Last week, Pee-wee Herman died.
Of course what I mean by that is that Paul Reubens, the actor who portrayed the character Pee-wee Herman, passed away. Reubens was 70 years old, and passed away after a six year battle with cancer. For many people, Paul Reubens was inseparable from Pee-wee Herman. Even when he appeared in other films portraying different characters, people rarely asked, “is that Paul Reubens?” Instead, they asked, “is that Pee-wee Herman?”
As I recently mentioned on Instagram, I was twelve years old and about to enter seventh grade when Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was released in the summer of 1985. Every kid in my neighborhood had seen the trailer and wanted to see the movie. Maybe it was the era or maybe it was just our age, but it seems like a lot of movies had quotable lines and “catch phrases” back then. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure had so many one liners that my friends and I were already saying “I know you are, but what am I?” and “I meant to do that” just from watching the trailer. Everyone I knew did their version of Pee-wee Herman’s voice. And the funny (or perhaps wonderful) thing was, all of this was like a secret language between kids, because most adults wouldn’t, couldn’t, or simply didn’t “get it.”
In seventh grade, all the kids from our town’s five or six elementary schools were funneled into a single building, Independence Middle School. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (and soon Pee-wee’s Playhouse) became a way for kids to bond. To find the nearest tribe of weirdos all you had to do was say “What? WHAT!?” and they would begin laughing.
Pee-wee’s Playhouse debuted the following year in 1986 when I was in eighth grade, and remained on the air until I graduated. Students regularly joked about “the secret word” or said things like “mecha-lecka-hi mecha-hiney-ho!” that sounded like gibberish to teachers. The same people quoting Pee-wee Herman were the ones quoting Monty Python’s Holy Grail; the ones watching the his show every Saturday morning were the ones watching Gumby. All of these things were mined for inside jokes. We had our own definition of “cool,” our own cliques, and somehow Pee-wee Herman became woven into that.
several years ago while on vacation in California, we were able to tour Universal Studios. While roaming the backlot and sound stages we saw many sets belonging to movies and shows I was barely familiar with. It wasn’t until our guide pointed out that the pond we were looking at was the same one Pee-wee Herman had swung across while riding his bike did my eyes light up. Our tour guide made a point of pointing out other filming locations from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, including the alleyway Pee-wee walks through in the rain while visiting the psychic Madame Ruby, and the pet store where Pee-wee rescued the burning animals from.
For the record, every time I utter the phrase “let’s see…” when working on something, I almost always follow it with “…what Madame Rudy sees,” a line from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. I almost can’t not do it.
In high school, at a time when every adult was pushing us to grow up, Pee-wee Herman was this silly and weird man-child who lived in a fantasy house full of toys, was friends with talking chairs and cowboys and pterodactyls, and never once broke character. He helped kids my age transition from childhood to adulthood, with jokes that catered to both audiences. If you weren’t that age at that time then Pee-wee might not have been important to you, and that’s okay. To many like me who weren’t quite ready to grow up, Pee-wee Herman showed us that adults could have fun, too. Who knows, maybe he’s the reason my entire office is filled with toys from floor to ceiling.
Paul Reubens passed away on July 30, 2023, but Pee-wee Herman’s spirit will live on forever.
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