Mel Swope, the show's producer, directed that episode (my first). Great guy. Susan wasn't THAT tall, maybe 5'6 or 7.
The elderly producer of Horror of Party Beach simply didn't realize what he'd been given. He has no idea what is funny or not funny, and he was also trying to get a major to put up the dough, a completely inane and impossible way to go. Had he taken my advice, he would have raised a couple of mil, done it low budget, and filmed EXACTLY what I'd written, he would have had a hit on his hands. Instead, he gave it to "readers" at William Morris, and they, being idiot teenagers, loved the outrageous comedy, but wanted to cut all the character out of the non-comedic characters - do that, and then nothing is funny because the movie has no reality base. Sadly, the elderly gentleman had someone else (presumably an amateur, from what I'm told) do precisely that and now he has, once again, something completely unfilmable. If he had a brain in his head he would go back to my script, raise the dough, hire me to direct it, and my guess is that we'd have a winning picture to shop around.