Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens)

If you are a celebrity, I would imagine the goal for your career would be to ride out your prime years and then gracefully age out into Hollywood history.  There may be some bumps along the way, but if you can avoid that big blowup, it should be smooth sailing.  And then there are those that don’t quite have that made-for-tv ending.  Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, was killing it career-wise when it all came to a screeching halt after a night out at the local theater.  Problem was, it wasn’t the kind of place you would pick for a date night to catch a Marvel flick… The number of jokes that followed were countless, but Pee Wee quit.  We saw him a few more times before more trouble popped up and that pretty much did it for the character so many of us grew up watching.  But was Pee Wee the perv everyone made him out to be?  How did the character even come to be?  What was he thinking when he went to the flick show that fateful night?  We’ll dive into this and more in this episode of AHC Podcast.

Intro Music Credits:

"MBB - Wake up" is under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/wake-up-song

Citations:

Alter, E. (2023, July 27). Here’s what happened when the world learned of pee-wee Herman’s arrest on this day in 1991. Yahoo! https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pee-wee-herman-arrest-on-this-day-1991-204701659.html

Beloved actor spent childhood in Oneonta. All Otsego. (2023, August 9). https://www.allotsego.com/beloved-actor-spent-childhood-in-oneonta/#:~:text=Born%20in%20Peekskill%2C%20New%20York,the%201948%20Arab%2DIsraeli%20War.

Miller, J. (2016, March 17). All you’ve ever wanted to know about pee-wee Herman, and the MAN WHO dreamed him up. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/03/pee-wee-herman-paul-reubens

Phillips, S. (2004, April 2). Pee-wee herman creator speaks out. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4653913

Susman, G. (2002, November 18). Paul “pee-wee” Reubens charged in kid-Porn Probe. EW.com. https://ew.com/article/2002/11/18/paul-pee-wee-reubens-charged-kid-porn-probe/

Wheeler, D. (2016, March 28). Paul Reubens talks about his childhood in upstate New York. Big Frog 104. https://bigfrog104.com/paul-reubens-childhood-upstate-new-york/

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, December 22). Pee-wee herman. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee_Herman

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024a, January 10). Paul Reubens. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Reubens

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024b, January 14). Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee-wee%27s_Playhouse