A further inspiration came from a story in Charlie Chaplin's autobiography; while touring with a British musical theatre, he stayed at a miner's tenement home. After dinner, the host introduced Chaplin to a disfigured and legless man named Gilbert who slept in a kitchen cupboard; Glen Morgan incorrectly recalled this as a totally limbless boy who was kept under a bed. Chaplin described the man as "a half man with no legs, an oversize blond flat-shaped head, a sickening white face, a sunken nose, a large mouth", and who could jump using his arms) but this was misremembered by Morgan as though the man had no limbs and "flopp around" while the family sang and danced. Morgan used his memory of this incident within the screenplay, although at Wong's suggestion they changed the character to the boy's mother. The episode was also made as an homage to 1970s horror films such as Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974) and Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" (1977).