Pee-weesBigAdventure Tagged Articles at Cinematical

He may have been eager to set off on another adventure back in 2005, and have pondered bringing Johnny Depp into the world in 2007, but Paul Reubens -- aka Pee-Wee Herman -- never got those gigs off the ground. Now, rather than hitting the big screen, Variety reports that there will be a limited stage return of The Pee-Wee Herman Show this November at Hollywood's Music Box at the Fonda Theater.

Surprisingly, it won't only include Reubens himself, but also a lot of the original cast and crew like Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvonne, Mailman Mike, Jambie the Genie, Chairry, Randy, and more. Reubens says: "It's time. My Pee-Wee suit and red boy tie are at the ready -- and this is proof that white shoes are cool past Labor Day."

I'm sure that shnazzy suit will be prime, but will Reubens himself? Playing a wacky man in a suit isn't really age-dependent, but a smooth-faced 30-something Herman is a little different than a man in his late fifties. Slashfilm says that the press release promises a "Re-imagined, re-invented, and nuttier than ever" performance. Normally that would be something that instigates apprehension, but this may just be the key to magic this time around. The same talent means the same sort of life and performance, and re-imagined and re-invented just might help wipe away his past foibles once and for all.

Are you on-board for a new Adventure, come November?

What do Hellboy 2 (on DVD this week) and Milk (in theaters Nov. 26) have in common, aside from flamboyantly controversial main characters? Musical scores by Danny Elfman, that's what.

Like many people, I was first aware of Elfman as the frontman for Oingo Boingo, a band that had a few songs I liked and an abundance of songs that annoyed me -- may I never hear "Dead Man's Party" again as long as I live -- before I was awestruck by his score for Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Even if you haven't seen the film I bet you'd recognize the factory-like main theme, officially titled "Breakfast Machine," which starts at 1:15 in the YouTube clip embedded below. It's still my favorite piece of Elfman music, and it typifies his work: whimsical, rhythmic, slightly dark, and heavy on the mechanical noises.

It was Elfman's first orchestral score for a film (he and Oingo Boingo had made something called Forbidden Zone five years earlier), and the beginning of a partnership with Pee-wee director Tim Burton that lasts to this day. Many of Elfman's scores, for Burton and for other directors, have been for films that readily lent themselves to his Halloweenish sensibilities -- comic book/sci-fi/superhero capers like Dick Tracy, Batman, Men in Black, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!, Spy Kids, and Spider-Man. And let it not be forgotten what Burton's [correction: Elfman's] most famous composition is: the theme from The Simpsons, surely one of the most recognizable TV songs in the world.