The premise for this feature film starts with Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) and his bike. Pee-wee loves his bike, more than anything else in the world, which means he's left devastated when his bike is suddenly stolen. Left forlorn and bike-less, Pee-wee is now on the hunt for his bike, which, as told to him by a fortune teller, is in the basement of the Alamo. That means it's road trip time as Pee-wee makes his way to Texas (hey, that's where I live!), all the while encountering a whole assortment of colorful characters that include an escaped criminal, the legendary Large Marge and a waitress who yearns for France.
Even though it appears that he's been toned down in terms of weirdness a touch for the big screen (he doesn't live in a house full of talking objects, for one thing), Pee-wee Herman is still the most eccentric person in the movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure by a country mile. But surprisingly, he isn't the only oddball character in this movie. Though some comedy is generated from having Pee-wee be juxtaposed against everyday individuals, the majority of the people he encounters in his road trip journey are plenty unconventional in their own right. Heck, Pee-wee even inadvertently runs into some kind of ghost in his travels, it doesn't get much more unconventional than that!
This means the screenplay, written by Paul Reubens, Michael Varhol and the incomparable legend Phil Hartman, is chock full of memorable & amusing characters who can give Pee-wee Herman a run for his money in the eccentricities department. It's hard to pick someone an outright best among such a delightful collection of comedic characters, but I would say my personal picks for the funniest of the bunch have to be an Alamo Tour Guide who knows way too much about corn, a group of bikers and, of course, Large Marge herself, an already humorous creation before her very existence turns out to be something out of an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?
There's no shortage of fun characters for the protagonist of Pee-wee's Big Adventure to interact with while the lead character of this production is a similarly humorous creation. I kept waiting for Pee-wee Herman, with his hyperactive childlike behavior and high-pitched voice, to grate on me, this feels like it should be the definition of a one-note creation, but Reubens just keeps making this guy so darn funny to watch that Pee-wee manages to never wear out his welcome. Part of this is due to how Reubens makes sure his performance isn't just a barrage of empty noise. He's just as good at more subdued humorous line readings like "I guess that's just one of those things you have to learn on your own" as he is at delivering Pee-wee's loud laugh.
All of these immensely funny performances are performed under the direction of Tim Burton, who shows a gift for directing madcap comic mayhem that would be taken to even darker (though still mighty humorous) extremes with 1996's Mars Attacks! Just as John Williams and Steven Spielberg were intertwined together all the way back in the days of The Sugarland Express, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman established their long-term creative partnership by collaborating together on Pee-wee's Big Adventure and it's no wonder Burton decided to regularly work with Elfman after this movie given that Danny Elfman delivers one of his best scores in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Elfman's work provides a jaunty musical accompaniment to the offbeat antics of Pee-wee Herman in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, a motion picture that's both hilarious and a 110% accurate depiction of Texas.
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