Pee-wee Herman Part 1 with Jamie Loftus
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You gotta get weirder to survive. Welcome to You're Wrong About. Today we are talking about Pee Wee Herman, the man, the clown, the legend. And we're also talking about Paul Rubens, 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 16th 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 very show and 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 love 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 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+ subscriptions because I am off stalking 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.

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. Hi. How's that for an intro? I loved that. That felt great. I want to be...

Queen clown. You are a queen clown. Exactly. That's the idea. That's the whole goal. Sometimes I get sidetracked, but that is the end goal. And sometimes we got to send you in. 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. But they got to sit in the trailer. They do. They have to sit in it. That's a part of it.

Do you find it worrying that in podcasts, I think 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 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? 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.

Yeah, it feels much better when you're like, fuck yeah, I did ruin my life for this topic. Thank you. Right. I mean, yeah. And I have been able to do that for certain topics, but especially it's just tricky when you're

your, 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's 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

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

to you by today. Yeah, and there's like I think different levels of it and if you do them ethically then like they all are good. Yeah. 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. I think that that's the thing is like, and why there has been an understandable like emphasis on citing sources on deep dive style books

work because you didn't do like it's it's you even if you're ethically presenting it because 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. 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 not opposed to it getting out there. It's like you don't have to be precious about it. It's just weird. I do think it's like connected to this like content churn. I guess the sheer amount of misinformation, I think, where like, I don't know, it's like

I don't know why I'm starting this off with my little anxieties, except that, I don't know, it's a safe space, this conversation. But I feel like I also get grade 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 like you shouldn't thank me for that. I know. Like that's the least we can do. Yeah. Although I said that I I did my four days for this, but also this is I've been preparing my whole life. This is a long term love because I think I pitched this episode to you years ago. Oh, yeah. But there was not really enough information to actually properly put it together until quite recently. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is one of those things where 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. Yeah. I have a solid foundation of information. And then because of the recent Matt Wolfe documentary, PBS 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.

That's fantastic because I hadn't watched it. I guess no people were recommending it, but people recommend lots of things. And so the idea that there's 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, 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. Mm hmm.

And like, I don't think that's true at all. I don't know what's true exactly. But 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 Rubens's career was like absolutely ruined for reasons that were consistently misreported.

um around the time that they happen 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 Tanya Harding as most men will ever get it would seem to me I completely agree and there's well I were you were you a peewee kid not at all that's the thing interesting yeah

I was a huge... I have Cherry and Pee-wee in my arms right now. I was restricted mostly to educational TV, so that holds you back a bit. No, Pee-wee was educational. Not that people saw it at the time. But no, I was a Pee-wee kid. I wasn't alive when it aired, but they released the entire collection in VHS at some point when I was a kid, and someone gave it to my dad first.

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 rubens passed away where he was like oh yeah i have wait let's see if he sounds like shit because my there were there was floods at my house but let's see if he can do anything

He's a dolphin now. If you slow it down, if you slow it down, let's see. That is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, there he is. There's Paul Rubens. It's like he's in the room with us. Well, it's like you're talking to Paul Rubens and David Lynch simultaneously, actually. It's like he's right there. I was actually, I was walking around Hollywood forever recently, like the reformed Hot Topic kid I am, and stopped by both David Lynch and Paul Rubens. They're both there.

But yeah, I was a huge, huge peewee kid and we did not tolerate peewee slander in our home. That's wonderful. Cause I feel like you were standing pretty alone at that time. Yes. But although not as alone as I thought, I will say, um,

upon sort of going back into the archives and seeing what the fan movements were at the time. But yeah, we did not tolerate Pee Wee Slander to the point where I wasn't even aware at any point of his, of the second arrest in Los Angeles in the 2000s. 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 something, just like a movie that I think happened to have Paul Reubens in it,

I wish. I see.

I see.

and can sort of take you through at least what's available about Paul Rubin's life and career and sort of do a side-by-side on now that we have all 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, this is where me and Sarah's passions truly combine in a powerful way. This was because so much of what the appeal of Pee Wee'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 Pee Wee. Check out this clip. I was so excited. I hope it's Carrie Orbach. Even better. Okay, let's see. Oh, it's in the chat. Okay. Yes.

Siskel and Ebert? Siskel and Ebert! Oh my god, my boys! My baby boys! Your boys know my boy. It's really thrilling. Okay. Three, two, one, go. Oh boy. Oh, I love the hiss.

I'm Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. And I'm Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. And no, this is not our movie review program. We are introducing a program called A 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. Roger, come on. And I think it's time that the people who don't watch TV on Saturday mornings also get their chance. I watch it with my children, and they like it. And what I found in watching this...

The addition that we're going to see tonight, which is taken from the morning show, 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-- Too late for me to learn that lesson. You eat out of about eight groups. Now, . Or twice out of four. But also, I think that you also learn how to make fruit things. But beyond-- Well, you already knew that. The fruit and juicy things. 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. 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. Yay! I love this. I do too. Because famously, you know, like when they saw Blue Velvet, they were both like, oh, I don't know. I'm not sure. But like...

It's so rare for them to both commit to something. This is amazing. I was really, I mean, one of the things that we'll get into is it was really fun revisiting Peak Peewee 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 everywhere.

The only people who didn't like P were people who didn't like annoying voices. And the episode they're about to introduce, because I did a full series rewatch when Paul Rubens passed away two years ago, my favorite episode they're introducing, it's called Playhouse in Outer Space, where they encounter an insecure alien that was an inspiration for one of my AIM screen names,

Zizzy Beluba. And the whole joke is that Pee Wee's Playhouse has the secret word and the secret word that week was Zizzy Beluba. And they're like, this word's surely never going to come up. And then they made an alien named... So, okay. That's the thrilling opening. That is thrilling. Can I tell you something embarrassing? Yeah, of course.

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 would just put on, you know, when they felt like it, was Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Yes. 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 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 it.

this. This is... Pee Wee's Big Adventure is one of my favorite movies. I watched it as an adult and I like it now, but I'm just, as a child, I just have to confess that's the kind of child I was. Look, I... You're...

You're wrong, but that's okay. I will say there's superior breakfast machines. Caitlin and I talk about this a lot on the Bechtelcast whenever there's a breakfast machine because superior breakfast machines include the Wallace and Gromit breakfast machine. Those guys never miss a meal. Well, that one gets you out of bed as well, which is really nice. Yeah, and Pee Wee's big adventure, as I'll get into, was before the TV show. Fascinating. But Polly...

Paul Rubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman, a.k.a. originally Paul Ruben Feld, was born in upstate New York in 1952. And right away, we have to get into something extremely complicated. Perfect. 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. What? It sucks almost right away.

As history so frequently does. And the biographies of comedians, famously. So for what it's worth, he had a complicated relationship with his father 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. Mm-hmm.

And there is 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 hard to do something worse than that. So that's...

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 Incarnation.

In which Paul and his mother, I think, speak about this. You got to get some jobs for little sisters, I suppose. I mean, Zionist propaganda for the little sister? I just don't know. So that is inextricably a part of his family history. 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 going to be less fun at home. I don't know. Yes. And to Paul and his siblings' credit, they go on to do almost universally positive work for the world. But they move to Sarasota when Paul's very young. He has a younger sister and a younger brother there.

His younger sister is now a lawyer with the ACLU in the South. She seems pretty great. Abby Rubenfeld. Godspeed, Abby. Abby rocks. But they moved to Sarasota, which is...

Where the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is headquartered. I did not know. Paul gets really into circus stuff. That's where they train elephant torturers. Yep. Sorry. 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 80s 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 and probably maybe for that reason partly where adults can kind of feel that culture happening yeah yeah I mean I feel like it's all adults not adult entertainers entertainers who are adults um and adult entertainers are pulling from like their 20-year cycle um

But yeah, so he in high school gets really into theater. He's really into Andy Warhol. He's really into Paul Morrissey. And he gets really close with this photographer named Anne, who everyone thinks is his girlfriend. And

but she's not he has like very intense friendships with women throughout his life but uh spoiler alert he's gay um which is i i think like he says that constantly too he's like surprise like you know uh pb's playhouse is essentially a drag queen story hour like he's gay uh

Greatest threat to our nation, of course. 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 very different and looks like this very masculine late 60s hippie guy and he talks a lot about he generally has a good relationship with his parents but his dad is this hyper masculine war criminal and

and paul is none of those things but he feels generally supported by his family and uh paul and ann 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 uh

immediately becomes like the most popular guy at CalArts, having never been the most popular guy in Sarasota. Do you have the impression that you would have been in the same friend group or an adjacent friend group in high school? I think it's strict. I mean, because of a theater and music,

be 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

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 spinoff 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 and

Where he had reached the level of fame where 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.

For what it's worth, he only technically came out in this documentary. He came out posthumously. Right. 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 to beard. Yeah.

But this clip just cracked me up because it's just random women in Sarasota in the 80s. Who knows if they're telling the truth? I feel like the economy for publishing was so good in the 90s that tabloids would have just someone on the like, who's gay beat. Yeah, I mean, this was before that question was ever really asked publicly. That doesn't happen for a couple of years until a couple of years after this. Oh, wow. OK. This is like very sincerely like, who did Paul Reilly?

Rubens hook up with in high school which is like and then there's three three girls in a row that have stories about going on dates with Paul Rubens all right I'm at 413 you want to count it down and play together yeah let's do it uh three two one go and what about Paul's social life well back in junior high school he was something of a ladies man

They're all so Florida. Now, not to say I can spot a lesbian at 20 paces, but...

This story's great because it's not giving straight teenager. Oh, yeah. Paul loves Gina. Gina loves Paul. You know, that kind of stuff. Notes back and forth between the classes. Their puppy love gradually led to a party and the first kiss. Paul's first kiss. Pee-wee's first kiss. Had my arm around his neck. He says, I'm going to kiss you.

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

Now that's what I call a straight young man. That's what I call romance. Just I'm sure that he hated that but it just cracked me up because they were just like what the fuck are we but that's like the level of famous he became where that was a viable story. 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 Pee Wee Herman let's just put it in there. 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 Ann get to CalArts during college Paul

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 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. Okay.

That's very Andy Warhol, I feel like. Yes. And he, I mean, he was obsessed with Andy Warhol as another very straight thing to do. Yes. Famously. 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 70s queer teenage dream and be taken advantage of by a scary old artist but we all have to do it you know once and then maybe ideally not more than once but you know sometimes it happens that doesn't end up quite I think 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 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 was extremely popular and, you know, sort of held court every night with these parties and drag. There's all these experimental things.

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 CalArts scene he joins this acting ensemble in California with David Hasselhoff and Katie Segal and

It's like so bizarre, but they all knew each other. I would like a one act play about them like hanging out after class one day. Yeah. Um,

He makes this short in 1973 where he plays a mermaid, modeled after Cher. 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 a very study of gender presentation. He was...

Very, very out and very like, you know, exploring in the way that you do when you go to an arts college. Yeah. 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 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

uh 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 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 wolf's documentary because there was just very little known about paul's early life because he intentionally didn't share it

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. Yeah. And it's a double edged sword too, because it's like, why, what are the reasons he's maintaining this privacy? And it's all connected to his, I think being hyper aware that if images of him in drag or

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. Mm-hmm. So, and also that there was later, I really...

did the newspapers.com scroll about Paul from, from year to year. And later, if you, when he is arrested for the first time in the public eye in, in the early nineties, it's said that he was also arrested, uh,

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 it totally tracks Florida in 1970. I believe it.

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. And then we'll get to this later. But why are there so many Sarasota police officers hanging out in gay porn theaters, quote unquote, undercover? We'll circle back. And what's the budget for it? Three. When he's arrested in 1991, there were three undercover cops. Yeah.

In a dark theater. Okay, 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

And they fall in love. I met an artist. His name is Guy. It's just a great diary night. Let me send you a photo of them because they're so sweet together. There's also all of this like Super 8 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 Rubin's house went on the market, I messaged the realtor, said I had $5 million, and we did tour it. That's fantastic. I hope he would be okay with that. I just feel like he would. I just feel like when Beautiful, he customized it. He had a catio. There was the peewee 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 P of P of Paul and Guy

Wow. I know. They're so sweet. Wow. 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 they're

Because Paul doesn't move to San Francisco, he stays in L.A. and starts to try to make it as an actor. Does he want to be a serious actor or like what's his goal there? At the beginning, his goal is to be a like an Andy Warhol style actor. Like he he's going for queer indie darling.

That's a great place to start, I feel like. I think so, too. I mean, I would happily stay there. But, I mean, plans change for other reasons. So he's doing these bit parts. He's just getting by. His boyfriend is a painter. It's tough. Their relationship is somewhat tumultuous because they're in their 20s. But listening to him talk about... He'd never spoken publicly about Guy, but he attributes these little qualities in the Pee Wee character...

guy, like 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, mmm, buttery. Like, you know, like he was a little...

peewee mannerisms that are pulled from this really sweet relationship. That's so beautiful. He comes out to his parents. They are supportive. His whole family is supportive. His sister Abby is also, 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 their relationship doesn't work out. It seems like primarily because they're in their 20s.

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 20s. Yeah, that's the circumnavigation of the 20s, I guess. Yeah. So he panics, the relationship ends, and he's emotionally really fucked up from it. Mm-hmm.

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. Yes, the down with love phase. The relationship. I recently just saw that movie for the first time. I only remember the outfits. They're incredible. Unbelievable. It's so underrated. They should play it in bars. I feel like they've

really should it's bars need to play more colorful movies if i see another marvel movie on at a bar if i see another black and white movie on at a bar brought by the same token get over yourself right get over yourself get over yourself i'm not here to exercise my library card put on down with love um

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 going to start pursuing conventional acting. Oh, no. And so he goes back in the closet for basically the rest of his life. Wow. A quote from...

Yeah.

And I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but I mean, there were plenty of examples even before the AIDS crisis 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 Tom Hunter. And it's sort of like the further history.

his career goes, the more he sort of remains committed to staying in the closet, particularly after the AIDS crisis starts. 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 in the band where being outed to yourself as a gay character didn't cause you to like immediately die by suicide or get murdered. Right. You know, and of course, like if you're at Cal Arts in the 70s 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. Yeah. And both being out of the closet and being in it. And it just, you know, there's no way out of it. If nothing else that like, because he decides he wants a conventional life,

career that he views this as a necessity. And so he stays at L.A. 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, which

With future greats such as Lorraine Newman, such as Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, a.k.a. 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. Just being quietly gay through the whole 80s. Yes, exactly. And then some. And then most importantly for his future career, Phil Hartman.

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 as 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. 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 like this trend that I feel like is very important as a unifying theme and it's 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. 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.

Yeah, I mean, I think 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 yeah, being able to process things.

Whatever it may be. I don't know. I'm not good at talking about comedy theory. I just show up. You just do it. I don't like to think about it. I just show up. It's 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. I think half of it is like, don't think too hard about it and be generous with the other people on stage. And if you do that, you will probably be fine.

Right. Yeah, I give other people a laugh. 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. Yeah.

I feel like characters are sort of... 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. 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. Kind of like Dolly Parton in a way. I think so, yeah. Or Elvira. Right. Any of the great drag stars. Absolutely. 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 you like if you look at the you probably know more about this than I do but I was going through a lot of have you ever watched

Matt Bohm on YouTube. He's I don't think so. Terrific. I really love his work and he's done a lot of sort of these biographies of actors who were either 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 over

And Pee-wee is obviously a very different flavor of that. Like Pee-wee famously never killed anyone. But they are. They both wear a little gray jacket sometimes. Boy, do they. Yeah. And have this like absurdly complicated relationship with their creators. Yeah.

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

Well, and that he's like, 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 going to get married and jump in the sack or not. And he's like a gay man playing a straight man, playing a gay man, Jack Tripper style. So he can like seduce this woman.

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

Really? How did it work out for our parents? Or their parents, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting into this sort of side quest of learning more about these actors that Paul Rubens was a fan of. Right. Right.

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 is 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 the performance is a copy of a performance of a copy of a performance. Yeah. And then Rock Hudson got really good at it. It's just wild. Yeah. And by wild, I mean depressing, but also like, I don't know. 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. Yeah. Almost anything is camp if you dig deep enough. Yeah. Yeah.

But so the Pee Wee character is developed in this Groundlings, original Groundlings troupe in the, I think, mid to late 70s, 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 works on 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...

Yeah.

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

And in the documentary, he was like, that was really racist. And I like, you know, does not make any excuse for it as 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. 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. 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 itchy. 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. Totally.

So he creates the Pee Wee character and it becomes popular in like late night L.A. Groundlings shows. He starts doing it for larger crowds, keeps working on it. He auditions for SNL and loses it to Gilbert Gottfried. Oh boy. Who I know was only on for like the one cursed season or something like that. Yeah. That no one saw. Yeah. So.

So, yeah, he lost it to that. But I think that, again, like he that rejection, he's like, all right, I'm going to double down on Pee Wee. Nice. You got to get weirder to survive. Exactly. So what he does is he puts together this large production that is basically a template for what becomes Pee Wee's Playhouse.

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 Peewee character with the 80s in general he goes to Melrose Ave which is near Groundlings

where there was really vibrant punk culture at the time. He meets this guy, Gary Panter, 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 80s and punk culture. It's very cool. This show becomes super popular. They end up producing a special of it on HBO. Wow.

It was like the fifth special ever on HBO. Which I feel like was like leaning a lot on stand-up comedy at the time. They were like, we don't know. Yeah, because it was like cheap. And then he also starts appearing again. There's like a

I think there's like only a few examples of him being like hi I'm Paul Rubens I play a character named Pee Wee Herman he quickly is just like I'm gonna show up everywhere as Pee Wee 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 Headroom 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 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 you can't get out right when it's like when is he Paul Rubens but he starts making appearances on Letterman there's all these really funny clips from the 80s of Pee Wee and David Letterman they're great well and what is the special like

as like America's introduction to him. So the special, which I think was like fairly popular at the time, but the special...

was based on this stage show that he'd taken across the country. And you're functionally in Pee-wee's Playhouse. It's basically what becomes the set. And the storyline of it is that Pee-wee gets one wish from Jambi the genie, and he wishes that he can fly. But then Miss Yvonne and Captain Carl, a.k.a. Lynn Stewart and Phil Hartman...

come over to the playhouse and Pee-wee realizes that Miss Yvonne is in love with Captain Carl, but she doesn't think that he loves her back. And so Pee-wee gives up his wish and gives it to Miss Yvonne and Miss Yvonne and Captain Carl fall in love.

And then Jambi realizes that Pee-wee did the right thing and he will get his wish. And the show ends with Pee-wee flying in this really goofy practical effect where Paul Rubin's head is just like in this like sock. And then there's this tiny body behind it. It's very funny. It's all so like...

I mean, 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. Yeah, you shouldn't if you're making it. That's what other people can, I guess. The money people are very much trying to figure out who this is for because it starts as like a midnight show.

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 yeah so it's kind of finding its way to where it ended up it's just it's interesting to just like

This feels like the kind of thing that nobody, obviously, would have created in a lab and that no one would have signed off on as like, yeah, this is going to be the next big thing unless it had become that by itself the same way that 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. Yeah. I mean, it's, I feel like he, he very much makes Pee Wee happen because

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. Yeah.

And Andy Kaufman is still working heavily. It's a pretty good time to be a weirdo. Steve Martin is at the peak of his success. And he eventually, it became this big LA thing where Martin Scorsese saw Pee Wee at midnight. And Steve Martin goes and gives Paul a bit part. And he's able to really build a lot because weirdness wasn't completely disencouraged. Right. Or weirdness is sort of like...

going a little bit mainstream maybe with like because Steve Martin especially feels like he could yeah 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 Peewee and also about Gary Panter because people loved the art in this show and the design and,

and the characters and just like it seemed like it was going to work out great and it did for a long time 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 within the character and liked it. This is now, we're now in the early 80s. So like,

he's working on this and touring this between like 81 and 84. And during this time, he learned 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 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. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the amount of loss that people survive is, 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 all worth remembering. Yeah. And that he's still, even though he is not publicly out, he's still very active and, you know, like a part of the L.A. 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 seems like

Like he processed this grief of losing Guy and of losing other people and of his own anxieties by working, which who could relate? Yeah. Yeah. And then he has this 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. We'll 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, yeah. Yeah. And like you're getting at, like, peewee is a safe word.

place from having to process what's going on with Paul in like his life which yeah it's like of course is is super complicated well and maybe this is a good time to talk for a second about kind of who is Pee Wee you know and not necessarily trying to convey his totality because that's impossible um 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 Herman? Well, they were asking that on the Florida news in 1989. Who is Peewee? These three lesbians, I will tell you now. Well, to me, I,

Pee-wee is not just the blueprint for SpongeBob SquarePants, which he is. Oh, my God. He is. Oh, my God. He so is. 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 saying that Pee-wee is teaching kids good lessons is a bit of a cope.

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 right. He's not Mr. Rogers. He's not going to tell you how to live your life. Exactly. He's one of the kids. And like, I think that what was so appealing to me as a kid was that he he was a high

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 but Peewee like he had this like amazing playhouse where he could do whatever he wanted he lived with his friends he was beloved by his community and

who are the adults in the room but they're also like weirdos it's a little bit like big bird maybe i think there's so many like great characters for kids yeah that like sort of fit into this where he's not mr rogers because mr rogers is a character who cares for you yeah 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 i had to um but it reminds me of like the hosts of blues clues in a way they're better behaved but they're like talking to you like i need you i need her

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 Pee Wee's Playhouse where every day the magic screen prints out the secret word. And anytime you say the secret word, you scream real loud. And that's a part of it. And it's like you're it just draws you in.

But I think everything that you like can learn and absorb from Pee Wee 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 limited. Right.

But Pee-wee is not really like I think he's just showing you how to be creative and like show you to see fun everywhere. There's this example of an episode I was thinking of where also baby Natasha Lyonne is on Pee-wee's Playhouse as like a six year old. But in some Pee-wee's Playhouse episodes, there are these kids that come over and they're Pee-wee's friends.

and they come and hang out at the playhouse. Pee Wee 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's like this whole world and community that Pee Wee is 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 Pee-wee's gone and Pee-wee 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 rude um but then the kids leave and Pee-wee trashes the house and so it's like you don't learn anything it's like it's yeah what you learn is

Just creativity and how to have fun and the world of Pee Wee, 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 Lawrence 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 just a cowboy who's there's like some frontier there's some rangeland out there next to the playhouse Cowboy Curtis is

such an incredible character. And also like, you know, Paul loved pop culture. It 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 is

plays uh the king of cartoon i love blackula yes uh so he he plays the king of cartoons perfect 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 i

means that it was really accessible to parents because he was the age of parents. But it had this, like, really wholesome... He's just a big kid. Yeah. And he doesn't really learn anything. And I like that he's super... I could just keep talking about Pee-wee 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, Pee Wee, don't do that. Like, he learns through like interacting. I just, ah. 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 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. 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 or 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 school-y about it I'm really trying but there is like something sort of radically fantastic and also a queer utopia about just like a world where like you can be a big kid and learn nothing and

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 but also you didn't need to like change or be different or like own it in any way yeah you didn't have to grow I mean growth is good but let's not grow all the time it's just too much growing it's just I mean I really do feel like it's like Spongebob so pulls from that playbook yeah he's living independently but he's a kid

So thank you so much for being here. Thank you to Jamie Loftus for being our wonderful guest. And please check out her work. We'll be so happy you did. Thank you to Miranda Zipler for editing and producing. And thank you to Carolyn Pender for editing and producing. And we will see you soon for part two.