Pee-wee's Big Adventure

Pee-wee's Big Adventure
File:Peeweedvdcover.jpg Pee-wee's Big Adventure DVD cover
Directed by	Tim Burton
Written by	Paul Reubens Phil Hartman Michael Varhol
Produced by	Richard Gilbert Abramson Robert Shapiro
Starring	Paul Reubens
Cinematography	Victor J. Kemper
Edited by	Billy Weber
Music by	Danny Elfman
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates	July 26, 1985
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6,000,000
Box office	$40,940,662 (US sub-total)

File:Peeweeescapes.jpg

Pee-wee escapes from Warner Bros. in a climactic chase.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 film directed by Tim Burton and written by Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, and Michael Varhol. The original music score is composed by Danny Elfman. The film is marketed with the tagline "The Story of a Rebel and his Bike."

Background

After working on short films such as Vincent and Frankenweenie, this was director Tim Burton's first feature film. It was hailed a success and gave Burton a name in Hollywood. He would go on to make other feature films including Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The film features a number of cameos from former Groundlings and other performers, including Milton Berle, Tony Bill, James Brolin, Morgan Fairchild, Carmen Filpi, Phil Hartman (who also co-wrote the story), Ed Herlihy, Jason Hervey, Jan Hooks, Lynne Marie Stewart (who later played Miss Yvonne on Pee-wee's Playhouse), John Paragon (who also later appeared in Pee-wee's Playhouse as Jambi the Genie), Professor Toru Tanaka. Reubens' good friend Cassandra Peterson has a cameo as the "Biker Mama" in the bar. Reubens was to return the favor with a cameo in her film Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, but scheduling conflicts arose and he did not appear. An Elvira poster also appears in the magic shop at the beginning of the movie.

On the DVD commentary for the film, Reubens stated that he originally intended Big Adventure to be a retelling of the Disney movie Pollyanna with his Pee-wee Herman character in the Hayley Mills role.

Plot summary

Pee-wee Herman, a strange man who acts very much like a child, loves his bike more than anything else in the world. One morning he runs into his nemesis Francis Buxton, a fellow man-child and neighborhood rich "kid," who tries to buy Pee-wee's beloved bike at any cost. Pee-wee refuses to even name a price. He takes his bike to town and leaves it elaborately chained to an animated clown statue while he shops. He browses a magic shop to pick up some "supplies," then picks up a bike horn from his friend Dottie and resists her attempts to date him. When he finishes shopping, he discovers that his bike has been stolen despite his significant precautions.

Knowing that Francis was behind the theft, Pee-wee breaks into his mansion, accuses and attacks him in his pool-sized bath. After Francis's father breaks them up, Pee-wee admits that he has no proof. He launches a vigorous campaign to find the culprit and recover his bike. Francis, who arranged for the bike theft, becomes spooked by Pee-wee's high-profile campaign and asks the thief to simply dispose of the bike. Pee-wee compiles mountains of tangential evidence to the crime and presents it to an assembly of his friends, who begin to worry about his sanity. Despondent, Pee-wee visits a fake psychic who tells him that the bike is hidden in the basement of the Alamo.

Pee-wee immediately leaves for San Antonio, Texas and hitches a ride with a man named Mickey. Mickey says that he is a fugitive on the run from the law because he cut off a "do not remove under the penalty of law" mattress tag. Pee-wee and Mickey run into a police blockade, but they avoid arrest when Pee-wee disguises himself as a woman and provides a false beard to Mickey. That night, Pee-wee takes over driving and accidentally drives off the twisty mountain road, nearly killing them both. Mickey leaves Pee-wee by the side of the road, giving a lame excuse remarkably similar to one Pee-wee used to spurn Dottie, although he admits that he likes Pee-wee and does not want him involved in his crime-spree life.

Pee-wee soon gets picked up by a mysterious trucker named Large Marge. In one of the movie's more memorable scenes, the trucker frightens Pee-wee with a vivid description of a terrible fatal truck wreck, finishing the story by briefly distorting her face. Although the moment where her face changes was accomplished through stop motion animation, the scene was reportedly cut for broadcast several times because it frightened children. Later, at a truck stop diner, Pee-wee learns that Large Marge was actually a ghost, and that her story was about herself. This scene is based on Red Sovine's song "The Ballad of Big Joe and Phantom 309".[1] At the diner, Pee-wee meets Simone, a friendly waitress with a yearning to see Paris. The two watch the sunrise inside one of Claude Bell's dinosaurs. As Pee-wee convinces her to follow her dream, Simone's huge boyfriend, Andy, catches them together and chases after Pee-wee.

Pee-wee flees into the boxcar of a moving train. There he collapses and has a nightmare about a dinosaur eating his bike. He is woken by a hobo (played by Carmen Filpi), with whom he passes the time singing folk songs such as "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain," "Oh Susanna," "Skip To My Lou," and "Jimmy Crack Corn." Eventually, the constant singing of the smelly hobo becomes too tedious and Pee-wee throws himself from the train.

Pee-wee discovers that he has made it to San Antonio and hastens to the Alamo, where he takes a tour guided by Tina (played by Jan Hooks). On the tour, he finds that the Alamo has no basement. Pee-wee realizes that his whole trip was a sham and goes to the bus station to return home. There he meets up with Simone, who tells him that he has inspired her to leave Andy and go to Paris. She in turn urges Pee-wee not to give up hope. After a phone call to Dottie, Pee-wee tries to buy a bus ticket, but he encounters Andy again and another chase ensues. Pee-wee disguises himself as a cowboy and gets swept into a rodeo, where he inadvertently breaks the world record for bull-riding. Once Pee-wee's bull throws him off, it chases Andy away. The dazed Pee-wee cannot remember much after falling off the bull, but when asked what he does remember, he states, "I remember...the Alamo." The assembled Texans shout in approval.

On his way home, Pee-wee stops off at a rowdy biker bar to make a phone call and runs afoul of the "Satan's Helpers," a biker gang. After he accidentally knocks over their bikes, the Satan's Helpers threaten to kill Pee-wee, but they first allow him a final request. Pee-wee performs his Big Shoe Dance to the song "Tequila" and wins the respect of the bikers. They give him a motorcycle and wish him luck in finding his bike. As Pee-wee rides away, he immediately loses control of the motorcycle and crashes into a billboard.

At the hospital, Pee-wee has another nightmare of his bike being destroyed, this time by evil clown doctors and a figure of Francis dressed as the Devil. After waking in his hospital room, Pee-wee learns from the television that his bike now belongs to Kevin Morton (played by Jason Hervey), a spoiled child star who is currently filming a movie with the bike as a prominent prop.

Pee-wee sneaks into Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California and searches for his bike, soon locating the set on which Kevin is acting. Pee-wee disguises himself as a nun in order to infiltrate the set and steal his bike back. In a wild chase scene, he flees from the Warner Bros. security staff through a variety of sets, causing havoc wherever he goes. Various actors and props, including a boat-shaped car, a Santa Claus sleigh, and a man in a Godzilla costume, get swept into the chase. He also interrupts the shooting of a Twisted Sister music video for "Burn in Hell" from Stay Hungry. Using the gadgets on his bike, Pee-wee manages to evade the guards and escape the studio. As he blissfully rides away, however, Pee-wee discovers a pet shop in flames. After heroically saving all the animals (even the snakes which creep him out), Pee-wee faints on the store's doorstep, just as the fire department and police arrive. When EMTs come to revive Pee-wee, a fireman gets in an argument with a policeman, because the firefighter considers Pee-wee a hero, but the police officer places Pee-wee under arrest.

Pee-wee is brought before a Warner Bros. executive who offers to buy the rights to Pee-wee's experience in exchange for dropping all charges. Pee-wee agrees and attends the premiere at his local drive-in. All of the friends Pee-wee made during his trip come to see the film, and Pee-wee greets each of them. He ends with Dottie, having finally fulfilled her demands for a date at the drive-in. As a final act of vengeance, Pee-wee allows Francis to sit on his bike, then triggers the ejector seat and sends him flying. Pee-wee's movie turns out to be a cheesy James Bond-style action film involving soap opera stars James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild fighting ninjas. Pee-wee has a cameo appearance as a bellhop, but his voice is comically dubbed over. His only lines are "No nothing right now, Mr. Herman." and "Paging Mr. Herman. Mr. Herman, you have a telephone call at the front desk." After watching for a few minutes, Pee-wee decides to leave, having already lived the real story. Rejoined with his bike, he rides away with Dottie, happily ever after.

Main cast

• Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman
• Elizabeth Daily as Dottie
• Mark Holton as Francis Buxton
• Alice Nunn as Large Marge
• Diane Salinger as Simone
• Judd Omen as Mickey

Pop culture references

The popularity of Pee-wee's Big Adventure has led to a number of subtle references in popular culture. Notable examples include:

• Jonathan Blitstein's 2007 film Let Them Chirp Awhile contains a scene in which the main character, Bobby (played by Justin Rice of the popular band Bishop Allen) discovers his friend's dog has been stolen from a nearby fire hydrant. This scene is filmed shot for shot with the scene in which Pee-wee discovers his bike has been stolen.
• Gatsbys American Dream released a song called "Shhhhhh! I'm Listening to Reason" on their 2005 album, Gatsbys American Dream and the Volcano. The title of the song is a reference to a line that Pee-wee says to Francis during their first encounter early in the movie.
• The Get Up Kids have a song called "I'm a Loner, Dottie, a Rebel," which references the excuse Pee-wee uses to avoid going to the drive-in with Dottie. The line is later repeated by Mickey. The song was first released on a 7" in the Post-Marked Stamps series on Tree Records. It was later re-recorded and included on the band's 1999 album, Something to Write Home About.
• Snapcase uses the actual audio from the "I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel" scene as a hidden track on their Progression Through Unlearning album.
• A Wisconsin-based theater troupe, Alamo Basement, took their name as an overt nod to the film.
• Au Revoir Simone is the name of a Brooklyn-based indie pop band. Their name comes from the scene in which Pee-wee says goodbye to Simone at the bus station.
• A radio DJ who played indie rock on WLFM in Appleton, WI and WHPK in Chicago also used the name Amazing Larry circa 1997-2001.
• "Large Marge" was also the name of a Simpsons episode.
• The basic structure of the bicycle chase scene - through the back lots of Warner Bros. studios - was recreated for the climax of the Kevin Smith film, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
• In the episode of Kappa Mikey, (named "Lost in Transportation") Mikey does a dance referring to the dance that Pee-wee did for the bikers in the bar.
• Family Guy had a scene where Peter uses a breakfast machine very similar to the one in this movie, except that instead of preparing breakfast, it simply shot Peter with a revolver.
• An episode of Duckman referred to this movie and to Paul Reubens' later arrest for masturbating in a movie theater when Duckman and his sidekick Cornfed were on the run from the IRS and hiding in a biker bar. Duckman managed to irritate the bikers and, before they could beat him up, the song "Tequila" came on the jukebox. Cornfed suggested that Duckman do what Pee-wee Herman did in that movie, and Duckman responded "That's disgusting! And secondly, I'm not in the mood."

Production

• During the scene when Pee-wee was wheeled out of the bike shop on a gurney, Elizabeth Daily's face turned pale white and Paul Reubens asked her what was the matter. Daily revealed to Reubens that the scene brought back painful memories of seeing her then-boyfriend, Jon-Erik Hexum, being wheeled off of a movie set on a gurney. (Hexum accidentally shot himself while on the set of the CBS TV series, Cover Up and died six days later.)
• Paul Reubens actually does have a fear of snakes.
• In the scene where Pee-wee is pulling yards and yards of chain out of the saddlebag on his bike, in the full-screen version it is clear that the chain is simply feeding through the bottom of the bag. In the commentary for the DVD, Reubens and Burton note that in some countries this mistake was thought to be intentional, meta-humor. The error has been corrected for the DVD version.

Trivia

• Several members of the cast (Paul Reubens, Elizabeth "EG" Daily, Mark Holton, Diane Salinger, Judd Omen, and Daryl Roach), as well as co-writer Michael Varhol, reunited on August 5, 2006 for a screening of the film on the grounds of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Reubens, Daily, and Salinger returned to the cemetery for another screening on August 4, 2007. The event is an annual event in Los Angeles.[2]
• The "Pee-wee Dance" done to the song "Tequila" reappears in some of Pee-wee's other works. In Big Top Pee-wee, when he is on a high wire, Pee-wee briefly does his dance along to the music. In an episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse, he looks inside his freezer to see the inhabitants are alive and having a party to the "Tequila" music. An ice cube with a red bow tie is seen doing the dance.
• Pee Wee's Big Adventure remains one of the few films to retain a 100% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com

External links

• Pee-wee's Big Adventure at IMDb
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure at AllMovie
• Filming Locations of PWBA on Platial
• Pee-wee's Big Adventure at Rotten Tomatoes