Jambi (Pee-wee's Playhouse)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jambi is a character from Pee-wee's Playhouse. He appears solely as a disembodied head in a gilded box, and perks up whenever Pee-wee or anyone else says a sentence with the word "wish" in it, and says "Wish? Did somebody say wish?" Then after the supplicant makes his or her request, Jambi, with a humorously somber tone, asks the supplicant to repeat after him, in a magic spell in the ancient language of "Jambese", usually consisting of three phrases:

• "Mekka-lekka hi mekka hiney ho!"
• "Mekka-lekka hi mekka chahney ho!"
• "Mola-mekka chala mekka hola hayla hey!"

The supplicant often misspeaks the third phrase, but Jambi doesn't mind, as with a vigorous headshake reminiscent of characters from Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie he makes the wish come true complete with special-effect rings. He usually says, after granting the wish: "The wish is granted. Long live Jambi." Jambi was played by longtime friend of Paul Reubens and fellow Groundling, John Paragon. Paragon also served as writer and co-director (along with Reubens) on many episodes of Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Jambi's powers can grant many different kinds of wishes. He can even grant selfishly-made wishes (usually made by Pee-wee himself) or wishes wished by other Playhouse denizens like Globey and Miss Yvonne. One wish made by Pterri in Fire In the Playhouse even involved looking in on someone's dreams!

[edit] Cultural references

• In the Family Guy episode Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother? Peter turns his den into Pee-Wee's Playhouse and convinces an apparently reluctant Brian to play Jambi. Brian nearly makes it throught the initial "Jambese" phrase before breaking down in disgust:

  "Mekka-lekka hi mekka hiney—God I hate you so much."[1]

• In a Halloween cartoon, Halloween Potion-ma-jig, at Homestar Runner, the character Strong Bad dresses as Jambi while tossing TV's over a cliff. As Homestar leaps over the cliff to continue on his Halloween night journey, Strong Bad says to his pet The Cheat:

  "Mekka-lekka hi mekka The Cheat throw a TV on him! ...ho."

In the final scene, he is mistaken for Blanche from The Golden Girls and another character's hot mom, causing him to correct them and to say "Wish? Did somebody say 'wish?'" The King of Town exclaims, "I wish you'd dress up as something I could recognize!"

• "Mecca-lecca hi mecca hiney hiney ho!" and "Mecca-lecca hi mecca mecca cholly ho!" is used by "Weird Al" Yankovic in the parody song "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" (in place of the phrase "Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, cinco, seis" repeated twice in the source song, "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" by The Offspring).

• The second track of Tool's album 10,000 Days is titled "Jambi", and makes several references to "Wishing it all away."

• He also appeared as a combatant in the internet meme the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny

• John Paragon told Entertainment Weekly that he came up with the phrase "Hiney-Ho" after listening to Frank Zappa's song "Bobby Brown" which contains the line "I tell all the girls they can kiss my hiney".

• Jambi is mentioned in the song, "Elmo's Last Laugh" by Circus of Dead Squirrels. The line being: "No Pee Wee Herman jerking off when Jambi says 'Mekka-lekka hi mekka hiney ho!'"