Pee-wee's bike is at the Alamo, but not where you think
The Alamo announced last week it had acquired and would display the iconic bike from the 1985 Tim Burton film, 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.'
The San Antonio landmark plays a key role in the film chronicling Pee-wee Herman's search for his stolen bicycle when a devious fortuneteller tells him the bike is located in the Alamo's basement. Pee-wee, played by the late Paul Reubens, learns the Alamo doesn't have a basement, but hasn't stopped tourists from tongue-in-cheek inquiries.
'It's the most common question our guest services team hears is, 'Where is the basement at the Alamo?'' said Jonathan Huhn, senior communications director for the Alamo Trust, Inc., the nonprofit organization that oversees the Alamo's operations. 'It's an iconic piece of Alamo pop-culture history.'
The red-and-white bike — or as Pee-wee calls it in the movie, 'the best bike in the whole world" — is adorned with streamers on the handlebars and a lion emblem at the front. Huhn said it was acquired from an auction in Los Angeles.
The bike will serve as a centerpiece in the Mays Family Legacy Gallery, which examines the the Alamo's cultural impact, part of a new visitor center and museum slated to open in fall 2027. It will join other pop culture items including memorabilia from the 1960 movie about the Alamo that starred John Wayne.
'It's really a pop culture bridge" that will bring people to learn about the Alamo's history, Huhn said.
But before then, the bike will go on display for a limited time at the Ralston Family Collections Center. The Alamo also plans to host a free public screening of 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure' in Plaza de Valero. More details about dates for the display and the screening will be released later.
Unlike the Alamo, the building where Pee-wee's bike will eventually be located does have a basement. But, before you ask, that's not where the bike will be.
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Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'There's just no family like them': How Ozzy and 'The Osbournes' conquered reality TV
Greg Johnston, who produced all four seasons of the MTV show, remembers how the Prince of Darkness lit up reality TV in a new interview. Ozzy Osbourne will forever be remembered as the 'Prince of F***ing Darkness' — the bat-biting, Alamo-excreting wild child who fronted Black Sabbath before launching a solo career and his own music festival, Ozzfest. Not only was the British rocker, who died on July 22 at age 76, an inventor of heavy metal, winning five Grammys and a spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but he also carved out a second career as an unlikely pioneer of reality television after The Osbournes debuted on MTV in 2002. 'Nobody in their right mind who had any sort of public persona would [have said yes to doing the show],' The Osbournes executive producer Greg Johnston tells Yahoo. 'There was no social media at that time. Everybody who was a celebrity or in the public eye was very guarded.' Ozzy — along with his manager wife Sharon and two of their kids, Jack and Kelly — pulled back the curtain on the crazy train that was their life for the cameras. The foulmouthed family had just moved into a swanky Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion, made over with crucifixes everywhere, and chaos reigned supreme inside. Just not the typical rock star kind. There were dogs and cats running amok (often urinating on the furniture), Sharon launching a ham over the neighbor's wall, the kids fighting (sometimes over Christina Aguilera) and Ozzy — patriarch of the madness — perpetually looking confused and calling: 'Sharon!' The show, which became an instant hit, followed in the footsteps of MTV's Cribs, which peeked inside celebrity homes, and The Real World, where strangers lived together under constant surveillance. But The Osbournes was something else entirely. Raw and unpredictable, it offered a never-before-seen glimpse into the life of a celebrity family before reality TV became the norm. What emerged onscreen was a surprisingly loving household. They were relatable — navigating health issues, parenting challenges, substance abuse, animal love, neighbor disputes and dad struggling to use the remote control. 'Even though they were in Beverly Hills and he was this crazy rock star, he was a loving father trying to deal with things things that any other person watching might be dealing with,' says Johnston, who went on to direct the 2020 documentary Biography: The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne and produce the reality show Ozzy and Jack's World Detour, which ran from 2016 to 2018. ''F***, I can't work the remote either' or 'My cat got out and I couldn't get him back inside.' Just mundane and relatable situations they dealt with — and with a lot of love.' After Ozzy's death, we caught up with Johnston to talk about his time with the metal legend and reality TV icon. How came to be 'There was no expectation of a show,' Johnston says of the 2001 meet-and-greet at the Ivy in Santa Monica with MTV. The Osbournes had done an early episode of Cribs, which debuted in 2000, and there was discussion about what else was possible — like Kelly and Jack doing guest VJ spots or Ozzfest coverage. 'As you do, you talk about your lives when you're having lunch,' Johnston says. 'Sharon talked about hers — and everything that was going on — telling us about all the dogs they had and Ozzy waking up in the middle of the night and slipping on dog shit. She was just relaying [a story]. There was no pitch. Just sort of: 'Oh my god, I can't believe this happened last night. I'm so tired,' and it made us laugh. Every story that she told … we were dying.' They left the meeting thinking: 'Oh, my God, the real show is them. There should be cameras in their house,' Johnston says. 'But they thought, They won't let us do that. Why would anybody in their right mind allow TV cameras in their house? [Someone said], 'Just ask them.' We did — reluctantly — and Sharon said yes, not even sure what that meant.' It was an unexpected move for a celebrity family of that caliber. 'I don't even know why they wanted to do it,' Johnston says. 'It wasn't like today [how celebrities] want a show or use social media to promote whatever their brand is. Ozzy was already a celebrated rock star,' he says. 'There was no reason for them to do it. They just thought it was interesting and that their lives were interesting.' Starting with the kernel of an idea, Johnston met with friends who produced the Real World to find out more about the magic formula. Then he started meeting with Sharon and the family, just 'myself and a camera, interviewing them, getting to know them — and allowing them to get to know me.' He learned they were moving from a Malibu rental to Beverly Hills, 'And I thought: Oh, that would be a great place to start. We'll start shooting around the move and film for three weeks and see what happens. It was a test. 'We'll see if you like us. If this whole experiment is something that you hate.'' Nothing was off-limits 'We knew early on that we wanted to approach this like a documentary,' says Johnston, who produced all four seasons of the show, which ran from 2002 to 2005, and won an Emmy in 2002 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Program. 'We filmed pretty much 24/7. There was nothing scripted or planned. The best I could do was to ask Sharon: 'Do you know what you're doing this week? Are you traveling somewhere?' I would book a crew to follow that… If we tried to suggest anything to them, they would tell us, rightfully so, to f*** off.' A control room was set up in the Osbournes' guest quarters, with the crew climbing in and out of the window so as not to disrupt the family. Johnston says that they weren't sure they had a hit until it aired — and their three-week stay at Chez Osbourne turned into three years. What was the secret sauce? 'It was the family more than anything else,' Johnston says. 'Whatever they did in front of a camera and whatever they did off camera was the same. There wasn't this idea of playing for the camera. They were not trying to be funny, they just were. They dealt with everything with a sense of humor. And that's maybe that's an English thing too.' Plus, 'They … didn't give a shit what people thought. That also typified Ozzy throughout his career. He had lots of ups and downs — biting the head off the bat and all these crazy things — but he never backed down [or said]: 'Oh, I didn't do that.' He would say: 'I'm not proud of that' and 'Yes, I was drunk when I did that.' But he always maintained a level of working-class honesty that was endearing." While they were trying to make a comedy, real-life issues came up, including Sharon's colon cancer diagnosis in 2002 and Ozzy's ATV accident in 2003. 'It was very delicate,' Johnston says. 'We didn't want to exploit those things. We were with Ozzy in the U.K. when his quad bike [accident] happened. Thank God we were able to also call the ambulance… We would follow their lead. If they didn't want us to shoot something, we wouldn't, but I would say, 99% of the time that never happened. They always just sort of let us be, but we also had respect for them. We knew: All right, we've got this piece. They need a private moment, we're going to step out. With Sharon's cancer, we didn't want to encroach on that and her treatment, so we said we'd follow as much as they want us to. And Sharon wanted us to be there and tell the story of what she was going through. It was a delicate balance.' The relationship between the family and the crew was a deep one. 'We were an extension of their family — that's how they treated us,' he says. 'That was part of the magic too. If Thanksgiving or Christmas rolled around and we were filming, Sharon would bring in caterers to make sure that the whole crew had dinner. This was out of her pocket [before the show took off]... She also flew the whole crew to Vegas. Ozzy was doing a show, we were going to film it, and she was like: 'Let's get everybody. I'm gonna charter this plane.'' The cops are coming Of course, the show's greatest selling point was seeing Ozzy do anything — talking to the cats, working out, trying to have a heart-to-heart with Kelly and getting screamed at. Johnston's favorite scene was 'Ozzy chasing the cat in the backyard, because of the context. He had fallen, his leg was in a cast, and he was laid up at home. Sharon was upstairs or out. It goes to Ozzy's heart. He loved the animals. The cat had gotten out, and he was convinced that a coyote was going to get it. Even though he had the broken leg, he was going to [save it] — but every time he inched within reach of the cat, it moved two inches, and he's like: 'God damn it,' and yelling for Sharon. We didn't want to step in, even though we wanted to step in.' He recalls getting a call when Sharon threw the ham over the neighbor's wall, which stemmed from the neighbor's loud music. 'People, even friends or acquaintances, ask, 'How did you get her to throw the ham?' I'm like: 'Man, we didn't get her. That just happened.' … That night, a producer called, 'Greg, the cops are coming. What should I do?' … I said, 'Look, just keep rolling. You're not going to get arrested, but just film it.' The episode also saw Ozzy, who was sleeping through much of the action, wake up and roll a log over the fence. 'It was a feeble attempt,' Johnston says. 'It barely goes over the wall. It's not like he's hucking giant pieces of wood at the neighbors.' They used the footage, however, playing the log drop with a sound effect of glass breaking. Johnston's phone rang. 'God bless Ozzy,' he says. 'I never got calls from him about anything — because I didn't think he'd watch it — but he must have watched the cut of this episode or a promo. He said: 'Greg, you can't show that. They've got kids. I could have killed somebody.' I'm like, 'Ozzy, it's just a sound effect. You barely rolled the piece of wood over.' But he [insisted]: 'You can't show that.' He didn't want to hurt anybody.' Why magic could never be replicated The runaway success of the show was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that was never replicated. The Osbournes succeeded because MTV gave them the time, resources and creative freedom to truly document the family's real life. 'After The Osbournes, networks were like: 'Oh, we want something similar, but we want to know what's going to happen [ahead of time],'' Johnston says. 'That defeats the whole purpose of a great non-scripted show because real life is much better, funnier, interesting than anything a producer may come up with. And you want people to deal with their own life, their own consequences, to their own decisions. You don't want [a producer] making decisions for them.' Johnston adds that most networks today probably lack the patience, imagination and budget to do that kind of 24/7 filming. Plus, 'there's no other family like the Osbournes, quite honestly; I've worked on thousands of shows, and there's just no family like them.' At the center of it all, of course, was Ozzy. Asked what he'll remember most about the Osbourne patriarch, Johnston says his humility and humor. Despite his fame, Ozzy stayed grounded, often carrying a wad of $100 bills with a rubber band around them and handing them to people in need with zero fanfare. It was a habit rooted in his working-class upbringing and early years of having nothing. Johnston also recalls never laughing 'as much or as hard as I did' with the star, who was effortlessly funny through his timing, reactions and offhand remarks. 'The world is a much less magical, funny and interesting place without Ozzy in it,' Johnston says. 'We were all lucky to be in his orbit.' Solve the daily Crossword
Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Why Alamo's preshow is one of the last, best reasons to go to a movie theater
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, located in the new plastic heart of Wrigleyville, tucked alongside the crush of tourists and bachelorette parties and bars crawls and soulless developments, is not the first place I would I think I would want to arrive early. And yet, I have to, and get annoyed when I don't. Not because of the food they serve (not bad, not cheap). Or lines at the box office (nonexistent, that being a pre-pandemic concern). You must arrive early — 30 minutes before a movie's showtime — just for the Alamo preshow. The preshow is a reminder that 75% of the magic of going to a movie is waiting for the movie. It's a reminder of why you bothered to leave the house to watch a movie. I'm not talking about trailers. They show many, many trailers. But only after this preshow. (Whatever you came to see, as in most theaters, starts 20 or so minutes later than scheduled, preshow and all.) No, I'm talking about the 30 minutes of parodies and oddities, archival PSAs and music videos, dance party footage, old toy ads, history lessons, workout videos, Bollywood numbers, interview clips, film essays and whatever else Alamo cobbles together, usually tied to the theme of the movie you're about to see. If you went to the hilariously sadistic 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' you got Tom and Jerry cartoons and satiric educational training films. 'Barbie' got a Greta Gerwig appreciation and vintage toy commercials and clips of Ryan Gosling dancing as a child performer. Captain America movies get a slow-burn Ken Burns-inspired retelling of the history of Marvel's Captain America films. Recently, I saw the new 'Jurassic Park' and for 30 minutes before trailers, we got bizarro dinosaur films and a history of a Finnish metal band for children, Hevisaurus. Showing up half an hour before a movie begins is a lot to ask of an audience, especially one that would rather be streaming at home. But in my household, when we go to Alamo, arriving too early is ritual, and since I have an 8-year-old who needs to see every unnecessary live-action Disney retrofit, that preshow is often the only highlight. Alamo has been doing preshows since it began 18 years ago in Austin, Texas; as part of an expansion in 2023, it finally came to Chicago, was bought by Sony Pictures and now has a few dozen theaters across the country. It's not the only movie theater in town that knows how to warm-up an audience just sitting there, getting comfortable, fiddling with phones, eating most of the popcorn before the movie starts: A few blocks away, the Music Box Theatre has had a live organist for ages. These bonus flourishes seem minor, but they should be studied by larger chains that go sweaty touting their investments in laser projection and 4DX immersion and Dolby 3D soundscapes. A good preshow is so simple, low-tech and warm as to feel old-fashioned; it's an amuse-bouche that acknowledges, yes, you have a perfectly fine TV at home, maybe even a better sound system, but, as Nicole Kidman says in her famous preshow speech for AMC Theatres, Keeping the audience in an anticipatory spell as long as possible — that's the point. Tom Cruise, Kidman's ex-husband, knows this, too: Before 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,' he greets the audience in a short clip, thanking them for doing something so communal. Cruise, on a one-man impossible mission to save the theater experience even if it means hanging off a biplane, delivered a similar preshow before 'Top Gun: Maverick.' That these people go to such lengths in the service of framing another perfectly entertaining though forgettable night at the movies is what makes the preshow, often playing before the forgettable, so touching. I don't remember a lot about 'Final Reckoning,' for example, but I remember Alamo's exhaustive primer of 30 years of 'Mission: Impossible' plots and MacGuffins. Without a disassembly, I would have been as lost as I bet a lot of audiences were. It also got me more invested in the experience than I had expected. Like Cruise, the Alamo preshow knows the last thing we want in the streaming age is to leave home then feel nothing. Preshow entertainment, of course, goes way back. In the first days of cinema, movies themselves were preshow entertainment, a kind of intermission between live vaudeville acts. Once features were the main attraction, there were cartoons, newsreels, shorts. During the Great Depression, to lure people back, theater owners in the Midwest would have giveaway nights, awarding dinnerware and even pets. Disney wildlife shorts preceded Disney films. As drive-ins became popular in the 1950s, theaters focused on concession stands: That iconic 'Let's All Go to the Lobby' spot starring dancing hot dogs and popcorn bags may be the most famous preshow entertainment ever. For decades, the Showcase Cinemas chain was known for sending ushers into theaters, shaking cans and soliciting change for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. But gradually, advertising took over. Trailers were the whole preshow, alongside traditional TV ads, PSAs about theater policies, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, even lobbying campaigns from theater owners spooked by cable TV, warning of the death of 'free TV.' Laird Jimenez, the director of video content for Alamo, thinks of their preshow as continuing the older tradition, rarely practiced now, fed by the online libraries of archival footage and original video floods that the 21st century has been awash with. (Alamo gets permission, though does not pay, the creators of any material it pulls from YouTube or elsewhere.) But Jimenez also admits, they're leaving money, a lot of money, on the table in the service of a theater experience. '(The preshow) is probably not the economically best decision considering the labor hours it takes to make them and the fact it's screen time we could use — that's money we're losing, not running Chrysler ads.' A recent poll of theater owners, reported by Variety, and conducted by analyst Stephen Follows and the online trade publication Screendollars, found that more than 55% of movie exhibitors believe the movie theater, as an institution, has maybe 20 years left. And still, other than movie trailers, Alamo does not run advertising, as a company policy. Instead, as Rome burns, a team of three young guys in its Austin headquarters, with backgrounds in film school, film preservation, video stores and film festivals, pump out five to 10 30-minute preshows a week. There is some recycling, but almost every new movie that opens — as well as older repertoire films it shows, such as 'Jaws' and 'Mean Girls' — gets a new 30-minute preshow. 'A lot of original pieces we make simply come out of a passion we have for something,' said Ray Loyd, senior content producer. So, instead of car ads, you get a history of Black westerns, relayed by Black film scholars. Or an old TV spot with George Takei, in Sulu regalia, shilling for the Milwaukee County Transit System. Or a study of how 'Dune' influenced '70s progressive rock. Or director Edgar Wright explaining the nuances of car chases. Or an essay on questions left by 'Cats,' including: If cats have fur naturally, why do cats in the film 'Cats' wear fur coats? The recent 'Nosferatu' got an extensive history of the vampire genre. 'My favorite stuff is when we can show the breadth of everything in movies,' said Zane Gordon-Bouzard, an Alamo video producer. 'We have this platform and we can show people there is a rich world of not only cinema, but videos, old TV — all worth preserving and watching.' The result, sitting there waiting for your movie, is like having a friend show you this cool YouTube sketch, and now this insane commercial, and now this weird music video, then stopping to describe how 'Lilo & Stitch' fits into the rich tradition of knockoffs of 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.' Surprisingly, in this instance, with an audience, it's worth the ticket.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Mariah Carey reveals release date and title for 16th album
Mariah Carey kicked off the week with a major announcement for her lambs, the nickname for her fans. After weeks of hints, Carey announced the title and release date for her upcoming album in a post on Instagram Monday morning. The video shows Carey donning all black with sky-high patent leather stiletto boots, sauntering into the room with her long hair flowing in the wind. Behind her, a screen lights up, revealing the new title. In the background, a snippet from the album's title track can be heard. It's called 'Here For It All' and will be released on Sept. 26. Some of the singer/ songwriter's famous friends flooded the comment section with excitement. 'OH MY GOSH!!!! Another vocal bible to devour!! I'm so excited!' wrote Jordin Sparks. Supermodel Heidi Klum left three emojis: a crown, butterfly and heart. On Sunday, the 'Elusive Chanteuse' dropped a teaser on social media for the announcement that was dubbed #MC16. It was a video montage showing all of Carey's album covers, with each one numbered. When number 16 showed up, a blank white screen appeared. 'Greatest Of All Time!!!' Carey's ex-husband Nick Cannon wrote on the post. In June, Carey released the first single off the album called ' Type Dangerous.' The corresponding music video featured YouTube sensation MrBeast. 'Here For It All' is Carey's first album in seven years. Her last album was 2018's 'Caution.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
