Released only a few years
before his infamous arrest for “lewd
behaviour” in a porn theatre (technical term: jerking off), Paul
Reubens’ second cinematic outing for his Pee Wee Herman character
finds the foghorn-voiced buffoon inexplicably running a farm stocked
with anthropomorphic animals. The cows and horses sleep in beds, the
sheep and goats cook pancake breakfasts and Pee Wee works on top secret
agricultural science – such as the Hot Dog Tree – with the
help of his talking pig, Vance.
Pee Wee is also engaged to a local school teacher, Winnie, but they’re
clearly not meant to be together. She doesn’t know what his favorite
food is, and she’s crap at spotting shapes in clouds. Luckily,
temptation lands in Pee Wee’s lap when a freak storm blows a circus
into his farm, bringing with it Gina, a scantily clad trapeze artist,
Kris Kristofferson as the world’s least likely ringmaster and – amongst
an assortment of performers and freaks – future Oscar-winner Benicio
Del Toro in his debut movie role as Duke, the dog-faced boy.
The 21-year-old Del Toro hardly plays a pivotal role in what little plot
the movie has, divided as it is between an utterly bewildering love triangle
and the attempts by the curmudgeonly townsfolk to drive out Pee Wee and
his circus pals. He does, however, get plenty of close-ups and a sprinkling
of lines – though most of them involve barking.
It’s hardly surprising that Del Toro’s role remains a fairly
well-kept secret though – the movie swiftly vanished following
Pee Wee’s arrest, and was hardly garnering glowing reviews prior
to his downfall. Unlike Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (the directorial
debut of Tim Burton), Big Top Pee Wee exhibits little of the surreal
manic energy that drove the character to the heights of children’s
TV fame, but does highlight the rather creepy adult humor which was hastily
squashed as the character moved from stand-up to television. Not only
does Pee Wee mount and dry hump Winnie in front of her class, he ogles
Gina’s breasts and engages in a prolonged and passionate make-out
scene with her.
He’s also kind of an asshole, unceremoniously ditching
Winnie to get into the pants of his Italian acrobat mistress. Indeed,
a better title for the film might have been Pee Wee Gets Laid given that
we see the giggling manchild lose his cherry, replete with obligatory
train-entering-tunnel imagery. Winnie does get her revenge though – she
finds comfort in the muscular arms of Gina’s four brothers, making
this the first kid’s movie to use an acrobat gangbang as a major
plot point.
Need to know: Big Top Pee Wee was directed by Randal Kleiser, whose previous
hits include Grease, The Blue Lagoon and Flight of the Navigator. He
gives himself a very subtle cameo right at the end, smiling straight
into the camera in looming close-up, brandishing a hot dog. Gina was
played by Valeria Golino, best known for playing opposite another naïve
manchild in Rain Man, though she mercifully restrained herself from sleeping
with Dustin Hoffman that time. Also present among the cast were Mihaly
Meszaros, often the man inside the ALF costume (see: Martin
Sheen),
and giant 7’ 2” actor Kevin Peter Hall (see: Courtney
Cox,
Paul Walker). Keep your eyes peeled towards the end of the movie for
a fleeting appearance from a very young Dustin Diamond, who would go
on to scale the giddy heights of celebrity as Screech on Saved By The
Bell.
Honourable mention: Del Toro followed Big Top Pee Wee with a stint as
a henchman in the underseen –and undervalued – Timothy Dalton
Bond outing, License to Kill.
Availability: Big Top Pee Wee is available on DVD.
