My kids have not laughed this hard in a long time. They also have not asked to watch more episodes of something that was “before their time” after being introduced to a Saturday morning show their dad used to watch. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons (using that term loosely to include live action programming for kids during that time block) in the 70s which had Super Friends, Land Of The Lost, Jason Of Star Command, Josie And The Pussycats, Batman, Tarzan, and plenty of other greats. In the early 80s there was some good stuff but it wasn’t until the late 80s things got really good again, and that’s where Pee-wee Herman comes in.
Pee-wee’s Playhouse was one of the greatest shows on Saturday mornings, not just when it aired, but in my opinion of all time. Certainly one of the top 5. Less educational it was more zany entertainment, sort of surreal, with humor that was absurdist. Pee-wee’s Playhouse was silly, fun and never condescending to its audience. Shout Factory has rereleased the series on home video in a couple of formats. First there’s the complete series on Blu-ray. Then there’s a DVD set including the first two of five seasons, which is what I was given. Looking through Shout Factory’s website it doesn’t appear that seasons three through five are coming to DVD any time soon, so I don’t understand what the reasoning behind this is.
Watching this DVD set of the first two seasons reminded me why I enjoyed getting up early on Saturdays. Well, early for me at the time was before noon as I was an adult, technically speaking, when Pee-wee’s Playhouse debuted. Sharing it with my kids, well, I knew I wasn’t crazy, there was some good stuff on Saturday morning.
Here we get 23 out of the total 45 episode run all remastered for high definition, which DVD isn’t, but still look fantastic. Shout Factory has also preserved the original aspect ratio, which is nice. Pee-wee’s Playhouse was not created when widescreen televisions were in use. Heck, home video was just beginning to take off and even then it was almost exclusively for theatrical releases. For “disposable” children’s entertainment Pee-wee’s Playhouse held itself to a high standard.
Helping Pee-wee Herman have fun in the playhouse are a cast of puppets and live actors. Some are famous for other roles (such as Lawrence Fishburn who portrayed Cowboy Curtis) while others not so much (Lynne Marie Stewart, for example, who portrays Miss Yvonne). 3 Cool Cats are the beatnik puppet band (see where some of that subversive humor comes to play) and there’s a genie who grants a wish each episode. The lack of toy and merchandise tie-ins to drive the narrative left the show free to simply have fun.
Breaking up the live action inside the playhouse is a lot of animation. Visiting the toy shelf brought about an animated sequence. Opening the refrigerator brought an animated sequence. A visit from The King Of Cartoons brought, as you guessed it, an animated sequence. These not only helped to serve the passage of time within the playhouse, but also help dilute the zaniness of Pee-wee Herman. While he is a fun character a little goes a long way – thankfully the show doesn’t just provide 24 solid minutes of his antics. While he may take some getting used to (my 11 year old son who loves the show commented about how Pee-wee’s voice inflection would change mid-sentence) kids seem to get over the shock of him pretty quickly.
Oh, the music. I would love a soundtrack with the ambient music used in the show. From the opening number to the background stuff to the closing tune the music is a highlight for me. It doesn’t hurt that Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Danny Elfman (Oingo Boingo) helped here but we also get Todd Rundgren and Mitch Froom. Hey, Shout Factory, how about a soundtrack? Even just an MP3 version. Please.
I am disappointed that I didn’t get the whole of the series on Blu-ray, and instead got this DVD of the first two seasons. Not only does Shout Factory not have a listing for the second half of the series run on DVD available for purchase the special features are incomplete. There’s a great solid overview going behind the scenes of the show, but the full Blu-ray series set has a lot more special features.