CRAP! I hate it when a link on Twitter leads to bad news but those bastards behind Social Media got us! Now to wait for the Fresh Air episode of when he was a guest.
Paul was a very talented Comedian and I’d put him in the same company as Steve Martin in that he grabbed the spotlight via a stage persona but could hold his own playing other roles which kept him in the public’s mind. Obviously, Martin has a larger body of work so you can hold back the comments saying I’m full of baloney.
I first saw him on the annual HBO special showcasing new comedians when Carl Reiner was the host. Paul definitely stood out with Pee-wee Herman, a combination of prop comic and goofy personality with a little audience participation. I probably caught him with his periodic appearances on David Letterman’s NBC show and I figure MTV. Then Pee-wee’s Big Adventure came out late in 1985. My brother Brian saw it immediately and told me it was actually funny for its duration; I probably feared it would suck since a 10-minute skit doesn’t equal a movie, what ex-SNL alumni still don’t understand. Thanks to my exile to North Dakota, a mall theater in Dickinson was showing Adventure and I loved it. Danny Elfman doing the music was an added bonus; now we know Elfman’s a Louis CK-level piece of shit.
Pee-wee-mania followed, namely his Saturday-morning show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I was in college by the time it aired. I would catch when I could. I did like his guest spot on SNL as its legacy was the debut of Jon Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan character (the serial liar). I bet Paul felt vindication too. He auditioned for the frequently unfunny show and was rejected. It’s a fortunate thing because if he succeeded, he would’ve faced the long, hard climb back to relevance along with the others from the infamous 1980-81 cast: Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Charlie Rocket and Laurie Metcalf. It’s a bummer his second movie Big Top Pee-wee flopped. I bet it was a labor of love given his upbringing in Sarasota, FL, where the traveling circuses hunker down for the winter.
Around these years (1985-1992) was when I recognized him in past appearances as some version of Pee-wee. The annoying arcade operator in Midnight Madness (also starring an unknown Michael J. Fox); The Blues Brothers; two Cheech & Chong flicks; Mork & Mindy; Faerie Tale Theatre (Pinocchio!); and Steve Martin’s special mocking commercials.
It came to an immediate halt in the Summer of 1991 and we all know what happened. I bet we may remember a couple of the lazy jokes. CBS cancelled Playhouse and all the toys got cleared from the shelves; they’re worth a fortune now. Everybody predicted Paul’s demise. Instead, Paul bravely doubled-down on his public humiliation at an MTV award show that Fall by asking a supportive audience chanting his name, “Heard any good jokes lately?”
Pee-wee was then retired after a stupid PSA about the dangers of crack, one of the terms of his probation. Paul wouldn’t bring him back at length until a Netflix special or he’d just do a cameo as per a parody of The Dark Knight Rises. He proved he was more than Pee-wee Herman in other hits: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Murphy Brown, Ally McBeal, Everyone Loves Raymond and Matilda. A pair of his best performances were in Mystery Men, I love him as the smelly hero known as the Spleen; and Blow, a serious movie with him as Johnny Depp’s co-hort in making cocaine big in the US (I need to see this).
For me personally, he will live on in two ways. The first is what a fantastic and memorable voice actor he also was. Before he was no longer “family friendly,” he provided the voice of RX-24, the robot pilot on Disney’s Star Tours ride and he reprised the role on Rebels! Paul then appeared as these shows: Hercules, Rugrats, Teacher’s Pet, Tripping the Rift, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tron: Uprising, Chowder, Adventure Time, Robot Chicken, Sanjay and Craig, Phineas and Ferb, Tigtone and American Dad. Paul was the greatest choice as Bat-Mite in Batman: The Brave and The Bold and I’m holding back tears since one of his last performances was this year’s season finale of Bob’s Burgers with him as the masseuse in training, Pat, for Linda’s Mother’s Day surprise.
The second dates back to seeing Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on the VCR with my high school buds Mike and Jon. It was out on VHS by the Spring of 1986. I cajoled them into renting it. When it got to the scene of Josh Brolin and Morgan Fairchild playing Pee-wee and Dottie during the movie within the movie, we had to pause for five minutes after Brolin said, “I know you are, but what am I?” Jon and I couldn’t stop laughing. Mike was bewildered. I should ask Mike if he remembers this.
Farewell Paul! Thank you for all you did. You made at least a billion people laugh and you did your part to make the world a better, happier place while you were living your dream. I’m going to miss you because you made my jaded teen years, not so jaded.