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Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his full-length debut and starring Paul Ruebens as Pee-wee Herman. Ruebens also co-wrote the script with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol. Supporting roles are played by Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton and Diane Salinger. Pee-wee's Big Adventure tells the story of Pee-wee Herman embarking on nation-wide adventure in search of his stolen bicycle.

After the success of The Pee-wee Herman Show, Reubens began writing the script to Pee-wee's Big Adventure when he was hired by Warner Bros. Pictures. The producers and Reubens hired Burton to direct when they were impressed with his work on Vincent and Frankenweenie. When Pee-wee's Big Adventure was released on August 9, 1985, it grossed over $40 million worldwide, but received generally mixed reviews. However, it eventually developed into a cult film and has since accumulated positive feedback. The film was nominated for a Young Artist Award and spawned a sequel, Big Top Pee-wee. The financial success of the film prompted Warner Bros. to hire Burton as the director Batman.

Plot
Pee-wee Herman loves his bike more than anything else in the world and refuses to sell it to spoiled neighbor Francis Buxton. The bike is stolen, resulting in Pee-wee visiting a psychic who lies and tells him that the bike is hidden in the basement of the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas. Along the way, he meets Simone, a waitress with a yearning to see Paris. Her jealous boyfriend Andy thinks Pee-wee and Simone are romantically linked, and causes Pee-wee to flee in a boxcar of a moving train. Making it to San Antonio, he finds that the Alamo has no basement. Disappointed, Pee-wee visits a bar to use the telephone, but disturbs a biker gang after accidentally knocking over their motorcycles. Fearing they are going to kill him, Pee-wee asks for one last request and dances to "Tequila", winning the respect of the bikers. The bikers give him a motorcycle, but Pee-wee quickly crashes it, ending up in the hospital. There, he learns from that his bike now belongs to Kevin Morton, a child star who is currently filming a movie with the bike as a prominent plot device.

Pee-wee sneaks into Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, disguises himself as a nun, and steals the bike back. In a wild chase scene, he flees from the Warner Bros. security staff through a variety of sets, causing havoc throughout the lot. Various actors and props, including a boat-shaped car, a Santa Claus sleigh, and a man in a Godzilla costume, get swept into the chase. He also interrupts the shooting of a Twisted Sister music video for "Burn in Hell" from Stay Hungry. Using the gadgets on his bike, Pee-wee manages to evade the guards and escape the studio. As he blissfully rides away, however, Pee-wee discovers a pet shop in flames. After heroically saving all the animals, Pee-wee faints on the store's doorstep, just as the fire department and police arrive. Though the firemen consider Pee-wee a hero, the police place Pee-wee under arrest.

Pee-wee is brought before a Warner Bros. studio executive who offers to buy the rights to Pee-wee's story in exchange for dropping all charges. Pee-wee attends the premiere at his local drive-in theater, but it turns out to be a James Bond-style action film involving James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild fighting ninjas. Pee-wee has a cameo appearance as a bellhop, but his voice is dubbed over. After watching for a few minutes, Pee-wee decides to leave, having already lived the real story. Reunited with his bike, he rides away with best friend Dottie, happily ever after.


 * Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman: A strange man who acts like a child. He sports a gray flannel suit with a red bow tie and clean-cut hair. He is very obsessive over his bicycle, traveling across America in search of it.
 * Elizabeth Daily as Dottie: She helps run a bike shop and also has feelings for Pee-wee, though Pee-wee declines to go out with her.
 * Mark Holton as Francis Buxton: A fellow man-child like Pee-wee, and his rival. He is very spoiled. He offers to buy Pee-wee's bike, but Pee-wee refuses. Francis hires someone to steal the bike before it is purchased by Warner Brothers.
 * Diane Salinger as Simone: A waitress that Pee-wee meets in Texas. She develops a friendship with Pee-wee and yearns to live in France. Her violent boyfriend Andy flunked French in High School, and therefore dislikes France. At the end of the film, Simone is dating a French man named Pierre.
 * Judd Omen as Mickey Morelli: A convict Pee-wee meets on his way to Texas. Mickey is a fugitive on the run from the law because he cut off a "do not remove under the penalty of law" mattress tag. He also has a bad temper and abandons Pee-wee for his safety. However, Pee-wee ends up inviting Mickey to his movie.

Michael Varhol, who co-wrote the script with Ruebens and Hartman, cameos as a photographer and director Tim Burton has an uncredited cameo as the street thug who confronts Pee-wee in the rainy back-alley. Other minor roles include Alice Nunn as Large Marge and Cassandra Peterson (aka "Elvira") as Biker Mama. James Brolin portrays Pee-wee Herman and Morgan Fairchild is Dottie for the scene when Warner Bros. turns Pee-wee's life in a full-length film. Dee Snider and Twisted Sister and veteran comedy star Milton Berle cameo as themselves.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure contains numerous "conceptual continuity" links to other productions:


 * several cast members of Pee-wee's Playhouse appear in cameo roles -- in the movie studio sequence, Lynne Marie Stewart (Miss Yvonne) plays the Mother Superior and John Paragon (Jambi the Genie) plays the high-voiced studio extra in red armour whom Pee-wee asks for directions, and Phil Hartman (Captain Carl) plays the reporter interviewing Francis at the drive-in


 * Jan Hooks, who played the Alamo tour guide, was a fellow alumnus of the Groundlings comedy troupe with Ruebens, Hartman and Paragon and went on to co-star in Saturday Night Live with Hartman


 * Paul Ruebens and Diane Salinger (Simone) were subsequently reunited in the opening sequence of Burton's Batman Returns, in which they portrayed the parents of The Penguin


 * supporting actors Monte Landis (Mario) and Lou Cutell (Amazing Larry), who featured together in a deleted scene in Mario's Magic Shop, had both appeared as extras in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein


 * in the Warner Bros Studio chase sequence, Pee-wee rides through a set where a Japanese crew are filming a kaiju movie with monsters closely resembling Godzilla and Ghidorah


 * the scene in which Pee-wee's bike hits the curb and he is thrown over the handlebars is very similar to the scene in Wayne's World in which Stacy crashes her bicycle while trying to impress Wayne, and the James Bond-style movie version of Pee-wee's story prefigures the "Austinpussy" segment in Goldmember


 * the sequence of the chase through Warner Bros Studios was originally much longer than the version in the final cut of the film and showed much more of the WB backlot, including the vast storage yard where many props and set pieces were stored. A full-scale prop of a Visitor shuttlecraft from the original TV miniseries V (1983) is clearly visible in the foreground in one shot. Another deleted scene in this section was filmed on the famous WB "Western town" set which has been used for innumerable film and TV productions, including the 1960s Batman TV series.

Production
The success of The Pee-wee Herman Show prompted Warner Bros. to hire Paul Reubens to write a script for a full-length Pee-Wee Herman film. Reubens' original idea was to do a remake of Pollyanna with Pee-wee Herman in the Hayley Mills role. Reubens claims that Pollyanna is his favorite film. Halfway through writing the script, Reubens noticed everyone at Warner Bros. had a bike to get around the backlot, and so he requested one of his own. This inspired Reubens to start on a new script.

Having left The Walt Disney Company and with Frankenweenie receiving positive reviews within film studios, Tim Burton was looking for a full-length film to direct. When Reubens and the producers of Pee-wee's Big Adventure saw Burton's work on Vincent and Frankenweenie, they decided Burton to hire Burton for their film. Burton felt he connected with Reubens' personality and the humor of the Pee-wee Herman Show. After hiring Burton to direct, Reubens, Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol reworked the script again.

Filming locations included Glendale, Pomona, Santa Monica, Burbank, Cabazon and San Antonio. Burton and Reubens had tensions with Warner Bros. studio executives over the shooting schedule. Burton hired CalArts classmate Rick Heinrichs for scenes involving stop-motion animation.

Soundtrack
To compose the film score, Burton brought in Danny Elfman, who had previously composed the music for Forbidden Zone. Elfman already had the main title theme written before he signed on. At the time, Elfman was the lead singer of Oingo Boingo, but the working relationship between Burton and Elfman would continue for most of Burton's films.


 * Track listing
 * 1) "Overture" / "The Big Race" (3:07)
 * 2) "Breakfast Machine" (2:36)
 * 3) "Park Ride" (1:14)
 * 4) "Stolen Bike" (1:44)
 * 5) "Hitchhike" (0:56)
 * 6) "Dinosaur Dream" (0:48)
 * 7) "Simone's Theme" (1:35)
 * 8) "Clown Dream" (1:58)
 * 9) "Studio Chase" (1:24)
 * 10) "The Drive-In" (2:02)
 * 11) "Finale" (3:12)

The film also featured "Burn in Hell" by Twisted Sister and "Tequila" by The Champs.

Release
Pee-wee's Big Adventure opened on August 9, 1985 in the United States in 829 theaters, accumulating $4,545,847 over its opening weekend. The film went on to gross $40,940,662 domestically, recouping five times of its $7 million budget, making it a financial success. At the time of release in 1985, the film received generally mixed reviews, before eventually developing into a cult film. Based on 34 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Pee-wee's Big Adventure has a 91% overall approval rating. By comparison Metacritic calculated an average score of 47 from 13 reviews collected. The film was nominated with a Young Artist Award for Best Family Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).

Christopher Null gave positive feedback, calling it "Burton's strangest film." Variety compared Paul Reubens to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, while Empire called the film "a one-comic masterpiece" and "a dazzling debut" for Burton. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon explained "Everything about Pee-wee's Big Adventure, from its toy-box colors to its superb, hyper-animated Danny Elfman score to the butch-waxed hairdo and wooden-puppet walk of its star and mastermind is pure pleasure." Burton had no interest in directing Big Top Pee-wee, and the financial success of the film prompted Warner Bros. to hire him to direct Batman. Warner Home Video released Pee-wee's Big Adventure on DVD in May 2000. The release included audio commentary by Tim Burton, Paul Reubens and Danny Elfman as well as deleted scenes.