Bye, Pee-Wee

I know you're dead, but what am I?

Paul Reubens, AKA Pee-Wee Herman, R.I.P. He was 70, going on 7.

I loved Pee-wee’s Big Adventure when it came out, and I was a freshman in college when Pee-wee’s Playhouse premiered. Let’s just say it was perfect timing. Little kids could enjoy the show, and did, but it was really for the big kids. It was bizarre and stupid and silly, and it made me feel like a little tyke sitting cross-legged on the floor eating Rice Krispies again.

Then there was that, er, unfortunate bit of business at the, um, adults-only cinema. Paul Reubens became an unwelcome houseguest at Pee-Wee’s Playhouse…

I remember thinking at the time that he looked like he’d started a metal band. Something creepy and industrial, like Ministry or NIN.

And of course, the whole thing shattered the illusion of perpetual childhood that had made him famous. Pee-wee’s Playhouse had already wrapped up production a few months before, but it was still in reruns and was immediately cancelled. Even if his arrest hadn’t derailed his career the way it did, things never would have been the same.

But he still loved that character, and people still loved him. I’ll never forget this moment:

In my memory, that was a long time after his arrest. But according to Google, it was only two months later. Those two months really sucked for him, though. He was a punchline every night on late-night TV. Back when I still watched late-night TV.

Jim Carrey even ripped on him:

In those proto-Internet days, America’s outrage culture was limited to TV and newspapers and radio, but he was still swept up in a media frenzy. Every single day, he was mocked and/or scolded across the nation. I can’t even imagine how humiliating it must have been for him. And for a while, it looked like it had destroyed everything he’d worked for.

That MTV appearance was a big deal in the history of public shaming in America, because Pee-wee marched right up to the mic and said: Who cares?

He made a joke of the whole thing, and the crowd laughed along with it. It was just a stupid thing he did, and, y’know, whatever. Take a picture, it’ll last longer. Heh-heh!

I don’t know if Reubens ever ended up talking about the incident in interviews, but in that moment in September 1991, just showing up was enough. The unspoken message was: I know I screwed up, and I’ll take my lumps for it. You can do whatever you want to me, but I’m not going to run and hide. That’s a powerful thing.

He never hit that level of fame again, but he kept working. Kept hanging in there. Forged a new, more low-key career as a weirdo character actor.

A few years later he reunited with his Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure co-star Diane Salinger to play the Penguin’s parents in Batman Returns:

It says here on his IMDb page that he even showed up on five episodes of The Blacklist. I never watched that show, but hey, it put Mr. T cereal on his table. Ain’t no shame in that.

And 25 years after his sad downfall, he was finally able to bring Pee-wee back:

If I’m honest, I didn’t really like the third movie that much. They tried to do a sort of reboot/remake, but it just didn’t have that same spark of lunacy as the first two. Well, the first one.

And if it was weird in the late ‘80s to watch a 35-year-old twerp spazzing out like a sugar-addled JFK-era third-grader, it was even weirder to watch the same shtick being done by a sixtysomething. The CGI de-aging was strange and unnerving. Which is on-brand for Pee-wee, I guess, but…

But still, it was nice to see him back in that ridiculous suit, running around like a mental patient. You’re only young once, but you can be immature till the day you die.

In the repugnant cancel culture our society has curdled into, it was good to see people forgive him and just enjoy his silliness. It ended up becoming a nice bookend to the whole Pee-wee phenomenon.

Not long after that, apparently, Reubens got his cancer diagnosis. Much like the late great Norm Macdonald, he kept it to himself for years, right until the very end. Whatever his reasons, I can’t blame him for keeping it to himself.

I just wish he’d had more time. Don’t we all?

Bye, Pee-wee. Thanks for the laughs.

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Did you like Pee-wee? Thought Pee-wee was annoying? Never cared one way or another about Pee-wee? Regardless, you gotta admit it’s fun to say “Pee-wee.”