12/25 BONUS: COUNT FLOYD EXTENDED SCENE

NOTES: This is an extended take for the King of Cartoons/Count Floyd scene that I came up with well after everything had wrapped and the relevant scene went online. It's a riff on a similar scene from one of the last few episodes of Playhouse, in which Pee-Wee encounters an adult party line on the Picturephone. Here, it's a commercial for a 1-900 number featuring the main character from two comic strips: Larry Whittington's Fritzi Ritz and Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy. 

It came about from, once again, Facebook--I am a member of a fan page dedicated to distorting and riffing on the Nancy comics. I was awake one night and the thought occurred to me: "Wouldn't it be funny if Pee-Wee stumbled upon a Christmas-themed adult party line with Fritzi talking directly to the viewer?" 

 

12/25/24: Christmas Bonus

 

My effort at replicating the original VHS cover art. It took me a year to find the exact font from the box, and it's called Ad Lib.

My version of a famous publicity shot from the Christmas Special.

12/25/24--END CREDITS

NOTES: The credits include a spoof acknowledgment for "The Pee-Wee's Playhouse Collector's Case" providing accommodations. No such collector's case exists; the illustration is from the Thermos lunchbox, and I put the Matchbox logo over the Thermos logo. It's a riff on the end credit for the Los Angeles Registry Hotel, which sadly went bankrupt shortly after the special aired.

"Don't Salt the Fries" is a cryptic phrase from the computer game System Shock, which I am a huge fan of.

12/24/25 third post

 

NOTES: I will die on the hill that Pee-Wee's Playhouse ought to have ended with the Christmas Special, and that the remainder of Seasons 4 and 5 are diminishing returns. Getting to ride with Santa is just such a perfect conclusion for the character of Pee-Wee Herman--one last childhood wish, finally fulfilled. That's why I emphasized that his withdrawing the long list is a grown-up decision: it's the first step in developing maturity and thinking outside of oneself. 

The paraphrase of Clement C. Moore takes care to include Rudolph. The yuletide roster is not complete without him.

Far from being a reference to E.T. or The Nightmare Before Christmas, the end panel owes much more to Chicago's CTA buses, which from November to January occasionally display a picture of Santa and his reindeer on the front marquee. It always brings a smile to my face.

12/24/24 second post

 

12/24/24

 

NOTES: 

Pee-Wee looks a little creepy with the lighting from above. Pee-Wee.EXE. 

I knew I was going to replicate that moment from the outset of this project, but can't remember if it was before or after the Pterri material, because I did this in the same way as with Pterri--with two shots, one from 3/4 and one from the side. Here, it was a simple matter of rendering the heads in about 50% transparency and then flipping the copies so that they'd face different angles. 

"Mr. Claus" is my way of demonstrating that he's taking this seriously. The "What more do you want?!" line is now a last little bit of weakening resistance. His tune changes instantly when he learns he's got to help Santa: running the words together without spaces or punctuation illustrates that he's blindsided and utterly elated.

There was never any question of a dark ending in which he opts for the Christmas list. That would have been a little too much--it would have involved Santa not being entirely clear on the consequences of the choice, and it always came across as him actively hoping that Pee-Wee would take the short-term option just to spring the trap on him. 

12/23/24 second post

NOTES: And here is that final remnant of the earliest idea for the remake. I really couldn't stand the original Santa and how apologetic he was at being unable to fulfill Pee-Wee's list. Here he is based on Bobsheaux's review of the Christmas Special--he and Raven were immensely scathing to the point where I couldn't help but agree! Thus Santa became the audience surrogate to the adults watching who want to give this pixilated manchild a stern talking-to, a kind of badly disappointed teacher who lets loose on misbehaving students because he loves them and wants them to do well.

I'm not really sure if he was angrier at the outset and then softened throughout the drafts. I do know that allowing Pee-Wee the choice of list-or-no-list was always there...Goofus and Gallant from Highlights for Children was a major influence. 

Santa was marvelous because I could generate emotion simply from angling his hat and putting him at different angles. Look at him front-on, and he's happy. Put him at an angle, and he's sad. Lower his hat a little, and he's angry.

 

12/23/24

 

NOTES: The first thing I did for this special was cast Santa. During Christmas of 2023, I didn't know if there was even a Santa figurine, so I did what anyone would do: turn to Facebook for help. A kind fellow pointed me toward such a figure from Big Bad Toy Store, a classical Caucasian Santa who looked kinda like Jerry Garcia, and which turned out to be out of stock. So I went back and found another one that was in stock, and bought it without looking at it properly.

The figure arrived at my house a few weeks later, and, to my surprise, Santa turned out to be African-American. This made the perfectionist in me panic just a little, as I wanted my photobook to hew as close to the original as possible. After the panic subsided, I took another look at him and reflected that he looked an awful lot like James Earl Jones, and then said, "Oh, well, in this version of it, they managed to get him as Santa." 

The biggest surprise was how this Santa informed the writing, as you will see.

12/22/24 third post

 

NOTES: I had to break the earlier page up into this third post just to render some text a little more legible. 

12/22/24 second post

 

NOTES: Ha-ha..."I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" is a very esoteric novelty single put out by a band called The Go-Go's in 1964. The joke went two ways: first, either his friends didn't know it and he went, "Just kidding!" or second, they did know it, causing him to do a double-take in confusion.

12/22/24

 

NOTES: This was Mom's old nativity scene, which she made at Marshall Field's in 1982 at a ceramics class. If I remember right, the figures were sold in a kit as unfinished pottery--she painted, glazed, fired, and gilded them. The original special had Magic Screen showing scenes of nativity plays, and there was no doubt about using this set to similar effect for the one moment in this whole thing that's played with absolute sincerity and reverence. The speech is taken word-for-word from Magic Screen's original. 

The script initially called for Magic Screen's "face" to frame the scene, her speech shown in a word balloon. In practice, I wasn't satisfied with any version of that idea, and it came down to simply having the image shown straight-on, with Screen's usual Jokerman text changed to the more solemn Times New Roman.

12/21/24 second post

 

NOTES: "The one-armed man" is from The Fugitive by way of The Mask and the Leslie Nielsen spoof Wrongfully Accused. And I believe his sentiments on the holidays are a paraphrase of Dave Ramsey: "We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like."

12/21/24

 

NOTES: This came about when I was working on the earlier Pterri Fetch shots: my fingers slipped and hit the "Transparency" control in PowerPoint. After fixing it and reflecting for a moment, it occurred to me that I could exploit the mistake to depict speed. I blew one Pterri up to enormous size and made that the most transparent (75%); inserted another, slightly smaller one at 50% transparency; and then shrunk the "real" Pterri down substantially and added speed lines in Paint to the end result. 

12/20/24 second post

 

NOTES: Randy's interference went through a number of drafts, and was originally intended to be slotted in with Pee-Wee, Ricardo, and Cowboy Curtis outside decorating--this was also where they would run into the Scooby Gang. The first draft had him hanging onto the walls and setting firecrackers behind the decorations with the intention of lighting them so that they'd go off as soon as Pee-Wee lit the tree. The second draft had him setting up a fulcrum so that he could jump onto the beam and tip the tree over. The third and final draft, which you saw earlier, had him play "fetch" with Pterri to set up a Pavlovian reaction to chase the shiny disc. This last one stemmed from the idea that bullies always disrupt things by proxy so that they can get away scot-free. 

And Randy is, very briefly, the old Matchbox one! Nice little cameo to make him more dynamic-looking.

12/20/24

NOTES: The fruitcake machine came about from just not wanting to build the entire fruitcake wing from the original special. You have to prioritize things when doing model-work all by yourself--remember that I wrote this while still working, so the script and story had to be worked around how many Sundays and days off I had. It started out as something like a hot-dog cart crossed with a gaudily painted set dressing from The Bozo Show, but I never really did any sketches of it. Finally, it became a Star Wars prop I'd seen on Facebook and then bought on eBay; it arrived while I was halfway finished with the photography, so it remained unaltered. As I recall, Feliz Navidad was one of the last few remaining scenes--second to last, before the She-Ra scene. 

 

12/19/24 second post

 

12/19/24

 

                                                                 

12/18/24

 

NOTES: 

She-Ra and Bow represent the last remnant of one of the earliest ideas I had for my version. 

The one thing that irritated me about the original special was how awful he was to Frankie and Annette, and indeed to all of his guests, yet he seemed to get away with it scot-free. Really, the main problem was with stretching the "five hundred cards" gag too long. Having it once would have been hilarious, because then it could be leavened with "Oh, he's just clowning them," but each time it recurred, it got more cruel and unfunny.

The original impetus for the new version would have addressed this by being a lot nastier to Pee-Wee, with everyone revolting against him by the end. Somehow, though, I just couldn't be that cruel to him, because I would also have to get rid of Randy in order to achieve it. In the draft leading up to what you're getting now, I found myself softening Pee-Wee a bit: his demand for five hundred cards is now the breaking point after getting so many fruitcakes. Notice that he never follows up on it or asks where She-Ra and Bow are.

12/17/24

 

NOTES: 

1. She-Ra acts out of character because she's in the absurd world of Pee-Wee Herman, where big-name celebrity guests get to goof on themselves a little. Sorry for the odd skirt--it was a tennis skirt from a Dollar Tree doll set. I figured, "For the brief amount of time you'll see it, it won't matter."

2. The very first effects shot I did for the special. It’s supposed to be a bad job. In fact, I wrote in the scripted lines, SHE-RA TURNS AND, WITH A BARBIE FACE BADLY “PASTED” OVER HER OWN AS IF WITH A BAD VIDEO EFFECT, TURNS TO REVEAL THAT HER TEETH ARE, INDEED, “PAINTED” BRIGHT GREEN.

12/16/24

 

NOTES: 

1. I was only just able to keep this bit from the original Christmas Special by the good fortune of Super7 releasing figures of Randy and Billy Baloney as a two-pack. 

He came into it at the last draft right before photography started. It proved very lucky, because I was able to greatly expand Randy’s part. And—and this is the best part—he’s actually in scale with the 6” figures with what he would be in real life.

2. She-Ra and Bow. From the brainstorming stage, I had He-Man and She-Ra in mind for Frankie and Annette, mainly thanks to The He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special. With that said, the original Prince Adam was a little too rugged for my needs—I simply couldn’t picture him fiddling around with a potato and dipping it into red paint and all that. Bow turned out to be the “camp superhero” I needed. 

3. No idea where the “Pia Zadora/Princess Adora” flub came from. But. Pia Zadora was in, I believe, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Um...Being not entirely familiar with the canon and lore of Masters of the Universe, I wasn't sure what to make of Eternia/Etheria celebrating Christmas, so I made something up along the lines of Life Day from Star Wars. At some point, some irate MOTU fan is going to come and throw at me a heavy tome of Eternia's lore and holidays, and to them I say, "This is Pee-Wee's Playhouse." 

12/15/24 second page

 

NOTES: 

1. The Magic Lasso was a fairly simple effect. It involved a length of parachute cord that had been cut and a length of copper wire inserted so that it could be posed and bent. The cord was slightly fluorescent, allowing it to “glow” under certain conditions…but not these conditions. The shots with it looked so underwhelming that I “painted” neon green over the cord, taking care to watch where the hands were. 

2. Notice the too-cute “MIAK BONE” in his mouth. Little Ernest Scared Stupid. If only I had an Ernest figurine I’d have included him.

3. And there you have it. The King of the Monsters, reduced to the punchline of a very funny extended joke. I spent a while wondering how long I would be able to keep the fruitcake thing going. It became an exercise in piling frustration upon frustration.

4. Osaka sticks close to the original Twelve Days here so you'll think she'll be done. I loved the idea of Dinah Shore going wildly off-script, not even noticing the mannequin in the Pee-Wee costume, so that stayed.

12/15/24

 

NOTES: 

1. And of course, the coward buggers off. There’s a blooper in the next few shots—Reba and the King are absent. Upon realizing it, I wrote an extra line for Cowboy Curtis, suggesting that the King had better find a place to hide. Presumably he’s hiding in the Picturephone, and she’s elsewhere.

2. Grace Jones. Something of a goddess of the 80s, with major starring roles in Conan the Barbarian and A View To A Kill, as well as the way-too-iconic “Little Drummer Boy” segment in the original Christmas Special. I ran into two most unfortunate problems: first, a musical number doesn’t work in still photographs; second, figurines of neither Grace Jones nor Cher exist on the market. 

Thus was born the Godzilla set-piece. It went through a few iterations, each having the same joke with the large packing crate. The earliest drafts had KISS being sent to the Playhouse, with the crate addressed to The Whyte House, the casino from the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever; the second iteration had the same, but with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on their “Coming Out of Their Shells” tour. KISS and Turtles alike were both prohibitively expensive for the relatively tiny amount of screen-time they were likely to get. 

3. If a Godzilla puppet could not be found cheaply enough, he would have become a generic dinosaur. The effect was fairly simple: erect the Playhouse on another stage while assembling first Count Floyd’s stage and then the Nativity on the primary stage; put a rag in the puppet head and mount it on a small doll-stand; and stick it in the Playhouse door, with dramatic red lighting to get some real dread. I should have had a close-up on Godzilla in hindsight, but this was to emphasize the terror of the Scooby-Doo gang.

12/14/24 second post

This came about because I bought an ALF figure at a toy show without having a reference for Pee-Wee. Initially, I was going to have ALF on a separate stage for when he’s small, but this would have been far too much to do if I wanted him to interact with something. I put the toy away for a few days and went to sit back and think, eventually hitting upon “Here’s what happens—he raids the fridge only to find a bunch of fruitcakes and a Mario mushroom. He eats the mushroom and grows to enormous size.”

The next three panels depict some last-minute inserts well after the Christmas decorations had been struck. These shots are angled, framed, and cropped to disguise my ropey redecoration job for those precise areas, and I just about get away with it. 

NOTES: