I caught the last Pee Wee Herman stage show at the Nokia Theater today. It was nearly a full house. Everyone who was there was 30-40 years old, no kids. A noticeably large portion of the crowd were punks and rockabillies. Paul Reubens looked great. He lost weight and didn't really seem to age at all. The set was extremely similar to the TV set. There was the secret word, old cartoon the King of Cartoons presented, and just about everything else you would expect from the show.
Like the TV show, there was also adult humor, but a bit more in your face. There was an ongoing bit about Pee Wee having an abstinence ring, 2 penis jokes, 2 references to masturbation, a reference to to gay marriage, and the old pin-pal bit poked fun at French culture, and Israel's military service. The show also opened with Pee Wee asking the audience to pledge allegence to the flag.
A lot of the original TV cast was there too, which was great. There were also a lot of running jokes about infomercial products. One character was a talking Sham-Wow, which Pee Wee accidentally killed by dropping him into a vat of burning oil. The Sham-Wow ghost showed up later. There was also one char who was a dancing bear. Near the end of the show you find out that the dancing bear was actually a very depressed man who dresses up in a bear costume. It was so ridiculously funny. Everyone in the audience stood up when Pee Wee first came out and went wild when someone said the secret word. I'm glad I went.
But it brings back such memories! God, I miss that show. And I'd never noticed before, but Randy wears a SF SW&D uniform and Pee Wee is awfully Thom Brown-ish, haha.
