for this was that segment with Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, but the original inspiration was watching a movie called Maniac on the Rifftrax channel of Pluto TV. This was a movie so old that a young Phyllis Diller had a part in it! It's about a mad scientist whose assistant inadvertently kills him and then disguises himself as the mad scientist to cover it up.
My story is a lot less violent. There's an incompetent sorcerer's apprentice named Serge who spills some ingredients and so his master goes out to find more. While Serge is alone in the shop a hot chick comes in and he promises her a potion. But he screws it up and turns himself into a hot chick. Mayhem ensues.
Mr. Big Gets Swapped: The inspiration for the cover and title were that I had this cover made up a long time ago for a Rich Man, Poor Girl sequel that I never wrote. The inspiration for the plot actually came from season 3 of Legion where in one episode his girlfriend is seemingly killed and ends up in some netherworld as a baby and grows up again until she realizes an important lesson--I wrote a blog entry on that if you want to know more.
Anyway, in mine there's a rich guy who wants this lady's property for a golf course and resort. (So Donald Trump is probably also part of the inspiration.) She puts a spell on him and he wakes up as a girl. Then he jumps forward in time a couple of times. Only later does he realize he's living the woman's memories and so they become friends and he stops trying to buy her land.
Derelict: The inspiration for this was one part one of those old Star Trek episodes where they'd land on some planet and get captured by aliens that would fuck with them. And another part that Twilight Zone with Bill Mumy as the little kid who can wish people into the cornfield and shit. It's a premise I sort of used already for a story called The Cage, the title for which came from the Star Trek pilot. The setting of the Bermuda Triangle and name for the boat came from a movie that used to be on the Rifftrax channel of Pluto TV called The Bermuda Triangle.
In my version there's a guy who has a boat in the Bermuda Triangle. Out of nowhere a ghost ship appears and kills him. He wakes up on an old ocean liner sort of like the Titanic. A woman who looks sort of like Amelia Earhardt (but isn't) tells him he's on a boat called the White Whale II and then he finds out that it's run by a little girl who, since she's a little girl, doesn't like boys and so turns the guy into a girl. Later another guy shows up and is also turned into a girl and they fall in love. And then find a way to overthrow the little girl.
Night at the Carnival: The original inspiration was a short story I wrote as part of the Photobomb collection, which was based in part on Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. But most of the story was inspired by a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode where they riffed on a crappy movie called The Incredibly Strange Zombies...that is about a guy who pisses off a fortune teller who hypnotizes him into a zombie who kills some people.
My version is again less violent. Two guys go to a fortune teller at a carnival (at night!) and piss her off. She uses some potion to turn them into women. Mayhem ensues!
Shrinkage: The inspiration for the title came from a riff on Abraxas Guardian of the Universe on the Rifftrax channel of Pluto TV. During the movie Abraxas (Jesse Ventura) emerges from a lake and one of the riffers shouts "Shrinkage!" The cover for the story was repurposed from one that was supposed to be for The Incredible Shrinking Manhood sequel I never wrote.
The story was based on what I probably would have written for that sequel: an aging porn star based on the legendary Ron Jeremy takes a supplement that a co-star gives him. It helps him to get it up but afterwards his dick starts to shrink and he gets more and more feminine until he turns into a woman. Mayhem ensues!
But coming up with a story was harder. The first one I wrote about 2,000 words one Saturday afternoon and realized it wasn't really working out. So I went back to formula. The final product was inspired largely by an MST3K episode called Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders. In the first third of the movie, a jerk gets a book of spells from Merlin and tries them out. Each time he uses a spell, he gets older, so he uses a spell to make himself young that turns him into a baby.
In my version an old couple buy a house to flip it and uncover an old spell book. When the guy tries it out, he finds himself getting older. He tries another spell that makes him young--but also a woman. His wife tries the same spell and also becomes a young woman. Mayhem ensues!
I'd been trying to think of a third story for the Swapp series for a while. Then it came to me one night while I was watching the Rifftrax of Feeders. It wasn't really something in the movie itself so much as I was thinking they cast the lead characters wrong. The guy picking up chicks looked like Napoleon Dynamite's brother Kip and the nerd taking pictures with a 35mm camera that probably came free with a magazine subscription was a lot less dorky-looking. (To me he looked like a book jacket photo of Michael Chabon in the 90s--Google it or something.) So I thought that the actors should switch roles and then it got me thinking: what if a guy and girl switch genders?
The idea, which maybe I'll have started by now, is that a guy and girl who work together talk about their dating issues and the guy thinks girls have it easier and the girl thinks guys have it easier--so they use the Swapp app to switch genders. And mayhem ensues...probably.
I took another stab at writing one based on Sharknado but it was dragging on too much so I just stopped it to work on these other projects. At some point I'll probably try it again. A couple of weeks ago I was watching the MST3K of the movie Tormented and got an idea for a story from that. I might get to that--or not.
So now you have a window into my thought process. Fortunately no one read this or they might get freaked out by it.
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