Just Another Day is the fifth episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
"EWW! BAKED SNAKES! TAKE IT BACK!"
Episode Plot[]
The secret word for this episode is "back". Pee-wee plays with his magic glasses. Cowboy Curtis teaches Pee-wee square dancing and Pee-wee teaches Cowboy Curtis pogo dancing (a dance popular in the 1980s, the decade in which the show was filmed). They then have snack time cowboy-style, where Curtis reveals that hot dogs, hamburgers, beans and chili peppers have to be slow-cooked over an open fire. Pee-wee understandably complains that it will take too long. When Cowboy Curtis says he wishes that the snack was prepared immediately, Jambi appears. Pee-wee tells him Curtis's wish of cowboy-style snacks, and Jambi served them both cowboy-style snacks. Pee-wee then shows us the inside of his mind. Pee-wee and Conky play checkers, and Conky wins. The playhouse has a rhythm band with pots and pans. After Reba stops the band, Pee-wee learns how the post office (UPS, Fed-Ex, etc.) works. The episode ends when Pee-wee lip-synchs to a goodbye song on a record - Eddy Howard's "So Long For Now" - before leaving the playhouse on his scooter.
Characters[]
- Pee Wee Herman
- Ants
- Magic Screen
- Conky
- Mr. Kite
- Magic Glasses
- Chairry
- Cowboy Curtis
- Globey
- The Dinosaur Family
- Dog Chair
- Jambi
- Flowers
- Cowntess
- Dirty Dog
- Cool Cat
- Chicky Baby
- Mr. Window
- Dixie
- The King of Cartoons
- Knucklehead
- Randy
- Reba
- Door-to-Door Salesman
- Penny
Trivia[]
- Cowboy Curtis and Reba visit in this episode.
- Dixie has a new yellow jacket in this episode. Her name is written on the back of it, as well as a picture of herself.
- It is revealed in this episode that Conky can play checkers.
- Pee-wee's favorite dance is the pogo, a dance popularized in the 1980s.
- Feature Cartoon: Old Mother Hubbard (1935).
- The secret word was said and screamed at 9 times, tied with Beauty Makeover.
- The first episode ever in which Chairry didn't say "Gotcha," though in almost every episode, he landed on her, after leaping out of the magic screen. For instance, when Pee-wee comes out of Magic Screen, he lands on the floor; Chairry says "safe" like a baseball umpire. In direct contrast of this episode, she would not say "Gotcha" again, after landing on Chairry, in The Cowboy and the Cowntess, because she was swimming with Tito.
- This is the first episode where Pee-wee asked how's everything with the ants. This later becomes stock footage for a scene in Ants in Your Pants.
- This is the first episode ever to have a Cowboy and/or Country-Western theme. The following episodes would later be depicted of the same theme: Tons of Fun and the last one: Camping Out.
- Reba says she has to "get back" to the office. Nobody screams, even though the episode's secret word is "back".
- For the first time in this episode, the King of Cartoons says something else, other than saying the trademark catchphrase, "Let the Cartoon Begin". He would later say a different phrase, before beginning a cartoon, in Beauty Makeover.
- This is the first time in this episode in which Pee-wee learned how to become a cowboy, by square dancing. He would later learn how to become a cowboy in Camping Out, by riding a horse and camping outside.
- George McGrath would improvise dialogue for the educational films shown by Magic Screen to the stock footage presented at Mark Mothersbaugh's studio in Santa Monica, California. This was his first narration, in this episode, asking "Where the Mail Comes From?"
- This is the only episode in which Jambi joked about giving Pee-wee and Cowboy Curtis, baked snakes, when he switched that to steak and baked beans, a real cowboy food.
- This is the second episode in which Mr. Window does not announce who's coming to the playhouse, except for Dixie and the King of Cartoons. He first didn't announce the people's name in the pilot episode Ice Cream Soup.
- First episode in which Pee-wee was seen in clay animation, only to go inside his nose, past his brain. He would later appear in different variations of clay animation in Beauty Makeover, where he was going into outer space, and in School, where (while teaching with the playhouse gang), he was in the magic screen talking about Christopher Columbus and the Declaration of Independence.
- During snacktime, the Playhouse denizens sing Playhouse on the Range (to the tune of Home on the Range). The lyrics go like this:
- Playhouse, playhouse on the range
- Where things are a little bit strange
- Where often is heard the secret word
- Cowntess: And the cows are all happy all day
- During the song, we learn that Conky can play the guitar.
- This episode premiered May 1, 2020 on T.H.E. Television Network.
- The first episode not to have Miss Yvonne since her debut appearance.
Notes[]
- Secret word: back
- Connect-the-dots: Jungle Gym (and slide)
- Snack: Cowboy-style food
- Wish: Snack was done being cooked cowboy-style.
- The title of this episode also appears in other TV and online listings as "Cowboy Fun."