Netflix’s anticipated, Judd Apatow-produced original Pee-wee movie — Pee-wee’s Big Holiday — now has a trailer, and one whose length will set the odd hearts of diehard Pee-wee fans all aflutter: at 2:25 minutes, there’s no shortage of guttural laughs, abnormally stretched facial expressions, silly walks and tense juxtapositions with the rest of adult American society. Though it’s been almost three decades since we last saw Pee-wee on the big screen, he still looks…exactly the same.
The trailer sees Pee-wee (Paul Reubens) leading a humdrum life, until Joe Manganiello comes along, shakes things up, and leads Pee-wee to set out on a cross-country adventure to New York. As /Film notes, Reubens and Manganiello are real-life buddies, and Reubens spoke to USA Today about deciding to have Manganiello play a key role in the film:
You want to not like [Manganiello] in a certain way. He’s like pretty close to being perfect. But he and his wife [Sofia Vergara] together are the dorkiest, nerdiest people. It’s just hilarious. People don’t get to see that side of him.
The film’s director, John Lee, also spoke to the publication about the decision to make this a road trip story, saying, “It always seems best when Pee-wee has very little plot — his movies probably have the least plot in the history of cinema. Why not embrace that?”
Watch the trailer for the movie, which will be streaming exclusively on Netflix on March 18, below: