Pee-wee's Big Adventure 35th Anniversary Tour With Paul Reubens on Tour
In 1985, comedian Paul Reubens brought his geeky man-child alter-ego Pee-wee Herman to the big screen with Pee-wee's Big Adventure — a colorful fusion of fun-loving, family-friendly road-trip flick and bizarro-world midnight-movie experience that both delighted and (thanks to a certain creepy truck driver named Marge) bewildered a generation of kids. The film has gone to become a multigenerational cult classic, and to mark its 35th anniversary, Pee-wee is once again hitting the road — for a multi-city American tour where screenings of the film will be followed by a live Q&A session with Reubens. Like a DVD-commentary track brought to life, Reubens will share behind-the-scenes stories of the film's creation — the perfect chaser to another round of "Tequila!"
Pee-wee's Big Adventure 35th Anniversary Tour With Paul Reubens Background
As a member of legendary Los Angeles improv troupe The Groundlings, Paul Reubens developed his irrepressibly manic Pee-wee Herman character as a caricature of a cluelessly bad comedian, decked out in a tight gray suit and nerdy red bowtie. In the early ‘80s, the Pee-wee persona gained notoriety through a popular stage revue, The Pee-wee Herman Show, an irreverent spin on a '50s-era kids program that was a lot more risqué than the childish humor for which he would become famous. After filming the show for a 1981 HBO special, Pee-wee became a recurring guest on Late Night With David Letterman, and gradually transformed from fringe figure to national star. In 1985, Reubens teamed up with a then-unknown young director named Tim Burton to adapt his puppet-populated universe into a feature film about Pee-wee's cross-country search for his stolen vintage Schwinn. The result, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, was more kid-oriented than Reubens' stage show, but thanks to Burton's visual ingenuity, still plenty surreal. While not exactly a blockbuster smash in its time, the film was successful enough to spawn the beloved Saturday-morning program Pee-wee's Playhouse, which ran on CBS from 1986 to 1990. And though Reubens retired the character shortly thereafter, the cult of Pee-wee Herman has only continued to grow in the decades since, as parents introduce new generations of kids to his uniquely eccentric charms.
