Film, WWdN in Exile

Is this something you can share with the rest of us Amazing Larry?!

47 Comments

Anne went to bed before I was tired last night. Being a good husband who doesn't want to get The Wrath, I opted to head into my office on the other side of the house to watch a little TV before I went to sleep, instead of sitting in our bed and watching TV there. (Yes, we live in a house that is filled with televisions; it's part of the new cruelty.)

As I scrolled through the channel guide, I wondered, as I so often do, how it's possible to fill up almost 800 channels with nothing but absolute dogshit … and then I saw it, on HDNet: Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

I love this movie so much, I wish I could marry it (and then go into the other room to watch The Three Amigos when it goes to sleep before I'm tired.) It is one of the very rare perfect movies. The score is perfect. The cinematography is perfect. The script is perfect. The acting, editing, and directing are all perfect. I can't think of many movies from 1985 (holy shit, 1985) that hold up at all today, let alone hold up as perfectly as this one, that, we have established, is perfect.

While I watched the movie, I Twittered about it a little bit, because that's the way we do things here in the year 2525. When I woke up this morning and checked my e-mail, I saw that my friend Joel had seen my Twittering, and was inspired — nay, compelled — to create this:

 

I told him that the Internet needed to see this right away … and he responded that, while I was sleeping, it had already become today's comic, as if by magic.

The kids seem to enjoy the Fighting Time Lords T-shirt we made, so I told Joel that I thought it should be a T-shirt. What do you think?

[14 hours later…]

Okay, Internet! You asked for it, so Joel and I made it. BEHOLD WESLEY'S BIG ADVENTURE!

47 thoughts on “Is this something you can share with the rest of us Amazing Larry?!”

  7. I love “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” so much that I traveled from Oxnard to Cabazon just to see the dinos. And quote the movie to myself. For my own enjoyment.
    I wanted to go into the diner and tell ‘em that Large Marge sent me, but none of them looked like they’d be amused. So, I smirked and kept it to myself.
    That was a great day.

  8. It makes me profoundly sad to drive past the dinosaurs now (which are owned by a crazy creationist) and see that, instead of a beautiful empty desert, they are surrounded by fast food places and parking lots.

  9. Personally, I would prefer this as a mouse pad, but I can see it being a popular t-shirt as well. Perhaps as part of a range of TNG mash-up designs (a la the Firefrog series)? I could totally see Riker spouting some Ron Burgundy…

  10. Wil, as fun as Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is, the absolute greatest movie from 1985, and perhaps one of the top 10 greatest movies ever, is The Goonies…

  11. Yes, that part was disappointing to be sure. I mean…there’s a Burger King right there!
    But, as that was my very first time being there (was visiting a friend, I lived in Virginia at the time) I decided to let my inner child just be happy.
    I drove by them again last year when I drove from here (Arizona) to Oxnard. The inner child was much quieter that time.

  13. Not long after the movie first came out my mother was cleaning out the hall closet. What should come out of that mysterious cache of oddities but a brely worn pair of humongous white stacked heel shoes just like Pee Wee wore to do his big shoe dance. Had I known what “WTF?!” was when I was a fifth grader, I would have said “WTF?!” Turns out my dad used to be a door-to-door insurance salesman and when he gussied himself up to go a-knock-knock-knockin’ on people’s doors, he’d slip into some rockin’ polyester slacks, a plaid (!) blazer and those sweet, sweet shoes. I slid my feet into those babies, danced and giggled like Pee Wee while my mom sang “Tequila”. :D

  14. “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) is made even more amazing once you realize that Paul Reubens wrote the screenplay himself, with help from the late, great Phil Hartman and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” writer Michael Varhol. But, Pee-wee wrote the bulk of that script himself.
    Here is an excerpt from a panel discussion at the 2011 SXSW in Austin, TX:
    “It’s a 90-minute film. It’s a 90-page script. 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,” laughed Reubens. “There should be like a MacGuffin kind of a thing, something you’re looking for, and I was like, okay, my bike.” That last bit was said in Pee-wee’s guttural tone, much to the crowd’s delight. “It’s really a good example of how anybody could write a movie if you follow the rules,” Reubens concluded.
    When it came to writing “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” that’s what he did. He literally bought Syd Field’s Screenplay and wrote by the book.

  15. I had completely lost contact with my best friend from high school. Within moments of reuniting on FB, we were quoting Pee Wee’s Big Adventure to each other. Yeah, it had that much impact on our lives! “There’s no basement in the Alamo!”

  18. Have you been to the Tim Burton Retrospective, yet, at LACMA? Runs through Oct 31, 2011. We went last week. Pretty amazing. You can see Large Marge’s eyeballs on display.

  19. If I had anything even remotely resembling a disposable income, I would totally buy this as a shirt. Sadly, the state just essentially cut my pay by 2% so that’s not going to happen any time soon unless freelance work picks up. :( Best of luck with it, though!

  21. That is such a great movie! Although I still squeeze my eyes shut a bit when Large Marge’s face gets all crazy! And that nightmare with the clown doctors? Oh my gosh, how did I watch this movie as a kid?
    I always put it on though when I stumble upon it, even if it’s already halfway over (this drives my husband crazy. Watching TV in bed, not so much!)

  25. Only if it’s a shirt that somebody keeps KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND KNITTING, AND knitting.

  28. GREAT!! Now when I watch the opening sequence I have to ponder whether wee-Wil Wheaton’s mornings prior to TNG filming was equal to or greater than it.
    Did you ever notice how Pee-Wee only takes like two bites out of the awesome pancake man and then leaves it? Poor, tortured pancake man…
    Also, yes to making it a shirt.

  32. Three Amigos and Pee Wee – I am into way too many things that you are into. It scares me a little. Then I recover and realize it’s why I love reading your blog so much. You’re like me, only male, and famous, and successful and better at expressing yourself (don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty great myself, just in stealth mode compared to your public achievements!). Keep on winning….!

  38. I love Pee-wee’s big adventure! I have a self recorded ringtone on my phone of the “Deep in the Heart of Texas” bit on my phone! I recorded it one night when the movie was on TV and my husband was stationed temporarily at Ft. Sam Houston, which is there in San Antonio.
    On a slightly different note: I wonder if my hubby would let me wear a shirt with your character on it…..

  39. I quote that movie all the time. When we went to San Antonio last year, I made my friends take my picture in front of the Alamo. They were not amused by my constant questions about the basement.
    Can you say that with me? Adobe.

  40. I’ve had this idea for a movie. Paul’s big adventure. Paul Reubens playing himself, not in Pee-wee drag. The exact same dialog. Different casting, a motorcycle for the bike. Not sure who would direct.

  41. It’s interesting you said ‘the editing’ was perfect.
    Two things that always bugged me, that I’m beginning to think were done on purpose because they were so obvious:
    1. When Pee Wee is pulling out the chain from the bike’s compartment at the beginning, you can see it being fed from UNDER the compartment
    2. When Pee Wee is driving at night and getting drowsy and all the street signs are passing him, you can see the camera isn’t moving and the signs are on a track!
    Yeah, I’m “that” guy that can’t enjoy movies because of things like that!

  43. That graphic is fracking brilliant. And after a long time spent touring my parents around Monterey, seeing that quotation as a headline assuaged 90% of my stress.
    PeeWee’s Big Adventure holds a special place in my heart. My brother and I spent an excruciatingly boring snowed-in week saying things like, “What do you want to do?” “Watch PeeWee?” “OK.” “Now what should we do?” “Spaceballs?” “Yup.” Every day, at least twice, for a week.
    And thanks to the genius of Rick Moranis, Spaceballs also holds up reasonably well.

  44. Speaking of Fighting Time Lords t-shirt, I just ordered it last night and cannot WAIT to wear it to my Geeked-Out Gamer birthday party on the 30th!

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