Paul Reubens talks about his PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE Movie

Movie Pee-wee Herman by Joey Paur

Paul Reubens is currently in the middle of making a comeback for his alter ego Pee Wee Herman. This is a character he came up with back in the day when he was performing with The Groundings comedy group. He had two movies and a successful TV show based on the character. Then in 1991 he was arrested for indecent exposure, which caused his career and character to suffer the consequences, and he disappeared for quite some time. 

Now 18 years later he's back doing a live stage show in Los Angles at Club Nokia. He is once again trying to rebrand his image and get Pee Wee back in the spotlight one step at a time. At a recent show he had a little Q&A after in which he talked about a new Pee Wee Herman movie he's working on. Our friends at Latino Review were there to catch it, and here's what he said:

The movie, we never left the Playhouse. You never saw Puppet Land. I mean, me and Cowboy Curtis went camping one time. There's a couple episodes where you went, "Where are they?" But most of these were in the Playhouse. The movie has two scenes in the Playhouse. The beginning and the end. And the rest of the entire movie takes place outside the Playhouse.

The plot of the movie is, in the opening of the movie, right in the middle of the cartoon the film jams, it burns, it's blacked out and when the lights come back up, the King is gone. The King is missing. The King of Cartoons has been kidnapped. He's being held hostage by a character named El Chunky Boobabi (sp?). Chris Rock has already given me his word he would play him. And El Chunky is holding the King of Cartoons for ransom. So it's all in Puppet Land.

I started to write this movie after the original Pee Wee Herman Show. I was offered all kinds of crazy stuff. Nothing I got offered was interesting. We wrote this movie called Pee Wee's Big Adventure which wasn't about a bicycle, it was about the Playhouse, and I later used the title for the bicycle movie. That movie never got made and it sat in a drawer for a long time. And several years ago when Tim Burton did Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, somebody said to me, "You know this is a great time. Charlie is going to be a great hit. You've got this script. Nobody's ever read it. Can we read it?"

And I thought, you can't really read it. It's really unreadable. I didn't know how to write a script. So I thought, why don't I just re-write it? So I started to re-write it, and re-write it and added all the puppets that came subsequent to when I wrote this movie. So this movie has been written for the past thirty years about four times. And I gotta tell you, after thirty years of 4 rewrites, this movie is so awesome, it's so ready to get made. If I get to make this movie, you are going to be blown away. So I really hope I get to make it before Neil Patrick Harris has to play me. (He was in the audience.) 

As for if Tim Burton would be back to help out, he siad,

Tim Burton is so busy. Tim may be an Executive Producer. Um..I have somebody in mind. 

I think it would be great o see Pee Wee make a come back and get another movie made. There's no doubt that if it happens it will be a success. There are a ton of people that grew up with Pee Wee, and I still think he has a solid name and character that people remember and recognize. I'd love to see a new Pee Wee movie! 

The Pee Wee Herman Show is playing at Club Nokia until February 7th. Get your tickets at Ticketmaster.com

If Pee Wee Herman came back in full movie force would you go and see it?

GeekTyrant Homepage