Peewee's Big Adventure

''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his feature-film directing debut. The film stars Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman, along with Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton, Diane Salinger and Judd Omen. The screenplay, written by Reubens with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol, tells the story of Pee-wee's search for his stolen bicycle and has been compared to the 1948 Italian film ''Bicycle Thieves''.

Following the success of ''The Pee-wee Herman Show'' in 1981, Reubens was hired by the Warner Bros. film studio and began writing the script for ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure''. Impressed with Burton's work on the short film '' Frankenweenie'' (1984), the producers and Reubens hired him to direct. Filming took place in California and Texas. The film was scored by Danny Elfman, marking his first among many collaborations with Burton.

''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' was theatrically released on August 9, 1985, by Warner Bros., grossing over $40 million in North America. It became a cult film and continued to accumulate positive feedback. It was nominated for a Young Artist Award and was followed by two standalone sequels, ''Big Top Pee-wee'' (1988) and ''Pee-wee's Big Holiday'' (2016). Its financial success, followed by Burton's equally successful ''Beetlejuice'' in 1988, prompted Warner Bros. to hire Burton to direct the 1989 film ''Batman''.

Plot

Pee-wee Herman, a childlike man in a grey suit with a red bow-tie, has a cherished, heavily accessorized bicycle. His neighbor and enemy, Francis Buxton, wants the bicycle and offers to buy it. Pee-wee refuses; as he rides off, Francis warns him he'll be sorry for turning down his offer.

Dottie is an employee at the local bike shop who has a crush on Pee-wee, but he does not reciprocate. As Pee-wee goes on a shopping spree, his bike is stolen, but the police are not overly concerned with the theft. Pee-wee assumes Francis took it, and confronts him, but Francis' father convinces Pee-wee that Francis was not responsible. Pee-wee offers a $10,000 reward for the bike. Francis, who did indeed pay to have someone steal the bike, is disturbed by Pee-wee's relentlessness and pays to have the bike sent away. That evening, Pee-wee holds an unsuccessful evidentiary meeting of friends and neighbors to find the bike, and rejects Dottie's offer of help. He then visits a phony psychic who misleads Pee-wee into believing his bike is in the basement of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. In haste he leaves his wallet behind.

Pee-wee hitchhikes to Texas, getting rides from a fugitive convict named Mickey, and from Large Marge, the ghost of a truck driver. At a truck stop, Pee-wee finds his wallet is missing, and pays for his meal by washing dishes. He befriends Simone, a waitress who dreams of visiting Paris. As they watch the sun rise from within a roadside dinosaur statue, he encourages her to follow her dreams, but Simone tells him about her boyfriend, Andy, who disapproves. Andy appears and tries to attack Pee-wee, who escapes onto a moving train. Pee-wee arrives at the Alamo, but learns at the end of a guided tour that the building does not have a basement.

At a bus station, Pee-wee encounters Simone, who tells him she broke up with Andy and is on her way to Paris. She tells Pee-wee not to give up searching for his bike. Pee-wee calls Dottie and apologizes for his behavior. Andy spots Pee-wee and resumes chasing him. Pee-wee evades Andy at a rodeo by disguising himself as a bull rider. He is forced to ride a bull, and gets knocked out before the bull pursues Andy. He visits a biker bar to make a phone call, and a biker gang threatens to kill him after he accidentally knocks over their motorcycles. He wins them over by dancing to the song "Tequila" in a pair of platform shoes, and they give him a motorcycle for his journey, which he crashes immediately.

He awakens in a hospital and sees on television that his bike is being used as a prop in a film. Pee-wee sneaks into Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank and grabs the bike. Security guards chase him across the studio lot and through several active sets before he escapes. Pee-wee then discovers a burning pet shop and rescues the animals. The firefighters declare Pee-wee a hero, but the police arrest Pee-wee for his intrusion at the studio. They return Pee-wee to the studio to face Warner Bros. president Terry Hawthorne. After Pee-wee pleads his case that the bike belongs to him, Hawthorne decides to drop the charges and return Pee-wee's bike in exchange for the rights to adapt his story into a film starring James Brolin as "P.W. Herman" and Morgan Fairchild as Dottie. In the film, presented as a James Bond parody, the characters must retrieve their stolen motorbike – which contains an important microfilm – from the Soviets. Pee-wee has a cameo role as a hotel bellhop, though his voice has been dubbed.

Seeing the film at a drive-in theater, Pee-wee gives refreshments to the different people he met along his journey. He also encounters Francis, who tells reporters he that he taught Pee-wee how to ride. Francis claims to be knowledgeable about Pee-wee's bike, but sets off one of the bicycle's gadgets, catapulting himself into the air. Ultimately, Pee-wee decides to depart with Dottie, claiming to have already "lived" the adventure on screen.

Cast

* Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman, an eccentric man-child whose bike was stolen.
* Elizabeth Daily as Dottie, a bike shop employee who is Pee-wee's friend and has a crush on him.
* Mark Holton as Francis Buxton, a spoiled man-child who is Pee-wee's enemy and neighbor.
* Diane Salinger as Simone, a tourist stop waitress who dreams of visiting France.
* Judd Omen as Mickey Morelli, an escaped convict who claims he was incarcerated for cutting a tag off a mattress.

Selected supporting players, in order of appearance

Special appearances
* James Brolin as "P.W."
* Morgan Fairchild as "Dottie"
* Tony Bill as Terry Hawthorne, the president of Warner Bros. Studios.
* Twisted Sister

Director Tim Burton has an uncredited cameo appearance as the street thug who confronts Pee-wee in a rainy back alley. Veteran comedy star Milton Berle also has an uncredited cameo, entering the Warner Bros. lot and telling jokes to his entourage as Pee-wee sneaks in with them.

Production

After a failed audition for ''Saturday Night Live'' in 1980, Paul Reubens developed ''The Pee-wee Herman Show'' for the Groundlings sketch comedy theater in Los Angeles, which led to an HBO special in 1981 and several appearances on ''Late Night with David Letterman''.
Steve Martin introduced his manager Bill McEuen to Reubens, who subsequently hired him on as a client and convinced him to go on an American tour. Reubens's tour of 22 cities was billed as ''The Pee-wee Herman Party'' and included sold-out shows at New York's Carnegie Hall and Los Angeles's Universal Amphitheater, where Warner Bros. executives greenlit a full-length Pee-wee Herman film.

Reubens's original concept was a remake of ''Pollyanna'' (1960), his favorite film, with Pee-wee Herman in the Hayley Mills role. While writing the script, he noticed that many at Warner Bros. rode bicycles around the backlot and requested one of his own. This inspired him to start a new script.

After writing a tentative screenplay, according to producer Richard Gilbert Abramson, Warner Bros. had approved a director for the film but it was a choice that neither him, McEuen or Reubens felt was appropriate for the project. Taking inspiration from Sylvester Stallone, who refused to cede creative control to studios, Reubens turned down Warner Bros.'s choice for the director, and the studio then told him to find someone "approvable, available, and affordable" within a week.

Reubens had heard about Tim Burton at a party the same night that he had gotten permission from the studio to get an extension on his director search. "I screened Frankenweenie'' and I spoke to Shelley Duvall, who was a friend of mine who was in (the film)," Reubens explained. "I knew Tim was the director about 15 seconds into ''Frankenweenie'', like the second or third shot of it. I was looking at the wallpaper in this bedroom and the lighting and just going, 'This is the guy who has style and understands art direction.' Those were two really important things for me and my baby, I guess, and you know it just happened to luckily all work out."

After hiring Burton, Reubens, Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol revised the script. They read Syd Field's 1979 book ''Screenplay'' and wrote the script according to the book's advice. "It's a 90-minute film, it's a 90-page script," Reubens explained. "On page 30 I lose my bike, on page 60 I find it. It's literally exactly what they said to do in the book...There should be like a MacGuffin kind of a thing, something you're looking for, and I was like, 'Okay, my bike.'" The film has been described as a "parody" or "farce version" of the 1948 Italian classic ''Bicycle Thieves''.

Filming locations included Glendale, Pomona, Santa Clarita, Santa Monica (Third Street Promenade), Burbank, Cabazon — at the Wheel Inn Restaurant (1958-2013) and Cabazon Dinosaurs — and Port Hueneme in California, as well as San Antonio, Texas. While the exterior of the Alamo was real, interior shots were filmed at the Mission San Fernando Rey de España in Mission Hills, Los Angeles. While there wasn't a basement at the Alamo during filming, there now are two. "One is underneath the gift shop of the visitor's center," explained Becky Dinnin, director of the Alamo. "The other is underneath Alamo Hall, which is now used as a reception venue that we rent out." Reubens later toured the basement of the Alamo in 2011 while serving as a guest judge on '' Top Chef: Texas''.

Burton and Reubens clashed with Warner Bros. studio executives over the shooting schedule. Burton hired CalArts classmate Rick Heinrichs for scenes involving stop-motion animation. Large Marge's claymation transformation was created by the Chiodo Brothers.

Casting

The film features several of Reubens' fellow cast members from the improvisational comedy troupe the Groundlings who had previously appeared in ''The Pee-wee Herman Show'', namely Phil Hartman, Lynne Marie Stewart, John Paragon and John Moody. Jan Hooks was also a fellow Groundling, and both she and Hartman would go on to become cast members of ''Saturday Night Live'' in 1986.

Twisted Sister appeared in the film following an earlier encounter between frontman Dee Snider and Reubens at an MTV New Year's Eve party, where the two expressed mutual admiration for each other. In early 1985, the band were visiting California to perform several shows at the Long Beach Arena when Reubens contacted Snider about the band possibly doing a cameo in the film during the chase scene, which he envisioned passing through a Twisted Sister video shoot. While Snider initially suggested the songs " We're Not Gonna Take It" or "I Wanna Rock", much to his delight, Reubens specifically requested "Burn in Hell".

Hartman, Stewart and Paragon would also later appear on Reubens' TV series ''Pee-wee's Playhouse''. Stewart would also appear in the films ''Big Top Pee-wee'' (1988) and ''Pee-wee's Big Holiday'' (2016), as well as the 2010 Broadway revival of ''The Pee-wee Herman Show''. Diane Salinger would also appear in ''Pee-wee's Big Holiday''.

Score and soundtrack

Reubens initially approached Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh to score the film, but Mothersbaugh was unavailable, due to a scheduling conflict. However, he would later compose the theme song and other episodic music for Reubens' television series ''Pee-wee's Playhouse''.

Burton then recruited Danny Elfman, the lead singer/songwriter of Oingo Boingo, to score ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'', despite the fact that his only prior scoring experience was for his brother Richard Elfman's cult film ''Forbidden Zone'' (1982). Reubens had been a fan of ''Forbidden Zone'' and was determined to enlist Danny for a project someday. Burton was familiar with Elfman's work with Oingo Boingo and, upon meeting, the two had an immediate kinship. Elfman was initially hesitant to take on the project, given his lack of scoring experience, but had written the main title theme by the time that he signed on. He approached the project with a cavalier attitude, thinking it would be "good experience" but anticipating that Warner Bros. would ultimately reject it.

Elfman's original score draws inspiration from film composers Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann. "The Breakfast Machine" was inspired by Rota's score for ''The Clowns'' (1970), while Elfman's use of staccato strings, particularly when Pee-wee first discovers his bike has been stolen, echoes Herrmann's score for '' Psycho'' (1960). ''The Dissolve'' writer Mike D'Angelo observed that Elfman also seemed to be emulating the works of Warner Bros. cartoon composer Carl Stalling, noting, "At that point, Burton had spent his entire career as an animator, and ''Pee-wee’s Big Adventure'' is a live-action film with a distinctly animated sensibility. In keeping with that approach, Elfman often has the music respond directly to whatever's happening onscreen, just as the music in a cartoon would."

In 1988, record label Varèse Sarabande released an album featuring 20 minutes of re-recorded cues from ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'', combined with cues from another Elfman-scored film, ''Back to School'' (1986). While the scores for both films were recorded in Hollywood, the album was recorded in London and performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by John Coleman.

Elfman went on to score nearly all of Burton's films, excluding ''Ed Wood'' (1994), '' Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'' (2007) and ''Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'' (2016).

In 2010, both the original score sessions and re-recordings were released by Warner Bros. Records as part of ''The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box''. The album also included additional cues, alternate versions and a restored "Studio Chase" sequence.

The film also features "Burn in Hell" by Twisted Sister and "Tequila" by the Champs.

Release and reception

''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' opened on August 9, 1985, in the United States in 829 theaters, accumulating $4,545,847 over its opening weekend, and went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically.

Contemporary appraisal

''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' received generally positive reviews on its release before eventually becoming a cult film. Review aggregator website ''Rotten Tomatoes'' reports that 89% of 53 critics gave it a positive review, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The critical consensus reads: "''Pee-Wee's Big Adventure'' brings Paul Reubens' famous character to the big screen intact, along with enough inspired silliness to dazzle children of all ages." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

In a review for the ''Los Angeles Times'', Michael Wilmington wrote, "The wrong crowd will find these antics infantile and offensive. The right one will have a howling good time." David Ansen of ''Newsweek'' described the film as "Mattel Surrealism, a toy-store fantasia in primary colors and '50s decor. Whoever proposed teaming up Pee-wee (a.k.a. Paul Reubens) with 26-year-old director Tim Burton knew what they were doing ... Together they've conspired to make a true original—a live-action cartoon brash enough to appeal to little kids and yet so knee-deep in irony that its faux naivete looks as chic as the latest retrofashions." ''Variety'' compared Reubens to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' did not review ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' upon its original release. However, in 1987, the film topped his ''Guilty Pleasures'' list, with Ebert saying he was impressed by "how innocent, how playful and how truly eccentric" the film was, and how the film created "a whole fairy-tale universe" comparable to ''Alice in Wonderland'' or ''Lord of the Rings''. Ebert also mentioned ''Big Adventure'' in his review of ''Big Top Pee-wee'' (1988), explaining how moving away from the "zany weirdness" of the first Pee-wee Herman film led to a sequel that was "not as magical".

A more negative assessment came from Gene Siskel of the ''Chicago Tribune'', who gave ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' a rare zero-star rating in his print review, writing that he had enjoyed Herman's guest spots on ''Late Night with David Letterman'' but " viously, Pee-Wee is tolerable only in Pee-Wee doses ... You have to be a lot funnier on the big screen than on the tube to sustain a feature-length story." Siskel included the film in his unranked year-end list of the worst movies of 1985. Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' was also negative, writing that, apart from a few scenes, it was "the most barren comedy I've seen in years, maybe ever."

The film was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Family Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).

Aftermath

The film was followed by two sequels: ''Big Top Pee-wee'' and ''Pee-wee's Big Holiday''. Burton was offered the opportunity to direct the former but was not interested and was already working on his own pet project, ''Beetlejuice'' (1988). Positive reviews for ''Beetlejuice'' and the financial success of ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' prompted Warner Bros. to hire Burton to direct ''Batman'' (1989).

Retrospective appraisal

Reviewing the film for its 2000 DVD release, Stephanie Zacharek of ''Salon.com'' explained, "Everything about ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'', from its toy-box colors to its superb, hyper-animated Danny Elfman score to the butch-waxed hairdo and wooden-puppet walk of its star and mastermind is pure pleasure." In a retrospective review in 2005, Christopher Null gave positive feedback, calling it "Burton's strangest film". In 2008, William Thomas of ''Empire'' called the film "a one-off comic masterpiece" and "a dazzling debut" for Burton.

Home video

Warner Home Video released ''Pee-wee's Big Adventure'' on DVD in May 2000, with audio commentary by Burton, Reubens and Elfman (the latter on a separate track, alongside an isolated score) and some deleted scenes. The film was released on Blu-ray disc in October 2011.

See also

* List of films about bicycles and cycling

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

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{{Tim Burton

1980s adventure comedy films
1980s comedy road movies
1980s English-language films
1985 films
1985 comedy films
1985 directorial debut films
1985 children's films
American films with live action and animation
American adventure comedy films
American ghost films
American self-reflexive films
American comedy road movies
Films directed by Tim Burton
Films scored by Danny Elfman
Films set in California
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in San Antonio
Films set in Texas
Films with screenplays by Paul Reubens
Films with screenplays by Michael Varhol
Films using stop-motion animation
Pee-wee Herman
Warner Bros. films
1980s American films
Pee-wee's Playhouse
Fortune-telling in popular culture
Films with screenplays by Phil Hartman
Films shot in California
Films shot in San Antonio
English-language adventure comedy films