Pee-wee takes a road-trip ‘Holiday’
Our favorite man-child is back with a new movie and some special friends
Pee-wee Herman, his trademark laugh and that too-small plaid suit are back in Pee-wee’s
Big Holiday.
Paul Reubens’ man-child creation is hitting the road again in an original Netflix movie that premieres March 18 (with a limited release in theaters), more than 30 years after Pee-wee hitchhiked to Texas to find his stolen red bike in 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big
Adventure.
This time, Pee-wee is spurred on to leave his comfortable home and travel cross-country solo after befriending a super-cool stranger (Joe Manganiello) who lives in New York City.
Director John Lee says the road-trip format brings Pee-wee into absurd, comedic situations — from tacky snake farms to living among the Amish — without much of a plot.
“It always seems best when Pee-wee has very little plot — his movies probably have the least plot in the history of cinema,” Lee says. “Why not embrace that?”
Reubens, 63, has been looking for proper vehicles to bring Peewee to the 21st century. He started with The Pee-wee Herman
Show, which triumphed on Broadway in 2010. Producer Judd Apatow worked his way backstage when the live show opened in Los Angeles and showed an early Polaroid of himself and Peewee as proof of his fandom.
Apatow “was this fan, and he wanted to bring Pee-wee back,”
Reubens says. “He was key to the return. And he wanted to do a road movie, something that was a nod toward Big
Adventure.”
Costume designers created new Pee-wee suits, matching the original glen-plaid number Reubens wore in a 1981 HBO special and subsequent five-year CBS run of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which led to 22 Emmys.
In 2016, Reubens still looks the part onscreen. He thanks “good genes” and cops to plenty of “Hollywood magic” — from makeup to post-production work — to keep the character intact.
The new friendship is a core component in the story. Reubens says that after receiving a green light for the film, he immediately secured his true-life friend Manganiello, whom he had met cute at a party years before.
“Literally every single person at this party was freaking out that Joe was there, hundreds of people,” Reubens says. “In this huge party, it turns out Joe was heading over toward me. He was like: ‘Dude! Oh, my God. I love you.’ ”
The onscreen friendship plays off the physical dynamics of the skinny, 5-foot-10 Reubens and the super-masculine, 6-foot-5
Magic Mike star. But Reubens says the two are genuinely kindred spirits.
“You want to not like (Manganiello) in a certain way. He’s, like, pretty close to being perfect,” Reubens says. “But he and his wife (Sofia Vergara) together are the dorkiest, nerdiest people. It’s just hilarious. People don’t get to see that side of him.”
Fans expect and hope for that side of Pee-wee Herman onscreen, which is why Lee believes it was time to bring him back.
“Pee-wee is a prankster — there’s a little bit of Peter Pan in there,” Lee says. “Pee-wee is universally loved because being an adult is actually fairly boring. Once there’s responsibility, it’s a snorefest.”