I watched both parts of the Paul Reubens documentary last night. My first reaction was that I really didn’t need to hear that much about his sexuality. But then I don’t think I need to hear much about the sexuality of any consenting adult. Based on some of the exchanges that were included between Paul and his interviewer, I got the feeling that Paul felt the same way. It reminded me of once when a gent I knew — somewhat of a celebrity — remarked to me about what the tabloids were publishing about who he was sleeping with and what they were doing. He said (approximately), “I don’t even understand all that…how come all these strangers who’ve never met me think they do?”
One thing the documentary got quite right, I think, was the impact of the first live Pee-wee Herman show which was staged Saturday nights at Midnights at the Groundings Theater. It was an incredible production as I wrote here some time ago when a revival of it was playing at the Nokia Theater…
Around ’81, it got to the point where there was a Midnight show done every Saturday night…a surreal evening that went on a little long, though its length somehow added to the quixotic nature of it all. Pee-Wee showed cartoons and public service films. He lobbed Tootsie Rolls into the audience, including one, inadvertently, directly into my eye. He welcomed an endless array of odd friends onto his playhouse stage. And at the end of the show, he learned how to fly, which I gather is the plot of the new show, as well. Two people who later became friends of mine separate from one another — Dawna Kaufmann and Bill Steinkellner — were highly responsible for assembling the proceedings, and it was full of fine performers including Phil Hartman, Edie McClurg and John Paragon.
Pee-Wee had a sweetness then. The character changed back and forth in the years after. Sometimes, he was a real innocent ten-year-old boy who just happened to be played on stage or screen by a much older man. And sometimes, he was a much older (and meaner) man who in some sort of sick dementia thought he was a ten year old boy. On the Saturday morning program, you generally got the sweeter Pee-Wee, and that’s why I thought it all worked. That was the Pee-Wee of the Midnight show.
The night I went to it was one of the more memorable and oddest nights I’ve spent in a theater. It was sold out for the duration of its run and I was only able to get seats because I’d met Bill Steinkellner, who’d directed it. I took a lady friend of mine named Bridget Holloman (sad obit here) and we were there on time but the show was not. An understudy was going on and needed extra rehearsal so we all stood in the lobby for a half-hour or so…and then there were tech delays. The festivities started around 1 AM and went on and on and on, apparently a lot longer than they usually did. To make timekeeping matters even stranger, it was a night when we set the clocks ahead so when we got out two-and-a-half hours later, it was not 3:30 AM but 4:30 AM. And the show wasn’t over.
No one at the theater had uttered the words “Canter’s Delicatessen” aloud but somehow everyone there knew that was the place to go. Without consultation, we all piled into our respective vehicles and caravaned over to that wonderful open-24-hours deli on Fairfax. This included many of the cast members, some still in costume or at least character. It was like the third act of the play with corned beef added. People were performing at their tables or in the aisles and the Canter’s waitstaff was sidestepping them and acting like this was the most natural thing in the world. In the booth next to ours was Phil Hartman, still wearing about half his makeup as the gruff Captain Carl and barking out his order for Matzo Brei the way an old sea cap’n would order Matzo Brei.
It was well after 5 AM, maybe closer to six when Bridget and I finally got back to my home. I asked her if she’d enjoyed the experience and she said, “I don’t know…but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” The folks enjoying the current offering down at the Nokia may well feel the same way but I can’t believe it’s as memorable as the all-encompassing dinner theater production we attended. It was so very special to visit the playhouse and stay up with Pee-Wee ’til that close to dawn.
For what it’s worth, I think the documentary understated the contributions by others to the success of that show and Pee-wee in general. John Paragon, Phil Hartman and a few others predeceased Mr. Reubens but there are still others around who could have talked more about what they did and how they might have felt shorted in terms of money or credit. But then interviewers assigned to put the spotlight on one subject often inflate the importance of their subject — and therefore, their interviews. In so doing, they often minimize the contributions of others.
Another thing I wish they’d made a bit clearer was that after Paul got busted in that porn theater in Florida and CBS dropped Pee-wee’s Playhouse from their Saturday morning schedule, the series was already out of production, probably forever. Paul had no intention of doing any more — maybe ever but certainly not for a long time. That was why the mug shots from his arrest showed him with long hair and a beard.
After his arrest, sponsors fled and some CBS affiliates decided not to air the fourth runs of the last dozen or so episodes so the network put something else on the schedule instead. That is not the same thing as canceling the series. It was already self-canceled. Still, when I went over for meetings at the network, I had to wade through some folks with signs demanding CBS renew the series. I still sometimes read that the show ended because of the arrest.
But I think the documentary did make clear that Paul was not the easiest guy to get along with and that he was pretty insistent on things being done his way. As I said the other day, I got along fine with him but there was never any reason for us not to get along fine.
I thought he was a very talented, creative guy and that if he wanted to keep large parts of his life secret, fine. That was his right. At one point in the doc, he said he was doing it because he wanted to set some stories straight. I hope that if he could have seen the finished two-parter that aired on HBO, he would feel that he had even if some of us might feel it was a matter of Too Much Information.
0 Comments