BEFORE: Well, this was the secret agenda all along - to land this film on the 2nd anniversary of the death of Paul Reubens, aka Pee-Wee Herman. It's still hard to believe he's gone, because it kind of feels like he was ready for his fourth or fifth comeback, and really that loss left a giant man-child sized hole in the entertainment industry that nobody seems willing or able to replace.
Tommy Chong carries over from "I Am Sam Kinison". You know, I almost forgot that one of Pee-Wee Herman's first appearances was in the 2nd Cheech & Chong movie - but that connection is there and OK, Sam Kinison carries over too, but let's not give him any more attention.
And yes, I know that this is in 2 episodes on HBO, which technically makes this a TV series rather than a movie, but I have made exceptions for this before, the 2-part docs about Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali and others - this is an exception only reserved for the greatest, the top dogs of entertainment, and in my world Mr. Reubens qualifies. I'm going to watch both eps in one big chunk today, as long as I have enough coffee to make it through, and I'll probably make an exception next year for Billy Joel, as the "And So It Goes" 2-part doc arrived too late to qualify for my Doc Block this year.
On the brighter side, there's an impossibly rare DOUBLE Birthday SHOUT-out today, because Laurence Fishburne (Cowboy Curtis) is turning 64 and Arnold Schwarzenegger (seen on a talk-show with Pee-Wee) is turning 78 today. I knew with all these docs with giant casts that I'd have to land some film on somebody's birthday, the odds made it incredibly likely, it just took over a month, that's all.
THE PLOT: A kaleidoscopic portrait in two parts that traces the life of an imaginative artist.
AFTER: I worked for over 30 years in production in NYC, so you might imagine I've got a Pee-Wee Herman story, and you'd be right. They may not be great stories, but I do have them. I went to see the 2011 Broadway revival of his original Pee-Wee stage pilot, the show that pre-dated "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and introduced the character to the right people. My boss at the Laika job had worked in commercial production and knew some of the people who had worked on the first season of his show, which was recorded at Broadcast Arts, so they came to the same show with us. A few years before that, I was working for a pair of directors who was married but in the process of separating, and they paid me to go to Broadcast Arts and load up some sets that were used to make some bumpers for the Disney Channel to take them to storage. I got the feeling that technically they didn't OWN these sets, but they were trying to ensure that if there was more use for them, only they would know where they were and thus Disney would have to hire them again. This might be standard practice, but it's possible that I was involved in a heist of sorts, and honestly I don't really want to to know if DisneyCorp ever needed those sets or if they just got forgotten in a storage unit - I turned over the paperwork from the storage company and the keys and I was out. But while we were loading sets at Broadcast Arts, there were Pee-Wee Herman photos all over that place, you could tell they were enormously proud of their work.
See, I told you it was a lame story, I never met Pee-Wee or Paul face-to-face, just saw his show on Broadway once. Also I never formally met anyone in this doc's ginormous cast list, except I did see both David Letterman and Gilbert Gottfried out in nature on separate occasions. What I remember about "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" is that it started airing the year I was a freshman at NYU, and my roommates and I would watch it on my crappy black and white TV, we had no internet back then, you couldn't watch TV on your phone, sure there was a color TV in the common room but good luck getting other people to change the channel to what YOU wanted to watch. Cable in the dorm rooms was also out of the question. But we picked up on the jokes for adults right away and this was probably the first thing I ever watched with gay subtext to it. So Paul Reubens coming out posthumously in this doc is no big deal to me, really, I've known for a long time. You can't have Pee-Wee and Cowboy Curtis teaching each other to dance, and have one say to the other, "OK, I showed you mine, now you show me yours!"
Of course, we didn't know the actor's back-story, back then nobody did. Now today I learn exactly why, Paul Reubens intentionally created this persona to perform as, and he subverted his entire personality behind it, more or less. I wonder if Paul Reubens and David Johanssen knew each other, maybe they'd get along because they had so much in common. Maybe only another similar split-personality showbiz person would understand - if they met, would they continue to act like Pee-Wee and Buster Poindexter, or would they immediately just drop the facades so Paul and David could be friends? I guess maybe the difference was that Johanssen created his character to sell albums, and Reubens created Pee-Wee to be more like conceptual art, does that make sense? Of course he found a way to turn the character into a franchise, with a TV series, four movies and a Christmas special - so it's perhaps the greatest example of a person successfully re-inventing themself for business reasons.
Of course, this was done out of fear, if anyone found out about the man behind the bow-tie, Reubens was afraid that he wouldn't be able to work again. Back then they certainly didn't give children's TV shows to openly gay men - it was a different time. But in the process of creating this character, Paul also decided that he had to break up with the man he was in love with and living with so that he could focus on his new career. I'm not sure I follow the logic exactly, but apparently he was so comfortable in the relationship that he just wanted to stay home and "play house", and therefore not working on becoming famous. But shouldn't someone be able to have it all, to have a comforting home life and solid relationship and still be able to go out into the world and go on auditions? Why couldn't he balance his career and personal life? Other people seem to manage that just fine, at least some of the time. I guess in order to succeed, he had to feel driven and focused and while in the relationship, he just couldn't do that?
Then of course came the scandals, one where he was accused of exposing himself in a porn theater and the second when his art collection was confiscated for suspicion of child porn possession. He pleaded "no contest" after the first incident, but fought a legal battle during the second, and eventually came out on top and got his art collection back. Yeah, OK, really it was a bunch of male model magazines from the 1950's and 60's and you have to figure only a certain type of person would collect those - but that's not illegal, is it? Then for every scandal involving Pee-Wee there would be another comeback for Paul Reubens, like playing a vampire in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and a superhero in "Mystery Men". I don't think anybody else in Hollywood ever had so many second chances as he did. Hey, I was there for it, it was kind of cool to see him re-invent himself every few years and try new things.
But we didn't know, not until now, what kind of toll that took on the man - even when he was being interviewed for this documentary about himself, he was often guarded or mistrustful, or concerned that he wouldn't be in control of the narrative, and perhaps the director would take his story in some weird direction that he couldn't foresee. But the guy had been through a lot over the years, people saying this and that about him in newspapers and magazines, so I don't blame him for being skeptical. Then maybe he felt that he revealed a bit too much about the man behind Pee-Wee, because at one point he broke off communications with the director, and never really finished the interview process, so the director and the audience are kind of forced to draw their own conclusions at the end, maybe about what this person's life was really all about. Hey, they got him to record 40 hours worth of interviews, so really, at that point, how much more do you need to make the movie?
Reubens had not told anyone that he had been fighting cancer for six years, so yeah, that would probably make someone who was guarded about giving out personal information perhaps a bit more receptive to allowing a doc filmmaker to have some control of the narrative. But, at the same time, it's clear he still wasn't totally OK with it. But then again, if he knew the film might not be completed while he was alive, then what difference does it make? So I think I get it, I see why he cut off the interview process when he did. Well, I'm glad I took the time two years later to really learn all about him, it didn't take me 10 years like it did with Michael Jackson. Thanks for the laughs, Pee-Wee, or Paul or whoever you ended up feeling most comfortable being.
From his childhood in Oneonta, NY and Sarasota, FL (which was still kind of a circus town at the time) through his college years at Cal Arts (where he performed in student films, sometimes in drag) and his years with the Groundlings, his failed audition for SNL and then successfully appearing on that same show after creating the Pee-Wee character, the successful movie that led to his Saturday morning kids TV show, the disappointing sequel (which was a personal callback to that circus town), then the scandals and the comebacks and the cameos and finally the return of Pee-Wee in 2016, this one just about covers it all. Pour yourself some more coffee and just go on the journey as Paul takes you through his long and winding career.
Directed by Matt Wolf (director of "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project")
Also starring Paul Reubens (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Richard Gilbert Abramson, Judd Apatow (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), David Arquette (last seen in "Valerie"), Blair Berk, Allison Berry, Tim Burton (last seen in "Animation Outlaws"), Prudence Fenton, Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "Deep Cover"), Gregg Homer, Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "The United States vs. Billie Holiday"), Debi Mazar (last seen in "Malcolm X"), S. Epatha Merkerson (last seen in "Black Snake Moan"), Warren R. Montgomery, John Moody (last seen in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday"), Alison Mork, Laraine Newman (last heard in "Despicable Me 4"), Tracy Newman, Kelly Bush Novak, Gary Panter, Cassandra Peterson (last seen in "Stroker Ace"), Ann Prim, Abby Rubenfeld, Lynne Marie Stewart (last seen in "Other People"), Helen Whelchel, Wayne White, Matt Wolf
with archive footage of Desi Arnaz (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Ben Stiller (ditto), Frankie Avalon (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), Annette Funicello (ditto), Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire"), Bill Murray (ditto), Hank Azaria (last seen in "Great Expectations"), Lucille Ball (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), David Bowie (ditto), Cher (ditto), Kris Kristofferson (ditto), David Letterman (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), Conan O'Brien (ditto), Chuck Barris (last seen in "The Wrecking Crew!"), Stephanie Beatriz (last heard in "The Bob's Burgers Movie"), Pat Benatar (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt; Disciple"), Johnny Depp (ditto), Candice Bergen (last seen in "Belushi"), Dolly Parton (ditto), James Brolin (last seen in "Love, Wedding, Marriage"), Dana Carvey (last seen in "Will & Harper"), Carol Channing (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Gilda Radner (ditto), Charo (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Chevy Chase (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Mark J. Goodman (ditto), Justin Timberlake (ditto), Kevin Corcoran (last seen in "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth"), Courteney Cox (last seen in "Scream VI"), Penelope Cruz (last seen in "The 355"), Jane Curtin (last seen in "Queen Bees"), Joan Cusack (last seen in "Unicorn Store"), Elizabeth Daily (last heard in "Sing 2"), Rocky Delgadillo, the Del Rubio Triplets, Robert Downey Jr. (last seen in "Brats"), Anthony Michael Hall (ditto), Nora Dunn (last seen in "Runaway Jury"), Shelley Duvall (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Roger Ebert (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Gilbert Gottfried (ditto), Morgan Fairchild (last seen in "The Slammin' Salmon"), Aaron Fletcher, Zsa Zsa Gabor (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"), Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Arnold Schwarzenegger (ditto), Valeria Golino (last seen in "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her"), Steve Garvey, Elliott Gould (last seen in "The Big Hit"), Jackée Harry, Mary Hart, Phil Hartman (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Jan Hooks (ditto), Victoria Jackson (ditto), Jon Lovitz (ditto), David Hasselhoff (last seen in "The New Guy"), Ric Heitzman, Audrey Hepburn (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Howard Hesseman (last seen in "Valerie"), Mark Holton (last seen in "Teen Wolf"), Michael Jackson (last seen in "Claydream"), Arte Johnson (last seen in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"), Jaye P. Morgan (ditto), Magic Johnson, Grace Jones (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Andy Warhol (ditto), Carol Kane (last heard in "Migration"), Andy Kaufman (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Soupy Sales (ditto), Dawna Kaufmann, Robert Keeshan (last seen in "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey"), Suzanne Kent, Sam Kinison (also carrying over from "I Am Sam Kinison"), Jay Leno (ditto), Steve Martin (ditto), Robin Williams (ditto), Randal Kleiser, Oscar Konyot, Martin Landau (last seen in "City of Ember"), Monte Landis, k.d. lang (last seen in "The Black Dahlia"), Jim Lange, Lee Leonard, Harvey Levin (last seen in "Leaving Neverland"), Shari Lewis, Little Richard (last seen in "Beatles '64"), William H. Macy (last seen in "Murder in the First"), Joe Manganiello (last seen in "Nonnas"), Cheech Marin (last seen in "Champions"), William Marshall, Edie McClurg (last seen in "Eating Raoul"), John Paragon (ditto), Bill McEuen, George "Spanky" McFarland, George McGrath, Dennis Miller (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Hayley Mills, Kevin Nealon (last seen in "Daddy Day Care"), Alice Nunn, Stone Phillips, Joe Regalbuto (last seen in "Lassiter"), Joan Rivers (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Maria Shriver (ditto), John Tesh (ditto), Oprah Winfrey (ditto), Judy Rubenfeld, Milton Rubenfeld, Paul Rust (last seen in "Queenpins"), Katey Sagal (last seen in "Bleed for This"), Diane L. Salinger (also last seen in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday"), Alia Shawkat (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Gene Siskel (last seen in "Faye"), Buffalo Bob Smith, Jimmy Smits (last seen in "In the Heights"), Howard Stern (last seen in "The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden"), Ethan Suplee (last seen in "Babylon"), Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Fred Travalena, Vic Trevino, Danitra Vance (last seen in "The War of the Roses") and the voice of Dan Rather (last seen in "Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black")
RATING: 8 out of 10 appearances on "The Gong Show" as various characters.
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