PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | Reaction & Commentary 

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The original Pee Wee stage show is very adult. Pee Wee's Playhouse, which followed the success of this movie, is probably one of the best children's shows ever made.

One of the greatest films of all time. I don't care what anyone says! "I'm a loner Dottie, a rebel." With all the horror movies I watched as a kid, Large Marge and the clowns operating on the bike were the only things I couldn't watch in the dark alone at night.

Yes, in fact, SpongeBob's creator said that Pee-wee Herman was one of the main inspirations for his character. You nailed it again.

Something Shanelle may have missed - the lead biker lady was played by Cassandra Peterson....aka Elvira Mistress of the Dark (a movie you would love)

Danny Elfman is a legend. Not only a amazing composer, but also the lead singer of the 80s band Oingo Boingo and the singing voice of Jack Skellington.

The burning pet shop is such a great sequence of jokes and PW running out with handfuls of snakes is such a good punchline.

I was 8 years old when this movie came out, and we watched PeeWee every Saturday morning on his tv show. This movie was everything to me and my little brother. We had it on vhs and played it over and over. Except the large marge part, that scared us to death. Lol. We still quote this movie regularly and we are now in our 40s. It made an impression.

I've always enjoyed how people around Pee-wee just love him to death and love being part of his hijinks (like the next door neighbor barely closing his window before Pee-wee's sprinkler gets him - after Pee-wee kindly warns him). Pee-wee is endlessly cheerful and it rubs off on everyone. Such a nice world to be part of. All except for his few enemies, of course.

Jan Hooks is so funny. I had no idea her dialogue was ad-lib'd. It makes her performance even more amazing. Glad you enjoyed. and yes Twisted Sister. LOL

saw a special screening of this for its 35th anniversary recently, and it SOLD OUT. Paul Ruebens talked about the picture afterwards. It was amazing; nobody, and I mean nobody didn't know every line of the movie by heart. In particularly awesome was when we all sung and clapped to "Deep in the heart of Texas" line at the top of our lungs. Pee Wee Herman is a national treasure.

As a kid I always took Mickey’s “mattress tag” story at face value and thought the humor was that he was arrested for something silly. As an adult I like that the joke works one way for kids and another for adults.

Thanks for watching this! First time seeing someone react to Pee Wee, he is a childhood favorite of most people of my generation. His tv show was absolutely wonderful, I remember seeing this movie in the theater when it came out and have been quoting it ever since! ✌

Dottie is played by EG Daly. She voiced Tommy Pickles in the RugRats cartoons and one of the main girlfriends in the early Nicolas Cage movie “Valley Girl”. She later appeared as a contestant on “the Voice”.

Pee Wee started of as a very adult show on HBO or Cinemax back in the day. He was still very childlike but there were tons of double entendres. He was able to flip Pee Wee into what he is today. Paul Reubens was also one of the vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer film. Dottie was the prom singer in better off dead and voices Tommy Pickles on Rug Rats. That was Morgan Fairchild playing the Bond girl. Milton Berle was the comedian with the duck joke.

R.I.P. Jan Hook. "Dame Hook."

I saw Pee-wee do his stand up act in Minneapolis at Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop in around 1982, 3 years before this movie came out. It was essentially the core of his Pee-wee's Playhouse TV show. Miss Yvonne was there and I think Captain Carl was there, too (played by Phil Hartman). It was the best show I had been to up until that time. Constant laughs. Very engaged audience. We even got a couple mini Tootsie Rolls because Pee-wee hurled them •hard• throughout the audience at one point, and we were near the back of the room. And Paul Reubens did this show at least three times that night. Amazing energy.

Rest In Peace Paul Reubens. ❤

Glad that another person is reacting to this, just because people seeing the Large Marge scene for the first time is always priceless. The only reason you MIGHT see it coming is when you know Tim Burton and what he's capable of. And your response to it was "... Huh." *I don't why that cracks me up more, but it does.*

I have a connection to this film. I went college with Mark Holton who played Francis. When I first saw the scene with Francis in the tub, I doubled over with laughter because I saw him play like that in the Green Room many times!

Fun trivia to me is that Dottie was played by EG Daily in one of her very rare live action roles. She's best known for voicing iconic characters like Tommy Pickles from Rugrats, Buttercup from the Powerpuff Girls, and Babe the pig from Babe: Pig in the City

I was deployed to the middle east in 1990 for the first Gulf War. We had months in the desert before the actual war and our only diversion was a tent with a TV and VCR. This movie was one of about a dozen tapes that we had and it played almost on.a loop... you could pop in anytime and it was in progress. We could all quote most every line verbatim from sheer repetition, yet we never tired of it. This might be the first time that I saw it since '91, but I still remembered everything.

Wow this was a surprise! This movie was a classic in our house growing up. We would quote it all the time, but I almost never hear anyone mention it. Glad you enjoyed it.

Peewee is like an eight year old boy's version of adulthood lol. It always spoke to us like the adult that absolutely got us when I was a kid. Bonus: Elvira-mistress of the dark, is the red head in the bar scene. One of the few times you'll see her on film in her natural hair color instead of her classic black wig.

Large Marge scared the ever-loving crap out of me as a kid. My parents never took me to the movies so I didn't see this until it replayed on TV, so I was probably 7-8? I watched Pee-Wee's Playhouse religiously back then, lol.

I was watching my granddaughter and grandson about ten years ago and some of their friends came over to hang out. I had a living room full of noisy, rambunctious 6 to 10 year old kids. I turned on Pee Wee's Big Adventure and sat back and relaxed. The kids were mesmerized within minutes. Paul Reubens plays a non Pee Wee character in Mystery Men. It also stars Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, Janeane Garofalo, and others.

I'm so happy you reacted to this one! I was introduced to Pee-wee's Big Adventure when I was around 7-8 and it was playing when I went to go visit my grandma one Friday night. It's probably one of my favorite comedies of all-time.

Really enjoyed your reaction. It was fun watching you cracking up. We all did alot of the silly kid things they did in the movie, that's part of what makes it so funny 😁

I saw this in theaters when it came out. Being a teen in the 80's was great.

one of Paul Rueben's best roles as Amilyn in the movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" from 1992. Not to be confused with the tv series. His post credit scene in that movie is hilarious.

One of the more pleasant surprises I had in 1985. I was taken here blind by a girlfriend who purchased the tickets ahead of time because she knew I didn't want to see it (I didn't care for Pee Wee - more for his reputation, I didn't think I'd like it). I'm really glad she took me and I started going into movies with more of an open mind.

Oh. My. God. My favorite movie and I’ve never seen any of the reactors watch it. I’m so excited for this!

After this movie came out and for basically the rest of the 80's, as far as kids were concerned, the song "Tequila" was called "The Pee Wee Herman". Adults whenever hearing the song referred to as that would always try to correct us, "That song has been around long before Pee Wee Herman! It's called _Tequila._ " And the kids would always respond like, "Whatever, it's still the Pee Wee Herman..."

I've always found great was that Paul Rubens, Cassandra Peterson and Phil Hartman were part of the Groundlings at the same time. The icons of Elvira and Pee-Wee with realized about the same time. If you didn''t notice, that was Cassandra in the biker bar.

R.I.P. Paul Reubens

So Pee Wee had a screening tour of this movie a few years back and one of the stops was my city which is also San Antonio, home of the Alamo. After the movie he talked about the movie and filming and all that. The lady in the bar that says “I say you let me have him” is Elvira. Also the founders of the Alamo took him to the basement after the movie went big. Everyone started to ask if the Alamo had a basement while on the tour. One of my favorite movies ever.

I made my father take me to this when it came out. I was fan of Pee Wee's HBO Special.. which was a little more adult than the stuff he'd do later on, but it was absurd and hilarious. It's kind of a spoof on shows like Captain Kangaroo, Bozo The Clown and all the other kid shows of the 50s and 60s. Surprisingly, my father liked it almost as much as I did. Maybe because that was his childhood. That scene where Pee Wee dances became iconic. They even took that entire scene and made a music video out of it. A few months later there was a rap song called "Pee Wee's Dance" by a NYC rapper named Joe Ski Love.. his music video had the actor that played Francis as well as a young Ice-T. The song itself has been sampled MANY times by rappers, singers, house music producers and even 2Pac.

Fun Fact: the pink poodle in the bike basket at the end was Precious in Silence Of The Lambs

OMFG I’m so happy to see that you’ve done a reaction to Pee Wee’s Big Adventure!!! It’s such an underrated Tim Burton film. I’ve loved this film since I first saw it. There’s two sequels Big Top Pee Wee & Pee Wee Herman’s Big Holiday, which are worth checking out. Paul Ruben has a huge collection of kitch items, toys etc; some of which he brought on to an episode of Conan.

Elvira, Reubens' BFF, can be seen twice in this movie. When PW walks into the magic shop, there is a photo of her on the wall at the entrance. The woman, in the biker bar, is played by Cassandra Peterson (Elvira).

Still one of my favourite movies. I can still recite this word for word, scene by scene ;)

Paul Reuben also has a good character in the OG Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie. I'd love to see a reaction to that movie.

This was basically my favorite movie as a kid. 😊

I was in 5th grade when this movie came out. I remember some of my classmates doing their impression of Pee Wee. I had no idea what they were doing. I saw it later. It's a classic. Very quotable.

R.I.P. Paul Reubens, he'll definitely be missed.

R.I.P. Paul Reubens AKA Pee Wee. Now your bike has wings.

Had no expectations when I saw this in theaters as a 10 year old, walked out loving it, and still love the movie to this day. Loved Pee Wee's Playhouse as well.

The outdoor mall where the bike gets stolen was the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade. The same developer made a clone of it in Burbank too. And Pee-Wee’s house is in Alhambra, about 10 mins South of Pasadena. Structurally, it looks exactly me same.

I can definitely say that as a kid, the opening Rube Goldberg breakfast machine was the coolest thing ever lol! Also, I always had to look away during the Large Marge scene. It was terrifying - it was basically my Skinamarink

Fun Fact: Paul Reubens played The Penguin's father in both Tim Burton's Batman Returns and the tv series Gotham. Paul also played a vampire with the funniest and longest death scene in movie history the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie, stay for the end credits to see him finally die. In Batman Returns Penguin's mother was played by the actress playing Simone with the "big but".

I saw this opening night on mushrooms…literally thought I’d die laughing that night!😅

The lady biker ("I say you give him to me!") was Cassandra Peterson, AKA Elvira

Finally one of my favorite reactors does Pee Wee's Big Adventure! Legitimately one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

I was 12 or 13 when this movie came out, and my friends and I would watch it over and over again. We especially loved the Large Marge scene and the Tequila dance, but we knew the entire movie by heart. Thanks for this reaction!

You're insightful, entertaining and completely relatable. I'm older...pee wee was in my 30's but I thought it was funny as hell. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Pee-Wee's Playhouse was my jam back when I was a kid. This movie was one the one's I watched over and over on VHS.

One of Paul Reubens' first roles was a small part as a costumed arcade employee in the movie Midnight Madness. It's a teen comedy based around a scavenger hunt, and it's Michael J Fox's film debut. Edit to add: Reubens was also in one of Cheech & Chong's early movies (I think it was their first), doing an early version of Pee-Wee as his standup routine.

PEE WEE IS AWESOME…..for someone whose been to the Alamo & taught about it, I always bring up the basement in the Alamo & still get chuckles out of it 😂😂😂😂😂

R.I.P. PEE WEE HERMAN 😭😭😭😭😭😭

My favorite gag is when Pee Wee and the fugitive fool the policeman by posing as a married couple. After the policeman lets them go, Pee Wee still pretends to be the wife.

This movie taught me how to sneak into places. All you need to simply walk in either as part of group or walk in like you belong in there too. Walk in/join group, calm and relaxed not nervous.

Paul Rubens has been in a lot of good movies. He was in the second Batman movie. He was in Mystery Men. He's done a fair amount of behind the scenes work too

*PEE-WEE* Brought the kid out *Shanelle* as she reminisced & shared childhood stories...lol

I was born in 1980 and this was a childhood favorite, of course. Large Marge, the Tequila dance, the pet store evacuation, and "I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel." are the parts that stuck in my head. On rewatching this with you, I've realized... the homoeroticism between Pee-Wee and Mickey went straight over my *conscious* head, but straight into my subconscious. I... may have just explained some things about myself.

"Skip ahead! I don't know your life"! 😂 Classic, Shanelle!

Chucks bike o rama was at the old Santa Monica 3rd street promenade

I saw this as a kid when it came out. To this day (43 years old) I've remembered that the Alamo does not have a basement. 😊

I saw this on VHS when it came out and the large Marge scene had me rolling on the ground, literally. We played it over and over for 30 minutes.

I was born after the movie came out, but Pee-wee was still huge among kids my age, at least where I lived. We made lots of references to it and had lots of quotes from it, as well. We still do as adults in our mid-30s.

I watched Pee-wee's playhouse when I was a kid. This movie was a favorite for me and my dad to watch and quote! "FRANCIS!"

I watched this movie before I could talk, I probably seen this movie 100 times during my childhood. I love it even now as an adult.

Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is fantastic. Solid script. And great early Tim Burton.

The shopping location where Pee Wee loses his bike is the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica CA. I like to think the Pee Wee character is a little kid's idea of what they would be like as an adult.

I loved this film as a child and it made me terrified of clowns. My mom also has a video of me when I was 3 brushing my teeth and growling at the mirror like he does.

I love Pee Wee and I love you. Crying right now. Thank you so much for this 💙

That was James Brolin playing Peewee on the big screen. He is married to Barbra Striesand and is the father of Josh Brolin. His squeeze in the film was Morgan Farichild, who was comically famous for being the epitomy of a beautiful woman back in the 80s. One big joke about her was John Lovitz' "liar guy" character who was fond of name dropping her in an obvious lie as his wife. The line always ended with him saying "... and my wife Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that's the ticket, Morgan Fairchild."

Bobcat Goldthwait had a hilarious standup bit about how he was in the film "Blow", and how he, Johnny Depp, and Paul Reubens were all on probation, and the conversation went like this: Depp: "So what did you do?" Goldthwait: "I set my chair on fire on the Tonight Show. You trashed your hotel room, right?" Depp: "The room made the first move!" Depp and Goldthwait:"...um, yeah, anyway..."

love this movie as a kid ...obsessed ...still holds up

Large Marge sent me. 🚛 Watched this more than a handful of times in daycare in the late 80's/early 90's.

I'm pretty sure the the original conception for Pee-Wee was as the host of a children's television show, an adult parody of 50s and 60s children's television. He had a special on HBO in the 80s along those lines, and after this movie became a smash hit he actually got a children's Saturday morning show, which was a copy of his stage show, except actually for children this time.

The dinosaur scenes were filmed at Cabazon Dinosaurs off I-10 near Palm Springs. The rodeo scenes were filmed at LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona CA. Great movie my daughter's loved this movie growing up.

The actor playing "Pee Wee" in the movie-within-a-movie is James Brolin - father of Josh Brolin, who played Cable in Deadpool and Thanos in the MCU films.

One of my Top 5 favorite movies of all time. Really excited that you watched this one.

Growing up in the 80s in Cali.... this was my jam. I loved this movie. Saw it hundreds of times. Pee Wee was my jam.

This is one of my all time favorite movies as a kid! So fun!!!!

Shan! I’m sooo happy you finally watched this. It’s in my top 10 favorite films of all time. I was born in ‘81, and I used to obsessively watch Pee-wee’s HBO special my parents had taped off TV (it’s for an adult audience but the sexual innuendos obviously went over my head). It’s available on RU-vid under “The Pee-wee Herman Show” and stars Phil Hartman too! Paul Reubens originally had several characters he played in The Groundlings but Pee-wee was the most popular. He was just supposed to be a really bad stand up comic. Due to the popularity, he created an entire stage show and toured with it, too. He was a regular guest on late night talk shows and ALWAYS portrayed himself as Pee-wee, as if he were a real person. He was definitely a cultural icon of the 80s. When this movie came out, my parents had taped it for me too and I’ve seen it a million times. My brother was petrified of Large Marge and always ran out of the room when her scene was about to start. He didn’t watch it again until he was 18! I ended up getting a tattoo of Pee-wee doing the tequila dance a couple years ago. That scene brings me so much joy! Fun fact: Paul was an Oingo Boingo fan and asked Danny Elfman to score the soundtrack. He’d never composed a movie score before so he was hesitant and it took some convincing! Now that he’s done so many Burton films and his sound is so perfect fit those… can you imagine if he hadn’t been asked to do Pee-wee’s Big Adventure!?!

I haven't heard classrooms sing, "the stars at night" during class in a long while here in Texas.

He gets dressed sliding down the fire pole like BATMAN AND ROBIN in the 60s show!!great movie!!

The fact they got James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild in a in-film biopic on Pee Wee’s life is amazing!

Pee Wee's Playhouse was really popular in the 80's (especially among fellow smokers...) because it was just so bizarre. All the characters like Captain Carl (Phil Hartman), Jambi the Genie, Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne), Miss Yvonne, Johnny (Jimmy Smits), Rhonda ( Sandra Berhard) and dozens more, just went with the show''s weirdness. When Rubin got into trouble at a peepshow, his career took a huge nosedive but has sorta rehabilitated himself.

Love how you 'got' this movie & Pee Wee's character

I'm so glad that you liked it. I first saw Pee-wee's Big Adventure when I was about six. I don't rewatch a lot of movies, but I have rewatched this one a fair amount over the years. It is a perfectly absurd, surreal film, my favorite comedy. You owe it to yourself to check out his TV show, Pee-wee's Playhouse; it's just as brilliant. In 2016, Paul attended the premiere of Pee-wee's Big Holiday at one of the Drafthouse theaters in Austin, and he was very kind to his fans.

OMG How I loved this movie growing up and ,Being of a certain age, also the TV show . Everyone did that Pee Wee Tequila Dance 🤭🤣🤣

The stolen bike scene is Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Trying to think of my favorite all time line from this film, I'm settling on, "There was a sound like a garbage truck, dropped off the Empire State Building...." I was a very goofy Gen-X high school sophomore when Pee Wee hit theaters, all about Jim Henson and Terry Gilliam and Buckaroo Banzai. I craved whimsy in my movies and Pee Wee "laid it on with a trowel", to borrow an expression of Nicholas Meyer's. Some of us had already seen the cable TV special based on his nightclub act, which, after the success of the movie, became the basis of the Pee Wee's Playhouse television show. To this day, whenever a friend of a certain age reports visiting the Alamo, or even San Antonio, generally, I'll always ask them if they made it to the basement, and they always get the joke.

RIP Paul Reubens

I was born in 1977 and saw this in the theater as a child. It was probably the weirdest movie I had seen at the time (nope- checked and Dune came out the year before). I remember being terrified by the Large Marge jump scare. You didn't even look surprised...

This is my favorite movie of all time. I was lucky enough to get a photo with Paul Reubens a few years ago and tell him how brilliant the movie is. Whether I was 5 years old, 35, or anywhere in between this movie has always entertained me frame by frame. It's just such a great movie. Brilliant. I also did not hear you mention it but Phil Hartman helped write the movie. And once Pee Wee got invited to Saturday Night Live, he brought Phil with him, where he there landed a gig as arguably the greatest SNL cast member of all time

Paul Reubens and PeeWee owned the 80s, with this movie, his stand-up, and his Sat morning show. I often wonder how far he would have gone if not caught up in that certain unfortunate scandal.

Loved this movie as a kid in the 80s. My brother and I still quote it til this day. But it was only a couple years ago I learned it was directed by Tim Burton. 🤯