Pee-wee's Big Comeback Looks Delightful in First Teaser Trailer

Pee-wee Herman has awoken.

In much the way that Star Wars: The Force Awakens channeled A New Hope to stoke fans’ nostalgia and enthusiasm, this first trailer for Paul Reubens’s long-awaited return, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, makes a whole lot of nods to 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. And, 28 years after Pee-wee’s last big screen outing, that’s not a bad thing at all.

The film, which returns Reubens as the inventive and joyful man-child in an ill-fitting suit, is being produced by long-time fan Judd Apatow, whose reverence for the original film is very obvious here. As with Big Adventure, the trailer for Big Holiday (which is directed by John Lee) opens on an alarm clock that sets off a Rube Goldberg machine of a wakeup call, with springs and strings and catapults that transport Pee-wee from his bed to the great big world outside.

We don’t see much more than that, but it’s enough to get us very, very excited for its March 18 release on Netflix.