Episode 30-Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

PAGING MR HERMAN! Today, in attempts to repair the giant rift that was torn between them upon the watching of The Secret of NIMH, Saysha has resorted to a tried and true family classic that has proven to heal the deepest of wounds between siblings-Pee Wee's Big Adventure! In this episode of Melanie's Memories, we have a great time reminiscing about one of our most beloved family films and bounce between a lot of interesting topics, including visual maximalism, travel, bikes, bikers, hobos, chimps, sketch comedy, and the joy of creative freedom! We promise you will smile during this episode at least ONCE! WE PROMISE!!!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to VHS Sisters, a nostalgic movie podcast with two actual real-life sisters. I'm Melanie and I'm Seisha. Get into some comfy clothes, grab your favorite beverage, and come hang out with us as I forced my little sister to watch all the movies she missed growing up. So I think I have to start this podcast with an apology. Why? Because to whom? I guess, well, to you. Oh, okay. Because I was thinking about it, and this month, as we've established several times, is your month. Okay. It is Melanie's month. It is Melanie's memories month. And I wanted to choose movies that you had seen before. And technically last week, The Secret of Nim, you had seen before, but it was not a happy memory for you. And I realize that now. I don't often say I'm wrong. I just couldn't think, as you know, the creator and producer of this podcast. I really could not think of another reason to like bring it up. I couldn't figure out another way to like wedge it in there. I'm like, there's no way we do an 80s slash 90s nostalgia podcast and we don't talk about Secret of Nim. I think that's like Yeah, no, we would talk about it for sure. And we did. We sure did. And I was like, I mean, I, you know, a peek behind the curtain listeners. I edit these podcasts. Hi, welcome to VHS Sisters. So I edit these podcasts, and I get to listen to our voices. And I was like, from the get, I was like listening back to Secret of Nim, I was like, Melanie fucking hates this with the fire of a thousand sons. The only thing she hates more than fucking Secret of Nim is the rock biter from Never Ending Story. Yeah, I do hate him a lot. Like hate him. Okay. Uh I hate practical magic. Yeah, practical. I I'm with you on that. Like I was down to ride that nostalgia train, but yeah, practical magic, not a good movie. And we're still out here six months later saying that. So wait, wait, wait. I had something to say. So fuck Mary Kill, Rock Biter, Gurgy, and Jeremy the Crow. Oh my God. Burn them all, really. I mean, um, you had to choose, you had to choose rock biter, Gergie, or Jeremy the Crow. I know my answer. I'd be fucking Jeremy. You be fucking Jeremy? I'm not fucking Gurgy. Are you kidding? Are you kidding? I would kill I would kill the rock biter and I would marry Gergie because he has redeeming qualities. I guess so. He's very like, he would just be like, oh, whatever you want, wife. You know. He's a simp. Yeah. He's a simp and he's here to like please you. And I get that. I get that. Couldn't ask for anything more. I was gonna say fuck Jeremy because he's horny. Marry the rock biter because he's like, you know, he's got he's got low maintenance. He's low maintenance. All he needs is rocks. I assume he has like a rock house that I could live in. And also, but like kill Gurgy, like throw him in the in the pit because I can't. But I understand why, you know, that's that's like a that's like more your type for sure. Not necessarily. Oh, you mean a small man who simps for me? Yeah, a small hairy man who simps for you. I can't really I can't relate to that at all. Shout out to my husband, shout out Ryan. I wanna say I wanna say that, you know, I think maybe I would have enjoyed the movie more if Jeremy wasn't the only person to have a romance arc. Like if possibly if Mrs. whatever Brisbee. She hates it so much, she refuses to learn anyone's names. She's like Frisbee. If she had the romance arc, and like it's not Jonathan, it's it's all the J's. I'm sorry, Jeremy, Jonathan, Jenner, Justin. If her and Justin, like, if he was out there raising her kids with her or something at the end of the day, I would have been like, you know what? That's actually kind of nice. No, she's alone with her kids still, and Jeremy's like, look at my girlfriend. Yeah, he'd like, you're like, why does Jeremy, he's the only one who gets to smash in the end. It's it fucking ruins it. Yeah, I agree. I I know there was we didn't mention this because at the end of that pod, I was so heartbroken that uh I I I did I forgot to mention it, but there is a sequel to Secret of Nim, and it's called like Timmy Goes to the Thorn Valley or something. I didn't even look it up. It's like it's like Timmy's Adventures, and it's like totally different animation style. I is it still Don Bluth? I don't know. Like I've never I've only seen clips of it and it looks fucking terrible. It looks like it's like all the honestly, it's like all those, it's like all those land before time sequels. You know, they made like 14 land before time sequels. I know. I think I watched like up to like three and kind of called it on that. Yeah. What am I who's who's the YouTuber? Is it Jenny Nicholson? Do you know who I'm talking about? I think you might have shown me some of her videos before, if I'm not mistaken, but I could be wrong. She's so funny. Yeah, she has like a four and a half hour video about the start, the Star Wars hotel at Disney, and she loves theme parks. Like she goes and reviews theme parks and she'll like deep dive on a lot of cool stuff. So shout out Jenny Nicholson. But she in in uh pandemic, she watched every single Lamb Before Time video, and she rates and reviews them all. And it is, if you just want like a brain rot video, it is really entertaining. So but we're not talking about Down Bluth anymore. We're not talking about Secret of Nim. Melanie's grateful for that. We're not we're not talking about Lamb Before Time or any kind of animated movie, although there is animation in this. This movie I'm talking about today is actually one of Melanie's memories and a family favorite. I am talking about the fine film Pee-wee's Big Adventure from 1985. We were talking about like, yeah, what is like a classic? We have a lot of we we mentioned it in, I think the last pod that there are movies that are just kind of always were always on in our childhood home. And this one was definitely one of them. I guess we'll just kick it off with your memories, because this is this is about you. What is your what are your like what's your earliest memory of seeing I'll say this Pee Wee's Big Adventure or just like Pee-Wee in general? Because I also grew up with the TV show Pee-Wee's Playhouse and all of his like additional content growing up. Did the Playhouse did that predate the movie, or was that after? Well, let's let's hop into some lore first. So originally, originally it was a stage show. Yeah. Because Paul Rubens, you know, he went to LA and worked with the Groundlings, which is a super famous comedy troupe. They do improv, they do sketch, and Pee-wee was this character that he, you know, you create like original characters in comedy, and that was one that really like got a lot of good response from the audience. So it became a regular stage show, which became a TV show. Then he, I believe he did the movie. Now that I'm talking about it, I wanna I had just sorry to interject, but no, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. I just watched the Paul Rubens documentary. Oh, did you? What did you think? I loved it and I was definitely sad at the end. I felt bad because you know, later in his life, he was constantly persecuted for things that didn't necessarily like he didn't necessarily do, but like I think it's because he was closeted. So it's like they tried to arrest him for child porn, and it was like all it was was like men's nude magazines. And it's like there's nothing, there's nothing. I mean, it's technically, yes, it's porn, and you're you know, in America, you're allowed to collect whatever you want, right? So it's like I think they were just going after him for I'm not sure what reasons. I'm not sure if it's because like he had issues with friends that he like had fallen out with over time, or I mean, it's a really good documentary. It's it was one of my favorite movies that I watched last year. Yeah, they they persecuted him, I feel mostly because he was gay. I mean, they still persecute gay people and trans people in this country, but I I I have to tell like younger people all the time, I'm like, you don't know how bad it was in the 80s and early 90s, especially like the level of homophobia, like if you got called like uh a slur, let's just say like that. Like it really like ruined your like that was one of my first instances of bullying in school. Yeah, it was like the worst thing you could be was gay. It it pretty much ruined his career. I just looked this up on the internet, so I was wrong. It was stage show, then movie, then show. The show came. And that's kind of how, yeah, like in the documentary, that's kind of how they like laid it out. And I thought it was opposite, but yeah, no, I I had just forgotten, yeah, because like the movie was so successful. The movie was the thing that like, because it's such a a crazy script and it's such a crazy out there concept. Yeah, I don't want to get like too far from like your stories of it, but I will say, like, just to insert a little bit of family lore is like I feel like we like content that talks about outsiders and misfits a lot. I feel like people who are sort of like outside of the norm. And even though I think people would look at us and be like, oh, that's a pretty typical like Midwestern family setup. I think one of the things that shaped my humor, like the comedy that I write, the things that I enjoy, it's all shaped like Pee-Wee is I cannot overstate how like formative this viewpoint is for like my humor, even nowadays. So, like, how do you feel about that? Like going back to your memories, how do you remember this movie? What influence was it on you? I mean, this was one of my earliest movie memories, like, period. Like one of the earliest movies I remember watching as a kid and really just like laughing with all the jokes, but like not totally understanding it, like with my recent rewatch. I'm like, oh, there's some some real adult humor in this, too, that kind of goes right over your head as a kid. But just to see this guy, Pee-wee, who's basically like a young boy, he's a child body, yeah. Yeah, he's a full child, and it's like you can relate to this character, even though, like, you know, he's different, right? So as a kid, I always like I just remember laughing with all the different scenes, with you know, large marge being like a scary scene. Sure. And I uh always with the breakfast scene too, where he talks to the breakfast and it's Mr. T cereal. It's like there is just it's something that's like you said too, is shaped like my view on humor. You know, I kind of love that sort of like not necessarily slapstick, but just like well written. It could be slapstick too, but it's just like that there's something about Pee-Wee that just feels different than any other type of comedy movie. Yeah, like how would you uh, you know, I I know we don't do like a lot of like film analysis or like literary analysis, although we we do talk about books sometimes, right? But uh like what would you yeah, how would you define this kind of humor? If I if I had to find a definition, I can't. Yeah, or like a word, like like when you think of Pee-Wee's big adventure, like the world building that he does, like what is I want to say kooky. It is it is pretty kooky, yeah. It's it's like absurd, it's very like Americana, it's very California though, it's very LA. This movie, it's so LA, it's so California, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to like we were talking about what movie to do next, and I was like, there is a movie we can be in nuclear winter, we it can be shit weather, terrible day. I can put this movie on and it will make me laugh or smile. I don't care. I on this most recent rewatch, I rewatched it twice because I watched it once regular style, and then I watched with the commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD. Well, it's it which is really good, by the way, listeners. If you want to pick up a nice piece of physical media, it has a lot of extras on it. There's also a commentary with Danny Elfman, the composer, which I haven't listened to yet, which it's just the soundtrack, and he talks, I guess he talks through the soundtrack too. Yeah, I would call it very like kooky, absurdist, sort of like postmodern. It's just it's really out there. And I always, in terms of my memories, I have such strong early childhood memories of like the art style, because it's just the whole visual world of Pee-Wee and like the things that he fills his house with, what he wears. He's sort of like pop art, definitely like even with me too, all the contraptions he had. So, like how the breakfast is assembled, yes, you know, with like that sort of mousetrap-esque style maze that happens, and you've got President Abraham Lincoln flipping pancakes. You gotta have Lincoln. Yeah, you gotta have him making your pancakes, otherwise they're trash. And it's funny, it's like, what happens to the pancakes that are on the ceiling? They just stay there. Great question. Do you know how they did that effect, by the way? I I wanna assume it's like it's a box that's lit. And no, it's like I would assume it's some sort of what would you call that? I don't know, you'll have to tell me. What's the thing where it's like it looks like something, but it's not an illusion? Yeah, but there's another word for it. Yeah, it's like a yeah, it's a it's a like an in-camera effect. So they couldn't, they tried to actually throw pancakes on the ceiling and they used all kinds of adhesive and they had like multiple people try it, they could not get it right. So what they did, the ceiling you see is actually a floor, yeah. That's what I was yeah, optical illusion. It's an optical illusion, and then they dropped the pancakes and they just flipped it in camera. It's so good. I also love that whole it's called a Rube Goldberg machine when you have like all the little things that like make the one thing happen. Just like the idea that Peewee, like every single night, he has to reset a candle to set off the breakfast machine. It's absolutely wild. Yeah, that's that's one of my favorite parts too. Yeah, the colors of it, it's just that feeling of like, oh wow, California's nice.

unknown 16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And me as like pretty much a lifelong New Yorker, Midwesterner, and then New Yorker. And I'm just, I'm usually like, well, fuck LA, you know. But then you watch a movie like that and you're like, oh, I get it. Mm-hmm. Like, it's funny. This movie to me is like very linked, even though they're not from California, it's very linked to like the B-52s for me. Like the B-52s are from Athens, Georgia, but they had that similar like 1950s but also 80s look, which I love, and big hairdo's and absurdist style, bright colors. Yeah, almost like almost like a pastiche a little bit, but it's like I don't know, it's so sincere though. That's the thing that I love about uh Pee-wee is like there's like this deep sincerity to it, and like it's such like he makes such grounded choices, like it's silly and it's goofy, but it's also like real to him. Like losing his bike is real, and all of the drama is like real, and they that's the thing that really works for me about this movie is that it is done like dead serious. That's the thing, yeah. I think that's the thing that really like clinches the comedy for me. It's like enough of these, like everyone today wants to do like ironic detachment, and it's like, no, Pee-wee is into his bike, he loves his house, he loves his dog, he loves you know, all of these things, and he's passionate about it and he's not afraid. So I feel like, yeah, Pee-Wee's an icon, he's a legend, he's a he's a regular legend. He's also like, I would say, like a queer icon as well, even though he was not out of the closet when he made this. But I think in retrospect, we can all look back and be like, yeah, no, Pee-wee made it okay to be like a weird kid. Yeah, you're okay to be different. And you didn't get to grow up in the 80s when every child in elementary school was imitating Pee-Wee. Like it probably for you, it was like Ace Ventura, maybe so, yeah. Right. Like what what was everybody, what movies was everybody quoting like in 2000 for you? It's a great question. Yeah, like what were what were like the vocal stims that the children would get off on? But you mean like it was, I think it was a lot of like uh more so we were like a big TV generation too. So it was a lot of stuff like you would see on Nickelodeon and SpongeBob, who is like Pee-Wee was such a big reference to the creator of SpongeBob when he created that. So it's basically like a version of Pee-wee. Yeah, like he admired his work so much. That's such a good tie-in. Yeah, like SpongeBob is really yeah, SpongeBob is very Pee-wee-esque. He's sort of innocent and he's just like living his life. He doesn't have a bow tie, but he has a regular tie, a little red tie and stuff, and he wears his little outfit. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's and a lot of adult humor in SpongeBob, too. That's true. It's a little subversive, and like there's stuff for the, you know, it's four kids, but you know, parents can also enjoy it. And I think that's why, like going back to our memories, that's why it was on all the time because our parents really enjoyed it and they love it, yeah. Still, still laugh at it, I think all the time, all the time. Every time it's the this biker bar scene, you gotta just turn it all the way up like every time. And my dad will sit there and watch it and just smile and like through the whole thing and laugh. Yeah, and we've seen it like at this point, like uh I'll say hundreds of times. Hundreds of times. Yeah, I was trying to explain to Ryan when he was watching through with me. I said, you have to understand something about my childhood. And I was like, if you want to know like what my parents' friends were like in the 80s and 90s, it's the spiker bar scene in Pee-wee's big adventure. Those are the kind of adults I'm not joking. No, like they are they just to see people like that in a movie, I'm like, oh, I feel at home. I do. It's and good old Cassandra Peterson, Miss Alvira in the bar as well. Yeah, no, we're kind of jumping ahead, but yeah, that's yeah, that's one of my favorite things. I say you let me have them first. First, yeah. Elvira is was also because Cassandra Peterson, also one of the groundlings with PB. Um, a lot of groundlings in this going like into the creation of the film. Uh, the screenplay was written by Paul Rubens. We have Phil Hartman, who you probably know from Saturday Night Live, among other things. Like he just did so much stuff. Uh, and another person named Michael Varhol, who was like a screenwriter and a film producer, but there were like three people working on this script. And I think that Paul Rubens wanted the movie to be his initial concept for the movie was have you ever seen the Disney movie Pollyanna? No. With Haley Mills. So it's it's a pretty simple story. It's like a Disney movie, and there's a girl named Pollyanna, and she comes to a town full of grumps and she makes everybody happy. And you get an expression like, oh, she's a real Pollyanna. Like she's real. Happy, happy all the time. So that was Paul Rubin's original idea that like he would come to a town and everybody was sad and he would cheer up and make everybody's day. But he like it just didn't have a lot of story to it. And he's like, Well, there's no conflict. And then he was like working on the I think it was the universal lot. Lot, yeah. And everyone was riding bikes. And everybody's riding bikes. And he was just like, Oh, this movie is about Pee-Wee and he loves his bike and he lost his bike and he'll do anything to get it back. So there you have like a hook, right? And then from then on, he just like wrote the screenplay with the two other guys, and it was like a pretty big deal. I I do highly recommend, just like Melanie suggested, everybody go watch the is it Pee-Wee as himself. Pee-wee as himself on HBO. Yeah, it's it's a tough watch sometimes, especially like towards the end. But I think the begin, I mean, the interview sequences are so he's such a Virgo. I want to say that we were talking about zodiac signs before we hopped on. Paul Rubens is the most, if you don't believe in astrology, I'm sorry. He is the most Virgo ass Virgo I have ever seen. Control freak. Control freak, perfectionist, lives and dies by his work, doesn't want to be like misquoted, misrepresented, workaholic. Just absolutely yeah. And just like, I mean, I I love it. I'm very aspirationally uh a Virgo. Uh I I love those qualities. I love working with people like that. I love working with people who like are very on it and professional. Yeah. And so yeah, just watching how it's like, I get it, man. Like you just wanted everything just right. And yeah, and so speaking of that, uh, I don't I forget in the documentary, did he talk about trying to find the director for the for this movie? Did he talk about that at all? I think he did, but I don't I don't recall any of the information off the top of my head. Well, on the Criterion Collection DVD, he in the commentary, Paul Rubens and Tim Burton talk, and Paul mentions like they they wanted to give him a different director, and he's like, uh, like he didn't mention who it was, but he was just like, he wasn't right. But he had seen Tim Burton's short called Frankenweenie. Have you ever seen it? I haven't seen the uh original short, but I know who's in it. Wait, who's in it? Isn't Miss Shelly Duval in it? Yeah, oh yes, Miss Shelly Duval is in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great, it's really short. I think it's on YouTube. I remember seeing it when I was like seven years old. I know they made like an animated version of it in like the 2010s that I think I might have seen, but I don't really recall. I remember the animation though, it was kind of cute. Yeah, I think, yeah, there was like a moment, you know, back in the in the 80s, they had a lot of like dead pet content, and it was like cute dead pet content, not like pet cemetery, dead pet content. Not enough, not enough dead pets, still. It's just like Frank and Weenie, more pets than pet cemetery. But yeah, so Paul Rubens had seen Frank and Weenie and he's he saw Burton's style and he was brand new. Tim Burton was not like a big movie guy, he hadn't done anything. And I feel like Paul Rubens is really responsible for Tim Burton's whole career, maybe. Not that he wouldn't have been successful, but he so much of like being famous is like getting that foot in and getting your further two connections. Yeah, yeah, like honestly, it really is. Like that was the part of showbiz that always didn't sit well with me. It's like I'm talented, I can do it, but it's like, no, you gotta talk to people and you gotta like be friends, kiss, kiss, not even kiss, kiss, but you just gotta be around. Yeah, you got you gotta go to parties, you gotta be in the room, and sometimes they'll just be looking around and be like, Oh, we need a writer, who's here? Oh, she's here, do you know, like, or whatever. It's just like you're ready to go kind of thing. Um, yeah, he had seen Frank and Weenie and he was so impressed. Like, Paul Rubens went to bat for Tim Burton. And Tim Burton had worked primarily in animation, fun trivia fact. Previous to all this, he was an animator for Disney. He worked on Fox and the Hound. No shit. Yeah, no, that that's like that's like the little we talked about Fox and the Hound in the last episode, too. He described it as feeling like he was Rapunzel in a tower and he just had to like make animation cells all day. And he was just like, I mean, those animated. I mean, you I think even if you love it, it's a very hard job. And yeah, it's just a lot of like sitting, you're sitting around for like 10, 15 hours just drawing. Like, I don't know. But yeah, he he wanted to he wanted to get his foot in directing. He had made Frank and Weenie. Paul Rubens was like, I love this style. And so the rest is history, yeah. They got Tim Burton on this film, and you know, from everything that I've seen, and I've done so I, you know, we've we both watched this movie so much, and I've done so much behind the scenes research on it, they just really seem to have like a blast doing this movie. It seemed like do you can you get a sense of that, you think, when you watch it? Oh, a hundred percent. And what's funny is I mean, like as a kid, I never knew that it was like a Tim Burton movie. You know, I wasn't like reading the credits, you know, I just knew I loved Pee-Wee, I loved the look of the movie, I love Gino to laugh, right? I love to laugh. I love to laugh. And so I was just like, oh my gosh, you it you get a real sense of like a real feeling that it is in his portfolio when you watch it and go, like, oh, you know, it's definitely through the lens of the Pee-Wee character, but with the influence of Tim Burton, like in that environment, like the way things are shaped, and it's so detailed, yeah, it's so extreme, and I love it. Yeah, I I feel like it's it's such a good, I mean, it's Tim Burton's first movie. Let's give it up to him. I I know we've like shit-talked him on past podcasts, specifically for Willy Wonka. Oh no, for Nightmare Before Christmas and Willy Wonka. Both, I mean, Nightmare Before Christmas. I can still give it props for the claimation of it all and and recognizing like the design is cool and quirky. Uh, do I think the songs are great? No. Do I think the plot is good? Definitely not. Do I do I want to get Jack Skellington tattooed on my thigh? Never in my life. People do it, man. It's wild. I'm like, you're gonna get this whole thing. Yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's a whole thing. But that being said, yeah, this was a time, I feel like this was a great time for Burton. His first couple movies. We have Pee-wee's Big Adventure, we have Beetlejuice. Oh, yeah. Original Beetlejuice, like one of the best, I think, where he really got to like take his visual style to the next level. Edward Scissor Hands, Edward Scissor Hands still up there. Yeah, and then I feel like even honestly, even Sleepy Hollow, Sleepy Hollow is such a good movie. So there are Sleepy Hollow haters. Have you seen that one? I believe I have it, and I've seen it many, many years ago. So we could always revisit during spooky season. It's such a good, it's like, oh, talk about we'll have to resurrect Fashion Corner that has one of the best dresses of all time in it. Yeah. So anyway, not to go off too much about Tim Burton, but yeah, like this. This was him. You see a little bit of his visual style, the dinosaur sequence, like the animated dinosaur sequence, the clown sequence, like all the dream sequences. He gets to kind of flex that, like when Pee-wee's having his nightmares, or even too, with uh the whole large marge situation where her face she goes into that animated style that's like something right out of Beetlejuice, you know, it is his style. You could tell that they had a bit of a limited budget, but they did the best that they could. And you can also tell, too, that like they really wanted to experiment with genres because this this is the movie with the is like all movies. There's it's like a buddy movie, it's like a mystery, it's kind of like a hero's journey. There's an action, a lot of action, especially at the end. There's a ton of action, yeah. Ends with a huge chase scene. There's a little bit of romance, there's very little, very little, but you know, it's that's sort of by that's because Pee-wee is essentially like an asexual character. That or I mean, even going back to being a child, like when you're a young boy, girls have cooties, you know. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. He was very like, I think he he does get a little romantic with Simone a little bit, but it's more like they have an emotional connection, and that's a and that part of the movie is like as soft as it gets. But yeah, I mean, Pee-wee, Pee-wee is a child. He he he lives in a house which is like the coolest little like double A-frame house, which I was obsessed with as a kid. I was like, I want this house. His bedroom in the beginning. Well, let's, I mean, I guess we can just start at the beginning. How does the movie start, Melanie? Well, he's having a dream that he's winning the Tour de France. Uh, you know, he's about to get the crown because he zooms past everybody in his special bike, right? About to get the crown. He wakes up and he's in his bedroom, and it's like a total, like everyone's imaginative childhood bedroom. There's toys everywhere, there's little gadgets that's all set up around the room. There's even a fireman's pole. Oh my god. Yeah, I wanted that so bad. I remember asking mom for one. She's like, we don't have two stories in here. Like, how where was it going? Where was it going? Where is it going to? I was like, Mom, I want a fire pole. And then I would cry because like we were poor and we didn't have anything. And uh, I love I love Pee-wee's wallpaper in his bedroom. That's like cowboys and Indians. There's like the big Godzilla head on the floor. Yes. I love that he wakes up. His little morning routine is like he picks up like literally five-pound dumbbells and he can't lift them. He can't lift them. He does like one rep. He's like, Oh, okay, I'm done. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, so he has the contraption and gets him out of bed. He's playing with the toys across the floor, hops down the fireman's pole, instantly dressed. That's the move. That's the move. So he goes to the kitchen, and as a kid, I really thought that all of these contraptions were real. Sure. You can kind of see with the camera effects how they got everything to like they had the little like chicken thing, crack the egg, and then the pterodactyl comes by with the toast. And I mean, like, you can just set that up to have him just fly by and drop, but you don't have to have everything else going to make that happen. So it was like, oh yeah, you get to see like the trick behind the camera a little bit. He I like when he goes into the bathroom. Oh, I love that bathroom. Yeah, I want to make our bathroom like that, but you know, I there's limitations. There's limitations in the space, but yeah, what do you love about it? I mostly love the scale that he gets on and he weighs, I'm assuming, 98 pounds, or he's a 98, he's a 98-pound weakling. Yes, that's the joke. But the scale gives him a like a fortune, which I love. And it's like it's better if you stay home today or something like that. It's so, it's it's so ominous. Like that's your classic promise payoff because it's something bad does happen. The scene in the bathroom, which I assume this is all improv, that where he puts the tape on his face and rips it off. I'm sorry, I could be having the worst fucking day. And him putting the tape on his face and taping his nose up and being like, hello, like that, and then ripping it off and screaming. I'm sorry. It's it still gets me. Like we had it, we well, we were watching it the other night. We were both like cackling. I smile, my my jaw hurt from laughing and smiling watching this entire movie. Like it was every scene has something to give. I was like, okay, I need this scale in my house that tells me like what I need to do today. It's gonna solve all my problems. See, before we had chat GPT, so the dum-dums of the world could ask it questions. We had old-timey scales that would just spit out a fortune, and then you just did whatever that fortune said. It's funny because Pee Wee's appearance always reminded me kind of of like a sock monkey. Oh, yeah, I could see that. Yeah, like sort of like a Paul Frank-esque kind of sock monkey. Yeah, he's very the graphic, like pop art design of it all. He's gray, he's white, he's got a little pop of red, the haircut. He's wearing a ton of makeup too. It's like it's not super apparent, but I'm like, yeah, he is he is beat. He's beat, as they say. Yeah, like how would you how would you even describe Pee-wee's house? Like, would you call it sort of like a postmodern house? Like you're like you're the aesthetics queen. Like, what would you call Pee-Wee's whole what is that even? It's like kind of almost like a bungalow, really, because he has an upstairs. Um no, but I not the style of house, but like the whole like the interior? The interior, like what style is that? What would you call it? It's like maximalist pop art folklore, sort of like Americana. Americana. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it is, it's a very like American movie and a lot of like motifs. I get like sideshow, circus, yeah, 1950s pop culture for sure, like definitely influenced by like TV and comics and stuff. Like his whole yard is like all the little figurines and the things, like the the sprinkler, his one neighbor's just like fine with it. He's like, Pee-wee, ha, pee-wee, come on. I'm gonna water my grass now. Uh yeah, I'm gonna water my grass. Yeah, I was gonna say if we can get through this without at least one terrible peewee impression, I can't do his voice very well. I guess, yeah, it you're like go on, try it. Go on, do it. Good morning, Pee-wee. Good morning, Mr. Breakfast. Yeah, I I pity the poor fool who don't eat my cereal. Sorry, before we move on, we we haven't even got we have to speed this up because we're talking about this opening scene for like literally 20 minutes. I love it so much. Yeah, I love it so I love it so much. I the fact that he ate like two kernels of the cereal, like two pieces of cereal. He doesn't eat the eggs, so like and he just crunches and munches, and then he pats his little his little mug and he's out of there.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

I it's it's so wack.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I it's so funny. It's so funny. Yeah, like that, yeah. The house is incredible, the exterior is incredible. We we see his bike, which he keeps James Bond style in the back.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

And yeah, and then he's like out and about on his day, he's out shopping, it's just like a normal day. We get to go to the joke shop, which I think was supposed to be like a longer bit, because like all the stuff that he gets at the joke shop, like it's supposed to like come back and help him. Like he does a little bit, like he brings out the gum later, yeah. And he brings out the glasses, the 3D glasses. The um boomerang bow tie was a cut scene when he was supposed to like during the um the chase scene much later, he was supposed to use the the boomerang bow tie to like evade the studio cops or whatever. Oh, but it was like it broke up the scene, and they just wanted to like keep the momentum of the chase going, so they ditched it. There were there's a lot of like cutscenes on the DVD. He decides to chain his bike to a clown, a rotating clown statue, and uses like a full five miles of chain to tie it up. Did you have relatable? It really I was gonna say, did you have a childhood bike that you treated like that? Did you have a many childhood bikes? I had many of them, and one like my teenage bike I took to New York and it was stolen. Wait, was it? Yeah, I brought like a Schwinn mountain bike. It's not exactly what you need to get around in the city, but it was plenty for me. And that thing got stolen on Stanhope Street. Girl, why are you chaining up your bike on Stanhope Street? You know better than that. That's where I lived at the time, you know. She was in the she was deep in Bushwick. There was no space for the bike inside, so I chained it up outside like a fool. Like oh, my I've definitely had some bikes get stolen too. In the land of Pee-Wee, like the it's like a land of bikes, right? We have not just Pee-Wee, but there are like local BMX riders. Like BMX was huge in the 80s, like all these kids popping wheelies, and he ends up like after all of his errands, he ends up at Chuck's Bikarama, which is where his friend Dottie works. And Dottie, I love the dynamic. Dottie, who's played by E.G. Daly or Elizabeth Daly, but she's professionally known as E.G. Daly. And of course, she's done you recognize her voice, right? Oh, yeah. She's done so much. She's been in a lot of movies, a lot of movies, and you know, I think she's most well known for voicing Tommy Pickles on Rugrats. She's done a lot of animation voices. That's like the ultimate gig. Yeah. But she has that really unique, kind of scratchy, childlike voice. And I love their dynamic because usually you see the man sort of being the aggressor in a relationship. But Dottie, she has a crush on Pee-wee and she's not afraid to go there. And I was always like, you go, Dottie. You get this man, child, whatever. Okay, if you want him, get him. If you want him, get him. I mean, I get it. I think, I mean, sidebar, I think Paul Rubens is really hot. And he in the documentary, they show like all of his like, you know, him with long hair. Oh, yeah. Him with, you know, just like being a guy outside of the character of Pee-Wee. And I'm like, yeah, no, he he definitely was a little haughty for sure. So after he chats with Dottie at the bike shop, he comes out and what had happened to his bike, it got stolen. It got stolen, and it's like the worst thing that's ever happened. And Pee-wee fully spirals. That's the best way to describe it. He's he's lost his mind, he's looking everywhere. He calls a meeting of people to like hunt it down. And uh yeah, he there aren't really any suspects except we forgot to mention him earlier. His nemesis. His nemesis, Francis, which is who who is so funny. The fact that they found basically like a foil for Pee-Wee, and he's not like in the whole movie, but the part that he plays, uh, Mark Holton plays Francis Buxton. And yeah, he he was like in a bunch of other stuff. He was in the leprechaun movies, he's like done a ton of stuff. He does a really good job, like also being like a spoiled man child. So, so yeah, Pee-wee confronts Francis. Uh and like I know you are, but what am I? Yeah, after after like they had a squabble that morning, so Francis is like number one on his suspect list. So he like busts into his house, attacks him in the bathtub. That fucking tub though is the dream. It's like a mini pool in your house. Yeah, no, I I said that too. I was just like, who has a pool? Who has like a tub like that? And they have to fill up all that water. Just I love that he's like, Who's hosing him down? So, yeah, Francis's father comes in and is like, it's not my boy, you've got the wrong guy. But the thing was, it was it was him, it was him. Yeah, there's that little quick scene with Francis and basically just like a 1950s style greaser thug, which I think also like there's so many scenes in this movie, they just sort of like come and go, but it still works. Like he's just like, I don't want the bike anymore. Just like get rid of it. Francis is just like he's panicked, right? He knows he can't drive this bike because people are gonna see him with it. So he asks the thug who he had steal it to get rid of it. So Pee Wee's walking around in the rain. What happens then? I want you to start to describe some of these scenes. So uh well, he's walking around in the rain, and like some thugs try to approach him, and he like gives a scary reaction to them, and they all run away. And then I think this is when he goes to the tarot card reader. Yeah, he goes to Madame Ruby. Madame Ruby, and she's like, Yeah. I'll I'll tell you what you need to know for you know 20 bucks. I'll tell you everything for 50. And so she just starts going through his wallet and starts like telling him about himself. And she plugs in her lamp, her mystical orb. So she's describing, like she's just looking at words around the room. It's so funny. She's like, oh, the Alamo, your bike is in the basement. Because she sees like a sign outside that's like something repair or whatever. Right. It looks like Alamo. So so but it gives him hope. He's like, All right, I gotta go to Texas. So like hitchhiking from California to Texas. And then yeah, from there it just becomes this episodic road movie. And you know, not to break down like every scene like I know we would, but we can just talk about like the characters that he meets along the way. Like Mickey. We meets Mickey, who is incredible, like a tough guy who's on the run from the law. Yep, yep. And he and then that's when uh Pee-wee goes into drag when they invade the cops and he does this like sweet little lady routine or whatever. And like the cop is so funny. Like, I yeah, I I do love that that whole Pee-wee and Drag scene is such a delight. They have such I love how quickly they change. Like, I'm like, where where did that mustache and beard come from, Mickey? Like, so fast. Pee-wee is wearing straight up like a granny core outfit. It's so good though. It's basically just like a cashmere, like teal sweater dress. Honestly.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Like a moo-woo.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Yeah, just like yeah, it's it's it's so good. He looks so good. And the way he like just plays into it is delightful. So they yeah, they evade the cops, like you said, they're driving down a long and dusty road and end up like driving off a cliff. That scene where Pee-wee's trying to drive in the dark while Mickey's falling asleep and it's dark, and he you see the signs in succession. It's like, oh, it's a wiggly road. It's a wigglier road. Oh my god, falling rocks. It just escalates like so many beats in this movie are like classic textbook sketch comedy gold. Because like the thing is you you're you take a funny idea and then you escalate it. Like, how do you make it more funny, right? Or you think of like any successful sketch like on Saturday Night Live or SCTV or whatever. It's like it starts with a basic idea and it's like, okay, now go crazy with it. And that's what makes it funny. So that's like a classic example. They they literally fall off a cliff, Pee-wee saves them by like pulling the canopy and they float down, and Mickey has to ditch him. And then we get one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, which is animated where he's in the dark and you just see Pee-Wee's eyes. Yeah. Like the floating eyes around the black screen. Yeah, what happens? Like he's in the dark, and do you remember what happens next? He's trying to navigate, and then I think he finds a flashlight or something. No, he's got the he's got the the X-ray vision, the goggles. The goggles, right? And then it's just all these taxidermied animals around him. He's like, oh. It's so funny when he turns on the lights in that scene and he's just like, I hear animals. And he's like, Let me get a look with these glasses. It's like half taxidermied animals, and also there's just some random real animals. They put like a raccoon near him. There's maybe a mountain lion that they got. They were just like, just bring some random animals to set. And then, of course, after that, he needs a ride. So who picks him up after that whole ordeal? Large Marge. Large Marge. I say the word icon on this podcast a lot. Large Marge is the moment. She is, she's everything. She's uh, I would say an iconic female character of horror in a movie that is not a horror movie, but that's like, like I said before, every genre is in this movie. So, you know, your your action, your comedy, romance, this is like the horror movement, and it's legit scary. And every child who I know who has seen this movie was traumatized by that. Like, how much did you jump? Oh, uh, all the time as a kid, all the time for a large march. That claymation face, that stop motion, it's just so good. Because she's talking about she's like going on about this story and taking her time with it. It was the loudest crash, it was like something fell off the Empire State Building. It was the worst accident I ever seen. And then it's like, and then yeah, and then she she scares him and then he gets out. And I like how they even talked about it in his documentary, how like the screen basically does a wipe where like the semi drives off and it reveals the dinosaurs and the diner. Yes, and it's like changes the scene. So he goes into the diner, and you know, she makes sure to tell him, tell him large marge sent you, and so they all freak out because that's a ghost. She's she is not actually real, she's dead. Yeah, it's so good. I think that that because you've never been to California. I haven't. I know the dinosaurs are there, they're not lit up like how they are in the movie. No, but I've been through there. It's like just outside of LA. It's like closer to Palm Springs. This is this is gonna be my plug. I've been telling Melanie this for years now. She has to go to California, and you gotta have the California experience before it all burns up or falls into the ocean or like gets bombed into oblivion or whatever is gonna be. Or and or and or go, yeah, go and enjoy because there's just it if you want to feel how this movie feels, I can like tell you where to go to feel it because it is real, it's like a real place full of sun and like bright colors, and like, yeah, you can go see the dinosaurs. It's like they're called like the Cabazon Dinosaurs, right outside of Palm Springs. You can go get a date shake, you can go buy a Hawaiian shirt and like walk around and just live your life. It's like not too too far from like Coachella, so like maybe don't go there now. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't go to Coachella. No one needs to go to Coachella. I'm anti-Cochella. It's just you know, like who if you want to go to a real festival, go to Bonnaroo, but um, or or honestly, like a UK festival, I feel like like Glastonbury, like Glastonbury or like Primavera Sound in Primavera in Spain or Vaken in Germany, just go to Europe, yeah. Just go to Europe, you don't need to go, but anyway, that yeah, this is I I I feel like I feel this spiritually, I feel like you need to go there and just like experience it and see if you like it and get get some. I'm sure I will, and that's the problem. Just go, yeah, and like you'll have to rent a car, but it's okay because you know how to drive. Uh yeah, I feel like yeah, if you love uh sorry, if you love sunshine, you love fashion, you love the beach, you love driving culture, girl, go to California. It's like everything, but just don't like live in like LA proper. You could live like just outside, or live in like a northern suburb near the mountain. Because that's the cool thing, too. Sorry, one more California plug is that you can be in the city and then you can like be in the mountains in like a half hour and like way out, way out in nature. Yeah, I love all of the vistas in this movie. Yeah, the horizons, the dinosaurs, the light, just like the cool lighting of like, oh, it's like we we've stayed up all night in and we've hung out in the dinosaur because Pee-wee meets Simone, this like very romantic, uh I'll call her like a francophile waitress, and she's got big dreams, but she's stuck in a little town. She is living most women's tragedy being held back by a man. Exactly. Yeah, she's with some fucking loser boyfriend who doesn't give her anything. She's out here working hard. All she wants to do is go to Paris, and so she has a little heart-to-heart with Pee-wee, and he inspires her to start to live her dreams, chase her dreams, go out and get it, yeah. And they do have this thing of this beautiful little like connecting moment uh before her boyfriend Andy catches them, and that becomes a chase scene. He gets chased out of the dinosaur park and ends up on a train. Yeah. And can you describe? I feel like this is another scene that is like a family favorite of ours. Yeah. What happens on the train? He meets I would only be able to call like a hobo, if that's not the proper term. I mean, whatever. It's just like that's like the style. He is we could, I think we can call this man a hobo. Yeah, he's a hobo with a bindle stick, just like well, Pee-wee has a bindle stick too. He does, he's like a trained hobo man. He has a lot of songs. He's so best one being Jimmy Crackcorn and uh Jimmy Crackcorn, mom will say that all the time. Yeah, that's like uh yeah, we laugh because it's like a part of our family lore. And also, this is a mom thing. I didn't say this, but mom said that the hobo on the train looked like your grandpa Ray. Maybe so, which I thought was very funny. He kind of does look like him a little bit, yeah. Except he didn't only have one tooth. No, no, he had all his teeth, but yeah, like very similar in the face. So yeah, Pee-wee gets like he has to jump off the train and scream because this this guy keeps singing all the things. They're singing for a while, they're singing a good long time. Yeah, and but like where he jumps off, he ends up in San Antonio, he ends up at the Alamo, but of course, that's a huge disappointment because he goes through a whole historic tour only to find out that there is no basement. He got duped, he's he's stuck in San Antonio, which is kind of fun because the rodeo is there. So we got like a full rodeo scene. Uh well, yeah, because Andy shows up because he runs into Simone, who for some reason left California to get on a bus to go to France. Yeah, that the whole that's the one part I was like, okay, I understand like plot-wise, he has to run into Simone again. But if she was coming from California, and we maybe like the dinos weren't in California, hypothetically, like in the movie, maybe that was like somewhere along the way to Texas. Yeah, I guess so. Like the space and time continuum gets a little wibbly wobbly there for sure. But yeah, so she has to she had to like catch a bus in San Antonio. I'm like, that's not near anything. I mean, especially in 1985, like there weren't as many like hubs of transportation, like the major hub of transportation in Texas is. I mean, I guess you could take a bus from San Antonio to Dallas Fort Worth and then get on a plane. So maybe that's what she was trying to do. Maybe, but yeah, I mean, I like I try to justify in my head. I'm like, that's a lot of miles on that bus. That would be a brutal, like, because you've never been to Texas either. I've never been. No, I know it's huge though. Oh my god, Melanie, you gotta go. Okay, you're going. We're going to Texas and we're going to California. Yeah, so they're in Texas. Uh, what happens after he has to leave San Antonio? Is that where he runs into the bikers? Pee-wee manages to evade Andy after Andy follows Simone. Like Pee-wee basically like distracts him so Simone is able to like get on the bus and go do her thing. Uh, he like ends up like riding a bull. Oh, he gets knocked out. That's what happens. Yeah, he goes to the hospital. He goes to the hospital. I think that's where he has like his scary dream. And then he like wakes up. Go ahead. Is it because he or does he go to the hospital twice? I don't know because like I know when he first when he goes to the hospital, the bikers like escort the ambulance to the hospital. He goes to the he goes to the hospital twice, I think. He PB is always getting in a little altercation. Yes. And yeah, he gets knocked out and then he wakes up right. Oh, he he wakes up and he doesn't remember anything. And so he doesn't like it. And then he remembers the Alamo and everyone's like, yeah, yeah. And then he goes to the biker bar to make a phone call. And then he accidentally accidentally knocks over all the bikers' bikes. So we're at the very famous biker scene that we've already talked about a little bit. But yeah, he he has to save, he has to redeem himself by dancing tequila on top of the bar of the bus. His shoes. Yeah, it's a legendary scene. And they give him you please you have to tell this scene before we start to like wrap it up. This scene, I have never seen my stepdad and your father laugh so hard in his life. I swear to god, there's one time we put this movie on. It's the scene where Pee-wee gets the motorcycle.

unknown 58:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Well describe what happened. So they they give they gift him a motorcycle because they're so impressed with his dancing and his ability to bring joy to the biker bar. Sure. And they put him on the bike and he's like, all right, guys, I'm out of here. You know, all cool. And then he goes and rides off and he goes through the billboard on the side of the road and falls off. It's he doesn't make it like 30 feet. It's so it is one of the funniest like visual gags in like any movie ever. Yeah, it's it's just one, it's it's again, it's a scene that we can put on and then like everyone fucking dies laughing. I always say too, because like you know, he goes to the bar and it's loud and he goes, I'm trying to use the phone. And then it's like, and then something happens and he goes, Well, nobody hit me to that, dude. I say that all the time. Yeah, it's so funny how like yeah, the the movie has become a part of like our lexicon, and it's just stuff that like we casually say. If Pee Wee gets completely wiped out on the bike, then he goes to the hospital, then he has like that they escort him there, the biker gang, because they know he's a part of the group now. Yeah, he's a part of the gang. And then he's at the hospital and he sees, I think, a t a TV show that has his bike on it. Yeah, he sees that his bike is being used as a prop in a film, and he's like, Oh shit, now I gotta go to Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. He realizes a part of a show where they're giving a kid a bike, and to like snag the bike, he dresses up as like one of the nuns in the scene, which is so funny to me because Paul Rubens is like so much taller than everybody else. I'm like, he's enormous. And then also, I don't know, this is a fun fact. I don't know if you recognize the woman who plays the head nun who has the problem with the kid, the one who's like, I'm gonna lose it, Jerry, or whatever she says. Do you recognize did you recognize her? I I I kind of do, but not from where. Like her face is familiar to me. So that's Lynn Stewart, who plays Miss Yvonne on Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Oh, yeah. And she also, if you anybody out there who is an It's Always Sunny and Philadelphia fan. Oh, that's Charlie's mom. That's Charlie's mom. Yeah. I mean, just like incredible, recently passed character actress, total legend, comedian. I will quote another this whole movie is quote corner, by the way. We we took away quote corner, but this movie it has too many to mention. You could just you could just say the whole movie. The the little kid actor, I forget his name. Oh, it's uh Jason Hervey, who's like he was on the wonder years, but he's like, ready? I have been ready since first call. Roll. And I say that all the time to Ryan. Like, people, because you know, people are late. Yeah, people always be running 15 minutes late. Oh, I'm gonna be there. No, you're there at like 1520 after I'm on time. Do you know what I'm saying? So I say this constantly. I'm like, I have been ready, ready since first call every day, bitch. Yeah, so Pee Wee gets away with it. He's he snags the bike from the sound stage, and that kicks off like the legendary chasing, which is so long, by the way, and so funny and so fast. They pull out all the stops with the action. There are elephants and extras and bikes jumping off of buildings, and uh also a very famous cameo. Can you do you remember the cameo from a famous rock star of that? Uh D Snyder. D Snyder, well, all of Twisted Sister, yeah. Out of that entire scene, which is your favorite little um little moment, snippet, yeah. I mean, I I mean I have to say Twisted Sister, because I would first of all, as an adult, I love it because one thing I realized upon rewatch is that usually in 80s movies, it's the women who like are on the car all sexy, but with this particular thing, I don't know if they did this because it's kind of like a it's a PG movie, but you have all the women like fully clothed walking beside the car looking really tough, and you have Dee Snyder on the hood looking looking very sensual and sort of like flipping the narrative on that, singing burn in hell, which I thought was so funny as a kid. Just like, you know, when you're a kid and you hear like a mild curse word, you're like, ha ha ha, that's so funny. The all the these people who are giving chase to him, like Santa Claus, all the cops. There's Godzilla, the collection of like going from like the 50s beach party where somebody's on like the lifeguard stand and fully like dives off of it. Yeah, oh my god, yeah, like so violently. Yeah, they're they're doing sort of like uh a Frankie and Annette kind of style beach party movie. Yeah, it's like if if there weren't like enough genres in the movie itself, like they're gonna show the rest that they didn't like the whole the whole the whole thing is such a love letter to like movies, the way it's framed. It's like, oh, you like movies? This is a movie that has every movie. So yeah, we he drive, he had driven through the beach party, he drove through the Japanese kaiju movie, he drove he drove through Santa Claus with like all the little people dancing as L's. I was like, I crack up every time. So yeah, like that that's probably my favorite, is just like, yeah, Godzilla and Twisted Sister. How about you? I would say the same. Yeah, Godzilla. It's a big one. We we agree, we agree, yeah. So the chase scene seems to be going in his favor, but he gets distracted by what's happening. What happens when he you think he's evaded everyone and he's going to get away? What stops him in his tracks? Oh, well, he gets out of the lot, right? Yep, and he goes, I guess, in like a little downtown area, and there's a pet shop that's just on fire. Yep. I I think about that scene often, and it's like he goes into the pet shop to start saving all the animals. So, you know, he's letting all the dogs out. There's like a monkey in there, there's a full-on chimp in the pet store. So he's the chimp is helping him get all the animals out. So he's getting like, okay, birds, you know, birds fly away, flaying with his arms. And then there's the gerbils, get the gerbils, the rats, out of here. And then he keeps going past the snakes, and he's afraid of snakes, uh, apparently, right? So he's like, oh, he keeps moving. So it's all of these frames of him going into rescue and just being like, I'm not doing the snakes. And at the end, he's able to like, he has to go and grab him. He screams and passes out on the side of the block. And I fucking love it. It's like all the animals in there, the little pink poodle dog who makes a reappearance later. It's just like, it's so good. Yeah, I love that. Well, first of all, why is there a full-on chimp in a cage? Too small for that chimp. Also, no one needs a chimp as a pet. It will eat your face. It will. Um, but to be fair, in the documentary about Paul Rubens, he talked about growing up partly in Sarasota, where there was like the Ringley Brothers like training facility or something. Yes, yeah, he was talking about. That and one of their neighbors like had like the chimps and did the chimp act. And so like he grew up with them being a friend. Like they would come out from their rooms and go sit at the dinner table. I think I hear that. I I am not invalidating his experience. I think people who have chimps in their house are fucking crazy. Oh yeah. I'm not saying that. I'm just like, wow, you know, but so it's like to have him in the movie. I mean, it you have to have him in the movie. Yeah, no, I mean, definitely he needs an assistant. Like it's a great thing for the movie, but I'm just gonna say right now, you you can't even have one of those cute little spider monkeys. It's just not right. You don't need the cat, the cat I have is enough. Yeah, cats are enough. I mean, crazy animal people abound, especially. Oh my god, Melanie, California, crazy animal people left people, tiger, tiger king type people, Texas too. Like everyone's like, I got a big cat, I have a leopard in my house. I do, I will say I'm not a crazy exotic animal person, and I think that they should be in the wild. However, I do want to pet a big cat, and I do know it will strike me. And I not necessarily. Well, I just see it's like like every morning I gotta get up and watch my safari sammy. Yes, Safari Sammy. I put you onto Safari Sammy, but they're so not just cats, but but big. And that's the thing, like even a small, like the house cat, like if it was you know, another hundred pounds, it would kill, it would be able to kill you, you know. They're the same animal. Like those big cats can kill you by accident, they don't even mean to, and they'll just swipe you and take out your whole carotid artery, and then like that's it, it's over. And you know what? I deserve it. We all deserve it. Yeah, that's how we should all go. Um, so yeah, you know, he peewee gets all wrapped up in saving all the animals in the pet shop, and then the fire trucks come. The fire trucks come, they say he's a hero, he's gotta get he's still gotta get arrested because he, you know, technically stole a prop, even though it was his bike, but he gets it all worked out in the studio. Yeah, they're like, hey, how about a movie deal? We're gonna write your story. Yeah, yeah. It's it kind of wraps up pretty neatly at the end. But at that, at that, I mean it's like a tight 90 movie, too. At that point, you're just like, okay, we've had the full arc. He's he's found the bike and he makes a deal with uh Warner Brothers president Terry Hawthorne. He's like, All right, if we can, if we can make a movie out of this whole story, we'll we'll let you off scot-free. And then we get to see there the Hollywood interpretation. So it's like it's so meta, right? It's like the movie in the movie because we see the Hollywood adaptation, which is P.W. Herman, who's played by James Brolin, which is so funny, married to Barbara Streisand, IRL. Yeah, that's her husband. Still to this day. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. If you ever finish her autobiography, you'll read the whole story. I'm like about 60% of the way done now. Oof. Are you at Yentel yet? I'm in Yentel right now. Oh, Yentil's so long. Yeah, she's that was her her passion. Should we do a VHS sister episode of Yentl, the musical? Uh, chime in. Yeah, chime in, sound off. Sound off. That's what I was looking for. You all you Yentel fans out there, should should I force Melanie to watch a very bad movie with Farvest Dryzant? So, yeah, and that's pretty much the movie. Like, they're at the drive-in. It's so funny. It's like I love how it's a movie within a movie, right? And I love that um he gets to like meet all of his friends along the way who come to the movie for the premiere, you know, and it's like the drive-in movie that Dot Dottie always wanted to go with him to. And so he's like going across, giving everyone a little bit of treats and stuff, and like with the bike, he tries to give Mickey like a shiv. He he tries to give Mickey, who's there in a prison van or like a yeah, a prison bus, basically. Tries to give him a foot long with a shiv in it and gets discovered. I'm like, and then he doesn't get arrested. I'm like, it's this this this magical reality where like nothing truly bad ever happens. That's why I think I love this movie. Like, there's some points of stress, yeah, but it's never like life-ending, right? It's like just enough to like pull you in. And um, I was gonna say another, you could totally tell. Like, I mean, I know that Paul Rubens was inspired a little bit by like James Bond for this film too, like all the gadgets that he had, and like, you know, evading and being this like superhero kind of in the end. Um, it's funny because you can kind of see the parallels between this movie and also Austin Powers. Because Mike Myers does the movie within the movie thing with Tom Cruise as Austin Powers in one of them. And it feels so familiar. And I'm like, yep, it's a nod. Tip of the hat. Yeah, I think it's a tip of the hat. And Mike Myers probably, I mean, you know, also a comedy person, maybe a little actor to like, you know, character actor who would have like, I don't, I think Mike Myers came up in Second City. So again, like improv sketch people coming up with characters, um, had like tons of characters, like Wayne from Wayne's World was a character, you know, like, and that's like a common thing too. Like in a sketch, like people think I think people who aren't into like sketch comedy, they think it's so silly. And it's like, that's how like so many like famous characters that you know from movies, that's how they started. It has to start as like a five-minute idea. And then if it's really good, they're like, okay, we could make a movie out of this, or it becomes like a recurring sketch, and you're just like, Yeah, I love to see these characters again. So yeah, uh, yeah, that's a great point about like Austin Powers. Like, it's a similar, very like absurdist kind of, yeah. Maybe we're just we're just like absurd people, we're just silly, silly, silly, silly people, silly sisters, we're just a bunch of silly sisters, guys. Uh yeah, what do you give Pee-wee's big adventure? Okay, I have to give it a hundred percent A plus. A plus A plus first A plus we've ever had on the pod. Flying Colors. Flying Colors A plus. If you think this movie has a flaw in it, sound off. Paging Mr. Herman, Mr. Herman. We have a telephone call for you at front desk. Yeah, let's yeah, before we close, like that. Yeah, let's talk about the movie in the movie. One of the funniest things is Pee-wee playing like the bellhop or whatever, the the guy behind the counter, bad acting, and also like looking at the camera, camera directly, directly, so funny. Also, like mouthing, you know, James Brawland lines. It's so fucking funny. This is like one of the best movies ever. I think so. I think for me, uh yeah, on my letterbox, I think it was in my top four. I would definitely put it in like my top 10 of all time. I definitely ask me that. I've never made a letterboxed account. I mean, I kind of like I was doing it more regularly last year in 2025 because I was like adding movies that we had done on the pod. So you can definitely see some of my reviews for the pod movies. Yeah, letterbox is cool. You can make an account. I think I made mom make one, but she doesn't do anything with it. So you can just you can yeah, put the put the app on your phone. It's just like it's like gentle social media so you can see what like friends are watching. I think it's worth it if you have friends who watch a lot of movies like my friends do. And you can be like, oh, so and so watched like Days of Heaven. Oh, so and so watched Lawrence of Arabia. I should re-watch that. You know, it's like it reminds you of like every Christmas, yeah, exactly. Right. In this house, you gotta watch Lawrence of Arabia. That's one on the big screen. Oh, I would love to see. I would also love to see this on the big screen. Oh, yeah. In LA. Oh my god. Well, I guess we're gonna have to plan that trip. Yeah, any other closing thoughts about this fabulous film. If you need to feel joy, put it on because this is the most in recent movie watching for the pod or anything. This is the most I've smiled and laughed like throughout the entire thing. Like my jaw was sore. My jaw is sore now, just from like the amount of smiling and laughing I've been doing. If you if you get the Criterion Collection plug for criterion collection, uh, it's so good. You get all the extra features. It's great to hear the commentary, and then of course, watch the Paul Rubens documentary. It's on HBO and just get like the full picture of the artist. And I think it'll really inspire you. That's the thing about like the world of Pee-wee. It like inspires me to want to like make stuff. I was gonna say, even just Paul Rubens in general, after watching the doc, it's like seeing his like creative process, seeing him, you know, be in drag a lot, like his like share look that he did for this movie that he made that was like a mermaid movie. Yes, so elegant and iconic. And I, you know, I hate that he felt like he had to hide that part of himself because you know, in today's world, he would be so celebrated, which is like kind of a good reason for everyone to go take a peek at that. And of course, remember this iconic character that he came up with. And, you know, I would assume if you're listening, inspired different parts of the person you are today, and perhaps like influenced your childhood in such like a nice way that it did for us, you know. It's just something that you feel so like comforted by. I think it's important to note that when you feel free to express yourself, I I'll just say this. I'll I'll finish with this. This is my big sister advice for the day. This is my new, this is my new segment called Big Sister Advice. Is that you when you give yourself the freedom to express yourself, and I don't care what you want to do. Is it a silly little piece of art? Something you write, something you create. When you create that and you put it out there, it gives other people courage to do that as well. So go do it. Your art is not stupid. Don't don't put a prompt into an AI chatbot thing. Don't don't do that. Don't do that. Because you could you could use your own brain and draw me the stupidest fucking thing, and it's a million times better than anything else, or any anything that any AI could generate. That's what I'll say. That's right. That's my uh that's my close.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:06

All right, guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:06

We'll catch us next week. Catch us next week. Sorry, more Melanie's memories. Well, catch us next week because we have a very special episode. Melanie, do you want to preview? Do I let them know or do I just say that it is my another childhood classic that is top of my list? And it's gonna be my birthday episode. It's gonna be her birthday episode. So if you're listening to this now, Venmo Melanie. Yes. Oh my god, what's my Venmo? We'll know if you're a real listener if I get a Venmo from you. Oh, it's at Melanie, N-A-D-O-L-S-K-I. You got that, listeners? Send it. Send my sister some fucking money. Okay, bye! Thank you so much for listening to this episode of VHS Sisters. We hope you've had a fun and cozy time. Please consider liking, leaving a review, and following us on your podcast platform of choice. If you'd like to chat with us, please email us at VHS Sisters Podcast at gmail.com. Love you. Bye. That's it.