Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

The movie poster tells you nearly
everything you need to know: a goofy-
looking guy, acting goofy and clinging
desperately to his bike. That covers
about 90% of this film.

Director: Tim Burton

This movie is still an all-time classic of novel, silly, comic magic.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is the story of Pee-Wee (Paul Reubens), a man who wears a gray suit and red bowtie, but who usually acts very much like a child, including all of a 10-year old's joys, tantrums, pettiness, and enthusiasm. He lives in a garishly-decorated house filled with all sorts of toys and amusing contraptions, and his most prized possession is his classic, red and white bicycle - an object with which he has an intense, almost religious bond. When this object of his deepest affection is stolen, Pee-Wee goes on a cross-country odyssey to track down the one thing that means the world to him.

I must have seen this movie 15 or 20 times within the first year or two after it was released in theaters, back in 1985. Being between the ages of 10 and 12, I was the perfect age to fall in love with this movie, as quirky and silly as it was. Watching and listening to this bizarre, nasally, wildly overconfident fellow with his Peter Pan complex was hilariously hypnotic. Watching it now with my wife, both of us in our forties? Still hilarious, though for some slightly different reasons.

This was singular director Tim Burton's very first feature movie, and one could make a strong argument that it's still his best (Ed Wood is probably right there, too). We didn't know it at the time, but you could see his fingerprints all over it. The same visual and tonal fingerprints that we would see in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, his two Batman movies, and every film he's done in the 35 years since the Pee-Wee movie. In Big Adventure, he gets to thrust the manchild title character into the big, wide world, where he comes across all sorts of move archetypes: an escaped convict, a diner waitress with dreams of escaping to France, a motorcycle gang, and all sorts of others. The Pee-Wee character is fairly funny on his own, in his goofy way. But you throw him against other weirdos and outcasts, many of whom take themselves way too seriously? Comedy gold.

Pee-Wee and his first on-the-road "partner," Mickey. Every 
exchange between these two is hilarious and memorable,
whether it's dialog or physical humor.

Then there's the comic acting. Paul Reubens struck on the genius idea of the childlike-but-sometimes-risque Pee-Wee character years before the movie, performing him in a successful stage show. His timing, facial expressions, and voice control were outstanding with this strange little guy, right down to every annoyed grunt and high-pitched, staccato laugh. The rest of the movie has a ton of comic acting veterans, too, some familiar and some less so. Whatever the case, under Tim Burton's direction, the humor still hits. No, it's not high art. But the whole thing operates on its own magical wavelength that I don't think has been tapped into since, and maybe never will be again.

If you don't like straight-up goofy movies, then stay away from this one. But if there's still any part of you that laughs like a crazy person when you see a 9-year old kid put their underwear on their head and start dancing for no good reason, then go back and watch Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Whether it's the first time or the 50th time, you're going to get some serious laughs.