I was born in 1983, so I was at that point in time where the eighties was just on its way out as I was growing in to adolescence, but I very fondly remember a lot of the decade. I remember how much I loved the comedy of the decade mainly because I grew up around a dad who exclusively lived on a diet of comedy. So I watched Weird Al, and Ernest, and Elvira, and Alf, and Robin Williams. Most of all I watched Pee Wee Herman. Pee Wee Herman played a huge role in my life as a comedy fan and a fan of just entertainment in general. There was a period in the eighties and early nineties where Herman was just an massive icon. I didn’t really catch his stand up material.
But I was there for “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”
Every Saturday morning I tuned in to CBS to watch Pee Wee take me to his world, his special little corner on Earth where he could help us escape for a half hour. Pee Wee and “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” was a wonderful place of imagination, oddities, and off the wall comedy. It had music, and cartoons, and just outright hysterical supporting characters that included a Cowboy, a Sea Captain and a magical television. Then there was “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.” The debut from Tim Burton cemented itself as a genuine childhood favorite of mine that I watched every single time it was on TV. Back before cable I watched WPIX Channel 11 for all my movies, and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” was on constant rotation.
While we never got to see Pee Wee’s Playhouse in the movie, he did take us on an adventure that involved a journey only Pee Wee was capable of. Something as seemingly simple a finding something that was very important to him snowballed in to an epic journey across America and in to various colorful characters. To say the Tim Burton movie influenced me is an understatement. It constantly cheered me up, always made me laugh, and for many years I would mimic the Pee Wee dance that he made so famous. It’s a brief, inexplicable moment in the movie that mirrored everything Pee Wee was about. It was random. It was weird. But it was absolutely mesmerizing.
To this day I can’t listen to “Tequila” without thinking about Pee Wee standing on the bar counter as the groups of hulking bikers watched on in confusion. And hell, I even loved “Big Top Pee Wee.” There was no one like Pee Wee Herman and there never will be ever again. Paul Reubens’ iconic character was the weird underdog you couldn’t help but love and root for, and he seemed to love him as much as we did.
Thank you, Paul Reubens for the childhood memories. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for making it okay to be weird. And random. And confusing. And unpredictable. I thank you. Seven year old me thanks you.
Rest in peace.