1988 sequel
Rating: 10/20
Plot: The titular goofball enjoys his life as a farmer. He has lunch with his fiance and enjoys time with his talking pet pig Vance. One day, a giant storm brings a bunch of circus people crashing down on his property, putting a strain on his romantic life and ruining his reputation with the townspeople. But the show must go on, and Pee Wee does what he can to help Kris Kristofferson and the other circus people put on the best farm-themed circus ever!
This may have gotten a bonus point for being the screen debut of Saved by the Bell‘s Dustin Diamond, but it’s not something I would ever admit. And since it’s a circus movie, especially one with a freak show, there’s got to be a little person, and Mihaly Meszaros as Andy is pretty good. Meszaros really was a circus performer, but his real claim to fame was wearing the Alf costume when that lovable sitcom alien was shown in full. And Vance the Pig’s voice is provided by Wayne White, the subject of this documentary. Kristofferson plays the circus manager like he’s doing time. There’s no way he can consider interactions with his wife Midge–a terrible special effect–or a conversation he has about George Washington Carver as the height of his career. And there are a bunch of circus performers–acrobatic brothers, a bearded lady, a half-man/half-woman, a strong man. Of course, this is a Pee Wee movie, so he’s going to be in 95% of the shots. And don’t get me wrong. There are a few Pee Wee moments that got me to chuckle, possibly because I was stoned. A scene where he feeds birds by chewing up food and spitting it in their mouths was magical. He enjoys breakfast with his animals, gets egg salad on his face, growls at Mihaly Meszaros like only Pee Wee Herman can growl, dances with a sheep, gets hit in the head with apples, and has a great reaction to the half-man/half-woman. And a random shot of mud-wrestling children made me laugh. This has the outrageous sense of humor that makes Pee Wee’s Big Adventure so good. What it lacks is a solid idea or anything close to a classic Pee Wee Herman moment. Really, I’m not sure how the idea was greenlit in the first place. “Hey, let’s mash together life on the farm with the circus, add a love triangle that will make the protagonist look like a horny and unlikable bastard, and make us a new Pee Wee movie!” The “Big Top” part is really shoved to the background for the majority of this, and the romance is played far too straight. And Pee Wee really is unlikable. I mean, he’s got his flaws in that first movie but cheating on his fiance takes him to new heights of unlikability. And [SPOILER ALERT] he has sex. That’s right–Pee Wee Herman pops his cherry. There’s no on-screen sex scene where his red bow tie starts spinning in circles or anything like that, of course. No, they borrow Hitchcock’s train-through-a-tunnel symbol so that adults, and probably a handful of children who have snuck peaks at their dad’s magazine collection, know what’s going down. Following that, things get all Freudian with a hot dog tree Pee Wee’s growing in his greenhouse failing, the hot dogs shriveling up and becoming cocktail wieners. I’m not sure what that’s saying because my dad hid his magazines too well, but I know it’s saying something. This movie has a very lively score (Note: I have the soundtrack on cassette if you ever want to borrow it.) and I really did like a lot of the stuff with the farm animals and some sight gags with them. But it is a very disappointing follow-up to the big screen debut of the character.
True story: I had actually never seen this movie all the way through. As a fan of the first movie, I did go to the theater to see it but was thrown out for masturbating during that scene where Pee Wee feeds those birds. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that, but nobody–and I mean nobody–will ever read this.