Cable Box Theater - The Pee Wee Herman Show (1981)

Will a way where I want to go. I want to know what.

The place for me?

Show me away and get away when I want to get my way the place on me?

Hey, wait, where do I go?

I want to go where I want to.

Wait? Week we pay.

Welcome back to a cable box theater. I'm found them alone and with me as always is HBHB. How are you doing?

I'm doing great.

This is another one of these things that's been a long time coming. I feel like a lot has been leading up to this point talking about this particular particular piece of art.

Here on Cable box Theater. We look at nineteen seventies early eighties cable networks when they were putting on any content that they could grab a hold of. In this case, where overall we look at theatrical productions, Broadway productions, this technically counts not Broadway. This one aired originally on September the eleventh, nineteen eighty one. Never forget it's terrible. This is Pee Wee's Playhouse. No, not pee Wee's playoffs. This is the Pee Wee Herman Show. And here's the trailer.

You've made this point several times over these episodes that these cable companies were desperate for content, right, they needed more and more. So that's so we that's why we got the opportunity to see some these great productions. And even though I knew with this particular show that there was something really.

Adult about it.

To be honest, the adult content at the time was so far over my head. Even now watching it, I'm like, oh, I missed an awful lot with this.

This is a production of The Groundlings, originally Paul Rubins, Phil Hartman, John Paragon, Lynn, Maurice Stewart, John Moody, all members of The Groundlings. Let's talk improv groups for a second, shall we? Groundlings founded in nineteen seventy four by Gary Austen,

So pee Wee Herman was originally a character that grew out of improv in the ground I never knew.

That absolutely most of those characters were from the original groundling improv classes or improv shows.

Pee Wee Herman is another one of these characters for me that felt like he was always round. Ever since I can remember, there's been a Pee Wee Herman, it was either Pee Wee's Big Adventure, this show.

It's like part of the firmament.

So it's amazing to even think that there was an origin to this character like that there was a before pee Wee Herman and an after Pee Wee Herman.

It's cool, yeah, And Paul Rubins as a Groundling was showing up in productions all around Los Angeles at the time. If you go back, I can watch the Gong Show, You'll see plenty of Groundlings show up on The Gong Show as a made up act, including Paul Rubens. He was doing a variation of his Tequila Dance where he was dancing on his toes the entire time with another performer from the Groundlings. He showed up in Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams at one point it's like a crazy inmate.

True.

And he was also in a movie called Midnight Madness. He was basically an arcade attendant. It was a very don't blink and you'll miss it.

That's right with the gun with all the quarters and he presses the button and it shoots a thousand quarters onto the floor.

Yeah, but no, I mean it's he's what can you say, Paul Rubins is peewee herrman.

Indeed he is. And this is in fact that that show was wildly popular, no surprise, that Midnight show. So they moved it to the Roxy Theater where it became its own kind of a thing. That's where the folks at HBO caught wind of it, and they decided to film it and put it on the air, and thank god they did. And like you said, I can't imagine a time when I didn't know pe Wee Herman. Obviously we did before nineteen eighty one. But I saw this. I watched it incessantly. It was on all the time. Yeah,

But one of the more remarkable things about Paul Rubins in this production itself is that you're right, this was really for adults, but they sold the kids stuff so well and it's so well realized as a production that this really felt like any number of children shows like Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo. And the fact is we were children watching this. I wasn't phased in the least I knew. I suspected there was more to it than that,

I cannot agree with you more. I responded to this first and foremost as a show for children, just like Captain Kangaroo, which is this is meant to ape in a way, just like Romper Room, just like Sesame Street, just like all of them. And at the same time we knew this was for adults. We knew these were jokes that we weren't getting because they were laughing when it made no sense to our young minds.

There's a lot of sexual stuff going on that I only later really figured out. Like at one point, he and Hemmy's sister comes over and they have mirrors on their feet and they're trying to look under her dress, which I got it on some level as a kid, but I.

Didn't really understand what they were doing.

There's a lot of sexual stuff, a lot of in retrospect kind of hinky stuff going on too, which we'll get to.

I got a lot more in that particular joke. Peebee's friend Hammy comes over and he wants to borrow a comic book, and then his sister joins them, and as she's arriving, they say shoe mirrors so that they can see her underpants, and so they have mirrors on the tops of their shoes so they can look up under her skirt. And when she arrives and they start doing it,

That is innocent. You're right. The aesthetic is so perfect.

And even with some of the weird, you know, sexual stuff or adult stuff let's call it, because it's not all about sex, a lot of it is there's this core of sweetness to the character into the fact that he has this world, these characters that they all love each other and they have adventures together and they all interact. I think that's what I responded to more than anything, that this is a really fun world that we're presented with, that people are happy, they're doing things for each other.

One thing I want to point out about this is the production design of it, because this would become the aesthetic for eventually Pee Wee's Big Adventure in a way, and then Peew's Playhouse after it. And I said that this is effectively like an Nostalisia trip for boomers, but this is an Nostaliger trip for all of the counterculture people from that generation. This is the obsession with tiki culture and all the low lights of American culture. Basically

HP I agree that there was something about this rewatching it now. The thing that came to mind, especially with Missy Vaughn and her whole aesthetic, is I kept thinking of the B fifty two's and their retro sort of punky esthetic, and I have to believe that there was

For me too.

It's that weird period as the fifties were transitioning into the sixties, like right before everything culturally exploded and things started looking differently and a little more ramshackle. But this was the ramshackle part of the shiny part of the fifties. This is all of this that was a bit embarrassing by the nineteen eighties.

Yeah, and in a sense the head of the curve, because you know, these things are all these are very cyclical, and these things tend to come back. But at this point in nineteen eighty, this was all, like you said, a little bit embarrassing.

I think to admit that this was the aesthetic, but I don't know.

There's something cool about it and the way it's all shown and the way it's shot and the color everything. Like I said, everything really worked for me in that sense, and it doesn't feel now looking back, it's come all the way back around. It no longer looks dated. It just looks uniquely. The aesthetic is uniquely pee wee. Now to me, I know all the components that comprise it, but to me that still feels like pee wee.

Herman, the eighties was a lot of picking over the bones of what they had concentrated here, and once all of those advertisements and videos and all of those other things have fallen away, belongs to Peewee. We can't really talk about pee Wee Herman without talking about his co writers.

This would have been our first exposure to Phil Hartman, and at some point, like I saw this, and then obviously later I became a fan of Phil Harmon through Saturday Night Live. So it was a shock when I eventually connected those dots. Wow, that's Phil Harmon, that's the glue. He was in pee Wee the pee Wee Herman Show. That's crazy, but my god, like, there's nothing. The man couldn't do nothing.

I was laser focused on Phil Hartman from this moment. He was basically like Ackroyd to me. I remember sitting in the theater at the end of Peewee's Big Adventure when the reporters are all surrounding Francis, going Captain Carl, He's right there, and then looking for his name in the credits and going Phil Hartman and then remembering that one of the credited writers was Phil Harton, so I was always stoked to see Phil Harton. So when he ended up on SNL, oh my god, it was heaven.

He's foundational for that era of SNL. Obviously that was his nickname, was the glue, right, he was the one who held.

All those gets.

There's too many good moments to even think of when you think of Phil Hartman on SNL. But it's just something, there was something so fascinating to me because, like I said, I only really knew him through SNL.

But then to.

Connect the dots back to nineteen eighty one, the Pewee Herman show Groundlings, it really made it feel like a small comedy universe that all these people were interacting and it didn't seem like such a big you know, it's just I don't know, it's just a smaller It's a small world ultimately, and that's the fact that he could be in a shared universe, the pee Wee Herman universe and the SNL universe was really it blew my mind.

Actually, if you walked into any improv group in nineteen eighty in Los Angeles or Chicago, you were going to say, the fucking giants of comedy for the next twenty thirty years.

It's insane.

As a side note, I told you I watched that show about the Dana Carvey the documentary on The Dana Carvey Show, and.

You've seen it a bunch of times. Funny that was the same thing.

Colbert was Steve Correll's understudy. It's insane, like, these are incredible timers for comedy and I don't know, just the fact that they were there at that time, in that place and that same shared space.

It's fascinating.

I wonder how many does this still go on? Are these clubs still around the ground Are the Groundlings still a thing?

Yeah, of course Grownlings is still in Los Angeles. I don't know if Improv Olympics is still there. There was an Improv Olympics West last time I was there. They still had UCB when I was there, although I don't know if that theater closed after the pandemic. A lot of improv groups closed out after the pandemic. But you're not going to close the Groundlings. There's still SNL is still pilling people from there. Mikey Day was a groundling. Heidi Gardner, Oh yeah.

I could see that Mikey Day has been around for a deceptively long time. He just looks he's baby faced, so you don't think of it, but that guy's been around forever.

Dude in the in those first early days of YouTube, but they had that guy doing David Blaine's street magic and he would go up to a sign and then take the handdown and the side it would go from red to green. He wrote, though.

It's crazy he used to do.

There was a show on MTV, the Nick cart and Nick and Nick Cannon Show.

Wild Enough. Oh yeah, he was in.

The repertory for that show. He must have been super young. But that's got to be like early two thousand and I guess I think UCB is over. I think they did close. I think I read that somewhere.

But it's just what you're.

Saying makes me think, like, how are there any other perspective comedy giants just waiting to be discovered at these.

Clubs, just as a list of people who came out of there, but not only Phil Hartman came out of there, but Jan Hooks was also one of them and a gas Steyer came out of there. Will Forte came out of there, Will Ferrell came out of there. Rachel Dratch came out of there. They've just been They're a machine of comedy greatness.

They are.

But I also think nowadays it's easier with social media and things like that to get your comedy out there.

I know.

I think that's what Lonely Island, that's what they started. They just put their stuff up on You don't have to be discovered at a club anymore. You can just put your stuff out there on TikTok or any of these places.

So I would suggest, if you want to be versatile as a comedian, then a sketch performer. Maybe some improv training would do you some good.

Without a doubt.

Phil Hartman as Captain Carl Can I just say he comes on screen and immediately makes a joke that makes me laugh every time I watch this special, and I watched this special a lot. I watched this specially at least once a year, honestly, where he comes out of the bathroom and Peewee says, did you wash your hands? And he grabs Peewee immediately by the face and goes no, I laugh every time. I'm gonna laugh about it now.

A sailor travels to benity lands and place he pleases, and he always remembers to wash his hands.

Sosy, don't get no diseases.

He's very grace I agree when they do that little dance about.

The sailors, and not to get ahead of ourselves, but as part of what we were doing here. I watched the twenty eleven filming of Pee Wee Herman on Broadway, and I got to say, obviously, it's Phil Hartman has been gone for a long time, so I wasn't expecting to see Cowboy, to see Captain Carl, but seeing Cowboy Curtis, I didn't really. I wasn't so much into the Pee

I'll say this because I saw the production you're talking about live at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, and because it is effectively the show we are talking about, the Pee Wee Herman Show from nineteen eighty one, just repurposed with some updated jokes and some other segments that at the moment that Captain Carl was supposed to come through the door and Cowboy Curtis came in, it broke

Yeah, I no disrespect to Phil Lamar. He's awesome.

I thought he does as good as a Cowboy Curtis as anybody could expect because Larry fishburn At going to come back to do Cowboy Curtis.

I don't think he would have then, but I don't know why he wouldn't. Like on screen. You can't do it now, obviously, but.

Right, But it was just so Hartman is so noticeable in his absence that I wanted to accept Cowboy Curtis and Phil Lamar, but it just I for me, it was really hard to get past it because it's so iconic.

I mean, I don't.

Watch the original HBO show that often, not as often as you. This might have been the first time I've seen it in over ten years, but it's burned at the same time, it's burned into my brain. I saw it so much as a kid. It was on so much that I could quote it just from memory. So it's to me, it's Captain Carl sitting down with Pee weee talking about the seashell and all that kind of stuff.

I missed that.

And you know that Gilbert Godfrey was chosen over Paul Rubens for the cast of Saturday Night Live. When Gene Domanian took over, I knew.

Gilbert was in the cast I didn't know it was between him and Paul Rubens.

That's when he came up with the idea to do pe we re Herman as a stage show on its own.

Say it worked out pretty well for Paul Rubins.

He was going to be a huge star anyway. Character here in the original peev Herman show and again when I saw it live, male man.

Mike is great, isn't he? He's so like when you really break the character down, he's such a prick. He's reading, he's opening people's.

Mail, right, Okay, First of all, he comes in, he opens the post office and then says, well, it looks like it's time for my first break.

And then linn, he eats.

The cookies that aren't addressed to him. He gives pee Wee his mail and he's like, hey mail, and Mike, why is this open? And he goes sometimes I forget and he licks the envelope and gives them.

To turn that frown upside down.

Peewee got some special mail here for you.

What's so special about him?

Well, what's so special is that it's mail from foreign lands.

And you know what that means, don't you do?

That means it's time for pals from around.

Here's a picture postcard from Finland.

From Finland, Dear Peewee Burr, it's sure cold here today. An avalanche covered our village.

Here's a lot of from Israel.

From Israel, Shalam, pee Weee.

My name is Shalome.

I'm nine and I have been in the army two years already to No Man Mike. If you would like to know more about my country, just read the Bible.

Oh my god, he's the worst, but he's so cheery and just so upbeat. I love mail Man Mike.

It's really funny.

I also love his partner with Terry. No, not Terry. Terry is Captain Carl's no Mailman. Mike's partner is the Gator, also played by Phil Hartman. And not that we get a scene with them, but I really wish we did get a scene with the two of them together. We only learn it because he's rigged the dating game. So Miss Vaughan falls in love with mail Man.

Yes, I do prefer Terry.

There's something about the line readings that Terry makes in the show that it's just really funny. When he's talking to Pee Weee about how he can't fly, and he says man, that's a bummer. There's something about his the way he says that.

It's it's the one character that has stepped outside of the show. It's the hipster character who's commenting on everything. Yeah, that's a trip.

Pewey, Yeah, just for them from the ship and boy on my wings tiled.

Gosh, it must be cool to fly.

You mean you can't fly, Peey.

No, I can't fly off a human bee.

I can't fly.

Oh, bummer, That's exactly that is it. That's the crux of it right there.

But obviously I think for me as a kid, my favorite character, and maybe this isn't a surprise, is Jombi.

I'm getting a signal from a samiric world. Help me get into a twans quickly.

In jumbies Mecca let go Hi met Chenny Mecai Meco Chenny Meca Hi Mega Heney Ho Mega mea. I'm only a chiny you lay game.

Because what Kid does isn't like completely enraptured by essentially a genie, a mystical, you know, force inside of this box that can grant wishes. He's got the weird face paint. He's funny, he can do magic, I don't know. I just I love John b.

I was always confused as a chal because I could see that they were doing video effects, but I also knew that this was a this was a live performance, so I was like, what are the people seeing in the theater.

That's true, because at one point he they do this, it's almost like they pan out on his face, so it recedes into the background of the box. But yeah, you're right, what do the people in the theater see when that happens.

I'll tell you nothing. They just see him do his that's all. Or they put a different colored light on him. There's a moment where between Captain Carl and pee Wee where pee Wee wants to light Captain Carl's pipe, and then he gets sick, and so they do this bizarro kind of music and the picture gets all wobbly and gaseous, and all that happens on stage is they shine a green light on Peewee.

That makes sense, but I always wondered, like it is, how much of this is just filmed live and how much of it maybe is.

Our little pickups where they can do video effects.

That's a good question. I think a couple of the jombie things might have been pickups because they suddenly cut to a way too close up, which they would probably have to be on stage to get.

Yeah, who you met the actor who played.

Johnbie John Paragon. He is an unsung giant because he worked on fucking everything. He co wrote this show. He co wrote Peewee's Big Adventure. He was the breather on Elvira. He wrote all the Elvira TV shows. He's in the eating row just as an actor. He's really good in that. I know he worked with Imagineering for a while. Anyway, Yeah, back in I don't know, this is going to be

Seriously, he's such an unsugiant of comedy. But I just I would freak out because johnby was was a mystical force as far as I was concerned. To see him up there in nineteen eighty one doing all of those things, granting wishes, you know, casting, he just he's so funny and so cool. I don't know, I just I would have freaked out. I think if I ever met that's an awesome.

What's great about seeing him first as Johnby is that he's always Johnby now, no matter where he was in his career, high or low, he's Johnby. He's still a god.

Was it the same event?

I remember Jessica had a picture of her with Thomas Lennon from Reno nine to eleven.

No, that was San Diego Comic Con proper.

I always thought that was a great picture.

Because he fucking grabs her and kisses her. Because she said before she snapped the picture, don't grab me or kiss me or anything. My husband is really jealous. And then he grabbed her and kissed her and said take it now.

Good stuff.

But yeah, No, there's something about being an impressionable kid and watching all of this stuff, the bright colors. Everyone's just having fun. I just I love that. I love that vibe watching this season.

Since we're talking about characters and groundlings and fucking comedic geniuses. We just lost one yesterday the day before Miss Lynn

Don't have to take that, Jerry, especially from that little kid.

He is just a kid.

Married even can be courteous. Jerry, I'm gonna quit, please, I swear it.

I am going to quit leading me, all right, Jerry, Okay, but I am happy. That is Lynn Marie Stewart and she's fucking hilarious there. That is another joke from this group of people that makes me laugh every time I see it.

She's amazing.

She was always Missy Vaughne in every production, every iteration of the character on the TV show and the revival on this original always there. And it's my understanding that she was pretty close with Paul Rubins. I'm sure that they remain close throughout his life. And she's gone to what.

She's fucking great here, not only that line in the fucking Pee Wee's Big Adventure Movie, but the moment here where she fears that Captain Carl is out on a date with another girl. She's putting on her makeup.

Was the captain here today?

But he had a date.

Date, I mean.

A date, peewee, are you sure?

Date? He had an engagement.

You don't understand what's amm count.

The Carl and a fishing engagement. It's probably just out of the very fish.

And that's all.

Is that all?

Thank you lucky star to.

Me, that's like, that's her seed.

That is the key to that character putting on the blush and she's getting more and more frantic and upset by.

The whole thing. It's great and I don't know.

She's so sweet and light and an effervescent and as the character, she's just such a breath of fresh air.

She was wonderful.

Why this works so well and why we bought it as children is No one here is pretending this isn't a children's show. No one here is winking and letting any if there is sexual like, okay, there is what the hypnotisty thing with another ground we need to talk about that, but all right, let's talk about it now. Let's just get it out of the way, because this thing is it's not like there's a huge plot. Pee Wee wants to he wants to fly, and Johnny's gonna

The only thing that I found concerning now looking back, like watching it as an adult in twenty twenty five, because I frankly i'd forgotten about this and the aftermath.

Let's say, so.

The conceit is, there's a part in the show where Peee wants to hypnotize a member of the audience. He goes and it's obviously the woman's name is Joan, she's obviously an actress, she's a plant, and he takes her. She's one of the groundlings, right. She goes up on stage and Peewee proceeds to comedically hypnotize her. But what he does is he basically just tells her, he suggests hypnotically that it's hot, which basically forces her to take

Let's just say, by the way that Pee Wee is hypnotizing her with a puppet called Doctor, which I assume is from the early nineteen sixties late nineteen fifties, and he was a hypnotist doll. So this whole thing is predicated on a toy that everyone in that audience at least knows about that.

The toy probably looks like it looks like a little handheld version of Doctor Evil from Austin Powers. It's a bald, stern looking character.

Right, So I get what you're saying, because this is rapey and weird. Right, Yeah, he's having her take off her clothes and then using the puppet to look up her dress and everything. Right, But I think this is just a comment on what every kid was thinking they were going to do with this doll when they got it. They were going to hypnotize girls and it taken off their clothes. Not that it makes it okay.

That's a charitable view of the thing. And again it's I'm not going to be one of these people who says, oh, this is terrible that they should cut it out.

I'm not suggesting. I mean, it is what it is. It's nineteen eighty one.

This is what passed for comedy and I'm not gonna whitewash it or forget.

That it was there.

But what was particularly disturbing about this, and I don't think I ever even saw this as a kid, because this is effectively a post credit sequence at the end of the show, we've gone through all the credits. Everybody saw say goodbye you then followed that because what Pee Wee has suggested to her when she's under hypnosis is that she's not going to remember that she doesn't have her dress on, and that's going to be effectively how

She looks so confused, almost zombie like. The camera follows her, still in her undergarments as she goes outside, bewildered, into the city, into Los Angeles, I guess, And that's just there's something disturbing about that.

She doesn't seem to know what's going on. She seems in a fog about the whole thing. See I that's what I found a bit disturbing. But here, what did you? I'm sure you had a different take on this.

I loved it, man, what are you talking about? I thought it was great that this hypnotized person would remain hypnotized after the show, just go wandering home naked.

I just found it grim because there's no joke. It's just this woman who doesn't seem to know where she is or what she's doing, stumbling out of the theater into the nighttime. I don't know, I just I found it a little bit eyebrow rate.

Yeah, but it's ultimately we were watching this as kids, but it was not meant for This is a midnight show at the Groundlings Theater on Saturday nights.

Sure, And to be like I said, I don't think I ever even stuck around to see this little PostScript, because you know, as a kid, I'm not going to sit there and watch the credits. I didn't really care. I probably just flipped the channel. So that was surprising to see it now, because this might have been the first time I ever saw that. See did you mention that where people can see Pee Wee the Pee Wee Herman Show.

You can see it on HBO Max or Max right now, it's on demand.

Or you can see it on YouTube for free.

Oh yeah, hey, everybody, you can see everything for free on YouTube. Can you see the twenty eleven Broadway revival.

I don't think you can see that.

I think that's too I think that's locked up with a lot more rights and things like that.

I don't think you know.

What you can see is Paragon of Comedy, John Paragon's comedy special from nineteen eighty three featuring Pee Wee Herman and Elvira. Really, oh yeah, check that out. You should check it out. John Moody is in it as well, and Miss avon Lyn, Marie Stewart and the Joan.

Can we talk about one another character in this production that I guess I didn't appreciate fully until I was an adult, the mister and missus Jelly Donut.

Oh my god, thank god you brought them up, because I agree did not appreciate them as a child and enjoyed them, but fucking love them right now.

I didn't get the joke of them performing sly Stone's greatest hits, like these two white people basically up there, he's got a flamingo guitar, an electric guitar.

But by the way, is a flamingo guitar, and he's wearing black pants and he has pink stripes down the front. So when he's holding the guitar. It looks like the fucking flamingo is standing there.

I didn't notice that. That's hilarious.

What in retrospect, though, what was interesting for me is this was literally my first exposure to the music of sly Stone. I didn't I may have had some vague understanding of some of the big hits like dance to the music, but it's just so fucking funny to see them come out there and do thank you for letting me be myself again. These Essentially they're at a cookout and they get zapped into Pee Wee's house to do this musical spotlight tribute.

I thought it was, oh fucking fantastic. Yeah, I again didn't appreciate how funny this whole thing was, and did not appreciate how formative it was, because, like you said, I was predisposed to love sly in the family Stone after exposure here.

And Pee Wee is doing the backing vocals and he's chiming in and it's really funny the things that he's piping in and doing the whole thing.

Music.

The music there, it's along and it kinda like a short ever been on the rent? One more in rent, but no one, no, thank you. Let me bear myself, okay, let.

Me do myself to.

Stop yah yah yeah, yeah yeah yah yah yeah yeah.

I just I don't know how you conceive of those characters in this context.

Oh fucking funny.

Mister and missus Jelly donut this. And then as they're leaving by the way, they passed Captain Carl, who just starts like get out of my way music. We eventually got to Peewee's Playhouse, but I wish it was peopled a little bit more with the original residence of puppet Land, because these people are great.

I was surprised that they didn't make an appearance in the revival. I was hoping this because I thought, what are they going to spot like this time it would be some other weird band from the sixties. But no, that's the one feature that I was sorely lacking.

Yeah, but I guess as kids, we could dispense with this. And then when they revived it, they thought, well, did anyone actually respond to it? Yes, we did, pee wee.

It was so offbeat. I don't know.

It's hard to really pin down exactly why I find it so compelling or back then found it compelling, But it was and it made an impression.

You know what else made an impression? The pin cushion Man, the scourge of land so.

Hate me, they hate me, tickles me the way they rate me always. That's the reason I have.

Oh I stop them when I pop them.

Those cartoons are whack.

So that cartoon would reappear two years later in Get Crazy. It's the cartoon that they show to the audience to calm them down in between acts.

Ah, so it must have been like like royalty free. Yeah, public domain. Yeah, it the thing I was reminded of. You won't necessarily make the same association, but it reminded me of the cartoons that play throughout the movie skinnemer Rink. That the kids are watching these awful, like you said, public domain cartoons that are just looping, And for some reason, I think of that when I think of these cartoons. But yeah, it's crazy. I used to wonder as a

Yeah, there's an educational film and it's called Beginning response 's Ability lunch Room Manners. But is the story of mister Bungle. Eventually giving us that fucking stupid band's name.

Yeah, I'm not a fan either.

A boy ran past their table. You shouldn't run in the lunch room. Only mister Bungle would do that.

But what I used to wonder as a child is are these actual authentic movies from the fifties and cartoons from the fifties or is this something that in their.

Brilliance they could produce.

Because people are laughing throughout all of this, especially the mister Bungle thing, like they're just having a great old time with it.

But I guess these are the genuine article, right.

I believe the pincushion Man is probably from the forties. Just from the animation style, I would say that's probably the nineteen forties. But that is definitely from nineteen fifty nine, an educational film that was shown to students, probably these very people. Like I said, it is like a sort of a nostalgic trip through all of the worst or lowest aspects of culture from the late fifties early sixties.

It's simply brilliant the way this all is packaged as this sort of variety show starring this at the time, a crazy character of Peewee Herrman. I just it's it's brilliant that these are real serious comedy minds. I guess I don't even know how you how you begin to come up with a show like all the Facets.

You got people like Adie McClure willing to come in and do three lines and then run out.

She was from People would know her Grace from Ferris Bueller. They think he's a righteous dude.

Yeah, and she's also she manning the rental car desk in planes, trains and automobiles. You're fucked, that's true.

Her character was Hermit Hattie.

Oh yeah, she's also the voice of Clockey.

Oh no kidding. I didn't know that either. Wow. Which she must have been a groundling too.

Huh, Absolutely she was. Who else was a groundling? Tito

He That was the biggest shock, And I talked to you about this when I was starting to watch this, because Hammy is fairly incidental character in this. He shows up at the beginning, they do the bit with the shoe mirrors and that's pretty much it. But when I looked him up to find out that This is the same Tito from the band Tito and Tarantula, I think is how you pronounced it properly. This is basically for a while this was Robert Rodriguez, the filmmaker, his house band, right.

He did the music for Desperado.

They're in for l on, they're the fucking They're the band.

That's true. He's he is in Desperado.

I think he's in the scene where Boucemi comes and lays out the legend of the Mariachi.

I think he's in the bar too.

By the way, he eventually got to Tito and Tarantola, But at this time he was in the Plugs, which is a fucking seminal la punk band.

No kidding, the Plug Really, he's the vocals for the Plugs. I didn't know that. That's I'm learning a lot today.

Bottom alone, this is the episode you've been waiting for.

I'm telling you this, Like I said, it was a long time coming, but it's But what's the connection there? Like you said, was he also he was a Groundling Lariva.

At one point in the seventies. The Groundlings had something like ninety members.

I just never would have made the connection to this sort of Confederate of Robert Rodriguez to connect him back to the groundling.

He went to Yale. Oh I'm sorry. Tino de Riva snuck into Yale for a full term and was eventually kicked out.

Tell me that guy's written a book, tell me he's written a memoir.

I don't get in touch with him. What a fucking interesting human.

Wow, Yeah, totally. I just it's weird. Again.

It's a small fucking world to think that he was in this Yeah for.

One scene when he's so goofy, he really committed to playing a nine year old boy.

Yeah, him in the because I watched a few performances Tito and Tarantula or Tarantula, and they're a pretty heavy, bluesy, aggressive band, and Hammy is anything. But Hammy is just this kid that kind of pokes his head into the playhouse and then leaves.

I don't know, it's funny.

And laughs with his mouth fall makes me want to punch him in the fade.

He's always got that ham sandwich. That's why they call him Hammy.

It's basically his whole life.

That's true. Marty Calender, though some of his stuff was gonna leave it.

Marty Marty Calender. Was he the puppet guy. No, it's a different guy I'm thinking of.

It might be, but he did direct both the show and the revival, which I thought was interesting. And he also he was like a big stand up director. He did like specials for Red Fox and George Carlin.

And Robin Williams.

But he really made a real name for himself in music videos. He did We're Not going to Take It by Twisted Sister. That was Marty Kallner. He did videos for Hollan Oates, Pat Benattar.

Interesting.

That makes sense, then why Twisted Sister showed up in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Everything connects?

Dang it, we're solving everything agent.

We need one of those boards with the yarn the threads that go. Okay, he's connected here, but he worked here.

It all connects. It's crazy.

Mister Knucklehead. By the way, is the name of that that gator that Phil Harmon played. It was my second favorite character in the show, And turns out he's Mailman Micros partner the Gauitar May tar Oh, please would you wait till life inst the question? Please?

I did love ma'lmon.

You're right though you're right on the money with Mailbow that guy is.

I think we're basically at the end there where Peewee gets his wish because he wishes for he wishes for them to be in love, but they were already in love, so he's going to get his wish anyway. In one of the greatest visual effects of all time, Pee Harmon flies the.

Original in the original show.

The effect is great because it's he's not even wearing the same outfit that he's worn through the whole show, like they put him in something different.

It's essentially a harness that his head.

Fits that makes it look like he's flying proportionally hang a little body, big head.

Yeah, and he's got little arms on sticks in front of him that he's manipulating and in an all black environment, it looks like big headed person lying around the room.

But he deploys those arms like several times, very effective. Like at one point, like the lyric goes, I'm so much luckier than and he's pointed the fake arm to like the camera. It's just it's really funny, but it's sweet though, like the fact that he does get his wish. He is a boy who can fly. That's effectively the end of the show.

It's beautiful Sweet.

They released a vinyl record of this anyone.

Like an audio version or the songs from.

A vinyl one sided hand silk screen picture disc.

I would love to check that out. That was a big thing for a while.

Audio like there was a record of Johnny Carson's Greatest Hits which was just basically bits from his It's not totally surprising, but I'd love to see.

Here are the track listings, Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Good Morning Song, A Sailor's Life, Most Beautiful Woman in pumpet Land, Ballad of Hermit Hattie rubbed the top of Jombi's box. I gotta be I gotta go be by myself, call me mister Bungle. He's gonna get his wish, luckiest boy in the world. And then volare Peewee.

Let's start to.

Track this fucking record. Pey Herman originally released in one vinyl twelve inch. It's short, It's only twelve minutes.

The songs are only a minute long. They're just basically transitions.

It does feature mister HP.

What have we learned.

Here's one of the things I've learned, Baba Blone, is that We've done a few shows now about live productions that are broadcast on cable TV, and we've beat up on a lot of them. This is the rare case where I think this is this is such a good

Have actually run across. He would have been a star regardless, let's.

Be honest, but this certainly primed the pump for many people, including myself, who would not have heard of him otherwise until Peewee's Big Adventures. I think this was a resounding success as far as cable box theater is concerned.

Absolutely, Paul Rubens was going to be a big star, not necessarily pee Wee Herman if this thing hadn't aired on HBO. I don't think we were going to get pee Wee's Big Adventure or pee Wee's Playhouse or Peee anything. We were just going to get Paul Rubin's character actor. Oh that guy, I love him. He shows up on such and such sometimes that's what it would have been. So this is the perfect example of the power behind

It really felt, I mean, in retrospect now watching an adult, if I had seen this as an adult for the first time, it would have felt like, I know, this cool sort of to your point, underground show that I don't know it. It really captured the live experience I think of watching, not that I've seen the show live, but watching it, it felt like you were part of

Whodos to everyone involved? My god, if p me Herman from those movies and that TV show and the recent Netflix movies and whatever and have never seen this, what the hell are you waiting for it's free. It's available right now. My god, it's pee wee Herman. Here's where it all came from.

What can I say?

This was a pleasure watching this, rediscovering this after so long.

This all right, Well, we're gonna I don't know what our next episode is going to be about, but it's gonna be not as good as this one, at least for us.

It's gonna suffer by comparison.

For sure. We're going we'll be feeling the pain after such a elation.

Yeah, but you can't, you know what, You can't appreciate the good if you can't delve into the bad.

That is true. But until we do get there, HP, where can people find you?

If they're looking, you can find me elsewhere.

On the week, I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with my esteemed co host Father Alone. I host the Noise Junkies podcast that's a music podcast. I am also an occasional guest on The Culture Cast with Chris Dasher and I have a band camp site for those interested that HP music play so at bandcamp dot com. I just released a new album called Wired and Waiting for fans of eighties unreleased movie soundtrack stuff that could

Check it out. Yeah, so that's where I'm at.

I'd say there's a step above genrevies.

I try.

I think that music is good. I don't think John convand movies are as for me. Where to find me? I'm right here if you want to follow me on socials at Father Malone, on all of them. Really until next time. Thank you for joining us at Cable Box Theater. I don't have a sign off still HB. That'll do it.

Yeah, word go what I wanna go. I wanna do what I Wantwis.

Playhouse, that's the place for me.

Man show me away, a god away when I want to.

Get in my way.

Peewis play House, that's the place I'll be. Wen what a snazzy guypy we hear and makes all those young chicks cry.

We oh, Lauren, now with me? Were we.

Talking about them?

Did we talk?

I'm talking about my mempie talking

Sew and I