The headline came to my phone while I was at work: “Pee-Wee Herman Actor Paul Reubens Dead at Age 70.” My heart sank. I waited for the world around me to take a collective moment to remember Paul Reubens. But in the office, phones kept ringing and computer keyboards kept clacking. My younger coworkers may not even know who Paul Reubens is. Was. But I knew.
I spent my tween and teen years in sighs and sulks, muttering under my breath all the ways I was being deprived of the over-the-top 80s childhood to which I felt entitled. The daughter of a minister and a strict mother, I was destined to always be a few hopeless steps behind the latest trends. My friends had the slick red-white-blue roller skate boots while I was still clunking along with metal skates that fit over my shoes and tightened with a key. When I wanted a boombox, I got a clock radio instead. Owning Madonna’s Like a Virgin album on cassette was out of the question, of course.
I bounced from one neighbor to the next, enjoying the good life vicariously through my classmates: MTV at Amy’s, Atari at Kathryn’s, processed junk food like Twinkies and Doritos and Ding Dongs at Heather’s — so delicious.
My friends spent Saturday mornings belly flopped on their overstuffed couches with enormous bowls of Cap’n Crunch watching cartoons. I, on the other hand, begrudgingly practiced my piano scales after having finished my bowl of bland, unsweetened cereal. No cartoons for me.
I was thirteen in 1986, the year “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” hit the TV airwaves on Saturday mornings. The first time I switched on the TV and turned the dial to CBS, I kept the volume low. It was just a matter of time until I was discovered and told to turn it off. But that isn’t what happened. Pee-Wee stayed on.
Pee-Wee afforded me some cosmic loophole that connected me to pop culture in real-time, in my own kitchen. His frenetic, technicolor show somehow eluded the no-cartoon rule in my house.
Week after week, I slipped comfortably into the Pee-Wee loophole each Saturday, gradually turning the volume up higher and higher as he became a mainstay in my weekly routine. Pee-Wee Herman introduced a boldness into my adolescence, giving me permission to hold on to silliness and imagination. Pee-Wee’s character was unapologetic, and I was finally in on some type of pop culture secret. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was convinced that he and I, along with Chairry, Clocky, Globey and the Magic Screen were somehow pulling something over on the adults.
When the secret word was spoken, Pee-Wee told us to “Scream real loud.” His catchphrases were, “If you like it so much, why don’t you marry it?” or my favorite, “I know you are, but what am I?”
“What is this?” my mother would sigh when she’d find me in the kitchen, watching Pee-Wee and his manic playhouse full of talking furniture and wacky visitors. I would shrug and answer her, “It’s Pee-Wee.” Then she would shake her head and leave the room. My mother didn’t know it, but I sprinkled sugar on my Shredded Wheat, too.
I can’t claim to know what actor Paul Reubens was trying to say through his character Pee-Wee. I’m not sure if he was tapping into some childhood reservoir that never dried up, or sneaking in subversive ideas in between his silly pranks and giggles. Was it meaningless? Was it satire? I didn’t care. All I knew is that Pee-Wee was original and silly and fun at the time of my life when I was at the cusp of leaving childhood behind but not quite ready to step into adulthood.
Mom, and Dad, eventually came around to Pee-Wee. At least, they tolerated him. They laughed at my dinnertime imitations of his dance moves.
In the summer of 1987, I had an appendectomy. My surgeon came to check on my incision to find me reclining in my hospital bed, slurping up cold strawberry Jello, watching Pee-Wee. I watched Doc’s jaw drop a bit when he first saw Pee-Wee prance across the TV screen. Despite himself, his mouth curled upwards into a smile.
“What IS this?” he asked me. He didn’t wait for an answer; I wouldn’t have known what to tell him anyway. He grabbed a chair and pulled it up beside me. The other patients would have to wait; Doc was transfixed. We sat there, the two of us, on the fourth floor of the hospital, suspended in this strange world of uncomplicated childhood, brought to us by a skinny man-child in a gray suit and a red bow-tie.
When I think of Pee-Wee Herman, I hear the echo of adults in my life asking me, “What IS this?” as we heard his signature giggle on TV, the big screen, and guest appearances on David Letterman, Conan, and Saturday Night Live. I didn’t exactly have an answer, but I knew I loved it. It was silly and fun and loud and joyful, the very qualities that adolescence was trying its best to snuff out of me. Thanks, Pee-Wee.
