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: