MovieChat Forums > The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway (2011) Discussion > Not as fun on a rewatch

Not as fun on a rewatch

posted 9 years ago by max-devlin
1 reply | jump to latest

I bought the Blu-ray of this show in 2011 when it was released. As far as I can remember I watched it once and really loved it. After rewatching the entirety of PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE via the excellent Shout! Factory BD box set, rewatching the original PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW (which I love) via the Image Entertainment DVD recently and now rewatching BROADWAY, this pales in comparison. It's still fun, but I had many issues with it.

1. Why was the Pledge Of Allegiance in the beginning? I don't see the relevance.
2. The puppet voices, mostly done by different people than the original performers. I realize this was probably unavoidable but I found the new performers annoying, in particular Magic Screen and Chairry. And Globey!? WTF. They didn't even try to make him sound similar.
3. Paul's voice. He just doesn't sound much like PW anymore, so it's a bit sad to hear him try.
4. Length. The original PWHS was an hour, perfect. BROADWAY is just under an hour and a half and it's too long IMO.
5. Additionally, I just didn't find a lot of the bits funny. The idea to combine the SHOW with the PLAYHOUSE seemed like a good one, but the slightly more adult humor mixed with the PLAYHOUSE atmosphere just doesn't gel most of the time.

I'm sure this show was a BLAST to see live, but I can't see myself watching this again.

[–] Mississippi20 8 years ago

1. The point was to make the audience feel like children again - if you grew up in an American public school system, it's very likely that you would stand and do the pledge of allegiance with the whole class. It's to set the tone.

2 - 4. Ya, of course the the performances are a little different than 30 years ago - Paul is still good, even if not *quite* as good as he was. Granted Pee Wee is one of the most memorable comedy characters of all-time so it's a very high bar.

5. Ya, the material is just ok. Again, huge expectations. I won't say it's unwatchable and I won't say there aren't laughs and chuckles (some of which clearly paved the way for the new Pee Wee film), but maybe doesn't live up to built-up expectations, fair or not.