Holy God, this was a weird movie. When I was a little kid, I remember seeing Pee-Wee's Playhouse on TV but I don't remember watching it regularly. Then Paul Reubens had a major scandal and the world essentially forgot he existed. Some artifacts remain, like this film.Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) is running a farm with his pig, Vance (Wayne White). He has a fiancee (Penelope Ann Miller) but dreams of falling in love with a girl on a flying trapeze. Then a huge storm blows into town and deposits a traveling circus right in his backyard. Pee-Wee is all about helping the ringleader (Kris Kristofferson. Seriously) put on the best show he can, not the least because they also have a beautiful trapeze artist (Valeria Golino), but the town elders are very anti-fun. Pee-Wee has to overcome their resistance in order to prove to the trapeze artist that she is the one for him.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what audience the movie was intended to entertain. It is a bizarre amalgam of trained animals, sexual innuendo, and social commentary. The only reason I added it to my queue is because it's the feature film debut of both Benicio Del Toro as Duke the Dog-Faced Boy and Dustin Diamond, who played Screech in Saved by the Bell. Which is hilarious, considering their respective career paths.
I'm pretty sure this one flopped. I think the first Pee-Wee movie was a hit because of Tim Burton, who I don't think was involved here. I actually couldn't stand Pee-Wee when I was a kid. My friends loved him, and I just didn't get it. As with Ultraviolet, thank you for watching a movie that I never would have.
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