PAUL REUBENS PROVES THERE IS LIFE AFTER PEE-WEE

By David Elliott

From The San Diego Union-Tribune, 08.04.1985

According to Tim Burton, who directed Pee-wee Herman in the remarkably odd Pee-wee's Big Adventure, reports of the death of Paul Reubens are premature.

Paul Reubens is the actor and comedian who created Pee-wee, the transcendental nerd. It has been said that Reubens is gone forever, swallowed up by his kiddie-cartoonish creation. Burton, who ought to know, says that, "Pee-wee comes from a very real place. As crazy as he is, he's rooted in a real man. And if anyone did Pee-wee 24 hours a day, they'd be dead. Paul Reubens is still alive."

On the film's set, says Burton, "It wasn't that Pee-wee ever vanished. It was more like a subduing process, a coming down. He's quite shy, incredibly bright, and very introspective. When the camera turns, he's totally Pee-wee. Off-camera he's quiet and thoughtful."

Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which is raking in good coin at the box office, could make the stunningly strange Pee-wee a star, or at least a highly impressive meteor. It is also the making of a film career for Burton, who is only 26. He won the job after creating an innovative 30-minute cartoon film for Disney, Frankenweenie. Though it missed distribution with Disney's Pinocchio due to a PG rating, Pee-wee's producers saw it and....

"They called me in to meet Pee-wee and the writers. I had seen Pee-wee's show at the Roxy (a Los Angeles club) and was a real fan, but I was a little worried about going into a film with such an established character. I didn't see what I could add of my own. that set up a basis of trust and rapport. We both like a lot of the same things, like gadgetry and toys, and we hit it off. It was tremendous!"

Using a light-boned structure--Pee-wee's bike is stolen, and he goes to Texas and back to recover it--the movie loads on surreal episodes that often seem to exist at least halfway inside Pee-wee's pixilated head. Even when the movie sags in a few spots, it has terrific style and assurance.

"I started as a Disney animator," says Burton, speaking from Hawaii where he is enjoying a post-production holiday. "My background is basically in illustration, and Pee-wee is extremely visual. It was important to put him in an atmosphere where he didn't look out of place. Most comedies take a character and just put him on a standard street corner, but Pee-wee would lose impact if you did that. I was also keen to show you the way that he sees things."

That meant some very colorful stuff, often larger-than-life or (with giant ceramic dinosaurs) as big as life. The film has animation and dream scenes and wild pop-out energy, "although the producers thought Pee-wee should be more realistically presented than in his stage show, which is Pee-wee's Playhouse, very two-dimensional. They felt that would make him less accessible on film. Yet we can't put very many restrictions on Pee-wee, or what would be the point of using him?"

The point, surely, is that Pee-wee has wit, charm, pluck and a kind of bratty bravura. He is, feels Burton, "an emotional character, the most wide-ranging comic character in a long time. Most of the others today are one-note figures. We felt he could definitely grow emotionally in the story, and that we could go the whole gamut."

Some viewers feel inspiration runs thin in a wild chase through the Warners studio. It may be too long but, says the director, "It was much longer. We cut it down, and tried not to get too in-jokey. It goes back to the old-style comedy chases, and you don't get an incredible James Bondish, Spielbergian kick at every turn. And maybe not having that is now a problem with some audiences. have a slightly cruder edge which I like. I'm looking for a ... slick crudity."

After the chase, the movie wins back nearly everyone as Pee-wee saves the residents of a burning pet shop. "You're right, that's very important," Burton observes. "It bonds people to Pee-wee. They really love him."

Burton prepared for his own big adventure "by watching a lot of Pee-wee tapes. He has evolved. As a rich character, he has to keep changing, and he has very few limits. I can see a Pee-wee and the Pirates,' or 'Pee-wee in Outer Space.' If there are other Pee-wee movies we won't have trouble with concepts."

Alas, even Pee-wee's best fans have trouble with one concept: Pee-wee and sex. Burton laughs at the linkage, and shares in the skepticism. After all, despite some darting hints of hipness, Pee-wee's presiding passion in the movie is for a shiny red bicycle.

Conceding that "sex didn't really come up in the film," Burton adds, "Right now his character is still a kid at heart, and we were careful not to break that kid-like nature. But down the line ... well, it's a touchy situation. If you start asking, Is he an adult?,' you start to have trouble."

Though Pee-wee is known to beam back and forth from his own mental planet, for Burton "working with him wasn't overwhelming at all. We knew we could have fun, and we did. The first time (on the set) I wasn't nervous at all, which was kind of shocking to me! I loved shooting. It was exhilarating, a dream come true."

His dream began to form in childhood, when Burton was growing up in Burbank, the son of the town recreation department's sports director. He loved Laurel and Hardy, drawing and "all aspects of film. I studied in the Disney animation program at Cal Arts, then went to work for Disney. After a while doing rote animation became tedious. Then came about ten projects that never went everywhere."

He came back to Disney to make Vincent, an Oscar-nominated cartoon about a boy's wish to be Vincent Price. Then there was a "low-budget martial arts version of Hansel and Gretel, which was meant for cable, but never got shown." His Frankensteinish Frankenweenie set him up for Pee-wee and the rest is, possibly, history.

Speaking of which, does he hope to do another Pee-wee movie? "It's hard to say. I loved working with him, and everything I do will probably have funny' in it somewhere, but I want to do more than straight comedy. Right now some things I'm hoping for are in the hands of the gods and the producers. The gods are a little easier to deal with."