Pee-wee Herman (1952 - 2023)

 

I'll never think of him as Paul Rubens.  We could have met in an adult movie theater but CBS-TV introduced us in 1986 on a small Sony Trinitron that my parents had given me 25 years earlier so I could watch the Oscars when I left home for college.  It was around the time I purchased my first videocassette recorder.  I taped "Pee-wee's Playhouse" religiously even though I watched it "live" on Saturday mornings whenever I could just to see what might be happening in his alternate universe, one so sweet and kooky and yes, even sexy and diverse (remember Tito the lifeguard? and Cowboy Curtis?) that I knew I would want to share it.  

And I did.  Magda and Zoltan, my godchildren, embraced Pee-wee as soon as they were old enough.  Uncle Jeff didn't demand much from our relationship but I insisted they learn the incantation that Jambi, who wore a bejeweled turban and lived inside of a box, asked the playhouse to repeat when he granted a single wish in every episode:  mekka lekka high, mekka hiney ho.  And when Magda told me Joe, her boyfriend was a huge fan, I knew she had found a good, tolerant guy.

Then, after falling hard for Florian, who loves children's literature and programming, I made him watch watch the show with me in bed nearly two decades after it first aired. He, a German actor who'd never heard of Lucy, was instantly intrigued by Pee Wee's refusal to behave like a grown up.  His anarchic whimsy had crossed another border.   I told Florian when Rubens was entrapped for lewd behavior in Florida, he irretrievably lost his passport. Barnet had called me with the news in 1991.  The New York Post blared "Oh, Pee-wee!" on its front page essentially outing him and ending arguably the most innovative career in children's television (I'm not a Muppets fan although I appreciate Jim Henson's artistry). 

Thanks to the Broad Museum, I encountered Rubens again out of the blue shortly before his death--although finally discarding those treasured videotapes felt a little like killing him--palling around with Keith Haring, another of my favorite artists, in a Polaroid.  Of course they were friends! Neither had lost their senses of wonder and openness which made their work unique and appealing both to kids and adult audiences willing to embrace their inner children.  Silliness was an asset, not a liability.

Pterri, a pterodactyl with a vaguely French accent and one of my favorite inhabitants of the playhouse, said it best with a catchphrase I've called my own for decades:  I wanna be da babee.

Pee-wee Herman gave us all that opportunity with a wink and a honking laugh.