The bike used in “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” by Found5dollar licensed under Creative Commons.

This past weekend, stuck in that space between gobbling up the latest news about the coronavirus and information overload, I decided to treat myself to a movie. Since I couldn’t go out to the movie, my choice had to at least transport me away from my current situation.

I stumbled upon “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” And while the movie is over 35 years old this year, it not only holds up as a comedic classic, but I forgot how urbanist the film was for its time. The mall where most of the community gathers is a walkable space with lots of green. Pee-wee constantly seems to be walking or biking into different areas. The places he seems to go seem to follow a grid of streets, especially in his hometown, and are easy to navigate. Glendale, California where a lot of the film was shot has lots of mixed-use spaces.

And even though it’s a road trip movie, Pee-wee uses all different forms of transit to get across the country. This movie could have easily been about driving across the country, instead, the film seems to pivot deliberately into less car-centric forms of transportation.

An urbanist journey for the ages

For those who haven’t watched the movie, I will try to sum it up without spoilers (but it was released in 1985, so if you haven’t watched it yet….). Pee-wee, played by Paul Reubens, is a man-child who makes his own rules. He lives in a house filled with gadgets, toys, and a dog named Speck that seems to understand his owner’s every word. And he’s somehow able to get dressed within seconds (and without a shower), survive off three bits of cereal, and have disposable income with any trace of a job.

But Pee-wee doesn’t care about employment, or dating, as evident from his coy avoidance of his bestie/suitor Dottie. His only concern is laughing, and his most prized possession is a bike. It’s a suped-up red Schwinn Western Flyer so special to him that he keeps it locked in a secret hanger behind some foliage. And he’s not the only bike enthusiast. Much of the neighborhood is either biking or walking to their destinations.

Pee-wee cruises around his neighborhood on that bike. He shares jokes and stunts with his cyclist friends. He loves that bike. So when it gets stolen, he risks leaving his friends and community to find it.

The journey to find his bike takes Pee-wee across the country, and it’s a multimodal jaunt. Sure, it starts off in a car but the lead character practices what I would argue is an early form of ride sharing-hitchhiking.

When that part of the trek falls short, Pee-wee uses the rails to get across several states eventually arriving in Texas. When disappointment strikes, he calls his friend Dottie and doesn’t ask for a plane or enough money to rent a car. He begs for bus fare to get home.

The third act of the film takes Pee-wee to Hollywood. There, he finds his beloved bike, only it’s on the set of a movie. He manages to swipe it back but his escape attempt mutates into a big chase scene between him and several security guards. The chase isn’t primarily with cars though, it’s mostly security guards hunkered down in electric powered go-karts.

In the finale, Pee-wee is back with his community, on his bike, and in a neighborhood where walking, biking and people are still the most important things in his life.

If viewed with 2020 goggles, the film does have challenges. Would I have hinted to Pee-wee that he may want to convert his basement to an accessory apartment instead of an empty unusable space? Sure. Are there a few culturally cringe worthy moments when watching this film as an adult? Yep.

The film did however manage to teleport me away from our current crisis for a couple of hours, and also remind me that urbanism is all around us, even in our pop culture, if we’re willing to look.

What films have you watched recently that are very urbanist?

George Kevin Jordan was GGWash's Editor-in-Chief. He is a proud resident of Hillcrest in DC's Ward 7. He was born and raised in Milwaukee and has written for many publications, most recently the AFRO and about HIV/AIDS issues for TheBody.com.