Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986)

“You all remember what to do whenever anybody says the secret word, right?” — Pee-wee Herman

Since it debuted in 1986, Pee-wee's Playhouse, the loony, bewildering cloud cuckoo-land of a television show, has been hard to describe in the finite terms of our known world. Even after ample introduction to Paul Reubens' living firecracker character through a stage show, an HBO special, and Tim Burton's directorial debut Pee-wee's Big Adventure, the TV series felt like something holistically new, remarkably unlike anything before it. Dinosaurs live in the walls and every piece of Pee-wee Herman's furniture is alive. There are always new secrets to explore, more cartoons to watch, and fresh wishes to make. It was a colourful compendium of Saturday mornings, a part of your balanced breakfast, assuming the other part was a bowl with every sugary cereal mixed together. To quote the show’s loopy theme song, "you've landed in a place where anything can happen!"

So how the heck do you open that?

Coming in from the forest, you float by it all: Stop-motion animals living harmoniously in the groves surrounding Pee-wee's pad. A winking sphinx within earshot of a snowman. An out of control lawn, pink flamingos-style tchotchkes growing into their own Disneyland park. Puppetry, claymation, and whatever you'd call the animation of Pee-wee himself, the introduction to the Playhouse is a lush sensory exploration and explanation of the nonsensical dimension you are entering. And we haven’t even gotten to Cyndi Lauper singing about the kooky residents inside! Magic is here, in spite of mechanics, the motors, pulleys and winches all visible, and decorum creaks like a mechanical sign. It doesn’t make sense! It is a vortex, a mystery, its own anomaly, up is down, down is up, cats and dogs sharing vows. The walls expand indefinitely, which is a requirement since Pee-wee needs all that space to bounce off them.

Pee-wee's Playhouse had a murderers’ row of creatives on-board including artist Wayne White, underground cartoonist Gary Panter, visualists Prudence Fenton and Phil Trumbo, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, and even Rob Zombie as a production assistant, with Reubens chuckling at the steering wheel. The production was a sight to behold, a wicked brew of zine bric-a-brac, new wave pop, Bugs Bunny, and roadside mini-putt. A recipe for a beloved children's show, a cult phenomenon, and a legacy that is ready to relaunch itself with a new film helmed by the ridiculously appropriate John Lee, co-creator of Wonder Showzen. The introduction to Pee-wee's Playhouse had to establish all of this creative whimsy in a great sugary gulp of puppets, nonsense, and Pee-wee himself.

We speak to Senior Animation Producer PRUDENCE FENTON, Animation Director PHIL TRUMBO and Pee-wee Creator/Star PAUL REUBENS about the nutty undertaking.

Can you give us a bit of background on how you got involved with Pee-wee’s Playhouse?

Prudence: I worked for a company in the early ’80s called Broadcast Arts in New york. They were a stop-motion animation company, and they did the MTV IDs then. I think we did 73 MTV IDs. We did all kinds of commercials. We would go to all these agencies and tell them that they were only limited by their imagination. You can make…

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