Product Description

Not quite a children's show, The Pee-Wee Herman Show is slyly subversive, a little bit naughty and always outrageous. Making its premiere as a midnight show on February 7th, 1981, at The Groundlings Theatre in Hollywood, the performance then moved to the famed Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip where it was filmed as part of HBO's new series On Location. Conceived as an homage to children's television programs of the 1950's and 60's, this live stage production features original music, puppets, a cartoon, a short educational film and Pee-wee's hilarious live-action friends.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4316 in DVD
• Brand: REUBENS,PAUL
• Released on: 2006-07-18
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 58 minutes

Features

• Not quite a children's show, The Pee-Wee Herman Show is slyly subversive, a little bit naughty and always outrageous. Making its premiere as a midnight show on February 7th, 1981, at The Groundlings Theatre in Hollywood, the performance then moved to the famed Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip where it was filmed as part of HBO's new series On Location. Conceived as an homage to children

Customer Reviews

Precursor to Pee Wee's Career
The Pee-Wee Herman Show was a successful performance which catapulted Paul Reuben's career beyond his own imagination. The performance was held in front of a live audience at the Roxy in La for around 5 months. Luckily HBO brilliantly caught one of these live performances and gave people the opportunity to see Pee-Wee Herman. Pee-Wee Herman along with an ensemble cast of notables produced a hilarious performance that had me laughing from start to finish. Let us not ignore the actual set design for the show as well as Jambi the Genie. The show put Pee-Wee on the map of stardom due to his creativity and ingenious ways of entertaining his fans. The show immediately starts with Pee-Wee Herman digging through a bag of toys pulling out one thing after another, and stumbles upon "NAKED GUMBY AHH". Another funny idea was the Mr. Bungle skit. The Mr. Bungle skit was an actual 1950's dramatization on exhibiting manners. The funny part of this whole skit is they actually showed this to little girls and boys back in the 1950's. One scene shows the boy getting served hot food and next to the hot food the cafeteria person places a big piece of cake on the tray. By the end of the skit Pee-Wee says something like "is that piece of cake big enough for ya!?" then does his Pee-Wee laugh. Classic. I think the real interesting phenomenon of Pee-Wee Herman was he could entertain both adults and children. Understandably this led to his hit Saturday Morning cartoon show "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" which had several emmy nominations throughout the late 80's and early 90's. Furthermore Pee-Wee teamed up with Tim Burton to mesh together a film called "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure". The Pee-Wee Herman show was a unique, weird, yet funny performance that catapulted Pee-Wee Herman into a cult classic for many people.

The birth of a legend
I've caught this on HBO several times and it just gets funnier everytime. The interplay between PeeWee and Phil Hartman is brilliant. The show was an hour long HBO special featuring the Pee-Wee Herman Show that was done as part of the Groundlings. If you like the Saturday morning show, you better get this.

This was shot on video.

One of the brightest comedy moments of the '80s
While I thought it would never happen, I have hoped for this to be released on DVD for years. I show this to everyone, hoping each time that the tape will survive for one last showing. This is Paul Rubens' nightclub act that started the whole Pee Wee Herman for kids thing - but this IS NOT for kids. It parodies the genre of kid shows and is one of the funniest things ever captured for an audience - Jamby finally gets his hands (mail order), a musical tribute to Sly Stone, and a film about manners. Makes you wish the whole Pee Wee character had stayed this funny. Yes, it was shot on video and as long as the transfer in broadcast quality it will exceed my current version. I can't wait!