Speaker 1: Will a way where I want to go. I want
Speaker 1: to know what.
Speaker 2: The place for me?
Speaker 3: Show me away and get away when I want to
Speaker 3: get my way the place on me?
Speaker 1: Hey, wait, where do I go?
Speaker 4: I want to go where I want to.
Speaker 1: Wait? Week we pay.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to a cable box theater. I'm found them
Speaker 5: alone and with me as always is HBHB. How are
Speaker 5: you doing?
Speaker 6: I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: This is another one of these things that's been a
Speaker 2: long time coming. I feel like a lot has been
Speaker 2: leading up to this point talking about this particular particular
Speaker 2: piece of art.
Speaker 5: Here on Cable box Theater. We look at nineteen seventies
Speaker 5: early eighties cable networks when they were putting on any
Speaker 5: content that they could grab a hold of. In this case,
Speaker 5: where overall we look at theatrical productions, Broadway productions, this
Speaker 5: technically counts not Broadway. This one aired originally on September
Speaker 5: the eleventh, nineteen eighty one. Never forget it's terrible. This
Speaker 5: is Pee Wee's Playhouse. No, not pee Wee's playoffs. This
Speaker 5: is the Pee Wee Herman Show. And here's the trailer.
Speaker 2: You've made this point several times over these episodes that
Speaker 2: these cable companies were desperate for content, right, they needed
Speaker 2: more and more. So that's so we that's why we
Speaker 2: got the opportunity to see some these great productions. And
Speaker 2: even though I knew with this particular show that there
Speaker 2: was something really.
Speaker 6: Adult about it.
Speaker 2: To be honest, the adult content at the time was
Speaker 2: so far over my head. Even now watching it, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I missed an awful lot with this.
Speaker 5: This is a production of The Groundlings, originally Paul Rubins,
Speaker 5: Phil Hartman, John Paragon, Lynn, Maurice Stewart, John Moody, all
Speaker 5: members of The Groundlings. Let's talk improv groups for a second,
Speaker 5: shall we? Groundlings founded in nineteen seventy four by Gary Austen,
Speaker 5: who was a member of the Committee. He was a
Speaker 5: member of the La version of San Francisco's group, the Committee,
Speaker 5: and when he ended up leaving them, he started his
Speaker 5: own improv group at the Comedy Store, which eventually morphed
Speaker 5: into his own sort of group that got bigger and bigger,
Speaker 5: and then in nineteen seventy four officially the Groundlings were formed.
Speaker 5: So that's an improv group. They were putting on improv
Speaker 5: shows for six years there. In nineteen eighty they decided
Speaker 5: that they would start spinning off their more popular care
Speaker 5: characters into their own productions and see how they did.
Speaker 5: So they started on Saturdays they would have a midnight
Speaker 5: show using their most popular character as their inaugural side production.
Speaker 5: That was The Pee Wee Herman Show, created by Paul
Speaker 5: Rubens starring Paul Rubins.
Speaker 2: So pee Wee Herman was originally a character that grew
Speaker 2: out of improv in the ground I never knew.
Speaker 5: That absolutely most of those characters were from the original
Speaker 5: groundling improv classes or improv shows.
Speaker 2: Pee Wee Herman is another one of these characters for
Speaker 2: me that felt like he was always round. Ever since
Speaker 2: I can remember, there's been a Pee Wee Herman, it
Speaker 2: was either Pee Wee's Big Adventure, this show.
Speaker 6: It's like part of the firmament.
Speaker 2: So it's amazing to even think that there was an
Speaker 2: origin to this character like that there was a before
Speaker 2: pee Wee Herman and an after Pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 5: It's cool, yeah, And Paul Rubins as a Groundling was
Speaker 5: showing up in productions all around Los Angeles at the time.
Speaker 5: If you go back, I can watch the Gong Show,
Speaker 5: You'll see plenty of Groundlings show up on The Gong
Speaker 5: Show as a made up act, including Paul Rubens. He
Speaker 5: was doing a variation of his Tequila Dance where he
Speaker 5: was dancing on his toes the entire time with another
Speaker 5: performer from the Groundlings. He showed up in Cheech and
Speaker 5: Chong's Nice Dreams at one point it's like a crazy inmate.
Speaker 5: You hear about those girls. They're dip it in wax
Speaker 5: at the Wax Museum. And of course he's a waiter
Speaker 5: in the Blues Brothers.
Speaker 6: True.
Speaker 2: And he was also in a movie called Midnight Madness.
Speaker 2: He was basically an arcade attendant. It was a very
Speaker 2: don't blink and you'll miss it.
Speaker 5: That's right with the gun with all the quarters and
Speaker 5: he presses the button and it shoots a thousand quarters
Speaker 5: onto the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, I mean it's he's what can you say,
Speaker 2: Paul Rubins is peewee herrman.
Speaker 5: Indeed he is. And this is in fact that that
Speaker 5: show was wildly popular, no surprise, that Midnight show. So
Speaker 5: they moved it to the Roxy Theater where it became
Speaker 5: its own kind of a thing. That's where the folks
Speaker 5: at HBO caught wind of it, and they decided to
Speaker 5: film it and put it on the air, and thank
Speaker 5: god they did. And like you said, I can't imagine
Speaker 5: a time when I didn't know pe Wee Herman. Obviously
Speaker 5: we did before nineteen eighty one. But I saw this.
Speaker 5: I watched it incessantly. It was on all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and yeah, it is completely meant for adults. This is
Speaker 5: an entire show predicated on boomer nostalgia. Basically, it's all
Speaker 5: sort of nineteen fifties nineteen sixties nostalgia in the form
Speaker 5: of a children's television show. It is, in fact the
Speaker 5: show we would eventually get on the air on CBS
Speaker 5: as Peee's Playhouse, effectively.
Speaker 2: But one of the more remarkable things about Paul Rubins
Speaker 2: in this production itself is that you're right, this was
Speaker 2: really for adults, but they sold the kids stuff so
Speaker 2: well and it's so well realized as a production that
Speaker 2: this really felt like any number of children shows like
Speaker 2: Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo. And the fact is we
Speaker 2: were children watching this. I wasn't phased in the least
Speaker 2: I knew. I suspected there was more to it than that,
Speaker 2: but I was perfectly happy to enjoy it. On the
Speaker 2: basis of a child's a children's show as it was.
Speaker 5: I cannot agree with you more. I responded to this
Speaker 5: first and foremost as a show for children, just like
Speaker 5: Captain Kangaroo, which is this is meant to ape in
Speaker 5: a way, just like Romper Room, just like Sesame Street,
Speaker 5: just like all of them. And at the same time
Speaker 5: we knew this was for adults. We knew these were
Speaker 5: jokes that we weren't getting because they were laughing when
Speaker 5: it made no sense to our young minds.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of sexual stuff going on that I
Speaker 2: only later really figured out. Like at one point, he
Speaker 2: and Hemmy's sister comes over and they have mirrors on
Speaker 2: their feet and they're trying to look under her dress,
Speaker 2: which I got it on some level as a kid,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 6: Didn't really understand what they were doing.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of sexual stuff, a lot of in
Speaker 2: retrospect kind of hinky stuff going on too, which we'll
Speaker 2: get to.
Speaker 5: I got a lot more in that particular joke. Peebee's
Speaker 5: friend Hammy comes over and he wants to borrow a
Speaker 5: comic book, and then his sister joins them, and as
Speaker 5: she's arriving, they say shoe mirrors so that they can
Speaker 5: see her underpants, and so they have mirrors on the
Speaker 5: tops of their shoes so they can look up under
Speaker 5: her skirt. And when she arrives and they start doing it,
Speaker 5: she says, I joke's on you. I'm not wearing underpants,
Speaker 5: at which point they lose all interest because they just
Speaker 5: wanted to see the underwear, right, And as like an
Speaker 5: eight year old boy, I totally understood that that didn't
Speaker 5: seem sexual to me in any way.
Speaker 6: That is innocent. You're right. The aesthetic is so perfect.
Speaker 2: And even with some of the weird, you know, sexual
Speaker 2: stuff or adult stuff let's call it, because it's not
Speaker 2: all about sex, a lot of it is there's this
Speaker 2: core of sweetness to the character into the fact that
Speaker 2: he has this world, these characters that they all love
Speaker 2: each other and they have adventures together and they all interact.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I responded to more than anything,
Speaker 2: that this is a really fun world that we're presented with,
Speaker 2: that people are happy, they're doing things for each other.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it was just the sweetness is really
Speaker 2: what I think is the secret sauce to this whole thing.
Speaker 5: One thing I want to point out about this is
Speaker 5: the production design of it, because this would become the
Speaker 5: aesthetic for eventually Pee Wee's Big Adventure in a way,
Speaker 5: and then Peew's Playhouse after it. And I said that
Speaker 5: this is effectively like an Nostalisia trip for boomers, but
Speaker 5: this is an Nostaliger trip for all of the counterculture
Speaker 5: people from that generation. This is the obsession with tiki
Speaker 5: culture and all the low lights of American culture. Basically
Speaker 5: just any sort of kitchy retroy kind of idea. I
Speaker 5: swear to God the look of this production, it was
Speaker 5: way too formative in my brain.
Speaker 2: HP I agree that there was something about this rewatching
Speaker 2: it now. The thing that came to mind, especially with
Speaker 2: Missy Vaughn and her whole aesthetic, is I kept thinking
Speaker 2: of the B fifty two's and their retro sort of
Speaker 2: punky esthetic, and I have to believe that there was
Speaker 2: some cross pollination there, like they took inspiration. I think
Speaker 2: the B twos are obviously earlier, but I think that
Speaker 2: whole that vibe that sort of like I said, retro kitchy,
Speaker 2: big beehive hair, fifties coloring and aesthetic that all really worked.
Speaker 6: For me too.
Speaker 5: It's that weird period as the fifties were transitioning into
Speaker 5: the sixties, like right before everything culturally exploded and things
Speaker 5: started looking differently and a little more ramshackle. But this
Speaker 5: was the ramshackle part of the shiny part of the fifties.
Speaker 5: This is all of this that was a bit embarrassing
Speaker 5: by the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a sense the head of the curve,
Speaker 2: because you know, these things are all these are very cyclical,
Speaker 2: and these things tend to come back. But at this
Speaker 2: point in nineteen eighty, this was all, like you said,
Speaker 2: a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 6: I think to admit that this was the aesthetic, but
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There's something cool about it and the way it's all
Speaker 2: shown and the way it's shot and the color everything.
Speaker 2: Like I said, everything really worked for me in that sense,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't feel now looking back, it's come all
Speaker 2: the way back around. It no longer looks dated. It
Speaker 2: just looks uniquely. The aesthetic is uniquely pee wee. Now
Speaker 2: to me, I know all the components that comprise it,
Speaker 2: but to me that still feels like pee wee.
Speaker 5: Herman, the eighties was a lot of picking over the
Speaker 5: bones of what they had concentrated here, and once all
Speaker 5: of those advertisements and videos and all of those other
Speaker 5: things have fallen away, belongs to Peewee. We can't really
Speaker 5: talk about pee Wee Herman without talking about his co writers.
Speaker 5: And let's start with the obvious one and the one
Speaker 5: that I absolutely fucking adore, which is mister Phil Hartman,
Speaker 5: who also is a performer in this as Captain Carl.
Speaker 2: This would have been our first exposure to Phil Hartman,
Speaker 2: and at some point, like I saw this, and then
Speaker 2: obviously later I became a fan of Phil Harmon through
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live. So it was a shock when I
Speaker 2: eventually connected those dots. Wow, that's Phil Harmon, that's the glue.
Speaker 2: He was in pee Wee the pee Wee Herman Show.
Speaker 2: That's crazy, but my god, like, there's nothing. The man
Speaker 2: couldn't do nothing.
Speaker 5: I was laser focused on Phil Hartman from this moment.
Speaker 5: He was basically like Ackroyd to me. I remember sitting
Speaker 5: in the theater at the end of Peewee's Big Adventure
Speaker 5: when the reporters are all surrounding Francis, going Captain Carl,
Speaker 5: He's right there, and then looking for his name in
Speaker 5: the credits and going Phil Hartman and then remembering that
Speaker 5: one of the credited writers was Phil Harton, so I
Speaker 5: was always stoked to see Phil Harton. So when he
Speaker 5: ended up on SNL, oh my god, it was heaven.
Speaker 5: And then have him be as good as he was,
Speaker 5: as frequently as he was.
Speaker 2: He's foundational for that era of SNL. Obviously that was
Speaker 2: his nickname, was the glue, right, he was the one
Speaker 2: who held.
Speaker 6: All those gets.
Speaker 2: There's too many good moments to even think of when
Speaker 2: you think of Phil Hartman on SNL. But it's just something,
Speaker 2: there was something so fascinating to me because, like I said,
Speaker 2: I only really knew him through SNL.
Speaker 6: But then to.
Speaker 2: Connect the dots back to nineteen eighty one, the Pewee
Speaker 2: Herman show Groundlings, it really made it feel like a
Speaker 2: small comedy universe that all these people were interacting and
Speaker 2: it didn't seem like such a big you know, it's
Speaker 2: just I don't know, it's just a smaller It's a
Speaker 2: small world ultimately, and that's the fact that he could
Speaker 2: be in a shared universe, the pee Wee Herman universe
Speaker 2: and the SNL universe was really it blew my mind.
Speaker 5: Actually, if you walked into any improv group in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty in Los Angeles or Chicago, you were going to say,
Speaker 5: the fucking giants of comedy for the next twenty thirty years.
Speaker 6: It's insane.
Speaker 2: As a side note, I told you I watched that
Speaker 2: show about the Dana Carvey the documentary on The Dana
Speaker 2: Carvey Show, and.
Speaker 6: You've seen it a bunch of times. Funny that was
Speaker 6: the same thing.
Speaker 2: Colbert was Steve Correll's understudy. It's insane, like, these are
Speaker 2: incredible timers for comedy and I don't know, just the
Speaker 2: fact that they were there at that time, in that
Speaker 2: place and that same shared space.
Speaker 6: It's fascinating.
Speaker 2: I wonder how many does this still go on? Are
Speaker 2: these clubs still around the ground Are the Groundlings still
Speaker 2: a thing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course Grownlings is still in Los Angeles. I
Speaker 5: don't know if Improv Olympics is still there. There was
Speaker 5: an Improv Olympics West last time I was there. They
Speaker 5: still had UCB when I was there, although I don't
Speaker 5: know if that theater closed after the pandemic. A lot
Speaker 5: of improv groups closed out after the pandemic. But you're
Speaker 5: not going to close the Groundlings. There's still SNL is
Speaker 5: still pilling people from there. Mikey Day was a groundling.
Speaker 5: Heidi Gardner, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I could see that Mikey Day has been around for
Speaker 2: a deceptively long time. He just looks he's baby faced,
Speaker 2: so you don't think of it, but that guy's been
Speaker 2: around forever.
Speaker 5: Dude in the in those first early days of YouTube,
Speaker 5: but they had that guy doing David Blaine's street magic
Speaker 5: and he would go up to a sign and then
Speaker 5: take the handdown and the side it would go from
Speaker 5: red to green. He wrote, though.
Speaker 6: It's crazy he used to do.
Speaker 2: There was a show on MTV, the Nick cart and
Speaker 2: Nick and Nick Cannon Show.
Speaker 6: Wild Enough. Oh yeah, he was in.
Speaker 2: The repertory for that show. He must have been super young.
Speaker 2: But that's got to be like early two thousand and
Speaker 2: I guess I think UCB is over. I think they
Speaker 2: did close. I think I read that somewhere.
Speaker 6: But it's just what you're.
Speaker 2: Saying makes me think, like, how are there any other
Speaker 2: perspective comedy giants just waiting to be discovered at these.
Speaker 5: Clubs, just as a list of people who came out
Speaker 5: of there, but not only Phil Hartman came out of there,
Speaker 5: but Jan Hooks was also one of them and a
Speaker 5: gas Steyer came out of there. Will Forte came out
Speaker 5: of there, Will Ferrell came out of there. Rachel Dratch
Speaker 5: came out of there. They've just been They're a machine
Speaker 5: of comedy greatness.
Speaker 6: They are.
Speaker 2: But I also think nowadays it's easier with social media
Speaker 2: and things like that to get your comedy out there.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: I think that's what Lonely Island, that's what they started.
Speaker 2: They just put their stuff up on You don't have
Speaker 2: to be discovered at a club anymore. You can just
Speaker 2: put your stuff out there on TikTok or any of
Speaker 2: these places.
Speaker 5: So I would suggest, if you want to be versatile
Speaker 5: as a comedian, then a sketch performer. Maybe some improv
Speaker 5: training would do you some good.
Speaker 6: Without a doubt.
Speaker 5: Phil Hartman as Captain Carl Can I just say he
Speaker 5: comes on screen and immediately makes a joke that makes
Speaker 5: me laugh every time I watch this special, and I
Speaker 5: watched this special a lot. I watched this specially at
Speaker 5: least once a year, honestly, where he comes out of
Speaker 5: the bathroom and Peewee says, did you wash your hands?
Speaker 5: And he grabs Peewee immediately by the face and goes no,
Speaker 5: I laugh every time. I'm gonna laugh about it now.
Speaker 5: That's so fucking funny. The other thing I love about
Speaker 5: this opening scene is they do this silly little joke
Speaker 5: about wash your hands. But it's the follow up to
Speaker 5: this where Phil Hartman does this sort of sailor dance
Speaker 5: and he's so fucking athletic. He just reminded me of
Speaker 5: Gene Kelly. I wished he had done more physical stuff.
Speaker 3: A sailor travels to benity lands and place he pleases,
Speaker 3: and he always remembers to wash his hands.
Speaker 4: Sosy, don't get no diseases.
Speaker 6: He's very grace I agree when they do that little
Speaker 6: dance about.
Speaker 2: The sailors, and not to get ahead of ourselves, but
Speaker 2: as part of what we were doing here. I watched
Speaker 2: the twenty eleven filming of Pee Wee Herman on Broadway,
Speaker 2: and I got to say, obviously, it's Phil Hartman has
Speaker 2: been gone for a long time, so I wasn't expecting
Speaker 2: to see Cowboy, to see Captain Carl, but seeing Cowboy Curtis,
Speaker 2: I didn't really. I wasn't so much into the Pee
Speaker 2: Wee's playhouse thing. I didn't really watch the show. So
Speaker 2: I have to say it was a little bit disappointing
Speaker 2: not to see Captain Carl up there, because all the
Speaker 2: same jokes are in this sort of revival, right, even
Speaker 2: the one you just talked about where he says did
Speaker 2: you wash your hands? No, it doesn't land the same
Speaker 2: way with Phil Lamar. Love Phil Lamar, but not quite
Speaker 2: the same as Hartman.
Speaker 5: I'll say this because I saw the production you're talking
Speaker 5: about live at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 5: because it is effectively the show we are talking about,
Speaker 5: the Pee Wee Herman Show from nineteen eighty one, just
Speaker 5: repurposed with some updated jokes and some other segments that
Speaker 5: at the moment that Captain Carl was supposed to come
Speaker 5: through the door and Cowboy Curtis came in, it broke
Speaker 5: my heart a bit. But Phil Lamar is really good
Speaker 5: as Cowboy Curtis, and once you settle into him as
Speaker 5: Cowboy Curtis, and then Cowboy Curtis in the Captain Carl role,
Speaker 5: then it became fine, and then I enjoyed the rest
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I no disrespect to Phil Lamar. He's awesome.
Speaker 2: I thought he does as good as a Cowboy Curtis
Speaker 2: as anybody could expect because Larry fishburn At going to
Speaker 2: come back to do Cowboy Curtis.
Speaker 5: I don't think he would have then, but I don't
Speaker 5: know why he wouldn't. Like on screen. You can't do
Speaker 5: it now, obviously, but.
Speaker 2: Right, But it was just so Hartman is so noticeable
Speaker 2: in his absence that I wanted to accept Cowboy Curtis
Speaker 2: and Phil Lamar, but it just I for me, it
Speaker 2: was really hard to get past it because it's so iconic.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2: Watch the original HBO show that often, not as often
Speaker 2: as you. This might have been the first time I've
Speaker 2: seen it in over ten years, but it's burned at
Speaker 2: the same time, it's burned into my brain. I saw
Speaker 2: it so much as a kid. It was on so
Speaker 2: much that I could quote it just from memory. So
Speaker 2: it's to me, it's Captain Carl sitting down with Pee
Speaker 2: weee talking about the seashell and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: I missed that.
Speaker 5: And you know that Gilbert Godfrey was chosen over Paul
Speaker 5: Rubens for the cast of Saturday Night Live. When Gene
Speaker 5: Domanian took over, I knew.
Speaker 2: Gilbert was in the cast I didn't know it was
Speaker 2: between him and Paul Rubens.
Speaker 5: That's when he came up with the idea to do
Speaker 5: pe we re Herman as a stage show on its own.
Speaker 6: Say it worked out pretty well for Paul Rubins.
Speaker 5: He was going to be a huge star anyway. Character
Speaker 5: here in the original peev Herman show and again when
Speaker 5: I saw it live, male man.
Speaker 2: Mike is great, isn't he? He's so like when you
Speaker 2: really break the character down, he's such a prick. He's reading,
Speaker 2: he's opening people's.
Speaker 5: Mail, right, Okay, First of all, he comes in, he
Speaker 5: opens the post office and then says, well, it looks
Speaker 5: like it's time for my first break.
Speaker 6: And then linn, he eats.
Speaker 2: The cookies that aren't addressed to him. He gives pee
Speaker 2: Wee his mail and he's like, hey mail, and Mike,
Speaker 2: why is this open? And he goes sometimes I forget
Speaker 2: and he licks the envelope and gives them.
Speaker 7: To turn that frown upside down.
Speaker 2: Peewee got some special mail here for you.
Speaker 5: What's so special about him?
Speaker 2: Well, what's so special is that it's mail from foreign lands.
Speaker 8: And you know what that means, don't you do?
Speaker 4: That means it's time for pals from around.
Speaker 9: Here's a picture postcard from Finland.
Speaker 7: From Finland, Dear Peewee Burr, it's sure cold here today.
Speaker 7: An avalanche covered our village.
Speaker 4: Here's a lot of from Israel.
Speaker 7: From Israel, Shalam, pee Weee.
Speaker 4: My name is Shalome.
Speaker 7: I'm nine and I have been in the army two
Speaker 7: years already to No Man Mike. If you would like
Speaker 7: to know more about my country, just read the Bible.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, he's the worst, but he's so cheery
Speaker 5: and just so upbeat. I love mail Man Mike.
Speaker 6: It's really funny.
Speaker 5: I also love his partner with Terry. No, not Terry.
Speaker 5: Terry is Captain Carl's no Mailman. Mike's partner is the Gator,
Speaker 5: also played by Phil Hartman. And not that we get
Speaker 5: a scene with them, but I really wish we did
Speaker 5: get a scene with the two of them together. We
Speaker 5: only learn it because he's rigged the dating game. So
Speaker 5: Miss Vaughan falls in love with mail Man.
Speaker 6: Yes, I do prefer Terry.
Speaker 2: There's something about the line readings that Terry makes in
Speaker 2: the show that it's just really funny. When he's talking
Speaker 2: to Pee Weee about how he can't fly, and he
Speaker 2: says man, that's a bummer. There's something about his the
Speaker 2: way he says that.
Speaker 5: It's it's the one character that has stepped outside of
Speaker 5: the show. It's the hipster character who's commenting on everything. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's a trip.
Speaker 9: Pewey, Yeah, just for them from the ship and boy
Speaker 9: on my wings tiled.
Speaker 5: Gosh, it must be cool to fly.
Speaker 6: You mean you can't fly, Peey.
Speaker 7: No, I can't fly off a human bee.
Speaker 5: I can't fly.
Speaker 6: Oh, bummer, That's exactly that is it. That's the crux
Speaker 6: of it right there.
Speaker 2: But obviously I think for me as a kid, my
Speaker 2: favorite character, and maybe this isn't a surprise, is Jombi.
Speaker 6: I'm getting a signal from a samiric world. Help me
Speaker 6: get into a twans quickly.
Speaker 8: In jumbies Mecca let go Hi met Chenny Mecai Meco
Speaker 8: Chenny Meca Hi Mega Heney Ho Mega mea. I'm only
Speaker 8: a chiny you lay game.
Speaker 2: Because what Kid does isn't like completely enraptured by essentially
Speaker 2: a genie, a mystical, you know, force inside of this
Speaker 2: box that can grant wishes. He's got the weird face paint.
Speaker 2: He's funny, he can do magic, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just I love John b.
Speaker 5: I was always confused as a chal because I could
Speaker 5: see that they were doing video effects, but I also
Speaker 5: knew that this was a this was a live performance,
Speaker 5: so I was like, what are the people seeing in
Speaker 5: the theater.
Speaker 2: That's true, because at one point he they do this,
Speaker 2: it's almost like they pan out on his face, so
Speaker 2: it recedes into the background of the box. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, what do the people in the theater see
Speaker 2: when that happens.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you nothing. They just see him do his
Speaker 5: that's all. Or they put a different colored light on him.
Speaker 5: There's a moment where between Captain Carl and pee Wee
Speaker 5: where pee Wee wants to light Captain Carl's pipe, and
Speaker 5: then he gets sick, and so they do this bizarro
Speaker 5: kind of music and the picture gets all wobbly and gaseous,
Speaker 5: and all that happens on stage is they shine a
Speaker 5: green light on Peewee.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, but I always wondered, like it is,
Speaker 2: how much of this is just filmed live and how
Speaker 2: much of it maybe is.
Speaker 6: Our little pickups where they can do video effects.
Speaker 5: That's a good question. I think a couple of the
Speaker 5: jombie things might have been pickups because they suddenly cut
Speaker 5: to a way too close up, which they would probably
Speaker 5: have to be on stage to get.
Speaker 6: Yeah, who you met the actor who played.
Speaker 5: Johnbie John Paragon. He is an unsung giant because he
Speaker 5: worked on fucking everything. He co wrote this show. He
Speaker 5: co wrote Peewee's Big Adventure. He was the breather on Elvira.
Speaker 5: He wrote all the Elvira TV shows. He's in the
Speaker 5: eating row just as an actor. He's really good in that.
Speaker 5: I know he worked with Imagineering for a while. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 5: back in I don't know, this is going to be
Speaker 5: like twenty fifteen, twenty eleven, before he died. Obviously, my
Speaker 5: late wife Jessica and I used to attend what is
Speaker 5: now called the La Comic Con used to be called
Speaker 5: stan Lee's Comakazi Okay, And it took place at the
Speaker 5: LA Convention Center, which is the sort of big one downtown,
Speaker 5: And they of course have an entire floor that is
Speaker 5: nothing but autographs from famous people and they're just sitting
Speaker 5: there and you can just walk up to them and
Speaker 5: they're usually selling something or whatever. And we were pretty
Speaker 5: early and it was pretty sparsely populated at that point,
Speaker 5: but standing or sitting at a table by himself, just
Speaker 5: scrolling on his phone was John Paragon. And Jessica and
Speaker 5: I were standing there and I'm trying to tell her
Speaker 5: quietly that's John Paragon. She's like who, And I'm like,
Speaker 5: that's John Paragon, and she said who. And as soon
Speaker 5: as I said it's John Bie, I heard Mecca le
Speaker 5: Beka Heine who which was John Paragon calling us over
Speaker 5: to the table. And he was very gracious and very
Speaker 5: sweet and talked to us forever about pee wee and
Speaker 5: about the movie. And I just adored getting to talk
Speaker 5: to him because he's such a fucking legend man and
Speaker 5: he passed and where's his memorial?
Speaker 2: Seriously, he's such an unsugiant of comedy. But I just
Speaker 2: I would freak out because johnby was was a mystical
Speaker 2: force as far as I was concerned. To see him
Speaker 2: up there in nineteen eighty one doing all of those things,
Speaker 2: granting wishes, you know, casting, he just he's so funny
Speaker 2: and so cool. I don't know, I just I would
Speaker 2: have freaked out. I think if I ever met that's
Speaker 2: an awesome.
Speaker 5: What's great about seeing him first as Johnby is that
Speaker 5: he's always Johnby now, no matter where he was in
Speaker 5: his career, high or low, he's Johnby. He's still a god.
Speaker 6: Was it the same event?
Speaker 2: I remember Jessica had a picture of her with Thomas
Speaker 2: Lennon from Reno nine to eleven.
Speaker 5: No, that was San Diego Comic Con proper.
Speaker 6: I always thought that was a great picture.
Speaker 5: Because he fucking grabs her and kisses her. Because she
Speaker 5: said before she snapped the picture, don't grab me or
Speaker 5: kiss me or anything. My husband is really jealous. And
Speaker 5: then he grabbed her and kissed her and said take
Speaker 5: it now.
Speaker 6: Good stuff.
Speaker 2: But yeah, No, there's something about being an impressionable kid
Speaker 2: and watching all of this stuff, the bright colors. Everyone's
Speaker 2: just having fun. I just I love that. I love
Speaker 2: that vibe watching this season.
Speaker 5: Since we're talking about characters and groundlings and fucking comedic geniuses.
Speaker 5: We just lost one yesterday the day before Miss Lynn
Speaker 5: Marie Stewart, who is Missivon, the most beautiful girl in
Speaker 5: all of puppet Land. She has been around and in
Speaker 5: everything forever. She is in Pee Wee's Big Adventure at
Speaker 5: near the end of the movie on the Warner Brothers
Speaker 5: lot where they're filming the movie with Jason Hervey as
Speaker 5: the kid getting the bike, and then Peee comes in
Speaker 5: and steals it, and Jason Hervey is a real prick
Speaker 5: right before the bike's feeling takes place and the director
Speaker 5: has to step in, and the nun is like, I.
Speaker 6: Don't have to take that, Jerry, especially from that little kid.
Speaker 5: He is just a kid.
Speaker 4: Married even can be courteous. Jerry, I'm gonna quit, please,
Speaker 4: I swear it.
Speaker 5: I am going to quit leading me, all right, Jerry, Okay,
Speaker 5: but I am happy. That is Lynn Marie Stewart and
Speaker 5: she's fucking hilarious there. That is another joke from this
Speaker 5: group of people that makes me laugh every time I
Speaker 5: see it.
Speaker 6: She's amazing.
Speaker 2: She was always Missy Vaughne in every production, every iteration
Speaker 2: of the character on the TV show and the revival
Speaker 2: on this original always there. And it's my understanding that
Speaker 2: she was pretty close with Paul Rubins. I'm sure that
Speaker 2: they remain close throughout his life. And she's gone to what.
Speaker 5: She's fucking great here, not only that line in the
Speaker 5: fucking Pee Wee's Big Adventure Movie, but the moment here
Speaker 5: where she fears that Captain Carl is out on a
Speaker 5: date with another girl. She's putting on her makeup.
Speaker 7: Was the captain here today?
Speaker 4: But he had a date.
Speaker 6: Date, I mean.
Speaker 4: A date, peewee, are you sure?
Speaker 5: Date? He had an engagement.
Speaker 10: You don't understand what's amm count.
Speaker 4: The Carl and a fishing engagement. It's probably just out
Speaker 4: of the very fish.
Speaker 10: And that's all.
Speaker 1: Is that all?
Speaker 4: Thank you lucky star to.
Speaker 6: Me, that's like, that's her seed.
Speaker 2: That is the key to that character putting on the
Speaker 2: blush and she's getting more and more frantic and upset by.
Speaker 6: The whole thing. It's great and I don't know.
Speaker 2: She's so sweet and light and an effervescent and as
Speaker 2: the character, she's just such a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 6: She was wonderful.
Speaker 5: Why this works so well and why we bought it
Speaker 5: as children is No one here is pretending this isn't
Speaker 5: a children's show. No one here is winking and letting
Speaker 5: any if there is sexual like, okay, there is what
Speaker 5: the hypnotisty thing with another ground we need to talk
Speaker 5: about that, but all right, let's talk about it now.
Speaker 5: Let's just get it out of the way, because this
Speaker 5: thing is it's not like there's a huge plot. Pee
Speaker 5: Wee wants to he wants to fly, and Johnny's gonna
Speaker 5: grant that wish. But Miss Vaughn wants Captain Carl to
Speaker 5: love her, so he's going to give her the wish.
Speaker 5: That's the plot there. It was the plot in the revival,
Speaker 5: And anyway, this was.
Speaker 2: The only thing that I found concerning now looking back,
Speaker 2: like watching it as an adult in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: because I frankly i'd forgotten about this and the aftermath.
Speaker 6: Let's say, so.
Speaker 2: The conceit is, there's a part in the show where
Speaker 2: Peee wants to hypnotize a member of the audience. He
Speaker 2: goes and it's obviously the woman's name is Joan, she's
Speaker 2: obviously an actress, she's a plant, and he takes her.
Speaker 2: She's one of the groundlings, right. She goes up on
Speaker 2: stage and Peewee proceeds to comedically hypnotize her. But what
Speaker 2: he does is he basically just tells her, he suggests
Speaker 2: hypnotically that it's hot, which basically forces her to take
Speaker 2: off her dress. So she's up there in I guess
Speaker 2: in this case it's a n neck lege.
Speaker 5: Let's just say, by the way that Pee Wee is
Speaker 5: hypnotizing her with a puppet called Doctor, which I assume
Speaker 5: is from the early nineteen sixties late nineteen fifties, and
Speaker 5: he was a hypnotist doll. So this whole thing is
Speaker 5: predicated on a toy that everyone in that audience at
Speaker 5: least knows about that.
Speaker 2: The toy probably looks like it looks like a little
Speaker 2: handheld version of Doctor Evil from Austin Powers. It's a bald,
Speaker 2: stern looking character.
Speaker 5: Right, So I get what you're saying, because this is
Speaker 5: rapey and weird. Right, Yeah, he's having her take off
Speaker 5: her clothes and then using the puppet to look up
Speaker 5: her dress and everything. Right, But I think this is
Speaker 5: just a comment on what every kid was thinking they
Speaker 5: were going to do with this doll when they got it.
Speaker 5: They were going to hypnotize girls and it taken off
Speaker 5: their clothes. Not that it makes it okay.
Speaker 2: That's a charitable view of the thing. And again it's
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be one of these people who says, oh,
Speaker 2: this is terrible that they should cut it out.
Speaker 6: I'm not suggesting. I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 6: It's nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: This is what passed for comedy and I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: whitewash it or forget.
Speaker 6: That it was there.
Speaker 2: But what was particularly disturbing about this, and I don't
Speaker 2: think I ever even saw this as a kid, because
Speaker 2: this is effectively a post credit sequence at the end
Speaker 2: of the show, we've gone through all the credits. Everybody
Speaker 2: saw say goodbye you then followed that because what Pee
Speaker 2: Wee has suggested to her when she's under hypnosis is
Speaker 2: that she's not going to remember that she doesn't have
Speaker 2: her dress on, and that's going to be effectively how
Speaker 2: this is going to go. So then at the end,
Speaker 2: while they're going through the credits, you focus on the character.
Speaker 6: She looks so confused, almost zombie like. The camera follows her,
Speaker 6: still in her undergarments as she goes outside, bewildered, into
Speaker 6: the city, into Los Angeles, I guess, And that's just
Speaker 6: there's something disturbing about that.
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem to know what's going on. She seems
Speaker 2: in a fog about the whole thing. See I that's
Speaker 2: what I found a bit disturbing. But here, what did you?
Speaker 2: I'm sure you had a different take on this.
Speaker 5: I loved it, man, what are you talking about? I
Speaker 5: thought it was great that this hypnotized person would remain
Speaker 5: hypnotized after the show, just go wandering home naked.
Speaker 2: I just found it grim because there's no joke. It's
Speaker 2: just this woman who doesn't seem to know where she
Speaker 2: is or what she's doing, stumbling out of the theater
Speaker 2: into the nighttime. I don't know, I just I found
Speaker 2: it a little bit eyebrow rate.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's ultimately we were watching this as kids,
Speaker 5: but it was not meant for This is a midnight
Speaker 5: show at the Groundlings Theater on Saturday nights.
Speaker 2: Sure, And to be like I said, I don't think
Speaker 2: I ever even stuck around to see this little PostScript,
Speaker 2: because you know, as a kid, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: sit there and watch the credits. I didn't really care.
Speaker 2: I probably just flipped the channel. So that was surprising
Speaker 2: to see it now, because this might have been the
Speaker 2: first time I ever saw that. See did you mention
Speaker 2: that where people can see Pee Wee the Pee Wee
Speaker 2: Herman Show.
Speaker 5: You can see it on HBO Max or Max right now,
Speaker 5: it's on demand.
Speaker 6: Or you can see it on YouTube for free.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, hey, everybody, you can see everything for free
Speaker 5: on YouTube. Can you see the twenty eleven Broadway revival.
Speaker 6: I don't think you can see that.
Speaker 2: I think that's too I think that's locked up with
Speaker 2: a lot more rights and things like that.
Speaker 1: I don't think you know.
Speaker 5: What you can see is Paragon of Comedy, John Paragon's
Speaker 5: comedy special from nineteen eighty three featuring Pee Wee Herman
Speaker 5: and Elvira. Really, oh yeah, check that out. You should
Speaker 5: check it out. John Moody is in it as well,
Speaker 5: and Miss avon Lyn, Marie Stewart and the Joan.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about one another character in this production
Speaker 2: that I guess I didn't appreciate fully until I was
Speaker 2: an adult, the mister and missus Jelly Donut.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, thank god you brought them up, because
Speaker 5: I agree did not appreciate them as a child and
Speaker 5: enjoyed them, but fucking love them right now.
Speaker 2: I didn't get the joke of them performing sly Stone's
Speaker 2: greatest hits, like these two white people basically up there,
Speaker 2: he's got a flamingo guitar, an electric guitar.
Speaker 5: But by the way, is a flamingo guitar, and he's
Speaker 5: wearing black pants and he has pink stripes down the front.
Speaker 5: So when he's holding the guitar. It looks like the
Speaker 5: fucking flamingo is standing there.
Speaker 6: I didn't notice that. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: What in retrospect, though, what was interesting for me is
Speaker 2: this was literally my first exposure to the music of
Speaker 2: sly Stone. I didn't I may have had some vague
Speaker 2: understanding of some of the big hits like dance to
Speaker 2: the music, but it's just so fucking funny to see
Speaker 2: them come out there and do thank you for letting
Speaker 2: me be myself again. These Essentially they're at a cookout
Speaker 2: and they get zapped into Pee Wee's house to do
Speaker 2: this musical spotlight tribute.
Speaker 5: I thought it was, oh fucking fantastic. Yeah, I again
Speaker 5: didn't appreciate how funny this whole thing was, and did
Speaker 5: not appreciate how formative it was, because, like you said,
Speaker 5: I was predisposed to love sly in the family Stone
Speaker 5: after exposure here.
Speaker 2: And Pee Wee is doing the backing vocals and he's
Speaker 2: chiming in and it's really funny the things that he's
Speaker 2: piping in and doing the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Music.
Speaker 4: The music there, it's along and it kinda like a
Speaker 4: short ever been on the rent? One more in rent,
Speaker 4: but no one, no, thank you. Let me bear myself, okay, let.
Speaker 1: Me do myself to.
Speaker 4: Stop yah yah yeah, yeah yeah yah yah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know how you conceive of those
Speaker 2: characters in this context.
Speaker 6: Oh fucking funny.
Speaker 5: Mister and missus Jelly donut this. And then as they're
Speaker 5: leaving by the way, they passed Captain Carl, who just
Speaker 5: starts like get out of my way music. We eventually
Speaker 5: got to Peewee's Playhouse, but I wish it was peopled
Speaker 5: a little bit more with the original residence of puppet Land,
Speaker 5: because these people are great.
Speaker 2: I was surprised that they didn't make an appearance in
Speaker 2: the revival. I was hoping this because I thought, what
Speaker 2: are they going to spot like this time it would
Speaker 2: be some other weird band from the sixties. But no,
Speaker 2: that's the one feature that I was sorely lacking.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I guess as kids, we could dispense with this.
Speaker 5: And then when they revived it, they thought, well, did
Speaker 5: anyone actually respond to it? Yes, we did, pee wee.
Speaker 6: It was so offbeat. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's hard to really pin down exactly why I find
Speaker 2: it so compelling or back then found it compelling, But
Speaker 2: it was and it made an impression.
Speaker 5: You know what else made an impression? The pin cushion Man,
Speaker 5: the scourge of land so.
Speaker 9: Hate me, they hate me, tickles me the way they
Speaker 9: rate me always. That's the reason I have.
Speaker 8: Oh I stop them when I pop them.
Speaker 6: Those cartoons are whack.
Speaker 5: So that cartoon would reappear two years later in Get Crazy.
Speaker 5: It's the cartoon that they show to the audience to
Speaker 5: calm them down in between acts.
Speaker 2: Ah, so it must have been like like royalty free. Yeah,
Speaker 2: public domain. Yeah, it the thing I was reminded of.
Speaker 2: You won't necessarily make the same association, but it reminded
Speaker 2: me of the cartoons that play throughout the movie skinnemer Rink.
Speaker 2: That the kids are watching these awful, like you said,
Speaker 2: public domain cartoons that are just looping, And for some reason,
Speaker 2: I think of that when I think of these cartoons.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's crazy. I used to wonder as a
Speaker 2: kid because there's that. And then there's the public service
Speaker 2: thing about mister Bungle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's an educational film and it's called Beginning response
Speaker 5: 's Ability lunch Room Manners. But is the story of
Speaker 5: mister Bungle. Eventually giving us that fucking stupid band's name.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm not a fan either.
Speaker 5: A boy ran past their table. You shouldn't run in
Speaker 5: the lunch room. Only mister Bungle would do that.
Speaker 2: But what I used to wonder as a child is
Speaker 2: are these actual authentic movies from the fifties and cartoons
Speaker 2: from the fifties or is this something that in their.
Speaker 6: Brilliance they could produce.
Speaker 2: Because people are laughing throughout all of this, especially the
Speaker 2: mister Bungle thing, like they're just having a great old
Speaker 2: time with it.
Speaker 6: But I guess these are the genuine article, right.
Speaker 5: I believe the pincushion Man is probably from the forties.
Speaker 5: Just from the animation style, I would say that's probably
Speaker 5: the nineteen forties. But that is definitely from nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 5: an educational film that was shown to students, probably these
Speaker 5: very people. Like I said, it is like a sort
Speaker 5: of a nostalgic trip through all of the worst or
Speaker 5: lowest aspects of culture from the late fifties early sixties.
Speaker 2: It's simply brilliant the way this all is packaged as
Speaker 2: this sort of variety show starring this at the time,
Speaker 2: a crazy character of Peewee Herrman. I just it's it's
Speaker 2: brilliant that these are real serious comedy minds. I guess
Speaker 2: I don't even know how you how you begin to
Speaker 2: come up with a show like all the Facets.
Speaker 5: You got people like Adie McClure willing to come in
Speaker 5: and do three lines and then run out.
Speaker 6: She was from People would know her Grace from Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 6: They think he's a righteous dude.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she's also she manning the rental car desk
Speaker 5: in planes, trains and automobiles. You're fucked, that's true.
Speaker 6: Her character was Hermit Hattie.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, she's also the voice of Clockey.
Speaker 6: Oh no kidding. I didn't know that either. Wow. Which
Speaker 6: she must have been a groundling too.
Speaker 5: Huh, Absolutely she was. Who else was a groundling? Tito
Speaker 5: Lariva We mentioned Hammy earlier. Tito Lariva is an interesting motherfucker.
Speaker 2: He That was the biggest shock, And I talked to
Speaker 2: you about this when I was starting to watch this,
Speaker 2: because Hammy is fairly incidental character in this. He shows
Speaker 2: up at the beginning, they do the bit with the
Speaker 2: shoe mirrors and that's pretty much it. But when I
Speaker 2: looked him up to find out that This is the
Speaker 2: same Tito from the band Tito and Tarantula, I think
Speaker 2: is how you pronounced it properly. This is basically for
Speaker 2: a while this was Robert Rodriguez, the filmmaker, his house band, right.
Speaker 6: He did the music for Desperado.
Speaker 5: They're in for l on, they're the fucking They're the band.
Speaker 6: That's true. He's he is in Desperado.
Speaker 2: I think he's in the scene where Boucemi comes and
Speaker 2: lays out the legend of the Mariachi.
Speaker 6: I think he's in the bar too.
Speaker 5: By the way, he eventually got to Tito and Tarantola,
Speaker 5: But at this time he was in the Plugs, which
Speaker 5: is a fucking seminal la punk band.
Speaker 6: No kidding, the Plug Really, he's the vocals for the Plugs.
Speaker 6: I didn't know that. That's I'm learning a lot today.
Speaker 5: Bottom alone, this is the episode you've been waiting for.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you this, Like I said, it was a
Speaker 2: long time coming, but it's But what's the connection there?
Speaker 2: Like you said, was he also he was a Groundling Lariva.
Speaker 5: At one point in the seventies. The Groundlings had something
Speaker 5: like ninety members.
Speaker 2: I just never would have made the connection to this
Speaker 2: sort of Confederate of Robert Rodriguez to connect him back
Speaker 2: to the groundling.
Speaker 5: He went to Yale. Oh I'm sorry. Tino de Riva
Speaker 5: snuck into Yale for a full term and was eventually
Speaker 5: kicked out.
Speaker 2: Tell me that guy's written a book, tell me he's
Speaker 2: written a memoir.
Speaker 5: I don't get in touch with him. What a fucking
Speaker 5: interesting human.
Speaker 6: Wow, Yeah, totally. I just it's weird. Again.
Speaker 2: It's a small fucking world to think that he was
Speaker 2: in this Yeah for.
Speaker 5: One scene when he's so goofy, he really committed to
Speaker 5: playing a nine year old boy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, him in the because I watched a few performances
Speaker 2: Tito and Tarantula or Tarantula, and they're a pretty heavy, bluesy,
Speaker 2: aggressive band, and Hammy is anything. But Hammy is just
Speaker 2: this kid that kind of pokes his head into the
Speaker 2: playhouse and then leaves.
Speaker 6: I don't know, it's funny.
Speaker 5: And laughs with his mouth fall makes me want to
Speaker 5: punch him in the fade.
Speaker 6: He's always got that ham sandwich. That's why they call
Speaker 6: him Hammy.
Speaker 5: It's basically his whole life.
Speaker 6: That's true. Marty Calender, though some of his stuff was
Speaker 6: gonna leave it.
Speaker 5: Marty Marty Calender. Was he the puppet guy. No, it's
Speaker 5: a different guy I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: It might be, but he did direct both the show
Speaker 2: and the revival, which I thought was interesting. And he
Speaker 2: also he was like a big stand up director. He
Speaker 2: did like specials for Red Fox and George Carlin.
Speaker 6: And Robin Williams.
Speaker 2: But he really made a real name for himself in
Speaker 2: music videos. He did We're Not going to Take It
Speaker 2: by Twisted Sister. That was Marty Kallner. He did videos
Speaker 2: for Hollan Oates, Pat Benattar.
Speaker 6: Interesting.
Speaker 5: That makes sense, then why Twisted Sister showed up in
Speaker 5: Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
Speaker 6: Everything connects?
Speaker 5: Dang it, we're solving everything agent.
Speaker 2: We need one of those boards with the yarn the
Speaker 2: threads that go. Okay, he's connected here, but he worked here.
Speaker 6: It all connects. It's crazy.
Speaker 5: Mister Knucklehead. By the way, is the name of that
Speaker 5: that gator that Phil Harmon played. It was my second
Speaker 5: favorite character in the show, And turns out he's Mailman
Speaker 5: Micros partner the Gauitar May tar Oh, please would you
Speaker 5: wait till life inst the question? Please?
Speaker 6: I did love ma'lmon.
Speaker 2: You're right though you're right on the money with Mailbow
Speaker 2: that guy is.
Speaker 5: I think we're basically at the end there where Peewee
Speaker 5: gets his wish because he wishes for he wishes for
Speaker 5: them to be in love, but they were already in love,
Speaker 5: so he's going to get his wish anyway. In one
Speaker 5: of the greatest visual effects of all time, Pee Harmon
Speaker 5: flies the.
Speaker 6: Original in the original show.
Speaker 2: The effect is great because it's he's not even wearing
Speaker 2: the same outfit that he's worn through the whole show,
Speaker 2: like they put him in something different.
Speaker 6: It's essentially a harness that his head.
Speaker 2: Fits that makes it look like he's flying proportionally hang
Speaker 2: a little body, big head.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he's got little arms on sticks in front
Speaker 5: of him that he's manipulating and in an all black environment,
Speaker 5: it looks like big headed person lying around the room.
Speaker 2: But he deploys those arms like several times, very effective.
Speaker 2: Like at one point, like the lyric goes, I'm so
Speaker 2: much luckier than and he's pointed the fake arm to
Speaker 2: like the camera. It's just it's really funny, but it's
Speaker 2: sweet though, like the fact that he does get his wish.
Speaker 2: He is a boy who can fly. That's effectively the
Speaker 2: end of the show.
Speaker 6: It's beautiful Sweet.
Speaker 5: They released a vinyl record of this anyone.
Speaker 2: Like an audio version or the songs from.
Speaker 5: A vinyl one sided hand silk screen picture disc.
Speaker 6: I would love to check that out. That was a
Speaker 6: big thing for a while.
Speaker 2: Audio like there was a record of Johnny Carson's Greatest
Speaker 2: Hits which was just basically bits from his It's not
Speaker 2: totally surprising, but I'd love to see.
Speaker 5: Here are the track listings, Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Good
Speaker 5: Morning Song, A Sailor's Life, Most Beautiful Woman in pumpet Land,
Speaker 5: Ballad of Hermit Hattie rubbed the top of Jombi's box.
Speaker 5: I gotta be I gotta go be by myself, call
Speaker 5: me mister Bungle. He's gonna get his wish, luckiest boy
Speaker 5: in the world. And then volare Peewee.
Speaker 6: Let's start to.
Speaker 2: Track this fucking record. Pey Herman originally released in one
Speaker 2: vinyl twelve inch. It's short, It's only twelve minutes.
Speaker 5: The songs are only a minute long. They're just basically transitions.
Speaker 6: It does feature mister HP.
Speaker 5: What have we learned.
Speaker 2: Here's one of the things I've learned, Baba Blone, is
Speaker 2: that We've done a few shows now about live productions
Speaker 2: that are broadcast on cable TV, and we've beat up
Speaker 2: on a lot of them. This is the rare case
Speaker 2: where I think this is this is such a good
Speaker 2: The material is great, the production is great, the direction
Speaker 2: is spot on. This is an example of one of
Speaker 2: these productions done. I think this live production on cable TV,
Speaker 2: and this expose the character no pun intended, of pee
Speaker 2: Wee Herman to so many more people than would have might.
Speaker 6: Have actually run across. He would have been a star regardless, let's.
Speaker 2: Be honest, but this certainly primed the pump for many people,
Speaker 2: including myself, who would not have heard of him otherwise
Speaker 2: until Peewee's Big Adventures. I think this was a resounding
Speaker 2: success as far as cable box theater is concerned.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Paul Rubens was going to be a big star,
Speaker 5: not necessarily pee Wee Herman if this thing hadn't aired
Speaker 5: on HBO. I don't think we were going to get
Speaker 5: pee Wee's Big Adventure or pee Wee's Playhouse or Peee anything.
Speaker 5: We were just going to get Paul Rubin's character actor.
Speaker 5: Oh that guy, I love him. He shows up on
Speaker 5: such and such sometimes that's what it would have been.
Speaker 5: So this is the perfect example of the power behind
Speaker 5: the cable box theater. This led to all those other things,
Speaker 5: and this was what they should have been doing anyway,
Speaker 5: which is, don't go to fucking Kokomo Joe's how to
Speaker 5: watch the fucking wait until dark? Like, why are we
Speaker 5: filming that that thing that's already a movie. Go find
Speaker 5: the underground shit that's going on in every major metropolitan
Speaker 5: city and film that.
Speaker 2: It really felt, I mean, in retrospect now watching an adult,
Speaker 2: if I had seen this as an adult for the
Speaker 2: first time, it would have felt like, I know, this
Speaker 2: cool sort of to your point, underground show that I
Speaker 2: don't know it. It really captured the live experience I
Speaker 2: think of watching, not that I've seen the show live,
Speaker 2: but watching it, it felt like you were part of
Speaker 2: this experience and it felt really special. And that's a
Speaker 2: quality that it's not easy to capture on a videotaped
Speaker 2: live performance, but they, by god, they did it.
Speaker 5: Whodos to everyone involved? My god, if p me Herman
Speaker 5: from those movies and that TV show and the recent
Speaker 5: Netflix movies and whatever and have never seen this, what
Speaker 5: the hell are you waiting for it's free. It's available
Speaker 5: right now. My god, it's pee wee Herman. Here's where
Speaker 5: it all came from.
Speaker 6: What can I say?
Speaker 2: This was a pleasure watching this, rediscovering this after so long.
Speaker 5: This all right, Well, we're gonna I don't know what
Speaker 5: our next episode is going to be about, but it's
Speaker 5: gonna be not as good as this one, at least
Speaker 5: for us.
Speaker 6: It's gonna suffer by comparison.
Speaker 5: For sure. We're going we'll be feeling the pain after
Speaker 5: such a elation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can't, you know what, You can't appreciate
Speaker 2: the good if you can't delve into the bad.
Speaker 5: That is true. But until we do get there, HP,
Speaker 5: where can people find you?
Speaker 6: If they're looking, you can find me elsewhere.
Speaker 2: On the week, I co host the Night Mister Walters
Speaker 2: Taxi podcast with my esteemed co host Father Alone. I
Speaker 2: host the Noise Junkies podcast that's a music podcast. I
Speaker 2: am also an occasional guest on The Culture Cast with
Speaker 2: Chris Dasher and I have a band camp site for
Speaker 2: those interested that HP music play so at bandcamp dot com.
Speaker 2: I just released a new album called Wired and Waiting
Speaker 2: for fans of eighties unreleased movie soundtrack stuff that could
Speaker 2: sounds like old John Claude Bandamn movies. You've come to
Speaker 2: the right place.
Speaker 6: Check it out. Yeah, so that's where I'm at.
Speaker 5: I'd say there's a step above genrevies.
Speaker 6: I try.
Speaker 5: I think that music is good. I don't think John
Speaker 5: convand movies are as for me. Where to find me?
Speaker 5: I'm right here if you want to follow me on
Speaker 5: socials at Father Malone, on all of them. Really until
Speaker 5: next time. Thank you for joining us at Cable Box Theater.
Speaker 5: I don't have a sign off still HB. That'll do it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, word go what I wanna go. I wanna do
Speaker 9: what I Wantwis.
Speaker 4: Playhouse, that's the place for me.
Speaker 9: Man show me away, a god away when I want to.
Speaker 4: Get in my way.
Speaker 10: Peewis play House, that's the place I'll be. Wen what
Speaker 10: a snazzy guypy we hear and makes all those young
Speaker 10: chicks cry.
Speaker 6: We oh, Lauren, now with me? Were we.
Speaker 4: Talking about them?
Speaker 2: Did we talk?
Speaker 6: I'm talking about my mempie talking
Speaker 1: Sew and I