Series Name | |
Season 5, Episode 3 | |
Air date | September 29, 1990 |
Written by | John Moody & Doug Cox |
Directed by | John Paragon & Paul Reubens |
Episode Guide | |
previous Mystery |
next Tango Time |
Front Page Pee-Wee is the 3rd episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse season 5.
Episode Plot[]
In this episode, Magic Screen shows a video on how ice cream is made. Pee-Wee looks at a drop of water (which he'd taken out of the fishtank) through a microscope.
Globey reads a newspaper. Pee-Wee gets an idea and decides to start a Playhouse newspaper; everyone will write articles for the paper with every news story having five W's and an H: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. After Pee-Wee interviews Miss Yvonne about why she's so beautiful and when she discovered that she was (including attempting to pry into some personal questions), everyone has finished completing their stories and did a great job, which they have a reward they deserve: trail mix for snack time!
Pee-Wee stays up all night typing it and when he finally finishes and falls into a deep sleep, Randy comes and changes all the articles in it to libel (as he had tried to shoot down the idea of having a Playhouse newspaper as being a stupid idea).
The next day, Pee-Wee has woken up and found out that the newly created newspaper is full of lies, including the front page, "Miss Yvonne Robs Playhouse", Jambi's horoscope column "Everyone gets 2 wishes today", and Globey's world report on headhunters in Iceland, thanks to Randy, who wakes up as well explaining to them. They tell him that he shouldn't make up lies about anyone or he won't have any friends. Pee-wee ends the episode by telling the viewers about the difference between lying and telling the truth, and learning an important lesson about friends today, and how.
Characters[]
- Pee Wee Herman
- Cowntess
- Flowers
- Conky
- Mr. Window
- Chandelier
- Chairry
- Dog Chair
- Clocky
- Pterri
- Mr. Kite
- Magic Screen
- Fish
- Globey
- Floory
- Randy
- Miss Yvonne
- The Food from the Refrigerator
- Jambi
- Dirty Dog
- Cool Cat
- Chicky Baby
Trivia[]
- Miss Yvonne visits in this episode.
- The Picture Phone is not used in this episode, not even to call up the actual Puppetland newspapers for assistance.
- No Penny or El Hombre in this episode.
- The newspaper that Globey reads is the Boston Globe.
- Conky contributes business news to the newspaper, Jambi does a horoscope column, Globey contributes a world report, and Miss Yvonne includes a fashion story.
- In the scene where everyone is sleeping and when Pee-Wee finishes typing the Playhouse Press newspaper, Conky is not shown sleeping in his usual spot near the fireplace.
- The word "how" is only said and screamed five times.
- Clocky says "Randy, how could you?" and no one screams even though the secret word is "how".
- The fan fiction Conky's Newest Feat makes reference to this episode when it is suggested by Billy Cranston (former Blue Power Ranger) that Conky gets a job as a floor trader at an investment firm called Stellarman Trading, with Magic Screen concurring by saying that he is a "whiz with numbers and calculations".
- Mark Mothersbaugh and The Residents are credited for composing this episode. Mothersbaugh did most of the score while The Residents did the music for the dance party at the end.
- The camera Pee-Wee uses to take the photos of Miss Yvonne is a vintage Brownie-Hawkeye camera from Kodak. Same camera used on Conky. Only difference is that there's no flashbulb attachment on it.
Home Videos[]
Transcript[]
See Transcript Here
Notes[]
- Secret word: how
- Connect-the-dots: none
- Snack: trail mix
- Game: none
- Wish: none (when Randy makes up the story that everyone will get two wishes)