Pee-wee Herman Part 1 with Jamie Loftus

What’s today’s secret word? Paul Reubens spent years bringing to life one of America’s most beloved characters, Pee-wee Herman, an icon of joy for weirdos of all ages. In the first of this two part series, Pee-wee superfan-turned-historian Jamie Loftus lets us into the playhouse for a journey through Paul’s early life and art school days, his collaborations and relationships, and the beginnings of a kind of fame that would blur the line between character and creator. More about Jamie Loftus: https://www.jamieloftus.xyz/ Support You're Wrong About: Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchWhere else to find us: Sarah's other show, You Are Good Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Marshall?

  You gotta get weirder to survive.

• 0:13Sarah Marshall?

  Welcome to You Wrong About. Today, we are talking about Pee-wee Herman, the man, the clown, the legend. And we're also talking about Paul Reubens, the real man behind the character, and what it means to be a person who lives as a character and then has to figure out how to be real. And we are talking about the story with podcast legend herself, Jamie Loftus, the host of Sixteenth Minute of the Bechdel Cast of My Year in Mensa, so many other shows that you know and love, and if you don't love them yet, you will very soon. Jamie has also appeared on this

• 0:54Sarah Marshall?

  very show in some of my favorite episodes, talking about everything from ghost hunting with Ed and Lorraine Warren, to the Amityville Horror, to Beanie Babies, to Bonnie and Clyde. And I loved getting deep into this topic with her, so deep that this is going to be a two-parter episode. So, thank you for joining us for part one, and we cannot wait to see you again in part two. Jamie Loftus is also the author of Raw Dog, The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, and it's out now in paperback, so please check it out. It will go perfectly with your summer travels, and it packs up real nice. Thank you so much for listening and for being

• 1:36Sarah Marshall?

  here and for getting through with us. We are late with our June bonus episode for those of us who listen over on Patreon and Apple Plus subscriptions, because I am off stocking Bigfoot and other cryptids, not in the woods, but in a book, which is almost as fun. So, we're going to have two bonus episodes for you in July, and I can't wait to share them with you. For many of us, it's summer, it's hot, keep hydrating, keep getting through it. We are so happy you're here. Here's your episode.

• 2:11Sarah Marshall?

  Welcome to You're Wrong About, the show where we talk about maligned women with maligned women. And with me today is the queen of clownery and brilliance and traveling America for a hot dog and every good thing in life, Jamie Loftus.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 2:32Sarah Marshall?

  How's that for an intro?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I loved that. That felt great. I want, I want to be queen clown.

• 2:40Sarah Marshall?

  You are a queen clown. Exactly.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  That's the idea. That's the whole goal. Sometimes I get sidetracked, but that is the end goal.

• 2:47Sarah Marshall?

  And sometimes we gotta send you in.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Sometimes I have to read a book and sometimes even two or three. But clowns can read books. That's actually maybe my determination. Clowns don't just have to get topless on stage. They can and they should, but they can read books too. And a lot of us do.

• 3:02Sarah Marshall?

  But they gotta sit in the trailer.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  They do. They have to, they have to sit in it. That's a part of it.

• 3:07Sarah Marshall?

  Do you find it worrying that in podcasts?

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:10Sarah Marshall?

  Like, I think we're both, we're both great and smart and we make wonderful observations about the world. And I truly believe that we say great things that people didn't think of. But also, it's so strange to do a show where people are like, it's, it's so deeply researched. It's just amazing. And you're like, well, I read one to three books. I mean, that is like, it did take some time for me, but is that amazing? It shouldn't be, should it?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I do think it's interesting that there's, I mean, it's part of why one of my shows is slowing down a little bit, because I would like to actually earn that compliment.

• 3:49Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, it feels much better when you're like, fuck yeah, I did ruin my life for this topic. Thank you.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, yeah. And I have been able to do that for certain topics, but especially, it's just tricky when you're, I feel like the bar for deep research is really not good. Like, there's times I've been complimented for my research that I'm like, well, I did research, but you know, I only had four days to put everything together. So I feel certain that there are things I missed. People dedicate their Whole careers to stuff like this. And it's just research is just is so undervalued, which is why I think people call it deep dives now instead of

• 4:27Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Something else, because I think deep dives, which I have done, and I know we've both, we've both done deep dive style research and like actual like months long research. And a deep dive is like newspapers.com and a lot of Googling.

• 4:45Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Which is what this episode is brought to you by.

• 4:48Sarah Marshall?

  And yeah, and there's like, I think different levels of it. And if you do them ethically, then like they all are good.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56Sarah Marshall?

  But there is like a limit to how much you can learn just in a certain amount of time of thinking about something. And I feel like I love the topics that we can like descend into quickly and like, learn a lot about and briefly kind of have this fling with. And then there are the ones where it really sort of lodges in your soul. I love experiencing all those different levels, but I also feel sometimes, I guess I've just been thinking about this politically, when you've like really put like a good four days in and people are like, wow, incredible. And you're like, no, this should be like a nice medium. You're like, wow, that's really nice. But it's not like it's like someone's life's work or something.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  I think that that's, that's the thing is like, and why there has been an understandable like emphasis on citing sources on deep dive style work, because you didn't do like it's, it's you, even if you're ethically presenting it.

• 5:47Sarah Marshall?

  Cause you're sort of joining a conversation with all these other people at a cocktail party and you're like, hi, what a fun party.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Which is fine. I mean, it's like, I've had research cited by content that is made faster, but as long as it's cited, you know, it's like, I'm, I'm not opposed to it getting out there. It's like, you don't have to be precious about it. It's just, it's weird. I do think it's like connected to this like content churn.

• 6:09Sarah Marshall?

  I guess the sheer amount of misinformation, I think, where like, I don't know, it's, I don't know why I'm starting this off with my, my little anxieties, except that, I don't know, it's just, it's a safe space, this conversation. But I feel like I also get great inflated by how much misinformation and just people profiting by lying are out there where people are like, it's so nice when you don't lie to me on purpose. And I'm like, Yeah, but.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Like, you shouldn't thank me for that. I know, like, that's the least we can do.

• 6:38Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Although I said that I did my four days for this, but also this is, I've been preparing my whole life.

• 6:46Sarah Marshall?

  This is a long term love.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Because I think I pitched this episode to you years ago.

• 6:50Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  But there was not really enough information to actually properly put it together until quite recently.

• 6:59Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, and this is one of those things where just your time living with an interest also goes into what you learn when the facts come out, where you have something to fit them into.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a solid foundation of information. And then because of the recent Matt Wolfe documentary, P E S himself, there's so much more information available that a lot of people, I think a lot of fans thought would never be available. So there's so much to talk about.

• 7:23Sarah Marshall?

  That's fantastic because I hadn't watched it. I guess no people were recommending it, but.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:28Sarah Marshall?

  People recommend lots of things. And so the idea that.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  It's terrific, yeah.

• 7:32Sarah Marshall?

  All this new information is so exciting to me. And I also feel like, I don't know, this topic is maybe causing me to be a little bit reflective on the journey of the show, because when I started making it with Michael Hobbs in 2018, I had this feeling of like, and I look back and I'm like, Sarah, you were 30 years old. Why did you think that? But being like, wow, it's so great that we have this technology and information travels faster now. And when there's a crazy rumor now, it'll be easier to debunk it because we can spread the truth around to counteract misinformation. Because people aren't getting all their facts from, you know, hard copy and tabloids. And the age of information is here. Hurrah. And like, I don't think that's true at all.

• 8:13Sarah Marshall?

  I don't know what's true exactly, but I, I think that this is a topic where basically to my understanding, like, the big story always implicitly around Pee Wee Herman is that Paul Reubens' career was like absolutely ruined for reasons that were consistently misreported around the time that they happened and for years after, and sort of like misrumored. And in that way, I do group him with like all the beloved maligned women and the stained glass of the show, you know, he's as close to Tonya Harding as most men will ever get, it would seem to me.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  I completely agree. And.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  There's, well, I, were you, were you a Peewee kid?

• 8:53Sarah Marshall?

  Not at all. That's the thing.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Really? Interesting. I was a huge Peewee. I have Cherry and Peewee in my arms right now.

• 9:01Sarah Marshall?

  I was restricted mostly to educational TV. So that holds you back a bit.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  No, Peewee was educational. Not that people saw it at the time, but no, I was, I was a Peewee kid. I wasn't alive when it aired, but we had the, they released the entire collection in VHS. Uh, when I went at some point when I was a kid and someone gave it to my dad for Christmas because my dad was a huge Peewee fan. I am holding in my arms right now, his original Cherry puppet and Peewee Herman ventriloquist doll that were bequeathed to me by him a few years ago when, uh, Paul Reubens passed away. Where he was like, oh yeah, I have, wait, I'll see if, he sounds like shit. Cause my, there were, there was floods at my house, but let's see if he can do anything.

• 9:53Sarah Marshall?

  He's a dolphin now.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  If you slow it down, if you slow it down, let's see.

• 10:01Sarah Marshall?

  That is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, there he is. There's Paul Reubens. It's like he's in the room with us.

• 10:10Sarah Marshall?

  Well, it's like you're talking to, to Paul Reubens and David Lynch simultaneously, actually.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  It's like he's right there. Uh, I was actually, I was walking around Hollywood forever recently, uh, like a, the reformed Hot Topic kid I am. And, and stopped by both David Lynch and Paul Reubens. They're both there. But yeah, I was a huge, huge Peewee kid and we did not tolerate Peewee slander in our home.

• 10:37Sarah Marshall?

  That's wonderful. Cause you know, I feel like you were standing pretty alone at that time.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Yes, but although not as alone as I thought, I will say, um, upon, upon sort of going back into the archives and seeing what the fan movements were at the time. But, um, yeah, we did not tolerate Peewee slander to the point where I wasn't even aware at any point of his, um, of, of the second. Arrest in Los Angeles in the 2000s.

• 11:04Sarah Marshall?

  One, I don't know the chronology at all, but what I do know is that at one point when I was probably like 11, watching some, just like a movie that I think happened to have Paul Reubens in it. My dad, who was probably several beers deep at this point, I almost said deer's beep. It's different.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I wish.

• 11:20Sarah Marshall?

  Like walked in and like saw Paul Reubens and I think was like triggered by him and it was like, he got arrested for blah, blah, blah. And we'll get into what it was, but it wasn't what really happened that he was saying, but it was with the implication of something much more sinister.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  I see.

• 11:35Sarah Marshall?

  Which I'm sure was pretty typical. And I feel like that was a core memory for me and so many kids. And it feels in retrospect like a very interesting and troubling thing to unpack.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  But yeah, I was really, really excited to see the recent documentary and it, just so I'm not recapping a recently released documentary, I've been doing research on this for a bit and can sort of take you through at least what's available about Paul Reubens' life and career and sort of do a side by side on now that we have all of this great interview footage with him shortly before he passed versus how it was characterized at the time. And we can really get into it. But before we get into it, I have a clip I'd like to send to you because I was like, wow,

• 12:24Speaker 01

  this is where me and Sarah's passions truly combine in a powerful way. This was because so much of what the appeal of Peewee's Playhouse was in the late 80s into the 90s was that adults enjoyed watching it too. It was really creative, all this stuff. They aired two episodes at night once, and I believe 1987. And you will never believe who introduced these two nighttime airings of Peewee. Check out this clip. I was so excited.

• 12:59Sarah Marshall?

  I hope it's Carrie Orbach.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Even better.

• 13:02Sarah Marshall?

  Okay, let's see. Oh, it's in the chat. Okay.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:06Sarah Marshall?

  Siskel and Ebert?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Siskel and Ebert.

• 13:09Sarah Marshall?

  Oh my God, my boys, my baby boys.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Your boys know my boy. It's really thrilling.

• 13:15Sarah Marshall?

  Okay, three, two, one, go.

• 13:20Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, boy. Oh, I love the his.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  I'm Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  And I'm Roger Reber to the Chicago Sun-Times. And no, this is not our movie review program. We are introducing a program called "The Special Evening of Pee-wee's Playhouse." And you might ask, what are a couple of adult film critics doing introducing Pee-wee Herman, the hero of a children's TV show on Saturday mornings? And the answer to that is, what are a couple of adults like me and Gene doing watching that show? Every Saturday morning, I watch Pee-wee.

• 13:46Sarah Marshall?

  Roger, come on.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  And I think it's time that the people who don't watch TV on Saturday mornings also get their chance.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  I watch it with my children, and they like it. And what I've found in watching this edition that we're going to see tonight, which is taken from the morning shows, is, one, it's a safe show. Meaning, you learn things like to eat out of the four food groups, which I like to know. And also, you know, probably.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  It's too late for me to learn that lesson.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  You eat out of about eight groups.

• 14:10Sarah Marshall?

  Now, Gene.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Twice out of four. But also, I think that you also learn how to make fruit things. But beyond, uh, the fruit juices thing. No, I didn't know that. What I also want to tell people is that it's a lot of fun. I mean, the decor of the show, if you haven't seen that, is great. And when they go out in outer space at the end of the show, wait for that.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  And it's nice to see that somebody on television has wit, and is a little anarchic, and is breaking the rules, and is having fun while he does it.

• 14:36Sarah Marshall?

  Yay! I love this.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  I do, too.

• 14:40Sarah Marshall?

  Because famously, you know, like, when they saw Blue Velvet, they're both like, oh, eh, I don't know. I'm not sure. But like, it's so rare for them to both commit to something. This is amazing.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  I was really, I mean, I, one of the things that we'll get into is, it was really fun revisiting peak Pee-wee, uh, and the reception of how beloved he was. Because he was like, I knew he was famous, but it is truly stunning, the degree to which he was famous and almost universally beloved. The only people who didn't like Pee-wee were people who didn't like annoying voices. And, and the episode they're about to introduce, uh, because I did a full series rewatch when Paul Reubens passed away two years ago. Uh, my favorite episode they're introducing, it's called "Playhouse in Outer Space."

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Where they encounter an insecure alien. That was an inspiration for one of my AIM screen names, Zizy Baluba. And the whole joke is that Peewee's Playhouse has the secret word and the secret word that week was Zizy Baluba. And they're like, this word's surely never gonna come up. And then they meet an alien named. So, okay, that's the thrilling opening.

• 15:53Sarah Marshall?

  That is thrilling. Can I tell you something embarrassing?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 15:57Sarah Marshall?

  Okay, when I was a kid, I watched any movie that Comedy Central played, which really ran the gamut, as you probably remember from around this time. But one of the movies that Comedy Central, which is put on, you know, when they felt like it was Peewee's Big Adventure.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:13Sarah Marshall?

  And I, I have very specific reasons for turning off of movies. And I really didn't like the opening scene where we have the breakfast machine, which is really cool. But then he doesn't eat his breakfast. Why doesn't he eat his breakfast? It's a waste of food. I really didn't like that. And then I think I just found it.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Committed.

• 16:32Sarah Marshall?

  A bit chaotic. And I was also, there are kids who like Drop Dead Fred, and there are kids who don't. And I don't, I'm not a Drop Dead Fred kid. And I feel like this plays into this.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  This is, Peewee's Big Adventure is one of my favorite movies.

• 16:44Sarah Marshall?

  I watched it as an adult and I like it now. But I'm just, as a child, I guess have to confess, that's the kind of child I was.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Look, I, you're, you're wrong, but that's okay. I, I will say, there's, there's superior breakfast machines. Caitlin and I talk about this a lot on the Vektel Cast, whenever there's a breakfast machine, because superior breakfast machines include the Wallace and Gromit breakfast machine. Those guys never miss a meal.

• 17:11Sarah Marshall?

  Well, that one gets you out of bed as well, which is really nice.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Peewee's Big Adventure, as I'll get into, is, was before the TV show.

• 17:21Sarah Marshall?

  Fascinating.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  But Paul Reubens, AKA Peewee Herman, AKA originally Paul Reubens Feld, was born in upstate New York in 1952. And right away, we have to get into something extremely complicated.

• 17:38Sarah Marshall?

  Perfect.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  He grew up in a Jewish family. They moved to Sarasota, Florida. That's primarily where he grew up. His father was one of the founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force.

• 17:49Sarah Marshall?

  What?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  It sucks almost right away.

• 17:52Sarah Marshall?

  As history so frequently does and the biographies of comedians famously.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  So for what it's worth, he had a complicated relationship with this father for, for different reasons, but you know, this was a big part of his family history. He was one of the five founding pilots of the Israeli Air Force in the 1948 war. So he was participating in the Nakba and there is a like, kind of a stunning amount written about Peewee's father. Most of it very pro Zionist, but he was an American who volunteered to fly in the Israeli Air Force and basically turned things in favor of Israel in 1948. And it's kind of

• 18:37Speaker 01

  hard to do something worse than that. So that I won't get into in depth because Paul never really addresses it in depth. The only thing I was able to find, I didn't watch it. I would say don't, I had no desire to watch it, but there's a 2014 documentary about this group of pilots that is very pro-Israel made by Steven Spielberg's little sister called Above and Beyond, in which Paul and his mother, I think, speak about this.

• 19:07Sarah Marshall?

  You gotta get some, some jobs for little sisters, I suppose.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  I mean Zionist propaganda for the little sister. I just don't know. So that is inextricably a part of his family history.

• 19:20Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. Well, and I hate to assume things, but you do feel like a dad who's the kind of person who volunteers to kill people on purpose is maybe gonna be less fun at home. I don't know.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Yes. And to Paul and his siblings' credit, they go on to do almost universally positive work for the world. But they moved to Sarasota when Paul's very young. He has a younger sister and a younger brother. His younger sister is now a lawyer with the ACLU in the South. She seems pretty great, Abby Rubenfeld.

• 19:56Sarah Marshall?

  Godspeed, Abby.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Abby rocks. But they moved to Sarasota, and which is where the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is headquartered. I did not know. Paul gets really into circus stuff.

• 20:11Sarah Marshall?

  That's where they train elephant torturers.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yup.

• 20:14Sarah Marshall?

  Sorry.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  And, and Paul gets really into this idea of being in the circus. He goes to circus camp. He's a weird little guy. He's an indoor, he's a circus kid. He's an indoor kid. He loves TV, as many future TV stars tend to. But, you know, while I think like he's sort of regarded as this very eighties figure, so much of what he's pulling from is like TV that he grew up with. So there's like a lot of Howdy Doody and Soupy Sales and like all of this stuff from the 50s and 60s that is pulled into his work, even though he gets famous in the 80s.

• 20:50Sarah Marshall?

  And probably maybe for that reason, partly where adults can kind of feel that culture happening.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like it's all adults, not adult entertainers, entertainers who are adults, and adult entertainers are pulling from like their 20 year cycle. But yeah, so he, he in high school gets really into theater. He's really into Andy Warhol. He's really into Paul Morrisey. And he gets really close with this photographer named Anne, who everyone thinks is his girlfriend. But she's not, he has like very intense friendships with women throughout his life. But spoiler alert, he's gay, which is, I think, like, he says

• 21:39Speaker 01

  that constantly, too. He's like, surprise, like, you know, Pee Wee's Playhouse is essentially Drag Queen Story Hour. Like, he's gay.

• 21:49Sarah Marshall?

  Greatest threat to our nation, of course.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  But he remains pretty firmly like a theater kid. He like does these photography projects with his best friend Anne in high school, where he's trying to like telegraph hyper masculinity, but more as a performance. He's very much like a dorky theater kid at school. But then they do these photo shoots where he Looks, you know, very different and looks like this very like masculine late sixties hippie guy. And he talked a lot about like, he generally has a good relationship with his parents. But his dad is this hyper masculine war criminal. And Paul is none of those things, but he feels generally supported by his family.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  And Paul and Anne decide to go to Cal Arts for college. I think that would be in like 1970. And in 1970, Paul, I feel like starts to figure shit out. He's 18. He immediately becomes like the most popular guy at Cal Arts, having never been the most popular guy in Sarasota.

• 22:59Sarah Marshall?

  Do you have the impression that you would have been in the same friend group or an adjacent friend group in high school?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  I think it's strict, I mean, because of A theater and B, most of my friends were gay men and weird girls in high school. I would hope, but also he's so, I also wonder if I would have been too intimidated because it seems like he always had like a big funny prankster personality. And I feel like I was so introverted. I don't know. I really hope so. I know I would have wanted to be a friend, but would he have had me? I don't know. But this, I wanted to show you this clip because it made me laugh. I was looking for these old profiles of him on the news and I found this one from, I think also 1987 or no, from 89,

• 23:45Speaker 01

  where he had reached the level of fame where like local news bureaus were going to his hometown in Sarasota and just being like, hey, did anyone hook up with him when he was 17? And they find the weirdest there. And this is, you know, for what it's worth, he only technically came out in this documentary. He came out posthumously.

• 24:07Sarah Marshall?

  Right.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  And I could get into sort of like the reasons that he made that decision. But for a long time, there's a lot of effort put into like, who is Pee Wee dating? And he has a series of close women friends who Sort of are, you know, down, down to beard. But this clip just cracked me up because it's just random women in Sarasota in the eighties. Who knows if they're telling the truth?

• 24:32Sarah Marshall?

  I feel like the economy for publishing was so good in the nineties that tabloids would have just someone on the like, who's gay beat?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this was before the, that question was ever really asked publicly. That doesn't happen for a couple of years, until a couple of years after this.

• 24:45Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  This is like very sincerely like, who did Paul Reubens hook up with in high school? Which is like, ooh. And then there's three, three girls in a row that have stories about going on dates with Paul Reubens.

• 25:00Sarah Marshall?

  All right, I'm at four thirteen. Do you want to count it down and play together?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it. Uh, three, two, one, go.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  And what about Paul's social life? Well, back in junior high school, he was something of a ladies man. There was Diane, now Mrs. Diane Weiss. She recalls her first and last date with Paul Reubens.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  Oh, it was very romantic. We held hands. I'm sure of that. Sweaty palms.

• 25:26Sarah Marshall?

  They're also Florida.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  We held hands.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  There was Susan McGary, now an Episcopal priest.

• 25:33Sarah Marshall?

  Now, not to say I can spot a lesbian at twenty paces, but the story's great. Because it's not giving straight teenager.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Named Regina Clark.

• 25:44Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Paul loves Gina. Gina loves Paul. You know, that, that kind of stuff.

• 25:51Speaker 06

  Notes back and forth between the classes.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Their puppy love gradually led to a party and the first kiss. Paul's first kiss. Peewee's first kiss.

• 26:02Speaker 06

  Had my arm around his neck and he says, I'm gonna kiss you. And I thought, oh, my God, you know, this is, this is great, you know? So, you know, the girls are always more mature at that time anyway. So, he puts his arm around me and I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, he had put cellophane across his lips.

• 26:29Speaker 06

  And I said, Paul, I said, don't, don't fool around. I said, now, do you want to kiss me or not? See what I mean? I mean, he was, he was funny then.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Now that's what I call a straight young man.

• 26:43Sarah Marshall?

  That's what I call romance.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Just, I'm sure that he hated that, but it just cracked me up because we were just like, what the fuck are we? But that's like the level of famous he became where that was a viable story.

• 26:54Sarah Marshall?

  Right. And, and they kind of didn't find anything, but they're like, look, we got it. We have, we have to do our 10 minutes on Peewee Herman. Let's just put it in there.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  It's, and it's fascinating. I mean, like, obviously like he's like such a product of his time in all these different ways. But the amount of privacy he managed to maintain for a very long time, like would just be completely impossible now. Because when he and Anne get to Cal Arts during college, Paul is very openly gay. He is very openly performing in drag. He's doing experimental theater. Part of what makes this Matt Wolfe documentary so great is that Paul was like a huge collector

• 27:37Speaker 01

  and a huge documenter of his life. So there was thousands and thousands of photos and video footage of him at every stage of his life.

• 27:47Sarah Marshall?

  That's very Andy Warhol, I feel like.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yes. And he, I mean, he was obsessed with Andy Warhol as another very straight thing to do.

• 27:56Sarah Marshall?

  Yes, famously.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  But it was part of his like end game that he wanted to move to New York eventually and join the factory, right? It's this very early seventies queer teenage dream.

• 28:09Sarah Marshall?

  And be taken advantage of by a scary old artist, but we all have to do it, you know, once. And then maybe, maybe ideally not more than once, but you know, sometimes it happens.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  It, that doesn't end up quite, I think he, he meets Andy Warhol, but like he never, he, there's a lot of large, somewhat quote unquote, conventional aspirations for your time, including getting on SNL that don't end up happening for him. That end up, I think, being good in the long run for him and not joining the factory is one of those things. But at the time he's like, I, you know, there, there are these photos of him in drag in college and just so gorgeous. Like so beautiful. And, you know, he talked a lot about how like he, you know, was extremely popular. And, you know, it was sort of held court every night with these parties and drag.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  There's all these experimental films of him as a teenager. There's like him as Jesus on the cross, talking right to camera. Like it's so. Charming and yeah, he was an art kid, right? So he gets really into the Cal Arts scene. He joins this acting ensemble in California with David Hasselhoff and Katie Sagal. It's like so bizarre, but they all knew each other.

• 29:26Sarah Marshall?

  I would like a one act play about them like hanging out after class one day.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  He makes this short in 1973 where he plays a mermaid, model actress Cher. Like it's just all of this really great stuff. His student thesis is this short that he made, Half in Drag, Half Not. And it's like a very study of gender presentation. Like he, he was very, very out and very like, uh, you know, exploring in, in the way that you do when you go to an arts college.

• 29:59Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. And, and, and in a way that maybe shows like, why there's this, you know, fear, alleged fear of drag and drag queens, because it feels like, okay, first of all, you're insane, but B, if you're saying that, then I think you're revealing what secretly maybe in your subconscious, you understand, which is that, uh, playing with gender and teaching it or representing it as an object of play and exploration rather than oppression is like going against a very oppressive worldview where if you teach kids that they can experience creativity and freedom, then they won't consent to be abused as much. Oh no.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and at the time, and this is all, I mean, most of the information I'm sharing at the top here is from Matt Wolfe's documentary because there was just very little known about Paul's early life because he intentionally didn't share it.

• 30:54Sarah Marshall?

  Which is just kind of fascinating to think of as like a right that a lot of us quietly gave up, you know, or that culturally people have really given up. And yeah, like you said, the degree of. Privacy that he was able to maintain while suddenly becoming as famous as he did, like that feels almost like there was a very tiny moment where that could happen. And it was inside of it that he fell.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's a double edged sword too, because it's like, why, what are the reasons he is maintaining this privacy? And it's all connected to his, I think, being a hyper aware that if images of him in drag came out at the height of his fame, it could seriously affect him. And based on what happened to him outside of his control, it seems like it very much would have. So, and also that there was later, I really did the newspapers.com scroll about Paul from year to year. And later, when he is arrested for the first time in the public

• 31:55Speaker 01

  eye in the early 90s, it's said that he was also arrested for being at a gay porn theater when he was 18 years old. So it's like, already, I think that there are these indications to him that would have been clear to anyone, but that he was very out as a young person, but also was aware that this could derail his life. That was the only mention I saw of that first arrest. But, you know, it totally tracks Florida in 1970. I believe it.

• 32:27Sarah Marshall?

  Right. And just, you know, of like, a theater being the target of just like a routine sweep that sort of also exists to identify people.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  And then we'll, we'll get to this later, but why are that so many Sarasota police officers hanging out in gay porn theaters, quote unquote undercover? We'll circle back.

• 32:46Sarah Marshall?

  And what's the budget for it?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, three, three, when he's arrested in 1991, there were three undercover cops.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  In a dark theater. Okay. Well, well, so after college, he makes all of this experimental queer art in college. The plan is to move to San Francisco with some friends because it's 1970 and that's what you do. But then he goes to a party in LA and this is also all unpacked for the first time in the documentary. He meets the love of his life, basically. He meets this artist named Guy Brown and they fall in love.

• 33:25Sarah Marshall?

  I met an artist. His name is Guy. It's just a great diary night.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Let me send you a photo of them because they're so sweet together. There's also all of this like super eight footage taken by Paul. Like there's an incredible amount of material that he has that just was hanging out at his house, which by the way, I should confess, last year, when Paul Reubens house went on the market, I messaged the realtor, said I had $5 million and we did tour it.

• 33:53Sarah Marshall?

  That's fantastic.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  I hope he would be okay with that.

• 33:57Sarah Marshall?

  I feel, I just feel like he would.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  I just feel like when, when beautiful, he like customized it. He had a catio. There was like the Pee Wee bike outside. It made me cry and we just had to pretend to be fabulously wealthy for 20 minutes. It was great. But I've attached here a picture of Pee Wee, of Paul and Guy.

• 34:16Sarah Marshall?

  Ah, wow.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  I know. They're so sweet. So they fall wildly in love and Paul changes his plans. He does not move. There's all of these ways in which this relationship changes his life in like big emotional ways and then also in logistical ways where this is his first time from what we know of like really being fully in love. They move in together in my neighborhood in Echo Park. They're extremely in love and because Paul doesn't move to San Francisco, he stays in LA and starts to try to make it as an actor.

• 34:53Sarah Marshall?

  Does he want to be a serious actor or like what's his goal there?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  At the beginning, his goal is to be a like an Andy Warhol style actor. Like he, he, he's going for queer indie darling.

• 35:07Sarah Marshall?

  Hmm. That's fun. That's a great place to start, I feel like.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  I think so too. I mean, I would happily stay there, but I mean, plans change for, for other reasons. But so he's, he's doing these bit parts. He's just getting by. His boyfriend is a painter, you know, like it's, it's tough. They, their relationship is somewhat tumultuous because they're in their twenties. But listening to him talk about, he'd never spoken publicly about Guy, but he attributes these little qualities in the Pee Wee character to Guy, like the, some of the mannerisms and some of the, just some of the ways that Pee Wee would talk. Where I guess like his boyfriend would eat a cookie and be like, mm, buttery. Like, you know, the goose little Pee Wee mannerisms that are pulled from this really sweet relationship.

• 35:53Sarah Marshall?

  That's so beautiful.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  He comes out to his parents. They are supportive. His whole family is supportive. His sister Abby is also, I, I don't, I mean, I don't know the timeline of her life, but she's an out lesbian, has been for, I think, since around the same amount of time. So he gets support from his family. He feels support from his community. But the relationship doesn't work out. It seems like primarily because they're in their twenties. Paul describes it as he felt his identity getting too enmeshed with another person and kind of panicked. Which I can relate with that. I feel like I've been on both sides of that equation at some point in my twenties.

• 36:37Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, that's the circumnavigation of the twenties, I guess.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So he, he panics, the relationship ends and he's emotionally really fucked up from it. Guy moves to New York and Paul decides that he just wants to strictly focus on his career in acting. He is going to switch after this.

• 37:02Sarah Marshall?

  Ah, yes, the down with love phase.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  The, the relationship.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  I recently just saw that movie for the first time.

• 37:09Sarah Marshall?

  I only remember the outfits. They were incredible.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. It's so underrated.

• 37:14Sarah Marshall?

  They should play it in bars.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  I feel like they, they really should. It's, bars need to play more colorful movies. If I see another Marvel movie on at a bar.

• 37:22Sarah Marshall?

  If I see another black and white movie on at a bar brought by the same token.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Get over yourself, right?

• 37:28Sarah Marshall?

  Get over yourself. Get over yourself.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  I'm not here to exercise my library card, but I'm down with love.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  But after this relationship doesn't work out, Paul, there's like a fundamental shift in who he wants to be and how he wants to be. He is like, love sucks. He stops pursuing the queer indie darling. He's gonna start pursuing conventional acting.

• 37:53Sarah Marshall?

  Oh no.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  And so he goes back in the closet for basically the rest of his life.

• 37:59Sarah Marshall?

  Wow.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  A quote from the documentary, he says, I was as out as you could be, and then I went back in the closet because I could pass. And so I went to great lengths for many, many years to keep it a secret. And I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but I mean, there were plenty of examples even before the AIDS crisis of, as to like, why he would choose to do this. There were already, you know, heavy speculation around Rock Hudson, who would have still been alive at the time, around Tab Hunter. And it's sort of like, the further his career goes, the more he sort of remains committed to staying in the closet,

• 38:42Speaker 01

  particularly after the AIDS crisis starts.

• 38:45Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I feel like I remember from my childhood, watching The Celluloid Closet on IFC is that there didn't really exist movies until kind of, I guess, The Boys and the Band, where being outed to yourself as a gay character didn't cause you to like immediately die by suicide or get murdered.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:08Sarah Marshall?

  You know, and of course, like, if you're at Cal Arts in the seventies and you're out and you have this whole life, like, you know that in a sense you can exist and like, you've done it before, but like. I wasn't there, but like, it just seems like there was an incredible amount of conscious effort involved all the time.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:25Sarah Marshall?

  And, and both being out of the closet and being in it. And it just, you know, there's no way out of it.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  If nothing else, that like, because he decides he wants a conventional career, that he views this as a necessity. And so he stays at LA. He has other relationships throughout his life. He doesn't mention any in detail. It's really just Guy. So around this point, he pivots to comedy, right? And he starts taking classes at the Groundlings with future greats such as Lorraine Newman, such as Cassandra Peterson, AKA Elvira, AKA one of his best friends in the world, which you're like, of course Pee Wee and Elvira were best friends. It just makes sense.

• 40:11Sarah Marshall?

  Just being quietly gay through the whole eighties.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And then some. And then like, most importantly for his like, future career, Phil Hartman.

• 40:23Sarah Marshall?

  Hmm.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  And one thing I noticed as I was watching this footage in the documentary is like, even if you're watching some of the most comedically talented people in the entire world, watching footage of improv is always embarrassing. Like even done at the highest level, I was like, I want to cut my head off. This is really hard to look at. But I mean, in short, like Pee Wee comes out of this training. Pee Wee comes out of Groundlings. It's a character he started developing through improv and then turned into sketch. That's sort of the Groundlings MO is they'll improvise and then take the good stuff and turn it into sketch. It's an important part of the process.

• 41:03Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. Well, and do you feel like there's an element, and this is maybe actually a bigger question, because I can see it being a part of improv, because you like presumably need things to lean on and to be able to call forth sometimes as opposed to just starting from scratch every time you do it. But also, I feel like in sort of like, I don't know, comedy and theater and circus arts generally and drag too, it seems like there's just

• 41:28Sarah Marshall?

  Like this trend that I feel like is very important is a unifying theme and is something that people really need of like, there's all these characters inside me and I never would have known it until I started talking as one one day. And now it's like, they know what to say.

• 41:44Sarah Marshall?

  And I can just be that person for a while. And that's just sort of a wild thing that that people can like do and share. And I wonder if that's, if that's what this is like.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's different for everybody. I mean, I've definitely like found characters through, I've generally found it more through sketch, but everyone has their sort of like preferred way of honing a character and, and, and yeah, being able to process whatever it may be. I don't know. I'm not good at talking about comedy theory. I just, I just show up.

• 42:16Sarah Marshall?

  You just do it, you know?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't, I don't like to think about it. I just show up.

• 42:21Sarah Marshall?

  Better to do it than to talk about it. I like to think about everything and then I get stressed and have to lie down and take a nap and I miss the thing I was supposed to show up for.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  I think half of it is like, don't think too hard about it and be, and be generous with the other people on stage. And, and if you do that, you will probably be fine.

• 42:39Sarah Marshall?

  Right. Yeah. I give other people a laugh.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  And, and Paul's great at that. There's all of these like examples of especially because he came up as a bit part actor that he's really great at like quote unquote stealing scenes with a single line, but then getting out of the way and letting the scene continue, an important skill that the worst improvisers in the world don't have.

• 42:59Sarah Marshall?

  I feel like characters are sort of, I can be extremely therapeutic because it's just like relentless to be yourself all day. You know, it's just nice to be able to be someone else for a while.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think that it seems like Paul really did not want to be framed as a like tortured closeted person, but for what it's worth, like he basically chooses to publicly live only as Pee Wee and then only as Paul Reubens in private.

• 43:30Sarah Marshall?

  Kind of like Dolly Parton in a way.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  I think so. Yeah. Where it's like, I mean, or Elvira or I mean,

• 43:35Sarah Marshall?

  Right. Any of the great drag stars.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely. We're, yeah, he, he doesn't speak as himself because it felt, it seems like it because it felt vulnerable and uncomfortable and he didn't think it was anyone's business. And that does connect with a lot of these other closeted stars where he like, if you look at the, you probably know more about this than I do, but I was going through a lot of, um, have you ever watched, uh, Matt Bohm on YouTube? He's

• 44:02Sarah Marshall?

  I don't think so.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Terrific. Um, I really love his work and he's done a lot of, um, sort of these biographies of actors who were either, uh, who were like closeted throughout the 20th century. And he did a great video about Anthony Perkins and this sort of lifelong relationship he had with the Norman character of like, you know, your private self and then the self you can't control. And like that sort of repeated and Pee Wee is obviously a very different flavor of that. Like Pee Wee famously never killed anyone.

• 44:35Sarah Marshall?

  But they are, they both were, were a little gray jacket sometimes.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Boy, do they.

• 44:41Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  And have this like absurdly complicated relationship with their creators.

• 44:49Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just recommend Matt Bohm's work in general, but he makes a similar argument for a lot of Rock Hudson's rom com characters where this, there's always this like level of like, I can't believe I'm getting away with this. All right, back to the act. Like it's, it's maybe framing, but it feels, you know, worth mentioning.

• 45:07Sarah Marshall?

  Well, and that he's like playing that, you know, famously was in all these movies with Doris Day where they're both 40 years old and like trying to decide whether they're gonna get married and jump in the sack or not. And where he's like a gay man playing a straight man, playing a gay man, Jack Tripper style. So he can like seduce this virgin and it's, I don't know. It is fascinating to me too, how much of like super, super straight media of the 20th century just sort of depicts men and women as like completely different species who are so incapable of communicating with each other that it's like insane that anyone thinks we can mate. You know, we're like pandas in captivity. And then they're like, this is the only way you have

• 45:48Sarah Marshall?

  to do it. And you can never communicate with the opposite sex. You have to marry. And it's like,

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Huh? Really? How did it work out for our parents? Like, or their parents, I guess. Like,

• 46:01Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I, I was like getting into like this sort of side quest of, of learning more about these actors that Paul Reubens was a fan of.

• 46:11Sarah Marshall?

  Right.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  And then I think he ends up like really successfully subverting is how like, but how much, there was this anecdote about how Rock Hudson, when he was starting to play these like hyper masculine parts in his twenties, how there was like a director or casting agent or something who was like, you know, who you should look to, to figure out how to best perform is Gary Cooper and Spencer Tracy, like who were both queer. And so it's just like, I don't know, so much of like this hyper straight masculinity is.

• 46:47Sarah Marshall?

  The performance is a copy of a performance of a copy of a performance.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then Rock Hudson got really good at it. It's just wild.

• 46:55Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  If I wild, I mean depressing, but also like, I don't know.

• 46:59Sarah Marshall?

  Also kind of amazing how many layers deep it is just, you know, queer camp portrayals that straight men watch and are like, yeah, yeah.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Almost anything is camp if you dig deep enough.

• 47:12Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  But so, so, uh, Pee Wee, the Pee Wee character is developed in this Groundlings, original Groundlings troupe in the, I think mid to late seventies, which is also when SNL is starting. Lorraine Newman is a founding member of SNL. Groundlings is sort of like starting to become known as a place where SNL actors are found. And so of course Paul is like, maybe, maybe it's going to be me. He, he works on, uh, the Pee Wee character more with Phil Hartman. Phil Hartman for a while is his bestie. They have a falling out later that I do appreciate that Paul is very upfront towards the end of his life about, I think the things that like a lot of performers aren't comfortable talking about,

• 47:58Speaker 01

  myself included, which is jealousy of your peers. And he.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  You know, basically, he and Phil Hartman end up falling out because Phil Hartman left the Pee Wee production for SNL and Paul kind of never forgave him for that.

• 48:13Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  And he talks about this, like that this was a repeated pattern early in his career, which is so common, but I don't think a lot of people talk about it. He also is like very amenable. Again, this is like, you know, he doesn't deserve a trophy for this. But one of his popular Groundlings characters was an indigenous chief. It was a super racist character. And in the documentary, he was like, that was really racist. And I like, you know, does not make any excuse for it. It's just like, you know, it wasn't unusual for the time, but it's like, I'm so glad I did not pursue that because it's just embarrassing to watch.

• 48:49Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. And it's just nice to have somebody not immediately be like, well, it was the time and we were all incapable of not being racist. Don't talk to me about it.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like he's, you know, he's able to see himself with, I think, a lot of clarity, even when he's being difficult and perhaps a little bitchy.

• 49:07Sarah Marshall?

  Which is what you hope to be able to do as you get older, to at least sort of understand better why certain things happened.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Totally. So he creates the Pee Wee character and it becomes popular in like late night LA Groundlings shows. He starts doing it for larger crowds, keeps working on it. He auditions for SNL and loses it to Gilbert Gottfried.

• 49:33Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, boy. Who I know was only on for like the one cursed season or something like that that no one saw.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, he lost it to that. But I think that, again, like he, that rejection, he's like, all right, I'm gonna double down on Pee Wee.

• 49:50Sarah Marshall?

  Nice. You gotta get weirder to survive.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. So what he does is he puts together this large production that is basically a template for what becomes Pee Wee's playhouse. There are, it's at the Roxy Theater in LA, which I don't think exists anymore. He combines his friends at the Groundlings, so Phil Hartman, Lynn Stewart, who plays Miss Yvonne. All these characters that end up being on the playhouse, John B., the genie, Terry, the pterodactyl, all these wonderful characters, right? And then he goes to, in a way that I feel like really starts connecting the Pee Wee character with the eighties in general, he goes to Melrose Ave, which is near Groundlings, where there was really vibrant punk culture at the time.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  He meets Gary, he meets this guy Gary Panther, who then designs the Pee Wee set. He's this punk artist that designs the Pee Wee set and works with him forever and sort of ingratiates this weird character who's based on like Howdy Doody into the eighties and punk culture. It's very cool. This show becomes super popular. They end up producing a special of it on HBO. It was like the fifth special ever on HBO.

• 51:02Sarah Marshall?

  Which I feel like was like leaning a lot on standup comedy at the time. They were like, we don't know.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it was like cheap. And then he also starts appearing, again, there's like, I think there's like only a few examples of him being like, hi, I'm Paul Reubens. I play a character named Pee Wee Herman. He quickly is just like, I'm gonna show up everywhere as Pee Wee.

• 51:22Sarah Marshall?

  Which I feel like was confusing to me as a kid and probably a lot of kids at the time. Where it was like him and Max Hadroom were like the two guys who were like, you're like, is it a guy? Is it a, what, how does this work? What's reality?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I think that that like, it makes sense and also ends up kind of really working against him later on when it's hard to.

• 51:41Sarah Marshall?

  You can't get out.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Right. When it's like, when is he Paul Reubens? But he starts making appearances on Letterman. There's all these really funny clips from the eighties of Pee Wee and David Letterman. They're great.

• 51:55Sarah Marshall?

  Well, and what is the special like as like America's introduction to him?

• 52:00Speaker 01

  So the special, which I think was like fairly popular at the time, but the special. Uh, was based on this stage show that he'd taken across the country. Uh, and it's you're functionally in Peewee's playhouse. It's basically what becomes the set. And the storyline of it, uh, is that Peewee gets one wish from John B, the genie. And he wishes that he can fly, but then, uh, Miss Yvonne and Captain Carl, AKA Lynn Stewart and Phil Hartman, uh, come over to the playhouse and Peewee realizes that Miss Yvonne is in love with Captain Carl, but she doesn't think that he loves her back.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  And so Peewee gives up his wish and gives it to Miss Yvonne and Miss Yvonne and Captain Carl fall in love. And then John B realizes that Peewee did the right thing and he will get his wish. And the show ends with Peewee flying in this really goofy, practical effect where Paul Reubens head is just like in this like sock and then there's this tiny body behind it.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  It's very funny. It's all so like practical effect. I mean, it, what takes him a while to figure out is like, who is this for? I don't think Paul Reubens worries about that too much.

• 53:20Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, you shouldn't if you're making it, that's, but for other people can, I guess.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  The money people are very much trying to figure out who this is for, because it starts as like a midnight show. Uh, and it does really well as a midnight show, but I think early on people were like, well, if some things were changed, if some of the like humor was adjusted, this could be for kind of anybody. But the early one, it's still, there's still like enough innuendo that like you probably wouldn't show it to a young kid.

• 53:50Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. So it was kind of finding its way to where it ended up. It's just, it's interesting too, just like, uh, this feels like the kind of thing that like, nobody obviously would have like created in a lab and that no one would have like signed off on. It's like, yeah, this is going to be the next big thing unless it had become that by itself. The same way that like, you know, no one in. Like a studio exec position would have watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show and been like, this movie is going to become so culturally meaningful that for many years, it will be impossible to successfully complete puberty without seeing it in the middle of the night.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, I feel like he, he very much makes Pee Wee happen on his own. Like, he doesn't have agents even at the beginning. Like, it's very like, his own blood, sweat and tears are making this happen. And it's also a weirdly good moment for alternative comedy, because like, that's technically what SNL was when it started. And like, Andy Kaufman is still working heavily. Like, it's a pretty good time to be a weirdo. Steve Martin is at like, the peak of his success. And he eventually, it became this big LA thing where like, Martin Scorsese saw Pee Wee at midnight. And like, you know, Steve Martin goes and like, gives

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Paul a bit part. And like, he's able to really build a lot because weirdness wasn't completely disencouraged.

• 55:14Sarah Marshall?

  Right. Or like, weirdness is sort of like, going a little bit mainstream, maybe, with like, because Steve Martin especially feels like he could, yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think like, he very much like, fits in and almost like, builds on what was like permissible at the time. I don't think that a lot of people like, are like, you know, at the beginning, and for most of his early career, most people aren't like, this is too weird. They're just sort of like, what is this? Like, it's, it's really fun reading early reviews about Pee Wee and also about Gary Panther, because people loved the art in this show and the, the design and the characters and just like, it seemed like it was gonna work out great. And it, and it did for a long time.

• 55:56Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  One thing that is included in the documentary that he only touches on briefly, but Paul mentions that when he takes the show to New York, his whole family saw it and they loved it and all this stuff. But his ex-boyfriend Guy went to see it as well and was able to see the character and was able to like, hear his pretty obvious influence

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Then the character and liked it. This is now, we're now in the early eighties. So like, he's working on this and touring this between like eighty one and eighty four. And during this time, he learns that Guy is sick and that Guy has AIDS. And sees Guy, the day he dies, goes over to visit. And he just mentions like, and then I got to see him one last time and and it was really scary and really sad. And I just, you know, had to act normal. And then he passed away a couple hours after I left. And you're just like, oh my God, it's so sad.

• 57:06Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, yeah. And that's the, the amount of loss that people survive is, uh, I don't know. I think that is one of the reasons of why to just learn about people's lives to the extent that we have that information of just sort of, it's, uh, it's all worth remembering.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that he's still, even though he is not publicly out, he's still very active and, and, you know, like a part of the LA queer community. And so he doesn't get into it, but it alludes to obviously like losing a lot of friends and being kind of terrified by that. And it's, it seems like he processed this grief of losing Guy and of losing other people and of his own anxieties by working, which, um, who could relate?

• 57:58Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. Yeah. And then he has this, the show and this character that's taking off and it does feel kind of like it's handed to you on a silver platter, like many things, but one of them is, you know, so many opportunities will never stop asking you to do stuff. And if you want to, you can never slow down because if you don't slow down, then grief can't find you. So.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:20Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  And like you're getting at, like Peewee is a safe place from having to process what's going on with Paul in like his life, which it's like, of course, is is super complicated.

• 58:36Sarah Marshall?

  Well, and maybe this is a good time to talk for a second about kind of who is Peewee, you know, and not necessarily trying to convey his totality because that's impossible. But sort of like, what, what, because this is something I've always found really interesting is the sort of like, the child likeness of the character, I guess I would say, you know, but like, like, who is he? Who are you, Peewee Harmon?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Well, they were asking that on the Florida News in 1989. Who is Peewee?

• 59:09Sarah Marshall?

  These three lesbians, I will tell you now.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Well, to me, Peewee is not just the blueprint for SpongeBob SquarePants, which he is.

• 59:19Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, my God, he is. Oh, my God.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  He so is. It's, I don't know if it's been said explicitly, but like, of course it is. But he is a big kid. Like, he's a big kid. I think it's interesting. I think Siskel's saying that Peewee is teaching kids good lessons is a bit of a cope.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Because I think that's like, part of his appeal. Like, he's not, he's not setting a bad example for kids, but he's not.

• 59:46Sarah Marshall?

  Right. He's not Mr. Rogers. He's not gonna tell you how to live your life. Exactly.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  He's one of the kids. And like, I think that what was so appealing to to me as a kid was that he, he was a hyper weird, funny kid with all of the freedom of an adult, which is also what I loved about SpongeBob. Except unlike SpongeBob, Peewee didn't have a job.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  But Peewee, like, he had this like, amazing playhouse where he could do whatever he wanted. He, he lived with his friends. He was beloved by his community, who are the adults in the room, but they're also like weirdos.

• 1:00:27Sarah Marshall?

  It's a little, little bit like Big Bird, maybe.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  I think there, there's so many like, great characters for kids. Yeah, that like, sort of fit into this where he is not Mr. Rogers, because Mr. Rogers is a character who cares for you.

• 1:00:40Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  And like, Miss Rachel is a character who cares for you. Like, you're. With Peewee, you're like a part of his cohort. It almost, it really reminds me of, and this is just because I got, I went really deep on this recently for no reason at all, other than I visited my nephew.

• 1:00:57Sarah Marshall?

  I had to.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  But it reminds me of like the hosts of Blue's Clues in a way. They're better behaved, but they're like talking to you like, I need you. I need, I as a 27 year old man cannot figure this out. In a way that like makes you feel like you're a part of it, in a way that makes you feel welcome. It also reminds me of Blue's Clues in the like treating you as a peer, but talking to camera. There's these participatory elements with the secret word in Peewee's Playhouse where every day, the magic screen prints out the, the, the secret word. And anytime you say the secret word, you scream real loud. And that's a part of it.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  And it's like you're, it just draws you in. But I think everything that you like can learn and absorb from Peewee is shown and not told, which is like the best kind of kids, which you can't say for Blue's Clues because it's for younger kids and they need to be told, this is a graham cracker. So it's kind of limiting in that way. But Peewee is not really like, I think he was just showing you how to be creative and like showing you to see fun everywhere. There's this example of, um, an episode I was thinking of where also baby Natasha Leone is on Peewee's Playhouse as like a six year old. But in some Peewee's Playhouse episodes, there are these kids that come over and they're Peewee's friends. And, uh, they come and hang out at the playhouse.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Peewee also has adult friends who act like adults. Reba, the male lady is a great example. She's sort of the one person that sees the playhouse as being weird, but is still an active part of it. There's Miss Yvonne, the most beautiful lady in town. There, there's like this whole world and community that Peewee's a part of, but he's treated as like one of the kids. And there's one episode where the kids trash the playhouse. While Peewee's gone.

• 1:02:55Sarah Marshall?

  Oh, no.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  And Peewee comes back and he's like, hey, you can't do that. That's my stuff. That's not, you know, and it like feels like it's a little bit didactic in a way that the show isn't normally. There's my grad school root.

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  But then the kids leave and Peewee trashes the house. And so it's like, you don't learn anything. It's like, it's

• 1:03:13Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  What you learn is just creativity and how to have fun. And the world of Peewee, especially the TV show, is so effortlessly inclusive in a way that never calls attention to itself. I've seen it compared to like a drag queen story hour and it's, I don't think that that's very far off. You know, you have these like characters that are clearly pulled from like Paul's childhood, but there's something different about them. Like Laurence Fishburne is like one of the most famous people on Phoebe's Playhouse, playing Cowboy Curtis, this like weird black cowboy. And it's never called attention to. He is just a part of this world. There's people of all body types.

• 1:03:55Sarah Marshall?

  It's just a cowboy who's, there's like some frontier. There's some range land out there next to the playhouse.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Cowboy Curtis is such an incredible character. And, and also like, you know, Paul loved pop culture. He was like a huge collector of pop culture stuff and tries to get as many people who he feels are like connected to things he liked or like to just pop culture in general into the show. And so the original Blackula plays the king of cartoons.

• 1:04:27Sarah Marshall?

  I love Blackula.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yes. So he, he plays the king of cartoons.

• 1:04:32Sarah Marshall?

  Perfect.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Which is just incredible, William Marshall. But just the general idea of being like, it was built into the show that it seems like Paul was basically making the show for himself, which means that it was really accessible to parents because he was the age of parents. But it had this like really wholesome ca- he's just a big kid.

• 1:04:54Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  And he doesn't really learn anything. And he, I like that he's, he's super, I could just keep talking about Peewee forever. He's like really flawed. He gets angry. He throws tantrums. He has enemies and like has to work through it. And it also takes a while. And it's just, I don't know, there's no one in the room being like, hey, Peewee, don't do that. Like, right. He learns through like interacting. I just, ah.

• 1:05:22Sarah Marshall?

  And it does feel like, I mean, I don't, we act like we need to make excuses for children's media and we're like, well, they're learning things. And it's like, well, but they don't have to learn all the time, you know, that does seem like a lot of learning. And it kind of growing up, I feel like, I don't know, there's so, there's so much dorky PSA stuff that I do really love and think probably works pretty well. But there's also, I think, a quality when you're a kid or an adolescent where a lot of the media and the sort of like way adults talk to you is geared toward this idea of like, just follow the rules and everything will be fine. And if you don't follow the rules, then that doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't you do that? There's no reason for you to possibly not do that.

• 1:06:04Sarah Marshall?

  And the system works and just, just do what we tell you to do and it'll be okay. And at a certain age, presumably, unless you are too rich, you're too stupid to notice, you realize that the system fails everyone, including you. And that the sort of way that we teach children with an air of like, just simply follow the rules and the rules will take care of you, is to some extent, adults lying to them, you know? And I feel like there's, especially in America, and you know, this is as true in the 80s as it is now, there's something, I'm trying not to be too pretentious and grad schooly about it, I'm really trying, but there is like something sort of radically fantastic

• 1:06:45Sarah Marshall?

  and also a queer utopia about just like a world where like you can be a big kid and learn nothing and like have a community and sort of exist and have this fantastic space that you were able to decorate exactly the way that you wanted to.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  But also you didn't need to like change or be different or like earn it in any way.

• 1:07:06Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah, you didn't have to grow. I mean, growth is good, but let's not grow all the time. This is too much growing.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  It's just, I mean, I really do feel like it's like SpongeBob so pulls from that playbook.

• 1:07:16Sarah Marshall?

  Yeah. He's living independently.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  But he's a kid.

• 1:07:31Sarah Marshall?

  And that was our episode. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you to Jamie Loftus for being our wonderful guest. And please check out her work. You will be so happy you did. Thank you to Miranda Zickler for editing and producing. And thank you to Carolyn Kendrick for editing and producing. And we will see you soon for part two.