I’ve never once driven past the kitschy dinosaur statues on the side of Interstate 10 in Cabazon without thinking of Pee-wee Herman.
Or seen a vintage red Schwinn DX bicycle without picturing the mischievous man-child character created by actor Paul Reubens.
Or heard the classic instrumental “Tequila” without picturing Pee-wee in his white loafers dancing on a bar top to the cheers of burly bikers.
Reubens, who created the Pee-wee Herman character as part of the Groundlings comedy troupe in Los Angeles in the late ’70s, died Sunday, July 30, and the world is a less colorful, funny, weird, and wonderful place for his passing.
But Pee-wee Herman will never really die. With the work Reubens’ created – from the impishly, inappropriately Pee-wee of his birth at the Groundlings comedy troupe in the late ’70s to the more mainstream, and slightly better behaved, Pee-wee of movies such as “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and five seasons of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” – we’ll always have Pee-wee Herman to make us laugh.
I wasn’t in Southern California when Reubens created Pee-wee at the Groundlings with help from the late Phil Hartman. And I don’t remember watching the “Pee-wee Herman Show” on HBO when that adaptation of his theatrical show debuted in 1980.
For me, as for many of you, it was “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” the 1985 Tim Burton movie, that made me a fan even before the credits had rolled in the theater. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone you knew was doing that weird Pee-wee laugh – heh-HEH! Ha-ha. Heh! – or rattling off its catchphrases: “I know you are but what am I?” was amusingly, then annoyingly everywhere that summer.
What made the character so wonderful was that Pee-wee wasn’t just one thing or the other, neither boy nor man, but something strangely in-between. The character, and the Emmy Award-winning “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” which followed a year later, appealed to kids and adults alike, both of them drawn to Pee-wee for the same or different reasons.
Many Friday nights in the late ’80s, I stood in front of the VCR before bed to make sure it was set to record “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” the following morning. And I wasn’t the only 20-something I knew doing this, either.
There was something appealingly fun about starting your Saturday morning, or afternoon, depending on how the previous night ended up, with coffee and a half-hour with Pee-wee and such “Playhouse” friends as Conky the Robot, Chairry the chair, Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvonne, and more.
In addition to Pee-wee, the human characters included a variety of well-known faces: Phil Hartman played Captain Carl, Laurence Fishburne was Cowboy Curtis, S. Epatha Merkerson played Reba the Mail Lady, and child actor Natasha Lyonne was one of the kids in the Playhouse Gang.
After the 1988 movie “Big Top Pee-wee” and five seasons of the show, Reubens’ career as Pee-wee cratered after his arrest for indecent exposure in a Florida adult theater. He hung up his gray plaid suit and red bowtie, and shoved his white loafers to the back of the closet, eventually coming back for roles on TV series such as “Murphy Brown,” for which he earned an Emmy nomination, among many others.
It was always fun to spot Reubens out of his Pee-wee guise in other memorable roles – for me, those included guest spots on shows such as “30 Rock,” “Gotham,” or “What We Do in the Shadows.”
And eventually, two decades after Pee-wee went away, Reubens brought him back, reviving the character first for a live show that played theaters such as Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles in 2010, and eventually a third movie, “Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday,” on Netflix in 2016.
“Good morning, boys and girls!” Pee-wee shouted as he bounded onto the Club Nokia stage just as he had those 45 episodes of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” “Good morning, Pee-wee!” we hollered back.
It was magical to witness Pee-wee’s return to the stage for an audience filled mostly with people who were young adults like me during his ’80s heyday. (The show later moved to Broadway, and was turned into an Emmy-nominated HBO special.)
The secret word was “fun,” which as anyone who ever watched “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” remembers is your cue to scream any time that word is spoken. We screamed a lot that night, not just for the frequent appearances of the word but because for an hour or two we got to relive a bit of our childhoods, no matter how old we were when that period arrived.
Today is a sad one. Reubens posthumously apologized on his Instagram page for keeping his six-year fight with cancer private, but there’s no need to apologize, it was his struggle to deal with as he saw fit.
“I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters,” he continued. “I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”
Farewell, Paul Reubens, and thank you for all the times you made us laugh, and long live Pee-wee Herman.
