I woke up with the Pee-Wee's Playhouse theme stuck in my head. On repeat. This seems crazy to me, since I haven't watched an episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse in over a decade. And I still don't know the words.

They say the only way to successfully extricate a catchy tune from your head is to listen to the song in its entirety. Let me give that a try.

That didn't do the trick. While Pee-Wee is on the brain, here's some Playhouse trivia:

  • The theme song was performed by Cyndi Lauper (lyrics here).
  • Pee-Wee's co-stars included Phil Hartman (Captain Carl), Laurence Fishburne (Cowboy Curtis), Sandra Bernhard (Rhonda the picturephone operator), Jimmy Smits (pictured to the right; repairman Johnny Wilson fixed the Secret Word-dispensing Conky 2000) and Natasha Lyonne (Opal; Natasha played Jessica in American Pie).
  • Rob Zombie was a production assistant.
  • Magic Johnson (below) appeared on the 1988 Christmas special.
  • The show won 22 Emmy Awards, and had an extravagant budget of $325,000 per episode.
  • Last month at Spike TV's Guys Choice Awards, for the first time in fifteen years, Paul Reubens broke out the gray suit (see a clip here).
  • A film adaptation is in the works: Pee-Wee's Playhouse: The Movie.
  • Read The 25 Best Playhouse Moments from ProgressiveBoink.com.

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