If you're like me you've been enjoying streaming Pee-Wee's Playhouse on Netflix, reliving your childhood and perhaps introducing it to your children. Memories are a tricky thing but unlike many shows of yesteryear Pee-Wee holds up wonderfully, and is just as fun and madcap as you remembered.
Streaming it is great for now but Shout! Factory's Blu-ray box set is incredible, not only offering up every single episode of the show (as well as the Christmas episode) but four hours of interviews with the cast and crew, ten brand new featurettes that cover every aspect of the making of the show, and of course, the assurance that your streaming service won't suddenly drop your beloved show from its slate and leave you alone and Playhouse-less.
The one thing stopping people is the price, which is a lot to take at $150, even if it does offer all 36 wonderful episodes. Fortunately today Amazon has the Blu-ray set on sale for half-price at $74.99, which is a whole lot easier to swallow.
You can pick it up RIGHT HERE in order to instantly make your life better, as welll as making the wait for the Judd Apatow-produced Pee-Wee movie easier. There's no word on how long this sale will last so if it interests you it might be best to get on it as soon as possible.
Here's the full list of bonus features for the Blu-ray
OVER 4 HOURS of brand-new interviews with the cast and crew, plus never-seen, behind-the-scenes footage—all part of TEN FEATURETTES, including:
- Building the Playhouse
- Opening the Playhouse
- Writing for the Playhouse
-The Look of the Playhouse
-Music of the Playhouse
-The Cast of the Playhouse
-Puppets of the Playhouse
-Animating the Playhouse
-A Very Merry Christmas Special
-Fans and Memorabilia of the Playhouse
-These featurettes include interviews with actors Laurence Fishburne (Cowboy Curtis), S. Epatha Merkerson (Reba the mail lady), Lynne Marie Stewart (Miss Yvonne) and John Paragon (Jambi the genie).
-Mark Mothersbaugh and Danny Elfman explain the music of the show and the Emmy award-winning production design team of Gary Panter, Wayne White and Ric Heitzman explain how the sets and puppets were imagined and produced.
-Animation Supervisor of all 5 seasons of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Prudence Fenton (Liquid Television) talks about all the types of animation used in the program and animators Peter Lord and David Sproxton (Wallace & Gromit) discuss their contributions.
-Ve Neill, the multi-Oscar winning make-up artist talks about designing the make-up ‘looks’. Two of the shows writers talk about how the scripts were created.
-Other cast and crew explain, in fascinating detail, stories from the production of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. If that weren’t enough, many of the shows puppeteers and voice artists are interviewed about how the puppet characters were brought to life.