Things I Learned This Weekend Watching the First DVD of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Vol. 1
- The opening credit sequence has to be the longest in television history: 2:29 every show. The theme song also contains some of the most bizarrely-amazing lyrics ever. And it's sung by Cyndi Lauper!
- The show was a breeding ground of talent: Larry Fishburne, Phil Hartman, and 8-year-olds Shaun Weiss (the fat kid from The Mighty Ducks trilogy and Freaks & Geeks) and Natasha Lyonne.
- Even given Paul Reubens' questionable history, for some reason it still doesn't seem strange when Cowboy Carl says to Pee-Wee, "I showed you mine, now you show me yours." (FYI: that line refers to dance moves)
- The recurring food segment rarely made sense... on salad day, he said "It's easy. First, head over to your salad bar"... I guess every house was supposed to have a counter set-up with lettuce, onions, beets, mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes, and 3 types of beans. And teaching how to make ice-cream soup? Even kids know what happens when ice-cream melts...
- Considering that Miss Yvonne was supposedly the "most beautiful girl in Cartoonland," she's really not that good-looking.
- I'm positive that he breakdancing noise Conky makes when he powers up was used in a song, and it's driving me nuts that I can't think of what it is. Little help?
- My roommate Dave (32 years old) and my friend Sean (31) are both too old to have watched the show from a child's perspective and are too young to have watched it from a kitschy, retro-perspective... and the show has not been re-run since it was taken off the air in 1991... but they both remember it surprisingly well.
- I can't get the following out of my head: "You all remember what to do whenever anybody says the secret word right? Scream! That's right. For the rest of the day, whenever anybody says the secret word, SCREAM REAL LOUD! Ready? Let's try it. "
- I wish it was 1987 again so I could watch these shows for the first time all over again. Damn Peter-Pan Syndrome...