If you are younger you probably don't have any idea how absolutely massive Pee-Wee Herman was in the 80's. I remember walking around school and having basically everyone mimicking the character's way of talking and how the merchandise was everywhere. If it wasn't for Paul Reubens who plays Pee-Wee, there is a good chance that we wouldn't have seen legendary and iconic film director Tim Burton as soon as we did, although I am sure he would have made it in the end anyway.
The rise and fall of Pee-Wee was pretty remarkable and unlike really anything else I have seen in my lifetime but yet all of these years I never really learned anything about the man behind the character and it was really refreshing and interesting to see him narrate the events of his life through the ups and downs.
src
I recently had a chance to watch Pee-Wee's Playhouse because my Plex server was acting wonky one day and I have to say that this show has not aged well and I wonder what I was smoking to have enjoyed it as much as I did as a kid. I did notice one things from that one episode that I did endure though, and that was the fact that there were a lot of other famous people that were part of the cast such as Lawrence Fishburne and Phil Hartman and I never made the connection that Pee Wee and these guys were at all affiliated with one another.
The documentary does a very good job of explaining a lot of Paul Reuben's life and how it wasn't just a "straight into stardom" sort of deal. To see the things that this guy went through in order to make it, only to have all of it taken away from him overnight over something really stupid, was pretty amazing and that is part of the reason why I enjoyed this doco so much.
I don't know if people who don't really even know who Pee Wee is will enjoy it but for them it might be interesting to see as they too wonder what the hell it was about this character that any of us actually enjoyed was. We didn't just enjoy Pee Wee, we loved Pee Wee.
src
if you went and hung around just about anywhere in the mid 80's you would see children and adults mimicking Pee Wee. An original character indeed, Pee Wee was unique in that nobody actually knew who the hell Paul Reubens even was outside of his close group of friends. In the credits of the films and show Pee Wee was credited as being "himself." The first time most people ever heard the name Paul Reubens was likely when the shocking arrest photos hit the news and people were seeing this man for what he actually looked like for the first time in their lives.
src
As quickly as Pee Wee came into our lives, he just as quickly exited as the self-righteous media and other celebrities, many of who claimed to be his friends, immediately turned on him and tried to use his bad situation as a way of promoting themselves. One of the worst was the way that Howard Stern - who is definitely no saint, and Phil Hartman - a man who might have never made it if not for meeing Reubens, were on a show talking trash about him.
src
Reubens never sought credit for this, but there were a large number of people that likely would have never been given a chance in "the industry" had it not been for Pee Wee and how Reubens tried to help as many people as possible when he finally "made it."
I never knew any of the stories about how Reubens would stand up to big studios and producers and would insist that he was bringing his own crew or the "deal was off." He could have just buckled and taken more money for himself but apparently that is not the kind of person that he was.
src
One tragic aspect of this documentary is that Paul Reubens, when he decided to allow this documentary to be filmed and handed over thousands of photos and videos for its creation, didn't tell anyone that he was in the process of dying from cancer and he would pass away In July of 2023 at the age of 70. Go ahead and look at the picture above... does that look like a 70 year old man to you? Wow did that guy age gracefully. I mean, I am sure he had some work done but he looks incredible. I'm not even 50 yet and I look a lot older than that.
Reubens kind of accepted his fate of being outcast from the industry in the early 90's and he would later appear in a few things including kind of hit movies like Blow and Mystery Men but I think that mostly he had taken the turning on him pretty hard, didn't need the money, and decided to just sit it out the way that Macauley Culkin did. He worked on what he wanted to work on and that wasn't very much at all.
His entire life was a mystery to most people, including people like me that were just the right age to really be enamored by his iconic character in the 80's and for me, this documentary was one of the best I have seen in a long time, perhaps in my entire life. That being said, if you weren't around when he was in the big time, this will probably be about as meaningful as a documentary about Captain Kangaroo would be to me.
Should I watch it?
If you were around when this character basically dominated all media then absolutely, yes you should. If you weren't or even worse, if you somehow never heard of Pee Wee, than I think a lot of the allure will be lost on you as you can't really share in my enthusiasm for learning these things for the first time. Like I hinted at before, it would be like me watching something about someone I know was a big deal, like James Dean for example, and I wouldn't really "get it" because I wasn't there when it happened.
I really want to give this the highest marks I can but I do realize that a person who doesn't know what Pee Wee Herman actually is, isn't going to appreciate it nearly as much.
For everyone that was around/ alive/ watching TV in the 80's though, I feel like this is essential viewing and it is as entertaining as it is heartbreaking.
At the moment the only legal way to watch this is through an HBO+ account