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mudwerks · 8 months

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(via 13: THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW / Reubens-Callner Productions - 1981)

Pee-Wee using the Hugo doll to hypnotize an audience member...

#THE PEE-WEE HERMAN SHOW #1981 #vintage #stage #HUGO #man of a thousand faces #toy

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nopefer-art-tu · 10 months

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I guess I've always been something of a weird 80's media fanatic, thanks in large part to both my mom and dad for sharing pieces of their own childhoods with me as a kid. Nothing is more evident of that fact than my introduction to Pee-wee's Playhouse when I was maybe six years old.

Although I was born 14 years too late to have ever enjoyed the show when it first came out, the nostalgia my dad had for it made it possible for me to grow up with Pee-wee as a staple of my own childhood. I will be forever grateful for all all the joyous memories I made sitting in front of the TV, laughing at those rented Netflix-disc episodes.

Hope you rest easy, Paul Reubens.

#pee-wee herman #pee wee herman #pee-wee's playhouse #pee wee's playhouse #the pee-wee herman show #the pee wee herman show #pee wee's big adventure #pee-wee's big adventure #paul reubens #my art

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abs0luteb4stard · 10 months

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The Pee-Wee Herman Show was a more risque mature HBO comedy Special in 1981 before the character was modified for children in the mid-late 80s.

A lot more adult innuendo and dirty humor.

I find that almost everyone I talk to had no idea about this!

I recommend it very much!

#pee wee herman #the pee-wee Herman Show #hbo #PAUL REUBENS #Phil Hartman #John Paragon #Lynne Marie Stewart #Tito Larriva #Edie McClurg #Youtube

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lisamarie-vee · 1 year

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#the pee-wee herman show #groundling theatre #gary panter #illustration #printmaking #1980s #eyes #television

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erstwhile-punk-guerito · 10 months

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#The Pee-wee Herman Show #Paul Reubens #Phil Hartman #John Paragon #Lynne Marie Stewart #Tito Larriva #Edie McClurg #Marty Callner #1981

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pinkearbuds · 21 days

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#pee wee #pee wee herman #the pee-wee herman show

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greensparty · 10 months

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RIP Paul Reubens 1952-2023

I've been out sick this past week, so less time blogging. I briefly wrote about the passing of comic genius and gifted actor Paul Reubens at the age of 70, but here is my expanded remembrance.

Reubens

Paul Reubens came up in the 1970s comedy scene in L.A. as a member of the The Groundlings. He and fellow Groundling, the late great Phil Hartman, worked on a lot of characters together. In 1978, Reubens created the character of Pee-Wee Herman, a man-child dressed in a suit and bowtie. It slowly started to catch on and soon enough he got an early HBO special in 1981's The Pee-Wee Herman Show. I rented it years later and it was wildly entertaining. Reubens himself had small roles in The Blues Brothers, an episode of Mork & Mindy, Cheech & Chong movies, and more.

Hartman and Reubens on Pee-Wee's Playhouse

In the 80s, there were a lot of comedians who created characters who were celebrities in and of themselves and the comedian was rarely seen outside of that character, i.e. Cassandra Peterson (a fellow Groundling of Reubens) as Elvira or Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell. Pee-Wee Herman was among the biggest of those comedic characters. When he appeared on MTV, hosted SNL, or was a guest on talk shows, it was Pee-Wee Herman who was the guest, not Reubens. But the character of Pee-Wee was so engaging: he was childish and but was wildly funny with physical comedy, and there was a real heart to him and had a moral compass that was admirable (i.e. running into a burning pet shop to save all of the animals). The 1980s was an era of comedians who had a unique voice literally and figuratively, i.e. Sam Kinison, Bobcat Goldthwaite, Emo Phillips, Gilbert Gottfried, and Judy Tenuta just to name a few. But Reubens was possibly the most unique voice of all of them.

Reubens in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

In Summer 1985, my Dad took me to the movies to see Pee-wee's Big Adventure , which was a true meeting of the minds of young director Tim Burton making his debut and Reubens. The plot was so simple, but yet it worked: Pee-Wee's bike gets stolen so he has to go across country to find it and along the way there's loads of hijinks and LOL scenes. To this day visitors of the Alamo ask where the basement is! The film is highly quotable and it's also a movie that everyone I knew my age also knew and loved. In the years that followed Pee-Wee had cameos in a number of films including Back to the Beach, Moonwalker, and Flight of the Navigator, which technically wasn't Pee-Wee it was Paul under the pseudonym Paul Mall, but the voice was obviously Pee-Wee. The follow-up movie was Big Top Pee-wee, in which Pee-Wee has a small farm and the circus comes to town, shaking up his relationship. The movie wasn't as bad as a lot of people thought, but it lacked the pure artifice of the last movie. I think people also didn't want to see a movie where Pee-Wee cheats on his fiancee for a acrobat...just not what you expect from a Pee-Wee movie and Tim Burton not directing hurt.

Pee-Wee and friends

But the Pee-Wee character really shined on TV, in the Saturday morning kids' show Pee-wee's Playhouse (CBS 1986-1991). I was still of the age of loving Saturday morning cartoons and shows when it premiered and it was loads of fun: Pee-Wee's wacky and fun playhouse surrounded with various friends, screaming the secret word, being imaginative, and learning from each other was worth tuning in each week. I loved the show and in 1988, I even began buying some episodes as they were released on VHS. I also began buying the toys, talking doll and memorabilia (sometime in the mid-00s I sold my collection to a friend). The genius in the show was that it was super funny, but without being hurtful or mean-spirited. So many talents got their start on the show too: Lawrence Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis, Natasha Lyonne, and behind the scenes you had music by Mark Mothersbaugh, and before-they-were-famous production assistants John Singleton and Rob Zombie. The series became so popular that in 1988, they even did a primetime special Christmas at Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Pee-Wee's Playhouse toys I had as a kid

It's impossible to talk about Reubens without his controversies and run-ins with the law. In 1991, he was arrested for indecent exposure during an undercover police raid of an adult theater in Sarasota, FL. CBS pulled the remaining reruns of Playhouse, toys were pulled from Toys R Us, his voice was pulled from rides at Disney. He was cancelled way before there was cancel culture. True, he was a children's show host on TV at that time. But he wasn't in character or costume and he was inappropriate in, well, an inappropriate place...which in a strange way made it kind of appropriate given the inappropriate location. Whatever your opinion is, he got a raw deal. As a TV host and on the set of his show, he was very good with kids and had really positive lessons. What he did was private and separate from the Pee-Wee character. But Reubens had the last laugh when he presented the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards to uproarious applause and asked "heard any good jokes lately?".

Denis Leary, Ted Demme and Reubens at the Blow premiere in 2001

Reubens did slowly return in some supporting roles separate from Pee-Wee and many of them were scene-stealers: as Penguin's father in Batman Returns, as a vampire in the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer (one of the greatest vampire deaths ever), the voice of Lock in The Nightmare Before Christmas, as Spleen in the underrated Mystery Men, and as Derek Foreal in Ted Demme's Blow. As Derek, he was the comic relief in the crime biopic, but he also showed off his dramatic skills too. A few years prior to the 2001 release, I was an intern at Demme’s production company Spanky Pictures and the book it was based on was in development. I was blown away by Reubens' performance when I saw the movie.

In 2002 as Reubens' second act was in full swing, another arrest was made, this time it was child pornography charges. Reubens had a apparently purchased bulk collectible magazines of kitsch muscle magazines from the 1920s and some he didn't order were slipped in. I am not defending him, but I think there is an extreme difference between this type of thing and actual criminals like Kevin Spacey or R. Kelly. In 2004, the charges were dropped in exchange for a lesser obscenity charge.

Apatow and Reubens

In the years that followed, Reubens continued to have some small supporting roles including The Raconteurs' music video for "Steady as She Goes", as well as episodes of 30 Rock and Portlandia. Then something happened in the 2010s: Pee-Wee came back! First in some Funny or Die videos Pee-Wee Gets an iPad! and Pee-wee Goes to Sturgis. He, then, did a Pee-Wee live show in L.A. and then Broadway and one of the last ones became the live HBO special The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway. There was also the funny SNL sketch with Andy Samberg where they got drunk on the town together. Interest in Pee-Wee continued and in 2016, there was the Netflix special Pee-wee's Big Holiday, produced by Judd Apatow. I can't say that was bad, but the bar was quite high and it was hard to live up to the nostalgia.

Reubens himself was a comic genius. That's a term I rarely use, but it is fitting for him. He understood comedy and in the last week people who knew comedy have praised him. He had a lot to do with my early interest in comedy. His films, TV and wacky (almost drug-induced) style will be remembered. Between MTV News shutting down and the deaths of Andy Rourke of The Smiths, Sinead O'Connor and now Paul Reubens it is a bad year for nostalgic Gen-Xers like me. But fortunately Reubens' work will live on!

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90s-2000s-barbie · 10 months

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Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (1986 - 1990)

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mordicaifeed · 8 months

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Pee-Wee Herman & Elvira on The Tonight Show.

#Pee-Wee Herman #Elvira #joan rivers #cassandra peterson #paul reubens #the tonight show #tonight show

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thatmemeguy89 · 4 months

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Fuck your couch

#memesdaily #funny memes #spicy memes #meme lord #memedaddy #meme page #dankest memes #meme #dank memes #memes #pee wee herman #fuck your couch #dave chappelle #rick james #I’m Rick James bitch #chappelle's show

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lionfloss · 1 year

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Pee-Wee's Playhouse

#im sorry but this show fucked #and i saw that gif yesterday🥺#coolest set ever #pee wee's playhouse #paul reubens #pee wee herman #set design #tv shows #colorful #vibrant

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derek-foreal · 9 months

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#paul reubens #you don't know jack #game shows #2001 #2000s #pee wee herman #peewee herman #pee wee #video #txt

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demifiendrsa · 10 months

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American actor and comedian Paul Reubens has passed away at age 70 due to cancer.

Reubens is best known for his Pee-Wee Herman character. He created the character when he joined the Los Angeles-based improvisational comedy team the Groundlings in 1977. The Pee-Wee Herman character made his first TV debut on The Dating Game with three episodes and film debut with Cheech and Chong's Next Movie in a cameo role. In 1980, He created the stage show focused on his character called The Pee-wee Herman Show, which played for five sellout months and led to HBO tapping one of the shows and airing it as a special in 1981. The success of The Pee-wee Herman Show prompted several movies and TV shows on the character such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Pee-wee's Playhouse. Reubens also committed to the character in his interviews, talk show bookings, and public appearances.

Some of Paul Reubens other live-action film roles include Mystery Men and Blow. Some of his voice roles include Lock in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pavel in Tron: Uprising, Bat-Mite in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Reuben in Chowder, and RX-24 (Rex) in Disneyland's Star Tours attraction.