Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his full-length debut and starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman. Reubens also co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. Supporting roles are played by Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton and Diane Salinger. Pee-wee's Big Adventure tells the story of Pee-wee Herman embarking on nation-wide adventure in search of his stolen bicycle.

Plot

Pee-wee Herman is a man-child who lives in a house filled with toys and pop culture artifacts, and he loves his bike more than anything else in the world. Francis Buxton, a spoiled man-child neighbor, is celebrating his birthday and wishes Pee-wee's bike as his present, but Pee-wee refuses to sell it.

Pee-wee rides his bike to the local shopping district, where he visits a bike shop and a magic store. At the bike shop, he meets Dottie, a woman-child bike mechanic who has a crush on Pee-wee and asks him out on a date. Pee-wee rebuffs her advances, telling her that she doesn't want to get mixed up with a guy like him, because he is a loner and a rebel. When he returns from shopping, he discovers that his bike has been stolen. Distraught, Pee-wee tries to get the police and his friends to help him recover his most prized possession. Suspicious that Francis stole the bike (because he had asked to buy it earlier that day), Pee-wee confronts him but comes up empty handed.

No one else thinks Pee-wee's missing bike is an emergency, so Pee-wee is left to search for the bike on his own. After visiting a psychic who fabricates a story that his bike is in the basement of the Alamo. Pee-wee sets off on a cross-country journey to find his bike. Meanwhile, the viewing audience is told that Francis did actually steal the bike, but is now getting rid of it because he fears he will get caught.

Pee-wee starts his journey to the Alamo by hitchhiking, and he is eventually picked up by a man named Mickey. Mickey turns out to be a fugitive from the law for cutting off a "Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law" label on a mattress. The two part ways when Mickey leaves Pee-wee on the side of the road in the middle of the night after Pee-wee accidentally drives over a cliff.

Abandoned and alone, Pee-wee is then picked up by a truck driver named Large Marge, who tells Pee-wee a creepy story about a horrific truck accident along that same stretch of road. When she drops off Pee-wee at a diner along the road, he learns that Large Marge was the ghost of the woman who died in that truck accident.

At the diner, Pee-wee befriends his waitress, Simone. The two stay up to watch the sunrise and discuss each other's dreams. But Simone's boyfriend Andy gets violently jealous, and Pee-wee flees into a boxcar of a passing train.

Luckily, the train takes Pee-wee to San Antonio, the home of the Alamo. But then Pee-wee learns that the Alamo has no basement. Disappointed, Pee-wee visits a bar to use the telephone, but disturbs a biker gang after accidentally knocking over their motorcycles. Fearing they are going to kill him, Pee-wee asks for one last request and dances to "Tequila", winning the respect of the bikers. The bikers give him a motorcycle, but Pee-wee quickly crashes it, ending up in the hospital. There, he learns from that his bike now belongs to Kevin Morton, a child star who is currently filming a movie with the bike as a prominent plot device.

Pee-wee sneaks into Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, disguises himself as a nun and steals the bike back. In a wild chase scene, he flees from the Warner Bros. security staff through a variety of sets, causing havoc throughout the lot. Various actors and props, including a boat-shaped car, a Santa Claus sleigh, and a man in a Godzilla costume, get swept into the chase. He also interrupts the shooting of a Twisted Sister music video for "Burn in Hell" from Stay Hungry. Using the gadgets on his bike, Pee-wee manages to evade the guards and escape the studio. As he blissfully rides away, however, Pee-wee discovers a pet shop in flames. After heroically saving all the animals, Pee-wee faints on the store's doorstep, just as the fire department and police arrive. Though the firemen consider Pee-wee a hero, the police place Pee-wee under arrest.

Pee-wee is brought before a Warner Bros. studio executive who offers to buy the rights to Pee-wee's story in exchange for dropping all charges. Pee-wee attends the premiere at his local drive-in theater, but it turns out to be a James Bond-style action film involving James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild fighting ninjas. Pee-wee has a cameo appearance as a bellhop, but his voice is dubbed over.

All of the characters Pee-wee met along his journey show up at the premiere of Pee-wee's movie at the drive-in. And Dottie finally gets her date with Pee-wee, when the two go together. After watching the opening scenes for a few minutes, Pee-wee decides to leave, telling Dottie that he doesn't need to watch having already lived the real story. Reunited with his bike, he rides away with Dottie, happily ever after.

Cast

• Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman: A strange man who acts like a child. He sports a gray flannel suit with a red bow tie and clean-cut hair. He is very obsessive over his bicycle, traveling across America in search of it.
• Elizabeth Daily as Dottie: She has a major crush on Pee-wee, though Pee-wee declines to be her boyfriend. Pee-wee thinks of himself as "a loner, a rebel". Dottie helps run a bike shop.
• Mark Holton as Francis Buxton: A fellow man-child like Pee-wee. He is obese and very spoiled. He offers to buy Pee-wee's bike for a large amount of money, but Pee-wee refuses. Francis hires someone to steal the bike before it is purchased by Warner Brothers.
• Diane Salinger as Simone: A waitress that Pee-wee meets in Texas. She develops an attraction towards Pee-wee and yearns to live in France. Her violent boyfriend Andy flunked French in High School, and therefore dislikes France. At the end of the film, Simone is dating a French man named Pierre.
• Judd Omen as Mickey Morelli: A convict Pee-wee meets on his way to Texas. Mickey is a fugitive on the run from the law because he cut off a "do not remove under the penalty of law" mattress tag. He also has a bad temper and abandons Pee-wee in "the middle of nowhere" for his safety. However, Pee-wee ends up inviting Mickey to his movie.
• Alice Nunn as Large Marge: a trucker who picks Pee-Wee up off the side of the road and tells him the story of a gruesome wreck. When he later tells a bunch of truckers at Simone's truck stop he saw her, they reveal Large Marge was a ghost and that the story she tells is of her death.

Writers Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol cameo as a reporter and photographer. Cassandra Peterson appears as "Biker Mama". James Brolin portrays Pee-wee Herman and Morgan Fairchild is Dottie for the scene when Warner Bros. turns Pee-wee's life in a full-length film. Dee Snider and Milton Berle cameo as themselves.

Production

The success of The Pee-wee Herman Show prompted Warner Bros. to hire Paul Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-Wee Herman film. Reubens' original idea was to do a remake of Pollyanna with Pee-wee Herman in the Hayley Mills role. Reubens claims that Pollyanna is his favorite film. Half-way through writing the script, Reubens noticed everyone at Warner Bros. had a bike with them, which inspired Reubens to start on a new script.

Having left The Walt Disney Company and with Frankenweenie receiving positive reviews within film studios, Tim Burton was looking for a full-length film to direct. When Reubens and the producers of Pee-wee's Big Adventure saw Burton's work on Vincent and Frankenweenie, they decided Burton would be an excellent director for their film. Burton felt he connected with Reubens' personality and the humor of Pee-wee's Playhouse. After hiring Burton to direct, Reubens, Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol reworked the script again.

Filming locations included Glendale, Pomona, Santa Monica, Burbank, Cabazon and San Antonio. Burton and Reubens had tensions with Warner Bros. studio executives over the shooting schedule. Burton hired CalArts classmate Rick Heinrichs for scenes involving stop-motion animation.

Soundtrack

To compose the film score, Burton brought in Danny Elfman, who had not composed a film before. Elfman already had the main title theme written before he signed on. At the time, Elfman was the lead singer of Oingo Boingo, but the working relationship between Burton and Elfman would continue for most of Burton's films.

Track listing

1. "Overture" / "The Big Race" (3:07)
2. "Breakfast Machine" (2:36)
3. "Park Ride" (1:14)
4. "Stolen Bike" (1:44)
5. "Hitchhike" (0:56)
6. "Dinosaur Dream" (0:48)
7. "Simone's Theme" (1:35)
8. "Clown Dream" (1:58)
9. "Studio Chase" (1:24)
10. "The Drive-In" (2:02)
11. "Finale" (3:12)

Also in the film appeared "Burn in Hell" by Twisted Sister and "Tequila" by The Champs.

Release and legacy

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. The film went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically, recouping five times of its $7 million budget, making it a financial success. At the time of release in 1985, the film received mostly positive reviews. Gene Siskel gave it a rare zero-star rating, and called it one of the worst films of 1985, but Pee-wee's Big Adventure developed into a cult film. Based on 23 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Pee-wee's Big Adventure received a highly rare 100% overall approval rating. By comparison Metacritic calculated an average score of 47 from 13 reviews collected. The film was nominated with a Young Artist Award for Best Family Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).

Christopher Null gave positive feedback, calling it "Burton's strangest film." Variety compared Paul Reubens to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, while Empire called the film "a one-comic masterpiece" and "a dazzling debut" for Burton. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon 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." Burton had no interest in directing Big Top Pee-wee, and the financial success of the film prompted Warner Bros. to hire him to direct Batman. Warner Home Video releasd Pee-wee's Big Adventure on DVD in May 2000. The release included audio commentary by Tim Burton, Paul Reubens and Danny Elfman as well as deleted scenes.

References

1. Paul Reubens, Tim Burton, audio commentary, 2000, Warner Bros.
2. Salisbury, Burton, p.43—4
3. Salisbury, Burton, p.47
4. Salisbury, Burton, p.49
5. Danny Elfman, audio commentary, 2000, Warner Bros.
6. Salisbury, Burton, p.48
7. excluding Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
8. Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, " The Worst of 1985," At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Tribune Entertainment
9. Salisbury, Burton, p.50
10. Tim Burton, Batman audio commentary, 2005, Warner Bros.

External links

• Pee-wee's Big Adventure at Box Office Mojo
• http://www.timburtoncollective.com/articles/pw3.html
• http://www.batmanmovieonline.com/articles.php?showarticle=23