I was **this** many years old when I learned that Pee-wee Herman isn’t the only on-screen character with a breakfast-making contraption. My sweetie Andy just re-watched the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and told me it also has a Rube Goldberg machine that makes breakfast! I didn’t know about that one, so I looked it up. And there it was. Then I wondered if there were more… and there are!
First, let’s start with Pee-wee’s, which might be the best known one in pop culture (it even gets ripped off in an episode of Family Guy). To get his machine moving, he lights a candle (which in turn burns through a string). Just don’t expect him to eat more than two bites of his elaborately made brekkie:
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
Same year. Doc Brown had a neglected one that burnt toast and served up Einstein’s dog food in Back to the Future:
Doc had a much better version for the third Back to the Future:
Casper the CGI ghost morphs his fist into an egg-scrambler and then a spatula as this film’s mini breakfast machine is doing its thing:
Then there’s this one. Robin Williams, playing Professor Philip Brainard in the late ’90s flick Flubber, kicks his off by slamming a giant button found on his bedside table:
https://youtu.be/mEnoaD4BLhE?t=60
Flubber (1997)
Ok, now to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Dick Van Dyke plays Caractacus Potts, an inventor, widower, and father of two. Most notably, his olde tyme Rube Goldberg has a sort-of Ferris wheel for the eggs:
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
And while it’s not a “breakfast” machine, it is definitely worth noting Charlie Chaplin’s “Eating Machine” from his 1936 film, Modern Times:
Are there more? Which ones did I miss?
screengrab via Pee-wee’s Big Adventure