When I was little I thought "Baby Boomer" was twenty-five
years before the Bengals got good. I never watched shows like "Moonlighting" and
"thirtysomething" but I was aware of them enough to know that adults were
hyper-classifying themselves in ways I didn't understand. Not that this was difficult.
When I was little I wanted to marry my Mom. And I was always trying to see three
dimensions on the television screen. You know the part in the Sesame Street theme song
where the kids and that big dog run behind a skinny tree, and somehow they can all hide
behind it at once? I thought I could see behind that tree by pushing my face against the
top right corner of the television set and looking over. I didn't know anything about
picture tubes and spatial relations. I was four.
Baby Boomers told me that Pee-wee Herman was "weird." They had watched and
enjoyed him ironically on an HBO special a few years earlier but now he was actually
speaking to KIDS, and he was doing so with the bizarre anthropomorphism and innocence
slash hyper-assholery turned way, way up. Paul Reubens was a man in rouge and a plaid
suit, screaming things he should just be saying normally and prancing around in that
dreamlike way where it always seemed like he'd been filmed walking backwards and reversed
to move forward. The floor of his Playhouse talked. The window had eyeballs. The Baby
Boomers, quick to assert their adulthood, hilariously noted that Pee-wee must be on DRUGS!
And there we sat.
Pundits on popular culture networks that really should just be playing another God damned
Sheryl Crow video cling to it today. Watch someone bring up Pee-wee. You get to invariable
statements: (1) Pee-wee Herman masturbated once, and (2) Pee-wee must have been one some
kind of the drugs. Statement one, well, I can't argue with it. Pee-wee Herman masturbated.
I found out in Sunday School, right after it'd happened, that one and only time I'm sure
it has happened in our illustrious human history. My Aunt made Sam the Eagle-face when his
name was brought up, and pulled me to the side. She couldn't explain it to me in front of
the younger kids. "He massssturbated in front a POLICEMAN!" she whispered.
"Okay," I thought. "What's masturbated?"
Statement two can be debunked by looking your pundit in the eye and saying "YOU ARE A
FUCKING JERK." Pee-wee and the people who helped him write the show were not on
drugs, you know why? Because people on drugs aren't clever or creative. They say things
like DAVE'S NOT HERE MAN and it is JOKES and JOKES and JOKES and JOKES. It is Kefkaesque
poison in our cultural riverbed. Far too many times now I have been Cyan, watching the
people I care about drink from CHEECH IS SMOKING A GIGANTIC DOOBIE and die. My wife and
son get on the Ghost Train and they're gone, and even if I miss out on
"Half-Baked" and don't crack a smile for Mitch Hedberg I am eventually a doomed
societal General Leo, being stabbed to death in the name of hate hate hate hate hate hate
hate.
Pee-wee's Playhouse never made me feel like I was on drugs. It did not trick me into
thinking I was not in charge of my own brain. It showed me that there were parts of my
brain I didn't know about. It taught me to SCREAM REAL LOUD OKAY whenever anybody said the
secret word. The SECRET word. The comebacks of Pee-wee's Big Adventure that ensured us a
spot at the cool kids table became the codewords and traditions of the Playhouse. It was
ours, and Saturday never felt more like Saturday Morning than when I was curled up in a
comforter on the couch, channeling the spirit that those Baby Boomers mean to express when
they pontificate on sugary cereals and super heroes.
There is a ritual here that connects us to our parents, even if the motivations have
changed. Sometimes a Baby Boomer and the generations surrounding us look back
sarcastically on things because they don't make sense through an adult's eyes, and well
you know they're just "weird!" Sometimes they forget that even if they've grown
out or past the things they used to love, those things were loved once, LOVED for a
reason. Probably for lots of reasons. You didn't love Howdy Doody when you were a kid
because you watched it. You loved it for the innocent songs, and the corny jokes, and
Clarabell. We didn't love Pee-wee's Playhouse when we were kids because we watched it. It
wasn't "weird."
It was fucking grotesque and extraordinary. If we absolutely must've loved it because
Pee-wee Herman masturbated and give me some of that stuff we are all on drugs so be it,
but the greatest accomplishment it made was bridging the gap between our and our parents'
reasons. They are the same. One is a wooden cowboy puppet. If you're younger, their reason
might be the Banana Splits. It might be Scooby-Doo, the king of all facetious and ruined
Smoke Em If You Got Ems. Regardless, no show of our generation looked us in the face and
said "you love this for a good damn reason" like Pee-wee's Playhouse.
This is by no means a definitive list of "greatest moments." We're doing this to
get across how we feel about Pee-wee and his stupid puppets, and his big circular purple
couch that we all wanted, and his living, breathing food. We're doing this because the
show deserves it. We're doing this because we all deserve to remember it. And, above all
else, we are doing this because we have just smoked so much crack.
Is that weird?
Enjoy.
25
episodes 1-13
I often wonder what it was that made me grow up to date several men where
their sexuality was on the borderline between Taco town and I LIKE IT UP THand other
homosexual jokes! When I see things like this, I think it starts to point me in the right
direction. Tito was Pee-wee’s pool boy that was tossed aside post-crisis along with
the original King of Cartoons, Dixie the cab driver, and Mrs. Steve, the nosey neighbor.
He hung around Pee-wee and was sweet and well meaning.
AND HE NEVER WORE A SHIRT
The man was like a walking cover for a Jeff Stryker movie. Tito ends up on the list
because he just seemed to have no real purpose other than to show up and walk around
topless. They never really came out with any Paul Lynde-esque over feminized movements to
show that he was gay, but Miss Yvonne never bothered to flirt with him and that woman even
flirted with plywood. After all, Floorey always liked when Miss Yvonne would come to stand
over him when she was wearing Mistletoe.
I guess I could write some sort of explanation about how an ambiguously gay pool boy made
me learn diversity and respect others of another sexual preference, but I think I’ll
just stick with being sullen about always dating the real prom queen.
-Lindy
24
episode 13
A running gag for the first twelve episodes was that Pee-wee’s
doorbell would ring and he would go to answer it and it would be a guy dressed as a
salesman, or at least what would look like a mascot for a sales team. Pee-wee would scream
at the giant sales puppet and then he would clothesline him.
Things change in this episode where Pee-wee has a party to just have a party and to let
everyone give each other presents. When Pee-wee gets disappointed when everyone else gets
a gift and the door rings, he finds the Salesman there, but instead of beating him with a
baseball bat, he lets the him inside in hopes the Salesman might have something to give
him as a gift. Pee-wee ends up with a piece of foil and the Salesman travels off into the
sunset, never to return.
Lesson to be learned here: Give that annoying person a shred of attention and they’ll
never bother you again.
-Lindy
23
episode 39
Near the end of the show's run they started doing things to let you know
that they were going to be canceled. It was depressing, but to be honest with you not a
lot of us were watching, either because of our morning-after heel turn on the masturbator
Wee-wee Herman or because our parents didn't feel "right" letting us watch
anymore.
What a lot of us/you missed is one of the most hilarious moments in the history of the
show. Pee-wee is talking about, well, whatever, when Roosevelt, a dog, comes in through
the doggie door. Pee-wee is all, "WHAT'S THAT ROOSEVELT YOU'RE HUNGRY OKAAAAAAY"
and fills up the doggie's bowl (I almost typed "boll" there, thanks a lot
"House of the Dead"). Roosevelt then eats the food.
And we stay on it, for over a minute, without any sound or reaction. Just a close up of a
dog eating for an entire minute.
When I was a kid I probably would've been bored and changed the channel. But watching the
DVD I couldn't stop laughing. It just keeps going on and on. Sometimes when a joke isn't
funny you've just got to stay on it long enough to MAKE it funny. I'm still not sure if
this was a joke or not, but about 45 seconds into it I was crying. Maybe it was a tragedy.
-B
22
episode 9
Monsters weren’t really something that scared me all that much. After
all, why would Bobby Generic be frightening? However, out of nowhere OH HOLY SHIT THERE IS
A GIANT EYEBALL THING BOUNCING AROUND THE PLAYHOUSE.
Half of the episode is spent watching Pee-wee be awkward and not get eaten and trying to
feed it a giant submarine sandwich. During his break from Jihad, Jambi grants
Pee-wee’s wish to understand the monster and finds out that it’s name is Roger
and that it turns out to be the only genuinely nice invader of the Playhouse.
Roger gets to ride the scooter at the end of the episode. Only Santa got to share the
credits with PW, that must mean something.
-Lindy
21
episode 3
In the beginning, before the Jerky Boys, there was Randy the Puppet and it
was good. It’s a rainy day at the Playhouse and Pee-wee has run out of things to do
when Randy convinces him how much fun prank phone calls can be.
Randy demonstrates his quick wit by calling a lady and asking about the status of her
refrigeration device watches the lady get upset and hangs up. When it’s
Pee-wee’s turn, not only does he call back the same lady, but he uses the same
fucking joke.
He is punished for his lack of creativity when the woman’s husband, a police officer,
comes over and threatens Pee-wee. After this incident, Pee-wee helped write Ice T’s
only famous song.
-Lindy
20
episode 17
Pee-wee begins to not feel well and his pal, world class athlete and
soccer star Pele, tells him to take it easy so that he doesn’t get sick. He ignores
his friend’s advice and continues to play and ends up demonstrating why gigantic
underpants have a million uses!
If you don’t think a man sliding on a giant pair of underwear and pretending
they’re a vest just to be obnoxious is at least a little bit funny, you should be
chopped in the throat.
-Lindy
19
episode 26
I love strange cartoons. I really do. Nothing makes me happier sometimes
that to watch an old Max Fleschier cartoon about light bulbs where there is a boy and girl
bulb and an evil magician threatening to turn them off. “It’s lights out for
you two haberdashers!”
Feeding into this love was the random introduction of a brand new cartoon to the Playhouse
called “El Hombre.” There is no introduction to it, Pee-wee just shouts
“HEY BOYS AND GIRLS! CHECK THIS OUT!” and the cartoon starts. What follows is a
cartoon, completely in Spanish, that looks like it’s drawn in chalk whose main
character kind of looks like an older less gheri-curled Rambo. The first segment is two
kids chasing a cat that El Hombre picks up and he lectures them, I guess about buying a
scratching post or something, then the cat is handed back AND THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO
IT. Nothing else happens.
Random things like this are part of the whole charm of the show. I think in another
context, I would not have appreciated a strange Spanish cartoon as much as I could have.
-Lindy
18
episode 6
Miss Yvonne, the world’s most endowed puppet lover, was the girliest
girl that ever girled. Because of that, she ends up making herself up or making people
over whenever she isn’t trying to have sex with Conky. When she decides to give nosey
Mrs. Steve a makeover and just makes her look like she always does, Miss Yvonne explains
that it’s when you feel beautiful, that you are beautiful. To which Pee-wee responds
with this:
“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” And then fake
sobs.
When I get young I want to be like Pee-wee.
-Lindy
17
episode 21
This is the first and only appearance of the Queen and Prince of Cartoons,
whom the King brings over in celebration of the birth of his son. Since there is a baby in
the house and the mean IQ of the Playhouse residents is 85, the question where babies come
from is asked.
With the help of the Magic Screen and the sweetest, but most vague video about the miracle
of life is shown. With nothing learned and the Prince’s diaper needing changed, the
Royal family departs.
When the Price learns about the facts of life, he finds out he’s “a little
freaked out about the whole coming out of the vagina part.”
-Lindy
16
end credits, every episode
Where does Pee-wee Herman live?
The Tim Burton answer is "the American Southwest," the best place to have a
heartwarming adventure, and the only place you can have frank discussions bout big buts in
a Cabazon Dinosaur. We know Pee-wee has a house there, which seems to be his regular
address. His neighbors know his morning routine so we know he's been there a while. We
hadn't yet moved to his hot dog greenhouse from "Big Top," so we're working with
Pre-Crisis Pee-wee lore.
The Playhouse is clearly in South Dakota, because the arc of Pee-wee's post-show scooter
jump passed by Mount Rushmore. It seems like a long way to scoot just to play, doesn't it?
Come to think of it though we've seen countless episodes where Pee-wee wakes up (he has
bunk beds) AT the Playhouse in the morning, so why is he always leaving mid-afternoon?
Shouldn't SOME episodes of Playhouse just end with him going to bed?
A later episodes features Pee-wee and Cowboy Curtis horseback riding over to the Grand
Canyon, which makes more sense in the "American Southwest" argument. My only
logical theory: The Mount Rushmore we see in the end credits is not Mount Rushmore, but
one of those touristy things that has Mount Rushmore on it. Like a smaller scale Rushmore,
or a Mount Rushmore-themed restaurant of some kind. We never see him go up there, so we
don't know how big or small those heads are outside the context of the camera.
Ah hell, I don't know. All I know is that the end credits always seemed to show up WAY too
early. It seemed like we had Pee-wee for ten minutes and then he was gone. There was no
way that was a half an hour. No way.
-B
15
episode 12
For some reason, the Playhouse Pals needed a new edition, so when little
Natasha Lyonne was helping her friends make bets to loose their virginity, she ran into
Larry “Bud” Melman he was invited along. Watching a 70 year old man play around
with kids is slightly creepy, but continues on with that bizarre element that was so
frequent in the show.
The best part of him joining is when Pee-wee gives everyone a secret code name (their name
already with an “O” on the end, which pissed off Raphael) he excludes Rusty,
just to watch him be sad, then takes it back. Watching Pee-wee be mean to old people is
funny.
-Lindy
14
Christmas Special
It is revealed in the Christmas special that basketball legend Earvin
"Magic" Johnson and Playhouse patron Magic Screen are cousins. The only
difference of course being that Magic Screen has "visual" aids.
-B
13
episode 9
To make Swain just a little more country, and Pee-wee a little more rock
and roll, they decide one day to teach each other how to dance. Cowboy Curtis does his
square dancing spiel of course.
When it’s Pee-wee’s turn, they put on Mowhawk wigs and start jumping around in
front of a screen playing bunch of punks slam dancing. I guess teaching Curtis how to
break dance as a culture trade was out of the question.
-Lindy
12
episode 33
When asked to support a charity drive, the Playhouse comes out in full
force, donating items including:
- A sweater owned by Magic Screen, with a big rectangle cut out of the front.
- A dickey donated by Globey, because it "makes his face look round."
- A necktie donated by Cowboy Curtis, because it's "too loud."
And then they cut to the tie and it has a big yelling mouth on it.
No show ever showed me the joy of "that was fucking STUPID" humor like Pee-wee's
Playhouse, and I'm thankful for it to this day.
-B
11
episode 27
Pee-wee falls asleep on Chairy while meditating, which might really be
necessary when your floor starts talking to you. Globey and Pteri notice that he looks
like he's dreaming, and begin to wonder what he could be dreaming about. Pee-wee is all
alone, and he's rolling a big doughnut...and a snake wearing a vest...
Jason Giambi grants the Playhouse their wish to see what's in Herman's Head (too much of
the fat guy) and in a nice bit of continuity from the HBO special we discover that Pee-wee
is dreaming about flying. As SUPER PEE-WEE he sees London, France, and Moscow's underpants
before a distress call from wherever Pee-wee lives brings him back home. There he finds
Miss Yvonne trapped under a barbell (she was doing her exercises, including interpretive
jazz dance) and in distress. The great thing is that Miss Yvonne's boobs bend the barbell
into boob shape right in the middle, which says something really really terrifying about
the most beautiful rack in Toyland. You keep getting the feeling that blades are going to
pop out of them like in Phantasm.
Pee-wee saves the day, using his X-ray vision to check on Miss Yvonne's "broken
bones" (in another moment of continuity from HBO and Big Adventure, Pee-wee's
voyeurism), and he is TOTALLY GOING TO DREAM ABOUT FUCKING MISS YVONNE OH GOD until Globey
gets desperate for a snack and wakes him up. Pee-wee denies Miss Yvonne's role in the
dream, but we all saw it. She was totally going to be the back of the seat in front of
him.
Hey, a globe's got to eat, right? I figure Pteri flew off to help the Pink Ranger
somewhere.
-B
10
episode 36
It's never clear how many of the things in the Playhouse are free,
sentient beings and how many of them are possessions. Like Randy. Randy is a puppet, so
you imagine that he's Pee-wee's, right? But Pee-wee never PLAYS with Randy. He just
interacts. And if we're to observe the precedent set by Singing Sensation Billy Bologna as
"puppet" we have to note that Randy's unabated speech and movement are at least
a result of someone outside Pee-wee's frame of reference, possibly living and operating
out of the Playhouse attic. Pteri is a pet, I'm guessing, and the flowers are maintained,
but what about Globey? He's alive. He feels. It's like saying Pee-wee "owns"
King of Cartoons. Pee-wee is not responsible for the acts of his ancestors.
The true cognizant possession of Pee-wee's is Conky, who exists only to provide service.
Conky (and Conky's dance) produce the secret word each day, so when the word GRRRRR comes
out (complete with Pee-wee's set up of "HEY CHAIRY WHAT DOES A BEAR DO IN THE
WOODS" and you totally expect Chairy to say "uh, shit?") Pee-wee knows
there is trouble. He takes Conky apart and tries to fix him before realizing that he is a
dumbshit and Conky 2000 comes with the service number for your Authorized Conky Repairman.
Jimmy Smits shows up with a tool box, a massive Latino jaw, and the knowledge invested in
him by the Conky 2000 customer service team to repair Pee-wee's robot. Instead of just
being gracious and letting the man do his job, Pee-wee of course stands two inches from
Smits the entire time and leers at what he's doing. It takes him a while but when Jimmy
(playing Johnny) tells him to "go play" Pee-wee takes the hint. But before Pee
goes he stands up, gets right behind Smits, and literally breaths on his neck. It's
another example of how far Pee-wee will go to be our American Mr. Bean -- hilarious, but a
complete dickhole to everyone.
-B
9
episode 18
When the Cowntess has a party and Pee-wee, Chairy and the Magic Screen
don’t get invited, Pee-wee turns to writing a letter (with a giant pencil, no less)
to the Advice Lady asking her why someone wouldn’t be invited to a party and what
they should do about it. Because there is no concept of time or speed, moments after
sending the letter out a call from the Advice Lady comes in and the following exchange
takes place:
“It’s just an example puzzled, like say it was a party for your family or just
girls, or say you have a million friends…”
“I have a million friends.”
Pee-wee is the farthest thing from humble possible.
-Lindy
8
episode 7
This makes the list, mostly because it’s the best moment featuring
Captain Carl. Carl was a character that was on the original HBO special and played by Phil
Hartman that didn’t survive past episode 13. He was a gruff old sea salt type
character that lived on the front of a fish sticks box. Using his wide variety of voice
acting, Hartman plays along with Pee-wee well and is really the only character that
changed that I was sad to see go post-crisis.
Playing pretend as always, Pee-wee wants to make feeding his friend Captain Carl a special
moment by playing restaurant. PW seats Carl and proceeds to make him more and more
annoyed. After going through 2 complicated orders, he finds out that the only thing that
Pee-wee has to give him is peanut butter and jelly, which costs a whole $2!1!1.
What makes this moment great is that Pee-wee goes out of his way to irritate Carl. The
finishing touch being not only does he charge his friend for lunch, but he makes him go
over to a cash register to take his money with a smug grin, just to rub it in more.
Because Carl was disgruntled from this, he later returned as the hook carrying villain in
some terrible Jennifer Love Hewitt horror movie. Carl did not survive past episode
13 because his wife shot him to death.
-Lindy
7
episode 20
Since it was in the era of the California Raisins and the technology
hadn’t downgraded down to using computer animation for everything, there was a large
amount of stop-motion animation and claymation used in different scenes. Claymation gives
this moment a little more of a surrealist and absurdist touch. When playing school with
the Playhouse Pals, Pee-wee talks about the signing of the Declaration of Independence and
a claymation sequence plays. Whenever I played school all I did was sit there and watch as
my best friend at the time showed off the fact that she knew multiplication before I did.
At the signing, we listen to Ben Franklin speak about the document and then Pee-wee breaks
in and shouts out:
“YEAH! SIGN IT!”
The only thing that makes this funnier is that the PW drops the secret word and the
Founding Fathers lean their grotesque clay heads back and scream. There is nothing like
changing American history to make it accessible to children.
-Lindy
6
episode 44
In the last episode of the series Miss Yvonne stumbles upon a "for
sale" sign in front of the Playhouse and puts two and two and 40DD together. Pee-wee
is SELLING THE PLAYHOUSE! She acts as an enabler and gets everyone/thing in the Playhouse
all bent out of shape about how Pee-wee doesn't love them anymore and they're all going to
be homeless.
Eventually Pee-wee himself shows up and everyone/thing goes apeshit on him. Everyone
starts yelling at once about what a bastard he is and how DARE he sells his own property
and items. The fuss ends with someone saying the secret word, and everybody screams.
Pee-wee looks around at them like they're assholes and asks "What's all the screaming
about?"
An awesome meta-statement on the ritual of the secret word and the run of the show itself.
-B
5
episode 41
stop trying to be japanese
i'm serious
Pee-wee Herman has a terrible tolerance for other cultures, and like any misanthropic
music snob made sure to note how ridiculous a thing it was for anyone else to have. That's
why it came as a bit of a surprise that he had a Japanese pen pal, Oki Doki. Maybe there
was a curiosity in Pee-wee to discover what he was missing. Maybe Oki Doki was just so
damn affirmative. Maybe Paul Reubens' reported interest in classic erotica extended to La
Blue Girl and he needed some bootlegs.
Oki says in a letter that he'll be visiting the Playhouse soon, and Pee-wee is shocked
when Oki shows up immediately after the letter has been read. You know, since I guess
Pee-wee figured that mail was written in real-time. They do some bowing/headbutting and
Pee-wee is always two seconds from doing the Simone from Big Adventure "merci blah
blah," but the true joy of the segment is when Oki brings two presents: Sushi, which
Pee-wee sneers at and declines when he finds out it isn't candy, and A VIDEO OF GAMERA.
Gamera, for those of you who may not know, is a gigantic monster turtle with rockets
coming out of his ass who protects Japanese children from other gigantic monsters. He's
like Godzilla, but with more indy street cred. Gamera rules, but the best part is when the
clip is over and we cut to Pee-wee's awesome sarcastic "WOOOW OKI THAT SURE WAS
COOOOOL" half-scream.
-B
4
episode 34
Pee-wee Herman was the kid who had everything he wanted already and
whenever something happened, he was always in charge or got his way. I hated kids like
that, but I love Pee-wee. Maybe it was his loveable nature behind him being a total jerk
that made him endearing to me. He was able to manipulate situations and be a jerk and I
still loved to watch him the entire time.
Playing pretend as they often did, Pee-wee and Miss Yvonne decide to play office and take
turns being the boss. Miss Yvonne is forced to use the intercom despite the fact that
Pee-wee is within five feet of her, take a dictation and answer the phone (and get yelled
at for taking a personal call when she answered the phone and said hi to Mrs. Renee).
This is made funnier by the fact that when they take turns, Miss Yvonne sits down at the
desk, tries to use the intercom but gets no answer from Pee-wee and finds him at the water
cooler talking to Globey who refuses to work because it’s his break. I want to use
this excuse next time I don’t want to take dictation.
-Lindy
3
episode 43
Cowboy Curtis and Pee-wee live within a horseback-ride's distance from the
Grand Canyon (okay) so they make a trip out there and play with their echoes for about
fifteen minutes. They eat dinner, Cowboy Curtis sings "Amarillo by Morning" or
whatever on the guitar, and they go to sleep. But before they do they have one of the
sweetest moments in the entire run of the show, and one of the very few times Pee-wee
remained serious for more than two facetious seconds.
It's hard to see the stars at night when you're playhouse is fitted with 20,000 lightbulbs
and is sitting underneath a sphinx. So Pee-wee is amazed by the beauties of the open night
sky. Laying head to head with Curtis he asks whether or not somebody just like them is up
on one of those stars, looking back. Cowboy Curtis reckons there has to be. Then they just
lay there for a minute, and Pee-wee smiles up at a twinkling star.
It's cheesy, yeah, but it's the same theorem that Futurama used so well: The serious
moments will mean a lot more if you aren't expecting them. Pee-wee's Playhouse never said
anything deep about our humanity and never pretended to be anything more than a way to get
people to scream more than usual. But this moment really works to show that even unbridled
insanity should stop every now and then to think about the stars.
It works especially well because the ten minutes leading up to it were Pee-wee and Curtis
roasting hot dogs between HOW IS YOUR WIENER COWBOY CURTIS and I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA
BRING THE BUNS conversations
.-B
2
episode 23
Any gracious party host with leftover fruit salad in the fridge (whether
it's got eyeballs and is dancing around or what) would offer said salad to his guests.
Pee-wee has enough fruit salad sitting around in his kitchen for himself, Miss Yvonne,
Cowboy Curtis, the Cowntess, Chairy, and his entire household of creepy talking shit. With
Chairy or Globey I figure you could just open them up and empty them out when they'd eaten
a certain amount of food, but what are you supposed to do with Mr. Window? Do you just put
fruit salad between the walls directly beneath him? Or do you just stand back and throw it
through him?
Anyway, Pee-wee loves fruit salad and says so. Miss Yvonne, obviously thinking with her
enormous pair of brain, laughs and tells Pee-wee to marry fruit salad if he loves it so
much. Pee-wee was always offering up marriage to the others. Love that sandwich? WHY DON'T
YOU MARRY IT? Love using the telephone? WHY DON'T YOU MARRY IT? Pee-wee is just like my
fucking family. I'M NOT READY FOR THAT KIND OF COMMITMENT AUNT PAM JUST LET ME HAVE SEX
WITH MY FRUIT SALAD ON A REGULAR BASIS COMFORTABLY PLEASE. I MEAN EAT IT.
This time, however, Pee-wee calls their bluff and agrees to marry fruit salad. So he fits
the bowl with a wedding veil and marries it Christian wedding style, with the honorable
judge Ricardo the Latino Soccer Player presiding. The procession brings the attending
women to tears as Ricardo leans in close and reassures the audience that the fruit salad
did indeed say yes. Which makes a lot of sense, because PW was a pretty big fruit salad
himself.
Other highlights of this episode include Penny Cartoon eating lunch with tigers, a
gigantic green eyeball in pajamas, and the realization that Cowboy Curtis sleeps in the
nude.
-B
1
episode 14
As many of us learned from Jules Winfield, television shows start off as
pilots and if they get picked they go to series. Since he didn’t get too far into his
explanation of his television expertise we didn’t get to hear that after a pilot is
picked to go to series that most will get between 12 and 13 shows. This entire episode is
important, not just for the moments in it, but because after it his past episode 13, it
meant that the series was renewed and their budget was expanded.
With this episode, we see Globey received a face lift, Floorey was discovered, Pee-wee got
a clock that sounded like Donkeylips from "Salute Your Shorts" named Clocky in
the mail and a new King of Cartoons shows up, complete with a television in place of the
projector. These changes to the playhouse setup and the cast meant that it became the
series that many of us came to grow up with and love. I know that most of my strongest
memories come from this time in the show.
This episode reminds me of the potential that everyone thought the show had before we saw
the poor fate that Pee-wee suffered and of a time it was okay to be on the playground at
school and talk about much you liked the show or how you woke up your parents screaming
for the secret word along with the rest of the playhouse. This time is how the show should
be remembered, when everyone still liked Pee-wee enough for him to be put into a movie,
before all of the jokes and the bad mug shot, before everyone generations ahead became
cynical about its premises.
When it was just as innocent as we were and a little smart, too.
-Lindy |
